The November 2000 issue of The New Times featured my article "The Ultimate Virtual Reality," which discussed lucid dreaming — being physically asleep and dreaming while simultaneously mentally alert and conscious — and how it affords its practitioners an astoundingly convincing virtual reality. The article also discussed how lucid dreaming is an extraordinary source of recreation as well as a profound tool that can be used to enhance self-knowledge and spiritual awareness. [Send SASE for this or any other reprint desired.] The issue now is how to dream lucidly. It doesn’t require rigorous discipline, training, or talent. What it does require is the practice of some simple exercises along with some diligence, patience, and positive expectation. Before I begin to describe the exercises that will lead you to lucidity, some appreciative acknowledgement is due. The techniques outlined here primarily come from the experience and research of Dr. Stephen LaBerge, a scientist on the frontier of lucid dream research. LaBerge has studied lucid dreaming since 1977 at the Stanford University Sleep Research Center. He has written two definitive books on the subject and founded The Lucidity Institute, an organization dedicated to making the benefits of lucid dreaming available to as many people as possible. The techniques that have arisen from scientific research as well as from LaBerge’s own lucid dream experiences are potent and efficient tools that will help speed your path toward lucidity. One of the first skills to develop is dream recall. If you tend not to remember your regular dreams, you may also have trouble remembering your lucid ones! Fortunately, just a little effort toward improving dream recall goes a long way. Like everything else to do with dreams, dream recall is highly susceptible to suggestion; simply establishing the intent to remember your dreams will often bring immediate results. More specifically, as you’re lying in bed waiting for sleep, simply repeat to yourself, "When I wake up, I will remember my dreams" (or something to that effect). More important than the actual words is your ability to connect with a sensation of anticipation and confidence that you will remember your dreams. You’ll be surprised how responsive your mind is to the simple feeling of positive expectation. If you expect to do it, you will. Experiment with repeating the affirmation just a few times, or continuously as you fall asleep. Another way to increase dream recall is to begin recording the dreams you remember. Creating a dream journal establishes the unmistakable message that you're serious about your dream life, and your dream recall will improve rapidly. Furthermore, dream journals provide you with a permanent, valuable record of your nocturnal experiences. There are many techniques for recording dreams; choose whichever one suits you. You can keep a pen and paper by the bed, and during the night either record the full dream or just an outline that can then be expanded when transcribing your permanent record. You can also record your dreams using a cassette or digital recorder, and later transcribe the recording on paper or computer. Keep in mind that it’s almost impossible to remember dreams without creating a record of some kind. When you first wake up from a dream, you may feel confident that you’ll have no problem remembering it later, but you'll find your memory of the dream will almost always fade. Ensure against this by creating a material record. Your efforts will be awarded with better dream recall, richer and more vivid dreams, and, with continuing practice, lucidity. The goal of lucid dreaming exercises is to acclimatize the mind to the process of questioning reality. Right now, for example, you probably take it completely for granted that you’re awake. Let's face it, most of us always take it for granted that we’re awake — which is why even when we’re dreaming and experiencing the most bizarre dream circumstances, it doesn’t occur to us to say, "Wait a minute, this can't be physical reality; I must be dreaming!" Our minds need to be trained to question reality, and this training occurs in our waking life. Which leads us to an important exercise: reality testing. The first step in reality testing is to question the reality you’re currently experiencing. To do this, simply ask yourself throughout the day, whenever you think of it, "Am I dreaming?" More essential than the actual words is creating the experience of truly wondering whether or not you might be dreaming. The more heartfelt your experience of the question, the more potent the exercise will be. You can be as creative as you like in creating cues to remind yourself to ask the question. Maybe you could set your watch to beep on the hour, or put the question "Am I dreaming?" on your computer’s screensaver. Whatever cue you use, it's a good idea to change it every so often, since once we adapt to a certain stimulus it tends to lose its effectiveness. Now that we’ve asked the question "Am I dreaming?" we need to figure out how to answer it. Try it right now. Stop reading for a moment, and earnestly ask yourself, "Am I dreaming?" Well, how exactly do you go about deciding whether you’re dreaming or not? You might think, "Well, it's just obvious. Everything is so solid and physical. I must be awake." Take it from an experienced lucid dreamer who’s been fooled before (and no doubt will be fooled again): asking the question "Am I dreaming?" does not guarantee you're going to come