Lucid dreaming - The Virtual Reality Inside You
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org,
please feel free to visit the school website)
Introduction
Uses Of Lucid Dreaming
Dream Recall
Dreamsign Awareness
Dreamsign Awareness (Chart #2)
Waking Life Dreamsign (Chart #3)
Target Dreamsign Awareness Scale (DSA rating) (Chart #4)
Reflection-Intention Technique (Chart #5) - Is This A Dream?
Memory Development
MILD Technique (Chart #6) Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams
The Nova Dreamer
Reality Check
False Awakenings
Inducing Lucid Dreams
Flying Tips
Staying In The Lucid Dream
Changing The Dream
More Exercises
Discussion
Lucid Dreaming Forum
Charts For Aiding You In Lucid Dreaming
Bibliography
Written by Christine Breese, Ph.D.
Introduction
Lucid dreaming is a spiritual power (siddhi). It is the ability to realize that you are dreaming while you are still in the dream. With this ability comes an opportunity to create dreams that you want to experience by consciously choosing your dream surroundings and making other conscious choices. This can transfer into your daily life and contribute to your realization of yourself as eternal consciousness inside the "dream" of being a human being on Earth, resulting in lucid living.
Lucid dreaming is literally a virtual reality that is built into your consciousness. It is a place where you can experience things as being real. Just because it doesn't happen on the physical plane, does not mean that it was not a valid experience for your awareness. At www.here-be-dreams.com, the author of the website says, "A lucid dream is as vivid and real as the ‘real' waking life. Yet you know you're dreaming; you can control the dream. In a lucid dream you can go anywhere, meet anyone, do anything. Anything you can imagine, you can experience as real." Many people wish for what they do not have. Many would like a few tries at getting something right, a second chance, or to have experiences that cannot be had in the waking life human experience. At www.ld4all.com, the author says, "It seems that your critical, rational side is absent. The strangest things happen, and yet it is absolutely normal. In a lucid dream you don't take that anymore. You are conscious of your environment, and of the fact that everything that happens is not real. In other words: you dream consciously. So the only difference between a normal dream and a lucid dream is that in a lucid dream you are aware that everything around you is created by your own mind."
We spend 25-30% of our lives sleeping and dreaming. That time could be spent having experiences in which to spiritually grow and explore our consciousness. It could be put to better use if you are able to dream lucidly. You can wake up refreshed from your intense adventures at night and feel less limited in your human waking life because you know at night you can fly wherever you want instead of having to deal with physical laws of gravity, time, distance and such.
Sigmund Freud called dreams "the royal road to the unconscious." It is a path to the deepest parts of yourself, and spiritual experiences can be had. In the West, lucid dreaming is considered recreational, while Buddhist, Taoists and Hindus believe that lucid dreaming serves spiritual purposes. Aborigines believe that dreaming is happening all the time and that even in waking life we are immersed in Dreamtime. They believe it is important to be lucid both during daily life and during dreams. This is a person who is self-realized, in Aboriginal beliefs.
It is not as hard as some people might think it is to develop the ability to have lucid dreams. It mostly just takes a methodical training of the consciousness to be observant of anything out of the ordinary or things that can trigger a lucid dream. You can program yourself during your waking hours to look for "dreamsigns." By practicing the act of waking up in a dream during your waking life, this will transfer into your dreaming consciousness, and you will trigger yourself to "wake up" in the dream.
The official name for a person who is able to dream lucidly is the word "oneironaut," which means "explorer of the dream world." Oneiros was the Greek god of dreams, and this is the root for this word. Early dream adventurers were called oneironauts. There were also ancient followers who worked diligently to achieve the ability to recall and experience dreams. They would petition the Greek god Oneiros when answers in life were needed through dreams.
The term "lucid dreaming" was coined by a man named Frederik van Eeden who described more than 350 of his own lucid dreams that happened over a period of fourteen years. The first person to write a book about the subject was Marquis d'Hervey de Saint Denis who described his lucid dreams in a book titled Dreams And How To Guide Them (early 19th century). He described how he learned to recall and then eventually control dreams. The scientific community dismissed his writings with skepticism, and Frederik van Eeden wasn't met with a much better reception.
Stephen LaBerge is the first person to bring true scientific proof through laboratory experiments, observations and tests concerning the concept of lucid dreaming. He used tests that showed he could communicate from the lucid dreaming state to the waking world, which demonstrated that lucid dreaming was for real. LaBerge founded the Lucidity Institute in 1987, and it remains the leading authority on the subject. The Lucidity Institute sponsors workshops, courses, and books. It used to offer the Nova Dreamer, a device that helps with achieving the ability to dream lucidly. (The Nova Dreamer will be discussed in this course, along with its replacement on the market.) I highly recommend that you go to The Lucidity Institute website and perhaps even sign up for their newsletter. It offers a lot of information for the aspiring oneironaut, and you will find a wealth of pointers and tips there. I also recommend that you buy an inexpensive little book that they put out called Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming (1990). It will help you get started.
Uses Of Lucid Dreaming
Why achieve the ability to have lucid dreams?
Adventures & Ego Fulfillment
Lucid dreaming helps fulfill ego desires that cannot be experienced on Earth, and this allows the ego to let go more easily than it would otherwise on its hold of identifying itself only as a human and no more. Be a famous movie star, be a professional brain surgeon, be a trapeze artist, invent something, be a mom, fly like a bird over the mountains, swim with the fish in the ocean, travel to the far reaches of outer space… whatever you have always wanted to do, you can do it in this virtual reality machine that is inside you, your imagination. Your dream world is a combination of your human imagination and the imagination of the eternal self that you are. You can broaden your mind and gain experiences that help you with wish fulfillment and satisfaction of desires that are impossible for you to experience in physical reality, or would take a long time to gain the skills necessary for that experience.
Learning & Gaining Skills
Take guitar lessons, go to classes in your dreams, learn new skills, learn about anything you have wanted to learn about. You could visit a teacher in the dream worlds and get better at your skill level in whatever it is that you would like to excel in. If you are going to school or taking lessons of some sort in your waking life, try doing them in your lucid dreams as well, and see how much you can absorb and bring back into physical reality. Your brain actually sets up the neural pathways and develops the ability in the nervous system because it does not differentiate between what is physically experienced or what is experienced in the dream world. It is easier for new skills to get translated into motor skills or human consciousness knowledge if the electrical impulses have already been experienced in the nervous system and the brain.
