LUCID DREAM

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PRINCIPLES
Your lucid dream training will start with keeping a dream journal and improving your dream recall. The next step will be to use your collection of dreams to find peculiarities (dreamsigns) that appear often enough in your dreams to be reliable signposts of the dream state.
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Messages appear, words are spoken, helpful dream figures arrive in the lucid dream, all to encourage and support the lucid dreamer.
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Events happen, as if purposefully designed to assist the lucid dreamer in becoming more aware.
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Speaking with the dream figures; Carl Jung's individuation process in which, by knowing and accepting all parts of our self, we become our complete Self.
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Curiosity shows up repeatedly as a precursor to lucid dreams. When we become curious, we seem to engage inner forces of intent that focus on the subject of our curiosity and may assist us in becoming lucidly aware.

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3 STAGES OF SLEEP
Stage 1 is a transitional state between drowsy wakefulness and light sleep, characterized by slow drifting eye movements and vivid, brief dreamlets called hypnagogic from Greek, meaning “leading into sleep”.
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Stage 2 is characterized by unique brain wave patterns called “sleep spindles” and K-complexes.” This is light sleep and very easy to be wake up.
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Stage 3is delta sleep. Typically after twenty to thirty minutes, you sink deeper into “delta sleep, “ so named after the regular large, slow brain waves that characterize this stage of quiet sleep. Very little dream content is reported from delta sleep. Interestingly, this state of deep and dreamless sleep is highly regarded in some Eastern mystical traditions as the state in which we establish contact with our innermost consciousness.
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After gradually entering the deepest stage of delta sleep (Stage 3) and lingering there for thirty or forty minutes, you come back up to Stage 2.
Approximately seventy to ninety min-utes after sleep onset, you enter REM sleep for the first time of the night.
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After five or ten minutes of REM, and possibly following a brief awakening in which you would likely remember a dream, you sink back into Stage 2 and possibly delta, coming up again for another REM period approximately every ninety minutes, and so on through the night.
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While learning and practicing lucid dreaming, you should keep in mind two elaborations on this cycle: (1) the length of the REM periods increase as the night proceeds and (2) the intervals between REM periods de-crease with time of night, from ninety minutes at the beginning of the night to perhaps only twenty to thirty minutes eight hours later.
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Finally, after five or six periods of dreaming sleep you wake up for perhaps the tenth or fifteenth time of the night (we awaken this many times on an average night, but we promptly forget it happened, just as you may forget a conversation with someone who calls you in the middle of the night).
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The first dream of the night is the shortest, perhaps only ten minutes in length, while after eight hours of sleep, dream periods can be forty-five minutes to an hour long.

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REMEMBERING YOUR DREAMS
Another important prerequisite to recalling dreams is motivation. For many people it is enough to intend to remember their dreams and remind themselves of this intention just before bed.
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You should get into the habit of asking yourself this question the moment you awaken: “What was I dreaming?” Do this first or you’ll forget some or all of your dream, due to interference from other thoughts. Don’t move from the position in which you awaken, as any body movement may make your dream harder to remember.
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If you still can’t remember any dream, you should ask yourself: “What was I just thinking?” and “How was I just feeling?” Examining your thoughts and feelings often can provide the necessary clues to allow you to retrieve the entire dream.
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When you recall a scene, ask yourself what happened before that, and before that, reliving the dream in reverse.

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JOURNALING
Keeping a dream journal by your bed and recording your dreams as soon as you awaken will help strengthen your resolve.
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So, you need to get to know what your dreams are like, and in particular, what is dreamlike about them. You can accomplish this by collecting your dreams and analyzing them for dreamlike elements.
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Don’t wait until you get up in the morning to make notes on your dreams. So, be sure to write down at least a few key words about the dream immediately upon awakening from it.
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Describe the way images and characters look and sound and smell, and don’t forget to describe the way you felt in the dream—emotional reactions are important clues in the dream world. Record anything un-usual, the kinds of things that would never occur in wak-ing life: flying pigs, or the ability to breathe underwater, or enigmatic symbols.
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Was it daytime or nightime? Indoors or outdoors? How many people approximately? What colors were prominent? Can you describe the landscape? Any actions or feelings?
Make specific notes upon waking and avoid making assumptions. It seems better to describe the dream figure, "a fifty-ish, slender woman in a blue dress," rather than conclude it was "Aunt Jo," unless you know with certainty it was a specific person.
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If you remember only a fragment of a dream, record it, no matter how unimportant it might seem at the time.
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When you begin to accumulate some raw material in your dream journal, you can look back at your dreams and ask yourself questions about them.
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Furthermore, reading over your journal will help you become familiar with what is dreamlike about your dreams so you can recognize them while they are still happening—and become lucid.

