Lucidity by Meditation Technique (L.B.M.)

Alright... So this may seem a little silly but it was very interesting when I did it and so I thought I should share it. You do not have to know a lot about meditation or anything to use this technique. Well, I'm going to stop blabbing now and tell you what I did...

Step 1: Be tired but able to concentrate. This is very important as it will not work unless you are able to relax but concentrate. The type of tired I'm talking about is the "sit around the house all day" kind of tired and not the "I've exercised the whole day and I'm ready to sleep for 10 hours" kind of tired. Basically when you're a little drowsy but not dead tired (I did it at lunch when I decided to take a nap).

Step 2: Lay down and get comfortable

Step 3: Close your eyes and begin to relax. Don't worry about focusing as it will happen naturally as you regulate your breathing. Alright, so to regulate your breathing you'll have to consciously alter your breathing at first. What you do is take in a deep breath (not to full lung capacity but close) and exhale. Wait a second then repeat. You'll notice that this becomes automatic after 50 breaths or less (took about 20 for me) and then your brain will begin to focus and your muscles will relax. This breathing technique is used frequently when one is meditating.

Step 4: Quite possibly the hardest part of this technique. You must think mentally and not physically. The reason you must do this is that it basically dislocates mind from body and allows your body to fall asleep while your mind stays awake. There is another technique that uses the same principle but I feel that meditation is a better way to achieve this state as you hardly feel the need to move your body at all (you tend not to feel the itches and uncomfortableness that your body creates to test you mind if it's asleep). Remember: THINK MENTALLY NOT PHYSICALLY. Refrain from thinking about your body. Try to think of the type of dream you wish to have.

Step 5: This is where is gets fun :D. You'll begin to forget you have a body (it sounds strange but it tends to happen when you think only within your brain for extended periods of time). This state took me about 30 minutes to achieve but I enjoyed every minute it took me to get there.

This is kind of branching off a bit but this is what happened to me.......

From this state I began to have auditory hallucinations. This was fine by me and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I heard voices of women talking about random things. The voices were clear as a bell and sounded as if I was hearing them in my room. I knew they were coming from my mind though and that is precisely why this technique is so fantastic. The entire time there is this gut feeling that "I'm dreaming". This should help you to attain lucidity. Anyway, after I heard the voices I was a bit started and so they faded. Not long after that I began to hear birds. Actually I heard all the sounds of the rain forest. While I was hearing the birds I began to see flashes of trees and things which was no doubt the beginning of a dream. However that soon faded and I entered a dream which was totally different not long afterward. I'm not going to bother explaining the dream but I will say that there was still that gut feeling that I was dreaming. This was my first time trying this technique (in fact I didn't really plan on entering the dream world consciously) and although I didn't have a lucid dream it seems to work fantastically. I'd also recommend listening to soothing music when you do it as I could see that influencing your dreams.

I hope some of you will try this! May all who try succeed!

For me it's a variation of WILD technique. I'm using it almost everynight. Not to get lucid dreams but to not loose my consciousness. Once, after waking up in the middle of a night, I tried to fall asleep not loosing my consciousness. When images started appearing I felt that I'm leaving my body. I believe that it was a start of an astral projection but I was scared and I woke up.

I hear voices very often. They are quite chaotic. Do you hear more logical conversations?

Unfortunately no. I don't hear any conversation that follows a logical pattern. It's all random banter. Sometimes I cant even make out a single word and it seems like the women are mumbling. That's another thing I find interesting too. It always seems to be women talking that I hear, never men. When it comes to nature though (birds, trees rustling, waterfalls, etc.) I always hear the sounds very clearly and I can sometimes even begin to determine what type of bird made the call.

As for this technique being a variation on WILD, I couldn't agree with you more! That's precisely what it is! I just love how using meditation allows you to focus your conscious mind and keep yourself conscious for longer periods. Also, apparently the body tests the mind after a while of being comfortable with itches and such to see if the mind is still awake. If the mind doesn't respond by scratching in this case, the body will fall asleep and it becomes much easier to enter into the dream world while remaining conscious.

I think this is a very cool technique!
The deep breathing helps get me to sleep faster!

Glad you like it! I actually have two things that I've added to this technique.
1) I now listen to a lucid dreaming mp3 that I modified from one I downloaded on this website (I believe it was called the Ultimate Lucid Induction). I might upload the mp3 later, but I must point out that I am NOT the one who created the song, I only modified it to take out the sketchy parts (the parts that kinda scared me because of the sounds) and added more parts with the girl telling you you're dreaming. All credit for the sounds in the song go to the original maker.
2) I try to think about a routine task while meditating (deep breathing) such as cooking something or walking on campus or something so I can make it into the dream state. The hardest part is staying conscious, so try to focus on knowing you're dreaming while you think of whatever routine task you choose.

I have an alarm set on my pc to start the mp3 playing about 4 hours into my sleep and have it loop just in case my wild doesn't work. It gives you a much better chance of getting a lucid (just guessing it does).

So you don't need to think of a dream scenario now?

Huh? I don't know what you mean...

"Try to think of the type of dream you wish to have"

You don't need to do that now?

Anyway, great thoughts on the chore thing because if you don't think of something, you WILL fall asleep
because the mind's not being engaged.

Exactly. You can still think of the type of dream you want to have, just think of in "inside" of another thought. I mean think about doing chores or whatever, but think about doing your chores and thinking about the type of dream you want to have while you're doing your chores.

OK...but for me it's probably better to think of one or the other

The first time I tried this I got tingly feelings.

What do you mean you can't get lucid?