Lucid Dreaming: Maintaining Paradoxical Sleep

[Summerlander]

Prolonging Lucid Dreaming Interest in lucid dreaming appears to be growing in tandem with our troubled times and so has the demand from fledgling oneironauts and aspiring lucid dreamers to really apprehend this practice. Once individuals get that initial taster for lucid dreaming, they not only want more, they want the experience to last longer. Luckily for them, there are a number of actions that, if performed in a lucid dream, correlate with its prolongation. These actions usually involve amplifying the senses—as is customary to do so in order to intensify the realism of the phantom environment as soon as one enters a lucid dream—and are also used to maintain the hybrid phase state that simultaneously compounds waking consciousness and dreaming. Beginners need not fear the scenario of getting stuck in a lucid dream because the challenge is actually remaining in that phantom world for as long as possible. A lot of lucid dreamers would actually love the improbable scenario of being unable to wake up, at least for a day, from a phantom reality where anything is possible. This is, of course, unheard of. However, through the implementation of maintenance techniques, people are able to enjoy the experience of lucid dreaming long enough to be satisfied or even to the point of elation upon awakening—acquiring the sense of having had an amazing adventure in another universe. In order to protract the process of lucid dreaming, there are three things that oneironauts need to resist: 1) Waking up prematurely 2) Losing lucidity whilst dreaming 3) false awakenings In order to avoid hesitation in a lucid dream, which can lead to a premature awakening, have a plan of action ready in mind. The plan can consist of as many steps to be carried out as you want. I usually have three or more per plan even though I may not get to execute all of them; for example: 1. Practice Kung Fu with Bruce Lee 2. Eat a house made of chocolate 3. Fly to the moon 4. Summon a deceased loved one A step of a plan of action can also be simply exploring what appears before you rather than attempting to create what you want. Preventing a Premature Awakening Sensory amplification in order to maintain realistic intensity of lucid dreaming can be applied constantly or as needed. Amplifying the senses improves one's chances of increasing the duration of a lucid dream. Once your phantom surroundings become highly defined, maintaining that depth of perception is still necessary. Examine nearby dream objects in minute detail with visual, auditory and tactile clarity—feel for those sensations! If you strain your brain or tense your dream body, you may produce strong vibrations which tend to increase the duration of the lucid dream, besides restoring any percepts that may have weakened—strengthening vibrations can also remedy blurred vision and dual perception. If the dream world is fading, oneironauts can also dive headfirst with their eyes shut and a willingness to do so as swiftly and deeply as possible. Spinning like a dervish may work but tends to come with one caveat: a change of scenery! Counting in a lucid dream—silently, quietly or loudly—with a strong desire to reach the highest number possible, thereby providing an impulsion to remain in said state, is an action which is also known to produce results. It is not very popular but oneironauts are always encouraged to experiment. Lastly, but certainly not least, is a very effective technique to be done when we sense that the lucid dream is coming to an end: Grab an dream object! Michael Raduga once grabbed the beard of an old man in a fading lucid dream and managed to pull himself 'out-of-body' with it! Whatever object or dream figure you grab, use your powers of tactility to feel its essence—squeeze it, palpate it, do what you will to keep those phantom sensations going. Be persistent as you hook yourself onto the space where lucid dreaming takes place! There are many ways to avoid the premature termination of a lucid dream, but there are two rules to bear in mind which are always applicable to this experimental pick-and-mix: 1. Do not think that you might wake up. Doing so propels you to the waking state. 2. Do not think about your physical body. Doing so will cause you to feel the sleeping body and wake up. Preventing the Loss of Lucidity Losing lucidity is no different to falling asleep in a lucid dream; it is the loss of waking consciousness and thus, the necessary mental faculties for awareness of the present moment and recognition that what surrounds you is nothing but an elaborate illusion. The inebriation of an ordinary dream state reigns and the absurd can be passed off as logical. How can we, lucid dreamers, prevent losing ourselves in our sleep? To stay awake in dreams, as it were, we need constant awareness that we may lose focus. We need to hold on by analysing our current circumstances! If something strange happens in dream space, do we recognise it as unusual/impossible or does it paradoxically contradict what we remember from waking life? We have the dream, but do we have the necessary wakefulness to make it a lucid dream? Are we lucid? Hence why it is extremely useful to periodically ask the question 'Am I dreaming?' in order to promote the much required detective mode in all of us, forcing us to examine not only our immediate environment, but also, our actions as well as those of the dream itself. Getting into the habit of questioning reality is the best antidote to that potential to lose lucidity—after all, it is exactly this inquisitive attitude that usually generates DILDs! Regularly questioning the reality of what you perceive increases the chances of triggering your analytical mind when your lucidity is under threat and you're about to slip into a typically mindless dream state. Be mindful of unplanned events in lucid dreams and the threat they potentially pose to your waking consciousness—it is very easy to be led to believe, by dream plots and characters, that one is no longer dreaming and that events are actually taking place. Preventing False Awakenings The dream world can be a tricky 'place'. Even when you are lucid dreaming, you can be duped into thinking that sleep has ended and you've woken up in bed. You get up and look around to find a bedroom environment that apparently confirms your arrival in the real world; you are no longer dreaming—or so you think! Welcome to the realm of false awakenings ... (These have been called 'pre-lucids' or described as having a quality of proto-lucidity.) It is said that the dreaming mind can emulate anything imaginable, including the real world, or, at least, how it feels to wake up. We need foolproof reality checks here in order to break the illusion, as it were, just like we do after inducing a WILD using the technique of separating from the body. From experiments, it has been determined that the dream world betrays its fluid nature when lucid dreamers pay close attention to the details of an object for a prolonged period of time, so when you believe you have woken up from a lucid dream, simply observing your index finger for ten seconds at a distance of about six inches from your face will expose the true nature of your reality; if you are still dreaming, your fingers will start exhibiting some odd behaviour under visual pressure, as it were. Alternatively, if your journal is on your bedside cabinet upon an apparent awakening, examine what you've written; if you are still dreaming, text will inexplicably change or you might see incomprehensible symbols or gibberish straight away. This method of concentrating on objects for at least ten seconds is, to my knowledge, the most reliable one. All the other reality checks are not always effective. You may think pinching your nose in a dream will never give you the sensation of having your nostrils blocked—that you will always be able to do the impossible and breathe. Not so. I have personally tested this one on several subjects, including myself, when I headed the Phase Management Department at Michael Raduga's OOBE Research Center. Doubt can still get you with with the pinched-nose test. It worked on me the first time, but I couldn't always rely on it afterwards. In the same vein, your index won't always be able to go through your palm; you won't always be able to fly; you won't always be able to pass through walls; telekinesis isn't always possible, etc. Why do I claim these tests aren't always foolproof? Because, save for not being able to withstand prolonged concentration on its objects, the dream world can pretty much emulate the laws of physics; having said this, the dream world rarely replicates the real world with 100% accuracy, so it is worth exploring your abode upon awakening to see if anything is different or amiss. Maintaining Paradoxical Sleep There are a few things to bear in mind which will prolong and improve the quality of lucid dreaming even further. Lucid dreamers should avoid looking into the distance for a long period of time lest they wake up prematurely. If you wish to observe ostensibly distant objects, or gaze at the horizon, without waking up or inadvertently gravitating towards the point of focus, make sure you simultaneously perform techniques to maintain the lucid dream, such as, glancing at your hands, rubbing them against each other, bringing about vibrations, etc. Keep active in your lucid dreams. The more actions you manage to perform in the dream world—without remiss and avoiding hesitation—the longer your lucid stay! You must elude the temptation to pause and think lest the experience collapses. This is why a plan of action really is indispensable for protracted lucid dreaming, apart from keeping oneironauts motivated to remain in the dream world for as long as possible. Thinking should also be focused on actions being carried out in the lucid dream in order to help its maintenance and concomitant extension. Any sporadic and impertinent thinking may produce undesired alterations that may trap you in a non-lucid plot culminating in a premature awakening. In fact, just thinking about your sleeping body is enough to instantly cause a premature awakening. In the Event of a Premature Awakening Finally, if you wake up prematurely, re-enter the lucid dream state and resume your planned actions. Do this as many times as it takes until you're satisfied or it is no longer possible. In fact, try to avoid fully-fledged wakefulness by employing the DEILD method. I know this doesn't always happen and there is always a temptation to excitedly 'tell' our journals everything that we lucidly experienced, but we should really aim to use up our REM session to exhaust our lucid dreaming ability. It'll be very rewarding in the end and will leave you with such a lasting impact that there will never be a shortage of motivation to induce another long sequence of lucid dreams next time around. Good luck and sweet lucid dreams!

