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If you are aware you are dreaming while you are asleep, you are having lucid dreams. This is also referred to as conscious dreaming. Imagine you are in a dream and realize you are dreaming. When you are in this state, you can do just about anything you want in your dream.

While having the ability to control your dreams may sound farfetched, it?s actually something which is within your reach. Lucid dreaming isn?t that hard to do and these dreams are a great place to express your true self and your desires. There are techniques which have proven effective at producing lucid dreams.

The first thing you should do is to figure out what your goals are in learning conscious or lucid dreaming. Do you hope to have more enjoyment from your dreams, or is conscious dreaming a vehicle for you to achieve some of your other life goals?

Once you know why you want to start conscious dreaming, you will then need to become more practiced in the techniques which can produce lucid dreams. Dream recall is the way that most people choose to begin ? this is simply training yourself to remember your dreams.

To start conscious dreaming, you have to learn to recall the dreams you have. The way which seems to help most people with this is to keep a dream diary by your bed. When you awake, write down every detail you can remember from your dreams. Do this as soon as you wake; our dreams have a way of slipping away from us quickly.

This a powerful technique for training yourself in the skill of dream recall. When you are able to recall your dreams, it becomes easier to recognize a dream while it is in progress. In fact, a lot of people find that before long, they will start to ?wake up? in the middle of their dreams, beginning to have lucid dreams.

Hypnosis is another widely used method for lucid dreaming. It is a good way to get into the state of mind you need to begin lucid dreaming. A hypnosis session works quickly to help people to recall the tiniest details in their dreams. This can be done in only a few sessions. Once you have this level of dream recall, you are ready to proceed with conscious dreaming.

You may wake up suddenly when you are having a conscious dream in the beginning. This is not unusual. Go over the events in your dream as you drift back to sleep. If you focus on them hard enough, you will go back into the same dream and perhaps control the events and the outcome of them.

A third way to train yourself to conscious dream is to awaken yourself a couple of hours earlier than normal, then falling back to sleep. You are able to stay more aware in your dreams in this period of sleep, in fact you may feel you are half-awake and half-asleep. You may feel as if you are lying in bed thinking or daydreaming. If you are able to do this regularly, you will find lucid dreaming will come easily.

Watch your sleeping patterns closely. In this way, you will be able to tell what time is more likely to have this type of dream. Do not deprive yourself of too much sleep, as being extremely tired makes you sleep deeper and lucid dreaming is unlikely to occur in this stage of sleep.

However, it happens that lucid dreaming can be helpful to those afflicted with some sleep disorders including insomnia ? you?ll learn to banish the worrisome thoughts that can keep you from getting to sleep.

It does not take years of research and practice to learn to control your dreams consciously. It can be done quickly and easily. With a little practice and work, you will be lucid dreaming in no time. Explore your own mind; control your dreams, and so much more.

In fact, conscious dreaming is something that everyone can do. Just practice and use these techniques to develop your own lucid dreaming abilities ? you?ll find that it has a lot to offer.

Do you want to dream lucidly? Knowing that you want to have a lucid dream is a good start, but it’s not all you’ll need to do. There are several different methods you can use.

So, what is so good about being a lucid dreamer? What would you gain from it? In order to understand the advantages of being aware when you are dreaming, we need to examine what regular sleep actually is.

Why lucid dreaming? When you go to sleep, you normally get into bed, close your eyes for a length of time, and then you either dream or aren’t conscious of anything for a while before waking up. Normal sleep isn’t very interesting!

Normal sleep just seems to serve the purpose of simply refreshing ourselves in order to live out the next day. But what if you could control that period of time that you have dreams?

Would you like to stop just being a passive observer and make sure your dreams are whatever you want them to be? That’s what being a lucid dreamer is all about. You’re totally in control of your dreams, and able to explore new worlds that aren’t bound to the real world’s laws.

How can a person achieve this? How do you learn to be a lucid dreamer? DILD refers to a dream initiated lucid dream. You need to realize you are dreaming. In other words, if you are dreaming and know it, you are having a lucid dream.

Method number two is a wake initiated lucid dream, or WILD. This is when the dreamer begins awake, then goes to being asleep, but without losing consciousness. The dreamer enters their dream as though via a door, instead of waking up inside a dream he or she is already having.

How do you go about achieving these two states of lucid dreaming?

Dream Recall

If you’d like to lucid dream, perhaps one of the most successful way of doing so is known as dream recall. Dream recall is simply the ability to remember one’s dreams. By remembering your dreams, you are able to recognize them when you are sleeping, because most likely, you will have the same dream, or at least aspects of it, more than once.

