Lucid Dreaming: The Art of Summoning Dreams to the Surface of One’s Mind and Know That You are Dreaming. (Part 1)

Are you one of those people who dream in colours? Or, maybe, black and white is the main landscape pallet of your dreams? Are you a simple observer or an integral part of it? Again, maybe, you are one who goes back and forth?? Are the realities faced in your dreams anything like your everyday life or does it incorporate multiple facets well beyond the expectation of physical laws, social norms or even happen on worlds beyond Earthly realms, other words???

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In this following following article, I was asked to discuss the matter of what is commonly known as “Lucid Dreaming” or “Conscious Dreaming”, a state where the dreamer has came to understand that, within the dream one is experiencing, the dreamer realizes that she/he is dreaming. Such an experience seems simple a proposition at first but it takes quite a bit of practice to achieve at will. Years of practice and experiences in this matter opened many windows from which to share with you on this subject.

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Step one, seeing our dreams.

Some of us say they never dream… Some of us see dreams only in black and white where others only see them in colours to a point where one could say they are living another life at night. The fact in this matter is that we all dream, some have forgotten that they do, some simply forget their dreams the moment they wake up and some unconsciously keep them at bay. The studies in relation to dreams are unequivocal that way: We all dream, many dreams each night, a minimum of 4 to 6 dreams per night, lasting from a few minutes to at least half an hour each! This is a lot of dreaming in a lifetime… Can you actually imagine never seeing any of it?!.

First, we need to willfully call our dreams up to the surface. When you go to bed, you focus on telling yourself that you will remember your dreams. Like a mantra to go to sleep to, keep on doing so. Even if it doesn’t work right away, keep the dream calling mantra going for as long as you can as you are about to fall asleep. This way, your consciousness will slowly place itself within the opening realms where one starts the process of dreaming.

Eventually, as you do so, you will start registering images flowing into your mind’s eye, usually showing where the third eye is. Like water, if you try to catch the images in your focus, it will flow right out of sight. Just stay put with what is often called a “soft gaze”, a sort of diffused watch that keeps your attention on the third eye but doesn’t take the main stream of your watchful eye.

For instance, at this very moment, you are aware of the letters you are reading, but could easily focus on the blue light of your speakers found half a meter away from your screen. While being able to read, you’d still be able to tell whether or not they are flickering or even moving, maybe!?. That’d be something…

There are many tricks one can use to do so: Being too tired, you would simply go out right into deep sleep as soon as you would hit the hay. To keep with the water parallels, your consciousness like water reaches the boiling point in a very short amount of time and swiftly flows out to the ethers, too quickly for you to even realize you have done so and find yourself unaware in the world of your dreams.

In contrast, you can take up the practice when you wake up on a Saturday or Sunday morning, well rested without much of a schedule rushing you out of bed, flowing back and forth between the dream state and the so-called everyday reality. For meditators with experience, there is no such thing as sleep, one is always aware of the different spaces of reality whether one’s body is sleeping or not. I guess this might be one of the very minimal reason why we could call them awake… Anyway, I digress a bit here, but you have the idea: Going to bed before you are too exhausted will allow the awareness of your consciousness to go through the doors of perception more easily. Passing from one medium of existence where your consciousness usually delves into the one where dreams occur.

_{(Photo credit to my friend Andy Lindenblat, one of my favourite photographer on the coast of Prince Rupert, British Columbia.)}

On this topic, I often tell the story of how in many cultures we say that we are “falling asleep”. In reality, it is not a falling but an instantaneous rise above the body that our spirit experiences, a detachment so to speak. The body relaxes enough its grip on the spirit to releases the energies within, just like a bag made out of fabric would do if it were to be able to consciously give space between its fibres to let the water flow out of its. Like the relative movement of a passenger in a train. As if you were to find yourself sitting in one of them, how can you know which train is actually moving if there isn’t a fixed point in space from which you can compare the relative movements to? Here, what stays?

Falling asleep is in itself a bit of an art if you really want to be able to move into the world dreams undisturbed, focussed and ready to do the yogas or exercises you will now be able to delve into from that moment on. Some count sheeps, apparently. I tried it and it didn’t do me to well. I was simply too focussed on the sheep floating by, they kept me awake instead! I’m glad I can laugh about it now and haven’t grown up to compulsively obsess about them… Anyhow, there are other tricks one can use to become more aware as one falls asleep.

Some people use hand positions on this part of their body or this part. It is legitimate to say that our hands allow us to see the material world in so many ways. At the top of my conscious dreaming experiences, my mom would come and see me sleep with my hands laid behind the base of my skull. Back then, I used to put my thumbs together at the base of the neck and the four other fingers together under the bottom part of the skull. She used to call me “The Pasha” as she would come down and see how I was sleeping. In this position, often wearing a large smile, she thought I looked like a worry-less king in a harem. Little did she know…

_{(A famous quote from Rumi which struck me like lightning.)}

Over the years, I have experimented with a few hand positions. Having my hands on the lower part of my belly and closer to the side of the hips seemed to help the process of falling asleep while keeping an assertive mind. Having my hands straight on the side of my body allows the body to go to sleep very quickly, but doesn’t allow the mind to see as easily, especially if I am tired on any level. Using my hands over the solar plexus impedes the breathing a bit too much on the horizontal position and I would rather have an unimpeded breathe in order to control my will as fully as I can. If I had an emotionally taxing day and my heart has a hard time being fully present to create the emancipating spaces I will find myself diving into, it is important to try to alleviate the pressure of the emotions by using the left hand just above and near the sex organ while resting the right hand on the heart.

_{(There is an awful lot more to be discussed here but would have to be for another post, if anyone is interested.)}

As I said earlier, it might take a bit of time, but the brain plasticity will allow for the mantra of becoming aware of your dreams to take effect and, soon enough, you will start to see them move forth into your mind’s eye. Soon enough you will be able to stay with them without trying to over focus on their arrival. As for animals, if you look at them straight in the eyes right away you are also displaying an aggressive behaviour, it doesn’t take too long before they run away from you. Now that you are able to see your dreams, it is time to become conscious within the dreams.

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In the next article in this series, I'll be sharing with you different methods on how to efficiently assert to one’s mind the fact that one is dreaming. Stay tuned, there more, much more to come, and I greatly look forward to reading your comments, thoughts and possible requests regarding the coming articles in this series. Much gratitude for all the ones who have shared with me on this level already. It gave me food for thoughts and ideas to better share with you all.

Till next time, keep on smiling, taking good care, Steeming on and thriving. 😃