some background information on lucid dreaming

some quick tips on learning how to lucid dream

some tips for maintaining and prolonging your lucid dreams

some info on the MILD technique

some other random tipzzzzz

        A lucid dream occurs when you realize that you are dreaming. With practice, you can induce lucid dreams, (LDs), and maintain your lucidity for extended periods. Anything you can do while awake you can do in a lucid dream.

There are also many things you can do that you cannot do in the waking world like flying, taking a free one night vacation to Hawaii, Nepal, or even Mars, going to that board room meeting a day early, brainstorming and problem-solving while having greater access to your subconscious, exploring amazing dreamscapes, encountering dream figures who often have marvelous insight and sage-like advice, to name but a few. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination, literally.

People speak about following their dreams and having a dream or being a dreamer. I am talking about being fully conscious in your dream and experiencing them with the full awareness that you are in a dream. It is beyond description the feeling you get once you become lucid within a dream and realize that you are immersed in a full-blown, completely interactive dreamscape.

The subjective experience could best be described as magical, mysticaleuphoric, ecstatic, profound and awe-inspiring, but all of these descriptions are just words. Words by nature are limited reflections of the experience itself, as the map is definitely not the terrain, and the menu is not the meal.

     There is a lot of scientific research being conducted in this field recently, The Lucidity Institute is one of the premiere organizations collecting information on lucid dreaming. There has recently been an increase in awareness and acceptance of lucid dreaming, probably due to the fact that it has now been scientifically proven and accepted. If you are interested in getting involved in some research, you should check The Lucidity Institute or The dREaM Initiative website for ongoing lucid dreaming research projects.

There is also a growing number of books and literature on the subject. I have read most of what is available. Absorbing the hundreds of books and articles on lucid dreaming and related topics really helped speed up my progress. I strongly suggest reading as much on the subject as you can. It helps to embed your subconscious mind with the concept of lucid dreaming. These ingrained notions then begin to carry over into your dreams. You may have dreams representing these waking experiences. It definitely helps solidify your intent to have one. So read up!!

If you want to take a look at some pre-sampled good reads, take a look at the Recommended Reading List.

        This page has a lot of brief, summarized information. If you are interested in more in-depth, step by step instructions then you should take a look at The Six Basics Steps of Lucid Dreaming, which is a page from my lucid dreaming website. But while you are here these tips will work as a summary version, but be sure to check out the extended version because it mentions a lot more that isn't covered here.

Increase your dream recall and write your dreams down in a journal. You cannot have lucid dreams if you cannot remember your dreams and keeping a journal is a crucial step towards solidifying your intent. By keeping the journal, your mind becomes saturated with the idea that dreams are important. Your dream journal will become one of the most frequently used tools in your lucid dreaming bag of tricks.

If you have trouble recalling your dreams then try the following tips to increase your dream recall.

Increase dream recall

Upon awakening in the morning, do not move!! Stay in bed for a while and recall your dreams before you flood your mind with everything you are going to do for the day

If you have trouble remembering them try to change your position in bed: lie on your right side for awhile, then your back, then left: sometimes the position you where in when you had the dream helps increase recall of that dream.

Become familiar with your dreams.

Get to know the places, things, and actions you see and do in your dreams (beaches, classrooms, rollercoasters, etc,,,)

*this is why a dream journal is so crucial in identifying your dream signs.

Do consistent reality checks, that is, ask yourself frequently throughout your day  "Am I dreaming?" Do this regularly. In the beginning of my training, I would set the alarm on my watch to go off every half hour. These constant signals ensured that I would remember to do my reality check".  

When you ask yourself if you are dreaming, check your surroundings to see if you are in fact dreaming. Try to read something like text or a street sign. The words or letters may look unstable, or they may have a tendency to change or morph into different letters and words entirely. Upon checking, looking away and then looking back again, if the letters have altered then it is safe to assume that you are dreaming.

I usually test to see if I can fly or levitate as my reality check, but I do that quite often in my lucid dreams so you may have to explore which checks will work best for you. Basically, you are looking for any strange nonsensical things in your surroundings that would indicate that you are in a dream.

