A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming (34 page)

Hatching the Egg

As you fall asleep, repeat the intention in your head, remem-

bering to think of one, specific sentence. For optimal results,

perform a wake-back-to-bed technique before you incubate a

dream. Instead of trying to become lucid, you’ll focus on that one

image that sums up your intention. Imagine all the sensations and

memories that are attached to it. Let your mind bathe in it.

Upon waking, recall and record the dream with as much detail

as possible. It may contain important information, guidance, or

good feelings that you can slip into your pocket and use during

waking life.

It had been nearly ten years since my stepmom’s father had

passed. I was speaking to her one evening about dreaming,

particularly lucid dreaming. I said to her, “If this were a dream

right now, what would you want to do?” “I’d want to see my

dad,” she said. “I’d want to hear his voice again.” I told her that

this was possible, and that tonight she could make that happen

through dream incubation. she went to bed that night with a

burning desire repeating over and over: her intention to see her

dad in her dreams. I woke up the next morning to see her in

the kitchen. she had tears in her eyes. “I saw him! I saw my

dad. It was so real. He was there with me in the living room. I

talked with him and I gave him a hug. I could feel him. I can’t

believe it.” —THOMAs P.

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Thomas’s stepmom experienced the power that dreams have

for healing. For the first time in ten years, she was able to hug her

dad. All she had to do was ask her subconscious for that dream, it

was that simple. Something she never knew was possible became

very real. That memory will be with her for the rest of her life.

Incubating Lucid Dreams

As with all other aspects of dreaming, being conscious during

a dream opens up new possibilities. Let’s raise the stakes a

bit by throwing the word
lucid
into the dream incubation process.

First off, you can use dream incubation as a method to become

lucid.

Beyond that, if you become lucid while inside your incubated

dream, that dream will be more useful and powerful.

Incubation as a Trigger

Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold, in their book

Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming,
note that you can use

dream incubation as a trigger. Let’s say you incubate a dream about

flying in an airplane. You spend an hour before bed visualizing the

interior of the plane, the wind against your cheeks, and the clouds

flying by. Before you know it, you are in an airplane, feeling all

these things. “Wait a minute,” you think, “isn’t this the very dream

I was trying to incubate? I must be in that dream now!” Because

you are aware and conscious, the experience will be heightened.

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Setting the Stage

While many lucid dreams have the aimlessness of playing

in a sandbox, an incubated lucid dream allows you to go

after specific goals. For example, instead of wasting precious time

looking for your deceased grandmother, you can begin the dream

sitting in her living room, staring at her smiling face. Solve a spe-

cific problem, talk to a specific person, and look for the exact

guidance that you seek. You’ve asked your subconscious to set the

stage for your lucid dream, and now you can act out your role in

the play.

Flap Your Wings

Remember the picture book
Flap Your Wings
by P. D. Eastman?

Allow us to jog your memory. One day an egg falls into the

nest of Mr. and Mrs. Bird, who are very charitable and decide to

hatch the egg as if it were their own. After they give it a lot of love

and care, one day it hatches. To their surprise, their adopted child

is a very strange-looking bird, with a long green snout and sharp

teeth—they’ve just hatched a baby alligator. Do they discard this

dangerous predator? No, they raise it as their own.

Something similar to Mr. and Mrs. Bird’s story often occurs

with dream incubation; you don’t always get what you asked

for. When you ask your dream a question, don’t expect a clear-

cut answer. For example, if your question is “Should I go to law

school?” don’t expect your dream necessarily to answer back, “Sure,

sounds like a good plan, I recommend Harvard.”

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When you put a question to your dreams, you often get an

answer that’s full of symbols and codes. It seems as if your dream is

trying to tell you something, but what? In order to crack the code,

the ancient Egyptians would enlist the help of a dream priest.

These days, many of us consult dream dictionaries, which often

lead us in the wrong direction. Dream dictionaries provide generic

definitions for various symbols, but your symbols are anything but

generic. They’re very personal to you and your experiences.

It’s understandable to be frustrated with this coded language—

why won’t my dream just speak in plain English? It’s not that your

subconscious is trying to confuse or torture you. Here’s one way to

think of it: The message that your dream is conveying to you can-

not be summarized in clear-cut words. Perhaps your subconscious

provides you with metaphorical experiences (dreams) in order to

communicate with you on a deeper level. It’s up to you to interpret

your own dreams. What does your gut tell you?

So you may find yourself incubating a bird until CRACK,

there’s an alligator. Don’t be upset when you don’t receive the exact

dream you were hoping for. Your subconscious is answering your

question, just not in the way you expected. It’s smarter than you

are, and may in fact be answering the question that you should

have asked.

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Summary

• Incubation is a way to decide what dream you are going to have

before you have it.

• It’s a millennia-old skill that dreamers have always used to find

guidance and healing.

• All it takes is a passionate, specific, visual intention.

• Use incubation to set the stage for a lucid dream.

• Don’t expect your dream to give a clear-cut answer to your

questions.

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18

WILD

Consciousness can be trained to leave the physical body.

—His Holiness The Dalai Lama,

one of the world’s greatest spiritual leaders,

on his fourteenth reincarnation as of this writing

We’ve already taught you how to become lucid in your

dreams using the most typical technique. The DILD,

a lucid dream that’s sparked by a spontaneous realiza-

tion, is how 72 percent of lucid dreams happen. Hopefully you’ve

already had some success with that technique, and if you haven’t,

we’re sure you will soon enough.

But what about the other 28 percent of lucid dreams? There

are other ways to become lucid, and this chapter is dedicated to a

second and more exotic induction technique. It’s a method that’s

a bit more difficult to master, but the results are powerful and

potentially life-changing. Shamans and yogis have practiced this

approach for thousands of years.

Once you get a grip on it, you will be able to have a lucid

dream virtually at will, whenever you want. This technique was

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It is dawn. I am woken up by a text. seeing this as a good time

to do a wake-back-to-bed, I go back to sleep thinking, “Okay, the

next place I’ll be will be a dream.” I close my eyes and stare at

the blankness is front of me. I can feel my body is tired, and it has

begun to feel very heavy. After a couple of minutes, I can feel

myself even more relaxed, almost numb. I begin hearing sounds.

every so often I hear “wisps” that sound sort of like air pressure

from a teakettle. I simply observe this and focus on the darkness

ahead. Waiting for an image to appear, I remind myself that

the next image I’ll see will be a dream. Again, I hear the sound.

This time it’s loud and intense. I must be close. Next thing I

know, I feel as if I’m moving. My body feels like it’s being lifted

up and moved back and forth across the bed. I wait to open my

eyes. I don’t want to prematurely wake up and start over. I tell

myself to remain calm and go with it. If I wait this out, I’ll be in