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Lucid
Dreaming Quick Start Tutorial
Source: www.DreamViews.com
This tutorial
should not be thought of as a comprehensive document explaining every
little detail related to becoming a Lucid Dreamer. It is intended as a
type of Quick Start manual to get you on your way. Only basic concepts
will be covered in this tutorial, more advanced subjects are covered elsewhere.
After reading and applying the concepts contained here, please continue
to browse the forum and definitely purchase the book Exploring the World
of Lucid Dreaming by Dr. Stephen LaBerge.
The first
few paragraphs here are our own thoughts, the rest of the tutorial contains
facts and summarizations of the things we have learned from the many knowledgeable
forum members as well as concepts learned from various websites and books.
Before beginning,
there are a few things you should keep in mind:
Focus
on success
It is not enough just to simply say “I will try”. I think Yoda
said it best: “No, try not, do or do not, there is no try”.
Set in your mind the intention that you will succeed. Some people come
to this forum and experience their first lucid dream in a few days. Many
others have had to work at it for weeks or months. Remember, there is
no try, you will succeed!
Keep a
positive attitude
Perhaps your biggest obstacle to learning how to become a lucid dreamer
is frustration. Unfortunately, frustration occurs very often, especially
when you have been working at it for weeks and have seen no progress.
It is counterproductive to go to bed at night frustrated and tense. It
is best to think of it as an adventure or a journey. Try to go to bed
at night with the attitude that you cannot wait for the adventure to begin.
One thing is guaranteed, even if you do not experience a lucid dream,
chances are as you improve your dream recall, you will have some very
interesting dreams to write in your journal.
Be diligent
in your efforts
This goes hand in hand on focusing on success. You will not get there
by just playing at it. Follow the exercises or make up a few of your own.
Whatever you do, make the effort everyday. Anything worth having is worth
working for. You would be reading this right now unless you believe lucid
dreaming is something worth having.
Well, now
that all the cheerleading is done with, let’s move on. Read each
section carefully and follow the suggestions provided in each. You should
work on the activities in all three sections at the same time. Please
extract what wisdom you can from each section and modify it to works best
for you.
Good luck
and Happy Dreaming!
Step 1
- Dream Recall
Before you
can experience lucid dreams, you must first be able to remember your dreams.
The first and most important thing you can do to improve your dream recall
is to keep a dream journal. You should write down everything you remember
from your dreams each night. This can sometimes be a time-consuming process,
but don't put it off until later in the day. Keep your journal right next
to your bed so you can access it as soon as you awaken from a dream. If
you are in a hurry in the mornings, you should take notes concerning your
dreams, paying special attention to details such as feelings and colors,
and then go back and write out the entire dream at a later time (do this
at night when you come home, or take your journal to school or work).
It is crucial,
however, to get something concerning your dream down on paper as soon
as you wake up. You may think that you will remember your dream, but by
midday it could become just a foggy recollection. It is a time commitment
to write down your dreams, but if you don't do it, you will have nothing
to work with for the later exercises. Make dream recording a part of your
daily routine, and dreaming will come into your hands a thousand times
more easily. You never need to show your journal to anyone else if you
don't want to. It is a private thing, like a diary.
Your journal can take any form you wish; it need not be fancy. You could
buy a special dream journal at a bookstore, but a 99 cent composition
notebook will serve the purpose just as well. You should write down the
date and, if possible, the time of each dream you record for later reference.
Some people like to title their dreams and include them in a table of
contents. You may want to leave a sizable margin on the side of your description
to add notes that occur to you later. If you are artistically inclined,
or learn visually, it may be beneficial to you to include sketches of
dream places, characters, or objects.
Tape recorders
are an effective alternative method of dream recording. You can record
your voice describing your dream when you wake up in the morning, and
transcribe it to paper, or you may choose to keep a library of all your
dreams on tape. Whatever it is, your journal should be something you like
and feel comfortable using. The setup of your journal is a completely
personal choice. There is no right or wrong way to do it; the important
thing is to record as many dreams as possible.
Recording our dreams helps us to pay attention to the dreams we are able
to recall, and establishes a daily routine that molds the idea of dreaming
into our lives. When we perform actions that cause us to think of dreams
during the day, it helps us to "remember to remember" our dreams
at night.
