Lucid Dreaming techniques

[Wayfarer64]

This subject came up on another thread. Some people try to stay aware of their hands, some take note of and touch doorways as a waking/dreaming practice to stay aware. Some concentrate as they fall asleep. All in an attempt to remain in a conscious state, to some degree, while asleep.

 

Are there any other techniques reasons for practicing and/or input on this ?

[thaddeus]

This subject came up on another thread. Some people try to stay aware of their hands, some take note of and touch doorways as a waking/dreaming practice to stay aware. Some concentrate as they fall asleep. All in an attempt to remain in a conscious state, to some degree, while asleep.

 

Are there any other techniques reasons for practicing and/or input on this ?

I think this covers the gamut of techniques that I'm aware of, they pretty much fall into those categories. Probably another would be outside intervention, like someone whispering to you to remember or something like the lucid dreaming goggles.

Which thread was talking about his?

T

[MASTERforge]

Try looking on any Out Of Body Experince forums.

 

They have many techniques for this kind work as they use it for their OOB experiences.

 

Keep us posted on your experiences.

 

I find that its when I wake up I have lucid dreams. If I set an alarm and wake up to the alarm, I am often dragged out of the dream state. I experience the last few minutes of the dream as a reality I can't tell the difference between these last few minutes and my wakings days. They are so real I remember having conversations where I have no idea what the other person will say, been places and done things. Just as real as what I experience when I'm awake.

 

It makes me wonder what is going on because it all seems that it has come from outside my mind. There is a clear difference between hazy thoughts and day dreaming to the lucid dreams I experience.

 

I think that if you wanted to experience more lucid dreams it might be worth instead of trying to remain conscious as you drift off to interrupt the dreams. Set your alarm clock for several points during the night. This would bring you out of the dream state, so you would remember much more.

 

The problem with this is that it interrupts your sleeping patterns which will affect your physical and mental health. Perhaps its best practiced one a week.

 

I think you could end up feeling that you live in both worlds so it could have a bad effect on your daily life.

 

Anyway, keep us posted on your progress.

[Wayfarer64]

I think this covers the gamut of techniques that I'm aware of, they pretty much fall into those categories. Probably another would be outside intervention, like someone whispering to you to remember or something like the lucid dreaming goggles.

Which thread was talking about his?

T

 

Yo Thaddeus -

This came up on the Now never comes- thread, theLerner suggested a new topic so I ran with it...I doubt I will give much time to experimentation on this. I can not disrupt sleep to experiment at this time, too much to do in "real time" to focus on "dream time" at this juncture...But I almost always drift off with my mind's eye on my hands... a practice I took up a few decades ago via Castanada- I don't think much has been gleaned from this in my ability to remember dreams, but I do seem to know when I'm dreaming much of the time that I dream.

 

I have a distinct impression that when I start to go downward via stairs etc. when dreaming ... bad shit starts to happen and the dream turns "night-marish". I believe that this is due to repressed memory from some very bad experiences that I suffered in reality.

 

Conversly, when I am high-up in my dream state -on a mountain over-looking the sea for instance I am filled with the most wonderful feelings of rapturous joy and a feeling of oneness with the whole of life... If there is a whale in the sea far below I can share a "namaste" with it .

 

In fact such moments have been the high-light of my consciousness of late- reality being something of a grind these days...

Edited January 22, 2007 by Wayfarer64

[Agni]

I can pretty much lucid dream at will but there is one method which almost guarantees me lucid dream time.

 

I set my alarm for a time when I know I am going to be in a very deep sleep. The alarm goes off and I stay awake for about 10 - 15 minutes, then I go back to sleep and POW, lucid dream.

 

I also read of a vitamin combination which can induce lucid dreaming. If I find it i'll post it up.

[Taomeow]

After I mastered the techniques, I abandoned the practice but retained the skill (like my other example of having learned to ride a bicycle -- once it's done, it's part of me, I have it "always"). So now if I happen to get a lucid dream, I get it spontaneously, and it is never useless, it invariably serves a purpose of affecting something in my waking life. Examples:

 

I invented a couple of nifty devices in a lucid dream, when I woke up all I had to do was put them together.

I internally resolved my relationship with my father, a lifelong issue, in a lucid dream; when I woke up, it was "done," and remained resolved.

Most importantly, my taoist magic teacher visits me this way... I met her in real life long ago, since then she paid a few (rare) dream visits when I needed her, and always helped tremendously.

 

Lucid dreams are not the ones that "feel real," they are the ones that ARE real, in that they tangibly affect one's waking life. If they don't, they aren't. One of the authors who wrote on the subject asserts that when he was a kid he used to find a dollar in his waking jeans after dreaming he had one. It happened to him every time he wanted some innocent childhood pleasure real bad and his stingy parents wouldn't give him any money.

 

I'm still looking for that majestic pearl I found in a lucid dream and then lost in same...

[TwoTrees]

I invented a couple of nifty devices in a lucid dream, when I woke up all I had to do was put them together.

I internally resolved my relationship with my father, a lifelong issue, in a lucid dream; when I woke up, it was "done," and remained resolved.

