Do you have nightmares that you’re sick of? Are you an explorer by nature? If so, let’s talk about lucid dreaming.
When it comes to lucid dreaming, some typical questions that I hear are: “What is lucid dreaming?”, “Why did you try it?”, “How did I do it?”, and “Who else is doing it now?”
What is Lucid Dreaming?
From my past teenager’s point of view, lucid dreaming is the sword to conquer nightmares. Seriously, lucid dreaming was part of how I conquered the dark and powerful demon who gave continuous birth to nightmares. Literally shaking my entire dream world through unspeakable terror, there was an evil overlord ruling my night. While everything around me shook, the last thing I would hear was horrible and evil laughter.
More than once, I asked myself: Could this be Satan? No, it wasn’t. Whatever it was, lucid dreaming was one key to conquering this nighttime evil.
Besides lucid dreaming, the second key to conquering my nighttime terrors was imagining a glowing positive energy shining from me in every direction fueled through a Lovingkindness chant.
Instead of just screaming in fear, this chant gave me courage and a positive direction to orient my mind towards. To see the specific Lovingkindness meditation technique I used back then, see the “My Words” section in Meditating and Coming Across Colder Than Ice. In my dreams, the chant and my wholehearted belief in the power of love (Agape) assured me victory.
No Really. What Is Lucid Dreaming?
Lucid dreaming is knowing that you’re dreaming while you’re dreaming. Since knowledge is power, this also leads to a path towards control of your dreams and mental exploration. While you’re doing lucid dreaming, you can do all kinds of things, think about things, and enjoy the most erotic dreams.
What Do Others Say About Lucid Dreaming?
If you like TEDx talks, here’s Lucid dreaming: Tim Post at TEDxTwenteU:
The video goes deep into how lucid dreaming is real and the science that shows that. For me, it’s already a no-kidding moment. Having lucid dreamed many times, I know that lucid dreaming is real. Since the talk is limited to less than 15 minutes, all it had time for was to talk about how lucid dreaming is real and its potential use. It doesn’t answer the question: How does one start to lucid dream?
How To Lucid Dream?
In regards to how to lucid dream, here’s a quote from Star Trek Deep Space Nine’s episode, Waking Moments:
He will do so by remembering a visual cue – such as Earth’s moon – to remind him that he is dreaming.
That’s the right idea. You need a cue. Yet, having something visual was not good enough for me. I needed something more physical.
When my feet left the ground and I swam up into the air, I knew I was dreaming. My cue was being able to swim-fly. To ensure that I could clearly feel the difference between being asleep and being awake, I hopped up and down acting like I’m trying to swim in the air during the day.
To lock in success, I would write too. “Remember”, “Remember”, “Remember” was written down right before I went to sleep. I wanted it in my mind and ready to go before I shifted into dreamland.
Lucid Dreaming Success..?
Initially, success was not letting fear rule every night of my life. As they say in games, achievement unlocked. Success!
Once I conquered the nightmares, I tried what a typical young man might do. I went for the sexual dreams.
“Ya! Sex dreams!”, I said out loud. “Let’s do this!” I was pretty excited about the potential. However… Like most things, the anticipation was more fun than the experience.
Although some of the erotic dreams were sensual and quite fun, I realized there’s no substitute for the real thing. Although the visual was there, the sense of touch was not as pronounced as one can get in real life.
After that realization, I tinkered around with creating entire dream landscapes and fantasy worlds. I could literally move mountains. I would also conjure up things to explore.
When I woke up, I would write down what I could remember as if the contents of the dream were sacred clues that can unlock the secrets of the universe itself! Having that kind of urgency about it trained the mind to remember more from the dreams.
However, what I wrote down was merely a shadow of what I experienced. In other words, “boring” became the new chant. This all started to get really dull. Whatever utility I got from lucid dreaming, my daily meditation practice gave me so much more.
Is Control Still Useful?
Since everything was now under my control, I wondered if I was missing out on something. Was complete control useful anymore?
After sharing my concerns with another, he suggested: “Why don’t you let go? Let go of controlling everything.” In a playful and friendly way, I should see what happens. It made sense. All the parts of my mind had made peace and I was less likely to terrorize myself.
So, I completely let go of control…conditionally. If things ever got out of hand, I would just say nope and wake myself up. I’m not letting anyone bully me, not even my creative yet mischievous mind.
Want To Play a Game?
