Looking At The Hands

Looking At The Hands

It is a famous technique for locking in Lucidity, made even more famous by our own Aquanina’s recent published finding that by looking again at one’s hands as Lucidity seems to diminish, that a renewed wave of conscious energy arises, empowering one to experience a further Lucid Dream Scene. This seems then to have liberated us from the determinism of the limiting REM Cycles.

But then I was wondering to myself what exactly it is that happens as one looks at one’s hands in a Dream. And so I held up my hands and looked. Well, of course, by looking at both Left and Right simultaneously one is balancing both sides of the Mind and opening the Energy Channels which extend through to the fingers.

Now, here is a speculation. When one is looking at the hands, should one look with the palms facing inward, with the thumbs facing outward, or with the palms facing outward with the thumbs to the inside? Although in Dreams I have always looked at my palms, my intuition, upon thinking about it, suggests that it may be wiser to look at the Back of the Hands. Why? Well, the Energy coming through the Thumbs is the Energy of one’s Central Channel. Looking at the Back of One’s hands, the thumbs are together, in a way rendering a representation of the Energy Channels as they are. To look at the Palms of one’s hand is to effectively turn the display inside out.

It quite reminds me of an old joke. One says that one has read in a Medical Journal that excessive masturbation will cause spots upon the palms of the hand, and then you prepare to laugh at whosoever it is who is silly enough to look.

But anyway, levity aside, how have we, as a Group, been looking at our hands in these Lucid Dreams – at the Palms of our hands or at the Backs of our Hands?

Interesting question, Leo. I guess I've never really thought about it before. I always look at the back of my hands. Maybe it does have something to do with energy since everything around me swirls then stops, but my hands remains steady and constant.

i look at both the ftont and back, i will analize my whole hand in a dream

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Burns
Interesting question, Leo. I guess I've never really thought about it before. I always look at the back of my hands. Maybe it does have something to do with energy since everything around me swirls then stops, but my hands remains steady and constant.

---

Oh! Well... sounds good. That is one endorsement for the Back of the Hands... at least enough for me to run a set of suggestions for it.

Thank you, Burns.

Well, my instinct usually tells me to look at my palms, but the only time I've tried doing that to stop the dream from fading, I couldn't find my hands. I saw them in the corner of my eye, I knew that they were there and could feel them, but I couldn't get them into view. I woke up right after that.

Usually to bring back lucidity, all I can get to work is closing my eyes.

I don't think it's that important... The point is that you become aware of your body to become aware of your situation in the dream; to be given an easy opportunity to compare current state with what it should be according to what you think is real. If you're counting fingers, it doesn't matter how you turn them. The fingers can get easily mixed up because they are so high in numbers. Go and look at a 6-finger image of a hand in waking life. It's not that you would intuitively recognize this abnormality with a short look at the hand. And I don't even know what type of mystical 'energy' you are talking about, so we'll leave that aside. It's funny how 'energy' can be literally anything, depending on the desired use.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Yatahaze
I don't think it's that important... The point is that you become aware of your body to become aware of your situation in the dream; to be given an easy opportunity to compare current state with what it should be according to what you think is real. If you're counting fingers, it doesn't matter how you turn them. The fingers can get easily mixed up because they are so high in numbers. Go and look at a 6-finger image of a hand in waking life. It's not that you would intuitively recognize this abnormality with a short look at the hand. And I don't even know what type of mystical 'energy' you are talking about, so we'll leave that aside. It's funny how 'energy' can be literally anything, depending on the desired use.

---

Actually, it must consist more in just having a hunch that one has probably enough fingers.

In dreams it is startling as to what may appear when we look at our hands. In some literature it has been remarked that the hands often look distorted or discolorated. And I have found that often enough to be so. And yet sometimes the hands look absolutely normal. And then, recently I had a dream where my hands, appearing against a contrast of midnight darkness even in a well lit Dream Room, my hands were no longer human hands at all, but smallish hands with only three fingers each -- one finger going straight outward, and then two going out exactly perpendicular to the sides, and would have appeared like a cross except that the hand was webbed. Then, in a comment above, sometimes the hands are gone altogether. We also have Aquanina's post declaring that visualizing the hands is significant in summoning up new stores of Consciousness Energy, but I do suppose we have not much else to look at, do we. But I can't help but to think it must have something to do expressly with the hands.

yes, this is a question that some little bit of experimenting will solve but all the discussion in the world will not get us much closer to.

