Lucid Dreaming

Someone asked me for some tips on lucid dreaming.

There are actually different ways to go about it. My way is not the only way, and I'm not even saying it's the correct way. Anyway, here we go.

1. Lie down. Duh. Obviously, this includes closing your eyes. It would be advisable to lie down on your back, legs slightly spread, and arms on your sides, with the palm facing up. It must feel completely natural for you; if it feels uncomfortable or unnatural in any way, move around a bit to find your position.

2. Relax every muscle in your body. Visualize the relaxation starting from your feet, moving upwards, to the legs, the torso, the arms, and then the neck, then the face.

3. Once you've relaxed everything, all the activity should be concentrated in your brain. And this is where the fun begins.

4. Now imagine your mind as one big stadium covered by a huge dome right above you. You can think of the dome as your cranium. Then imagine some lights on the dome's surface, corresponding to the areas of your brain where mental activity is going on (kind of like a CT scan). This requires some concentration, as you must try to locate which areas of your mind are still receiving electrical impulses.

5. Once you've determined which areas are still active, imagine the stadium starting to vibrate and shake. The stadium is actually one huge flying saucer, and the ground vibrating beneath you is actually the boosters and engines starting up.

6. Then imagine the whole stadium, including the dome plus all the lights on its surface, suddenly rise vertically into the sky. You will know when you are doing it right when you feel your body as just pins and needles, the sensation of it slowly fading while your mind slowly enters a different plane.

7. Sustain for as long as possible.

The purpose of this of course is to take all your mental activity to a different plane, into the alternate universe of dreaming. You will be leaving your body behind on auto-pilot, and it will undergo its daily rest and cell regeneration and what-not. But your mind and your consciousness will be elsewhere.

Always remember that all this requires energy. To separate your mind from your body requires a tremendous amount of energy, so if you are exhausted when you hit the sack, chances are you will just just drift off to dreamland, without control, of course. And even if you successfully manage to enter the dream state, it will take even more energy to stay there.

This post only discusses entering the dream state. Sustaining it is another matter.