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Lucid Dreaming & OBE
Welcome to Your Dream Body
A Native American shaman once told me that “We are the lucid dream of God and because we are a part of the Divine dream we can participate on a conscious level and even manipulate reality of the world around us.” Lucid dreams are a very powerful tool to achieving your goals and understanding the universe that you are apart of. Most of all it’s a way of communication with your spirit guide, guardian angel and for those that have crossed over to interact with you on a spiritual level with your dream body.
What is Lucid Dreaming?
Lucid dreaming is “dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming.” This state of consciousness allows you to control your dreams and experience anything imaginable, from the sublime to the impossible. The basic definition of lucid dreaming requires nothing more than becoming aware that you are dreaming. However, the quality of lucidity can vary greatly. When lucidity is at a high level, you are aware that everything experienced in the dream is occurring in your mind, that there is no real danger, and that you are asleep in bed and will awaken shortly. With low-level lucidity you may be aware to a certain extent that you are dreaming, perhaps enough to fly or alter what you are doing, but not enough to realize that the people are dream representations, or that you can suffer no physical damage, or that you are actually in bed.
Is Lucid Dreaming the Dream Control?
Lucidity is not synonymous with dream control. It’s possible to be lucid and have little control over dream content, and conversely, to have a great deal of control without being explicitly aware that you are dreaming. However, becoming lucid in a dream is likely to increase the extent to which you can deliberately influence the course of events. Once lucid, dreamers usually choose to do something permitted only by the extraordinary freedom of the dream state, such as flying. Flight being one of the most spiritual gifts of Lucidity.
You always have the choice of how much control you want to exert. For example, you could continue with whatever you were doing when you became lucid, with the added knowledge that you are dreaming. Or you could try to change everything - the dream scene, yourself, other dream characters. It is not always possible to perform "magic" in dreams, like changing one object into another or transforming scenes. A dreamer's ability to succeed at this seems to depend a lot on the dreamer's confidence and perception of reality. Believe you can, believe you can't; either way, you're right. On the other hand, it appears there are some constraints on dream control that may be independent of belief.
How are Lucid Dreams Related to Out-of-Body Experiences
This spiritually perceived phenomenon at times occurs in which people experience the compelling sensation that they have somehow "left their bodies." The "out-of-body experience", as this fascinating experience takes a variety of forms. In the most typical, you are lying in bed, apparently awake, when suddenly you experience a range of primarily somatic sensations, often including vibrations, heaviness, and paralysis. Then you experience the vivid sensation of separating from your "physical body" in what feels like a second body, often floating above the bed.
It is important to note the distinction between the phenomenal reality of the out-of-body experiences and the various interpretations of the experience. The body we ordinarily feel ourselves to be (or if you like, to inhabit) is a phenomenal or mental body rather than a physical body. The space we see around us is not physical space as "common sense" tells us, but as insight makes clear, a phenomenal or mental space. In general, our consciousness is a mental model of the world.
Lucid dreaming is a "stepping stone" to achieving an out-of-body experience. Conversely, many lucid dreamers have had the experience of feeling themselves "leave the body" at the onset of a lucid dream. It seems that out-of-body experiences can occur in the same physiological state as lucid dreams. Wake-initiated lucid dreams were three times more likely to be labeled "out-of-body experience" than dream initiated lucid dreams. If you believe yourself to have been awake, then you are more likely to take the experience at face value and believe yourself to have literally left your physical body in some sort of mental or "astral" body floating around in the "real" physical world. If, on the other hand, you think of the experience as a dream, then you are likely to identify the out-of-body experience body as a dream body image and the environment of the experience as a dream world.
Ancient teaching has stated that there are three energies of oneself, the body, the mind and the soul. Whether there is the independent action between the soul and the awareness of the mind is for each of us to find the answer to in our own way. Is the astral body the actual substance of our soul or the manifestation and projection of our minds indelible will as some consider remote viewing to be? Only your perceptions and interpretations of yourself awareness can answer that question.
Learning How to Have Lucid Dreams
How To Remember Your Dreams
Remembering your dreams is the starting place for learning to have lucid dreams. If you don't recall your dreams, even if you do have a lucid dream, you won't remember it! And, in order to be able to recognize your dreams as dreams while they are happening, you have to be familiar with the way your own dreams work. Before it will be worth your time to work on lucid dream induction methods, you should be able to recall at least one dream every night.
