Lucid Dreaming and Dream Control

[Topper]

It was all telepathic in nature ... absolutely nothing visual seen.

[Shecoda]

But that in itself has meaning. In fact I personally would pay a whole lot more attention to a dream, lucid dream or message that came through that way, at least for me, because I rarely have dreams like that, they are more like meditations.

I have received some great messages through meditations, but I get some extreme messages through dreams.

[Topper]

Some remote veiwer was playing a game and forgot to order the correct
beer label.

[Shecoda]

It's possible if that is the way your mind works, but I don't buy it. Nobody can abrogate free will, remote viewers cannot penetrate your brain unless you allow them to have access.

[Topper]

Please remind Dames of that.

[Shecoda]

He doesn''t invade people's minds. He can't even find Bin Laden. This would be because Bin Laden doesn't want to be found and Dames can't abrogate Bin Laden's free will.

[Topper]

You best remind the US government of that after flying Uri in for a meeting
this past year when they needed the US and a foreign country to sign a global
agreement.

There's a snowballs chance that I may need to thank the European Space Agency for sending me a message to pass on the Mr. Bigelow's crew
"remove the gold metal from the outer ring to give more support the inner core ... add more support under the bridge/walkways so they won't buckle"

[Dark Skies]

I lucid dream but it's not automatic and not often, but often enough I guess. I don't know what triggers the effect but I usually end up saying to myself or to another person in the dream that..."this is a dream". Once that happens I can do pretty much anything I want, go anywhere by any means I wish...(usually flying).

When I was a kid I started having a particular nightmare which induced sleepwalking. It was freaky because I always knew I was sleepwalking but could never wake up from it. I was like I was stuck in some inbetween place I couldn't get out of. This lasted most of my childhood. Several years later I started having the nightmare again but I was able to deal with it within the dream and it stopped.

[Topper]

Theres a bucket full of good links and sound advice on this board.

Hey I had a dream where Horus the bird face was looking thru a rectangular
hole in the ceiling ... he was talking to me. It was so cool

[Topper]

Here's another goofy but really funny look at a healthy mind.

Last night I was dreaming that my other breast might have developed
cancer when I was placing my hand on my chest .... almost waking myself up when I suddenly hear a voice say "that's your chest muscle Marcie"

ha ha!!! Its good to have a healthy mind and its good to dream.

[Alpha]

Anyone else experiencing lucid dreaming or those who have mastered it better than when they first started out? Here's something I found that may help some of you with your lucid dream experiences. Simply though, it's all about awareness/consciousness during the dream state...in other words recognizing that you're dreaming.

An Introduction to Inducing Lucid Dreams

From: Dreaming Lucid

Lucid dreaming is a relatively simple, yet truly profound, type of dreaming. It can be learned by anyone who has the ability to remember their dreams and the non-conflicted desire to become aware in their dreams. It is simple and it is profound, because it suggests that you can continue your conscious awareness in the dream state, and make conscious actions and decisions in the dream state. You can fly. You can make objects and characters appear and disappear. You can ask the dream to tell you what the dream symbols represent. You can experiment.

Simply stated, "lucid dreaming" means that you are consciously aware in the dream state that you are dreaming. At that point, you should be able to consciously influence the direction of the dream and your actions within it.

If you develop your lucid dreaming abilities, you should be able to interact with the dream state in such a way that you will convince yourself of the incredible potential and creativity of the inner self, the psyche. In essence, you may develop an awe-inspiring appreciation of the unknown base that supports the known or conscious you. By lucid dreaming, you will expand your view of your "self", and learn to question deeply the nature of dreaming and waking reality.

So, how do you do it? How do you become lucid or consciously aware in a dream?

To begin, create a strong, positive foundation with a Welcoming Mental Atmosphere. Here‘s how:

1) Open up to lucid dreaming. Allow the experience. Acquiesce to it on an inner level. Say to yourself, " I allow myself to become consciously aware and lucid in my dreams."

