How to Lucid Dream – For Beginners.

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Introduction to Lucid Dreaming

Have you ever wondered what a lucid dream feels like? Normally, you experience an array of random colors, sounds, and feelings in your dreams. You see things from your daily life; you encounter people from your past; you experience jumbled stories and ridiculous situations. These sensory stimuli are created by your subconscious mind, which stays awake and active while you sleep. But a lucid dream is unlike any trip to dreamland that you've ever experienced. In a lucid dream, your body falls asleep, but your conscious mind wakes up. What happens next is a phenomenon few people can explain, even the leading experts in the field.

Instead of waking up in bed, your conscious mind wakes up inside your dream. Yeah, it sounds far-fetched, I know. For those who've never experienced a lucid dream, it's a difficult concept to wrap your head around, but lucid dreams are very real. According to a 2016 study in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, over half the population has had a lucid dream at least once in their life. A little over a fifth of the population has lucid dreams one or more times a month. A 2017 article from the journal Dreaming called lucid dreaming a learnable skill that anyone could experience with the right knowledge under their belt.

The Purpose of Lucid Dreaming

But what's the point of lucid dreaming? In a lucid dream, you can interact with bizarre worlds, create impossible phenomena, and perceive environments from new, fantastic perspectives. Simply put, lucid dreams are a wonderful source of entertainment. But as fun as they can be, entertainment isn't the only reason you should learn how to lucid dream. Lucid experiences also enhance your creativity. When you have a lucid dream, you're challenging your mind to create vivid and meaningful stimuli.

Most people don't have strong enough imaginations to create environments or even single objects from scratch. Try this: imagine a slice of cake. What does your slice of cake look like? Is it chocolate or vanilla? Is it a birthday cake or a wedding cake? Is it sitting on a plate or just floating in the air? When we imagine things, we capture the gist of the object instead of a detailed image. Most people can't visualize mental images as well as they think. But lucid dreams offer your brain a unique opportunity to test its creative capacity. In an unconscious state, you have to imagine every detail of your environment. Once you become lucid, you'll find yourself immersed in a vibrant world of your own creation.

Benefits of Lucid Dreaming

All right, let's move on to another benefit of lucid dreaming. In a lucid state, experienced dreamers move around and interact with their dream environments. To move in a lucid dream, your brain activates the sensory motor cortex, which also helps you move in real life. So running in a dream is like in real life; the only difference is your muscles aren't moving. Because it activates the same part of the brain, lucid dreams exercise your sensory motor cortex. Your legs aren't getting any stronger, but your mind is becoming more coordinated. Your movements may get smoother and more athletic simply by walking around your dreams. Some experts use lucid dreaming as a form of physical therapy.

In theory, lucid movements could help people with physical disabilities to increase their range of motion. Lucid dreaming could transform the lives of people around the world, but the data isn't there quite yet. Lucid dreaming can also improve your life by unraveling stress and anxiety. In general, sleep is a powerful stress reliever, but dreams, specifically lucid dreams, unlock a powerful new method for relaxation. Inside a dream, you can experience euphoric emotions unlike anything in your daily life.

Relaxation and Stress Relief

Flying, for example, is a common lucid experience, which makes you feel light and airy as you lift off the ground. You may notice the stress of your day melting away. You can take off and fly into the distance, leaving all of your worries behind. Flying is just one of many relaxing and uplifting dream experiences. With a little practice, you can create and feel anything you want inside a lucid dream.

Techniques for Lucid Dreaming

So how do you stimulate your very first lucid dream? Lucid dreaming is much more accessible than people think. You just need a few simple techniques. First, you need to start keeping a dream journal. A dream journal is a notebook dedicated to your dreams. As soon as you wake up, write down everything you can remember from your dreams. It doesn't have to be good; it doesn't even have to make sense. Just write down as many details as you can. Keeping a dream journal reveals the inner workings of your unconscious mind. But that's not why dream journals are so important for lucid dreaming.

Each time you write about your dreams, you're developing your dream memory. Dream memory, or dream recall, is your ability to retain information from your dreams. The better your dream memory is, the more of your dream you'll remember each morning. By improving your dream recall, you can sharpen your imagination. It takes plenty of practice to create a dream detailed enough to inhabit. Just like your slice of cake, most dreams are underdeveloped, scattered, and poorly constructed. But with a strong dream memory, you can create a world large enough to occupy your conscious mind.

Reality Checks and Consistent Sleep

Alright, what else does your dream memory do? Dream memory helps you distinguish between dreams and reality. This is very important. If you want to become lucid, you have to wake up your mind in the middle of a dream. This is not an easy thing to do. That's why experts have devised a simple trick that stimulates your brain just enough to initiate a lucid state. This technique is called a reality check. Reality checks are small gestures you practice and memorize on a daily basis. When you get really familiar with your reality check, you can use that reality check to distinguish between the real world and a dream world.

Technique Description
Reality Check Practice gestures to distinguish between reality and dreams
Dream Journal Write down dreams to improve recall and memory
Consistent Sleep Maintain a regular sleep schedule for optimal REM cycles

For example, let's cover a common reality check. Just take your index finger and try to push it through the center of your palm. What happens? Well, your finger stops when it hits your skin because you're inhabiting the real world. In a dream, your finger would pass right through your hand. Once you see that happen, you'll know you've left reality behind. These two techniques, journaling and reality checks, build your dream memory. But how do you set the stage for a lucid dream?

Each night, your body experiences several cycles of rapid eye movement, or REM cycles. According to the American Sleep Apnea Association, the first REM cycle occurs about 90 minutes after you go to sleep. After you finish your first REM cycle, you'll experience additional cycles every 90 minutes for the rest of the night. The most important REM cycle is stage five. Stage five is when you dream. To give yourself the greatest chance of lucid dreaming, your goal each night should be five complete REM cycles.

But how do you ensure that you have as many REM cycles as possible? You should keep yourself on a consistent sleep schedule. That means waking up and going to sleep at the same time every night. Once your body gets on a schedule, its natural rhythm will adjust to that schedule. When it gets close to bedtime, your brain will get tired and fall asleep quickly. In the morning, your brain will naturally wake up feeling more rested than ever. Everyone's rhythm is a little different; some people get up later, some earlier. So find the pattern that works for you. Once you've got your cycle, stick to it. If you stay consistent, you'll trigger a lucid dream in no time.

Now you've learned the basics of lucid dreaming. If you practice all of these techniques, your lucid potential will skyrocket. So how do you actually induce a full-blown lucid dream? There are two popular techniques that many people use to directly stimulate lucid experiences. Even though these induction techniques are the more common, they're not the only ones out there. If neither of these works for you, do a little research of your own, and don't be afraid to experiment.

The first technique is mnemonic induction of lucid dreaming, or MILD. MILD is pretty simple. Before you go to bed each night, tell yourself one thing: "Tonight I'm going to lucid dream." Just say it over and over again until you truly believe it's going to happen. Make sure you maintain that confidence until you fall asleep. If everything goes as planned, you'll sink straight into a lucid experience.

The second is called wake back to bed, or WBTB. This method can be a bit jarring, but it's worth the effort. To use this technique, you have to wake yourself up in the middle of the night. Set an alarm five hours after your normal bedtime. When your alarm goes off, lie back in bed, but don't let yourself fall asleep. Let your body relax; allow your mind to drift into a meditative state. Before you know it, you'll find yourself standing in a lucid dream.

Ultimately, the best strategy doesn't revolve around just one technique. You can and should use all of them together. A 2017 study from the journal Dreaming found that a combination of MILD, WBTB, and reality checking is more effective than any one of these techniques on their own. So try different patterns, see what works for you, and always keep a close eye on your dreams. If you keep your dream memories strong, you'll have a lucid dream in no time. And the best part? You'll remember exactly what that euphoric experience felt like.

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