One thing I never had but was shared with me recently was a community around lucid dreaming. Dream Views Lucid Dreaming is a well organized forum board community. Specifically, they have fun tasks to try while you are lucid dreaming. If you succeed with the tasks for the month and year, they give out badges. Sounds like fun to me!
To Sum Up
Lucid dreaming is real. Through the power of neuroplasticity, you can train your mind to know that you’re dreaming and exert control over your dreams. Coupled with Lovingkindness meditation, I’ve used lucid dreaming to conquer the scariest of chronic nightmares and create my very own dream landscapes.
If you explore lucid dreaming and would like to share your experiences, please feel free to comment below. Multiple people read these posts and would be interested in whatever insights you have to share.
Shout out to Michael Reichenbach from the Octalysis Prime mastermind group for sharing the Dream Views Lucid Dreaming‘s fun tasks to try link and the link to the TEDx talk.
Great post! Thanks for writing about it 🙂
I might give it another try again, because of your experiences.
Cheers Michael
Thanks, Michael! Enjoy the adventure. 🙂
Here’s something to try Mike…try asking the dream characters who they are. When they inevitably give you default answers like “I’m Bob” or stare blankly at you, try revealing to them who you believe them to be and pay close attention to what happens…
Something like this works for me: “Do you know you are a figment of my imagination? How does that make you feel?” It’s pretty hilarious watching your mind try to weasel out of this one! 😂 I used to ask dream characters all sorts of questions. I won’t reveal what happens for me, don’t want to spoil the fun for new explorers.
I love that suggestion, Yuri! I especially love the “How does that make you feel?” question. Ha ha!
Funny that you should suggest that, last night I asked my wife in my dream if she was driving the car over a cliff because she wanted us to wake up. She gave me a knowing look which just meant that I already know the answer since she and I are both me. Instead of it being scary, I knew it was just time to wake up.
Before I had a stronger grip on my dreams, I was hesitant to let my dream characters know that they were not real. They would get angry, their faces would exhibit the most violent and angry of faces, and then attack me! Things are much better now.
“How does that make you feel?” is an important question for myself, because I generally don’t know how I feel. It’s funny to watch my how much of my cognition goes into answering that question… and the effects on the dreamscape, which requires some kind of cognitive power.
In your example, try not knowing it’s time to wake up. Try staying asleep and dreaming through the inevitable crash that kills you and notice what happens…
Ha ha! I like your sense of curiosity. Yes, I have gone all the way before. I threw myself off a cliff. There was a sensation of a thud and darkness. Nothing more after that. Thanks for the suggestion, Yuri! It’s good to explore the boundaries, indeed!
Curiosity? Yeah, I seem to have been slapped with that blessing/curse my whole life… I, too explored and still enjoy all types of altered consciousness states, including lucid dreaming.
What do you mean by “nothing more after that”? Were you still asleep? dreaming? consciously aware that you were still dreaming but couldn’t see anything? could you feel anything? how long did you wait? eventually something must have happened or you’d still be there.
To add: There I was, existing without existence. Existing in a nothing that you’d think would be cold except it was simply nothing. I’d call it dark, but there was no blackness. There was nothing. I was aware. I saw nothing, heard nothing, and felt nothing. Not a smell. No sensation of any kind. It felt like an instant went by, yet I have no way of knowing since there was nothing to track time with. There was no sense of time.
At some point, I woke up. Therefore, I must have been dreaming. Dreaming of nothing. It seemed like a very short dream that I think lasted for quite awhile.
Okay, from this nothing, you are God….if you wanted, you could reinhabit the dream which looks like waking up in a smashed/blown up/sunk car next to your dead wife. Maybe replay the car ride over and over, trying something new every time, or maybe start a new dream.
Personally, I enjoy the sensory deprivation in a dead dream state. Frees up a huge chunk of crunching power normally unconsciously attending to this and that. I concentrate this power and focus it on understanding more abstract conceptualizations not limited by space, time, or reality. If you want ideas, I’ve got loads… here’s one: visualize a hypercube in 4D space 🤯
Have fun!
Nice,Yuri! I had to look that one up: Visualizing a 4-Dimensional Hypercube: https://youtu.be/70JPkK3_Dj0?t=32m48s Virtual Reality will make things so much more clear some day! Ha ha ha!
I had a very vivid lucid dream experience where I conquered a nightmare, I haven’t had a nightmare since.
I’ve been researching online and found this article, I’ve never tried lucid dreaming before once in my life. Honestly this is a eerie experience and I just don’t know what my take is on it.