Lucid Dreaming
Posted on Jan 25th, 2006
by 
David
David
Explore your world
Imagine that you are walking around and all of the sudden you realize that you are in the middle of a dream. Waves of energy pulse through your body while you look around this mindscape as you imagine all of the potential. A very surreal feeling to say the least. This isn't a concept. This is something that can actually be experienced. In fact it is something that we can practice. Eventually an experience that can occur on a regualr basis. This is Lucid Dreaming.
Imagine a place where you can consciously work on things that you want to improve, whether it be sports, music, public speaking, relationships, even flying! Your imagination is the only limit. Imagine a place where you can explore this world, other worlds, your subconscious, imaginary places. A place where you can do things that you can't do in the "real world". Like mind over matter, walking through solid objects, flying at incredable speeds through mountain ranges, star fields, and microscopic worlds. A place where you can defy the schemas of the physics we are constrained to. Like gravity, 3 dimensions, time, even your own body. You could experience what it's like to inhabit another body. Imagine what it would feel like to be in a snakes body, a dolphin, or a humming bird! Even no body at all. You get the idea. There are many many possibilities. Think of virtual reality with no limitations. And this is just some of the basic stuff. You can explore your memories (imagine finding your keys :)), practice dream yoga, deeper meditation, and dreamless sleep states. Explore levels of consciousness. Even work on astral travel and self healing.
I could go on and on, but I'll shut up.
Sure this just doesn't happen over night. So to speak. It takes strong determination, concentration, a stable mind, and lots of patience. All of which are good for you anyway. These types of things have to be worked on in your daily life in order for them to manifest in the dream state. To practice this technique, we must attain a mindfulness in our waking life so that we can differentiate between these two states. I personally will look for dreamlike situations throughout the day. I'll also ask myself if I'm dreaming. And actually look for indicators and answer the question after some thought. Otherwise I'll probably just answer no in waking life and therefore in the dream state too. I can't believe the things I am accept as real in a dream. Dogs flying by, friends turning into animals and vice versa, familiar places that are totally different than they really are. I have to laugh when I'm thinking about it later. These are all indicators that I'm dreaming. And if I am paying attention, mindful, and asking the right questions, I will be able to enter into a lucid dream much more often.
Ask yourself right now. Am I dreaming? Are you? How do you know? Really! Look around. What is dream like about this situation? Or not! Remember to do this often. If you are dreaming right now, these words will most likely change if you look away and look back at them. The written word is really fragile in the dream state. Just one of many things to look for. Mainly, just really look around and feel what it is to be awake and aware. This will eventually be part of your routine if you stick with it. Another thing to focus on is remembering your dreams in the morning. Even write them down. The more you remember the more you will recognize them.
All of this just takes a shift in the way you think throughout the day. which also seems to compiment many of the practices that many of us are already doing. If nothing else , our awareness of the present moment will drastically increase. I think that you'll see positive changes in both the dream and waking states.
OK this just a very basic intro into LD. As you can see, there is a lot that can be done here.
But let me tell you, once you experience it, you will want to experience more. It is like nothing else. Just to witness your imagination and the power that you have is amazing in it self. Just watch for a while. Relax and witness this strange world that you created all around you. Experiment and play. Do what ever you want, it is your world.
Just come back once in a while OK?
My favorite book on the subject is The world of Lucid Dreaming by Steven LaBerge.
I learned a lot more than just dreaming from this book. Check out this website too.
Tons of great info and stories. If you haven't seen it, watch the movie Waking Life.
It touches on lucid dreaming and has a lot of great philosophy.
I would love to hear your experiences and comments from the past or as you start exporing. Share your stories with zaadz. Some interesting and funny situations always seem to come up. It's great entertainment too. What a great way to spend a third of your life!
Have fun and get to bed!
Imagine that you are walking around and all of the sudden you realize that you are in the middle of a dream. Waves of energy pulse through your body while you look around this mindscape as you imagine all of the potential. A very surreal feeling to say the least. This isn't a concept. This is something that can actually be experienced. In fact it is something that we can practice. Eventually an experience that can occur on a regualr basis. This is Lucid Dreaming.
Imagine a place where you can consciously work on things that you want to improve, whether it be sports, music, public speaking, relationships, even flying! Your imagination is the only limit. Imagine a place where you can explore this world, other worlds, your subconscious, imaginary places. A place where you can do things that you can't do in the "real world". Like mind over matter, walking through solid objects, flying at incredable speeds through mountain ranges, star fields, and microscopic worlds. A place where you can defy the schemas of the physics we are constrained to. Like gravity, 3 dimensions, time, even your own body. You could experience what it's like to inhabit another body. Imagine what it would feel like to be in a snakes body, a dolphin, or a humming bird! Even no body at all. You get the idea. There are many many possibilities. Think of virtual reality with no limitations. And this is just some of the basic stuff. You can explore your memories (imagine finding your keys :)), practice dream yoga, deeper meditation, and dreamless sleep states. Explore levels of consciousness. Even work on astral travel and self healing.