Most importantly, my taoist magic teacher visits me this way... I met her in real life long ago, since then she paid a few (rare) dream visits when I needed her, and always helped tremendously.

How incredible this struck me, to read of this as resolving the issue with your father. It seems as if I'd used this same or horizontally fashioned approach to do the same with my stepfather, a couple of years ago. After I'd had a very detailed series of issues and then release of all the tensions in a dream pertaining to the on-going conflict that we've had with each other, his whole attitude was completely different in normal life. He'd somehow calmed down, become more docile and silent ... which most of the family connected with his growing old but the timing was just eerie.

 

Also, I will add that my first Native American shamanic spiritual teacher contacts me in a way similar to the way that yours visits you as well. It's a long and strange story, but to keep it simple she has a way of showing up when things are at their most dire or blissful ... it's all relative to situations and is not very common.

[thelerner]

Lucid dreaming has been accepted and moved into the main stream. Not only is it widely accepted, but there are pages of techniques for having one. (If I wake up very early, I greatly increase my chances of having and remembering). Thirty years ago they were considered a mystics fantasy, 20 years ago cutting edge research on them is done at the Stanford with students trained as Oneirauts, now you get 10,000 hits when you google the term.

 

It would be nice to see OBE's follow the same pattern. What a wonderful paradigm shift it would be if OBE followed the path that Lucid Dreams have taken.

 

Michael

 

edit -- correction on googling you find 1,000,020 hits. I just looked at LD4All.com great website for anyone interested in Lucidity. It really hits the subject from every angle.

[Wayfarer64]

This communication with others durring our sleep/dreams is a very interesting aspect of our consciousness. There are a few people (and one dog) who I have pretty constant access to in dream states. We used to phone each-other (not the dog)-and check the experiences we shared. I've accepted these sorts of communications for many decades and hope that serious studies have/will be done about these incounters. (any news about this!?) It may be that we should write a book?!-

 

I have had similar experiences with some who have died. The most striking aspect of those incounters was how tired the dead usually seemed to be and how difficult it seemed to be for them to be present in my dream state.

 

One of the strongest was fairly recent, when my dear friend Michael Savage had been dead for about twenty days or so. His mom had been close to Allen Ginsberg through her mom being Allen's mom's very dear friend... Anyway I was sleeping on a couch at my moms when I had a very lucid visitation from Mike who had brought along Allen and Neil Cassady to show-off for me, who he was hanging with in the great beyond... I remember being dissapointed that Kerouac hadn't come too, but it seems there was a problem with JK's abilities or maybe willingness to manifest in my dream. The whole thing was funny, for the most part as if to say don't worry this ain't so bad a deal...

 

It was THE most exciting visitation I have had while dreaming. I usually awoke with and have maintained a pretty strong memory of several of these events.

 

It has helped me develop my ideas of my real life as consciosness being kept and shared through time and space, without the need of a body.

 

But I am of course in no hurry to check THAT theory out any time soon. No matter what shit hits the fan this life is still more interesting than dreams or astral travel or anything else I have even heard of.

 

 

edit-

this next part belongs on another thread but I'll leave it here and add to the other also...it manifested and needs to be moved...

 

The search for esoteric knowledge has been going on for many mellenia, my own for mere decades. I hope that most of the young and cock-sure seekers here, don't fade away or burn-out in the decades to come.

 

There is always more to understand than we will ever know.

And knowing is still not understanding. Knowledge is vapid and of no use if the holder of it can not or will not apply the concepts into their reality/dream state and work to make for a better understanding, not a mere accumulation of powerful ideas and states of mind, that bring them self-satisfaction, but do not change how they live and accumulate merit and kharma.

 

When yr kharma hits yr dogma in the great beyond it is what you have done here when you had the chance that counts.

Qi turns back to simple wind when blown out of one's ass... It is still just raising a stink.

Edited January 23, 2007 by Wayfarer64

[turbo]

To have lucid dreams:

1. Get a notebook and a pen, put them beside your bed.

2. Every morning write down what you can remember about your dreams.

3. A few times everyday say to yourself "Am I dreaming?"

4. Repeat 2 & 3 until you wake up in a dream. It should not take more than a few weeks.

 

The longer you practice this the easier they become. If you stop practicing the ability to have these dreams will fall off.

[Mal]

Lucid dreaming has been accepted and moved into the main stream. Not only is it widely accepted, but there are pages of techniques for having one.

 

You could also try http://www.astraldynamics.com/

 

Good web site and they have a workbook for a 90 day course. I have the book, but didn't complete the course last year. They focus on energy work being a "key" to astral travel. I was doing it for a while but I had a martial arts comp comming up and even though it only takes about 30min a day for the course I just lost motivation.

 

Wasn't a waste as the energy work reminded me about the healing tao book that I had and eventually led me here

[thelerner]

I remember one dream. In it I was talking to my college room mate who had recently died. I remembered he was dead and it came to that this must be a lucid dream and the conversation went on.

