lucid dream

I’ve been keeping up my dream log pretty well. There were a few nights that I didn’t get very much sleep and couldn’t remember any dreams. I’ve been state checking a ton in waking life, looking for wording that changes, asking if the people around me are people that really might be around me, and every so often I hop and see if I can start flying.

So far no luck flying in real life, but the other night I actually noticed that as I was walking I kind of floated along every few steps. Then it hit me! I was dreaming! I was so excited that I then immediately woke up. Very lame.

The next night the dream I was having right before I woke up had all sorts of dream signs in it but I just couldn’t recognize them well enough. I was hanging out with high school friends again, there was a guy at the side of the Burke Gilman trail trying to sell me a lucid dreaming kit, and I even started doing the float walk again. Each of these instances seemed a bit odd to me, and I don’t even remember how I rationalized them or if I did, but it didn’t hit me until my alarm clock woke me up that I was getting prime signals for lucid dreaming.

Definite progress. I can’t wait for more.

I’ve finally decided to get serious about this lucid dreaming thing and bought a book that seems to come highly recommended called “Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming” by Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold. Stephen LaBerge has years of experience researching lucidity at Stanford, and started the Lucidity Institue, whose website seems to be the best resource for lucid dreaming on the internet, lucidity.com. A lot of the book’s basic info is available on the website for free, but I only paid $2.50 for the book on half.com since it’s old (1990), so it’s well worth having a something I can read in bed easily.

So far I’ve been keeping my dream journal up to date about a week and doing critical state testing the last couple days. That’s where I stop and ask myself if I am dreaming during the day to form the habit so that I’ll more likely do so while I’m dreaming. I sporadically have been writing my dreams for the last few years, but never this regularly. I’m remembering my dreams more easily and noticing when I wake up during the night, something that apparently happens quite regularly but we usually forget like dreams.

Besides the practical how-to aspect of lucid dreaming in the book, there’s a lot of other interesting information, psychology and philosphy. There’s also discussions of what lucid dreaming can possibly be used for with lots of step by step exercises. If anyone is curious about lucid dreaming or needs a good motivator to start learning, this book is a great inexpensive tool. I would definitely try this before buying any of those $50+ courses or gadgets for lucid dreaming you see on the internet. I’ll definitely update this post when I have my first lucid dream.