Thread: Anyone like to meditate before bed for lucids?

I can't say for certain if meditating before bed helps me with that. I actually had my best dream recall so far my first night after saying affirmations about recalling and writing down my dreams...the next two nights (yeah, I've been at this for three days, now ) I meditated before bed and have had decreasing success with recall. I'm going to keep it up, though, because at the very least, meditating calms and relaxes me and helps with awareness in general. I keep reading that awareness is a big part of this whole LD thing. Tonight I will have a lucid dream!

If you don't mind me asking how often do you lucid dream missGnomers?

Well, as far as I know, not once, yet. Tonight I will!

I always meditate when I go to bed If someone would watch me as I did it, it would look very similar to a WILD attempt, and it kind of is because meditation is basically conscious sleep.

However there is one difference. My intent during that time is not directly set to enter the dream consciously, it is set in a passive way though.

It's a little complex but I will try to explain. I have just as you stonedreams, noticed that my recall and awareness is much higher if I meditate as I go to sleep.

And well therefore I mantain awareness and a meditative state for as long as possible for the sake for meditation, but also in order to increase my chances to a DILD.

Although the more I meditate the closer I get to a WILD but I am not thinking of that while I am meditating, because that would not be a meditative state.

In fact a meditative state is more like a state with no thoughts at all

But yeah meditation rocks

I don't meditate before bed. But to be honest, I actually should Because it could improve your dream recall, more chances of becoming lucid, more vivid dreams,.. But when I WILD, I really focus on my breathing and I'm try to relax as much as possible. I'm not sure if that's actually meditating aswell?

Originally Posted by Crashyy

I don't meditate before bed. But to be honest, I actually should Because it could improve your dream recall, more chances of becoming lucid, more vivid dreams,.. But when I WILD, I really focus on my breathing and I'm try to relax as much as possible. I'm not sure if that's actually meditating aswell?

I am not sure if it is possible to summary what meditation actually is, although one description of it that I like to give is the following:

Meditation is not the art of doing something, it's more like the art of doing nothing! Although in our busy lives with lots of things on our minds, even nothing seems impossible to "do". There is one goal though that is very useful for lucid dreaming as well, and that is to understand yourself.
Although the paradox is that if you try to achieve meditation you won't succeed, because nothing is not something you try, it's something you just lets happen on it's own. So do or do not there is no try, as Yoda would have said.

"The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go"

One key thing you practise as you meditate though is the art of observing and not judging.

You will notice how hard it is to stop thinking and achieve a meditative state, but if you get frustrated of that and blame yourself it will be much harder, instead just acknowledge the existence of that frustration and go above it and just observe it. Think of yoursel having an out of body experience and watch another person (which is you) and just watch what is happening. If you observed my thoughts if I meditated you would just think "Ok now he is frustrated because his toe is itching" but you wouldn't get affected by it, and this is the same kind of mindset you need to have but torwards yourself.

And here is a little meditation guide: Spirit Science 8 ~ Meditation - YouTube

Namaste

I meditate every night.

If you do meditate,do you lie down while do it or do you sit upright? I find it hard to meditate lying because I dose off.

I like to meditate, it calms me nicely before sleep

I've been meditating sitting up on my bed cross-legged, and then do my visualizations/mantras once I've laid down to go to sleep. I feel like meditating is for awareness and I want a state of relative alertness while I'm meditating. I also meditate during the day if I can find 10 minutes without interruption to do so.

I'm with you missgnomers, do you ever use binaural beats to meditate?

Never tried that, no....the silent meditation I'm working right now recommends no music while meditating. Up until I started doing the practices around inducing LDs this week, I was one of those that needed background noise to get to sleep, but this week I've been doing visualizations and mantras before I go to sleep and have fallen asleep with ease minus my usual boring TV show droning on low in the background. That's one positive side-effect of this hobby I didn't anticipate that I'm really grateful for. I hated needing that noise to fall asleep.

well binaural beats aren't really "music" they are brainwave entrainment to induce a desired state of awareness. They really help when I used them with meditating I got two lucids in one night!

Hmmm.....Maybe I'll give 'em a try one of these nights.....