Rehearse Events In Life
Dreams can be a flight simulator for life. You can practice possible outcomes of situations, practice performances, increase confidence and have experiences of success that will also show up in waking life. Have you ever wondered how you will deal with a conversation you must have in the future? Have you ever wished you could play out a conversation in different ways and see what its most positive outcome will be? You can learn from trial and error by experimenting with different ways of handling a situation. You can practice a speech you have to give in waking life in your dreams and get over your stage fright, learn how to stay calm and deliver your speech confidently because of practice in your dream world.
Problem Solving
Have you ever had something that you just couldn't figure out, and then in a dream you found your answer? Our dreams are trying to tell us something all the time. In dreams, divine inspiration and inventions are born. The person who invented the sewing needle for the singer sewing machine received this idea in a dream. Refer to the Dreams & Dreaming course for more information on how dreams can be a source of inspiration and inventions. You can understand abstract concepts in dreams, learn how to solve a particular problem or try different approaches to a problem. Sometimes you wake up with the answer you need in waking life after you have received insight from a dream.
Healing
Dreams are especially useful for healing, or receiving guidance on what is necessary for healing. You can integrate disowned parts of the self, meet and make peace with your shadow side, and even make peace with relationships, past or present. You can work with "stuck" situations and resolve conflicts. You can inspire healing in waking life by addressing issues in your dream world. This can translate to physical healing as well. One woman told a story about how she was ill with an undiagnosed condition, and even after several attempts by western medicine to solve the problem, her cure was given to her in a dream. She saw a kitten hungrily eating something, and when she ate it in waking life, her illness was cured. In lucid dreams, you can actively search for the cures to illnesses and conditions in the physical, mental and emotional bodies. Miracles can be experienced in the dream world and then translated to waking life. Lucid dreams also lend themselves particularly to increasing your confidence in yourself and your ability to be in control of your life. They also help you learn to realize yourself as eternal consciousness that can have adventures in all sorts of worlds, conditions and vehicles for experience.
Spiritual Experiences
Lucid dreaming is a great launching pad of astral projections and soul travel. The spiritual worlds are most accessible from the lucid dreaming state. You can meet the population in the universe and all the spiritual beings that live there. You can ask questions and gather knowledge. You won't be able to translate everything into waking life in the human mind, but you will remember enough to make it valuable. You will make heart connections that transcend the mind anyway. What you bring back from the dream will enhance your perception of yourself, your place in the dream, your eternal nature and your true identity. You will experience the infinite in the dream world.
Tips For Gaining Spiritual Knowledge:
These are some of the questions that will give you a peak spiritual experience:
- I seek truth, God, the highest, the divine, the ultimate mystery.
- I want to meet my true self.
- Let me see the beginning of all.
- Who am I?
- I don't know my heart's desire. How can I find it?
- I have a duty to perform. What is it?
- Where did I come from?
- Why am I here?
- Where am I going?
Using Lucid Dreams To Overcome Nightmares
You can face your fears in lucid dreams in a way you cannot in waking life. If you face your fears in lucid dreams, you realize them for the illusion that they are or they transform into something you are not afraid of anymore. You can learn how to make the best of nightmare situations. You realize that nothing can actually hurt you. You can "let it happen to you" and experience that you are not harmed. Through this, you can find the gift in the nightmare that a deep part of yourself is trying to tell you. You cannot be killed in your dreams (unless perhaps you have a weak heart), and you will find yourself quite aware and conscious even after death in a lucid dream.
And More…
The uses of lucid dreams are endless. You will find your own uses for lucid dreaming that will be unique to yourself only. If you had a virtual-reality machine at your beck and call all the time, what would you do with it? What kind of experiences would you like to have in a virtual-reality machine that you could not have in waking life? Where would you go if you could go anywhere in the universe that you wanted to go? What would you do with such an opportunity to explore the endless arena of consciousness that you are? This is what your dreamworld is—a virtual-reality machine that is built into your consciousness and can be used by you in any way you wish. Take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to explore yourself and explore the nature of consciousness, even the universe itself.
Dream Recall
Dream recall is a necessary skill to develop before you will have success with lucid dreaming. You must be able to remember your dreams in order to have lucid dreams. This is not a difficult skill to develop, and it only takes vigilance, persistence, and determination to make this a reality in your life. I offered some tips on this in the Dreams and Dreaming course, but let's recap what some of those strategies are for recalling your dreams.
Keep A Dream Journal
- Keep a notebook at your beside. As soon as you wake up, begin to write everything you can remember about the dream, even if it doesn't make sense. Make notes about characters, colors, feelings, events, and the general tone.
- Use a hand-held recorder. If writing is too laborious or wakes you up too much so that you're not able to go back to sleep, or you have a partner who would be woken up by the light if you turn it on, this is a good option. I particularly like this one because I was able to mumble a dream into my recorder in the middle of the night and go right back to sleep with hardly waking up at all. In the morning I would have as many as five or six dreams recorded that I didn't remember at all if I hadn't spoken them into the recorder. As time went on I got better at remembering them.
- Set an alarm. – You can use a clock to wake yourself up at various times during the night so that you can remember the dream you were just having and write it down or record it.
- Write anything you remember, even little fragments. Nothing in a dream is insignificant. Write down every detail and analyze it later as to why it is there, even if it doesn't make sense to you in the moment.
- Title each dream. You are the star of your own dreams. Give each dream a title so that you can later refer to them quickly when revisiting their content or comparing them to other dreams that are similar. This is a useful way to organize your dreams, and eventually you may want to put groupings of dreams together that have similar themes so that you can analyze them more precisely.
Dream Recall Aids
- Get extra sleep. Get up, then go back to bed 20 minutes later. When you go back to bed, you will have dreams because your mind is still in the cycle for dreaming. Most lucid dreams happen in the morning, close to the time you wake up. If you wake up and go back to sleep, this increases your chances for having a lucid dream.
- Set your intention. Setting intentions in all matters is essential to success. Set your intention to recall your dreams every night when you go to sleep. Say an affirmation or visualize yourself having a lucid dream on a regular basis, for this trains the mind to expect this sort of experience.
- Leave reminder notes around your house. Put notes around the house reminding you to always remember your dreams. Again, this acts as a training method for the mind to do what it is told to do. Repetition of intention is the best method for getting the mind to do something new.
- Ask the question - "What did I just dream?" Even if you are in the waking state, examine events around you as if they had just happened in a dream. Pretend that you had just awoken from a dream, and you are remembering it and writing it down.
