Getting Started with Lucid Dreaming

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Lucid dreaming is the process of taking control of your dreams. When you lucid dream, you can do anything that you can imagine. Lucid dreamers fly around, fight their enemies, make love to their crushes, and improve themselves psychologically — all while they sleep.

It can be difficult to get started with lucid dreaming, but with enough practice anyone can do it. The keys are finding a trigger that lets you know you’re in a dream, using herbs to help you dream more vibrantly, and finally exerting control over your dream. After you have been lucid dreaming for awhile, you can begin to use it as a tool to help you learn about yourself, and even improve your overall mental state.

Finding a Trigger

The first step to lucid dreaming is to find a trigger that works for you. It can be any sort of sign or phenomenon that tells your subconscious that it’s all a dream. The trigger that works for me is reading. It’s very hard to read in a dream, the words are all garbled. When I see words that don’t make sense, I’ve trained my subconscious to recognize that I’m probably dreaming.

Another trigger is jumping jumping — in a dream you will usually slowly float back down, or jump very high. Music can be a trigger too, especially if you notice that a lot of your dreams have background music that doesn’t seem to be coming from anywhere, or can be changed just by concentrating. There are as many triggers as there are people, and another article in this series looks at all of them in detail.

Adding in Herbs

There are a few herbs that can help to speed the process of lucid dreaming along. The two that are most commonly used are sacred lotus and Passion Flower. Lotus helps to ease you to sleep, and Passion Flower helps to make your dreams more vibrant and longer-lasting. A tea made with these two herbs is perfect before bed. For best results, drink your tea about 15 minutes before you tuck yourself in, and make sure that you’re tired enough to fall asleep quickly.

Controlling Your Lucid Dreaming

The final step to lucid dreaming is exerting control. Once you’ve recognized that you’re dreaming with your trigger, and if you’re having a very intense, colorful dream thanks to herbs, you can start to slowly exert control.

The key to controlling your dreams is coming up with an action that you perform in your dream. Before you go to bed, tell yourself over and over again that if you’re dreaming, you’re going to try to fly. It can be any action at all, but it’s best if whatever you try to do is usually impossible. With enough concentration and practice, you can break through and perform that action.

What’s Next?

Once you’ve broken through and performed a single action in your dream, try to extend it. Do two or three or four things. Most people think of lucid dreaming as one long process, but in reality in comes and goes in a flash. It takes a truly talented lucid dreamer to have total control over their dreams all night long.

References


2 responses to “Getting Started with Lucid Dreaming”
  1. Heather Urquhart Avatar

    Hi Aaron – thanks for the article. What are your thoughts on Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)? I have heard it is also very effective for lucid dreaming. Thanks!

    1. Aaron Philips Avatar
      Aaron Philips

      Hi Heather, thank you so much for reading and commenting. You might be able to tell from the text, but I have a whole series on lucid dreaming planned, and I was going to get into mugwort when I talked specifically about the herbs. I guess that puts you in the advanced class!

      Anyhow, I think mugwort is useful, but it’s best used as an extract or tincture. To get the full effects it just really needs to be concentrated. You can smoke it or add it to tea and there will be some mild effect. Wormwood, another member of the Artemisia family, is useful as well.

      If there is any problem with using mugwort, it’s just that it tends to be mildly stimulating.

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