up with the correct answer! Dreams can be surprisingly tricky to recognize. They easily masquerade as the physical world, and their apparent solidity is, more often than not, simply staggering. What we need is a reliable test to gauge whether the reality we’re experiencing is physical or dream-based. One of the most popular ways of putting reality to the test is to try to fly. Now, you could put your arms over your head Superman-style and take a big jump, but that’s going to raise some eyebrows at your next board meeting. Instead, try just willing your body to rise, or taking a small hop with the intent to stay in the air. There are other effective ways to put reality to the test. Stephen LaBerge, in his book Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, describes using reading as a reality test. He instructs us to "find some writing and read it once...look away, then reread it, checking to see if it stays the same". His experience shows that every time you look back, the writing will have mutated in some way. LaBerge has also found that digital watches and other electronic devices tend to behave erratically and unreliably in the dream world, and thus act as an effective reality test. The point of reality testing is to train your mind to do something it’s not accustomed to doing: questioning reality. Don’t get discouraged, and don’t give up earnestly asking yourself "Am I dreaming?" just because you find you’re always awake! The power of reality testing doesn’t reside as much in your answer to the question as it does in the moments when you’re able to genuinely wonder whether or not you might be dreaming. The MILD (Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams) technique was introduced by LaBerge in his first and seminal book, Lucid Dreaming. I have found MILD to be the single most effective exercise in producing lucid dreams. Before we get to the technique itself though, let’s examine when is the best time to bring about a lucid dream. Dreaming, both regular and lucid, occurs during the phase of sleep called REM (rapid eye movement). As we sleep through the night and into the morning, our cycles of REM become more and more prevalent, making early mornings the most effective time to induce lucidity. One of the most powerful tools at your disposal is to take advantage of this sleep pattern by waking yourself up for a short period in the early morning and then returning to bed. Being awake for a short interval in the early morning not only affords you the opportunity to practice the MILD technique at the ripest time for dreaming, but the period of wakefulness itself acts as a catalyst for lucidity. It’s as if you bring that alertness with you into your dream life, creating an incredibly fertile environment for lucid dreams. Here’s the MILD exercise described step by step: 1) Before you go to bed, set your alarm for two or three hours before you need to get up for the day. 2) When awakened by your alarm, get out of bed, and remain relaxedly awake for a short while (somewhere between 15 and 45 minutes). Reading, meditating, recording dreams, or other contemplative activity will help foster a desirable quiet-alertness. (If you haven’t already, you might also want to decide at this point what exactly you want to do when you become lucid. Having a specific goal or activity in mind plays a part in this exercise, and also helps result in a more clarified, stable, and extended lucidity.) 3) When you’re ready to go back to sleep, set your alarm for when you need to get up for the day, and return to bed. 4) As you’re lying in bed waiting for sleep, say to yourself the following: "The next time I’m dreaming, I’m going to remember to recognize that I’m dreaming." Keep in mind that, as with all these exercises, the power resides not as much in the exact words themselves, but in establishing the real intent and expectation of what you’re affirming. 5) Now recall a dream. It can be one from the same night, or it can be any dream that you remember. Begin to replay the events of that dream in your mind. As you let the dream unfold, picture yourself realizing that it’s a dream. Continue to see yourself in the dream, now lucid, doing whatever activity you decide you want to pursue in the dream world. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you feel your intent is securely in place, or you fall asleep. This is a powerful exercise that can give you immediate results, but my experience has shown me that it’s helpful not to expect to achieve a full-blown lucid dream immediately — for example, within the first few nights — even with diligent practice. The lucid dream is like a gift one earns after ongoing, earnest attention. If you expect immediate results and don’t get them, you may become discouraged, which will only work against you and hamper your progress. Instead, approach with patience, and focus on the changes you will start seeing almost immediately. For example, you may notice an increase in dream recall as well as changes in the quality and content of your dreams. The more you're able to remain patient, optimistic, and enthusiastic about your practice, the more you guarantee your success. Kenneth Tobias has been lucid dreaming for 12 years. He has taught lucid dreaming in Seattle, where he now resides. To reach Ken, e-mail <loocid@earthlink.net>. Visit his Web site, <http://www.amidreaming.com/>, to find out about books, organizations, and other sites and resources available on the subject of lucid dreaming. |