清明梦官网
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Contents
1 Introduction 3
1.1 Disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 About dreaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 About lucid dreaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 Possible dangers of lucid dreaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.5 Similar techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.6 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2 Dream Recall 13
3 Induction Techniques 17
3.1 Preliminary Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2 Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.3 Other methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.4 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4 Using 51
4.1 Dream stabilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.2 Recovering from lost visuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.3 Altering the dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.4 What you can do . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5 Glossary 59
6 Appendices 63
7 Further Reading 65
7.1 On the web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
7.2 In print . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
8 FAQ 69
9 Contributors 81
List of Figures 87
10 Licenses 91
10.1 GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
10.2 GNU Free Documentation License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
10.3 GNU Lesser General Public License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
1
1 Introduction
1.1 Disclaimer
When attempting some of the techniques in this book, you may have some frightening
experiences, such as falling sensations or sleep paralysis 1 . Although the authors attest these
are not dangerous, you should avoid techniques that create these sensations if you would
prefer not to experience them.
Your own expectations will have a significant effect on your dreams. If you believe that
dream characters act dull and lifelessly, they are far more likely to do so. If you believe they
can be creative, original, and surprising, they are far more likely to be. Remember that the
easier you think it is to dream lucidly, the easier it will be.
Many of the techniques and “facts” presented on these pages are not backed up by scientific
research. This is not to say that these techniques do not work, only that they may be
placebos 2 or be ineffective much of the time.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sleep%20paralysis
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo%20effect
3
Introduction
1.2 About dreaming
Figure 1 Stages of sleep
The stages of sleep
Each night, we spend about one and a half to two hours dreaming. We dream about once
every 90 minutes of sleep. The time you spend in dreams becomes longer throughout the
night, from about 10 minutes to around 45 minutes or slightly longer. But what happens
when we sleep?
There are five stages of sleep: four stages of NREM (Non-REM) sleep, also called SWS
(Slow-Wave Sleep), and one stage of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. The most vivid
4
About lucid dreaming
and remembered dreams occur during REM sleep. Research has shown that a person being
woken from REM sleep will account having just been in a dream roughly 80% of the time,
while this percentage is 15% during non-REM sleep. 3 One sleep cycle is roughly 90 minutes
long.
• (NREM 1) The first stage is a transition state between wakefulness and sleep. This is
the stage in which hypnagogic 4 imagery occurs. It usually passes into stage 2 within a
few minutes.
• (NREM 2) During stage 2, the body gradually shuts down, and brain waves become
longer in wavelength.
• (NREM 3) Stage 3 usually occurs 30 to 45 minutes after falling asleep the first time.
Large, slow delta brain waves are generated.
• (NREM 4) Stage 4 is often called “deep sleep” or “delta sleep”. The heart beats the
slowest and there is the least brain activity. It is during this stage that sleepwalking
usually occurs.
• After stage 4, the NREM stages reverse and move back to stage 2, and then into REM
sleep.
• (REM) During REM sleep, some parts of the brain are nearly as active as while awake.
In this stage, your eyes flicker rapidly (hence the acronym Rapid Eye Movement). Your
body is paralyzed, preventing the body from acting out dreams. 5
After the REM state, you sometimes wake briefly. This is usually forgotten by the time you
wake up in the morning. If you don’t wake up, you go to stage 2.
I never dream anyway.
Actually, everyone has dreams — but some people simply don’t remember them. In the next
chapter, you will find out how to improve your dream recall.
Why do we dream? What do dreams mean?
These questions are outside the scope of this book, but you can find several hypotheses in
the Wikipedia article on dream interpretation 6 .
1.3 About lucid dreaming
Lucid dreaming is simply being aware that you are dreaming. With enough experience, you
can increase control over your dreams — anything from flying to creating people and places,
and even changing into animals. Having a lucid dream is like being the director of your own
movie! A passage from the fantasy novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (chapter at
King’s Cross) that may explain what this looks like:
3 Arno F. Wittig. Schaum ‘ s outline of theory and problems of introduction to psychology. McGraw-Hill,
1977. Retrieved from Google Books ˆ{ http://books.google.ca/books?id=P2WjBpHq9IcC&lpg=
PP1&dq=schaum’s%20outline%20of%20theory%20and%20problems%20of%20introduction%20to%
20psychology&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=&f=false} on September 23, 2009.
