How to Wake up in a Dream
Now that you know what lucid dreaming is and the benefits and risks, it’s time to seriously give it a try. Brace yourself oneuronauts, we’re going to shoot the training wheels. Welcome to the third week of the seminar Lifehacker’s Lucid’s Dream Workshop .
How to prepare for and induce lucid dreaming
To increase the likelihood of lucid sleep, you need to prepare your surroundings, watch what you eat, drink, and otherwise swallow, and fall asleep properly.
First, you need to make sure you get enough sleep to make lucid dreaming possible. You have more REM sleep in the second half of the night than in the first half, and more REM sleep means an increased chance of lucid dreaming. In fact, the likelihood that you will have a lucid dream increases with each subsequent REM period. On average, during the night that you sleep for the recommended eight hours, you experience about six periods of REM sleep. The last three of these REM periods occur in the last quarter (or in this case, two hours) of the night. So, if you don’t get enough sleep and only sleep about six hours each night, you basically halve your chances of becoming lucid. For this to work, you need to get good sleep and get plenty of sleep . If you can find a way to extend your sleep by at least one night a week, such as on weekends, do so.
What you put into your body also affects your likelihood of lucid dreams. Alcohol and drugs interfere with REM sleep and disrupt sleep cycles , so avoid drinking as much as possible before bed . While sleeping pills and melatonin can help you fall asleep, keep in mind that they can interfere with your normal sleep cycle. Food and soft drinks can also play an important role in dreams. Some people have more vivid dreams depending on what they eat, or have nightmares if they eat certain foods too late at night. I have personally found success with pickles, apple juice, peanut butter, and spicy foods as beneficial nutrients. In addition, it is always a good idea to shorten the time before bed before bed .
Finally, you need to fall asleep with the intention of lucid dreaming. It’s not as easy as just thinking about being clear before bed, but it’s actually a huge part. Oneuronauts, this is “Soft Technique” from the book ” Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming ” by Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. and Howard Reingold:
- Set up dream recollection: Before bed, make a decision to wake up and recall dreams during each dreaming period during the night (or the first dreaming period after dawn, or after 6 a.m., or at any time convenient for you).
- Reflect on your dream: When you wake up after a period of sleep, no matter what time it is, try to remember as many details as possible from your dream. If you feel so sleepy that you fall asleep again, do something to wake yourself up.
- Focus Your Intention: As you return to sleep, purposefully focus on your intention to remember to admit that you are asleep. Tell yourself, “The next time I sleep, I want to remember that I am dreaming.” In fact, try to feel that you are serious. Limit your thoughts to just this idea. If you find yourself thinking about something else, just let go of those thoughts and bring your mind back to your intention to remember.
- Repetition: Repeat steps 3 and 4 until your intention is determined, and then allow yourself to fall asleep. If you find yourself thinking about something else while falling asleep, repeat the procedure so that the last thing on your mind before bed is your intention to remember to recognize the next time you sleep.
Without the preparatory work and this exercise with intent, lucid dreaming will only happen by chance, which is rare at best. However, if you want to further increase your chances of triggering lucid dreaming, you can try something called “lucid dreaming planning,” where you use an alarm clock to delay major periods of lucid dreaming. For example, if you know that you can get eight hours of sleep in one night, set the alarm so that it goes off after six hours. Then do the Gentle Exercise described above and go back to sleep with the intent to recognize that you are asleep. Remember these last two hours are the best time for lucid dreaming, so why not boost your chances?
How to tell you that you are dreaming
Okay, so you are asleep. But how to understand that you are in a dream in order to “wake up” in it? There are two popular methods: detecting “sleep signs” and “critical condition check”.
Dream signs, which have nothing to do with “dream interpretation,” are essentially a mental catalog of inconsistencies that you usually experience in your dreams. They can be difficult to spot, and you may not have many that appear regularly, but you do. For example, one of the main signs of my sleep is to be with people whom I do not recognize, but still am convinced that I do. If I can establish the fact that this “friend” I’m with in my dream is not really the one I’ve met before, I can become dream conscious and perhaps lucid.
Other people I know have dream characteristics such as “people have no distinguishable faces or no faces at all” or “I never look like myself when I dream.” However, yours can be much easier, such as never wearing the clothes you normally wear, or perhaps not wearing them at all. Or maybe you will notice that the location of the familiar place is not at all like what it was before. Whatever they are for you, start recording the signs of your dream in a dream journal. The more regular inconsistencies you can notice and realize, the more likely you are to notice them in your dreams and become aware.
On the other hand, critical condition testing is something you should practice in the waking world. These tests are designed to be performed regularly while you are awake, so that as you sail through the land of dreams, you can do the same test and know that you are asleep. This is very effective if you do it right. This is why your next assignment will be to conduct a personal critical condition test.
Assignment: Establish a “Am I Dreaming?” Check
Critical condition tests can consist of a simple question: “Am I dreaming?” or as difficult as going through the sleep state checklist. However, no matter what you decide to do, the dream question should be part of your test. After all, if you never ask if you sleep in the waking world, what are the chances that you will do so when you sleep?
My personal critical condition test is very simple:
I look at my hands and turn them over, ask myself if I am sleeping (out loud if possible), then look around to make sure I really know all the people I interact with (dream signs!). If something seems a little wrong, I tell myself to hover or fly.
However, when you are doing your test, this is important. Create a set of rules for yourself and follow it. For example, you can set yourself to do the test every time you go to the bathroom, drink a glass of water, see an attractive person, get up from the table, talk to a certain person, etc., try to include the dreams you have. were, in their own set of rules. For example, if you have dreams that reflect your social anxiety, use uncomfortable social situations as one of the test triggers. Or, if you are afraid of heights and dream about it, take the test every time you feel this fear.
But critical health checks, however personalized they are, are useless unless you do them with some regularity. Since you’re just starting out, you’d better do this at least 10 times a day, every day. Once you start practicing this, about five times a day will be enough. Eventually, you go out to do your routine check, and lo and behold, you will indeed be dreaming. Excitement and amazement will overwhelm you when you first deliberately become clear.
Okay, oneuronauts: sleep well and keep dreaming.