Lucid Dreaming: Take Control of Your Dreams

The definition of a lucid dream is a dream in which you know you are dreaming. If you know you are dreaming, you control any or every aspect of it. You could fly over New York city, talk to a loved one who has passed away, heck, you could even eat your alarm clock and have it taste like blue raspberry if you wanted to. You can, so to speak, play God for a day. But, though lucid dreaming has ulimited potential for having fun, there are practical uses too. You can rid yourself of nightmares, or go on an epic adventure that inspires the next chapter in the book you’re writing. Some believe lucid dreaming is one of the best ways to achieve spiritual enlightenment. Any way you look at it, it’s not a bad skill to have. There are some people who lucid dream naturally, but most of us are not so lucky. Fortunately, anyone can learn to lucid dream.

“That sounds all good and dandy,” you say, “but I don’t even dream in the first place. I simply go to sleep and wake up.” The truth is, everybody dreams, EVERY night. In fact, in an average 8 hours of sleep you will have 4 dreams. You simply do not remember them. Studies and experiments show that if one were to stop dreaming, he/she would slowly go insane within just a few months. In any case, if you are one of the many people who do not remember at least one dream every night, you should probably increase your dream recall before you try your hand at lucid dreaming. What if you have a lucid dream and don’t even remember it?

The best way to increase your dream recall is to start a dream journal. As soon as you wake up in the morning, before you do anything else, simply write down all of your dream (or dreams) that you can remember. Even if you just have a little fragment, write it down. One of my first entries in my first dream journal was “Floating musical notes.” Though it might not be a very interesting entry, it will help you remember future dreams. Even if you already have good dream recall, you should keep a journal. Not only will it increase your recall, but you will be able to look back on a cool dream you had months, or even years, ago.