Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming is the conscious perception of one's state while dreaming, resulting in a much clearer ("lucid") experience and usually enabling direct control over the content of the dream. The complete experience from start to finish is called a lucid dream.

LaBerge and his associates have called people who purposely explore the possibilities of lucid dreaming oneironauts (literally from the Greek meaning "dream explorers"). The topic attracts the attention of a diverse and eclectic group, namely psychologists, self-help authors, New Age groups, mystics, occultists, and artists. This list is by no means exhaustive nor does interest in lucid dreaming apply necessarily to each group. Clear and consistent knowledge about lucid dreaming is difficult to find amongst the many interpretations of the experience, especially considering its highly subjective nature. It may be classified as a protoscience, pending an increase in scientific knowledge about the subject. Researchers such as Allan Hobson with his neurophysiological approach to dreaming have helped to push the understanding of lucid dreaming into a less speculative realm.

Lucid dreamers regularly describe their dreams as exciting, colourful, and fantastic. Many compare it to a spiritual experience and say that it changed their lives or their perception of the world. Some have even reported lucid dreams that take on a hyperreality, seemingly "more real than real", where all the elements of reality are amplified. Lucid dreams are prodigiously more memorable than other kinds of dreaming, even nightmares , which may be why they are often prescribed as a means of ridding one's self of troubling dreams.

There is a substantial cottage industry based around the technique of lucid dreaming, with an array of induction devices (usually based around flickering light arrays) commercially available to allegedly allow induction of lucid dreams. Their proponents also sometimes claim that these devices help achieve a higher level of spiritual consciousness, and associate it with other New Age concepts such as astral travelling or dream sharing. Some proponents of the technique claim they can use symbolic methods to research, program, and modify their nervous system itself. Memory management, creative solution generation, accelerated healing, autoinduced priapism, and ecstatic envelopment of one's body are among the various claimed techniques. Regardless of these claims' validity, lucid dreaming as a scientifically verified phenomenon is well-established.

Achieving and recognizing lucid dreams

The most important aspect in lucid dreaming is to recognize that one is dreaming. Any time that a person recognizes a dream sign, or anything that is out of the ordinary, they should perform a reality test as stated below.

Many people report having experienced a lucid dream during their lives, often in childhood. However, even with training, achieving lucid dreams on a regular basis can be difficult and is uncommon. Despite this difficulty, techniques have been developed to achieve a lucid dreaming state intentionally.

Dream recall, the ability to remember one's dreams, is very important to lucid dreamers because it is usually desired that the lucid dreamer be able to remember lucid dreams. Improvement of dream recall is usually the first step people take to learn to have lucid dreams. A common practice used to increase dream recall is to keep a dream journal, or a notebook of dreams. The dream journal should be kept right next to the bed so that dreams can be written down as soon as a person wakes up. This is important because waiting until later in the day to write dreams down will usually cause one to forget most of their content. After waking up, it is often helpful to keep your eyes closed while trying to remember a dream.

Ability

• The ability to experience lucid dreams depends on many factors:
• Some naturals have lucid dreams more often and more easily than others.
• Meditation, and involvement in consciousness focusing activities can strengthen the ability to experience lucid dreams.
• Children seem to have lucid dreams more easily than adults do. (The ability to sleep appears to decrease when people get older.
• Induction techniques can help much in becoming lucid.

Common techniques

• Reality Testing

  Reality testing is a common method that people use to determine whether or not they are dreaming. This method involves performing an action with results that are difficult to re-create in a dream. Examples of reality tests include:

  • To read some text, look away, and read it again, or to look at your watch and remember the time, then look away and look back. Observers have found that, in a dream, the text or time will often have changed. In the real world, the text will not change and the time will not change by more than one minute.
  • Flipping a light switch or looking into a mirror. Light switches rarely work in dreams, and reflections from a mirror often appear to be blurred or distorted.
  • Covering your nose and seeing if you can still breathe.

  Another form of reality testing involves identifying one's dream signs, clues that one is dreaming. These can be anything, such as a pink elephant on parade or a talking dog. Dream signs are often categorized as follows:

  • Action — The dreamer, another dream character, or a thing does something unusual or impossible in waking life, such as photos in a magazine or newspaper becoming 3-dimensional with full movement.
  • Context — The place or situation in the dream is strange.
  • Form — The dreamer, another character, or a thing changes shape, or is oddly formed or transforms; this may include the presence of unusual clothing or hair, or a third person view of the dreamer.
  • Awareness — A peculiar thought, a strong emotion, an unusual sensation, or altered perceptions. In some cases when moving one's head from side to side, one may notice a strange stuttering or 'strobing' of the image.

  Though occurrences like these may seem out of place in waking life, they may seem perfectly normal to a dreaming mind and learning to pick up on these dream signs will help in recognizing that one is dreaming.

  Experienced lucid dreamers will often use more advanced techniques, such as those described below, to induce lucid dreams at will. More on..... http://kaalchakra0.tripod.com