Tougher Techniques To Try Today

Hopefully after last week, you are now completely pumped up to start reaping the benefits of lucid dreaming! Most people at this stage in the game still lack a successful data point of lucid dreaming. This is completely normal! In fact, its extremely rare to pick up the ability in less than a few months. This is just a positive reminder that you're not doing anything wrong, and that these skills simply require time to master. In this week’s update, I will be sharing some alternate, albeit slightly more difficult, techniques to achieve your goal that may assist a few readers.

Alternate Technique #1: Sound Wave Stimulation
Basically, this process simply involves queuing up a soundtrack before bed. Sounds easy enough right? Well, perhaps. Several alpha wave lucid dreaming stimulation musical tracks exist out there, and many of them are expensive. In my experience, I have utilized several YouTube mixes to listen to while I sleep. They all work about the same.

Alpha sound waves supposedly help relax the mind to enter a deeper level of sleep more efficiently, and then wake the unconscious mind during slumber so one can begin to lucid dream. Personally, I have had mixed results with this process in the past, but I did tend to have more lucid dreams when I utilized this method (perhaps only because I am thinking about the act of lucid dreaming more when preparing this technique).

Alternate Technique #2: Delayed Focus
If you can wake up and fall back asleep easily during the nighttime, this may be the technique for you! To use this method, set an alarm clock for around the middle of the night. When you are awoken sometime between 2 am and 3 am, consciously think to yourself: I am about to dream. I am going to dream. As you return to catch some z’s, stay focused on the idea that you want to consciously observe your dream. If you successfully stay rooted in reality as you fall back asleep, you will enter a lucid dreaming state. Besides having the motivation to wake up in the middle of the night, remembering why you woke up in the first place can make this trick very hard. To help fix this issue, I suggest writing a reminder note and taping it to the alarm clock you use to wake up.

Remember - this blog does absolutely nothing unless you practice and give your training time. It is fine to be frustrated when you wake up, as long as you don't give up! I am excited to hear about your successes and failure this week. Next week, Im going to talk about how and why using a dream journal in addition to these techniques can be extremely helpful. Recording your own dreams can lead to discoveries that change the lives of people around you. Good luck!

Image Credits (in order of appearance)

Image provided by Tess Watson

Image provided by Daniel Novta

Reap the Benefits

Finally!  Down to the good stuff.  What really makes lucid dreaming worth it? Well, to be honest, the answer is complex, controversial, and based largely on opinion.  Scientific studies are limited on the subject as generating any control for lucid dreaming remain unreachable.  The vast majority of the so-called "benefits" of lucid dreaming are generated by individuals documenting their own experiences. Before I dive into these awesome side effects of lucid dreaming, remember to keep practicing some of the techniques I went over last week to achieve your goal.  I'll be addressing some alternative methods in the weeks to follow!

So why should you want to learn the art of lucid dreaming?  Well for starters, its completely awesome.  On a more realistic note, however, it can be extremely helpful for your mental wellbeing.  Here are a few benefits I have discovered during my few years of waking up in dreamland.

Memory Retention:

The first thing I began to realize once I started lucid dreaming was my ability to retain information for longer periods of time.  For whatever reason, once I woke up inside of my dream, I developed a habit of sitting down at a desk to memorize various facts and lists from real life.  For example, as an extra credit assignment in my high school earth science class, my instructor offered twenty bonus points to whoever could memorize a song of every periodic element.

Naturally, I wanted to learn the song for the bonus points and obtain a cool future party trick.  After listening to the song for an entire day, I still could only memorize about half of the lyrics. Surprisingly, I had a lucid dream that same weekend and could replay the music over and over again in my head.  Once I woke up, the second half was almost memorized!  While this type of memory practice is rare inside lucid dreams, it still goes to show how efficient one can be with their time while they sleep!

Emotional Development:

Alright so this one sounds extremely cheesy... but its actually very accurate. Perhaps as society considers showing emotions to be considered a more female characteristic, or simply because I have the emotional capacity of a gold fish, discerning what I am really feeling during situations can be extremely tricky.  I mean, we all know how braggadocios boys can get when it comes to who hasn't cried in the longest amount of time.  I have found, however, that sorting through real life issue during a lucid dream can actually highlight certain emotions and help me realize how I feel about a certain real-life scenarios.  Maybe the fact that no one is watching makes it easier to explore feelings and decide how to respond.

Looking ahead:  Keep in mind that these are only a few reasons why lucid dreaming can be so exciting.  There are plenty more out there!  I plan to cover even more benefits including some impacts lucid dreaming can have on physical wellbeing.  Next week, we'll take a look at a more advanced technique used by lucid dreamers to maximize wake-time during the night.  In the meantime, keep up the practice; I promise it has the potential to pay off!  Keep dreaming big!

Image Credits (in order of appearance):

Image provided by Brian Cantoni
Image provided by Panli54

Starting Off on the Right Foot

Back so soon?  Hopefully there is still someone out there who is interested in learning my lucid dreaming techniques.  As promised, I plan to cover several techniques I learned to lucid dream with.  But first, you may be wondering, how did I first hear of lucid dreaming?