2) Accept it as a natural experience that thousands of ordinary people are doing every night, and enjoying on many levels. You may say to yourself, "I accept my natural ability to become consciously aware and lucid in my dreams."

3) Anticipate it -- anticipate your amazement when you become aware and lucid in your dream! You may wish to say with a smile, "I look forward to becoming consciously aware and lucid in my dreams."

4) If you feel any hesitancy, then delve into those feelings or thoughts. Try to uncover the underlying concern or reticence.

When you feel that you have opened up and allowed lucid dreams on an inner level, then you may want to select one of the following practices to perform every night before going to sleep: a modification of the Castaneda approach or the LaBerge ‘Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreaming’ (MILD) approach.

In my interpretation of the Castaneda approach, you are establishing a simple stimulus-response associational linkage. I highly recommend it for beginners due to its simplicity and high probability of success .

Here is my version of a modified Castaneda technique:


1) Sit in your bed, and tell yourself that you are leaving behind the cares and concerns of the day, and are becoming more settled.

2) Look softly at your hands, and as you do so, tell yourself in a caring manner that, "Tonight while I am dreaming, I will see my hands and realize that I am dreaming."

3) Continue to softly look at your hands and mentally repeat the affirmation, "Tonight while I am dreaming, when I see my hands, I will realize that I am dreaming."

4) Don’t be bothered if your eyes cross, or you begin to get tired, remain at peace and continue to repeat slowly and gently your intent to become lucid.

5) After about five minutes or once you feel too tired or sleepy, quietly end the practice.
6) Gently remind yourself of your intention to see your hands in a dream and then realize that you are dreaming, and go to sleep.

7) When you wake up in the middle of the night, gently recall your intention to see your hands and realize that you are dreaming. Try to remember your last dream; did you see your hands?

8) Followed faithfully each night ( with a welcoming mental atmosphere ), you should have a lucid dream within the first week - maybe after only one or two nights!

9) When it happens, and suddenly you see your hands in your dreams and you make the connection, "This is a dream!", try to stay calm and explore the dream environment. Later, when you wake from your lucid dream, take a moment and write it down in your dream journal -- write the entire dream; how you realized you were dreaming; what you did while aware that you were dreaming, etc. Congratulations!

This simple technique of looking at your hands is a modified and amplified version from Carlos Castaneda‘s third book, Journey to Ixtlan, in which he claims to have been taught a technique for setting up dreaming by his teacher, don Juan. (In the book, the instructions are much more sparse, yet fascinating.) Like any practice, it requires a bit of discipline, a bit of perseverance and the ability to remember your dreams. Don Juan stressed to Carlos that one had to let go of any fears and persist in this effort.

The second approach is modeled on the technique developed by Dr. Stephen LaBerge in his book, Lucid Dreaming. (I highly recommend this book for all lucid dreamers.) In it, he details the development of his MILD Technique to achieve lucid awareness in the dream.

The following is my interpretation of the technique:

1) Get into the practice of remembering your last dream in detail, when you spontaneously wake up during the night. Simply lie in bed, and recall the last dream in detail.

2) Next, intend to become lucid in a dream by suggesting, "Next time I’m dreaming, I want to recognize I’m dreaming."

3) Then LaBerge suggests that you take your recalled dream, but now imagine that you have become lucid within it at an appropriate point. Visualize this clearly!

4) Keep doing the above until your intent is well established. Expect to become lucid and aware in your next dream.

In my personal history, I began with the Castaneda technique in 1975/76, and felt it was an excellent method for beginners. But after LaBerge published his classic book in 1985, I would frequently use the MILD technique with considerable success. In fact, I found it useful to recall the technique via the MILD acronym in this way:
M - Memorize the dream
I - Intend to become lucid
L - Lucid, I see myself becoming lucid in the dream
D - Do it! By quickly remembering the steps in this way, I could actually perform them when drowsy at 5 am in the morning. Many people have used MILD to have their first and subsequent lucid dreams. It’s another excellent technique.