As you get to know you dreams and learn some of your common dreamsigns, you can combine these dreamsigns with your reality checks. Whatever you dream abou becomes linked to a reality check. You perform a mindstate check whenever you see an object you frequently dream of or whenever you are in a common dreaming landscape (a beach, in a classroom, or whatever you find that you dream about). Linking and asking questions will create a habit of analyzing your surroundings and monitoring your actual awareness.

If you follow the advice just given, you are bound to eventually have a lucid dream. The key is to be doing these things so often and consistently that your subconscious mind becomes filled with this new habit. With time and practice this habit will carry over into your dreams and hopefully you will come to the conclusion that you must be dreaming.

Lucid Dreams - Maintaining Lucidity

         The key after becoming lucid in your dream is to learn to prolong and maintain your lucidity without slipping back into a normal dream or waking up from it. This is a more difficult matter which takes some experience but here are some pointers.

         For starters, do not get overly excited! That is a lot easier said than done but with practice it becomes manageable. You may find that your first LDs will be so thrilling that you simply cannot handle the intense rush of excitement and euphoria. As a result, you may prematurely abort your first few lucid dreams due to this emotional overload. Do not worry too much about it though because with time you will be able to handle it. Becoming emotionally excited is counterproductive so try to be as calm as you can. It may help to maintain the attitude that you are a detached observer, especially in the beginning stages of development.

         Secondly, if you find yourself lucid in one of your dreams, simply use verbal commands to guide and control your dream. I have found this to be the MOST successful approach, for me at least. Anything that you need can be summoned or intended. With practice you will be your own best guide. For example, in the beginning say, "BE CALM NOW!" or if you are having trouble seeing, say "INCREASE CLARITY NOW!" or "CREATE VISUALS NOW!". I try to always use a positive form of expression in the present tense and add a touch of urgency, confidence and control.

Other lucid dreaming techniques

-spinning around in circles when you sense that your lucidity is fading within a dream
-rubbing your hands together or any other action that uses your sense of touch
-focusing on any one particular detail in the dream: your hands, the ground beneath you, a stone on the road, a tree, etc...

         These all work to certain extents but each have their own drawbacks which is why I recommend the verbal control technique. For example, if you start spinning, the odds are that you will create a whole new lucid dream once you stop spinning, and for me sometimes I would rather stay lucid in the same dreamscape instead of losing my visuals. If you lose your sight, it makes it impossible to focus on any detail in the dream because there are no visuals, and you probably would not have any sense of a body without visuals so you would not be able to rub your hands together.

I find if you lose your visuals you just say, "CREATE VISUALS NOW!!" I have even found that if you are losing your lucidity you can simply say, "INCREASE LUCIDITY NOW!!" or "AWARENESS NOW!". I will say this at regular intervals throughout my lucid dreams and it creates a remarkable results. Use whatever wording you feel is appropriate. The power comes not through the words but through the intent and the expectation. You need to intend and expect that what you intend will occur.

        Just be sure that you are thoroughly grounded in your lucidity before you start increasing your lucidity because if you can barely maintain the level you are at when you attempt to increase it, you will not be able to handle any higher levels until you have gotten a good handle on your current level of awareness.

        Look around at your dreamscape and allow it to stabilize.  Allow yourself to become confidently in control of your awareness.  After you are intentedly and awarenessly stabilized in your lucid dreamscape, then you can heighten your levels of lucidity and se* what happens.  Doing this, you will have less likelihood of losing your lucidity altogether once the levels intensify.

        I have also found that one of the most common things that ends lucid dreams is having your visuals go out on you. You could accidentally fly into a wall or building or sometimes just be going too fast for the dreamscape to remain stable. As a result, you will not be able to see anymore. Sometimes, it happens spontaneously especially if your dreamscape is n’o stable.

If your visuals do go out on you, then you often will find yourself in a black void much like a cave or a womb. If you find that you have lost your visuals, you may verbally intend more visuals to appear which sometimes works or you can just wait it out. Just DON’T GIVE UP AND DECIDE TO WAKE UP! Hold onto your lucidity and stare into the blackness. Eventually, a whole new dreamscape will appear. Once the dreamscape appears you will already be standing in it and you will be lucid or sometimes you may even have to consciously step into the dreamscape.