The best way to practice dream recall is through keeping a dream journal. This is a tool in which you write down whatever you can remember about your dream so you can recall it in the future. Do this right after you wake up - dreams are harder to remember the longer you wait.

MILD refers to Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams

This technique was developed by Dr. Stephen LaBerge, one of the lead scientists in the field of lucid dreaming. To use this method, just tell yourself about an object or element that you will remember. When you dream, there’s a good chance you’ll see this element, then realize that you’re dreaming.

Wake-Back-to-Bed (WBTB)

To use this process, go to sleep with an alarm set to wake you up five to six hours later. When you wake up, don’t go right back to sleep. Instead, do something else, like think about lucid dreaming or read a book, for about an hour. Then go back to bed.

This technique of learning to lucid dream has a sixty percent success rate according to Stephen LaBerge. You have waked up during the dream cycle of your sleep which is referred to as REM. This is like a trigger telling your mind that you want to be aware when you are dreaming.

Cycle Adjustment Technique

Daniel Love came up with this way to accomplish lucid dreaming. Start getting up an hour and a half earlier. After you get used to this, go back to getting up at your usual time. Since you are used to getting up earlier but don?t have to now, your mind is still thinking you are awake, therefore you will be more likely to be aware in your dream.

WILD refers to Wake Initiation of Lucid Dreams

This method is described above. If you’d like to use it, the thing to do is to keep your mind awake during the process of your body falling asleep. This is one of the most interesting ways of entering lucid dreams, and is a lot like watching a movie. Just like when you’re watching a movie, you start in a state of readiness, and prepare yourself.Then, you’ll either hit play or start to fall asleep. The screen and what you see when your eyes are closed are both black. Just wait for your movie or dream to begin.

You need to stay aware; it is a lot like self hypnosis. This is not a good exercise to try when you are tired as your mind may not stay as aware. Try to focus on things that require brain activity such as doing math puzzles, jogging or anything to keep your mind active. Breathe evenly and focus on relaxing every part of your body.

Technology has moved on in recent years, and there are various devices like dreaming masks and other scientific appliances which contain such things as strobe lights to induce lucid dreams.

One of the easiest, most reliable methods to induce lucid dreaming is by listening to binaural beats and special sound frequencies through headphones.

This type of sound can alter your brain and bring you to the REM stage of sleep very quickly. This is where your lucid dreaming will occur.

Combined with the self hypnosis sessions and affirmations to prepare your subconscious mind beforehand, becoming a lucid dreamer is something that everyone can now experience!

So you want to lucid dream. Well that’s a good start, at least you know what you want to do; but how exactly do you go about it?

You also need to think about exactly why you want to become a lucid dreamer. What are the benefits of dreaming lucidly? To help us find the benefits, let us first look at ‘normal’ sleep.

Why is lucid dreaming different from normal sleep? When you lie down to go to sleep, your eyes close and hopefully you go to sleep. When you wake up you remember dreaming something or you don?t remember anything at all.Kind of strange when you think about it.

We need normal sleep to refresh our minds and bodies, keeping us healthy mentally and physically. What would happen if you could control the time when you are dreaming?

How would you like to control what you do while in your dream? Control the events that happen in it in any way you like. A lucid dreamer is in complete control of their dreams.They are able to enter the spiritual realm of existence far removed from what exists in the physical waking hours.

If you want to become a lucid dreamer, how do you manage it? There are two main ways. The first is what’s called a dream initiated lucid dream, or DILD. That’s when the dreamer realizes they’re dreaming in the middle of a dream, restoring their consciousness without leaving the dreaming state itself.

The second way is having a wake-initiated lucid dream (WILD); where the dreamer goes from being awake, to being asleep with no change in consciousness. In other words, the dreamer enters their dream as if it were a door, rather than just “waking up” in a dream.

So, what methods can you use to induce these kinds of lucid dreaming states?

Remember your dreams.

If you’re interested in lucid dreaming, dream recall is one of the most effective ways of learning to do it. Dream recall is the ability to remember your dreams. If you remember them, you’re more likely to be able to recognize them while you’re asleep. That’s because most of us have the same dreams or dream elements more than once.

Writing down everything you can recall dreaming, this is called keeping a dream journal. The more you do this the more likely you will be to remember your dreams. If possible do this as soon as you wake up as this is the time when you will remember the most about your dreams.

Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD)

This is a technique that was developed by Dr. Stephen LaBerge, one of the lead scientists studying lucid dreaming. The intent here is to simply tell yourself that you will remember something, like an object for example and then in the dream, when you see this object you will realize it is a dream.