I could go on and on, but I'll shut up.
Sure this just doesn't happen over night. So to speak. It takes strong determination, concentration, a stable mind, and lots of patience. All of which are good for you anyway. These types of things have to be worked on in your daily life in order for them to manifest in the dream state. To practice this technique, we must attain a mindfulness in our waking life so that we can differentiate between these two states. I personally will look for dreamlike situations throughout the day. I'll also ask myself if I'm dreaming. And actually look for indicators and answer the question after some thought. Otherwise I'll probably just answer no in waking life and therefore in the dream state too. I can't believe the things I am accept as real in a dream. Dogs flying by, friends turning into animals and vice versa, familiar places that are totally different than they really are. I have to laugh when I'm thinking about it later. These are all indicators that I'm dreaming. And if I am paying attention, mindful, and asking the right questions, I will be able to enter into a lucid dream much more often.
Ask yourself right now. Am I dreaming? Are you? How do you know? Really! Look around. What is dream like about this situation? Or not! Remember to do this often. If you are dreaming right now, these words will most likely change if you look away and look back at them. The written word is really fragile in the dream state. Just one of many things to look for. Mainly, just really look around and feel what it is to be awake and aware. This will eventually be part of your routine if you stick with it. Another thing to focus on is remembering your dreams in the morning. Even write them down. The more you remember the more you will recognize them.
All of this just takes a shift in the way you think throughout the day. which also seems to compiment many of the practices that many of us are already doing. If nothing else , our awareness of the present moment will drastically increase. I think that you'll see positive changes in both the dream and waking states.
OK this just a very basic intro into LD. As you can see, there is a lot that can be done here.
But let me tell you, once you experience it, you will want to experience more. It is like nothing else. Just to witness your imagination and the power that you have is amazing in it self. Just watch for a while. Relax and witness this strange world that you created all around you. Experiment and play. Do what ever you want, it is your world.
Just come back once in a while OK?
My favorite book on the subject is The world of Lucid Dreaming by Steven LaBerge.
I learned a lot more than just dreaming from this book. Check out this website too.
Tons of great info and stories. If you haven't seen it, watch the movie Waking Life.
It touches on lucid dreaming and has a lot of great philosophy.
I would love to hear your experiences and comments from the past or as you start exporing. Share your stories with zaadz. Some interesting and funny situations always seem to come up. It's great entertainment too. What a great way to spend a third of your life!
Have fun and get to bed!
Access: PublicTagged with: awareness, mindfulness, consciousness, lucid dreaming, dreaming, dream, waking life, states, astral travel
astral travel
July 2008
….
….
You’ve got me in suspense Dave, or was that it? Is this some sort of Zen koan?
Yeah, It was kind of like a movie trailer.
Really though….I posted to early.
It’s all done now.
wow,,,what a nice way of thinking. I don’t know…but I can share today’s experience while watching the open sky window in the kitchen. From there…I start imagining that it wasn’t so high up there but became a skyroom where I can sit under it and read my book or write my journals and once while looking up to the blue sky. I start even dreaming about putting my bathtub there and have an opened sky window just right above…..well…basically having a window like that on the ceiling that is in within your arms reach is dreamy and romantic idea.
Awesome David.
I often think about that but I have never given it a try! I will
That’s neat that we are able to do that. Realize our dreams during dreaming. Changing our outcomes of the dream or making our reality more mindful while in dream state. It is like going to the wizard of oz and meeting the tin man, lion, witches, munchkins and following the yellow brick road back to the reality of our bed.
I’ve had a couple of lucid dream moments. Never when I went to bed expecting to have one though :) I had a lucid realisation once, upon opening a door which would open into another door.. and so on.. until I had the thought “This is a dream”, then the dream continued (well, exploded into angelic realms actually) but I was aware of myself as the dreamer in it.
There is another very interesting book called “Conscious Dreaming” by Robrt Moss that I really enjoyed.
@Templegirl I like the sound of that. I could use a soak too.
@kelli I just had a similar conversation last night. There seems to be a huge connection between waking up in the dream state and waking up to ourselves. I think that is what is going on here. Once we realize what we really are, just like being aware of true self in the dreamstate, there are many more possibilities and new ways of living in the “waking state”.
Some say that lucid dreaming is an important practice to become aware in the bardo states.
@shabnam Keep us posted. i’d love to hear how it goes.
@yuri It is pretty neat. Manipulating can be fun. It’s also interesting to witness without changing the outcome. Profound tools in both situations. This practice also helps making our reality more mindful in hte waking state. To cool.
@Sass I would love to hear more about that dream. Moss’s book was the first book I read on conscious dreaming. A great book. More aligned with consciously witnessing your dreams. He brought up some great concepts. I’d recommend it too.
Thanks for the great comments.
Feel free to keep it going.
I love this subject!
Great Bodhi-blog, David! I just found it. This is a fascinating subject.
One of my favorites Matthew!
The implications and possibilities are limitless.
Have you had many experiences?
