Sunday, July 26, 2009

Can Anyone Try Lucid Dreaming?

By Trevor Albitt

Sometimes known as conscious dreaming, lucid dreaming is the art of keeping self aware and knowing that one is dreaming while in a dream. This includes being conscious that the events unfolding around you are only part of the dream and being able to exercise control over the dream. All of this is possible for the person who has learned how to use lucid dreaming.

The power of having complete control over the direction of your dreams is something straight out of metaphysical existence. Suddenly, all the limitations you ever felt in life just cease to exist.

But is it as simple as it looks like? Can everyone experience lucid dreaming and bring to life what otherwise seems difficult or impossible in this reality?

In fact, lucid dreaming is not too difficult a task. If you are determined to learn this powerful medium of expressing your inner desires, there are tried and tested ways of achieving this.

Foremost, you must be absolutely clear about your objective in trying to master the art of lucid dreaming. Do you just want to have your own private playground in the form of lucid dreams, or there is some specific reason for developing this skill? Whatever may be the reason, it should be crystal clear in your mind.

The next step is to learn the techniques of reaching the mental state where lucid dreaming is possible. You'll have to begin learning dream recall, which is simply remembering your dreams. To begin lucid dreaming, you need to first be able to recall every detail of the dreams that you have.

This isn't going to happen overnight (if you'll forgive the pun). Many find it helpful to keep a dream recall register, which is a sort of dream diary. Here you'll write down each detail of your dreams which you can remember. Do this each day. You'll find it easier the more you practice. Also, start trying to become aware of your dreaming, to get your mind trained to be alert in your dreams.

Many people have found that hypnosis can drastically reduce the time needed to prepare your subconscious mind to experience lucid dreaming. Often just one of two hypnosis sessions will allow you to consistently remember all of your dreams. Once this occurs your mind is then conditioned for lucid dreaming.

While in a lucid dream, it may happen that suddenly, you are wide-awake. However, with the power that you have attained so far, you'll be easily able to recollect all the important details of the dream. Now, just try to relax and sleep again, while continuing the dream with the desired directions. When you wake up, you'll realize the real power of conscious dreaming you just experienced the night before.

Another great way to have lucid dreams is to go back to sleep for a couple of hours after you wake up in the morning. These dreams are the closest to lucid dreams as they leave you wondering if they were actually dreams or your thoughts manifested in the form of a purported event. You can easily set an alarm to go off a couple of hours before your scheduled wake-up time. And when the alarm sounds, just wake-up, switch it off, and go to sleep in order to enjoy lucid dreams.

In this regard, it's extremely useful to keep track of your sleeping patterns so as to discover the best time to have lucid dreams.

Lucid dreaming can be a helpful practice for those with sleeping troubles such as insomnia. When you are having a hard time getting to sleep, remind yourself that sleep means lucid dreaming; and your subconscious mind will make sure that you get to sleep quickly.

It once was the case that it could take years to learn lucid dreaming; the only way to prepare the mind was meditation, which took a long time to master. A lot of people lack the discipline and would simply give up. New technologies, especially audio technology have made it possible for anyone to experience lucid dreaming.

One of the quickest and most reliable methods of inducing lucid dreaming is to listen to binaural beats audio.

Binaural beats audio is the playing of frequencies which are slightly different from each other, one in each ear. This causes a feeling of deep relaxation and brings brain waves into the proper state for lucid dreaming.

Before this technology, meditation was the technique of choice, which did not work out so well for many people. Binaural audio is much faster and works reliably for the majority of people.

Binaural sound waves, especially in tandem with hypnosis can prepare your mind and allow you to begin lucid dreaming very quickly, sometimes even on the first try!

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