The Dream Sourcebook: A Guide to the Theory and Interpretation of Dreams (28 page)

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Authors: Phyllis R. Koch-Sheras

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BOOK: The Dream Sourcebook: A Guide to the Theory and Interpretation of Dreams
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experience, and one that no one has during waking life, dreamers often realize they are dreaming after they take flight in dreams. But seasoned lucid dreamers might become lucid first, then choose to include flying as part of the dream. Anyone who has had a pleasurable flying dream can understand whythe feeling of freedom and excitement is unforgettable. Lucid dreamers report that their lucid dreams are usually thrilling, filled with emotions and colors far more intense than those of regular dreams. "It's not that I have lucid dreams that often," said one dreamer after recounting several lucid dreams. "It's just that my lucid dreams are so memorable."
Lucid dreams are hard to get the hang of, perhaps because the experience of dream awareness is so startling and unfamiliar. Most dreamers have a difficult time staying lucid after it occurs to them that they are dreaming. "Hey, wait a minute! This must be a dream!" is a thought that is often followed by the impulse to wake up, or an uncontrollable tendency to slip back into the usual "unaware" dream state. In
Control Your Dreams
, their comprehensive book on lucid dreaming, authors Jayne Gackenbach and Jane Gosveld describe this "profoundly different reality" as "another world that bridges waking and sleeping consciousness. You are 'in' the dream
and
'outside' of it all at once . . . [which] can create both confusion and curiosity" that sometimes causes you to awaken or switch gears and lose hold of the awareness. With practice, however, you can learn to hold on to lucidity.
For some people and under certain conditions, lucid dreams tend to occur spontaneously. Research shows that people who meditate consistently and stay busy during the day experience more lucidity in their dreams than others. Also, making love in the middle of the night or having an intense feeling of love often precedes a lucid dream. While lucidity may not come easily or naturally to you, if you want to experience a lucid dream, you
 
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can plan ahead for it. Think about what you would like to gain from lucid dreaming, and what you would like to have happen when you become lucid. Flying is a wonderful place to start. So is making love, meeting up with a long-lost friend or relative, or discovering some unknown talent. You can also take the opportunity to receive a valuable gift or an important piece of information from your dream or a character in it. You could also plan to learn more about a puzzling or disturbing image from a previous dream. Looking forward to lucidity will help you to remain in the dream state after you realize what is going on.
Many contemporary dream researchers have developed methods for inducing lucid dreaming. These techniques include focusing on the dreamlike images that appear just before falling asleep (the hypnogogic dreams) and also suggesting to yourself at bedtime that you will become lucid when you notice anything inconsistent or improbable in a dream. Dream incubation is a good strategy to employ if you're interested in lucid dreaming; you can use it to "program" yourself to remain in the dream once your realize you are dreaming. Dream researcher Steven LaBerge devised a technique he calls mnemonic induction of lucid dreams, or MILD, in which dreamers prompt themselves to awaken after a dream and focus on the dream details, especially the inconsistencies. They then tell themselves to become lucid after returning to sleep, especially if an inconsistency or "dream sign" appears. LaBerge maintains that this technique is most effective when used with such technological devices as his "dreamlight goggles," which detect rapid eye movement and trigger a light that alerts the sleeping subject to the onset of dreaming.
Another lucid dreaming technique involves what German psychologist Paul Tholey and others call critical state testing, which involves asking yourself during the day if you are dreaming, particularly in situations that in some way remind you of a
 
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dream. Asking yourself, "Am I dreaming?" when these situations arise should then lead to a similar testing process during the dream state, and therefore, hypothetically, to lucid dreaming. (Be careful what kind of suggestion you give yourself. One dreamworker repeatedly instructed himself to "wake up during my dreams," and found that he would awaken several times a night! The dreaming mind can be quite literal, so state your instructions exactly.) You may not need to tell yourself to begin lucid dreaming. Sometimes, meditating or merely paying more attention to dreams in your waking life is enough to bring on more frequent lucid dreaming.
Many people learned of these and similar techniques for inducing lucid dreaming from Carlos Castaneda's popular novel
Journey to Ixtlan
, published in 1972. In the novel, the character Don Juan, who is a sorcerer, offers these instructions: "Pick one thing in advance [such as your hands] and find it in your dreams; this will awaken consciousness within the dream." Remembering to "look" at them during the dream, he said, would serve as a cue that signaled that a dream was taking place. Other of Castaneda's novels, among them
The Teachings of Don Juan, A Separate Reality
, and, most recently,
The Art of Dreaming
, have brought the ancient traditions of the South American shaman into general awareness; in these novels, he promotes the belief that the dreamworld is simply another dimension of human experience, and that we can access it more effectively through certain practices. While scientists have verified the effectiveness of some of the techniques he discussesthe hand cue we describe is one that reportedly worksthe fact that Castaneda bases his writings on his experiences alone and not on research detracts somewhat from the novels' validity, according to some reviewers. Nonetheless, he has a large following of people who try to incorporate his teachings into their lives.
 