Getting plenty of sleep is the first step to good dream recall. If you are rested it will be easier to focus on your goal of recalling dreams, and you won't mind so much taking the time during the night to record your dreams. Another benefit of getting plenty of sleep is that dream periods get longer and closer together as the night proceeds. The first dream of the night is the shortest, perhaps 10 minutes in length, while after 8 hours of sleep; dream periods can be 45 minutes to an hour long. We all dream every night, about one dream period every 90 minutes. People who say they never dream simply never remember their dreams. You may have more than one dream during a REM (dream) period, separated by short arousals that are most often forgotten. It is generally accepted that dreams are not recalled unless the sleeper awakens directly from the dream, rather than after going on to other stages of sleep.
It can be useful while you are developing your dream recall to keep a complete dream journal. Keep the journal handy by your bed and record every dream you remember, no matter how fragmentary. Start by writing down all your dreams, not just the complete, coherent, or interesting ones - even if all you remember is a face or a room, write it down.
When you awaken in the night and recall what you were dreaming, record the dream right away. If you don't, in the morning you may find you remember nothing about the dream, and you will certainly have forgotten many interesting details. We seem to have built-in dream erasers in our minds, which make dream experiences more difficult to recall than waking ones. So, whenever you remember a dream, write it down. If you don't feel like writing out a long dream story at 3 AM, note down key points of the plot. Also write down the precise content of any dialogue from the dream, because words will almost inevitably be forgotten in a very short time.
Possibly, all you will need to do to increase your dream recall is to remind yourself as you are falling asleep that you wish to awaken fully from your dreams and remember them. This works in a similar manner to remembering to awaken at a certain time in the morning. Additionally, it may help to tell yourself you will have interesting, meaningful dreams. A major cause of dream forgetting is interference from other thoughts competing for your attention. Therefore, let your first thought upon awakening be, "What was I just dreaming?" Before attempting to write down the dream, go over the dream in your mind, re-telling the dream story to yourself. DO NOT MOVE from the position in which you awaken, and do not think of the day's concerns. Cling to any clues of what you might have been experiencing - moods, feelings, fragments of images, and try to rebuild a story from them. When you recall a scene, try to recall what happened before that, and before that, reliving the dream in reverse. If after a few minutes, all you remember is a mood, describe it in a journal. If you can recall nothing, try imagining a dream you might have had - note your present feelings, list your current concerns to yourself, and ask yourself, "Did I dream about that?" Even if you can't recall anything in bed, events or scenes of the day may remind you of something you dreamed the night before. Be ready to notice this when it happens, and record whatever you remember.
If you find that you sleep too deeply to awaken from your dreams, try setting an alarm clock to wake you at a time when you are likely to be dreaming. Since our REM periods occur at approximately 90-minute intervals, good times will be multiples of 90 minutes after you go to sleep. Aim for the later REM periods by setting the alarm to go off at 4.5, 6, or 7.5 hours after you go to sleep. Once again, when you wake up, don't move and think first of what you were just dreaming before writing.
To remind yourself of your intentions and get yourself into the spirit of your dreams, read through your dream journal at bedtime helps you program your dreams. Learning to remember your dreams may seem difficult at first, but if you persist, you will almost certainly succeed - and may find yourself remembering four or more dreams per night. Of course, once you reach this level, you probably won't want to write them all down - just the significant or compelling ones. The more familiar you become with the style of your own dreams, the easier it will be to remember you are dreaming while you are dreaming - and explore the world of your dreams while still on the scene.
Developing the Skill to Lucid Dreams
Reality Testing
Please note that its important to train your mind to recognize the differences between a dream and reality, by doing so you will have greater success in taking control of your dreams and become lucid in the dream state. This is a good technique for beginners. Assign yourself several times a day to perform the following exercise. Also do it anytime you think of it, especially when something odd occurs or when you are reminded of dreams. It helps to choose specific occasions like: when you see your face in the mirror, look at your watch, arrive at work or home, etc. The more frequently and thoroughly you practice this technique, the better it will work.
