Thread: Activating the left brain hemisphere to attain lucidity

I know it's been a while for this thread, but last night I tried this technique because I just can't achieve lucidity, no matter what, and this seemed easy enough. Now while I still didn't get lucid, I did manage to at least recall part of a dream, and to my surprise in the dream I was actually discussing with somebody about having vivid dreams - basically I remember finding a doctor and asking her to help me with better dream recall and lucidity. So while the result is not - yet - the desired one, something did happen, something did start to break through for me to finally think about dreams during my dream, even if it was not a lucid one yet. I'm going to continue with this as it's the first time that I finally have some hope...

Hey, after reading the whole thread, I think this technique really works.
I have two questions.

First one, do I need to concentrate on the whole left hemisphere, or just the Amygdala?
Next one, I never meditated. Can meditation improve this technique?

Originally Posted by MrOMGWTF

Hey, after reading the whole thread, I think this technique really works.
I have two questions.

First one, do I need to concentrate on the whole left hemisphere, or just the Amygdala?
Next one, I never meditated. Can meditation improve this technique?

Just concentrate on the left hemisphere. The amygdala link is just to illustrate that we can easily manipulate our brains function by an act of directed thought alone.

Meditation is not required for this technique.

OMG!!! This technique is just unbelievable!!!

First of all i have to say that I'm not really active i doing any techniques at all and i had about 22 LD's in period of about 8 years usually my LD's just happening spontaneously and no technique worked for me at the first time, until now!

I red this thread yesterday and it was looking interesting and very easy for me, so i decided to try it, but i didn't expect any results as i went to bed in about 3AM and i don't even remember any dreams when i going to sleep so late.

Just after i got in bed i was thinking what way would be the best to change the activity of my brain, imagination is the key for me, so I started imagine my brain from back side so my left half of brain was really on the left side of the picture, then i imagined two activity bars on each half, but those bars was indicating same amount of activity 50% of the each bar, so halves was harmonized.

I told to my self - "Now I going to change activity of my left brain in order to get lucid dream"

Than i told to my self - "I'm changing activity of my left brain on full power now!" and I imagined how is the bar rising to the top and as it was rising, right half was getting less and less activity in the same speed as the left bar was rising, i also heard sound as if i would turn on some kind of machine that was getting more and more power.

After that i said to my brain - "My left brain is 100% active now"

I did not make any command to my right side expect that, i just imagined the bar with less activity that's all.

I did that quiet fast it took me about 4-5 seconds to get full bar, after that i did it 2 more times and as i was doing it i actually felt some kind of sensations in my left brain as if it was under some kind of pressure, than i just fell to sleep.


Now, what happened?
I had a dream that was totally vivid and everything looked totally real, but i still had some kind of feeling saying that, something is wrong and i didn't know what and i asked my self - Is this a dream? I daubed it was because it was so real, but that feeling made me to do RC (i did RC in dream maybe 2 times ever) and i just simply held my nose and tried to breath, and surprisingly i could, so i did it one more time just in case and i could breath, that was first time ever i used this kind of RC, after that i was very surprised that I'm really in the dream. I got too excited and after some time i lost the lucidity and after some time i was with my girlfriend, it was the same dream still going on and some how i remembered that i got lucid by this technique so i was telling her how it was easy to use this technique, than dream went on, but than i got that strange feeling saying something is wrong again, and i just realized that I'm dreaming, than i flew too high and everything was totally dark i started to fall and felt total flow of energy in to my whole body, it was something like orgasm. After i got down i did lot of crazy stuff and waked up after some time, and couldn't fall to sleep for about 45 minutes.
Absolutely awesome technique thank you very much for posting it here and sorry for too long report.

I have made some pictures of how i was imagining the process

Phase ONE






Phase TWO

Originally Posted by Shaman1982

Absolutely awesome technique thank you very much for posting it here and sorry for too long report.

Awesome!!! Great that it worked for you too and also very interesting that it is very rare for you to reality check to induce lucidity. This was my experience too in my opening post. I have'nt used this technique for a while as I have been working solely with a self hypnosis technique for quite a while and fine tuning it. I have also been spending a lot of time also putting together a very lengthy tutorial on how it works and how to create the audio/brainwave entrainment components.