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia
5 Rochelle Merilien. Sleep Paralysis. Retrieved September 21, 2009 from http://serendip.brynmawr.
edu/biology/b103/f03/web2/rmerilien.html
6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream%20interpretation
5
Introduction
“For the first time, he wished he were clothed. Barely had the wish formed
in his head than robes appeared a short distance away.”
Lucid dreams have been scientifically proven to exist. Stephen LaBerge of The Lucidity
Institute 7 used a special machine to track eye movements during a dream (these are linked to
your eye movements within the dream). He asked lucid dreamers to point their eyes left and
right in quick succession once they became “conscious” in their dreams, and this movement
was recorded on the machine. For more information on this and other experiments, read
Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming (ISBN in Further Reading 8 ).
There are plenty of reasons you might want to dream lucidly:
• For fun ! Just flying in a lucid dream is an exhilarating feeling. Lucid dreams are generally
far more intense and vivid than most non-lucid dreams. You can use a lucid dream to
wind down after a long day.
• Transforming into animals or getting superpowers is a unique experience that is hard
to get any other way.
• If you are particularly interested in dreams — either spiritually or psychologically —
trying lucid dreaming could help you in your research.
• If you ‘ re writing fiction or even creating a world for a computer game, lucid dreaming
can help you visualize it. You could ask your characters how they feel about something
or what they think will happen.
• Some people compose music in their lucid dreams.
• Lucid dreams can be realistic enough to rehearse a speech or musical performance.
• You can relive previous dreams or experiences.
• They can help in dream interpretation and communicating with your subcon-
scious.
I can’t control my dreams.
This is very rarely actually the case (though sometimes it is in nightmares). Usually it is
just your memory which treats you as though it were beyond your control. If you become
lucid in a dream where you have a body, you will almost always be able to control your
body. However, you might not manage to do anything else. Don ‘ t worry, though — most
people have no problem with jumping very high or flying in a lucid dream!
On the other hand, parts of your brain are less active while dreaming, which can lead to
dream/trance logic and sometimes choices you will later regret. For example, you might
choose to continue your lucid dream, although you know that once you wake you will only
remember half of it. Once you wake up, you may wish that you had stopped your dream.
Another example is of somebody who dreamt they were sitting next to Mother Theresa.
They wondered if they might be dreaming, thinking isn’t Mother Theresa dead? They then
concluded that she was obviously right next to them and therefore alive, and that it wasn’t
a dream!
Are lucid dreams related to psi phenomena 9 ?
7 http://www.lucidity.com
8 Chapter 7.2 on page 65
9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology
6
About lucid dreaming
There are differing views on this. Some people claim to have organized shared dreams or
precognitive dreams through lucid dreaming. Others say these are simply created in the
brain like any other dream, something like self-hypnosis.
How long does it take to learn how to dream lucidly?
This completely depends on the person and circumstances. Some people have a lucid dream
after just a few nights of learning about it, while for others, it may take months! If you don ‘ t
get enough sleep or feel too stressed after work to regularly practice induction techniques,
then it may take a long time, especially if you expect it to. It will also depend on how much
effort you put in. However, everybody has the ability to dream lucidly.
I think I do this naturally. Does this happen?
It is quite rare to have regular lucid dreams naturally, although most people have had a
lucid dream at some point in their lives. If you want to increase the frequency of your lucid
dreams, carry on reading through the book; otherwise, skip to the Using 10 section to get
some ideas for your dreams.
I had [a dream], was I lucid?
In general, a lucid dream is defined as a dream in which you know you are dreaming at some
point, regardless of anything else. Even if you were lucid one second but lost your lucidity,
it is still technically a lucid dream.
However, this can be a little misleading. Sometimes you dream that you fall asleep and have
a lucid dream! This is often thought of as a sign that you will have a proper lucid dream
soon, as your mind is thinking a lot about lucid dreams.
