Inching Toward Lucidity, I Hope

I was getting discouraged about my lucid dreaming project and was actually on the verge of giving up, because some lucid dreaming induction techniques were keeping me awake for hours and I was missing too much sleep, but then I found the Dream Views website, with forums full of useful tips.

I decided to try some of the ideas I read about there, and to keep at it, but in a much more relaxed way.

I haven’t had a lucid dream that I know of since a very brief one late August, but it continues to be foremost in my mind. My process has continued to evolve toward the easier and simpler, because obviously the strenuous and difficult isn’t doing the trick.

I’m several books into this and am now reading Teach Yourself to Dream: A Practical Guide to Unleashing the Power of the Subconscious Mind, by David Fontana. He includes only a few pages on lucid dream induction, but they have been helpful. He writes that the unconscious is willful and learns in fits and starts, but that, like the conscious mind, it likes to be appreciated, so he advises thanking your own unconscious for any improvement in your dream life, so I’ve been doing that, and I think we’re on cozier terms already.

It even sent me a little joke last night: a dream about riding the FATE train in Minneapolis. When I happened to speak to someone in Minneapolis today, I asked the name of the train system. It’s not FATE.

Somewhere I read that lucid dreaming is a mental discipline, so the best way to be able to notice things while asleep is to be able to notice them when you’re awake, and the best way to remember your intention while asleep is to remember your intention while awake.

So, for instance, I had started wearing my watch for the sole purpose of using the on-the-hour chime to remind me to do a state test (“Am I dreaming right now?”) but after I read that, I took it off: Either I’m motivated enough to remember to do frequent state tests or not, and if not, no amount of electronic beeping is going to help.

I read a long and detailed tutorial on lucid dream induction at the Dream Views website which concluded several pages of advice by saying that there is also an easier way: simply to be aware all the time.

Not that that’s exactly easy, but the idea that awareness when awake may translate to awareness when asleep certainly makes sense, so I have crossed a few more things off my personal list of instructions and now it pretty much boils down to consciously noting actions and sensory impressions during the day—sitting in my chair, seeing a picture with such-and-such colors and shapes, hearing the Blue Angels, dern them—and doing state tests as often as I can remember to: “Am I dreaming? Does anything seem illogical or out of place? Can I remember what happened right before this?”

Now that I have analyzed many recorded dreams, I see that one notable feature is the way they lurch from scene to scene, so if I ever remember to ask myself in a dream if I can remember what just happened, I might find I can’t.

When I go to sleep, I express a few intentions: “I will awaken from my dreams and remember them. When I am dreaming, I will observe my surroundings carefully. I will realize I am dreaming.”

Here’s something good: it turns out I am acquainted with a master lucid dreamer!

Sitting right next to me at work is a fellow who has as many as four or five lucid dreams per night, which is extremely rare. Apparently he almost never has a night without one. 
It’s effortless for him—he says it’s perfectly obvious to him when he’s dreaming. He kept asking me, “When you realize you’re dreaming, do you do such-and-such?” I kept having to tell him, “I don't realize I’m dreaming.”

The night after we had our first chat about this, I dreamed I was in a cab that turned onto a sidewalk where pedestrians stared at us curiously. My companion and I looked at each other in a knowing way and asked simultaneously, with good humor, “Is this a dream?” I still didn’t realize I was dreaming, but the idea that one could discover herself to be dreaming is evidently creeping into my dreams.

In another dream, I noticed something definitely amiss, and inquired of another dream character (one of my sisters), who explained, “Oh, that’s just such-and-such,” which I took at face value.

Two minutes later in the same dream I told her, “You know, if I hadn't been so credulous a couple of minutes ago, I would have realized I was dreaming.”