LaBerge also recommended that lucid dreamers conduct a "reality check" to verify that they were dreaming.

A "reality check" could be something as simple as levitating or flying -- if you can do these actions in the dream state, then obviously it is a dream! But if you can not fly or levitate, then are you really dreaming? It is a wise idea to perform a "reality check" when you think you are lucid in a dream. Particularly if you are prone to sleepwalking or hallucinations, you should always do a "reality check".

In The Lucid Dream Exchange (LDE), we routinely offer a section on "Tips and Techniques" based on the experience of long term lucid dreamers. Also, many readers find that by reading the LDE’s lucid dreams before they go to sleep, it helps to increase their likelihood of lucid dreams! They begin to think about these lucid dream adventures, and it sparks their imagination for new goals, new ideas, and greater lucid awareness.

If you do not succeed in becoming lucid after two weeks of regular practice (or if you have tried to become lucid and never succeeded), you may need to re-consider your Welcoming Mental Atmosphere. Why? There may be a chance that your Mental Atmosphere contains the following detrimental tendencies:

1) you are interested in lucid dreaming, but afraid.

2) you are interested in lucid dreaming, but philosophically do not agree with it or believe in it.

3) you are interested in lucid dreaming, but feel it requires a huge effort or high spiritual accomplishment.

4) you are interested in lucid dreaming, but are too tired to do the practices OR can not remember any dreams.

5) you are interested in lucid dreaming, but your life is hectic or in turmoil (due to work, relationships, family, money problems, etc) - and you can’t really concentrate.

If any of these tendencies apply, it is important to face them fully, before proceeding. By facing our fears, expanding our limiting beliefs, and responding to issues in a thoughtful and insightful manner, we can usually reason with ourselves and move forward and grow. To dream lucidly, though, it is important to have a Welcoming Mental Atmosphere of allowance, acceptance and expectation.

Goals for Beginners

At the early stages of lucid dreaming, it is important to become comfortable with the lucid state and maintain lucid awareness. So our advice is to:

1) Explore the surroundings

2) Test your senses - can you taste, feel, hear?

3) Test your memory - can you remember your name, where you live, where is your physical body?

4) Maintain your lucidity - if needed, repeat, "This is a dream"

5) Make choices to do or not to do, to surprise the flow of the dream

6) Do your best to fly or move from one area to the next

7) Talk to a dream character

8) See if you can use your intent or will to influence the dream - can you make something happen by expecting it to happen?

9) Be creative - see what is created when you open a dream door, or a dream drawer ,and finally

10) Modulate your emotions - don’t get too excited, but stay interested and calm.

Maintaining your lucid awareness and modulating your emotions are the two most important practices at this level. It is very easy to get too excited, and suddenly wake up; similarly it is possible to be lucid and get caught up in the dream action, such that you lose your lucid awareness.

Goals for Intermediate Lucid Dreamers


By the time you are an intermediate lucid dreamer, you should have considerable experience with the lucid dream environment, so that you are comfortable there and have learned to move, act and maintain the lucid dream setting. The goal of the intermediate lucid dreamer is simply that - to have "goals" - to be able to take conscious goals and recall them in the lucid state, so that you can experiment.

What kind of experiments should you try at this stage? Experiments that personally interest you are the best to try. Things like:

1) Ask a dream character or the dream to explain a symbol within the dream, and then remember the response

2) Move from the dream scene to a desired place (a friend’s house, a different city, your workplace, etc)

3) Ask the dream to show you a personal symbol for ’natural joy’

4) Tell the dream that you want your inner self to show you something important for you to see

5) Try to solve a personal or work problem in the dream

6) Try to realize a false awakening is a new chance for lucidity

7) Try for a very long lucid dream and try to remember the entirety of it

8) Fly through walls, swim under water, sing songs

9) Hold on through the gray of the lucid dream ending, by maintaining your lucid awareness without any visual imagery to re-enter a lucid dream

10) Test your awareness within the lucid dream with an experiment that has a result that can not be "expected" in advance.