 

Often in lucid dream even with accomplished people, only one side remembers the conversation. I don't know if that proof it didn't really happen, or if you're contacting a person beyond there normal remembering consciouness.

 

Michael

[Wayfarer64]

Michael,

 

it seems to vary some, one friend and I often each/both remembered and later spoke of sharing dreams ( as when sleeping) sometimes one of us didn't remember, but then tried to. That seldom worked. It seems memory is the variable, and memory of sub-conscious or alternative conscious states of being and there related events are much harder to remember, some of the time.

 

What is striking is how some of these dreams we have been describing are so very real in memory! And so very telling in real time applications and resulting states of being in "reality" ala what both twotrees and Taomeow have related earlier...

 

Again my interest in Quantum theory comes to mind as how "idea" may manifest into "being" all the time...

Where is Cloud Recluse?

 

Even when some may disparage dreaming - the dreamers delight in and learn to understand something beyond "knowing" when grasping a dream's potential and direction...Martin Luther King may have been onto something more than a catch-phrase!

[QiDr]

I wouldn't worry about lucid dreaming until one has a really good handle on lucid wakefullness.

[mat black]

I wouldn't worry about lucid dreaming until one has a really good handle on lucid wakefullness.

 

 

HAHAHAHAH

 

so true!

 

my experience is that deep meditation can carry over into sleep creating a sleep state where the qi sensation is tangble and dreams are not unconcious.

 

i've meditated with my master in my sleep, met a freind that passed away, and done some other things.

 

the key was to make the waking state more wakeful, then that conciousness carries over into sleep.

 

one simple thing to do before nodding off (although it's pretty obvious) is to scan your body from head to toe at least 21 times then totally feel and relax into your body.

[lino]

To have lucid dreams:

1. Get a notebook and a pen, put them beside your bed.

2. Every morning write down what you can remember about your dreams.

3. A few times everyday say to yourself "Am I dreaming?"

4. Repeat 2 & 3 until you wake up in a dream. It should not take more than a few weeks.

 

The longer you practice this the easier they become. If you stop practicing the ability to have these dreams will fall off.

 

How much more energy?

 

I'm a walking bull's eye in my dreams more often than not and it seems like I'm always walking around like if I was hit by a Mack Truck...a really big downgrade from being able to fly around...slowly, but being able to fly.

 

My dreams have gotten wierder and wierder since I've added a lot of anti-oxidant supplements. My imagination is not fertile enough to create 7 foot tall, four foot wide lizards and caricatures of people that have two foot noses and feet that are just as big

[Spectrum]

Dream Journal : Record dreams right when you remember them

 

Suggestion: think about strong dreams as your falling asleep

 

Reality Checks: Develop a standard reality test for youself. This is what has triggered repeatable lucidity.

 

Problem Solving w/ Creative Solutions: Under intense problem solving, spontaneous lucidity regarding creative solutions

 

Lucidity changes from intended to spontaneous through practicing basic principles.

 

Spectrum

[Wayfarer64]

I wouldn't worry about lucid dreaming until one has a really good handle on lucid wakefullness.

 

That is a great point!

but hey there are No worries QiDr.,

Just an intellectual interest in other states of consciousness.

I wouldn't think until applies to these matters. If my wakefulness has learned something from my consciousness when sleeping, it can only be an aid to discovering the differences. What we don't know can't help us. What we don't know can hurt us..

 

But thanks for the wake-up call!

[thaddeus]

My dreams have gotten wierder and wierder since I've added a lot of anti-oxidant supplements.

Vitamin B6 and Melatonin will do this. I've often gone straight into a lucid dream after taking melatonin.

 

Also regarding your question on energy. The Castaneda material references the need for Jing in order to have lucid dreams.

T

[Spectrum]

I've often gone straight into a lucid dream after taking melatonin.

 

+1 on that

[lino]

Vitamin B6 and Melatonin will do this. I've often gone straight into a lucid dream after taking melatonin.

 

Also regarding your question on energy. The Castaneda material references the need for Jing in order to have lucid dreams.

T

 

I never had a problem with melatonin. I can almost fall asleep at will if I cover my head and eyes when lying down, even when I am not tired.

 

I took note of a few comments on these forums about CoQ10 and about receeding gums. I bought some at the vitamin shoppe at East 86th Street along with vitamin E. I've also changed from drinking coffee to mixing swiss miss with powdered cocoa that hasn't been "dutched".

 

Everything is better it seems, but I hope I don't get "too well" to the point where it seems like returning to my puberty and early 20s (I'm going to be 33 next month), practically being a "walking hardon" 24/7

 

There is hardly enough blood to support both sides of the brain (especially wearing a size 7 1/2 hat that sometimes feels tight) but supporting another active brain (in the pants) is close to impossible

 

For as much as a lot of people make David Shen to seem extreme, I have to admire him for his emotional stability because if I was at peak and had MSB for a week (in a low stress situation) I would end up in jail for murder.

[Wanderer]

Here's an interesting little clip about lucid dreaming.

 

http://www.stevepavlina.com/podcasts/Pavli...id-Dreaming.mp3

Edited February 5, 2007 by Wanderer