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Within the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition, lucid dreaming is considered a natural by-product of higher awareness or what the Tibetans call the practice of "natural light." Those who practice the Dzogchen system of dream yoga, however, take lucidity a step further, aiming to remain conscious as they slip into sleep, and then into the dream state. Given that scientific research shows that the first REM sleep begins about ninety minutes after a person falls asleep, it may seem implausible that these Eastern dreamworkers could be fully aware that they are sleeping. "Yet," writes Patricia Garfield in
Creative Dreaming
, "it may well be fact. Yogi skills in body and thought control clearly surpass those of Western culture." The practices they use to promote lucid dreams include deep breathing and visualizing before going to sleep to relax the body and mind. These strategies, such as the one they call the "Practice of the Night," are said to ''use the working of the mind in order eventually to go beyond the mind" and balance the ''internal energies." According to Namkhai Norbu, one of the great Tibetan teachers, once the "energies" are "balanced," different kinds of "clarity dreams" will arise, such as dreams of future events or past lives. "Following the analogy of the sun, the clouds have not largely disappeared and the infinite rays of sunshine are able to manifest directly. . . . At that ultimate point dreams become awareness. . . . You use your practice so that your dreams influence daily life. This is the principal practice of the nighttime."
"What dreaming does is give us the fluidity to enter into other worlds by destroying our sense of knowing this world . . . . Dreaming [is] a journey of unthinkable dimensions, a journey that, after making us perceive everything we can humanly perceive, makes the assemblage point jump outside the human domain and perceive the inconceivable."
Carlos Castaneda, from The Art of Dreaming
 
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Here, step by step, are the essential elements of the "Practice of the Night," as described by Norbu in
Dream Yoga
, adapted for our readers' use to promote lucid dreaming. If you are interested, you might also wish to try entering "the state of natural light" that includes lucidity during sleep as well:
1. Relax the bodythrough baths, massage, and/or deep breathing. (Note: Paul Tholey suggests that, at this point, rather than mandate lucidity, you should give yourself the gentle suggestion that you will be conscious in your dream. If you like, he says, you can give yourself a specific action to perform in your dream that night, such as drinking a glass of water or tying your shoesor perhaps Castaneda's idea of looking at your hands. The action can serve as a signal to you that you are dreaming.)
2. Concentrate on a white
A
at the center of your body that corresponds in the mind to the sound "ahh." (You can write the letter
A
on a piece of paper first, if you wish, and stare at it awhile to help yourself visualize it.)
3. Imagine a chain of
A's
going up to the top of your head and then back down again. Repeat this until you fall asleep, with the
A
present in your mind. (If you have trouble falling asleep, just observe your thoughts and let them go.)
4. Enter into the state of dreams, in "the full presence of the state of natural light." (According to the Dzogchen tradition, the dreamer can actually remain aware of beginning to dream; Tibetans claim that if you exert your willpower, [lucidity] becomes familiar to you.)
5. Make the
A
sound immediately when you awaken and feel the presence of the white
A
. (According to Norbu,
 
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the Tibetan Dzogchen followers believe making the connection with the white
A
in the morning and again at night will enable the dreamer to "integrate into a state of contemplation or rigpa.")
6. Engage in this practice each night before going to bed.
Combining ancient traditions with modern data on lucid dreams, we have devised a kind of "Practice of the Day," a few suggestions that may help you to develop the ability to have lucid dreams. According to the Tibetan tradition, it is the practices performed during waking hours that are the real dreamwork. The rest of the experiencewhile dreaming"just happens," explains the Tenzin Rinpoche. But you must be diligent, Rinpoche adds, about doing the daily practices if you want to attain high awareness while dreaming. Here are some things to try:
If you have not yet mastered full awareness or lucidity in your dreams, attune yourself to your waking experiences with the same heightened awareness you hope to achieve in your dreams. "You should continually remind yourself," writes Norbu, "that all that you see and all that is done is none other than a dream." Tholey advises making a habit of asking yourself, "Am I dreaming?" five to ten times a day, and again each time something unusual or dreamlike occurs (such as a helium balloon floating by, a rainfall cascading down on a sunny day, or anything else that seems improbable).
Even after you achieve lucidity, you can use intense concentration on a particular theme or subject during the day to promote its appearance during the dream state.
Try reliving a dream from the perspective of lucidity in

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