Do a Reality Test
Carry some text with you or wear a digital watch throughout the day. To do a reality test, read the words or the numbers on the watch. Then, look away and look back, observing the letters or numbers to see if they change. Try to make them change while watching them. Research shows that text changes 75% of the time it is re-read once and changes 95% it is re-read twice. If the characters do change, or are not normal, or do not make sense, then you are most probably dreaming. Enjoy! If the characters are normal, stable, and sensible, then you probably aren't dreaming.
Imagine that Your Surroundings are a Dream
If you are fairly certain you are awake (you can never be 100% sure!), then say to yourself, "I may not be dreaming now, but if I were, what would it be like?" Visualize as vividly as possible that you are dreaming. Intently imagine that what you are seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling is all a dream. Imagine instabilities in your environment, words changing, scenes transforming, perhaps you floating off the ground. Create in yourself the feeling that you are in a dream. Holding that feeling.
Visualize Yourself Enjoying a Dream Activity.
Decide on something you would like to do in your next lucid dream, perhaps flying, talking to particular dream characters, an answer to a troubling question or just exploring the dream world. Continue to imagine that you are dreaming now, and visualize yourself enjoying your chosen activity.
Dreamsigns
Another dream-recall related exercise refers to elements of dreams that indicate that you are dreaming. (Examples: miraculous flight, purple cats, malfunctioning devices, and meeting deceased people.) By studying your dreams you can become familiar with your own personal dreamsigns and set your mind to recognize them and become lucid in future dreams. The exercises for noticing dreamsigns while you are awake, so that the skill carries over into your dreams is a skill worth developing. To succeed at recognizing these cues in dreams, you need to practice looking for them and recognizing them while you are awake.
Setup Dream Recall
Set your mind to awaken from dreams and recall them. When you awaken from a dream, recall it as completely as you can.
Focus Your Intent
While returning to sleep, concentrate single-mindedly on your intention to remember to recognize that you're dreaming. Tell yourself: "Next time I'm dreaming, I will remember I'm dreaming," repeatedly, like a mantra. Put real meaning into the words and focus on this idea alone. If you find yourself thinking about anything else, let it go and bring your mind back to your intention.
See Yourself Becoming Lucid
As you continue to focus on your intention to remember when you're dreaming, imagine that you are back in the dream from which you just awakened (or another one you have had recently if you didn't remember a dream on awakening). Imagine that this time you recognize that you are dreaming. Look for a dreamsign - something in the dream that demonstrates plainly that it is a dream. When you see it say to yourself: "I'm dreaming!" and continue your fantasy. Imagine yourself carrying out your plans for your next lucid dream. For example, if you want to fly in your lucid dream, imagine yourself flying after you come to the point in your fantasy when you become lucid.
Repeat Until Your Intention is Set
Repeat these steps until either you fall asleep or are sure that your intention is set. If, while falling asleep, you find yourself thinking of anything else, repeat the procedure so that the last thing in your mind before falling asleep is your intention to remember to recognize the next time you are dreaming.
How Can I Prevent Waking Up as Soon as I Become Lucid?
Beginning lucid dreamers often have the problem of waking up right after becoming lucid. This obstacle may prevent some people from realizing the value of lucid dreaming. Fortunately there are ways to overcome this problem. The first is to remain calm in the dream. Becoming lucid is exciting, but expressing the excitement can awaken you. It is possible to enjoy the thrill that accompanies the dawning of lucidity without allowing the activation to overwhelm you. Be like a poker player with an ideal hand. Relax and engage with the dream rather than withdrawing into your inner joy of accomplishment. Then, if the dream shows signs of ending, such as a loss of detail, vividness, and apparent reality of the imagery, the technique of "spinning" can often restore the dream. You spin your dream body around like a child trying to get dizzy or dropping to the ground in the dream or you can try relaxing completely might help prevent awakening from a dream. If one method fails then try another method until you find what works for you, your dream body is unique to you and the experience is completely in your control.
I wish each of you joyful and safe adventures in Lucid Dreaming and Out of Body Experiences.
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Almaz |
Latest page update: made by Almaz
, Jun 3 2008, 2:20 AM EDT
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