Welcome back readers. Last time I posted we talked about what to expect from my section “Sterling’s World of Lucid Dreaming” and now we will continue. Now after thinking about what I could do for my posts to come; I have decided to mesh together my “Information, References and Dream Recall” sections into one post. To leave the reader with information, but nowhere to start on the journey of lucid dreaming would be quite rude. Each section will be marked with a bold and under lined title making it easier to differentiate them from one another. So here we go…
References
I’m going to start by listing out the books I recommend for further reading. Two of them are available on amazon for Kindle which I did at first for my iPhone, but I do recommend that you get the paper backs because it’ll be easier to go back and remind yourself of something the author said. I ended up buying the books for that reason and I have little sticky notes on the pages I like to look back at. NOW a lot of the readers of my blog are probably thinking ‘why recommend books if you are teaching us yourself?’ My answer is simple. I use these books and most of the information comes from these books, while some of the personal ideas I throw in here are original, most of the foundations lie in these books. That’s a lot of ‘these books’, but I digress.
Lucid Dreams in 30 days by Keith Harary, PHD and Pamela Weintraub – So this book is what started it all for me. While some reviews on amazon claim this book to be no help, I found it to be a simple starting point. It does lack information, but that is because it’s designed to let you jump into the program. After doing the first week I started catching some results. This particular book isn’t really a high recommendation, but it’s for people like me who like to jump in quickly.
Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge, PHD and Howard Rheingold- This is the book that I use the most when it comes to factual information about lucid dreaming. It has techniques for everyone to improve every ‘tool’ that could help them improve their chances at becoming lucid within a dream.
Lucid Dreaming; Gateway to the Inner self by Robert Waggoner – While this book is less of a “How to” it’s very good at getting you excited for lucid dreaming. I highly recommend this because it very well makes you gain the focus and want which in result leads you to lucid dreaming. As I said I highly recommend this book, because you’ll find that lucid dreaming takes time and this book keeps you well motivated.
Lastly…
Www.Dreamviews.com – This is a community surrounding lucid dreaming, in here you will find people in forums who discuss common questions and who are very helpful. You may find yourself running into me on this website. There’s nothing better than support and most of my friends really don’t get my fascination with dreams thus it’s nice to have a community of people who are interested in the same thing as you. Not only will you find the forums helpful, but also the site in itself has tutorials and definitions for nearly everything dream related. Once again I highly recommend this, if anything at least check it out and see what you think. You can find me on the website as NickCamp if you want to send a private message to me or add me as a friend, feel free.
Basic Information
Well here we go. This section will contain a couple of statements by me and then it will move on to common Q&A’s that I will use from “Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming” and then briefly go through the sleep cycles.
Now when I ramble on about lucid dreaming with my friends I feel as if my brain could explode from every time that one of them says, “I don’t have dreams.” I simply put on a face that says “Oh so naïve” and simply explain that everybody dreams. No matter what, when you’re sleeping you dream, you simply cannot remember them. I also mention that if you were to start making a point to remember your dreams and start writing them down you will see an increase in length and details as the week progresses.
Another thing I would like to say is that every dream has significant meaning. No matter how strange a dream seems it can be speaking to you of wants, needs, fears and even being content. Every dream has a message it just takes some Sherlock Holmes work to crack the codes of the subconscious mind.
Lastly, Stephen LaBerge in his book “Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming” makes a statement; “Everyone can lucid dream” this is true. Some people do it naturally and other may have to put forth a lot more effort. One example is my Mother-in-law and myself. She easily becomes aware that she’s dreaming, but that’s most likely because she’s an aware person while my personality of being really accepting leads me to working for my lucidity.
I have noticed something that nobody touches on when it comes too lucid dreaming. Personality types and the way they achieve lucidity. Here are some of the personality types I have classified (I may be missing some or a lot, this is just some that I have come up with.)
The Accepting: this personality type is what I would classify myself as. I am very accepting of what happens around and to me, in result it makes achieving lucidity somewhat hard because in a dream I am on Autopilot, simply accepting what is happening around me.