- Use an alarm clock. Again, an alarm clock can awaken you at the times when you will most likely be dreaming, and therefore you will have more chances for remembering your dreams.
- Use the NovaDreamer dream alarm feature. This is a device which we will discuss in more detail shortly in this course. However, this device has a feature where it can wake you up at a time that you have been dreaming so that you can immediately recall your dream.
Dream Recall Goal Setting
- Establish long term goals for dream recall and how often you want to achieve lucidity (every night, once a week, once per month…).
- Record your progress, and stick with it!
- Evaluate each month to see if you are progressing and getting better at dream recall.
- Keep working toward your long term goals; if expectations are too high, lower your goals.
- Reach goals and make new ones.
Dreamwork Questions: Get the Most Out Of Your Lucid Dreams
If you would like to know what your dream means or what it is trying to tell you, ask yourself some questions. This list of questions at http://www.ld4all.com is adapted from two sources: The Jungian-Senoi Dreamwork Manual by Strephon Kaplan-Williams and a Dream Journal Form (author unknown). Take one dream you want to unravel and answer the questions listed below:
- What am I doing? How am I, the dream ego, acting in this dream? (aggressive, assertive, passive, active, etc)
- How do I feel? What are the various feelings and emotions in the dream? (Both mine and those of other characters.)
- What is the context? What is going on in my life right now?
- Who are the main characters? Who are the main characters in this dream? Who/what is the adversary? Who/what is being wounded? Who/what is being healed? Who/what is my companion? Did I dream of actual people or imaginary people? Could the characters all be different aspects of myself?
- Which are important symbols? What are the outstanding features or symbols in the dream? (For example: flood, animals, house, etc.) How might these features relate to me, my emotions, or my personality?
- How does it relate to me? How does the dream as a whole relate to my personality?
- What are the actions? What are the main actions and who is performing them?
- What am I avoiding? What would I like to avoid in the dream?
- What does it want? What does the dream want from me? What actions might it be suggesting that I consider?
- Are any memories triggered? Does the dream trigger any memories? Do any of the elements of the dream relate to my past? Why might this part of my past be called to my attention now?
- Do I have questions? Does the dream trigger any further questions? What are the answers?
- Why did I dream this? Why did I need this dream? What is its positive message for me?
In your lucid dreams, you will meet many dream characters. These characters can assist you in your growth and understanding of yourself. Have dream dialogues with characters in your dreams so that you can make the most out of your experiences. Even negative or dark characters in your dreams can assist you with understanding yourself and healing unresolved issues.
Below are listed questions to ask dream characters that might help you understand more why they are presenting themselves to you and why certain things are happening. Dream characters and situations are actually reflections of yourself. Just like life, dreams are a virtual reality for your soul to explore itself in. Don't slay your dream dragons, make friends with them! They are disowned parts of your own personality, unprocessed experiences, or places where you need to develop compassion for others. See what you can find out simply by talking with your dream characters. You will find that they are quite willing to offer you information about their purposes and reasons for being in your dream.
Questions To Ask Your Dream Characters:
- Who are you?
- Who am I?
- Why are you here?
- Why are you acting the way you are?
- What do you have to tell me?
- Why is such-and-such happening in this dream?
- What do you think about such-and-such?
- What do you want from me? What do you want me to do?
- What questions would you ask of me?
- What do I most need to know?
- Can you help me?
- Can I help you?
Nightmares
Nightmares can be a huge hurdle for some people, especially if they are recurring nightmares that do not resolve themselves. However, nightmares are a gift from your unconscious mind. These are the chances for you to address deep issues that hold fear for you. Nightmares bring to your conscious mind those things that you have been trying to avoid. My advice would be to face the fears head-on and stop running from them, for these are causing you distress in your waking life even if you're not aware of it. These deep-seated issues eventually cause disease in the physical body, and contribute to emotional and mental unbalance. Look at nightmares as a gift rather than a curse, and you will find that facing your fears in a nightmare will bring freedom that you didn't have before.
Tips For Handling Nightmares
Being Pursued
Stop running, face the pursuer, this alone may cause pursuer to disappear or become harmless if not, start dialogue with dream character, find out why it is there
Being Attacked
Don't flee or give in to the attack, show readiness to defend yourself engage attacker in dialogue accept and love the Attacker as yourself, understand and have compassion for its position
Falling
Relax and allow landing allow fall, death, and see what happens turn falling into flying
Paralysis
Relax, no anxiety go along with images or things that happen to the body adopt attitude of curiosity about what happens, could lead to astral projection inside dream state
Unprepared For Exam Or Speech
You are allowed to leave the dream enhance self-confidence by creatively answering test questions or giving a spontaneous talk on whatever topic you want
Being Naked In Public
Who cares in a dream? Have fun, can be erotic make everyone else in dream remove their clothes
A Waking Life Meditation For Handling Recurring Nightmares
- recall and record the nightmare
- choose a re-entry point and a new action
- relax completely
- imagine you are re-dreaming the nightmare, seeking resolution
- what happens? evaluate the new dream as if it was an actual dream
- write it down
- if not satisfied, imagine you are re-dreaming it again with a different new action
- if dream recurs, follow your pre-meditated new course of action
Tips For Seeking Out Difficulties In Dreams In Order To Incur Growth Of Self
- seek out physically dark areas, leave physically light areas
- go from high levels to low levels
- go from present to past (or future, if future induces fear)
- seek out characters who are troublesome or unlovable
- seek out challenging situations, scary situations
- seek out problematic relationships
- refuse to avoid anything uncomfortable that comes up, for it is an opportunity for growth
- look for trouble!
- look for things that are distasteful, frightening or repelling
Dreamsign Awareness
Definition of a dreamsign: Objects/events that are impossible or improbable In waking reality, or highly unusual.
You are more likely to have lucid dreams if you can recognize the strangeness of dreamsigns. They happen everyday all around you in waking life, and they happen in your dreams even more. Dreamsigns are "anything that is unusual or out of the ordinary." You can find several of them in your daily life and transfer that mental environment of observance into your dreaming reality. These things that happen out of the ordinary go unnoticed, for the most part, by the average person. However, you can train yourself to be looking for these things at all times. Once you train yourself to look for these in waking life, within a month or two this attentiveness will translate to the consciousness of the dreaming self, and the dreaming self will then look for these unusual occurrences.
