SD-1: Shared Dream Class, Week 2, Lucidity
I want to start off by apologizing that this post is so late, I have been really busy completing papers for school, and while that's not really a good excuse, that is the cause of it.
Constant Lucidity
So this tutorial is about lucidity. How to attain lucidity within a dream. So exactly what does it mean to be lucid? Lucidity is merely a state of being aware of everything going on around you. It is actually a fact that many people walking around in this waking world do so with very little or no lucidity… and, unfortunately, many of these people are also behind the wheels of cars… So to be lucid in a dream, it is important to become lucid in waking life as well, that way it will transfer over to the dream state. The more you are able to do it the better chance there will be of it transferring to your dreams.
You can practice lucidity by simply being more aware of your surroundings, this is something you can do anywhere without anyone else even knowing. Look at your surroundings. And I don't mean to simply take a quick glance around the room, really look. Analyze the things you see. I will do it for where I am right now, which is in my bedroom, on my bed, using a laptop. I notice the slightly uneven texture of the walls, the different wood textures of the furniture, the soft looking fur of the kitty on my bed, the kitty is Shadow… Another of my cats, Midna, just entered the room and jumped onto the table where she is now eating cat food, her tail hanging over the edge of the table and swishing slightly… I could go on and analyze things at much higher detail, but that would take a lot of writing and I'm sure that, just as I have a busy life, you very likely also haven't got the time to read through it all. The final step is that when analyzing things in your environment, look closely and see if it is exactly how you expected it to be. So if you know you have a brown couch in the living room with overstuffed pillows, but you are now seeing a white couch with overstuffed pillows… that should be something that you would notice if you took the time to look closely. There are usually many incongruent elements within dreams, and practicing waking lucidity can help you to catch more of these incongruent elements in the dreams.
Question Reality
So, you've just seen an incongruent something, a thing that doesn't look quite right. The incongruent element might be immediately obvious, or it might be just a feeling that something is off. Now is the time to do a reality check. There are several common methods of testing reality, most of them are very inconspicuous… The one I have the best luck with is the nose pinch RC (reality check). I reach my hand up and pinch my nose, then I try to breathe while my nose is pinched. If you're dreaming, you will still be able to breathe. Do it in a quick and smooth motion, it would look to anyone around you like you just rubbed your itchy nose. Other inconspicuous methods include looking at text, glancing away, and then looking back… the text will often have changed… looking for electronic equipment to be working erratically or maybe not at all… you open your laptop and it displays the message, "Boot Yourself, Asshole!" before turning into a regular television… Digital clocks will often display strange times such as 27:88 or D:RE am… that's also triggered me to become lucid a few times. You can also attempt to use your dream powers such as telekinesis, try to move an object over to you with the power of your mind. If it works, either you're dreaming or you just discovered you have an awesome new ability in the waking life!
Hey! That Lucid Dream Was Machine Assisted!
When I had my first lucid dream, I had my nova dreamer mask to thank for it. I talked about this in the first posting I made, so I won't repeat everything, but the dream mask is a sleep mask that fits like any other sleep mask… but then it also has an infrared sensor over each eye and it will detect the REM eye movements when you start dreaming… Mine was set to give me a cue of flashing red lights. So I had to train myself to respond to flashing red lights by doing a reality check. In my first lucid I saw flashing red lights behind my television. I did a RC, then flew down the hall and told my mother I was dreaming. That was all I managed to do before I woke up.
Dream Signs
You don't really need any electronic devices or gizmos to enter a lucid dream. Dream signs are things that appear in your dreams on a regular basis that also appear in your waking life on a regular basis. For example, if every morning you get in the car and drive to work in waking life… and in dreams you also get in the car and go somewhere quite often… make it a habit to do a RC whenever you get into a car. Do you have a cat in waking life and see many cats in your dreams? Do a RC whenever you see a cat. Your dream sign can be anything, do a RC every time you walk through a door, every time you see a person that often appears in your dreams… If you are able to do RC's in your dreams to become lucid, that's probably the most common method, a DILD (Dream Initiated Lucid Dream). My main problem with this kind of lucid dream is that I often forget my goals!
Going WILD!
My favorite kind of lucid dream is the WILD (Wake Initiated Lucid Dream), which is where you fall asleep and right into a dream, without losing your lucidity. The most common way I have heard of doing this is during a WBTB (Wake Back to Bed), which is where you wake up briefly during the night, think about dreams or do something dream related for a brief time, then fall back asleep into a lucid dream. This is the easiest since at that point you've already been sleeping and it is easier to enter the REM sleep phase. I have been doing my WILD's just as I fall asleep for the first time in the night, by using the light / sound machine I talked about in the previous posting. What it hardest for me is waiting for the dream to become fully formed around me before I move, and if I move too soon, I move my physical body and wake myself up.
Myth Busters
There are a few pieces of misinformation going around regarding WILD's. The first one I have seen says you have to lie on your back, perfectly still like a board to enter a WILD. Not true, unless you normally fall asleep lying flat on your back and motionless… Make yourself comfortable, since you won't successfully enter your WILD until you are asleep. Another myth I have seen says you have to remain totally motionless, not twitch a muscle, not even swallow when you need to, which can lead to some rather uncomfortable situations.
Well, that's all I have for right now. If there's any questions you want to ask, go ahead and post a response here and I will do my best to answer it. Until next time, many lucid dreams to you! :dreaming:
