Cyrena Lee - A Little Bit of Lucid Dreaming: An Introduction to Dream Manipulation

LUCID DREAMING

Lucid dreaming, simply put, is the realization that you are dreaming. To lucid dream is to wake up inside a dream. To be lucid is to be aware and to know that everything you see before you is a product of your own imagination and consciousness. To be lucid is to marvel at the world before your eyes, and to delight in the freedom of your actions. And being lucid in a dream is just the beginningfrom there, you can really take control of your dream.

I cant remember where I first heard of the concept of lucid dreaming; perhaps I stumbled upon it somewhere on the internet. But I was intrigued by the possibility that we could control an entire world while sleeping: we could bend and defy the laws of physics and gravity; manifest any animal or the sun in a blazing purple sky instead of a blue one; face our monsters, knowing that they were only reflections of our fears, and thus powerless. The only limit in the dream world is our own imagination. Anything we can think of is possible.

Lucid dreaming can be therapeutic. It can rewrite the script of past traumas. It can stimulate creativity for artists and even help athletes with their physical pursuits. It can deepen self-understanding. But the single most important life lesson Ive learned has been from my adventures into lucid dreaming: To the mind, there is little difference between the dream world and the real world. To take control of your waking life, and to live a life youve always wanted, you just have to learn how to dream it.

As a young child, Id always dreamt of being a writer. For the past twenty years or so, I have obsessively kept daily journals and dream journals. And for the past five years, Ive intensely researched and read all about lucid dreaming and how to do it, and have talked at length with friends, family, and strangers about their dreams. Learning how to lucid dream has changed my life drastically, because it helped me learn how to change my life. In the past few years, thanks to lucid dreaming, Ive managed to walk away from a soul-draining career at a slew of start-ups. Ive learned to overcome limitations to pursue my longtime dream of writing books and novels that help me connect with others, and help them realize the power of their own imaginations. Its led me to this very moment in writing these words, and to this very moment of you reading these words. The best thing about lucid dreaming is that anyone can learn how to do it, no matter who they are and what their circumstances. At the same time, anyone can learn how to live lucidly.

You dont need to buy that ability or possess anything but the will to hold a belief in order to lucid dream. The goal of this book is to get you not only lucid dreaming, but to also live your life lucidly. Lets begin.

1

WHAT IS A LUCID DREAM?

What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.

SALVADOR DAL

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE FALL ASLEEP? With our jam-packed schedules, how often do we think about our dreams? What hope can we have to change our future for the better if we dont remember our dreams? How much time have we spent thinking about television shows or the lives of celebrities instead of probing our own imaginations?

In a society that values constant productivity and connectivity, sleep is often given short shrift. Of course, trendy wellness businesses try to capitalize on consumer insecurities to optimize sleep, by encouraging us to buy the perfect mattress or silk pajama set. You may have even seen a travel advertisement for a weekend away to disconnectbut few of us think about what actually happens when we disconnect and sleep. Very little attention is paid to the fact that we all dream, and that lucid dreams exist.

All of us, more or less, exist in this fever dream of consumerism, where we are forced to work to make money. And, with our money, we buy things that are marketed to us, to try to fill our needs. Sadly, most of the products that are peddled to us either make us sick (junk food, bad television), make the environment sick (plastics and other unnecessary objects that pollute the planet), or make us pay to be healthy (vitamins and juice cleanses). But dreams are free, even if they are often scoffed at, and every person who sleeps also dreams. We are all awake every day, and are highly conscious of our own ideas. We know our limitations, what we can and cannot do, what is and is not possible, who we are and who we are not.