What is lucid dreaming and how can you start controlling your dreams?
Lucid dreaming is, if you are aware that you are dreaming. Many people have this experience also without being aware of it: They are in the midst of a colorful dream world and suddenly think "Hey, this is a dream, I'm dreaming!"
Through this realization, the dream is not only intensified, you will also get back your ability to make decision again. You can decide whether you are going in your dream world to the left or to the right, whether you are looking at the sky or a plant on the ground etc.
The nice thing is that the dream world feels absolutely real. You can see, hear, smell, feel, taste - everything just as in real life.
The difference to our daily reality is that you have no limitation in the dream. Walking through walls, flying into space, visiting an earlier life or exploring a completely immature science-fiction world are just a few examples of exciting activities in the lucid dreams.
Why lucid dreaming?
Besides pure entertainment and fun, a lucid dream can be useful for personal development. Movement sequences can be practiced, composers and artists have an infinite source of creative ideas, hidden fears and emotional burdens can be resolved, etc.
The following applications have a lucid dream
- challenge your greatest anxiety
- ask your "the girl you like" how you can win her / his heart
- speak with your subconsciousness
- train certain movement sequences
- ask a dream shape for advice
And much more!
Techniques for lucid dreaming:
There are now countless techniques to induce lucid dreams. Some are fictitious, others are outdated, and some of them are very difficult to learn or to integrate in everyday life. I will evaluate some techniques from my own experience. However, I invite you to not share my experience unconditionally, but to experiment with the different techniques and to try out what works best for you. Lucid dreaming is an individual matter for which there is no general formula.
Reality Check #1
The reality checks (RC) are probably the most familiar and also the oldest form of lucid dream techniques. The principle is quite simple. You are need to be accustomed to examine your reality in real life, whether it is a dream or not. The simplest form is to ask yourself "is that a dream?". To be safe, you can hold your nose with your thumb and index finger and try to breathe through it. In a dream it will work. In reality, not.
Now you have to get accustomed these reality checks so regularly that you repeat these from pure habit in the dream. As soon as you stand with your nose in a dream and still breathe, you realize that it is a dream and you will return your free will.
Reality Check #2
This reality check is my favorite. He is admittedly a descendant of the "closed nose".
Ask yourself loudly: "Is that a dream?" Then press your hand firmly on your mouth and try to say loudly and clearly "Yes! This is a dream". If only "mumpf" is heard, you are awake.
But when you hear yourself say "Yes! This is a dream ", you have answered the question. Unfortunately, in contrast to the closed nose, it is not really social-friendly. But in the morning after waking up, nobody will notice you.
Mindsurfing
For this technique, you need to set an alarm to wake you up after 4-6 hours of sleep. Then stay awake for a short time, so that you do not fall asleep again when you apply this technique. After 5 - 50 minutes of being awake, you prepare again to fall asleep with intention not to move and not to open your eyes the next time when you awake. Then you can try to separate your consciousness from your body by imagining that you "roll" out of your body. The movement takes place only in your imagination. Your body should not move. If you are lucky, your dream body will roll out of your physical body and you will be in a lucid dream.
If the separation of the mind and the body does not work, there are intermediate exercises that keep your body falling asleep, while your consciousness is still awake. After 2 to 3 interludes you try to separate yourself from your body until it works. You just need to google "mind surfing exercises lucid dream" and you will find some exercises.
Polyphasic Sleep
What a polyphasic sleep rhythm is and how to learn it, you can easily find in the internet. In my opinion, it is the most effective method to have a lucid dream several times a day. The big drawback is that most people can not sleep polyphatically because of work, everyday life or family. Apart from this, the changeover is quite hard.
In polyphasic sleep, you sleep 6x for 20 minutes evenly distributed throughout the day. This will allow your body / mind to enter a dream phase (REM "Rapid Eye Movement" phase) immediately after falling asleep after 2-3 weeks. Normally this happens at the earliest after 90 minutes, which means that the sense of consciousness is lost somewhere in the first low sleep phase. Through polyphasic sleep, your consciousness can actively experience the entry into the dream world, which makes every polyphasic sleep phase a lucid dream phase.
Some Abbreviations and Principles
You will see the following abbreviations very often when you read about lucid dreams. Often these abbreviations are described as techniques, but I do not agree with that. They are principles or categories to which techniques can be assigned. Thus mindsurfing and polyphasic sleep fit into the WILD category, while hypnosis or reality checks are based on the DILD or MILD principle.
WILD (Wake Induced Lucid Dream)
WILD means to take the consciousness from the waking state into the dream. The mindsurfing technique for example uses this principle.
Another form of the WILD principle is to relax the body so much by meditation or progressive muscle relaxation that it falls asleep or falls into a sleep paralysis, while the consciousness is still awake.
Apart from the fact that it is very difficult to reach, the transition to the sleep paralysis is accompanied by unpleasant companionship. Loud noises or confused pictures (also called "hypnagogic pictures") or a strong vibration in the body can occur before you are in a lucid dream.
DILD (Dream Induced Lucid Dream)
Here, the dream is induced by the dream itself. For example, by doing a reality check or seeing an unrealistic scene that makes you lucid.
Other techniques are to remember recurring dream symbols or to ask a dream shape to remind you that you are dreaming about the next dream. The latter can only be realized by a lucid dream itself and is therefore also referred to as L-DILD (Lucid Dream Induced Lucid Dream) principle.
MILD (Mnemonic Induced Lucid Dream)
MILD techniques mean everything that is triggered by a memory from the wake state. For this reason, reality checks also fit into this category.
Another technique of this category is the autosuggestion. You'll be convinced before going to sleep that you will surely have a lucid dream. I always repeat the following sentences in my head and also try to imagine exactly what that means and how it will feel.
"Tonight I will have a lucid dream"
"In 2-3 hours I will be in a dream"
"The next dream I will recognize as a dream"
"I'll be doing XY in my lucid dream"
[...]
This technique works surprisingly well and can be implemented with little effort.
I hope I could give you a short overview about lucid dreams! Now it is you turn! Inform yourself! Try it! And dream your dreams!