A Brief Guide to Learning Lucid Dreaming

By Jane Sandwood

Have you ever felt that you can control your dreams, just to feel them slip away? Learning the art of lucid dreaming can be done. You can use your dreams to explore your feelings and have time for personal reflection. In your sleep, you can explore new aspects of the world, and create your own artistic canvas. Your dreams can help you to map out the future, and relive your past. Learning to lucid dream is simple – you are training your subconscious to allow you to have control.

Your sleep patterns

Part of the technique of controlling your dreams is to understand your sleep patterns. REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, when we are more prone to dreaming happens at certain times during the period of 8 hours sleep. It accounts for around 25% of the sleep that we get. During this time, your brain activity is higher. The eye movement is believed to be linked to the visual images that we perceive when we are dreaming. Most dreams happen during REM sleep. It is worth noting that whilst we are dreaming, the body experiences muscle atonia – this is where the muscles become completely unresponsive and paralysed. This is what stops us from acting out our dreams and causing ourselves harm.

Setting an alarm

If you usually wake up at 7 am, instead set your alarm for 5 am, using a soothing tone. This should be during the time that the majority of people experience REM sleep. When your alarm goes off, silence it and return to your slumber. Your brain waves will have changed, to be partially conscious of your surroundings, and you will find you have control when you return to the dream state. A psychic reading can give you insight into love, the future, and your aspirations. In the same way, lucid dreaming can help you to understand your true feelings and inner thoughts.

Keep your eyes closed

Another good method to control your dreams is to keep your eyes closed when you wake up in the middle of the night. Before you drift back to sleep give yourself a mental reminder of which reality you are living in – you are the master of your subconscious, not the other way around. When you arrive at the edge of the dream cliff, spread your wings and soar through the night sky.

Through lucid dreaming, we can get a better perspective on our waking reality. We can truly start to understand what we want out of life, and how to achieve this.