Because of your success I am going to use this again tonight with a few of your tips, so thank you.

Don't apologise for the long report; it was a pleasure to read

I must say. I did take a break from lucid dreaming but tonight I decided to use Shaman's technique with the bars. It worked miracously and I lucid dreamed without even reality checking. I just KNEW it was a dream without finding anything weird in it. Just I felt like it. I clearly and vividly remember how I asked myself "What if this is real life and not a dream?" When I asked myself that, I bended the dream into my will which just proved that it was a dream. It's amazing how this actually works. It took me quite a while to enter a long lasting REM sleep due to sleep disorders but it was worth it. Too bad I forgot to stabilize and it was short lived but glorious.

I have to say, after many failed attempts at this, I finally got some sort of results last night. I imagined a white light on both sides of my brain while falling asleep listening to isochronic tones, and at first I felt at ease (I was in a bout of depression previous to this) I then imagined the light going to the left part and away from the right hemisphere, and I then felt as though I was numb, and even more at ease. My dreams were vivid (I forgot to write them down so I've already forgot them) and I believe I was questioning my dream world, but wasn't lucid this time. Will be trying this more.

Originally Posted by apiks

I must say. I did take a break from lucid dreaming but tonight I decided to use Shaman's technique with the bars. It worked miracously and I lucid dreamed without even reality checking. I just KNEW it was a dream without finding anything weird in it.

Awesome result!!!

Wonderful Shaman. Thanks for sharing your method

I used this last night. I laid down to go to bed and just put my concentration on the left side of my brain and commanded for the logic side of my brain to become active when dreaming until I fell asleep. I had two regular dreams and did WBTB. I attempted a WILD and failed by falling asleep by accident. BUT had a lucid dream! Idk if it was coincident or not but it worked the very first night. The thing is I realized I was dreaming through pure reasoning. The parking deck at my college is the 1000 building so I drove into it and the gate inside said 2000 and my parking card wouldn't scan to let me in. I told myself this isn't right and just become lucid! Very interesting because usually I either realize I am dreaming randomly or do a reality check out of the blue and become lucid. I will continue to experiment with this and hopefully will continue with success! THANK YOU

Originally Posted by faxman

Wonderful Shaman. Thanks for sharing your method

No prob. you are welcome, but i would give all the credit to mcwillis as he gave me the basic principle.

Originally Posted by Hunterkiss

The thing is I realized I was dreaming through pure reasoning. The parking deck at my college is the 1000 building so I drove into it and the gate inside said 2000 and my parking card wouldn't scan to let me in. I told myself this isn't right and just become lucid!

Yeah it seems like when the logic mind is more active, than you just figure it out. Someone here mentioned that it is more about the memory, than the logic, but your state of memory probably depends of what scenario you are in, as you was at the parking deck, that mean you accessed the memory of it and another part of that memory was also building number, if your logic wouldn't be more active you wouldn't bother to think why all this is happening. Anyway, it is very interesting how easy it is to make left brain more active. I have ordered that book from Neil Slade about the brain and Amygdala and it rally looks like it is that easy to control our brains.
I will use it tonight again and report, i wanted to try it yesterday, but i was waiting to get more sleepy but i was waiting too long and fall a sleep .

Originally Posted by HawkeyeTy

My dreams were vivid (I forgot to write them down so I've already forgot them) and I believe I was questioning my dream world, but wasn't lucid this time. Will be trying this more.

This is exactly what happens to me. Keep it up and see how it goes.

Originally Posted by Hunterkiss

I used this last night. I laid down to go to bed and just put my concentration on the left side of my brain and commanded for the logic side of my brain to become active when dreaming until I fell asleep. I had two regular dreams and did WBTB. I attempted a WILD and failed by falling asleep by accident. BUT had a lucid dream! Idk if it was coincident or not but it worked the very first night. The thing is I realized I was dreaming through pure reasoning. The parking deck at my college is the 1000 building so I drove into it and the gate inside said 2000 and my parking card wouldn't scan to let me in. I told myself this isn't right and just become lucid! Very interesting because usually I either realize I am dreaming randomly or do a reality check out of the blue and become lucid. I will continue to experiment with this and hopefully will continue with success! THANK YOU

Awesome!!!

