How To Lucid Dream?

[Mert]

Any kind of source is okay. Books, videos etc. but I'm mostly interested in your experiences. I remember having a couple of lucid dreams when I was a child. Had no interest in spirituality back then obviously. It was one of the best things I've ever experienced. Now I can't seem to have one. 1. How can I do it at all? 2. How can I use it for consciousness work?

[WhatAWondefulWorld]

You should start a dream journal, and start doing reality checks as much as you can. Not robotically though, seriously sit down and question whether this is a dream or not. Supplements can help but ime, not really worth the money.

[WhatAWondefulWorld]

Also work on your visualization skills, good luck ?, I think you can go into deep meditative states using lucid dreaming.

[Arcangelo]

Yeah do the dream journal and the reality checks.

 

This is my method:

A. Read until you pass out for a few seconds at your favorite reading spot,

B. When you wake up after those seconds try to read more, keep passing out, do it until you give up and say: -''Fuck it I am gonna take a nap.''

C. Tape your mouth  (tape it diagonally for safety measures). Go to sleep on your back.

D. Lucid dream. 

 

You gotta do this at a time you are normally awake, and you gotta tell yourself: -''Tonight I'll have a lucid dream, I'll become conscious of the fact that I am dreaming and I will remain asleep.

Think of your mind like it was a computer. You can program things and download things.

 

Arc

 

[DefinitelyNotARobot]

I don't journal I just contemplate my dreams for like 10 minutes after I wake up and it works just fine. Just try to remember as much as you can. What did you see? Who did you meet? How did you feel? What did the dream mean for you? What does that dream say about you? What would you have done differently if you'd become lucid? (I still journal significant dreams)

Then do a few reality checks throughout the day, once an hour would be optimal. Look at your hand and count your fingers, look away and count them for again. If you are dreaming the number of fingers should change the second time you count. But that won't work every time. I'd say 85% - 90% of the time.

Meditating before your sleep will also make you more aware of your dreams and it will increase your chance of lucid dreaming.

Here is also a weird thing I've noticed: Sleeping on your back increases the chances of you becoming lucid.

Alternatively you can go the hard route and just try to fall asleep consciously. But even if you manage to do so, only a few of your dreams will actually be lucid dreams. The rest will play out in front of you.

I do these things and I have multiple lucid dreams per week.

----

Here is how you can use them for conscious work:

When you are dreaming you gain the ability to run into manifestations of different aspects of your mind. If you, for example, are having a nightmare where you are being chased by some crazy man with a knife, that crazy guy is in some way a manifestation of a fear that you subconsciously have.

Here is a little fun fact: You are more likely to become lucid when you are having a nightmare. So let's say you are being chased through the wood and you become lucid: What should you do know? A lot of people would just walk away and stop caring about that guy. Some would even use force against him and they would beat him up or something like that.

But here is a better approach: This person is a direct manifestation of your fear. He IS your fear. You can choose to directly interact with your fear. You can walk up to your fear and ask it questions. You can ask it what it means. You can talk to it. You can try to understand it. And here come the powerful thing you can do. You can show your fear some love! Tell it that you love it, hug it, show acceptance! If you use force against that man you will just end up telling your fear that it isn't welcome. That you don't won't it here. Do the opposite. Make it feel love. Make it feel welcome. Show it that it is a part of you!

You can do this with ALL aspects of yourself! Every. Single. One. You can't directly manifest them in your dream, but you can "ask" your dream to show you an aspect of yourself. Just yell out to the sky: "Show me ...!". You can for example talk to your inner child. You can comfort it and you can try to meet its unmet needs. Maybe it needs some attention, then give that attention to them. Maybe it needs you to play with it. Whatever it is, you can interact with your child as you like.

You can also meet your subconsciousness itsefl! I remember I once had a recurring dream of dying by falling to my death. I, for example, were standing in an elevator and suddenly the floor broke and I fell to my death. This happened again and again. I was wondering what the point behind nightmare was. Then one day I became lucid. I was walking around when I randomly walked into an office. I walked in and guess who was sitting behind the desk: It was me! I was sitting behind that desk. I was kind of confused and suddenly this "me" started to talk. It told me that it was my subconscious mind and that it led me into the office because it wanted to talk to me. I sat down and he told me the entire point behind nightmares and he told me why I was constantly dying in my dreams. He told me so many different things, that I didn't even know I knew! He was crazy wise. He could answer all the questions I had without any second thought.

And that is just ONE aspect of lucid dreaming.

Here is a video by teal swan on fragmentation. Her teachings are kind of weird, you will have to filter out a lot of believes and a lot of nonsense, but she has still a few gems to offer. This is one of them:

Why am I sharing this? Because this is also a perfect explanation for what you can do within your dreams. You mind is made out of different distinct personalities, each with their own goals, fears and desires. You can use lucid dreaming to meet each one of those personalities. Every single one of them. You can interact with them, you can hang around with them, you can talk to them, you can hug them and show them some love, etc. It will help you to learn many things about yourself. A lot of different things.

You can for example use your dreams to uncover suppressed emotions. But be careful with that, there is a reason your mind suppressed these emotions. If you try to uncover too much at once your mind will either tell you that it doesn't want to show you or it will just wake you up.

You can for example meet your own shadow. All your anger, hate, sadness and so on. You can use this to do integration work. It is perfect for that kind of work!

It won't fix your emotional issues immediately though. You will still have to do certain things while you are awake, but it will make it MUCH MUCH easier for you! It will help you confront all of your issues in a controlled environment. Lucid dreaming is a pretty powerful tool!

Here is another video that helped me A LOT! This guy is a Buddhist, he has a few cool views on lucid dreaming in conjuncture with spirituality. He speaks on it from a more scientific point of view because of his audience. He still mentions a view cool things though and I would recommend it to anybody who wants to lucid dream!

 

There is a lot of other ways you can use lucid dreaming. These are just a few ways of hundreds! You will have to discover them for yourself.

[Mert]

Thank you all so much for sharing your perspectives and resources.