The Skeptic: This personality type will probably find it easy to achieve a lucid state being that in their waking life they question everything, questing odd situations in dreams is most likely going to make skeptics aware pretty quick. (Assuming they remember their dreams.)
The Aware: These groups of people are just aware of their surroundings and what’s happening to/around them. When they are in a dream they don’t really question it, but they do know that they are sleeping and I’ve found that some even modify some things here and there.
The Emotional: I feel like this personality type is on the fence. If you are a fearful person than you will find that you need to break down walls to even become lucid. When the emotional become lucid they get over excited causing them to wake up, BUT they also can get more excited and motivated about lucid dreaming making it easy to stay dedicated.
Q&A’s From “Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming”
*Note that I may have shortened some of these due to long explanations
“Q: Might lucid dreaming be dangerous for some people?
A: The Majority of lucid dreams are positive, rewarding experiences, much more so than ordinary dreams (to say nothing of nightmares). Nevertheless, there probably will be some people who find the experience of lucid dreaming frightening and in some cases extremely disturbing. For this this reason we cannot recommend lucid dreaming to everyone….Lucid dreaming is completely harmless.
Q: They say that if you die in a dream, you really will die. Is this true?
A: If this were true, how would anybody know? There is direct evidence to the contrary: many people have died in their dreams with no ill effects; according to the reports they gave after waking up –alive.
Q: Won’t all these efforts and exercises for becoming lucid lead to loss of sleep? And won’t I feel more tired after being awake in my dreams?
A: Dreaming lucidly is usually just as restful as dreaming nonlucidly. Since lucid dreams tend to be positive experiences, you may actually feel invigorated after them. How tired you feel after a dream depends on what you did in the dream – if you battled endlessly and nonlucidly with frustrating situations, you probably will feel more tired than if you realized in the dream that it was a dream and that none of your mundane concerns were relevant. “
Dream Recall – The Beginning
Now I was considering talking a little bit about the sleep cycle, but I feel like that would be relevant in one of my posts to come. We are now in a short ending discussion about how to start your journey of attaining lucidity. Dream Recall is exactly what it sounds like, the art of recalling your dreams. Getting your mind used to remembering dreams is important, but while some believe that it’s important because you need to be able to remember your lucid dreams, I do not. I believe that the main purpose of remembering your dreams is for obtaining lucidity. If you cannot remember your dreams how can you use techniques to become lucid? How could you remember to do reality checks in your dreams? Some believe that you can be lucid and not remember, but I find this too hard to believe. If we are conscious and aware in our dreams then we should be able to remember them. Nevertheless it is important to have a good dream recall and here is how.
A Dream Journal:
This is going to be your tool for gaining the ability to attain lucidity. My first dream journal was from Wal-Mart, but after a week I had to start using my laptop due to the length of my dreams. I do recommend you start with a paperback journal until your fingers start cramping from writing long entries. When/if that happens you can do what I did with my paperback journal and use it to set goals, track your lucid count and make notes of dream characters and write down your induction techniques.
Tips for Dream Recall:
- Get a dream Journal that is appealing to you. Make sure it’s comfortable and you have that burning desire to write in it.
- This is your tool, so you don’t have to be the best writer in your dream journal; you are the only one who is going to see it.
- Keep it by your bed so you can access it quickly so that in the event that you wake up in the middle of the night you can write down any dreams you remember.
- Before going to bed think about what happened in your waking life from start to finish and then backwards. This has improved my recall.
Final Words:
So if you are just burning desire to start training your mind for lucid dreaming despite that you have no recall yet I suggest you start with an auto suggestion method called MILD. You can Google MILD lucid dreaming technique and begin there although I do believe you should work on some recall first.
I hope that you have found this post helpful and I hope to see your questions, comments and concerns in my comment boxes down below. Don’t forget to sign up for Www.Dreamviews.com and check out what they have to offer. I will be posting in a few days to start explaining Dream Signs and how I personally discovered mine and also how I continue to track them.
If you missed last weeks post “Sterling’s World of Lucid Dreaming: What to Expect” here you go: http://sterlingcampbell.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/what-to-expect-sterlings-world-of-lucid-dreaming-section/
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Until next time,
Sterling
