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Nightmares? Try Conscious Dreaming Instead!
Lucid dreams (or conscious dreams) are the state of sleeping and, at the same time, maintaining total awareness of those dreams. In this dream state your aware of dreaming and may even be able to consciously control those dreams.
Think about what you will want to do when you are lucid dreaming. Do you want to enjoy your dreams more, fly in your dreams, hunt down the villain as in a video game or use them to help you solve problems in other areas? It does not matter why you want to lucid dream as long as you have a goal and a mindset to achieve it.
The first thing you should do is to figure out what your goals are in learning conscious dreaming. Do you hope to have more enjoyment from your dreams, or is conscious dreaming a vehicle for you to achieve some of your other life goals?
Once you know why you want to start conscious dreaming, you will then need to become more practiced in the techniques which can produce lucid dreams. Dream recall is the way that most people choose to begin – this is simply training yourself to remember your dreams.
In order to start to conscious dream, you need to recall all the details of dreams you dream every night. There are several, but the technique most wildly used is the dream diary. Simply place by the side of your bed a notebook and pen or pencil. Each and every morning, before you even get up, write down everything you can recall in your dream diary. The longer you wait the less information you will remember about your dream.
This a powerful technique for training yourself in the skill of dream recall. When you are able to recall your dreams, it becomes easier to recognize a dream while it is in progress. In fact, a lot of people find that before long, they will start to “wake up” in the middle of their dreams, beginning to have lucid dreams.
In addition to a diary, there is also hypnosis, also a popular method. Hypnosis can help achieve the state of mentality needed to achieve conscious dreaming. It is used to help people remember things past or present that have been forgotten, even dream details. Now you will be ready for conscious dreaming.
Yet another conscious dreaming method is to force yourself to awaken earlier than usual, such as two hours or so. After you have awoken, go ahead and fall back to sleep. This has the effect of making you more aware of your dreams. You may have the illusion that you are lying in bed daydreaming but you are actually asleep and dreaming. Lucid dreaming is very likely to occur if you do this consistently.
Get to know your sleeping patterns. This will help you find the right time to have the most success at having these dreams. Do not lose too much sleep, if you become very tired, lucid dreaming is not likely to occur.
Pay attention closely to your sleep patterns and this will confirm the times that are best to this type of dream. Do no cut your hours of sleep too less than you need. Lucid dreaming is less likely to occur if you are sleep deprived or tired.
However, lucid dreaming is known to be effective against insomnia as well as other sleep disorders. Lucid or conscious dreaming may teach you to shut your mind to distressing and troublesome thoughts that may prevent a good nights sleep.
You may think that it would take years to learn the techniques for conscious dreaming, but the opposite is true. In a short period of time with a little work on your part, you can achieve your goal of conscious dreaming. Explore, control and manipulate your dreams.
Anyone can have lucid dreams with a little practice. Using these techniques, you’ll find yourself in control of your dreams before you know it!
Conscious Dreaming - A Brief Overview |