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COLLECTING DREAMSIGNS
You can use your journal as a rich source of information on how your own dreams signal their dreamlike nature. Then you can learn to recognize your most frequent or characteristic dream-signs—the specific ways your dream world tends to differ from your waking world.
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Once you know how to look for them, dreamsigns can be like neon lights, flashing a message in the darkness: “This is a dream! This is a dream!”
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The dreamsign inventory lists types of dreamsigns organized according to the way people naturally seem to categorize their experiences in dreams. There are four primary categories.
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The first one, inner awareness, refers to things that dreamers (egos) perceive as happening within themselves, such as thoughts and feelings.
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The other three categories (action, form, and context) classify elements of the dream environment. The action category includes the activities and motions of everything in the dream world—the dream ego, other characters, and objects. Form refers to the shapes of things, people, and places, which are often bizarre and frequently transform in dreams. The final category is context. Sometimes in dreams the combination of elements—people, places, actions, or things, is odd, although there is nothing inherently strange about any item by itself.
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While continuing to collect dreams, mark the dreamsigns in your dream reports. Underline them, and list them after each dream description. Classify each dreamsign using the dreamsign inventory. Next to each dreamsign on your list, write the name of its category from the dreamsign inventory. For instance, if you dreamed of a person with the head of a cat, this would be a form dreamsign. Count how many times each dreamsign category (inner awareness, action, form, or context) occurs and rank them by frequency. Whichever occurs most often will be your target dreamsign category in the next step.
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Make a habit of examining your daily life for events that fit under your dreamsign category. For instance, if your target category is action, study how you, other people, animals, objects, and machines act and move. Become thoroughly familiar with the way things usually are in waking life. This will prepare you to notice when some-thing unusual happens in a dream.

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PREVENTING PREMATURE AWAKENNING
All the techniques involve carrying out some form of dream action as soon as the visual part of the dream begins to fade. As long as you are actively and perceptually engaged with the dream world, you are less likely to make the transition to the waking state.
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listening to voices, music, or her breathing; beginning or continuing a conversation; rub-bing or opening her (dream) eyes; touching her dream hands and face; touching objects such as a pair of glasses, a hairbrush, or the edge of a mirror; being touched; and flying.
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The first sign that a lucid dream is about to end is usually a loss of color and realism in your visual imagery
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He was the first to propose the technique of looking at the ground in order to stabilize the dream.
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What to do if you do awaken prematurely?
Play dead. If you remain perfectly motionless upon waking from a lucid (or nonlucid) dream and deeply relax your body, there is a good chance that REM sleep will reassert itself and you will have an opportunity to enter a lucid dream consciously.
For some people with a strong tendency to remain in REM sleep, this happens almost every time they awaken from a dream until they decide to move.
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PREVENTING LOSS OF LUCIDITY
For beginning lucid dreamers, their strategy should be to remain lucid as long as possible while learning to direct their focus.
The initial lesson involves modulating emotions to maintain the lucid dream. The second lesson involves maintaining one's lucid awareness while interacting with the ongoing dream.
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Use Inner Speech to Guide Your Thinking
Remind yourself that you are dream-ing by repeating phrases like “This is a dream!... This is a dream!... This is a dream!”
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Don Juan taught Castaneda to return to looking at his hands whenever the dream seemed ready to collapse. You can do the same thing whenever the lucid dream gets too emotional. Look at your hands or, perhaps, at the floor. In either case, this seems to "ground" the dreamer because it removes one's attention away from a disturbing stimulus and to a peaceful or neutral stimulus.