The trick to using dreamsign awareness is to always ask yourself the question, "Am I dreaming?" every time that you notice something out of the ordinary. And the answer to the question is always, "Yes!" As you answer this question, look around you and experience everything in your environment as if you have just woken up in your dream and become lucid. (This is also excellent training for becoming present in the moment, and stopping the mind, less inviting an enlightened state to be your natural setting for your awareness. After all, living a lucid life is the gift that enlightenment offers.) You will notice that immediately upon resetting your awareness to "wake up" in your reality, all colors become more vibrant, reality itself becomes more intense, and things seem more liquid and illusory than they did just a moment ago. Your daily life will eventually seem much like a lucid dream once you live in an enlightened state rather than the automatic programming of the human mind. You will feel as if you are a human no longer, and you will realize the dream that life is rather than perceiving earth reality as your only vehicle for experiencing consciousness.
You might ask what it is that would be considered out of the ordinary. Even very small details could be considered to be out of the ordinary. For instance, you could be sitting in your office at work and your boss comes in wearing a really outrageous tie or a strange outfit. You might be looking out your window and see someone ride by on a unicycle or doing a wheelie on his/her bicycle. You might hear someone speaking in a foreign language. At a stoplight you might notice a purple car. Your pet might have gotten some grease on its fur from the driveway. Your partner might be coming home from work late, which may be unusual. Perhaps you even burned your dinner. As you can see, dreamsigns do not have to be absolutely outrageous for them to be unusual, and thus trigger you to ask your question, "Am I dreaming?" This is how dream signs serve you and can be found in your everyday life.
Things do not have to be out of the ordinary to serve as a dream sign, either. You can use quite commonplace events as dreams signed as well. For instance, you can program yourself to ask yourself the question, "Am I dreaming?" every time you open a door, every time you see a flash of light off a computer or the windshield of a car, every time you drink a glass of water, or every time you pick up the telephone. You can use ordinary events to trigger this question in your mind as well. You can even put notes around the house that ask you the question, "Am I dreaming?" I also recommend using the Motive Aider device, which was discussed in the affirmations course and which I will discuss shortly, again. This can trigger you to ask the question as well.
The goal of this exercise is to use whatever it is that you can to trigger this question in your mind during waking life. You are trying to get yourself to question your reality and ask if what you are seeing is really real. If you do this long enough, your mind will be trained to ask this question even in your dreaming state. What becomes part of your ego condition and waking life carries over into your dream life. You may notice that if you're typically depressed in your waking life, your dreaming self is also depressed. If you typically have the habit of asking yourself if you are dreaming in waking life, this will carry over into your dream self. This is your fastest route to developing the ability to have lucid dreams. Even if you use other methods in conjunction with this, the mental habit of questioning your reality is what is most necessary for the success of this endeavor.
There are many types of dreamsigns. I have described a few of these dreamsigns but let's get more specific. Dreamsigns are classified into four specific types. These are: inner awareness, action, form, and context. Dreamsigns that fall in the category of "action" have three further categorizations. They are: ego action, character action, and object action. Dreamsigns that fall in the category of "form" have four further categorizations. They are: ego form, character form, setting form, and object form. Dreamsigns that fall in the category of "context" have six further categorizations. They are: situation, setting time, setting place, object place, character role, and ego role. Each of these categories are described below:
Examples Of Dreamsign Types
| Inner Awareness - | The inner awareness type of dream sign has to do with your thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions. It has to do with what is happening inside of you, rather than what is in your environment. |
| Thought | "...odd thing to be thinking about." |
| Feeling | "...filled with extreme." |
| Sensation | "... lift out of body." "...something squeezing my head." |
| Perception | "...looks as if I took LSD." "...see great, even though no glasses." |
| Action - | defies physical laws or normal ways of doing things |
| ego action: | able to fly or walk through walls underwater but still able to breathe |
| character action: | hairdresser refers to a blueprint to cut my hair a man kisses me in front of his wife |
| object action: | a piece of cheese recites a poem a couch dances around |
| Form - | you, others or an object have an unusual shape and size, transforms, or is deformed |
| ego form: | "I'm a woman." (dreamed by a man) "I'm a rock star." |
| character form: | face changes in dream characters contrary to reality, someone's hair is blonde instead of brown |
| setting form: | house is shaped differently than in reality, furniture different garden has only miniature flowers in it |
| object form: | see a green horse a car is as big as a building |
| Context - | out of the ordinary situation, unusual role, occurs in past or future |
| ego role: | we're fugitives from the law I'm starring in a James Bond movie |
| character role: | my friend is assigned to be my mother my country's president is my very best friend and cares about me deeply |
| object place: | my bed is in the kitchen my house was full of dollhouse figurines, but I am not interested in that at all |
| setting place: | I'm in a colony on Jupiter I'm part of a Hollywood pre-production meeting for a movie |
| setting time: | I'm in kindergarten I'm having my 50th marriage anniversary, but I'm not even married yet |
| situation: | I'm in some weird ceremony I'm staying as a guest in a house of people I don't even know |
The Lucidity Institute has designed various charts to help you track your progress with developing the ability to dream lucidly. The charts included in this course are inspired by and based on the charts that have been designed by Lucidity Institute. These charts will assist you with tracking your success with noticing dreamsigns in your daily life. I highly suggest you make photocopies and use these charts to track your progress. How to use these charts is explained below:
Dreamsign Awareness (Chart #2)
- Read dreams you wrote down and underline, highlight, or circle the phrases that could be dreamsigns. These
can be circumstances, events, objects, feelings or thoughts.
Example: I am at swim team practice as if it were 12 years ago. I haven't got a swimsuit. I find one in the locker room and put it on. Out at the pool, I get in, but a little boy does something to me that hurts. I tell him to go away. He keeps annoying me. The pool becomes a sea with a waterfall edge like a dam. The boy appears to get older and less obnoxious. Now it feels like I have a crush on the boy.
at swim practice CONTEXT
haven't got a swimsuit CONTEXT
find one in the locker room and put it on ACTION
a little boy does something to me that hurts ACTION
the pool becomes a sea FORM
waterfall edge like a dam FORM
boy appears to get older FORM
I have a crush on the boy INNER AWARENESS - On the chart, list all dreamsigns you have marked with the date of dream.
- Classify each dreamsign and look for patterns.
4 types - inner awareness, action, form, context
4 dreamsign targets:
ego action - you do something unusual or impossible in waking life
object action - objects do things that are unusual or impossible in waking life
character form - unusual aspects of other people's appearance or roles
setting form - presence of oddities in the layout of a place - Look for patterns in your dreamsigns: are there re-occurring discrepancies in your dreams that could be a cue? which dreamsign categories occur most often in your dreams?