        This technique has helped me on countless occasions. It has allowed me to reenter new LDs sometimes over and over again whenever my visuals “blow out”. This method of waiting it in “Limbo-Land” for new visuals to appear will really come in handy once you become better acquainted with the dream realm. You can use this visionless void to prolong your lucidity exploring as long as you do not wake up from the dream.

I usually find that I can successfully use this reentry technique around seven times or more in one night. Depending on how long the dream is and how well I am maintaining my lucidity, I usually wake myself from the LD after the seventh reentry from Limbo-Land. I find that any more than seven reentries and I may slip back into a nonlucid dream unintentionally fogging my overall dream recall.

Other Lucid Dreaming Tips

Here are some other tips or inside tricks I have read or picked up along the way. I use them regularly and they seem to work very well. Hopefully, if you add these to your routine along with the top four steps, you should have a lucid dream in no time.

           *An incredibly effective method is called the MILD technique. You lie in bed and say to yourself over and over, "Next time I'm dreaming, I will realize that I'm dreaming". Like counting sheep until you fall asleep you repeat the affirmation. You need it to be the last thing on your mind before you fall asleep and that will help enormously. This technique is very effective when used with the Wake-Back to Bed Method, outline as the BEST METHOD. The idea is to wake up earlier than you normally would, say an hour or two before you normally would. Set your alarm early, recall your dreams for the night, get out of bed (*crucial to get out of bed!) go to bathroom or kitchen, write down your dreams or read a book for 15 to 20 minutes (preferably about LDs).

         Over time I hve found that this is THE best method for maximizing your odds of having a lucid dream. Around six hours of sleep seems to be the perfect timing. If you want to a description of this technique. I also have found that staying awake for 15-20 minutes also works for me. If it does not work for you, try to stay up a little longer before going back to bed. You need to be relatively awake before you go back to bed, not groggy or sleepy-headed. Then lie back down and do the MILD technique. This is the most successful way to do it since most of your dreams happen in these early morning hours. Most of my LDs happen using this technique in the early morning hours between 5 and 10 AM .

Other random tips:

How to Lucid Dream

        *there is a lot of information available at this site so take advantage of it. It is wise to not only read it and learn it, but to internalize it and ACT upon it. If you follow the guidelines and adhere to the 6 Basic Steps, you will succeed.  It is that simple!

Take it from Gandhi, "To make a change you must become the change." And while I am in am quoting mood, remember Yoda's astute advice, "You do, or you do not.  There is no try."

         *Have a consistent sleeping pattern. Going to bed and waking at regular times really helps your body/mind get into a synchronistic rhythm that increases the odds of becoming lucid.

         *Be determined but detached from it as well. Thinking too hard will hurt your results. It WILL come, just believe it, expect it and that will speed up the process.

        *Visualize yourself as moving. Motion and movement are crucial aspects of the process. Try to feel as if you were flying through the air. This type of imagery before going to bed usually triggers the brain to repeat such imagery later in your dreams. Hopefully, you will have a dream where you are flying and attach a reality check to flying so you will become lucid whenever you are flying. Rollercoaster imagery also works for me. If you are really lucky or once you get more experience, you can go directly from watching this imagery into a fully interactive, 3-Dimensional dreamscape. Explore and find what type of imagery involving movement/motion will work best for you.

        *I ordered a lucid dream induction tape from the Lucidity Institute and that helped me a lot, but maybe I am easily suggestible since I do try to focus on having a fluid belief system. Anyway, now I can just replay the tape in my head from memory and it seems to work pretty well. Not sure fire, but then again what is. Since I had good results with it I began developing my own audio approaches and have made some pretty interesting audio awareness aids. If you are interested in checking out these perceptual tools, check out the Brainwave Mind Voyages (BMV) site for more info about them. I am quite happy to say that these brainwave entrainment CDs have been helping lots of people along their lucid path. Click here to read the BMV Feedback from users.

* I have been experimenting with this brainwave entrainment for some time. It is an amazing audio neurotechnology used in the BMV cds that allows the user to tune brainwaves to specific frequencies. Having your brainwaves synchronized to a certain mindstate is conducive for lucid dreaming and meditational purposes. The brainwave entrainment process can also be used for things other than lucid dreaming and out of body experiences like brainstorming, visualization, problem-solving, creativity, relaxation and a host of other things. If you want more info on brainwave entrainment and even some step by step directions on how you can do this stuff yourself, click here.

