Do you realize we spend about a third of our lives asleep? That is a large chunk of time that while absolutely vital to our wellbeing is not used to its fullest potential.
With the average life expectancy in he western world at about 75 years old that means we spend 25 years asleep! That is about 300 month or 1300 weeks or 9100 days or 218400 hours!
If we could spend even a small portion of that time doing something fun or productive how much more would we get out of our lives!
With Lucid dreaming you can be aware when you dream that you are not awake and can interact consciously with the dream world that your mind creates. While this talent is quite rare to simply know it can be learned!
Here are a few lucid dreaming basics you can use to get learning straight away!
1. Build your dream recall
People who have very good natural dream recall make very natural lucid dreamers as this is the first step to learning lucid dreaming.
Those who do not remember much of their dreams can train themselves to become better quote simply however it just takes some time.
To build your dream recall it is best to keep a dream diary. Whenever you wake from a dream immediately write down everything you can remember no matter how vague it is or how patchy your memory. By doing this you are training your mind to remember dreams and over time you will find you can remember more and more!
However DO NOT WAIT until morning to write these things down, do it straight away, as soon as you realize you are awake get your pen and jot it down or you will miss many details or the entire thing as dreams can be fleeting.
2. Reality testing
This is a technique that trains your mind to look for signs of dreaming. However you do it while you are awake as we have not started lucid dreaming yet!
*Reality test stage 1 - Carry a piece of paper with you with a few phrases on it or something similar. Throughout the day take this paper out and look at it, then look away and look back again. Did the text change? Try once more do the characters make sense or has anything changed. Obviously if it has you know you are dreaming! This teaches the mind a pattern if you do it often enough that can repeat in dreams and clue yourself into the dream.
*Reality test stage 2 - Imagine very hard while awake that you are dreaming and that all that surrounds you is a dream, changeable and fleeting. Then imagine what fantasy you would do the next time you are dreaming, flying, meeting famous people or whatever you want! Again this activity encourages your mind to understand dreams and behave in ways and patterns that may reoccur in dreams and lead to a lucid experience.
3. Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams - M.I.L.D.
This is well tested technique that gets you to remember in the future, in particular of course remembering that you will be lucid in your next dream.
MILD is best tried just after you have a dream. When you wake write down the dream then get yourself comfortable again. As you try to get back to sleep repeat to yourself "I will remember I am in a dream next time I dream!” Repeat this line over and over and over to yourself and as you do imagine what you were doing last time you were dreaming and focus on that. If you can finds a dream sign (a signal that obviously means your dreaming, something out of the ordinary) then you may have lapsed back into sleep and started dreaming again. If you can hold onto that and stay dreaming while being conscious of it then congratulations you are in a lucid dream! If not just keep trying and you will fall to sleep and you can try again later.
All these tips are designed to train your mind into a better awareness of dreaming and lucidity and allow cues for it to realize when it is dreaming. They may not happen soon but the more you do these things the better you will become and soon you will be able to use some of that sleeping time to much better effect!
Happy dreaming!!