Originally Posted by Shaman1982

No prob. you are welcome, but i would give all the credit to mcwillis as he gave me the basic principle.

Yea don't forget McWillis

Thanks for sharing this. I tried it last night and while I didn't feel anything going to sleep, I had a really long and vivid dream (or dreams?), especially the showdown at the end. I remembered a lot of minor details as well, like distant hedges, trees and houses as well as parts of conversations. I've been attempting to LD since the beginning of August, so this seems like a pretty big leap compared to the other dreams I've had since then. I'm definitely going to try this again tonight.

Does anybody know any Hemi Sync recording, that would activate left hemisphere? Or perhaps binaural beats that are specifically for this purpose. I think there is some software that is like the AVS machine and it is possible to create custom program and than export it into audio file, but i don't remember the name, anyone?

Originally Posted by Shaman1982

Does anybody know any Hemi Sync recording, that would activate left hemisphere? Or perhaps binaural beats that are specifically for this purpose. I think there is some software that is like the AVS machine and it is possible to create custom program and than export it into audio file, but i don't remember the name, anyone?

I think it's highly unlikely as brainwave entrainment just altars the frequency of our dominant brainwave patterns. Here is a link as a good point of information from the creators of the best entrainment software on the market today:

Brainwave Entrainment - A Scientific Overview Of Neuro-Programmer 3

I tried this last night, and I felt some faint sensations in my brain, (both with trying to stimulate the left-hemisphere as well as just the amygdala), but unfortunately no lucid dreams yet.

I did however have a terrible nightmare, which I don't remember what happened in it because I was too afraid to think it back over.

(From another post: )
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Curiously, I seem to have had a very intense nightmare last night, from which I apparently either didn't know I was dreaming or was unable to get out of. It was of such intensity that I was groaning and woke up my Dad, which I've never done before, and when he came in the room I was so terrified (he looked like just a black figure) that apparently I knocked over my digital alarm clock and fan that I had next to my bed, and caused my digital keyboard/piano to fall off of its stand. Dad put them back up, and I calmed down. But for the next hour or so I didn't want to fall asleep, or even think back over what happened, because of how intense my earlier fear had been. This was around 6 AM, I believe, and I don't think I even fell fully asleep after that, and so was in a half-sleeping state until I woke up a few hours later.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I don't remember what occurred specifically in my dream, but I know it was extremely frightening. I presume it was an in-dream character, that I saw while lying in bed, as I can't imagine anything else that could have scared me so much, and it's been a background fear of mine after reading accounts of it over the last few days.

It may have just been a coincidence, but it was the most frightening dream that I've had in many months, if not years, and it happened on the night I tried this.

Lo and behold, after waking I read this about Sleep Paralysis, on Wikipedia: "This could explain why those who experience sleep paralysis generally believe the presence they sense is evil. The amygdala is heavily involved in the threat activation response mechanism, which is implicated in both intruder and incubus SP hallucinations."

Do you think these visualization techniques may have had an influence, or do you think it was just because I've been increasing my thoughts on lucid dreaming?

Very interesting thread, Last night I had my first Lucid in months.
I've never really attained much Lucidity before except for flying occassionally, turning a nightmare around on itself, or being conscious but not really utilising it much and inevitably being sucked in.

Last night at some point in the dream I had just rescued my cousin from a cult in some strange flat (pretty random) and had talked him out of it saying they lured you in when you were vulnerable, using your insecurities against you etc and as we were walking out I realised his last few days were inconsistent with what really happened in waking life.

Quizzing him, he seemed perplexed and maybe my subconscious couldn't rectify a proper response for why it didn't mesh with my real life timeline.

Realising I was dreaming I first had to try not lose the dream as my brain woke up, by allowing my subconscious to keep me in the same setting and trying not to interfere too much with my environment.

