Lucid Dreams: An introduction

Have you awoken to realise you were still dreaming?

Lucid dreams are when we become aware that we are dreaming while we are still asleep.  For some people this comes naturally, by accident; for others, it can be a goal they strive towards for many years; and yet for others, it can be something we have never really thought about.

If lucid dreaming is something that we want to achieve, it can be possible to imporve our chances with effort and concentration. 

Some of the ways to work on achieving awareness in our dreams are:

• to try and focus on our hands (see:  Dream Symbols: Body Parts: Hands)
• to try and recognise that we are dreaming in a false awakening (see: False Awakenings: A dream within a Dream)
• to try and become aware of the edge of sleep and wakefullness that occurs during sleep paralysis (see: Sleep Paralysis:  A Special Kind of Nightmare)
• to confront something frightenning in our dreams on the pretext that it is “just a dream” (see: Nightmares: Part 1)

There are other methods to achieving lucidity in dreams, but these are some of the most common ways to start.  The challenge within lucid dreaming is always to try and maintain the balance of staying conscious enough to know that you are dreaming, but never to get too excited or over aware so that you wake your self up.  But with practice and patience it is entirley possible to become aware in your dreams, and to enhance your overall dreaming experience.

Big Dreams: Something Special

Have you ever had a dream you knew you would remember for the rest of your life?

I have mentioned in various entries that we should pay attention to all our dreams (see “Resist the Urge to Judge”) as they all have important things to teach us, and sometimes it is the very things that seem trivial or that we would prefer to ignore that contain the most valuable lessons.  As we learn to respect and listen to everything our dreaming mind has to say to us, like a shy wild animal that we seek to befriend, gradually our dreams will come out into the open, revealing themselves to us and sharing their secrets.  All dreams can be helpful.  All dreams are valuable. 

But that does not mean all dreams are the same.  As we learn to work with our dreams, to pay attention to the small, the shadowy, the vague and elusive, we enter into a realm of our minds that is far from small or vague.  We enter our subconscious.  And our subconscious is vast, expansive and awe inpsiring.  When we enter our subconscious we can commune with our deeper self, our higher self and sometimes something even more.

Sometimes amongst the dreams of driving the car, running away, of friends, family, animals and other strange scraps and obscure fragments of dreams, we are lucky enough to have a big dream.  We know a big dream when we have one.  Big dreams stand out from other dreams as the sunlight stands out from a candle.  Big dreams exult us.  Big dreams inspire us.  Big dreams fill us with awe, wonder and reverence. 

Big dreams can defy our attempts to describe them

Big dreams often defy our attempts to describe them, as mere words seem so inadequate to capture a sensation that seems to transfuse our very being.  These dreams may create a sense of us travelling through space, of flying to heaven, but even more than that, we may feel a sort of expansion, as though we become one with the universe, as if our body dissolves or the boundary between what we think is of as “self” versus what is “other” kind of fades away.  Big dreams seem to connect us with something far greater than ourself.  This dream may not have a story, characters or even a sense of place.  It could be that even describing the feelings that you have in this context does not do justice to the sensations you experience in a big dream. 

But as amazing and as exhilarating as they are, big dreams are not for the chasing.  Even the most inexperienced dream worker can have a big dream.  They are not the preserve of any dream elite, they do not come because we practice, or because we apply discipline or method.   Big dreams can come to anyone, anywhere.  They are a gift to all humanity.  Big dreams allow us all to be visionaries or poets.  They may come when we seek, or are in need.  Or they may simply come for reasons we will never entirely consciously understand.

We may have only one big dream in our life, or we may be lucky enough to have several.  But when you do, you can be sure you will remember it.  Big dreams stay with us forever.  It is no understatement to say that big dreams may even change our life permanently.  And for that we should be eternally grateful.

False Awakennings: A Dream Within a Dream

If you’ve ever had the experience that you get up as usual, maybe go to shower, have breakfast or start

Are you really sure you have woken up?

getting dressed, only to notice something is not quite right – maybe all the towels in the bathroom have changed colours, there are only spare car parts in the pantry or you mysteriously seem to have forgotten how to do up your buttons, then you may have had a “false awakening.”

Also known as “a dream within a dream,” false awakenings are characterised by a belief that you have woken up and started your day, only to realise that you are in fact dreaming.  It is not unusual to have multiple false awakenings in one session.

Although they can be confusing and frustrating, false awakenings can provide a useful trigger to understand how we change consciousness throughout sleeping and dreaming.  False awakenings give us the opportunity to question how we know dreams from waking life, how we define reality and what assumptions we make about the nature of consciousness.  Some people use false awakenings to become “lucid” or aware in their dreams.  Other people believe from this state they can astral travel.  Whatever your belief or approach, false awakenings do at the very least show that sometimes at least, our own mind is able to fool us quite convincingly!

If you find your self in a situation where you aren’t sure if you are dreaming or not, look at a digital clock (like a clock radio beside the bed) or a digital watch, then look away, then look back.  If you find the numbers have moved in a surprising way, you can be pretty sure you are dreaming.  Another good test is to try and read something.  For some reason that no-one yet seems to be able to explain, it appears that no-one can read continually and accurately in a dream, or at least, not when they are aware they could be dreaming.  If the letters sneak around and change into fanciful shapes and movements, you can rest assured you are in a dream.  (By the way, if anyone knows more about the the reason you can’t read in dreams, please let me know!)

If you do have a false awakening (or many), you can look at it as an opportunity to examine your preconceptions, to engage with your dreams in a new interesting manner, and maybe even find new clues as to how your subconscious engages with your conscious mind.  If you are lucky, you may even stay aware in your dream long enough to enjoy it!