Wake-Back-to-Bed (WBTB)

The way you do this one is, only plan on sleeping for a few hours like five or six. Set your alarm if you need to so you will wake up. After you have slept the few hours and wake up, stay up. Find something to do to stay awake. Do a little house work; Think about what you might like to do in your lucid dreams. Return to bed in an hour.

This technique of learning to lucid dream has a sixty percent success rate according to Stephen LaBerge. You have waked up during the dream cycle of your sleep which is referred to as REM. This is like a trigger telling your mind that you want to be aware when you are dreaming.

Cycle Adjustment Technique

This was created by Daniel Love, and what it is, is setting your alarm to wake you up an hour and a half before your normal time. Once you’ve adjusted to waking up early, alternate your alarm to wake you up normally and early. During times you are to wake up normally, you’re body will already be ready to wake up early, and therefore, you will be likely to be awake in your dream.

WILD refers to Wake Initiation of Lucid Dreams

The trick is to keep your conscious mind aware and let your physical body sleep. This can prove to be very interesting. Lay back, close your eyes and wait for your dream to begin. Imagine you have put a movie in the DVD player and you are waiting for it to begin. Focus on the black screen until your dream begins to play out.

There are several different ways to hold onto awareness, including imagining going up or down a flight of stairs, chanting, counting numbers, breaths, or anything else, breathing control, and muscle relaxation. These and other self-hypnosis methods will give you something to concentrate on, but don’t do this when you’re tired, or you may lose consciousness.

Technology has moved on in recent years, and there are various devices like dreaming masks and other scientific appliances which contain such things as strobe lights to induce lucid dreams.

Definitely the easiest and most reliable way of inducing a lucid dream however is by listening to binaural beats sound frequencies via headphones.

These work because they’re able to synchronize both brain hemispheres, giving the effect of an almost instantaneous change to the frequency used in REM sleep, which is also necessary for lucid dreaming.

Anyone can learn to be a lucid dreamer. Practice the self hypnosis and keep telling yourself when awake that you will be aware when you are dreaming. This will prepare you for your lucid dream experience.

Did you know that there exist some kinds of dreams which you can actually control while being aware that you are dreaming? These dreams are known as Lucid dreams. In such dreams you are dreaming but you can direct your dreams like a movie. You can decide the actors, the setting and even the story! You can even decide the dialogues!

Lucid dreams can be anything. From a sci-fi fantasy to an adventure or a fairy tale romance, you can dream about anything. Unlike real life, lucid dreams have unlimited possibilities. All you need is imagination.

While normal dreams are uncontrollable and completely dependent on the realms of the subconscious, lucid dreaming is completely controllable. There are times when lucid dreams become so vivid and so genuine that you may need to even make sure that you are dreaming!

One simple test is to try reading something. In a dream the words you see will keep changing, making it impossible to read properly. This is a sure sign that you really are having a lucid dream.

Someone you want to be with may be impossible in real life, but in a lucid dream, you where anything is possible, you can be sitting and talking with a loved one that has passed or a guy you saw at the subway station.

In lucid dreams you can decide the kind of events that can happen. Let’s say you are dreaming that you are with a person you desire to be with. In your dream that person can smile at you and even touch you. In fact in your dream, that person can do anything you want him to do!

Lucid dreams are very much possible. Though the body needs to revive itself for the next day by sleeping and resting, it is possible for your mind to be partly conscious.

Lucid dreaming needs some techniques which can be learnt by some practice and patience.

A good way to start is by trying to recall your dreams. Describe the images, from your dreams as vividly as you can. You can keep a pad and pen or pencil by the bed or lounge chair. Keep them handy so you waste no time jotting down your images clearly. If you don’t remember everything, don’t worry. When the dream repeats its self and it will, you will have an opportunity to finish recording it. Do this technique with all your lucid dreams and you will have a record to use as a reference.

Lucid dreaming is a great tool for writers. You can actually dream about all the characters, the plot and the way you want your story line to move. You can use lucid dreaming for expressing all your dormant desires and manifesting them in reality.

Try to recall everything you can about your dream, go back to sleep and, if you can, return to where you were before you woke up and you will continue to dream. The dream will occur more than once, so you will have the opportunity to recall more each time it does occur. Recalling more each time you try.

If you wake before your normal time, let’s say you have a couple of hours to go; this is the easiest time for lucid dreaming. It may seem like you have been awake and thinking all the time, but you have actually been lucid dreaming.

Soon you will be surprised at how easy it really is to do. One short cut you can try is to use self-hypnosis; it can help prepare your mind to recall vividly your lucid dreams.

Another shortcut worth mentioning is a recent development in sound technology called binaural beats. These special frequencies work by synchronizing the two hemispheres of the brain and almost instantly put your brainwaves into the state required for lucid dreaming to be possible.