Goals for Advanced Lucid Dreamers


By this time, you should have numerous questions about the nature of the lucid state and dream reality. It is important to move forward, to keep questioning and not settle for simple answers. Advanced lucid dreamers know that the limitations of the lucid state are largely self-defined, therefore it is important to expand one’s concepts and one’s ability to experiment.

You may want to try some of these ideas:

1) When lucid and you meet a personage that you know is deceased, ask them appropriate questions about the future, and then ask why they are there in your dream - do they have a message for you?

2) When lucid, ignore the dream setting and simply watch it - what happens? Can you maintain your lucidity and simply observe?

3) When lucid, ignore the dream setting and yell out, "Hey, I want to hear my feeling tone!"

4) When lucid, decide to learn about a past reincarnation

5) When lucid, try a precognitive task, and see the response on a sheet of paper or from a helpful dream character

6) When lucid, fly out to the planets and stars - what happens?

7) When lucid, ask the dream that a troubling spiritual question be explained to you there in the dream state

8) When lucid, announce that all dream characters that are "thought forms" should now disappear

9) When lucid, announce that you now wish to go "to the next level" - what happens?

10) When lucid, send constructive energy to those in need of it.

Goals for Very Advanced Lucid Dreamers


For very advanced lucid dreamers, they may wish to explore the nature of the dream state even further. For example, they may involve themselves in seeking mutual lucid dreams, affecting a physical healing of themselves or others, altering the course of an event in waking reality, etc. Even more, they may seek to go beyond lucid dreaming to an experience of base reality, consciousness.

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Not sure if I agree with some of his advanced statements as it seems he's talking more about OBEs there than lucid dreams. Hope some of the above techniques may helps some of you interested and/or working on lucid dreaming.

[Alpha]

Here's another article I stumbled across that may shed some insight or help with those interested in dreams, lucid dreaming etc.

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How to have a Lucid Dream

From: charleshamel.com

Oct 17, 2006

What are Lucid Dreams?


Lucid dreaming means dreaming while you know that you are dreaming, and when you know you are dreaming within a dream you can also alter the dream course, with practice you can also develop full control over your dreams.

You will be able to create anything the mind can imagine, change the environment even change your own appearance, have a chat with Abraham Lincoln or fly to the Grand Canyon.

The earliest recorded lucid dreams date back to the fifth century, the record came from a written letter by St. Augustine in 415 A.D. Another well-known recorded example of lucid dreaming came from eight century Tibetan Buddhists in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The Buddhists wrote of a form of yoga designed to maintain full waking consciousness while in the dream state. This ancient documentation of dreams is said to be more advanced than the knowledge we posses today.

People have been having lucid dreams for as long as the human mind has been dreaming. The first known use of the actual term “lucid dreaming” was by Frederik van Eeden in his work “A Study of Dreams” which was published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research in 1913. (Van Eeden also wrote the novel The Bride of Dreams). Since then the term has become part of our mainstream.



Steps to Lucid Dreaming


“I don’t dream”, have you ever heard someone say this? Or have you even said this yourself?

It is not a true statement, everybody dreams nightly, but some people do not remember their dreams.

The first step in learning to have lucid dreams, like in my Intuition article, is have the desire to want to remember your dreams. Now before going to bed, have a clear mind, tell yourself that “I will remember my dream when I wake up”. This is a proven and effective way to help dream recall. Having a cluttered mind or worries can distract you from remembering your dream in the morning.

Have a regular sleep schedule, try and get a routine going with a consistent bedtime and wake up time, this will also aid you in your dream recollection. Avoid alcohol consumption or taking medication before going to bed. These things may hinder you from remembering your dreams. Diet also plays a big part in dream recall, fatty foods or just eating right before you go to bed will task your body with digesting food instead of getting the rest your body needs and will divert your bodily resources from the brain.

