Read A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming Online
Authors: Dylan Tuccillo,Jared Zeizel,Thomas Peisel
getting out of bed and standing on my feet, I performed a
reality check by looking at my digital watch, looking away,
and looking back at it again. as the digital numbers did
change, I still wasn’t entirely convinced that it was a dream
because everything was so vivid and real. —BeN S.
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your past (Wait a second,
I’m not in college anymore!
With regards to my early lucid dreams,
This has to be a dream!).
the earliest I can remember were when
I was just starting middle school (around
Typically, lucid dreams are
twelve years old), and they would almost
triggered by some sort of
always start off with me being at school
inconsistency, something
and walking around the hallways. even
that suddenly causes the
though everything felt like it did in real life,
dreamer to stop and ques-
I would eventually get a sense that some-
tion his or her reality.
thing was off and that the world I was in
Once you become lucid,
might not be real. eventually I developed
a strategy to test whether or not I was
you’ll have complete mem-
actually dreaming; I would “find” a bath-
ory of your waking life, and
room and look into the toilet. If I saw my
will be able to think logi-
reflection in the toilet I would know I was
cally, make decisions, and
dreaming and then go about interacting
explore the dream’s land-
with the dream fully aware. —WIll B.
scape in the same way you’d
traverse the physical world.
You’ll have direct influence over the entire dream and its content.
Whereas in a regular dream, you would react blindly, unable to
reflect on your current situation, you now hold the reins—your
mind is awake enough to call the shots. Have a conversation with a
dream character, fly across a mountain range, breathe underwater,
pass effortlessly through walls—these are just a few examples. No
longer confined to a physical body, you have the freedom to travel
over large distances, move at incredible speeds, or even transcend
time as you know it.
When you realize that you are not separate from the inner
world of your dreams, you can move, shape, even create objects
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out of thin air. Everything in the environment around you takes
on a very intimate relationship; you might even say that the world
around you is you! If it seems like we’re exaggerating, we’re not:
the sensations of touch, smell, sight, taste, and sound will seem
just as vivid as they do in waking life. If you’ve ever seen the sci-fi
film
The Matrix,
you already have a good idea what this world is
like: a place that seems real but is just a projection of the mind. As
the character Morpheus describes The Matrix, “If real is what you
can feel, smell, taste, and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals
interpreted by your brain.” But unlike
The Matrix,
lucid dreaming is not science fiction.
Imagine being free of
your physical body, leaving
behind silly things like grav-
I find myself flying and realize that I must
be in a dream. Now lucid, I slow my fly-
ity. Picture yourself flying,
ing down and take in the scenery in front
and doing so in the literal
of me. I am overlooking the most beautiful
sense, feeling the air rush-
sight I have ever seen. My vision seems to
ing across your face, the
capture everything for miles. grassy hills
weightlessness of your body,
and evergreen trees line the ground below
breaking every Newtonian
me. The sky. Oh, the sky! It is painted
law out there. Imagine see-
with the most incredible shades of pink
and orange I have ever witnessed! The
ing and conversing with the
sun in the distance looks like it is setting,
natives of the dream who
the clouds standing out in their vibrant
provide valuable insights and
hues. I am brought to tears from the sheer
knowledge about your life.
beauty of such a sight. I lie on my back in
Hidden in this place you can
midflight and close my eyes—I wake up.
find wisdom and guidance
—Rachel T.
that could change your life.
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Can Anyone Do It?
From an early age we’re told we can do anything that we put our
minds to. As we grow up, those reassuring words start to lose
their credibility. Not everyone can keep a beat, and math doesn’t
come naturally to us all. Fortunately, anyone can have a lucid dream.
The ability is not something you have to acquire, it’s something you
already possess. In fact, studies show that most of us can boast of
having at least one lucid dream. In a 1998 study of one thousand
average Austrians, 26 percent of participants reported having at
least one lucid dream in their lifetime. When 439 German students
were asked the same question, 82 percent of them had experienced
a lucid dream and a whopping 10 percent reported experiencing
a lucid dream two to three times a month! Without any training,
these average citizens witnessed the completely natural state of a
conscious dream. That same German study concluded that one’s
personality was not a major factor. Whether you are liberal, conser-
vative, extroverted, or introverted, you can become lucid.
All that’s really required to make the jump from normal dream-
ing into lucid dreaming is for you to recognize the dream state.