Lucid Dreaming - First Experiences

So far you should have practiced all the lucid dream induction techniques. At this point you may or may not have had a lucid dream.

Some people take longer than others. Don’t worry if you haven’t, it will come in time.

This chapter is intended to give a guiding hand to those who have not had a lucid dream yet. Some causes of not having lucid dreams can be linked with a slight trepidation that is largely unfounded.

Some people have a fear of being awake in a dream. I cannot stress enough that lucid dreaming is perfectly safe. You cannot come to any harm.

Some people have one lucid dream and the feeling was so realistic that they forget that they cannot come to harm, wake up and fail to ever have another one. This section is concerned with allaying those fears and hopefully making you feel comfortable with the whole experience before you experience it for yourself.

The amazing thing about lucid dreaming is that because you are awake and rational within your dream, you can take thoughts, ideas, intentions, into your dream with you.

You will be able to remember what you have read here and use it within your dream. You may even think to yourself “Right, I’m lucid dreaming now. I have nothing to fear so I’m o.k.!” I remember once having a conversation with a peer about what I was going to do in my next lucid dream. When I became lucid, I stood there and remembered the conversation I’d had, and proceeded to do what we had discussed.

What to expect

When you have your first lucid dream, one of the first things you will notice is your awareness. By this I mean that you will be quite overwhelmed just how 'awake' you are although you know that you are still dreaming. This can lead to a sudden rush of excitement and exhilaration that will inevitable cause you to wake up.

Also a fear of the unknown can cause your dreams to end prematurely. People do not willingly go somewhere if they don’t know what to expect. To overcome this, I will take you through what you may encounter so that you can be more relaxed about it when it happens.

How will I know?

A lot of people ask me how they will know that they are lucid dreaming. This is easy to answer. The realization that you are awake and still within a dream is such an overwhelmingly exciting feeling; you will know exactly what is going on.

The first thing that you will notice is your dreamscape – your environment. On realizing that you are lucid, you surroundings will become really vivid and colourful and you will be able to look around you. It really is an awe inspiring experience.

Things will have much more detail. You may sense things such as sound, smell, warmth, cold. It never fails to impress me the amount of detail and realism the human mind can generate within a lucid dream. Sometimes this can cause such excitement that you wake up.

I will never forget when I first picked a handful of snow in a lucid dream. I could see every single tiny snowflake and as I moved the handful of snow, I could see the light bouncing off each snow flake as it separate into all its different colors. The power of the human mind is truly awesome.

The problem therefore, is not knowing that you are lucid dreaming, it is staying there when you realize.

I become lucid, but wake up!

One of the many things that I hear from people when they talk about their first lucid dream is that the experience is always a short lived one. The main reason for this is that they didn't know what to expect and the surprise/shock of the whole experience caused them to wake up. This is a very common problem.

This is the most common problem for beginners. You become lucid; get really excited at the prospect and then wake up from being too excited. You can overcome this problem but it takes a bit of practice.

By preparing yourself for your first lucid dream, you will be able to control how long you stay in the dream and have a much more fruitful experience.

The trick is to STAY CALM!

The obvious but most effective answer is to stay relaxed. This is easier said than done. As soon as you realize that you are lucid, you need to say to yourself "Stay Calm".

Also when you become lucid look around you, take in the experience but try and keep a calm rational frame of mind. Think to yourself “Hey, this is amazing. But I must stay calm and relaxed.” Take a deep (dream) breath and relax. Once you relax you will be able to stabilize the dream and have a more fruitful experience.

I am lucid but my dreamscape vanishes

Another problem you may encounter is that as you are happily enjoying your lucid dream but the dreamscape – your surroundings - start to disintegrate or fade away.

The detail/color/reality becomes slightly vague. Sometimes you will see everything start to turn gray or just simply go blurred. This is usually when the brain is preparing to wake up and your mind cannot hold the dream for you.

It can be a very frustrating experience!

There is a very powerful way to pull the dream back and carry on with it. This is called the spinning technique.

When you feel the dream beginning to fade, hold your arms out in front of you and spin around as fast as you can for a few moments. When you stop spinning you will either be in the same dreamscape but with more clarity or you will have transported to another entirely different dreamscape but with the similar clarity.

Either way, you have stabilized the dream and prevented yourself from waking up. Enjoy!

One thing to avoid is staring at something stationary for too long.

Sometimes you can become so fascinated with something like a flower for example that you cannot help but stare at its intricate petals or the detail of it.

Staring at something for so long can cause your dream to fade. It seems that some sort of motion helps maintain the dream. Do not be afraid to look at things, just not for too long.

TOP TIP - Try to avoid staring at anything for too long. This can cause you to wake up as well. By all means look at things but just not for too long. Try not to stare at something for more than about 10-15 seconds.

Sometimes when I am lucid dreaming, I can feel the amount of lucidity beginning to go. I feel myself dozing back into a non-lucid state. There is another great way to get around this little problem.

Hanging onto your dream

The simplicity of this technique belies its effectiveness.

When you find yourself in a lucid dream, after maybe 5 minutes or so you may feel like you are losing a grip on your 'reality' i.e. your dreamscape. If you want to carry on with your dream you need to convince your brain to stay in the dream.

The way that you do this is to tell it! That's right. At the top of your (dream) voice just simply shout "I want more clarity" or "Give me more clarity". Be very assertive bordering on the aggressive. Think 'I am not going to stand for this! I want more clarity'.

As odd as it may seem to be shouting at yourself, it works! You should start to find the clarity coming back and a feeling of solidity about the dream. I have used this technique to maintain a detailed dream for 30 minutes without a problem. Every time it started to fade I just re-asserted that I wanted more clarity in the dream and hey presto!