Waking Life Dreamsign (Chart #3)
Look for dreamsigns in your waking life, for they are everywhere! In waking life you will see unusual events all the time. Carry a notepad, and write them down as you see them. Tell yourself you are having a lucid dream at that moment, even though you are in waking life. This will help to create the mental environment necessary for lucid dreaming, for you will be in the habit of looking for things that are out of the ordinary.
This chart is useful for tracking your ability to notice waking life dreamsigns and keep a record of them while you develop your ability to be on the lookout for dreamsigns all the time, which will carry over to your dreaming self's awareness.
Examples:
Your boss is wearing a neon colored shirt (character form)
Your doctor's office is now done in purple and pink (setting form)
Your computer is behaving strangely (object action)
You're going to a dance club, even though you don't go very often (ego action)
List these anomalies on a chart so that you can train your mind to always be looking for dreamsigns and questioning your reality.
Target Dreamsign Awareness Scale (DSA rating) (Chart #4)
Record your success or lack of success on the Target Dreamsign Awareness chart. When you wake up and recall your dreams, ask yourself what the dreamsigns were that should have triggered you to question your reality and ask yourself if you are dreaming. Every dream has dreamsigns, so find out what they are so you know what your patterns are and what to look for next time. On this scale from 0-4 you can determine what your level of dreamsign awareness is. You will notice a difference after you have been training yourself for a couple of months to look for dreamsigns.
- no awareness, you only noticed it was odd after you awoke
- odd, you noticed the dreamsign was odd during dream, but didn't try to explain it
- semi-lucid, you noticed the dreamsign was odd during the dream and tried to explain it, but didn't become lucid
- lucid, you noticed dreamsign was odd, and realized you were dreaming
- post-lucid, you were already aware that you were dreaming at the time the dreamsign occurred.
Reflection-Intention Technique (Chart #5) - Is This A Dream?
This exercise trains you to always be questioning your reality while in the waking state to see if it is a dream:
- put notes around that ask, "Is this a dream?" or keep a business card sized paper in your wallet
- MotiveAider - alarm goes off to notify you to ask the question, "Am I dreaming?"
- pick times for practicing
- While dressing in morning
- When first enter workspace in morning
- At breakfast table, (lunch or dinner)
- Before starting your car
- When you arrive home in the evening
- While at shopping center or grocery store
- When step outside in the morning
- While doing physical workout
- When picking up kids from school
- As you get ready for bed
- Before, during or after meditation
- Whenever you turn on a light or turn off a light
- When sunshine touches your body
- When you turn on your computer
- When you see a car with headlights on
- carry the chart with you to remind you of when to ask the question
- look for dreamsigns, when unusual events, objects, or changes are noticed
- test your state:
- Do physical laws apply, or are they defied?
- Do your senses act correctly?
- Is anything out of place?
- Do you remember how you got there?
- Do you have any strange thoughts or feelings?
- Imagine you are dreaming "OK, I'm not dreaming now, but if I were, what would it be like?"
- Observe everything intently. Look for dreamsigns. How do you feel? When you experience yourself as if in a dream, tell yourself that next time you are dreaming, you will remember to recognize that you are dreaming.
Imagine doing what you intend to do in your lucid dream, fly, talk to dream characters, transform something
- record your efforts
- count results
- decide exercise times for tomorrow
Memory Development - Memory Development
Memory development is one of the largest hurdles to recalling your dreams and developing the ability to have lucid dreams. If you cannot remember to ask the question, "Am I dreaming?" you will not be able to develop the skill to dream lucidly. Many of us go on automatic pilot as we go about our day and forget to ask ourselves if we are dreaming. Most of us do not have a mental environment of always being in the mode of observing our reality. So here is an exercise to help you develop the mental environment of observance of your reality. Below are some examples that you can use to develop your memory and your ability to be attentive in your reality, always looking for dreamsigns and checking your reality to see if you are dreaming. You may find that these particular triggers show up in your dreams as well, so you can very well program yourself to look for these items and events as dreamsigns to trigger yourself to lucidity after you have experienced them as triggers in your daily life. These are common occurrences that you are turning into dreamsigns so that your mind has even more to choose from as lucidity triggers than just those things that are out of the ordinary.
According to Webster's dictionary, mnemonic as a verb means "to remember, or be mindful." As a noun it is the "art of improving efficiency of the memory." The exercise described in the next article is a mnemonic exercise. It is called the Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams, and this term was coined by the Lucidity Institute, as are some of the other terms pertaining to lucid dreaming.
MILD Technique (Chart #6) Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams
Pick targets and memorize the targets so that you can learn to remember to look for them, thus inducing an attentive state in your mental perceptions about your environment. You can pick five to work with for a day, or you might want to just work with the same five for a whole week if you have trouble with this exercise in the beginning.
Examples:
Day 1 targets (or Week 1 if you prefer)
whenever I see a pet or animal
whenever I see my face in the mirror
whenever I turn on a light
whenever I see a flower
whenever I step into sunshine
Day 2 targets
whenever I write
whenever I feel pain
whenever I hear my name spoken
whenever I drink anything
whenever I see a flashing light
Day 3 targets
whenever I stand in line
whenever I hear music
whenever I throw something away
whenever I hear laughter
whenever I see a TV screen
Day 4 targets
whenever I turn on a TV or radio
whenever I see a vegetable
whenever I see a red car
whenever I handle money
whenever I turn on my own car
Day 5 targets
whenever I read something
whenever I check the time
whenever I notice myself daydreaming
whenever I hear the telephone ring
whenever I see a neon sign
Day 6 targets
whenever I open a door
whenever I hear a bird
whenever I use the toilet
whenever I see the stars
whenever I see a traffic light
Day 7 targets
whenever I put a key in a lock
whenever I see or hear an advertisement
whenever I eat a fruit
whenever I see a bicycle
whenever I eat junk food
MILD Technique - (in short)
- memorize targets
- watch for targets and do state tests
- record hits and misses - if you realize later your target happened, you missed it
- count your hits and misses
- keep at it until you have lots more hits than misses! You should be having lucid dreams by then for you have developed the habit of always asking yourself if you are dreaming!