Try using this table:
Signs you were lucid Signs you weren’t lucid
• Doing a reality check which gave a
positive result
• Attempting to stabilize the dream
(see the Using 11 chapter)
• Attempting to fly, walk through mir-
rors, etc. immediately after realizing
you are dreaming
• Waking up as soon as you realize that
you are dreaming
• Remarks to dream characters that
you are dreaming
• Dreaming that you were dreaming
• Having an unusually poor recall for
that dream after you became lucid
• Not recognizing illogical parts of the
dream as a dream
• Attempting to fly, walk through mir-
rors, etc. without success
• Treating dream characters as you
would real people*
* However, some people may have lucid dreams and deliberately choose to treat dream
characters as if they were real. In fact, it can be intriguing to have real conversations with
10 Chapter 4 on page 51
11 Chapter 4.1 on page 51
7
Introduction
dream characters, such as physics or philosophy discussions – you may discover they know
more than you do!
1.4 Possible dangers of lucid dreaming
There is no current evidence of lucid dreaming being abnormal or unhealthy in any way.
However, there may be some more or less minor side effects associated with having lucid
dreams. Please don’t let this scare you away from trying this; rather, remember that
with dreams you are dealing with your own subconscious mind and recklessness is not
recommended.
1.4.1 Addiction
Lucid dreaming can be used for different purposes. Some may want to try it just for fun,
using it as a “safe drug”, or a personal virtual reality machine. Having fun is a fully valid
application of lucid dreaming. However, be careful not to be addicted to this way of escaping
your waking life. If you find that you are spending more time asleep than actually needed,
or that you are thinking more about lucid dreams than your real waking life, you might
want to consider taking a look at your life: if you ‘ re accomplishing the goals you have for
yourself, and/or are content with the state of your life, there ‘ s likely no cause for alarm. If
you see that your life needs work, you might take a break… or, you might use the tools of
lucid dreaming to explore what needs to be done in your life.
1.4.2 Alienation
Most people have never even heard of lucid dreaming, much less ever experienced it. Some
people are also less than open-minded and receptive to new ideas. Don’t be surprised if
someone considers this whole phenomenon “weird” or “crazy” (which it is not). Don’t preach,
either; you don’t have to convince anybody.
Often people who spontaneously lucid dream, especially children, may find it surprising that
not everyone does. They may even start thinking that they are the only people in the world
who have lucid dreams. If they’re worried, the best support is to let them know that they’re
not alone.
1.4.3 Dissociation
Lucid dreaming may weaken the borders between waking and dreaming, the conscious and
subconscious mind, reality and fantasy. This might lead to problems of a dissociative nature.
Probably the most common form of dissociation involves having problems distinguishing
your waking memories from dream memories. Everyone who recalls at least one dream will
have to sort out their dreams from reality in the morning. This can really be a problem for
those who have previously had zero recall and, due to lucid dreaming, have had a major
uptick in recall. Now, suddenly, they have all these excess, illogical memories to sort out.
This is unlikely to be a major problem , but may be a big annoyance. An example is
8
Possible dangers of lucid dreaming
when you have actually misplaced an item, and “find it” in a dream. If you cannot distinguish
dream from reality you will now think you know where that item is, perhaps even placed it
where you felt sure to find it later, but when you awake it will not be there.
However, there are signs that you should watch for which indicate a larger problem may be
developing. Lucid dreaming in itself should not cause these to appear in a waking state:
• Ability to ignore extreme pain or what would normally cause extreme pain
• Absorption in a computer game, television program or movie
• Remembering the past so vividly one seems to be reliving it
• Finding evidence of having done things one can’t remember doing
• Not remembering important events in one’s life
• Being in a familiar place but finding it unfamiliar
• Seeing oneself as if looking at another person
• Other people and objects do not seem real
• Looking at the world through a fog or haze
• Not recognizing friends or family members
• Finding unfamiliar things among one’s belongings
• Finding oneself in a place but unaware of how one got there
• Finding oneself dressed in clothes one doesn’t remember putting on
If this has happened, and there is no other cause (e.g. drugs), take a break from lucid
dreaming for a while. In fact, take a break from anything fictional for a while, at least
until symptoms stop. In addition, you may consider avoiding experimentation with lucid
dreaming if you have some form of schizophrenia (although very few schizophrenic people
admit that they are).
