dreamcatcher81

My Tutorial for extending Lucid Dream Time. Hours of LD.

This is a common question, but I don't mean, just prolong them from 20 seconds to 20 minutes by rubbing your hands (as you have heard 100 times). I will tell you how to actually intentionally increase lucid time compared to waking time. For instance, You may sleep 30 minutes but have a full on 3-4 hours worth of experience in the LD. Not just skipping minutes here and there either, but actually 4 hours of minute by minute lucid experience. Some people speak of dreaming for days and weeks, but it seems that obviously involves time skipping and such as the mind is known to do..

This is my personal technique and my thoughts on what I believe to work flawlessly.

The longest LD periods come from later REM cycles because these are longer. Any method for having longer LD's will always work better later in the REM cycles, such as WBTB (my personal favorite).

First, and the most important thing I believe is to guard all 5 senses as much as possible. The only senses you should be experiencing are from within.

*1. Be sure to keep external light from entering your room as much as possible by closing blinds, using curtains, blind fold, ect.
*2. Keep the sounds around you to a low roar lol. Remove all possible sound that you can from your surroundings. If you sleep with a fan, fine, (I do) but for this, turn it off or at-least turn it down and away from being directly on your face. You might even consider using ear plugs.
*3. Try to keep the aromas down around your immediate body. The night before this attempt, unplug the air freshener, change the cat litter, ect.
*4. Lock out the animals or anything else that may cause movement in the room, such as turning the fan so it is not directly blowing on you is a good example.
*5. Take off any watches, wrist bands, necklaces, uncomfortable clothing, or anything that has a physical presence you are aware of on the body.

This was the first step. You may wonder if any of this really matters, or you may question step 3, or step 5. You may say, well I wear my watch or necklace in waking life, so it wont affect my LD at all. I believe this to be wrong. When you are in your Lucid Dream, You have 10 senses. 5 of the physical body, and 5 of the dream body. Experienced Lucid dreamers can even switch senses, feeling some of the body, and some of the dream body at the same time.. this is why this step matters. Because your mind always has an awareness of all of this. ESPECIALLY your conscious waking mind. For instance, What happens if you lose your watch in your LD, yet you still feel it strongly on your arm? or you feel the watch on your dream arm, but you also feel the one on your real life arm. It brings you back to the watch on your arm in your bed.. and you start thinking about the body in your bed.. suddenly your awake, back in your body.. in the bed... with either a failed LD, or a false awakening, but either way, its a set back in most cases. The same can apply to all 5 of the natural senses. This is why you want to eliminate the physical senses before the LD so there is nothing to pull you back prematurely. Don't question it before trying it. But there is more to this technique.

Upon entering the LD: Don't just take off flying, or run around doing what you have wanted to do, or want to experience. A weak start will just end up in an average LD, but we can correct this with about 30 seconds of dream time.
Upon entering the LD:
* Immediately take note of all the senses as mentioned earlier.
1. Take a good look around you, all the bright vivid detail, take in the full sight of everything around you. The more you look at the detail, the brighter and more vivid it will become.
2. Listen to the sounds around you... really take in and appreciate all the different sounds you hear. If you heard none at first, you were listening with the wrong ears... (the ones in bed)... the more you listen to the sounds and look around you the more the sounds will correspond with the things you see..
3. Take a nice slow whiff of everything around you... Smell that? Smell the things you are seeing around you.. take a slow whiff though.. you do not want to interrupt your sleep breathing... but smell all the different things around you and really take note of all the variety of smells..
4. Now, as you walk, feel how amazingly real it feels to move your legs as you walk. Lift your arms up and down a few times, feel the weight of them? Its amazing how that feels..
5. Rub your hands together, feel the sensation of what that feels like.. feel the walls around you or pick up a rock and feel the sensation and weight of holding it....

Now, combine all these sense. Intentionally, pick something up, feel the weight of it in your hand, the sensation of holding it and touching it, the vivid detail of it, smell it.. drop it, listen to it thud, or shatter on the floor..
Now, re-affirm to yourself that you are going to have a nice long awesome lucid experience. Just say this to yourself.. Re-enforce the idea to yourself that you will have a really long Lucid Experience. A

Now that you have engaged the senses deeply.. and only taken maybe 30 seconds to do so, you have fully engaged your dream senses.. over-riding any remaining connection to the body senses removing the chances of being pulled back into the body... but do not think of the body, do not think about yourself laying in the bed, or how cool it is that you dont feel your waking body anymore.. the entire purpose of all this is to remove yourself from thinking about that body anymore.. thinking about it will pull your toward it, and out of the LD. ALSO, remember, do not get lost in the dream plot of the experience.. Some people find themselves in a situation where they lose lucidity altogether and continue the dream without control if they get too far into the plot of whats going on, conversations with DC, ect.

Now. Enjoy your LD. You are conscious and fully aware but remind yourself regularly that you are conscious and aware. Don't think about the body, or the bed, or that you are sleeping in the bed, but just remember that you are dreaming and that anything is possible. Every so often, re-engage the senses in one way or another.. make sure to engage the senses around you often. Remind yourself that you are going to have a very long experience and you will find that the experience will remain very vivid, detailed, and extended.

If you find yourself lost in the experience of having a great time, remember the 5 senses and to continue reminding yourself that this is going to be an awesome and very long experience. keep smelling the things around you and watching the details, if you notice senses are fading, re-engage them by paying attention to them.. This is how you have long lucid experiences. Also, Never lay down or put yourself in the sleeping position. Laying down, or putting yourself in a position similar to sleeping is a very common way to bring yourself back to the waking life body... thus, ruining the attempt, or cutting the LD short.

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Now in Contrast. I want to tell you how to have very
short failed lucid experiences. In other words, Don't try
this at home. lol.

* Do not think about the waking life body being in the bed.
* Do not lie down or put yourself in the position of sleeping.
* Do not ever think about sounds, sights or any of the senses, Just run around doing whatever you want and forgetting to pay attention to these things lol.
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The reason this works for having very long lucid experiences should be somewhat obvious. But first of all (and this is controversial) dream time is longer minute to minute than real waking life time. So your REM periods are important but not as much as you may think. Secondly, it seems in studies that the brain can interpret periods of time as it sees worthy to complete the entire scenario it is playing out for you when dreaming. But during Lucid dreaming, you are in control of the things happening, so as long as stick to the guide, the brain will not have a reason to close the session early because it will still have plenty of stimulation. Have you ever noticed in a Non Lucid dream, how you wake up right after you save the girl. Your just holding her close with your eyes closed.. the stimulation has stopped.. and so does the dream period. Another Idea while lucid, is to keep a small hand massage ball with you, and play with it in your hand anytime that you are not doing anything very stimulating in the LD. This will keep the brain active creating stimulation while you walk around and explore, helping to keep you LD'ing.

If you want to extend your LD experiences. This will work for you.
Have faith, engage all the senses regularly, and remember to always remind yourself that you will have a long exciting fulfilling experience.

Please let me know your thoughts of my tutorial and keep us posted with your experiences here so that we can see how well this works for everyone.

Thanks, Gary

- Goodnight to all, and to all, a goodnight. -