We all know that good dream recall is necessary since you will want to
know the meanings of your dreams as well as to be able to share them with
others. However, there is another more important reason for having good
recall, identifying your Dreamsigns.
Step 2
– Identify your Dreamsigns
Since the goal of lucid dreaming is to become aware while dreaming, developing
your skill of awareness about yourself and your dreams while waking is
key to your development of awareness in your dreams.
Developing
awareness of your dreamsigns is a simple activity that centers around
the main ways that you will become lucid in your dreams.
A dreamsign is "a peculiar event or object in a dream that can be
used as an indicator that you are dreaming" (Lynne Levitan, A Thousand
and One Nights of Lucid Dreaming). Or, in essence, a signal to you in
a dream. For example, if a pink elephant walked in the door right now,
you might conclude that you are dreaming. This pink elephant would be
considered a dreamsign.
While we
are dreaming, however, we don't often recognize our dreamsigns as being
unusual. For example, if you were in a dream right now and you saw a pink
elephant, you might not think anything of it and keep on reading this.
If we read our dreams and find the dreamsigns that we have had previously,
however, we will become aware of our typical signs and therefore more
easily recognize them in our next dreams. There are four main categories
of dreamsigns as developed by Dr. Stephen LaBerge:
Action
- You, another dream character, or thing does something
unusual or impossible in waking life.
Context
- The place or situation in the dream is strange.
Form
- You, another character, or thing changes shape, or is oddly
formed /transforms. This may include the presence of
unusual clothing or hair.
Awareness
- A peculiar thought, a strong emotion, an unusual
sensation, or altered perceptions.
After you
have recorded a dream, go back and reread it. Locate unusual things or
occurrences within it that could have given you a clue that you were dreaming.
Then try to place these signs in one of the four dreamsign categories.
A helpful way to distinguish these is to highlight, underline, or circle
each type of dreamsign in a different color. For example, you might decide
to highlight all action dreamsigns in pink, all context signs in yellow,
form signs in green, and awareness signs in blue. This will help you to
easily see these signs, and their categories, when you look at the dream
later.
Once you have marked all the signs in several dreams, you should begin
to record your dreamsigns in a table.
Recording these in a table not only helps develop your awareness of dreamsigns
in and of itself, but will also allow you to determine what type of dreamsign
most often causes you to gain lucidity. Learning about your dreamsigns
will help you with visualization of your dreams in later techniques.
To determine
your most effective dreamsigns:
Add up the
total number of dreamsigns in each category. Add up the number of times
this category was recognized.
Recognized
/ Total = % effectiveness
Step 3
-Critical state testing
If you never stop of ask yourself if you are dreaming when you are awake,
how can you expect to ask this in a dream? Recognizing that you are dreaming
is the key to becoming lucid in your dreams.
Critical state testing is the method by which you condition yourself to
ask this question while dreaming. Ancient Tibetan monks stated that if
you are to learn to question whether you are dreaming, you must ask no
fewer than twenty-one times each day while awake.
Critical state testing must be performed regularly every day. You can
set your watch to alarm every hour and perform a state test at that point,
but remember, that will result in approximately 15 state tests per day.
Remember though, the goal is to perform at least twenty-one state checks.
The more often you ask yourself if you are dreaming, the more likely you
will do so when you are asleep.
When to perform state tests varies by individual, however, you should
consider performing a state test anytime one of the following occurs:
1. You
observe one of your dreamsigns
2. You
experience an unusual or strong emotion
3. If
at any time the world seem ‘unreal’ to you
It can take
as long as thirty days to establish a habit, therefore you should not
give up if you do not see immediate results. Some night when you are dreaming,
you will suddenly realize "Hey, I am dreaming!!"
In conclusion,
the Lucid dream life is a dream life full of wonder and discovery. It
is well worth the effort required to become proficient.
This tutorial shared with you the basic steps required to begin having
lucid dreams. You may wish to investigate more advanced induction topics
such as Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams(MILD) and Wake-Initiated Lucid
Dreams(WILD)
(Editor's
Note: This tutorial is from the website www.DreamViews.com
which, in my opinion, is the best no-nonsense explanation of Lucid Dreaming
and includes the most helpful information I've been able to find on the
web.)
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