Lucid Dreaming

What can you do with your dreams? Well, for starters try to remember them. Make a real commitment to yourself that you’re going to remember your dreams. Say this to yourself, remind yourself several, many, lots of times during the course of the day. Morning, noon and night. Say, “I remember my dreams.” Say, “I awaken after my dreams to write them down.”

Now, in writing down your dreams just jot down five or six key words. Not the whole thing. Not two pages of detailed explanation of your dream. Just five or six words. In the morning look at your list and then write your dream out. Give yourself an extra 20 minutes in the morning. Keep a special notebook. They sell all sorts of wonderful, colorful, fun notebooks for the kids. They don’t cost much. Keep a little flash light next to your bed so you don’t awaken your partner while you’re writing down the significant words of your dream.

It will happen that as time goes by you’ll be able to remember more of your dreams each night, but, in the beginning just try to get one.

The next thing, then, after you’re remembering your dreams is to decide that, now, you can dream lucidly. What? That’s all? Yes. You decide to do it.

What exactly is a lucid dream? Well, compare it to a regular dream. A regular dream you don’t have a whole lot of control over. It happens to you. In a lucid dream you consciously decide to do something while you are dreaming. You have control.

For instance, you are having a nightmare. People are chasing you. You’re afraid. You’re running and mired in the muck of the earth as it sucks up around your feet to prevent you from getting away from the bad guys. Sound familiar? Right. So, if this nightmare morphed itself into a lucid dream what would happen? Why, you’d decide to remove yourself from the danger. Superman swoops down and scoops you up to carry you away to a wonderful island paradise. Or….this bulldozer comes in and plows through the bad guys like a bowling ball through ten pins. Or…the bad guys start inflating and explode. Whatever. It’s your dream and you are in control.

A lucid dream is when you feel like you’re awake. It’s when you know in your heart that you are dreaming and you can observe the dream while it’s going on. You can feel things. You can hear things. You can smell things. It’s pretty amazing.

A lucid dream I had once began as a regular dream. I found myself on a path and that’s when I got lucid. I reached down in my dream to pull the seeds off of a piece of tall grass that was growing beside the path. I felt the seeds pulling off the stalk into my hands. That’s when I realized I was dreaming. I was so excited that I straightened up and began shouting to a bunch of guides I saw in the distance that I was dreaming. I yelled, “I’m dreaming! I’m dreaming!” I was jumping up and down too, my arm raised in the air to show them the grass I had clutched in my hand. I knew I was dreaming. I was asleep and I knew that I was dreaming. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long. I was so excited I woke myself up.

Once you’re accustomed to dreaming lucidly use this skill. Use it to practice those awful presentations you have to give and agonize over. Use it to practice learning to play the mandolin. Use those dreams to work out your emotional and psychological hurts. Use those dreams to meet other Folk in Spirit. Ever wanted to talk to Elvis or John Lennon? I’m betting if you asked they’d be there for you. It doesn’t hurt to try.

Imagine how very, very interesting this is. Lots of references. I recommend Stephen LaBerge’s book, “Lucid Dreaming“. You’ll start having lucid dreams even before you’ve finished reading it.