Read A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming Online
Authors: Dylan Tuccillo,Jared Zeizel,Thomas Peisel
alone are the final authority on what your dreams mean. What do
you think they are saying?
LEARNING FROM OUR DREAMS
Aristotle said that the insights available from dreams were like objects reflected
in water. When the water is calm, the forms are easy to see; when the water
is agitated (that is, when the mind is emotionally disturbed), the reflections
become distorted and meaningless. The more the mind can be still before sleep,
said Aristotle, the more the dreamer can learn. If you go to bed calm, the
memories of your dreams will be clearer come morning.
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Dream Signs, Triggers for
Lucid Dreams
As you jot down more of your nighttime adventures, you’ll
notice that you often dream about very similar things. For
example, you might have
frequent dreams about your
sister, your pet, the ocean,
All too often, my dreams incorporate the
school, snakes—anything.
idea of home. Sometimes it’s my current
These recurring dream ele-
apartment, other times it’s my childhood
ments are called dream
home, but usually it’s some strange blend-
ing of all the places I’ve lived. It is safe to
signs, and they’re a power-
say that my most common dream sign is
ful stepping-stone to lucid
my place of residence within the dream
dreams. Even now, without
world. Now, whenever I find myself in “a
knowing it, your dreams
home” that doesn’t pair up with my wak-
contain certain people,
ing world home, I instantly know that I’m
events, locations, and situa-
in a dream. —JARED Z.
tions that pop up again and
again, dream after dream.
Once you identify those personal dream signs, they will essen-
tially act as landmarks in the dream world, a great way to achieve
lucidity.
Find Your Dream Signs
Keep a journal for a few weeks and you’ll begin to see patterns.
A dream sign is personal to you. You might have a recurring
dream sign that’s been with you your whole life, such as fear of
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snakes. They might change frequently as you yourself change: my
new boss. Find a highlighter, read through your dream journal,
and start underlining the objects, places, people, and themes that
pop up more than once: a large mansion, owls, my brother Joe, the
park, embarrassment. Keep a list of all these dream signs.
Locating and identifying dream signs will train your subcon-
scious to spot them the next time they appear. If you recognize
that you often dream about your old girlfriend, for example, you
can use this as a trigger for becoming aware that you’re dreaming.
Tell yourself before bed, “The next time I see my ex-girlfriend I
will realize that I am dreaming.” Knowing that your dreams speak
a familiar language with recurring places, people, or themes will be
one of the easiest ways to recognize that you’re dreaming.
Discovering a Natural World
In January 1832, the HMS
Beagle
drifted through the Atlantic,
meandering around volcanic islands, until it finally docked in
the archipelago of Cape Verde, off the west coast of Africa. Its
passengers stepped onto the rocky islands and began examining
and cataloging its natural life. Charles Darwin, a young man of
twenty-three, walked along the shore. He wrote about one of his
findings that day, an octopus that changed colors like a chameleon.
He must have stared at it with awe as the creature’s flesh trans-
formed from yellow to green to red.
If writing down your dreams feels like a chore, try to shift
your approach. Imagine that you are crafting a book of tales from
a completely different dimension, the log of a pioneer, because in
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essence, that is exactly what you are doing. You are an explorer,
and the uncharted terrain is your own inner universe.
As your dream journal grows, so will your relationship with
your dreams. You’ll soon be dreaming more, having longer and
richer dreams, and a wonderful list of common themes and sym-
bols will start to take shape. Hey, you may even learn a thing or
two about yourself along the way.
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Summary
• Writing your dreams down is the most effective way to
remember them.
• Dreams contain insights that we often miss unless we write them
down and then go back and reread them.
• Dream signs are essentially recurring elements of your dreams
and are a perfect way to recognize the dream state.
• Jot down important points as soon as you wake up, otherwise
you might forget.
• Have fun with your dream journal. It’s a book of your
experiences from another dimension.
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8
The Reality Check
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“Reality is frequently inaccurate.”
—Douglas Adams,
writer, humorist, defender of the black rhino
How do you know that this isn’t a dream? You might say,
“Well of course I’m awake, I can see a world around me,
smell things, touch and taste the external world. I’m
sitting here reading this book, dammit!” This is good evidence,
but we’re afraid it’s not enough. If you were in a dream right now
it’d feel just as real. All that clever evidence you had—sight, touch,
taste, smell, sound—all that exists in the dream world too. The
multisensory experience, the authenticity of emotions, the solidity
of our surroundings—all these elements are so convincing that it
doesn’t occur to our brain that we’re in a dream. This is why rec-
ognizing the dream state takes an inquisitive mind. This chapter is
about training your mind to be inquisitive.
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