Waking dreams - How to stay conscious while sleeping, control your dreams, and be aware.

(NOTE: This new book I am working on, and giving out for free here, may be of the interest of you, as its on the same topic discussed here. Check its own thread here: [link to www.godlikeproductions.com] )

Conscious dreaming, or Lucid Dreams, is the ability to remain conscious and aware while sleeping, so that you are in full control within your dreams, knowing that you are dreaming.

The endless possibilities and explorations of the mind and existence this can give you, is much more than I can go into here.

Instead, I will give you simple to follow step by step method on how to actually achieve this, how to become awake within your dreams, and be in full control, knowing that you are dreaming.

This means that you will be extremely lucid and clear minded in the dream, everything will be completely vivid, as real as waking reality itself - with of course some difference such as other laws of physics and other events and things taking place that would not be part of normal waking reality and its own laws and functions.

Also, of course, you will start to remember your dreams, and these memories will be as real and clear as the memories of anything you do in your daily life, not just any vague memories of dreams lost in a haze.

So, lets just get started.

1. Keep a dream journal. This is simply a notebook you keep with you by your bed, for example on your night table. Also keep a pen nearby. The purpose of this journal is to write down every single dream you have, every morning when you wake up. Also write down anything you may have dreamt if waking up in the middle of the night, before doing anything else. It is important to note down your dreams immediately while the memory is still fresh - as you know, dreams tend to fade quickly when getting up and going about your daily life. Make it a habit - first thing you do when waking up, lay still in bed, think over and relive in your mind dreams you had the night before, write down as much as you can remember. Add anything else you may remember as you read through whatt you wrote down, or as the dany transpires and sudden new memories of the night before comes up.

Also read the dreams you write down in this journal regularly. Its a good practice to read at least one of your previous dreams at night before going to bed.

2. As you go to bed and close your eyes, make notice of the images and visions that naturally comes to you as you are on your way to falling asleep. Hypnagogic images these are called. This happen in the twilight zone between waking and sleeping consciousness. The key is to remain aware, and observe these images. Do not let yourself fade into sleep, but rather study and look at any images, sensations or visions that may come, whatever shape or form they are, whether clear or unclear. Focus on one image of interest, and try make it clearer, keep observing the image, and let yoruself live into it while remaining conscious and awake. Then, catch yourself before falling asleep, and write down anything you saw and experienced, before going back to bad and rethinking of what you just observed as you fall asleep this time.

3. Talk about dreams with family, friends, co-workers, etc. Make dreams a part of your daily waking life. Discuss them, be interested in hearing others dreams, and in sharing your own. Study dreams, read books about dreams and dream books, get books on lucid dreaming, dream research, related phenomena like astral projection, out of body experiences, etc. This will stimulate your subconscious and put you into a natural conscious dream state.

4. Do reality checks. This means that several times a day, you ask yourself "Am I dreaming now?". Do this at any time during any part of your day. You may go to toilet, close your eyes, ask yourseslf "Am I dreaming now?", open your eyes and observe is all around you is the same. You may do it every time you look at yourself in the mirror, close your eyes, ask "Am I dreaming now?", open eyes and look back at mirror and see if its any changes. You can do it while reading a book, close your eyes, ask, open eyes, see if theres any changes, while sitting with the computer, while at work, while eating, while watching tv, basically any time. The more often the better, more effective. Eventually you will do the same in your dreams and become aware.

5.Make notes of typical states of being in your dreams. Such as, how do you perceive yourself, what do you feel like, do you abide normal physical laws, or can you levitate or fly, or go through solid matter, or other "magical" abilities? What do you mostly do in your dreams? What surroundings do you most often find yourself in? What kind of people or characters do you most often encounter? What is generally recurring themes of your dreams? Make notes of these states that are typical, note them down, and read through them now and then, while you imagine yoursel being in those state, while conscious, and how that would be.

6. Meditate daily to improve your visualisation skills and dream programming. One exercise to do is to lay down, close eyes, simply imagine you are dreaming, you may daydream up something of your own, or think of a dream you had previously, and try to re-live that particular dream and see if you can remember all its details, perhaps even more than you originally remembered from it. When trying to remember dreams, try to remember what you where doing first in the dream, leading up to the part you remember most, and then what you did after that part you remember least.

Second exercise to do is to lay down in bed, close your eyes, imagine and try to remember how the room around you looks. Really imagine all its details, the walls, items around, colors, shapes, etc. With eyes still close, imagine you stand up from bed, and go through your bedroom, and into another room. Imagine how that would seem like, what would you see with your eyes as you went on that walk, what would you see and sense around you on the path towards that other room, what items, what colors, that shapes, furnitures, objects, etc. Then imagine going back to bed in the same way, and imagine you lay down back into your body that is there in bed.

Then, you do the whole procedure again "for real", with your physical body, open your eyes, observe the room around you, and see how much you got right from the memory experiment you just did, how much did you visualize correctly?

Get up from bed, physically, with eyes open, and this time go through the room for real, as you just imagined you were doing before, and really notice and observe all the details, objects, items, colors, and so on for real with your physical eyes this time. Return and keep observing in the same way and go back to bed and close your eyes.

Then repeat the first part of this exercise, where you stay in bed with eyes closed, and imagine that you go up from bed and go through the same route that you just did, again try to imagine and visualize all the details of the room around you and the path you walked on, just as you did, and imagine going back to your body once again as you keep imagining and visualizing all details around you until you lay down into your body and relax a bit, open your eyes, get up.

This is a powerful exercise to do daily, or several times a week, to improve visualization skills, and also make dream visions more clear and vivid. Do not underestimate this practice, its powerful, and you can do it almost anywhere. As an example, sit on a bus, look around, observe all, then close eyes and try to visualize all the details you just saw, open eyes again and see how correct you got. This also strengthens your memory in general and gives you an eye for details.

7. When going to sleep at night, before doing the exercise in step 2 above, tell yourself you will be aware and conscious when you dream. "When I sleep, I will become aware" "When I dream, I will become conscious". Repeat this with enthusiasm and expectation for success many times like a mantra as you go to bed.

Do these exercises above daily or at least many times a week, and you will soon find yourself to dream stronger, more vivid, more clear, more lucid, and more controlled.

Then, report back your results frequently here - make this a thread to discuss your dreams with me and others, which is perfect as mentioned in step 3. You can all report dreams here, and let me know your progress.

Feel free to give some stars and karma for this program I hve developed for you :)

Thanks and good luck, dream strong!

Last Edited by SolarSon on 09/11/2014 02:49 PM