From there on I started trying to flex my lucid powers, trying to activate my left hemisphere via intention was tricky, it was like using the force and my first attempt was to literally use the force to pull a bottle of Jack Daniels that we'd sat down to drink towards me, nothing happened and doubt set in. So I focused on visually seing the bottle in my hand and somehow an identical bottle appeared in my hand - close enough for now.

Then for some reason my logic must have faltered because I was trying to hide from my aunty late night like we were children again so we slipped out around the side of the house (we had walked across a field from the flat and materialised in their garage) and snuck around to the back door and she managed to head us off so we fled but I couldn't run (recovering from an acl) and remembering it was dream decided to fly (I couldn't remember the sensation of running and the amygdala kept telling me I might hurt myself)
I bound into the air and hovered on the spot.

She came out the house, but I remembered it was a dream and just waved back.
I then flew to my GF's house down the street and she happened to be waiting down the street.
I picked her up in my arms, ignoring my knee, and tried to superman her off but had to do a few leaps and bounds first convincing myself when I hopped about 2m into the air and flew into someones living room for a little alone time together.

I then proceeded to sabotage myself as I took off my shirt while worrying the curtains were open, everytime I closed the curtains my shirt rematerialised, every time I took my shirt off the curtains opened to passers by.
Eventually she just vanished from the room and the dream ended when someone tried to kick me out for trespassing.

I guess the point of my longwinded story is certainly focus and intention as we all know with lucid dreaming. Even if the left hemisphere idea is expressed more as a metaphor I can it is important to try utilise its functions of logic and use deductive reasoning to stop doubts and fears from setting in. Personally it was like using the force or magic and trying to believe you could manifest changes but also not slipping into the dream too much, and being so reactive. Whilst I was often conscious I was still reacting on the spot and felt most in control when I could rationalise my actions and my desires to act too hastily would often relinquish my focus.

I'm certainly interested in employing different methods like binaural beats etc. But as many have said at the moment theres not much you can do to really isolate that brain activity and the best methods are still this covered in this site as far as mastering recall etc to aid the process once it is underway.

Still I've been inspired to get back into it, and I'm all for experimenting with different methods to see what works best.

another good way of activating your left brain is by listening to the high pitch frequencies of your conciousness and concentrate on the tone that sounds to be coming from your left brain

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

Sounds like a good MILD affirmation

Definitively!
This approach appeals to me in a way - so here my take on it.
The whole right-left brain thing is vastly overrated so it can even be called a myth - but I have a theory, why this works so nicely for many people, and I might try it out, but in a slightly different manner.
It basically consists of affirmations to activate higher mental faculties once you are dreaming beforehand and this combined with the power of visualization.
Maybe it does indeed even help to concentrate on a part of the brain for that - did anybody try it with the right side, just for curiosity?
I have a nice picture for those who find it helpful to concentrate on something in the brain - the regions which do light up on MRI for real in LDs. On top of what is going on in both hemispheres already - see Ctharlhie's pics below.
You wouldn't try the right hemisphere, would you, because you don't believe logic resides there, right?

I have had complete chains of reasoning in my dreams, that I recall without lucidity - the logic did work within the pre-set situation of the dream - no problems in procedure.
So it's not so much about the logic - and many people, like Sageous, agree there.
Primarily it is about meta-consciousness - being conscious of being conscious - or call it the famous self-awareness - and this is indeed known to be correlated to those areas:

The human capacity of self-perception, self-reflection and consciousness development are among the unsolved mysteries of neuroscience.
“The general basic activity of the brain is similar in a normal dream and in a lucid dream,” says Michael Czisch, head of a research group at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry.
“In a lucid state, however, the activity in certain areas of the cerebral cortex increases markedly within seconds.
The involved areas of the cerebral cortex are the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, to which commonly the function of self-assessment is attributed, and the frontopolar regions, which are responsible for evaluating our own thoughts and feelings. The precuneus is also especially active, a part of the brain that has long been linked with self-perception.”

This is from here: Lucid dreamers help scientists locate the seat of meta-consciousness in the brain -- ScienceDaily
And is the actual stand of knowledge these days - I also find, the metaconsciousness concept as source of lucidity far more convincing, than just simplistically take the whole left hemisphere and denominate it "logic centre".
No offence meant of course - I find this approach in general quite attractive!
Got to admit though - topologically - this is a bit more sophisticated for visualization as well. Maybe just take the frontal part?
Just - once you know, you operate on placebo with taking a whole hemisphere - it doesn't work any more - and proper knowledge is better than myths - so I'd opt for a change.