The most important step in recalling your dreams is to keep a dream journal. Keep a pencil and a notebook or tape recorder next to your bed so that it will be within reach as soon as you wake up. You want to make the task of recording your dreams as easy as possible. Having a small lamp by your bed will help if you wake up from a dream in the middle of the night and need to record it.

Do not get out of bed immediately when you wake up, lay there in your bed keeping your eyes closed and move as little as possible. Wake up slowly and stay relaxed, hold on to your feelings you have and let your mind wander to the images of what you have just dreamed, write down as many details as possible about your dream, do not judge the content, just record it, so later you can go back and evaluate it when you are more aware. Talking to people about your dreams to friends or participating in some on-line forums will also help dream recall.

How to Have a Lucid Dream


Once you get your dream journal going and are able to recall at least two dreams a night then you can start the steps to having a lucid dream.

There are many ways to key yourself to the fact that you are dreaming but I will discuss a couple of the easiest for beginners.

First there is Reality Testing (RT). How reality testing is done, is you ask yourself “Am I dreaming?” Finding that out in a dream is not always the easiest thing to do, but is usually quite obvious if you are dreaming or not. If you find yourself in an unfamiliar place, or doing something or seeing something that will not likely happen in reality, you will know that you are dreaming. Now if you are in your bed or in your own house, then you can try looking at something like a clock or reading a book or something, look away, then look back and see if the time is the same or the words you read are the same. Try changing the color of something just by thinking about it. Ask yourself this question “Am I dreaming?” several times during the day, then you will be more apt to ask yourself this in a dream.

The second way to realize that you are dreaming in a dream is to recognize a Dreamsign. When your recognize this dreamsign you will realize that you are dreaming. (ie. A pink elephant, meeting deceased people, or magically flying.) By keeping a dream journal and going back and finding things that are common in your dreams, you can choose a dreamsign that is unique to you. So when you see your dreamsign you will realize your experience as a dream, and can then further the experiments or work you would like to do in your dream.

Upon becoming Lucid


The biggest problem upon becoming lucid for newbies is that once they realize they are dreaming, they get so excited that it wakes them from their dream.

Actually experienced lucid dreamers can have this problem also. There are different ways to extend your dreams, if your dream shows signs of ending some people have claimed success by spinning to help the dream come back, in other words making their dream self start to spin like an ice skater, and remind yourself the next scene will be a dream, to ensure you are still dreaming do a RT. Sometimes just running, or jumping can prolong your dream.

Once you become proficient in achieving a Lucid Dream state, and are able to maintain this state to some degree, the next step will be controlling your dreams.

Controlling your Dream


Now the fun part!

Once you are lucid dreaming the world is yours, anything you can imagine can happen in your dream.

Have you ever wanted to be a superhero? Be able to turn invisible, to live as a millionaire, to sail around the world.

The thing that I personally have had experience with is flying in my dream, the first time you accomplish flight in your dream you will have the most amazing sense of freedom that you have ever felt. Just think about it, if you could fly like a bird, the wind in your hair, the freedom to go anywhere, well you get the picture.

People have used the experiences in their lucid dreams to improve their waking lives also, for instance, playing the piano better, improving at ice skating, or business success, some people even claim to have religious experiences.
Science has only just begun to examine the process of lucid dreaming. Some researchers view it as an evolutionary development of mankind and our consciousness expanding. Whether we are evolving or have always had this ability, we certainly are not taking advantage of all it has to offer. If we could become more disciplined with our dream work we would have many more options in which to learn and grow.

[Topper]

I use Lucid dreaming more often than not to solve problems in my life. Its the times I ignore myself that gets me into trouble.

Just two nights ago I was so disgusted with my computers that I found I was dreaming of a dark veil pipe retracting the connections when I blasted
the a hole to escape, waking myself up. Darnest thing happened
over the next 24 hours. My computer problems suddenly resolved themselves.
All but the printer and photo options ... I need to work on those next.