Lucid Dreaming: Awake While Asleep
Most the time when we dream in our sleep, we are not aware that we are dreaming. At that moment, we treat the dream (no mater how ridiculous or bizarre) as real. We are swept away into the dream and just go along with it, until we are awoken, right?
Self Awareness In Dreams
Then at times, some of you (I am one of them) may experience this rather strange happening; where you becomes fully aware of being in a dream. You are fully conscious in your dreams, while remaining asleep and dreaming at the same time. This is what they called lucid dreams.
It is something similar to the 2010 sci-fi movie “Inception” which starred Leonardo DiCaprio. This film was inspired by lucid dreaming.
What Is A Lucid Dream
A lucid dream is any of your dream in which you are clearly aware that you are dreaming. You are awake in your dream world, so to speak. You are conscious within your dream state. You feel like in a virtual reality world. Yes, being aware that you’re dreaming while you’re in the midst of a dream. It is said that almost every one has the ability to become consciously aware of dreaming or having lucid dreams. But only a small number of people able to harness this lucid experience and use it regularly.
Mind Awake Body Asleep
Basically, lucid dreamers are people who have the ability to become aware while they are dreaming;consciously “waking up” inside the dream. It is said that lucid dreams are much more vivid than normal dreams. It is no paranormal stuff. There have been many proven scientific research on this subject.
Is Lucid Dreaming Dangerous?
Lucid dreams happen naturally and has no relation to occult practices or any so-called black magic. They are safe and in fact fun and beneficial. It is a not a sleep disorder, unless you have lucid dreams practically every night and causing you sleep deprived.
The wonderful thing about having lucid dream is you can control and direct your awareness in the dream. It simply means, you can manipulate and explore your lucid dreams. In fact you can create and transform objects, people, situations, worlds and even yourself.
There are techniques which you can learn to control your dreams. Once you have acquired the skills, you can choose to do the impossible: soar among the stars like Superman, walk on water, or travel through time. Yes, if you have mastered the techniques of lucid dreaming, you can even easily fulfill your wildest ‘naughty’ fantasies! That’s why they say of some the greatest of life’s adventures can happen while you’re sound asleep!
Besides being fun, you can make use lucid dreams to enrich the quality of your life. It can be a tool for problem solving, self-healing and personal development, such as overcoming fear, boost your confidence or improve your creativity.
According to Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold’s book “Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming”, this little-understood phenomenon has been known for centuries. The term lucid dream was coined by the Dutch psychiatrist, Frederik van Eeden in 1913 in his aticle “A study of Dreams“.
Check out Stephen LaBerge’s site “The Lucidity Institute“, where you can find some articles on this topic.
In the 60s, lucid dreaming was popularized by writer Celia Elizabeth Green. She is the one who links lucid dreams with with Rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep).
The other popular person associated with the study of this relatively unknown topic is psychologist and parapsychologist Keith Hearne. He is said to be the one who conducted the world’s first sleep-laboratory research in 1975.
How To Induce Lucid Dreaming
So, how does one get into a lucid dream? From my own experience, and also from what I have read from vaious sources, one can experience lucid dreaming either from:
1. Dream-initiated
2. Wake-initiated.
Dream-initiated means you become lucid (realize you are in your dream) after you have been sleeping normally. Some of you may have experienced this way of having lucid dream during afternoon naps or when you wake up at night and then roll over to sleep again.
As for wake-initiated is where you go straight to your lucid dreams from waking consciousness.
The key thing in lucid dreaming is you need to learn some techniques on how to stay lucid as long as you can, so you can prolong your lucid dream. Then only you got to enjoy it.
In order to ensure that you are actually lucid in your dreams, you need to do reality checks. What you do is next time when you think you are awake in your dream, you can ask yourself, “Am I dreaming?” Or try to fly in the air. From there you can conform whether you are actually conscious in your dream.
These are some initiation or induction techniques:
Wake Initiated:
1. Mnemonically Induced Lucid Dream (MILD)
2. Hypnagogic Imagery Technique (HIT)
3. Finger Induced Lucid Dream (FILD)
4. Dream Exit Induced Lucid Dream (DEILD)
5. Wake Back To Bed (WBTB)
6. Chakra Induced Lucid Dreams (CILD)
Dream Initiated:
1. Thirst Induced Lucid Dreams (TILD)
2. Clock Induced Lucid Dreams (CILD)
3. Sexual Induced Lucid Dreams (SILD)
4. Urinate Induced Lucid Dreams (UILD)
Externally Induced Lucid Dream (EILD)
As for this method, you make use of devices to get you into lucid state. Products such as NovaDreamer, REM Dreamer, Brainwave CD, Sleepsonic Pillow, etc.
I learned from other lucid dreamers is to keep a dream journal to record all my dreams and build up a good collection of dream recall. Plus learn how to create dream characters or figures.
Other elements related to lucid dreaming are false awakening, out of body experience (OBE), sleep paralysis and astral projection (or astral travel).
There are a couple of books on lucid dreaming in the market today, but here are three books which I personally find them to be really informative and useful:
1. Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self by Robert Waggoner
2. Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold
3. Dreaming Yourself Awake: Lucid Dreaming and Tibetan Dream Yoga for Insight and Transformation by A. Alan Wallace