Over the years, i've come to think of meditation as integral to the whole lucid venture. They build upon each other so intimately. And i've come to think that I will not be a Capable lucid dreamer without first becoming a Capable mediator. I think it's the strengthening of the Will--Discipline you know? The power to calm and quite while keeping focused and aware.

As for trying to define and sum up meditation...good luck, can't help you there. But don't limit yourself by thinking that the goal of meditation is "not thinking" or however you'd like to phrase it. The Dalai Lama meditates specifically on LovingKindness for hours a day. Why not meditate on DreamingAwareness?

Flagstone.
I only ever meditate on things that I want to increase like awareness. I also meditate on scriptures so I can integrate them more into my life. I only ever don't think when I am meditating rarely. so I agree with your idea of meditating.

RCs and ADA are all about increasing the amount of time you are thinking 'this could be a dream' when meditating it is like doing hundreds of RCs in a row and just concentrating on the difference of dreams and reality.

for me, meditation is a basic thing to gain the awareness of the self, that is lucid dream. in meditation you have to aware of what you concentrate for, or what things do you focusing on. I can say that Meditation is the best method to induce lucid dream, meditation help you to get lucid without the need of the dream journal or ruin your sleep cycle and even reality check. take a look at any method explained here, basically you need to concentrate and aware. my method of meditation is to observe the breath. may this video help you on what meditation is =>Spiritual Reality Power Of Meditation - YouTube

I disagree with you Suratana, you still need a dream journal to get in the habit of remembering your dreams. I don't think meditation alone will help with dream recall or inducing a lucid dream.You still need the basics like RCs because how would you ever recognize you are dreaming. Also, it is essential you use a dream journal in my case, and I think just about everyone else agrees.

Last night I was meditating before bed, and I jumped into a non REM dream for a second. That's what I think happened anyway.

I perform a form of visual meditation before sleep... imagining interesting places I have been to or previous dreams I have had. It helps me fall asleep and adds to the chances of catching a lucid dream that night.

Originally Posted by stonedreams

I disagree with you Suratana, you still need a dream journal to get in the habit of remembering your dreams. I don't think meditation alone will help with dream recall or inducing a lucid dream.You still need the basics like RCs because how would you ever recognize you are dreaming. Also, it is essential you use a dream journal in my case, and I think just about everyone else agrees.

I would agree with this if meditation was defined as "sitting down practising concentration", however meditation is much more than that.
There are of course many definitions of meditation but here is what I like to define it as.

Meditation is the art of, controling your body (yoga/ knowing your own body), fully knowing yourself (ego/ subconscious, memories and emotions - the building stones of dreams), and last but not least, understand your true self (soul/ realize that you are not a human being generating a consciousness, you are a consciousness generating a human being) <-- This can look like a spiritual belief, but what differs this from other "religions" is that it can be experienced and thereby understood and known by you.

So meditation is the art of knowing and understanding your body, mind and soul.

This in itself is of course a good way to understand lucid dreaming, but to say that it is a technique or method is kind of weird.

It's almost like saying "The best technique to score a soccer goal is to practise soccer" o. O Sure that is obvious but not very substantial, becuase it's a very ambigous word. So you see lucid dreaming for me is just a small part of the practise of understanding and awareness which can be summarized with the word meditation.

Although you can shrink the meditation and use the mindsets you learn from it as a tool in itself for lucid dreaming.

Like the letting go of ego and the stop judging, observing, and love mindset.

Letting go of ego and stop juding: Don't wish to succeed a lucid dreaming attempt that will create an oppurtunity for failure and judging (in your mind) instead...

Observe: Look at it and learn from the result, instead of looking at it with an "I can't do this" attitude, look at it "When I did this that happend and learn from your results.

Love: Be in love and show appreciation for yourself and your experience, don't long for the desires of the ego (too much). Allow the experience to take place rather than expecting it and judging it.

So in summary: Meditation is a good tool for lucid dreaming, and lucid dreaming is a good tool for meditation.

I just started this one program on the internet that kind've teaches you the basics of meditation. So starting a few nights ago I started to meditate before going to bed and I my dream recall is going up! Last night I also had a FA as well!

What website?

Originally Posted by stonedreams

What website?

Do you mean in my sig? It's a link that will lead you to my website.