Mar 10, 2010

Benefits of Lucid Dreaming

There are both social and health related benefits of lucid dreaming. Being in control of your dreams is a confidence builder that extends into your waking life. It’s like having a resource for personal guidance – your inner self. And who knows YOU better than YOU?

Some equate lucid dreaming to a personal virtual reality play land. For those who enjoy role playing games, it is the ultimate role playing fantasy. You have control over your setting, the characters, the action, and the outcomes.

Being aware of your dream state and having that kind of influence over events, however, has practical uses, as well.

Stop Having Nightmares

Nightmares play out our worst internal fears using symbols to make those fears seem surreal, life-threatening and life-like. If you can unleash your ability to control your dreams, you have the ability to stop a nightmare in its tracks.

Rehearse Important Events

Nervous about an upcoming speech or interview? Rehearse the event in your dreams. Practice what you want to say. The experience can be just as rewarding and valuable as if you were rehearsing live.

Unlock Your Creativity

Have you ever woken from a dream you thought would make an incredible story? Your mind is so free to create fantastical plot lines, characters and backgrounds. For many of us, the creativity we experience in our dreams far surpasses what we’re capable of producing when we are awake. Improving dream recall and exerting some influence over the movie in your head can expand the creativity your capable of when you are awake. Many fiction writers get their ideas for stories from their dreams.

Build Self Confidence

The benefits of lucid dreaming extend into other areas of our daily lives. As a girl, I was always incredibly shy. Those who are not, who seem to ooze charisma and self-confidence seem to have so many more doors open to them seemingly without any difficulty at all. It’s difficult being shy and constantly afraid of being the center of attention or of making a fool of yourself in front of others. In your dreams, you can practice being more social. You can design situations where you are in more control, where you have the confidence you want to possess in real life, where you are the one who has new doors open to them.

Boost Your Will Power

Athletes are taught to “experience the win”. They are told to visualize themselves making the touchdown, crossing the finish line first, or performing the perfect play. Visualizing such success helps establish a focus on the main objective. You can use dream control to do the same for your own personal goals. Those who want to lose weight can use their dreams to visualize themselves going to the gym or starting a new exercise program, having more control over what they choose to eat, and seeing themselves become thinner as a result. Once you see yourself going to the gym and feeling great from an incredible workout in your dreams, you can more easily encourage yourself to do the same in real life.

Heal Emotional Stress

You’ve seen those charts that show you how stressful certain life events can be? Losing a job, breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, going through a divorce or moving to a new city can all be emotionally stressful. Sometimes we don’t even realize how much that stress is affecting us until we start wondering why we are so tired or grouchy all the time. Use your dreams to see yourself overcoming whatever stressful situation you are going through and design the future you want to have. You’ll be establishing a set of positive emotions that will help override the natural stress of everyday challenges.

The benefits of lucid dreaming can touch all aspects of your life – your creative output, your emotional well-being, and your self-esteem. What could you create if you literally held the brush and the pen for every dream you had from now on?

Mar 9, 2010

How to Control Your Dreams

Learn how to control your dreams, and you could solve major problems in your life while you sleep, stop nightmares before they get too scary, travel to places you’ve never been, unleash your subconscious creativity, and imagine conversations with famous people you have never met.

I hear you snickering….so, I could dream up a….um….conversation with a famous movie star anytime I want (giggle)? Well, maybe – if that’s all you really wanted to achieve. But you could do so much more!

It is possible to develop the ability to forge your own dreams, to decide what will happen next, and to create a world into which you can escape or experiment without actually leaving your own home. It’s not easy, however. Controlling your dreams is a journey that follows a pretty specific map of steps but the benefits can be life-changing.

Three Steps to Dream Control

Dream Recall

Did you know that everyone dreams but not everyone remembers their dreams.  Everyone has a different level of dream recall – the ability to remember a dream upon waking.  I have very vivid dream recall and have since I was a child. I can describe very specific details from my dreams months and years after they happened.  To me, dreams are like books I’ve read.  My husband, on the other hand, cannot think of a time when he ever had a dream. Both levels of dream recall are normal but if he and I were both starting out at the same time trying to learn how to control our dreams, we’d be starting at two different phases of development.  Strong dream recall is one of the foundational stones of being able to control your own dreams.

Makes sense, right?  If you don’t remember your dreams, how would you even know if you had control within one?

