Disney World for the Mind, part 3

Why should I want to have Lucid Dreams? This is a good question and apart from the fun aspect there are many reasons a person may want to develop the ability to have Lucid Dreams.

How many of us have fears that we could start to overcome in our dreams. I for instance have a fear (Big F) of heights. My hands tremble at being more than a dozen or so feet up off of the ground. I remember the first time I flew in my lucid dreams. I was actually fearful of losing control and plunging to the earth. Funny huh, I knew that there was nothing to fear because I was sleeping but I was afraid anyway. I flew and learned to let go of my fears in my dreams. As a result I have learned to let go of my fear of heights in real life.

In real life there are so many missed opportunities. How nice would it be to talk to a passed loved one and tell them how much they met to us or to confront someone who did not treat us properly. Yes I know the people in our dreams are not real but the feelings of closure you may experience are real.

You may have real problems that you can not seem to solve. While dreaming you have assess to parts of your mind that are normally off limits to you. You may easily find the answer to a problem of love, friendship or other life choices.

Lucid dreaming offers many opportunities that are practical and worthwhile. Beyond solving problems, resolving conflict and overcoming fears there are a myriad of other things that can be accomplished with lucid dreaming. I think the next time I have a lucid dream I may conjure up Sigmund Freud and maybe Carl Jung and we can brainstorm on more ways to use this wonderful skill.

Disney World for the Mind, part 2

Needless to say lucid dreaming was a toy and I played with it every night. I sort of stumbled into Lucid Dreaming and so I didn't have to learn how to do it but over a period of time the dreams came less often and I really missed flying like a bird or visiting other worlds. This led me to research the lucid dreaming process and to see if there was anything to be done to increase my lucid dreaming. I found two valuable techniques that worked for me. I hope they work for you as well.

Dream recall is the key to lucid dreaming. If you don't have good recall don't worry here is a simple exercise to increase your memory of your dreams. When you wake in the morning before you move or even open your eyes try to remember your dreams. You will find that in this relaxed state you will be able to at least remember snippets of your dreams. As you practice this you will find that you will remember more and more of your dreams. They will be more available to your conscious mind. I believe that this practice helps create a strong link between the conscious and unconscious minds so the barrier between waking thought and dreams is broken down. It didn't take me long at all to increase my recall and my lucid dreaming increased several fold.

The second technique that helped me sounds sort of absurd. Several times during the day I might ask myself, am I dreaming?. Then I test this by trying something that is only possible in a dream like flying or turning someone into a chicken. If I can not turn someone into a chicken then I am probably not dreaming. If I can then I probably am. The thing is if you do this in your waking hours then your conscious mind will start to do this during your dream time and you will become more aware of your dreaming thus waking in your dreams.

I hope these two techniques will help any who want to learn to do this sort of dreaming. There are many good reasons to explore lucid dreaming. I will discuss those in my next post.