[Sivason]

Wow! You shared a lot of gems all at once! Thanks.

[Eonnn]

Nice, this is more like a tutorial. Good job!

[Eonnn]

What do you think about needing a story or plot for a lucid to follow so that it's not cut short? In my experience, exerting too much control with no over-arching story causes a dream to end pre-maturely. There is also a fine line between too much awareness, and not enough. Too much can end it, not enough and you can lose lucidity. Mindfulness meditation is great in regular life, but also great in lucid dreams. Mindfulness is an excellent way to increase awareness, just got to be careful to not over do it.

[Summerlander]

What do you think about needing a story or plot for a lucid to follow so that it's not cut short? In my experience, exerting too much control with no over-arching story causes a dream to end pre-maturely. There is also a fine line between too much awareness, and not enough. Too much can end it, not enough and you can lose lucidity. Mindfulness meditation is great in regular life, but also great in lucid dreams. Mindfulness is an excellent way to increase awareness, just got to be careful to not over do it. This is where a good dose of Robert Waggoner comes in. You may attempt to control the waves of the ocean you find yourself in, so to speak, and you will successfully create ripples with confidence, but as the analogy here suggests, there is a certain subconscious predetermination about what presents itself in the dream world—so we don't deny it when we enter it with lucidity. Upon entering that phantom world with wakefulness, we may notice that it is dark or faint, and yet we are fully lucid. So we don't deny this phantom environment, we deepen it. Doing this means that, through sensory amplification, we may aid and lend the dream world permission to express itself regardless of our wishes and plans. Once it is stabilised, we may explore it and deepen it further. Then we may summon what we want and make alterations here and there according to our plans—be that a few steps or following a plot that we might have rehearsed prior to sleep—which the dream world will, in turn, permit (as it let's us know that the impossible is possible because physical world constraints don't exist). In other words, my take is that it shouldn't be a war of what we want versus dream manifestations. It's a trade-off with confidence and patience. You may mould the lucid dream with your will—even attempt steering events in it—but also allow appearances to solidify as opposed to rejecting them before they have fully begun.

[Eonnn]

Doing this means that, through sensory amplification, we may aid and lend the dream world permission to express itself regardless of our wishes and plans. Once it is stabilised, we may explore it and deepen it further. I like that! It's like saying to the dream itself "I'm lucid now, you carry on with your own thing and I'll go do mine okay?"