PLEASE NOTE: The following possibilities are controversial and have not been proven.
1.4.4 Controversial: Accidentally encountering “spiritual” entities
This depends on your worldview. If dreams are a creation of your brain and nothing more,
you don’t need to worry about spirits or anything similar. If you want to be on the safe
side, treating objects in your dream decently and politely won’t do you any harm.
The book “The Art of Dreaming” by Carlos Castaneda has a lot to say on this subject. (See
Further Reading 12 )
1.4.5 Controversial: Creating bad habits or becoming a control freak
When lucid dreaming, you have the option to control the dream world in ways that are
impossible in the waking world. You can, for example, make objects appear or disappear, or
make people act according to your will. Some people believe this may lead your subconscious
to desire this kind of control in the waking world, where it’s highly inappropriate. Also, you
might be tempted to apply dream-world solutions to waking-life problems instead of actually
facing them; for example, just willing bad things to go away or escaping or destroying them
12 Chapter 7 on page 65
9
Introduction
by superpowers. Again, this is probably more of a problem if you are not mentally stable at
the outset of your dreaming process.
1.4.6 Controversial: Exhaustion
Some people believe that experiencing many artificially induced lucid dreams often enough
can be very exhausting. The main reason for this phenomenon is the result of the lucid
dreams expanding the length of time between REM states. With fewer REMs per night,
this state in which you experience actual sleep and your body recovers becomes infrequent
enough to become a problem. This is just as exhausting as if you were to wake up every
twenty or thirty minutes and watch TV. The effect is dependent on how often your brain
attempts to lucidly dream per night. If you enter into a routine of attempting to lucidly
dream, you may cause recursive lucid dreams that occur at each state change.
1.4.7 Controversial: Inability to stop
If you have trained your mind to the point where it can step over the boundary without
conscious effort, you might find it difficult to stop. Do not become alarmed if you have
trouble stopping the process of lucid dreaming, it is possible to get out of the habit. As
long as you truly expect to stop having lucid dreams regularly, you will. You just need to
stop any further attempts to lucid dream, and within a few months the lucid dreaming will
go away by itself. Remember; do not be alarmed if, even with your attempts to stop, you
experience further lucid dreams. It might take a while to break the habit. If you have real
concerns, it may be advisable to talk with your doctor or therapist regarding appropriate
treatment, including medication.
1.4.8 Controversial: Undesirable false awakenings
One of the advantages of having lucid dreams is being able to change a dream or wake up
if things are not turning out as planned. But sometimes, while trying to leave a dream,
you ‘ ll get “stuck” in a series of false awakenings. A false awakening is when you seem to
have woken up but are actually still dreaming. For example, you may find yourself waking
up in your room. But once there, new things will start happening—for example, someone
might visit, or you might wander outside because of an odd noise, or there might be objects
all over the place. Then you might realize you ‘ re dreaming, but “wake up” immediately, and
the cycle repeats until you eventually do wake up or else dream about something different.
This happens mostly with nightmares or when your body is very tired, so your attempts to
wake up cause false awakenings. It ‘ s a good idea to get in the habit of doing a reality check
just after waking up so that you’ll realize when this happens and become lucid.
When this happens repeatedly in the same night, it can be very tiring and often frightening.
Not only can the belief of being fully awake in your room while being exposed to unusual
situations be scary, but you also may start fearing you won ‘ t be able to actually wake up.
And, depending on the content of the dream, since all your dreams tend to start in your
room, you may fear what could happen once you actually do wake up.
10
Similar techniques
But this is not a very common situation. Once you are lucid, it is usually easier to wake up
or lose the dream than it is to keep dreaming.
1.5 Similar techniques
I can do astral projection, should I learn how to dream lucidly?