The Nova Dreamer
The Nova Dreamer assists with helping you develop the ability to have lucid dreams. It is a mask that is worn while you sleep. In this mask is a comfortable foam coating. Inside that is a mechanism that detects when your eyes start moving in REM (Rapid Eye Movement). When this happens, little red LED lights gently flash in a pattern that works for you. In your dream, you will see a flashing effect of some sort and remember then that you are dreaming. This is the concept behind the Nova Dreamer.
Unfortunately, the Nova Dreamer is no longer readily available on the market. There are used Nova Dreamers occasionally on Ebay, but they have been discontinued. They were manufactured by the Lucidity Institute, but I suspect that there were medical liabilities that the organization decided it didn't want to be responsible for. The flashing lights are dangerous for people with epilepsy, and can cause seizures in people who do not realize they are susceptible to them.
The Nova Dreamer has an equivalent, fortunately. It can be found on the internet by searching for the Dream Maker (or DreamMaker, one word). At the time of the writing of this course, it is for sale and shipped via postal mail from the website www.wellnesstools.com. These devices cost about $250 US, just like the Nova Dreamer did. If you are really serious about lucid dreaming and gaining access to that virtual reality inside you, I highly recommend getting one of these devices. It is a small and well spent entrance fee to the world inside your imagination during dreams, where you can experience anything you want to experience.
Lucid dreams happen most often during the latter hours of sleep, and most frequently in the last two hours of sleep. I used the Nova Dreamer. I found it uncomfortable to sleep with the mask all night. I got around this discomfort by simply waiting until I woke up every morning to use the bathroom. Then I put it on after I went back to bed for my last two hours of sleep. That method worked very well, and I was able to achieve lucid dreams during those last two hours of sleep more easily than at other times of the night.
Reality Check
So how do you know if you are dreaming? Do a reality check! Just as you do a reality check in your waking life when you are doing the exercises of saying to yourself that you are dreaming whenever you see a dreamsign, do the same kind of reality check in your dream. Sometimes you wake up in your dream, but you're not sure if it is a dream or not, especially if nothing out of the ordinary is happening right in that moment. Here are some reality checks you can try if you are wondering if you are dreaming.
- Try to turn on a TV or a computer, or operate a piece of equipment. It usually does not work correctly in a dream.
- Try to read something. It is almost impossible to read words in a dream, they don't stay in focus for some reason.
- Look at the time, clocks are quite unpredictable and unreadable.
- Hold your nose, if you can still breathe, you are dreaming.
- Look at your hands. Hands are strange in dreams.
- Try to walk through a wall or levitate. If you are able to pass through a wall or float, you are dreaming.
- Try to turn on a light or turn off a light. Lights often don't work, or the lighting acts strangely if it is on.
- Try to put your finger through a mirror or step through the mirror.
- Pinch yourself. Does it hurt? Do you feel it?
False Awakenings
False awakenings are quite common while you are training yourself to dream lucidly. This happens when you think that you have woken up, but you are still in a dream. This is an excellent opportunity to do a reality check and see if you are still dreaming. This is a pre-lucid dream awareness, and the next step is to realize that you are dreaming.
Inducing Lucid Dreams
Drinking a very small amount of coffee before you go to sleep (not more than a quarter cup) can help to induce lucid dreams. Also, a cup of orange juice or some kind of fruit juice that is sugary can help. The caffeine and/or the sugar can assist the brain activity while the body sleeps. This can help you achieve a lucid dream if you don't over do the caffeine or fruit sugars.
Another way to induce lucid dreams is to drink a lot of water before you go to bed so that you have to keep getting up to go to the bathroom. This will help you recall your dreams better, and will perhaps help with lucid dreaming as well.
Flying Tips
Flying is a learned art in the dreamworld. To some people it comes quite naturally, for others, they have to work at it a little bit more. Here are some tips for getting better at flying if you would like to try them, excerpted from www.ld4all.com/#frames(content=while_fly.shtml):
- Flapping your arms: Of course I start with the good old flap-your-arms-technique. This one is quite slow in my experience. Better than airswimming though...
- Air swimming: This one is just like regular swimming but now you do it in the air. It isn't really fast though.
- Superman style: Imagine an energy coming from under your feet that pushes you upwards and onwards. You can really go fast with this one.
- Air diving: This one was taught to me in a dream. It is really effective. Imagine big fins at your feet, like you'd have when scuba diving. Then use the air you're in as though you under water and use your fins to propel yourself forwards and upwards.
- Use a vehicle: If you have trouble flying all by yourself, try using a vehicle that will fly, like a flying carpet or a flying broomstick, or mount a flying creature. You could even use a flying machine like Leonardo da Vinci.
- Flying on ether: Someone mailed me that he flies on ether. He imagines flows of ether in the sky on which he floats.
- Fly like a bird: Try to transform yourself into a flying animal like an eagle or something mythical like a dragon for another way to experience flight.
Staying In The Lucid Dream
Staying lucid can be a challenge once you achieve lucidity. Most beginners report that they knocked themselves out of their first lucid dream by becoming so excited that they wake up from the dream, cutting it short. This is very common, so don't fret if this happens to you. After the first couple lucid dreams or so, you will be able to contain your excitement and move to the next steps with the ability to dream lucidly. Below are a few pointers to help you learn how to stay in the lucid dream once you achieve one:
Have A Plan
Write a list of all the things you would like to do when you are in a lucid dream and read this list every day to yourself, especially right before bed.
Avoiding Immediate Awakening
Keep Cool, Calm & Collected
Restrain the impulse to jump and shout for joy. It's fine to be excited, but don't express your excitement outwardly in the dream, otherwise you will wake up from the dream and lose the opportunity.
Engage In The Dream
Immediately after realizing you are dreaming, turn your attention to what's happening in the dream. Look at, listen to, and feel the events and things around you in the dream world.
Move Around
Get your body's senses of movement involved in the dream, by moving through the dream scene. Run, fly, or dance—while continuing to observe and interact with the dream.
Look Away From The Cue
Turn your eyes (not your head) to the left or right, especially if you are using the Nova Dreamer. Moving your eyes effectively diminishes the brightness of the cue, making it less likely to awaken you.
Verbal Reminders
Starting once you become lucid, repeat to yourself "this is a dream" especially if you are beginning to be pulled into the dream emotionally. You will hear yourself saying "this is a dream" and be reminded to maintain your lucidity.
Impossible Actions
You can continue to convince yourself that you are dreaming by doing things in dreams that you don't in waking life, like flying, floating, being out of character, breaking social rules, treating a stranger like a best friend, etc.