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

Lateralisation between the hemispheres of the brain is no where near as significant as is often portrayed by those who would tell you you can 'hemi-sync' (usually so they can sell you something)

Lateralization of brain function - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The truth is that throughout your life the hemispheres of your brain work in tandem but interdependently of each other, and statements of 'logical left' and 'creative right' are largely generalisations, remember that each hemisphere is a mirror image of the other with the exact same neuroanatomy on each side.

It would be silly to suggest that your brain would sacrifice half of its processing power for something so intensive as dreaming by shutting down the left hemisphere. In fact MRI scans show that the two hemispheres show roughly equal activity:



However it is generally accepted in sleep research circles that the higher reasoning centres of the forebrain responsible for things like operative memory and self-awareness are suppressed.
So if you really are stimulating anything then it would be the forebrain.

Maybe the stimulation of the forebrain becomes associated with the realisation that you are dreaming so that when it finds itself in an inhibited state it triggers the realisation you are dreaming. I which case this technique could hold implications for WILD and recognising the transition without having to remain conscious through the whole WILD. In a way it's similar to the 'third eye' and Nina's technique of WILDing.

However, it may just be a simple matter of mnemonic/auto-suggestion induction, in which case it would be effective as a MILD and may be increased even further in effectiveness if coupled with visualisation.

You are correct - and I know quite a bit about brains as well. It is not correct, that the left hemisphere is dormant in normal dreams - your post and pictures should suffice to show that, actually.
Here a link to a neuroscientist's blog, which also has a nice optical illusion - often interpreted incorrectly according to that myth:
NeuroLogica Blog » Left Brain – Right brain and the Spinning Girl

Originally Posted by mcwillis

Good work Ctharlhie. I haven't had much time to do some proper research but going back to what I have researched the above is not entirely correct. Thank you though for your efforts. I shall update new information once I have looked properly.

Did you look properly by now?
A switch in localities and concepts does in no way invalidate the affirmation with visualization/imagining feeling somewhere in the brain!

It always seemed to me anyway that when people would talk about left brain/right brain differences what they were really talking about was conscious/unconscious processes. So what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me.

I respond to this old thread because I think this idea of activation of the left hemisphere is very interesting.
I do not agree with the assumption that The whole right-left brain thing is vastly overrated so it can even be called a myth
Because of this book I read: 'My stroke of insight' by Jill Bolte Taylor. (Her TED talk is also interesting).
She is a (Harvard trained) brain scientist who suffered a massive stroke that damaged the left side of her brain. It took her 8 years of recovery. Now she is on a mission to learn people to balance their brain.
I cite: In My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey, Jill shares with us her recommendations for recovery and the insight she gained into the unique functions of the right and left hemispheres of her brain. Having lost the categorizing, organizing, describing, judging and critically analyzing skills of her left brain, along with its language centers and thus ego center, Jill’s consciousness shifted away from normal reality. In the absence of her left brain’s neural circuitry, her consciousness shifted into present moment thinking whereby she experienced herself “at one

Can I combine this with a mantra to help with the process, if so what do you suggest?

this worked for me too! I combined it with WBTB

I tried this technique and the first time it did help me to become a lot more aware and have better dream recall.
I was just thinking about whether a breathing technique might also help with activating the left side of the brain.

In yoga there is a technique called Nadi Sodhana or alternate nostril breathing which is said to balance out the brains hemispheres. However there is also a technique where you Brea through one nostril only in order to stimulate one side more than the other.

Throughout the day one side of our nostrils is more blocked than the other and it alternates, you can test this for yourself at different periods during the day, and it can also be influenced by if you sleep on your side!
If you close your left nostril and breath only through your right nostril for 3-5min it will stimulate the left logical side of the brain. this might help with this technique? The only downside is that it also stimulates energy, and awareness, whereas breathing through the left side only will help you to relax but stimulate the right side of her brain.