Possibly not. If you often enter a “dream world” after having the experience of leaving your
body, that is basically the same as the method called Wake-Initiation of Lucid Dreams 13 .
Keep in mind that many people believe that “astral projection” or “out-of-body experiences”
are actually lucid dreams. Whether these are real psi phenomena 14 or the creative product of
your dreaming mind, learning to dream lucidly will expand the variety of your experiences.
If this is so similar, why learn lucid dreaming and not astral projection?
Here are some reasons:
• Lucid dreaming is something that everybody can understand. In fact, most people have
already had a lucid dream. No single theory about astral projection is accepted even in
the astral projection community.
• If you are prepared to spend money, there are some gadgets that can help induce lucid
dreams. They usually emit light or sound signals shortly after the REM state is detected.
Hypnosis tapes usually focus more on self-improvement and you cannot decide what to
do with your hypnotic trance.
• If you don’t believe in psi phenomena 15 , you will likely be much more comfortable reading
books about lucid dreaming than those on astral projection. If you have to keep stopping
and thinking “but that ‘ s not possible”, there ‘ s always the danger that your feelings of
skepticism will affect the way you think about lucid dreaming and make it much harder
for you to do.
• You would be sleeping anyway, so it doesn’t take up waking time.
• You’ll be able to use this Wikibook to your advantage!
1.6 References
Lucidforum.net 16 — Lucid Forum, a great community of lucid dreamers. Ready to help you
and share experiences.
Category:Lucid Dreaming 17
13 Chapter 3.2.4 on page 36
14 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology
15 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology
16 http://lucidforum.net
17 http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Category%3ALucid%20Dreaming
11
Introduction
es:Sueño lúcido/Introducción 18 it:Sogno lucido/Introduzione 19 pl:Świadome_-
śnienie/Wstęp 20
18 http://es.wikibooks.org/wiki/Sue%F1o%20l%FAcido%2FIntroducci%F3n
19 http://it.wikibooks.org/wiki/Sogno%20lucido%2FIntroduzione
20 http://pl.wikibooks.org/wiki/%01%5Awiadome_%01%5Bnienie%2FWst%01%19p
12
2 Dream Recall
It is essential to improve your dream recall. There are at least two reasons for this:
1. While it is very rare, it is possible to forget about a lucid dream. It would be
meaningless to invest so much effort into lucid dreaming, only to forget about it upon
waking.
2. Recording your dreams will eventually allow you to start recognizing recurring patterns,
characters, and scenarios. Having these details will be invaluable once you begin
practicing lucid dream induction techniques.
While asleep, we experience a period of REM sleep approximately every 90 minutes. It is
during this time that we typically dream. These periods are initially very brief – only around
10 minutes. But as the night progresses, these periods become increasingly longer – often
stretching to over 45 minutes at a time. Waking up in the midst of dreaming dramatically
increases your ability to remember the details of the dream. Therefore, try setting an alarm
clock to 4 1
2 , 6, or 7
1
2
hours after you normally fall asleep. This should awaken you directly
from a dream.
The most important part of improving your dream recall is keeping a dream journal (or
a dream diary). Virtually any medium will do; an office notebook, artist’s sketchpad, an
online journal, a sheet of paper, or even a Dictaphone — whatever is easiest for you. Here
are some guidelines for keeping your journal:
• Write all your dreams and only your dreams
• Write down everything you can possibly remember about the dream. Phrases, colors,
feelings…everything. Record them as soon as you wake up.
• Sketch pictures into your notebook to help you remember symbols, places, faces, and
other visual dream elements.
• If you wake in the night and have trouble waking up enough to record a dream you can
use the mnemonic technique recommended in Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas ‘ s “The
Memory Book” of changing something in your room, for example, knocking something
onto the floor, and associating that with an image from your dream. On waking the
displaced object should trigger your memory of the image and so make it easier for
you to remember the dream.
• Ritualise your diary
• Using a dedicated pen in a special color helps to make keeping your journal more of a
ritual.
• You might want to copy out rough notes into a neater dream diary later on in the day.