Awareness/Lucid Dreaming

Once dream recall is established, the next phase in knowing how to control your dreams is to become aware of being in a dream. Just as with dream recall, some people have the ability to know that they’re dreaming while still in the dream and some do not. Even if you already have this skill, you might not have it all of the time. There may be times you realize you are dreaming and other times where you wake up from a dream thinking it was absolutely real for a few minutes. To get to the next phase, you need to be able to increase your dream awareness.

Being aware of your dream state is also called lucid dreaming.

Dream Control

Once awareness is established, the next step is to actually control what happens in your dreams. This can include creating or changing the environment, controlling your actions in your dreams or bringing in or removing other people or objects. I have, at times, been able to get myself out of what appears to be a dangerous situation in a dream by hovering out of harm’s way. Yes, hovering – not flying. Although being able to fly in one’s dream is very common, I actually float in place.  I can float inches off the ground or miles off the ground as needed. The feeling of being able to remove myself from trouble by just lifting off the ground is incredibly powerful. Anytime anyone asks what superpower I’d like to have in real life it’s that one because I know first-hand what it feels like!

Once you learn how to control your dreams, you can use that additional semi-conscious brain-time to work through challenges you are experiencing in your life. If, for example, you have an upcoming presentation to give and public speaking makes you very nervous, you can rehearse your presentation in your dream without fear of failing. The experience will feel life-like and give you the added confidence you need to be successful when the real presentation comes up.

Put yourself in new, unique situations and expand your learning potential. Imagine yourself in Paris, sipping coffee at a table outside a small cafe. Build up the will power to start a new exercise program. Imagine yourself thinner and healthier and carry that feeling with you throughout the day.

Those prone to nightmares have had some success using dream control to cure their night terrors because as their awareness of being in a dream improves and their ability to influence what takes place in a dream becomes stronger, they can change the circumstances of the nightmare in their favor.

See the guide that can teach you to lucid dream in 7 days: Lucid Dreaming Guide

We all have the potential to do more with our lives. Learning how to control your dreams can be like unlocking the gate that has held you back from achieving your full potential.

Mar 7, 2010

Lucid Dreaming Guide

If you want to learn how to control your dreams, the best method is to use a Lucid Dreaming guide developed by an experienced teacher. Achieving the ability to control what happens in your dreams and what you dream about is not a skill you can develop easily without the background of experience – yours or that of an expert.

I was well into my thirties before I realized that there were people who did not remember their dreams – ever. I thought others simply didn’t talk about them as much as I did or didn’t consider them to be important. I often kept a journal of my dreams and have several recurring themes. My husband, on the other hand, never remembers his dreams. He believed he didn’t dream at all – which isn’t true. Everyone dreams. The ability to recall those dreams, however, is different among everyone. Being able to remember your dreams is an important skill in being able to control your dreams.

Since we all start at different stages of dream awareness, it’s important to learn how to control your dreams through the use of a guide that tackles all levels of experience. Without a guide that helps you in your particular stage of awareness, you may struggle to see any success.

The Lucid Dreaming Kit was developed to take those at any skill level through the steps necessary to learn how to lucid dream upon demand.

The author is a teacher and public speaker who manages classes to teach people how to develop this skill. This lucid dreaming guide walks you through weeks of course material in seven days, covering everything you need to know to get to your first controlled dream including:

• how to improve your dream recall

• the strategies you must know in order to lucid dream on demand

• which tools you have at home that can help you increase your dream control

• tips for using your dreams to build a positive future

• checkpoints for success so you know how you are doing on your course work

Reaching a lucid dream state intentionally does not happen overnight.  Like any new skill, it takes practice and commitment.  Many are drawn to the benefits of being able to control their dreams but only those with a passion for making their lives better and improving their mental capacity actually follow through with building such mental strength.

The following diagram illustrates the steps involved in achieving the ability to dream lucidly on demand.

Most people can achieve steps 1-4 with little guidance. However, those skills are simply the foundation on which one builds the ability for dream control. Taking dream recall and awareness to the next level and deciding what you will dream about, how to use your dreams to inspire creativity, finding answers to your biggest questions within your subconscious take a much more focused level of expertise.

This lucid dreaming guide comes with a few great extras, an audio CD of binaural beats to stimulate lucid dreaming, reality prompts to help lead you into the appropriate dream state, and software tools that help you turn your journals into an organized collection of experiences. Plus, there’s a helpful screensaver just to remind you of your quest for excellence.

Get more information from the author’s webpage at: Lucid Dreaming guide