Be Alert For False Awakenings (this happens a lot!)
You thought you woke up but you are actually still in the dream. Often the surroundings are exactly as your bedroom would be, but it is still a dream.
Prolonging Lucid Dreams With Spinning (practiced while awake)
- while awake, relive a dream you have already had and spin in one place
- relive the last part of the dream and when you reach the end, instead of waking up, picture yourself catching the moment when it is just starting to fade and spin even more.
- repeat to yourself, "the next scene will be a dream."
- imagine a new scene which is the room all around you
- open your eyes and do something as if you are in a dream and are engaging in the scene, or imagine that you are doing something you would enjoy in a lucid dream
The next time you have a lucid dream, look for the first signs that it is about to end. Usually, the visual aspects change first by fading, losing color saturation, or becoming cartoon-like. As soon as it starts to happen, while you still feel your dream body, spin around rapidly, telling yourself repeatedly "the next scene will be a dream." When you stop spinning, your surroundings will be another dream.
An alternative to this exercise if you can't handle the physical sensations of spinning while awake, is to rotate your arms in large circles from the shoulders. This will also create the spinning, the sensation of velocity needed to propel yourself into the next dream.
Changing The Dream
Many times we have wished we could change the outcome of our lives or certain situations. Unfortunately, physical human experiences sometimes cannot be changed, but in dreams they can be. Energy can be changed, which releases the emotional tensions that may be lingering from human waking life experiences. Also, outcomes of dreams can be changed as well. If you are unhappy with the outcome of a dream, you can change it in a lucid dream. This empowers you to feel more in control of your inner actions and reactions. For instance, you can practice dealing with a difficult person in your life by trial and error conversations with the person in your dreamtime. You can try different angles and approaches until you get it right. Then you can take what you have learned about how to handle the situation, or how not to, and apply it to your waking life. Being able to dream lucidly gives you the opportunity to learn about yourself and improve in how you work with the laws of cause and effect. In a lucid dream you can test your actions and see if they are really the right thing to do, or the right way to handle things, by seeing how it goes in a lucid dream. Below are some pointers on how you can set up the ability to change a dream and its outcome.
Pre sleep: Incubate dreams about specific topics or places by thinking intensely about them before sleeping.
Wishing: Alter the course of your dream simply by wishing for certain things to happen, disappear, or appear. If it helps, create a dream genie who can grant you wishes!
Inner State: Change your disposition or responses—it will affect the characters and events of the dream. Change your moods and feelings or change your expectations, even if your first reaction to a scene is negative. Change fear to curiosity. Change repulsion to compassion or change anger to forgiveness and tolerance.
Looking: Whatever you choose to look at becomes the primary focus of your attention. Threatening characters can be tamed by looking them in the eyes, giving rise to courage and openness.
Speaking: Talking is a way of focusing your attention, talk to the monster, remind yourself you are dreaming and you have the power to change the scene at will. Express your love and compassion toward the monster.
Action: This is, of course, the most obvious means of controlling events and affecting the dream's outcome.
Ask For Aid From Dream Characters: Ask dream characters to remind you that you are dreaming now or in future dreams. Ask advice from dream characters on how to change the outcome of the dream or the scene. All dream characters are likely to be sources of knowledge and wisdom. Ask them where the secret door is, or where the key to this or that is, or ask them to tell you something about yourself.
More Exercises
Will Development - Discipline is the Key!
Here are some "useless tasks" that will help you create the will power needed to have a lucid dream
- write 100 times "I am a lucid dreamer."
- move 100 paper clips from one box to another while saying with each clip, "I now have the ability to have lucid dreams." (great before bedtime)
- stand on a chair for 5 minutes, with no TV, radio or conversations and repeat for the entire 5 minutes, "I have lucid dreams every night."
- say "Hello" to five people you normally wouldn't greet, and in your mind, after you have said hello, repeat, "I am an oneironaut!"
"I Remember" Game - Scorecard Chart (reason for exercise - to reduce "automatic" or "inattentive" states of mind)
- find a friend or group of friends to play with who you will see you several times a day.
- for the next five days, anytime one of you friends playing the game with you hands you something, the recipient must say "I remember" or "I am dreaming."
- the transaction must be hand to hand. If the situation makes it socially awkward to say anything, just wink or nod.
- if the recipient doesn't say "I remember" or "I am dreaming," the giver must remind the recipient of the oversight, then mark one box on the forgetful recipient's scorecard with the giver's initials (date too). Your goal is to get as few initials on your scorecard as possible.
- after 5 days, the winner is the one with the least amount of initials on his or her card. Agree on a prize for the winner, like a dinner, massage or item wanted, and celebrate!
Concentration Meditation I: the reason for this exercise is to reduce the tendency to let your attention wander to outer interruptions, which is necessary for recognizing when you are dreaming.
- relax
- do deep breathing, slowly
- on in-breath and out-breath think of "one", visualize "1", say in mind "1" on next breath, go to "2", etc.
- reject distractions, thoughts... just acknowledge "that's a thought" and let it pass, don't fight thoughts
- continue for 20 minutes or work up to 20 minutes
Concentration Meditation II
- sit facing a burning candle 3 to 4 feet in front of you
- look steadily at flame until eyes get tired
- close eyes and picture flame before you
- reject all thoughts that draw your attention from the flame
Concentration Meditation III: the reason for this exercise is to create the ability to manipulate vivid mental images.
- same as candle meditation, but using whatever object you like, plant, rock, tree, flower, coffee cup; something small, simple and stationary
- create mental image of object in your inner vision, feel it rather than see it, smell it, taste it, hear it; it is floating in space in front of you open your eyes, look at object again; now, turn your body away from actual object, yet still see it in front of you when you close your eyes
- now see the object as if it is actually inside your body, try different areas, but throat area is the goal
- move object outside yourself and back inside yourself several times until it becomes easy
- try different objects each day for 7 days in a row
Discussion
Recalling dreams is a huge reward in and of itself, but add on top of that the benefits of lucid dreaming, and the positive affects on your life multiply by exponential numbers. My own experiences with lucid dreaming have changed my life for the better. I can't say I am a super duper master of lucid dreaming, for I still have to spend a day or so intensely focusing my mind on generating a lucid dream, or they happen spontaneously when life gifts me from my deepest self. However, I have had enough experience with lucid dreaming to realize its positive effect on my life. It has improved my life in more ways than I can count. Number one on the list of benefits that I have had from lucid dreaming is the spiritual enhancement it gives, along with the freedom to explore spiritual truths at their deepest level. Right on the heels of that benefit would be the next benefit of being able to learn about my faults and improve on them during dream time, learn new skills during dreamtime (even new motor skills), and learn new ways to navigate in difficult situations. It is an extra arena besides human daily waking life in which to grow and improve in the understanding of self and the universe, and develop the qualities of the heart and mind, all in far less time than it would take to do in waking life. Entire lifetimes can be lived during the night, and that much more wisdom can be gained.