This helps ingrain the dream in your mind.
• Recall as much as you can while still lying bed
13
Dream Recall
• Go to bed early to ensure that you wake a while before you start your day. In this
free time, mull over any dreams you had and do a reality check 1 .
• You may want to keep your eyes closed for as long as possible, particularly if you
wake up near the sunrise. Try to use a notebook which holds a pen and scribble down
whatever you can with your eyes still closed.
• Stay in the same position and run your dreams over in your head a few times before
arising from bed. After you have remembered your dream, move to a different position
(with your eyes still closed) that you normally sleep in, then recall your dream. The
position that you are in may help your brain remember what dream you had while
sleeping in that position.
• If you are still unable to remember anything, allow your mind to wander through
events of yesterday or through any issues you have been thinking about. These may
help to trigger details of your dreams..
• If you share a bed with a partner, make a habit of exchanging dreams upon waking
before talking about anything else.
• Be prepared to record dreams throughout the day
• Keep a small dream diary notebook with you all the time. It is quite easy to remember
a dream in the day and then forget it by the time you get home.
• Even if you only get a fleeting feeling of some dream during the day, note down as
much as you can remember about the dream and what triggered the memory.
• Think about your dream or dreams throughout the day, and ask yourself “What did I
dream?” several times. Often, you only get a good answer to this an hour after you
woke up.
• You can try to remember your dream by “back-tracking” — start from the moment when
you wake up, and try to remember what you were doing before that. You may even be
able to reconstruct your dream to the beginning.
• If you find that many of your dreams are about certain items, such as cars and painting,
then, if you cannot remember your dream in the morning, think about whether it contained
your specific dream signs, in this case, cars and painting. You can even make a “dream
lexicon” — a piece of paper with common dream items written on it, so you can read it
every time you wake up.
Also, use the autosuggestion technique 2 to improve your dream recall (see the full description
of the autosuggestion technique in the next chapter).
Once you have a lot of dreams in your diary, you can start looking through it for dream
signs. Some dream signs are commonly experienced by many people. These include things
like flying, being chased, chasing something, or being in an old house. However, a number of
signs will be unique to you. These unique signs may involve meeting with significant people
(from your life), being at your job, or talking with passed away relatives.
Stay alert to any of your dream signs appearing within in real life. And when they happen,
always perform a reality check 3 to determine if you are dreaming.
I sometimes remember more dreams than the time I was asleep could allow.
How is this possible?
1 Chapter 3.1.3 on page 18
2 Chapter 3.2.4 on page 36
3 Chapter 3.1.3 on page 18
14
References
You may have had several dream scenes within a single dream period or some memories
could be from past nights.
It is also possible that dream time doesn ‘ t strictly correspond to real time. Days may pass in a
dream during a single night ‘ s sleep. Dreams which seem to last for hours while you have them
have sometimes been found to actually have a duration of only a few minutes. There have been
accounts of people having lucid dreams lasting years: Robert Monroe reported having a lucid
dream that lasted a hundred years. http://www.web-us.com/lucid/luciddreamingFAQ.
htm#How%20can%20I%20stop%20real%20time%20in%20my%20Lucid%20Dreams?
You might also be having a memory that was not an actual dream, but rather a waking
memory mistakenly related with dream memories instead of being properly related with
waking memories. Thus, these memories might not be dreams from the past, but rather
ongoing subconscious experiences.
In what order should I write my dreams?
It is usually very hard to tell if the dreams you dreamt happened in the order you recalled
them. Generally they are written in the order remembered, though others may prefer to
write them in a completely random order. Find what works for you. If you dream that you
told somebody about a previous dream that happened the same night, then that previous
dream probably came before the other one (though the “previous dream” could have been a
false memory). The important thing is to write the dream down. Later, if you can recall the
order of the dreams, just go back into your diary and rearrange them.
