Lucid Dreaming

It’s estimated that most people will have a lucid dream (one in which they are aware that they are asleep and might have some amount of control over their actions) at least once in their life. For many people just getting a taste of what it's like to be in control of something as powerful and mysterious as their own dreams can be enough to set them down the path to wanting to learn how to truly master the skill of lucid dreaming. I'm hoping to give you an idea of how to get headed in that direction, but before we head down that path let's go over a little more info about what a lucid dream is for those who are a little fuzzy.

Definition

Lucid dreaming in it's most basic form is the ability to be aware that one is dreaming and be able to exert some amount of control over what is happening. One common misconception about lucid dreaming is that it gives someone the ability to fully control every aspect of their dreams. In reality, only the most seasoned lucid dreaming veterans are likely to get to this point. Most experience varying degrees of control from almost none to almost complete, and everything in between. For example, if I were lucid dreaming it may not be possible for me to just dream up that every whale on steemit it gives me an upvote, maybe instead I just end up dreaming up a bunch of whales floating up into the sky, or maybe nothing happens at all. It can all depend on your level of experience as well as your level of consciousness within the dream. Hopefully you can use the techniques I'm going to outline to gain a little experience in your lucid dreaming career.

Sounds Great, but how do I realize I'm dreaming?

As you would imagine this happens to be one of the harder parts of the whole experience. There are various techniques to try and help induce lucid dreaming ranging from journaling, to waking up in the middle of the night. I'm going to go over a few of them with you and share my personal experiences with them. I'm constantly trying new techniques and will update this article as I try new things.

1 Reality checks

The idea here is to constantly attempt to make sure you aren't dreaming in real life so that you may end up doing it in a dream and realizing that you are, in fact, dreaming. Reality checks usually involve attempting to phase your hand through something or looking in a mirror. My experiences with this technique were alright. It took quite a while to get into the habit of performing reality checks consisitently, and I only became lucid as a result of this once or twice in about a one month period. The redeeming qulaity of this technique is the constant thought about lucid dreaming. This ended up triggering more lucid dreams for me than actual reality checks ever did. I would be dreaming and think "wait, this doesn't make sense. I must be dreaming." I'd give this
technique a 7/10

2 Dream Journaling

The idea here is to write down all of your dreams when you wake up to get into a habit of remembering them. This can help you to recognize patterns or maybe familiar dreams when they're happening to help you realize that you're dreaming. I did not directly have lucid dreams as a result of this, but I would still recommend doing this in order to further ingraine the thought about lucidity into your daily routine. I would gibe this technique a 6/10

3 FILD Technique

This is definitley the most complicated one so here's a more elegantly worded explanation from the internet "Get to a point where you’re really tired either by exercising and working a lot during the day, or by setting an alarm to wake you up in the middle of the night. Place your hand flat on the table or a flat surface in front of you, like this:
Learning-the-finger-induced-lucid-dreaming-technique-e1490274496704.jpg
Now, lift your middle and index finger up and down separately to each other.
Almost like you’re playing a piano and playing two notes one after the other quickly, but never both at the same time. If it helps you can practice this on a keyboard by alternating between two keys.Press them JUST hard enough so that they dip down a little bit but not actually all the way down.
Now press even lighter than that so that you’re barely contracting the muscles, but you’re still sending a signal to your fingers that you want the to move. This is what you want to remember and do when you’re trying this technique in the morning.
ONLY focus on your fingers
So now that you’ve got the movement down, you can go to sleep. Wake up when you’re going to be tired, so maybe in the middle of the night.
When you wake up, DON’T THINK ABOUT ANYTHING.
Literally only focus on your fingers, and perform the movements. Remember, you’re trying to only send the SIGNAL that you want the fingers to move, it doesn’t actually matter if they move or not.
Now, for roughly 30 seconds just move your fingers and only focus on the feeling of that movement.
Don’t count how many times you move them
Don’t focus on any thoughts
Don’t open your eyes
Let yourself just fall asleep
Then after about 30 seconds, do a simple reality check like trying to push your finger through your palm."
My experience with ths technique is extremely hit or miss. I usually end up either in a lucid dream or in sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is pretty miserable for those wondering. Basically, you can see and breathe, but can't move your body. I give this technique a 7/10 because of that risk.

Sleep Paralysis
I usually experience sleep paralysis as waking up and being able to see, but not move. It can be extremely terrifying if you do not know what is happening. Sleep Paralysis is caused by a lack of communication between your brain and muscles as a result of sleep. My go to move is just to try and rock my body as hard as I can until I regain my body. It's important to just remain calm, and realize nothing bad will happen to.

4 WBTB (Wake back to bed)
Wake yourself up after 4 to 6 hours of sleep, get out of bed and stay up for anywhere between a few minutes to an hour before going back to bed. It is preferable that you do something related to lucid dreaming during this time (such as reading about lucid dreaming), but it is not required. If you are sleeping too deeply to become lucid, then you can modify this technique. Try returning to sleep somewhere different than where you usually sleep, e.g. on a couch, a different bed, or even on the floor. If you are unable to do this, try changing the way you sleep, e.g. try sleeping with a lighter blanket or reversing the orientation of your body while in the bed (that is, swapping head and feet). Do this in order to teach your body that these different surroundings mean you want to have a more conscious sleep rather than a deeper sleep. In the beginning, different surroundings will also make you more alert, which can heighten your level of consciousness during sleep. I was unable to have much success with this technique as I would ofren find myself just falling back asleep with no lucid dream, or I would not be able to get to sleep and become increasingly frustrated. I give this technique a 3/10

5 MILD
With the MILD technique, as you are falling asleep, you concentrate on your intention to remember to recognize that you are dreaming. Repeat a short mantra in your head, such as “Next time I'm dreaming, I will remember I'm dreaming”. Think about what this means (i.e., that you want to remember that you are dreaming—in the same way you might go to a grocery store and suddenly remember that you need bread), and imagine that you are back in a dream you've had recently, but this time you recognize that you are dreaming. For example, if you recently dreamed of flying, imagine realizing that it is a dream because you are flying. Keep repeating and visualizing the mantra until you are sure that your intention is set in your mind or you fall asleep. If you stop repeating and visualizing the mantra, then still try to make sure the last thing in your mind before falling asleep is your intention to remember to recognize that you are dreaming.

In general, the MILD technique can be practiced when you first go to bed at night, or after you have awakened from a dream during the night. If you practice the MILD technique after you have awakened from a dream, you should first run through the dream to ensure that you remember it. Some people find it helpful to jot down a few notes about their dream in their dream journal.

Once you have committed the dream to memory, go back to sleep and follow the steps above. But this time, visualize the dream you just had. Move through the dream in your mind until you encounter a dream-sign you originally missed. Now, instead of missing the dream-sign, imagine yourself recognizing it and becoming “lucid”.

I've had very limited success with this one. I was able to have a couple lucid dreams but normally wasn't able to have too much control. It was also difficult to fall asleep sometimes because I would get so anxious about whether it was going to wrok or not.

Conclusion

It is absolutely possible to control your dreams. There are many people doing it very consistently. I've given a number of techniques a try with mild success, but It's certainly something I'm always trying to improve because of the wonderful benefits it can have. The most important thing to remember with any technique is patience. You can't force this stuff your brain just needs time to learn how to tell when it's dreaming. Good luck in your own endeavors to control your dreams!

Further Reading

http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/lucid-dreaming-techniques.html
http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/

As always thank you so much for reading and I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!