I have had the chance to have adventures that I simply cannot accomplish on the Earth plane unless I was willing to apply myself for long periods of time to the task of attaining that experience. In dreams, I don't have to go to a university for 8 years before I can have the experience of being a talented brain surgeon who heals people. I don't have to spend years practicing to be a gymnast to win the gold medal at the Olympics. I don't have to work for years in a corporation before I have the opportunity to be the head honcho at a huge and successful business. I can fulfill these desires immediately without having to put any more time or effort in than my sleep hours.
I had many desires as I was growing up. In fact, too many. I didn't know which direction to go because there were so many things I wanted to do, so many different career paths that I could have pursued successfully, but how to choose? Ultimately, we all make choices that make decisive direction changes in our lives, but there is always a part of yourself asking, "What if I made that choice instead, and how would my life have turned out if I did?" In dreams, you can answer these questions. I have found it quite useful to my ego self to answer these questions and explore these experiences that I wished I could have had. This is not to say that I am unhappy with the life I live, for I am not unhappy with the outcome, and I like my life very much just the way it is. However, I have a curious spirit and always want to know, "What if…" I want to know what it is like to be an ice skater, an Eskimo, a rich English gentleman, a movie star, etc. Don't we all wonder what it would be like if we could stand in someone else's shoes, especially someone we admire? We would be lying if we say that we do not.
Another use for this ability is that not only can you have experiences for yourself that are impossible in waking life, but also you can test waking life situations in the dream world and see their outcomes through trial and error. You can literally practice being better at waking life while you are dreaming. You can practice your social skills, your understanding and compassion for others, your self control—everything. You can even practice your piano skills. Whatever it is you would like to be better at in waking life, you can achieve the skills necessary during your dream life. I cannot even describe how valuable this is! It saves money on piano lessons, too!
Lucid dreaming is a place where you can explore all the questions about the universe, God, and yourself that you have ever had. If you have had questions you would like to ask God, lucid dreams are the place to do it. I have had incredible peak spiritual experiences during lucid dreams, experiences that kept me riding high for weeks at a time. Lucid dreams, especially peak spiritual experiences, have a way of energizing you in your waking life, and bring deep joy to your heart. The peak spiritual experiences in lucid dreams cannot be matched. They are unique and special, created just for you, and apply to every level of your being.
That being said, I must add, however, that after many years of experiencing lucid dreams, the novelty of it has worn off somewhat. I no longer get quite as excited as I used to when having a lucid dream. It seems kind of normal now. Sometimes I even let go of being lucid because I want the dream to follow its own path instead of being directed by me. There is a time when controlling a dream is not necessarily useful, and if you get good enough at controlling them, you can avoid facing fears and such. After awhile, it is refreshing to simply receive the "movie" your consciousness generates for you and let yourself be pleasantly surprised, or delivered a useful piece of wisdom or lesson. Lucid dreaming has many uses, but I believe that a balance between lucid dreaming and non-lucid dreaming is necessary to truly receive all the messages from your deepest self. In both lucid and non-lucid dreams, you learn about yourself and meet yourself in many ways, and neither has an advantage over another.
I encourage you to develop this ability sooner than later if you can. It can help you take quantum leaps in your growth and your spiritual evolution, faster than you can accomplish by only using your waking life time. Use the time during sleep wisely! It is not that hard to develop this skill, and if you focus, you will be having lucid dreams within the first month or two of training yourself. You will have at least the beginnings of progress, and this will encourage you to keep going with it. It is a whole world of adventures that awaits inside you, and no human-made virtual reality machine will ever match the virtual reality machine that is already built into your consciousness. You have had this all this time, and you didn't even know it. So take the time to teach yourself this skill, and gain the exponential wisdom that comes with it. Also, associate with other people who have lucid dreams, and if you don't know anyone, start a club. If that is too much time commitment, visit the lucid dream forum that I have included below where you will find others who are learning to dream lucidly just like you are!
Lucid Dreaming Forum
If you would like to read about the lucid dreams of others or post your own lucid dreams, a wonderful site with a huge amount of members is www.ld4all.com. It is an excellent place to get information, too. You will be able to dialogue with others who have the ability to dream lucidly. I suggest that you search for other forums as well on lucid dreaming, but this seems to be the largest site where there are postings about lucid dreaming.
Charts For Aiding You In Lucid Dreaming
The following charts are based on the charts given by Stephen LaBerge in the Lucid Dreaming course that was offered with the Nova Dreamer and is now offered with the DreamMaker device. I highly suggest getting the device and the course that comes with it. For now, if you would like to get started, here are some charts to help you on your way:
Chart 1: Dream Recall Progress Log
Chart 2: Dreamsign Awareness List
Chart 3: Waking Life Dreamsigns
Chart 4: Target Dreamsign Awareness Scale
Chart 5: Reflection Intention Chart
Chart 6: MILD Technique Target Dreamsigns
Suggested writing exercise for yourself: Has this course inspired you to try and have lucid dreams? What benefit would you like to achieve by being a lucid dreamer?
Bibliography
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The Complete Dream Book, New York: Warner Books
Constable, George, Editor In Chief 1990
Dreams & Dreaming, Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books
Hunt, Morton 1982
The Universe Within. New York: Simon & Schuster
Kaplan-Williams, Strephon 1991
Dreamworking: A Comprehensive Guide To Working With Dreams. San Francisco: Journey Press
LaBerge, Stephen, Ph.D. & Howard Rheingold. 1990
Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming. New York: Ballantine Books
LaBerge, Stephen, Ph.D. 1999
A Course In Lucid Dreaming. Standford, CA: The Lucidity Institute
McLean, Helen, & Abiye Cole, 2001
The Dream Working Handbook: Carlton Books, London
Strephon Kaplan-Williams, 1991
Dream Working: A Comprehensive Guide To Working With Dreams: Journey Press, San Francisco, CA
Taylor, Jeremy 1983
Dream Work, New York: Paulist Press
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Our Dreaming Mind. New York: Ballantine Books