Lightened Dream 4 – a free journal designed for lucid dreamers. Threads about dream recall
at ld4all.com 5
Articles about dream recall at The Lucidity Institute 6 : Importance of Keeping a Dream
Journal July 2001 7 April 2002 8 Latest 9
Articles about dream recall at Dream Views 10 : Dream Recall 11 , Dream Recall tutorial by
“wasup” 12
top 13 Category:Lucid Dreaming 14
es:Sueño lúcido/Recordar sueños 15 it:Sogno lucido/Ricordare i sogni 16 pl:Świadome_-
śnienie/Pamiętanie_snów 17
4 http://www.lucidcode.com/LightenedDream
5 http://ld4all.com
6 http://www.lucidity.com
7 http://www.novadreamer.com/discus/messages/41/1672.html?1019732505
8 http://www.novadreamer.com/discus/messages/41/1693.html?1022967468
9 http://www.novadreamer.com/discus/messages/41/340.html?1059959761
10 http://www.dreamviews.com/
11 http://www.dreamviews.com/dreamrecall.php
12 http://www.dreamviews.com/community/showthread.php?t=6207
13 Chapter 3 on page 17
14 http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Category%3ALucid%20Dreaming
15 http://es.wikibooks.org/wiki/Sue%F1o%20l%FAcido%2FRecordar%20sue%F1os
16 http://it.wikibooks.org/wiki/Sogno%20lucido%2FRicordare%20i%20sogni
17 http://pl.wikibooks.org/wiki/%01%5Awiadome_%01%5Bnienie%2FPami%01%19tanie_sn%F3w
15
3 Induction Techniques
This page describes a number of lucid dream induction techniques. It is recommended that
you be able to recall 1 at least one dream per night in order to maximize the effectiveness of
these methods.
3.1 Preliminary Knowledge
Certain elements are common to many of the lucidity-inducing techniques discussed later
in this chapter. To better understand these techniques, these common components will be
discussed first.
3.1.1 Sleep Interruption
An element shared by many of the techniques is sleep interruption. Sleep interruption is the
process of purposefully awakening during your normal sleep period and falling asleep a short
time later (10 − 60 minutes). This can be easily done by using a relatively quiet alarm clock
to bring you to consciousness without fully waking you. If you find yourself resetting the
clock in your sleep, it can be placed on the other side of the room, forcing you to get out of
bed to turn it off. Other biorhythm-based options involve drinking lots of fluid (particularly
water or tea, a known diuretic 2 ) prior to sleep, forcing one to get up to urinate.
Sleep interruption is a natural part of the MILD technique (described below) which trains
you to arise immediately after your dreams end.
3.1.2 Sleep Continuity
If you have trouble initially falling asleep, avoid drinking water for about an hour before
going to bed. Otherwise, you may find yourself running to the bathroom, disrupting any
attempts at lucidity. Also, try to avoid caffeine and sugar before bed. However, depending
on your sensitivity, caffeine may only stimulate your mind as opposed to your body. This
extra grip on consciousness could be helpful in inducing lucid dreams. Exercising during the
day is an excellent way of preparing your body for sleep. However, be sure to not exercise
inside the three hours before bedtime, as your body will be stimulated for a short time
afterwards. The morning or afternoon is the best time for this.
1 Chapter 2 on page 13
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diuretic
17
Induction Techniques
If you still have difficulty getting to sleep, try reading about lucid dreaming just before going
to sleep. Your subconscious will likely absorb this information, increasing your chances of
experiencing a lucid dream. If you do decide to read before going to sleep, keep a lamp next
to your bed as physically getting up to turn off the lights may reawaken your body.
3.1.3 Reality checks
A reality check is a test you can perform to see if you ‘ re dreaming or awake. It might seem
odd to test reality when you are sure that you ‘ re awake, but making a habit out of one or
more of these reality checks will hugely increase your chances of having a lucid dream. If,
say, you hold your nose and try to breathe in through it several times throughout the day
then you ‘ re very likely to dream about doing it. And when you dream about performing a
reality check, then of course the results should come out differently, in this case you ‘ ll find
that you are somehow breathing in through your closed nostrils. You ‘ ll know that you ‘ re
dreaming, and be able to take lucid control!
So here are some reality checks. You should be familiar with the entire list even if you only
use a few.
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