Strangely enough, I had my very first experience by accident around the age of ten.  The morning after, I can recall asking friends at school if they had ever experienced anything like it.  I received several responses telling me it was impossible or uninteresting.  Naturally, my ten-year-old self did not give up so easily.  As soon as I arrived home from school in the afternoon, I googled my question: can someone become conscious while they are still asleep?  Suddenly, the words "lucid dreaming" were scattered all across the screen.  As I began to read about a brand new culture, I realized that I had accomplished something tons of people can only dream to do.

For the relative future, I forgot about the practice and carried on with life normally.  It wasn't until my junior year of high school that I became interested again.  After reading reports that lucid dreaming could increase how well rested someone felt, the idea became intriguing again.  After all, a junior year course load of AP and dual enrollment classes was already consuming plenty of sleep.  If I could just grasp the equivalent of a few more hours of rest, I would be golden...

Now, down to business.  The following two techniques were the first two I practiced with to achieve a lucid dreaming state:

Technique Number 1: Constant Reality Checks

This technique is based off the theory that, over time, a consciously repeated action can ripple into the unconscious mind.  Simply put, if you do something in real life enough, you may begin to dream about it.  To utilize this method, simply ask yourself during the day "Am I dreaming?"  Make sure to say it out loud.  Soon enough, you may find yourself saying it in your dreams, even if you do not comprehend its meaning.  The more this occurs, the higher chance you may realize you are dreaming.

Technique Number 2: The Double Take

Perhaps a little less noticeable in public, this method is a repetitive action you can rehearse during the day.  As you go about your business, every time you check the time, wait a few seconds and check it one more time.  In a dream, time rarely remains constant, as the short term ability of the brain is muddled.  Once again, repeat this enough during the day and you may notice that a massive time shift takes place at night during a dream.  This surprising outcome may startle you enough to realize you are dreaming. 


So, what now?  Now you officially have a few tools to start learning how to lucid dream.  Go and try them out this week!  Remember, do not get frustrated if you fail the entire week.  It took me years to master what limited consistency I have.  If you are still not convinced to start practicing lucid dreaming, then just wait until next week; I plan to cover what makes lucid dreaming so valuable. 

Image Credits (in order of appearance):
Image provided by Hades2k

Image provided by Kim Carpenter

Lucid What?

What are you getting yourself into?

Welcome expert, amateur, and aspiring lucid dreamers to the most helpful resource or biggest waste of time you've ever stumbled upon.  Falling mostly into the later category, I am trying to utilize my amateur skill to prove to others that anybody can dream lucidly.  Utilizing this website, I plan to express my own step-by-step process that allows me to achieve this goal and cover the benefits of conscious sleeping.  I will also showcase the very significant impacts that dreams have on daily life.

Before you go and devote large amounts of time to following my weekly ramblings, I want to ensure that everyone understands the premise of lucid dreaming.  During a slumber, an individual who is dreaming and suddenly becomes self-aware that they are in a dream is considered to be lucid dreaming.  To truly reach this state, the individual must consciously choose to remain asleep.  Furthermore, several benefits can exist from this practice such as untangling stresses in real life and generating creative concepts.  But more of that later!

Now that the boring stuff is out of the way, you may be asking "Why should I listen to this guy?" The answer is quite simple.  I may be an amateur just like you, but I have more experience in the field of "lucid dozing" than most people.  Not only can we grow together and share our adventures, but I can also empathize with the difficulty of mastering this activity.  I am still learning too!

My first encounter with lucid dreaming occurred slightly over a year ago after months of trying.  I was frustrated, confused, and on the verge of giving up when I made a breakthrough. During a nightmare, I suddenly realized that my fear was illogical since I was dreaming.  Instantly, I gained control of everything in my dream.  I remember the entire vision precisely, right down to the bright red shoes I was wearing.

Feeling extremely excited, I naturally did what most first time lucid dreamers do — I flew.  I took flight and remained far above the Earth's surface for the remainder of my dream. Nowadays, I am not so naive. While flying can be fun, I find it much more rewarding and time efficient to study or even unravel deeper issues from real life.  For example, I utilized my sleep to generate ideas for this very blog concept.  Yes, you heard that right.  A lucid dream giving birth to a blog written solely about lucid dreaming.

Regardless, if what I saying intrigues you, then stick with me for the next several weeks and you will not regret it!  Right now, I am merely focused on repeating the words "lucid dreaming" as much as possible.  The simple act of hearing those words over and over is vitally important for several lessons I plan to impart.  In fact, next week we will dive right into the nitty gritty of lucid dreaming exercises!

Ever heard the phrase "I could do that in my sleep?"  Well, pretty soon that could be you.  Literally.

Image Credits (in order of appearance):

Image provided by Scott Griggs

Image provided by Linus Bohman