But then again, to look at the back of the hands.... Hmmmmm. Somebody might think I am checking my nails. Oh, my. So effeminate. Perhaps that's why Burns does it!. So much more manly to check the palms... looking for blisters cuts and callouses and such. Well, no, just kidding. But since it is mentioned, that would be another variable involved -- the condition of one's nails in a Dream. Clean nails would certainly mean one thing while having particularly dirty and ill maintained nails would mean another. I suppose you would see whether your Dream Persona was particularly anxious and insecure, if you found that you had been biting your nails. I guess we will have to ask Burns about all of this until one or another of us can check our own.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Follower
Looking at the hands is what I'm currently doing in all dreams. They're usually unstable, though sometimes not. Actually to see them distort all you need to do is truly stare for a very long time. Their stability depends on the quality of lucidity and on your health. And I don't think it makes any difference if you're facing the palms or the backs, the view of the hands makes your lucidity go up automatically. But it's not a 100% cure, b/c if your lucidity weren't good enough prior to looking, the hands aren't helping much - i.e. when you look away your mind goes foggy soon enough. As for the nails, somehow I get to see one dirty nail :). I decided to write in my dream journal lately about the hands and plan to write on, you can check if you want. I hope to reach the state when the hands are absolutely stable.

---

So you have noticed your nails so you definitely have looked at the backs of your hands, but to be sure, you HAVE looked at the palms. People are creatures of habit, so I would wonder that you have looked at both. It is something on your Checklist -- "look at hands" and so up they come. I honestly have never thought about one way or the other, until I thought of the energy channels. I lifted my hands up the way I usually do, and, SKADS!, the thumbs were on the wrong side.

But so far both Burns and Follower are both backofthehanders and have some good success with it.

Honestly, looking at the Palms had been good enough to give stability to my Lucidity, but since Aquanina's Post I've been wondering whether there was some magic there that I've been missing.

I will usually hold my hands palms up at first and look closely at them. Sometimes I will turn them over. But the importance of this is not just looking at the hands...but examining them in detail. Looking closely at all the little wrinkles, veins, and hair folicles. It's the looking at the detail that brings the lucidity back. It works just as well if you were to examine the ground, or a wall...or anything nearby that you can look at quickly and examine before your lucid has fully faded. Which is why I choose to use my hands...something readily available and can be quickly accessed. Before I discovered this I was using the ground example (examining sand, or carpet fibers) and it worked just as well but there were times when I couldn't get to examining in time so I lost the lucid. Handsare always there. :)

Most of the time it seems to be the back of my hands while I am doing something. Occasionally I turn them over and look at the palms. In my dreams they look exactly the same as they do in real life. I do not have children in real life, but a couple of times I dreamt of holding a newly born baby and nurturing it, holding, stroking, I think these baby dreams occurred because in waking life some projects were successful. The sense of touch was almost real. It was one of many sweet dreams and recall waking up very pleased.

Another dream I recall was when I had huge hands. I remember looking at them and they were about 2-3 times bigger than usual (it was again, the back) and I made some fists and then spread them out again and turned them over to look at the palms. That was kinda freaky.

The "looking at the hands" technique has been well documented since the late 60s/ early 70s by the writer Carlos Castaneda. He also wrote, amongst many other things, of the "re-looking at the hands" technique, being a technique for refreshing one's lucidity while in a dream.

Another technique he wrote about for refreshing one's lucidity has become known as a "double fixation" (although he never used that term). What you have to do is find yourself dreaming, and then deliberately lie down in the same position as your physical sleeping body, and "go to sleep" again. The result is you will re-awaken in the dream with stronger lucidity. You can do it over-and-over again and the result is stunning.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Oneiro
What you have to do is find yourself dreaming, and then deliberately lie down in the same position as your physical sleeping body, and "go to sleep" again

---

Ehh... this might work - however I have read that going to sleep IN a dream will have the opposite effect of real life in that you will likely wake up FROM the dream entirely.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Niña
But the importance of this is not just looking at the hands...but examining them in detail.

---

Yup, I think the point is to keep the brain involved in the dream and in the "creating" mode. By looking at things that have detail, your mind has to generate visuals and will keep doing so the deeper you look into something. It's like in dreams we all have ADD and we need constant stimulation.

There might be something special about hands in that we may somehow subconsciously see that as a reference to the "self". Giving us greater awareness of our own consciousness somehow. But then, looking at our knee or elbow should accomplish the same.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Leo Volont
But then again, to look at the back of the hands.... Hmmmmm. Somebody might think I am checking my nails. Oh, my. So effeminate. Perhaps that's why Burns does it!. So much more manly to check the palms... looking for blisters cuts and callouses and such.

---

Haha, actually, I do realize that I check my nails a lot. I wash my hands so frequently at work that my knuckles, and the skin around my nails get dry and cracked, so I'm constantly checking the state of the back of my hands.

Maybe that's why I do it my LDs. Though my hands don't ever seem to have all the new cuts and scratches that I constantly endure. But I do see the obvious old scars that I have when I look at them during LDs.

Last night I had a lucid that started to slip away from me. After reading Leo's post about the thumbs being together, and their polarity, it inspired me to do something a little different.

When losing lucidity, I put both palms and finger tips all together, as if my two hands were to clap, except I held them next to each other. I stared at the thumb side of each index finger and that didn't do much. Quickly, I started looking at the back of my hands. At that point, the environment was dark green, and my hands were black blobs, and I was surprised I could actually revive the dream at that point.