        *If you are really serious about it and have got some money, you may want to consider buying a NovaDreamer from the Lucidity Institute. It is a sleep mask that flashes light cues at you when you are dreaming. It can detect your random eye movements which indicate when you are dreaming and then it flashes a light cue. I have one and think that it is a great tool especially in the beginning stages or during dry spells. I think they cost about $250 ( $175 students) but in my opinion it is well worth it. You definitely DON'T need one, but it may helps. My philosophy is "It doesn’t hurt to try." You can use them as “lucid training wheels” until you don’t need them anymore.

         Hopefully those tips should help you. A great book on LDs with the best methods and techniques is called Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge who is a cofounder of The Lucidity Institute . He also came up with the MILD technique. Check that book out first if you have not read it already. Another great book is Robert Moss' Conscious Dreaming and his second book, Dreamgates, which is great for the beginners or more advanced dreamers, but slightly more tailored to the advanced. There are many other books and authors with great books on the subject. I have just added to this growing group of lucid dreaming literature by finishing my book, The Ultimate Lucid Dreaming Manual. My manual has been receiving rave reviews and I am proud to announce that it will soon be available in six languages! If you would like to enter the contest to win a free copy of my manual, click here and send me an email for info. I would recommend starting with these books as the basics because they have more practical, applicable advice. Once you have gnawed through these, check out the Recommended Reading List for a huge list of pre-approved good reads.

        Keep acting on it and think positive, it will come as soon as you commit to doing these things. It is only a matter of time! I started seriously pursuing and developing my lucid dreaming ability as recently as 1998. It took about a month or so to have my first one, and after that I was hooked. I became more focused and dedicated to the mission after my first experience because I wanted so desperately to have another one. Sure enough, they started increasing in frequency and now I average between one and three lucid dreams per week. I even had one week where I had twenty-five lucid dreams in one week! The dreams increased in length as well. I have had countless lucid dreams in which I have been lucid for 20 to 40 minutes or more, and lately I have even had a few that have been an hour or more of lucidityt. Talk about maximizing experience while asleep!

         I have been experimenting with inducing out of body experiences from lucid dreams. I have had some amazing results. Many years ago, I had heard about out of body experiences or astral projection and near death experiences, but I always thought it was just some hair-brained scheme to sell books to gullible New-agers. However, once I started lucid dreaming, I opened my mind and strtched my beliefs toward these types of experiences. Not surprisingly, I have experienced firsthand that our consciousness CAN be projected from the physical body. I have had a few “unexplainable” experiences in which I have seen things while out of body that were verified later.

         There is no normal way to ever explain how I could have known these things unless it was a true real-time projection, meaning it was not obscured with dream material superimposed upon it nor was it just a figment of my imagination. I saw something while out of body and the next day I checked what I saw and, sure enough, I had either dreamed true or had a verfied out of body experience.

From my experience, our awareness exists as a spectrum of consciousness. Lucid dreaming and out-of-body experiences are just two points on that endless spectrum. The continuum of consciousness can only be experienced, and I am not trying to prove anything to anyone, as I claim to be no expert just a seeker like yourself. The experience will speak for itself so you be the judge.

         I would also like to stress that I have no special talent or unique gift that you do not already possess, unless you do not have an open mind and dedication. Our mind is the only tool needed to start experiencing and learning. Lucid dreaming is like any other skill that needs to be developed and practiced. If I can do it, you can too as long as you believe that you can and know that you WILL.

All experience is either helped or hindered by your belief systems so keep in mind that if you do not believe it can be done, then this will probably become a self-fulfilling prophesy for you.  With that in mind, try to open your mind and start developing this incredible ability today. I guarantee it will fill your life with wonder and magic.

I wish you the best of luck and please feel free to email me if you have any questions, comments or concerns. I am always willing to help others who are interested since it has changed my life so much for the better. I only wish someone had come to me sooner and clued me in to this incredible experience.

Keep Me Posted and Sweet Lucid Dreams,

Marc VanDeKeere C.Ht.