Concept for Spirit: Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming is quite an interesting subject.

If you don’t know what a lucid dream is, you will find that it is a dream in which you are aware that you are dreaming. You can read more here. The interesting part is that in a lucid dream, since you are aware that you are dreaming, you can tap into that awareness to take control over your dream. This is at the very least a fun exercise to try. More importantly however, lucid dreaming can help to put you into a position of control over what dream situations you expose your subconscious too. Suggesting to yourself certain ideas while lucid dreaming can have real affects in your awake like. If you read my post on Quantum Reality you will know that “life is but a dream”. If we can learn to be more aware in our sleep dreams, we can program our mind to be more aware during The Dream of Life. Awareness in life is a big asset to have – it can help lead us to Truth and subsequently to True Reality.

You can visit WikiHow to learn How to Lucid Dream, but you’ll find that you can start preparing yourself while awake by performing “reality checks”.

You’ll find that you may have had brief moments of lucidity – or awareness that you are dreaming. If you have, you will know that a lucid moment is a simple moment of awareness. It is you telling yourself “I MUST be dreaming!” and you will be right. THAT is a lucid moment. Holding onto a lucid moment takes practice, and you will see that as you practice more you will be lucid longer. To prepare yourself for becoming lucid during a sleep dream, you will need to program your mind to ‘check for signs of reality’. Program your mind to do ‘reality checks’ while you are awake and it will become a behavior that is normal for you to do in a sleep dream. You will catch yourself doing these things unconsciously in a sleep dream, but with an unrealistic result that tells you “I MUST be dreaming if that just happened!” (*LOL)

For example, a friend of mine does reality checks like this:

During the day every hour or so look at your hands and pull one of your fingers. Be aware that as you pull your finger nothing out of the ordinary happens. Repeat this over and over in the day to where it becomes a habit for you to check if you are dreaming or not by pulling your finger. You will find that when you are in a sleep dream, you will do a reality check, and because it’s not reality you will have different results that tells you are dreaming. For example, you could pull your finger and it stretches like bubble gum - then you KNOW you are dreaming! (*wink) At that moment you will be aware that you are dreaming, and when you are dreaming anything is possible!

Say you are having a dream that someone is following you.

You are trying to lose the person by turning down different streets, walking through public parks, even swimming through lakes at your neighbors house. Hold on a second, reality check. There aren’t any lakes at your neighbors house you must be dreaming! You realize that there is nothing to be scared of it’s because it’s just a dream. Now that you realize this, you can turn and face the person following you to make a new friend, fly away to a far away land, or watch as a giant bird swoops down to grab your follower and save the day. It’s your choice!

You can use your dreams to problem solve, role play, evaluate situations or people, or just have fun!

There is even a website called The Lucid Crossroads that invites you to visit them in your dreams and connect with other Lucid Dreamers. It’s an interesting concept and I really enjoyed reading and learning more about The Lucid Crossroads. Even though I have had a few lucid dream experiences, I have not yet made it there. When I have had lucid experiences, however, I have noticed that they make a deep and lasting impression on me. When you do find yourself in a dream, you are literally IN a dream! It’s a weird sensation, and I can only equate it to “awareness”, because you are experiencing a certain situation yet you are very aware that you are dreaming.

There are many tools designed to help you achieve lucid moments while you dream.

Most of them aim at introducing outside stimuli during your dreams, such as lights flashing on your eyes, sounds ringing in your ears, vibrating tools etc. The idea is that you will become aware of the sensation much like a reality check and realize that you are dreaming. For example, wearing goggles with flashing lights will show in your dream as brake lights on a car flashing over and over, an alarm clock flashing the time on and off, or a clown flashing his moonbeam in your eyes. If you are a veteran lucid dreamer, you might be aware that you are dreaming when you see the car lights. Most people will need to experience something out of the ordinary such as a clown with a moonbeam to realize they are dreaming. In any case, there are many tools available to help you achieve your lucid dreaming goals. You can find a complete Lucid Dreaming Kit here and a tool for use with your mobile phone here.

The most important tool you can use will be a dream journal so that you can keep track of your dreams and lucid progress.

Discover patterns, re-occuring themes, or re-appearing characters within your dreams to help you work thru them even better. You can read more about Lucid Dreaming in the press here and at NY Times. Plus you can visit the following websites for more information on how to lucid dream and more about lucid dreaming in general:

Lucid Dreaming Overview
LD4All Website
Lucidity.com
The Lucid Dreaming Blog
and Lucidipedia

Plus here are some books from Amazon on the subject as well:



Lucid dreaming can be a fun experience, but the overall intention of this post is for you to understand the tool you have with lucid dreaming.

I truly believe that learning this skill will empower you to move forward with your spirituality goals with new perspective, and help you achieve things you never thought that you could - while dreaming and awake! Lucid dreaming is therapeutic, but it’s also invigorating… I say you should give it a try.

Feel free to share your experiences with this in our Yahoo! Discussion Group. I hope that you enjoyed this post, and stay well until the next time!

About the Author: Julie Phineas is a work at home mom of 2 who lives in Southern California. You can find out more about her and view her photos by visiting her page on MySpace.