No, not many. The ones that I have had have not been on purpose. I would love to learn dream yoga!
After watching a french movie called “happenstance” about connection and synchronicity this eve, i drifted over to my computer and mulling over synchronicity typed in the web address from a flyer (that i had been given at Burning Man which had been kicking around in my stuff until i found it in my writing book today) which was sitting by my keyboard: metacine.net. There I opened a forum page called Transformations which listed synchronicity as a topic. Upon opening the forum threads were recounts of vivid dreams.. and there was mention of Robert Moss (the dream author I mentioned above).which brings me back here to ponder the relation of synchroncity and dreams …. :)
Wow Sass,
That’s a cool subject to tie in with this whole thing.
I personally see a lot of synchronicity in my life and in my dreams.
I think the more one is mindful of it the more one is aware of it.
It’s can be wierd. Sometimes It seems to me that It happens with stuff that has little importance. Atleast that ‘s what it looks like to me. I think that some of it may be figuring out where the clues are leading. And why? Am I making any sense? Maybe as these abilities are developing, it starts with the small mundane issues and will evolve into more important aspects of our lifes. Then again, maybe, it’s all closely intertwined. That would seem to make the most sense espescially considering the term synchronicity.
Here’s an example (a little off subject) that I always remember. Believe it or not.
I was working in a kitchen in my early twenties. All of the sudden I had a strong feeling that I had dreamed about this before. The feeling was so strong that I remembered the dream right then and there. As I remembered the dream….. I remembered what happend next. I actually knew what was about to happen. And sure enough, it did happen just like I remembered. Only I remembered it ahead of time!?! I can’t even relay the feeling and the energy that was flowing through my body. It was an awakening for me. Learning about something that was outside my realm of understanding. It forced me to look beyond my point of view and the mind’s method of processing what it believes to be real. I realized that what I believed to be true was just an ongoing flux. Realty was a process, not a fixed concept. At least in my sublective experience. It changed the way I was wired.
It really made me aware of the possibilities of dreams, synchronicity, and life in general. That day is one of the reasons that I am am studying deeper into these subjects. The potential is endless and exciting.
Wow, I guess I went off on a tangent there.
Are you sorry you brought that up?
BTW I will concede that the whole story could have been a figment of my imagination.
Although I don’t believe that. Either way, the lessons I learned from that situation are the important factor for me. Real or not.
I realize that I veered away from your comment a bit Sass.
Not quite a tangent on synchronicity I guess. But it fits in there somewhere.
What is your take on synchronicity and dreams?
How do you respond to them?
Hey David,
Great response! I love your story.
I haven’t been able to find the lucid dream, that i mentioned above, in my dream diary, but i did find something else that was interesting and ties in with other dream experiences that i have had. And perhaps also ties in with realising dream and reality as process, flux and flow, as you suggested.
In these experiences its as if i wake up through layers of reality. I wake up in my bed, only to realise that the version of reality that I have woken into isn’t right (it’s rendered cartoonish or something), so I wake up again, but it’s still not “reality”. This has at times happened to me through three or four layers before I *truly* wake up.
The dream I found written in my journal:
I was in a dream and started wanting to wake up. I tried to turn on some lights in my room but they didn’t work, so I went to the lounge room and tried those lights which also didn’t work. I started to panic and called out for my flatmate, but my voice didn’t work properly, it was small and croaking. I looked at my hand (to see if i was awake) and then was overwhelmed - like being sucked down into a vortex - and surrended to falling..
Hhmm.. like a lucid dream gone wrong!
As for synchronicity , well it is quite a significant tangent and probably deserves its own conversation thread (i might start one on my blog). I think of synchronicity as threads of connection, that, yes,often seem inconsequential.. but I think it might just be because we lack the perspective needed to see the broader picture.. I went to a talk at Alex Grey’s Chapel of Sacred Mirrors where a guy spoke about mapping it.. keeping a synchronicity diary.
That sounds like quite a dream Sass. I’ve definitely had lucid dreams gone wrong. It can be a fragile state. Great idea about a synchronicity blog. Let me know if you post it.
I love the term “threads of connection”. It seems to fit.
Mapping in a synchronicity diary is perfect. I never though of that.
Imagine reading through that in a few years. Imagine what you would see.
Probably a lot of synchronicity within the synchronicity!
I am sure it would look a little like a road map with the spots highlighted where you need to go!! My guess anywho.
I’d love to hear some more about lucid dream experiences that you’ve had David.
not sure how i missed this blog post…but glad i stumbled across it…my wife and i were lucky enough to attend a dream yoga retreat with alan wallace and steven laberge earlier this year…it was amazing…prior to this, i rarely if ever remembered a dream…but by midweek i was remembering movie-length dreams throughout the night…and even had a moment of lucidity…my wife is much more adept at LD…she’s been doing it since childhood and has really taken it to a much more spiritually advanced practice…you really should try to get up to santabarbara sometime to see alan wallace…he’s an amazing teacher and dream yoga is just the tip of the iceberg in his knowledge of tibetan practices…