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KEEPING LUCIDITY
Repetition: Many have discovered that one way to maintain awareness involves repeating a comment about your awareness. To avoid losing your lucidity in early lucid dreams, you may wish to repeat every fifteen seconds, "This is a dream. I am dreaming this." Some beginning lucid dreamers make it a practice to look at their hands every now and then during the lucid dream as a reminder.
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Having a goal: When we focus on a goal, the goal seems to remain active until the goal is satisfied. For example, if we walk into the Louvre looking for the Mona Lisa, we continue with that goal by actively disregarding other artwork until we reach the Mona Lisa.
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Comparison/contrast in the dream: When we become lucid and notice a certain quality about the lucid dream, we can use that to maintain lucidity. For example, flying might be the quality that reminds you that you are lucidly aware. If you continue touching things throughout the lucid dream, you continue to reinforce the idea of a comparison/contrast of the two states.
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Announcing intent: When lucid, announcing your intent seems to have extra power or extra impact. While some people might yel , "Bet er lighting" and see light levels increase or "More people" and see more dream figures around them, one could also announce, "Greater awareness!" or "Greater clarity!" and elevate the awareness.
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Projecting one's power: In some lucid dreams, I found myself "deciding" that I could more easily maintain lucid awareness if I created a reminder such as carrying a cane or holding a special object. In one lucid dream, I magical y created stickers that read, "I am lucid." Then I spent the dream placing the "I am lucid" stickers on items in the dream!
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Singing: Some lucid dreamers, like my Lucid Dream Exchange coeditor Lucy Gil is, have discovered that singing while lucid dreaming helps them maintain their lucid awareness and make certain activities, such as flying for example, easier.

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REENTERING THE DREAM
Certain behaviors appear to assist the dream-reentry process. First, for some reason, it seemed to help if I matched the exact position of my physical body upon waking from the earlier dream.
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So to reenter the dream, I would reposition my body to conform to how it had been upon waking. I put my head just so, put my arms here, placed my leg just right, and so on. Now, my body felt ready for reentering the dream.
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To replay the dream- I found it best to replay the dream in my mind while focusing on an event near the dream's end. At that place in the dream, I would visualize it completely in my mind for a moment while al owing myself to doze of . Often, at this stage, I would slip back into the dream, consciously aware, as if by lucidly intended dream osmosis.
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My final trick involved replaying the dream to the end and then "seeing" some portion of the dream as if inside the dream. By that, I mean I would seek to perceive the dream from some symbol or dream figure's viewpoint in the dream.

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BELIEFS AND EXPECTATIONS
the expectation effect, meaning the tendency for the lucid dream to follow the mental expectation of the lucid dreamer.
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The expectation effect carries such import that a lucid dreamer who suddenly changes his or her expectations instantly changes the experience of the dream.
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Changing your mind, even slightly, changes the lucid dream experience to correspond to the minor gradations of your expectation.
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If you expect trouble, if you expect punishment, if you expect wrath, the lucid dream responds to your expectation with appropriate images. If you expect love, if you expect joy, if you expect ecstasy, the lucid dream responds in kind.
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Your experience largely reflects your expectations, which come from your beliefs, thoughts, ideas, and emotions.
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Your experience largely reflects your expectations, which come from your beliefs, thoughts, ideas, and emotions.
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Beliefs seem closely tied to expectations in that we expect that which we believe possible.
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In lucid dreaming (and in waking life, too), beliefs help determine our personal experience, since we focus upon what we believe to be significant and expect only what we believe to be possible.
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If we believe something is possible, we attempt it; if we don't believe something is possible, we don't attempt it. Our beliefs delineate the boundaries of our experience to a large degree.
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When we believe in limitations or difficulties, we help bring them about. So, cultivating an open mind and expansive beliefs about the possibilities in lucid dreams potential y broadens the scope of our experience.

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INTENT AND WILL
How do you move beyond expectation? How do you discover that which is outside your experience? How do you engage the unknown? In lucid dreaming, you do this through the use of intent.
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We do not command or force or insist. We make a simple request of intent and in that stretching toward.
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Unlike expectation, belief, or focus, by which we know what we expect to transpire, the use of intent reaches more deeply, eliciting a response beyond our waking knowing.
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Will differs from intent. Lucid dreamers often use their will to create deeply desired events in the dream environment. Will is what makes you invulnerable.
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To make the will function requires two things: 1) an inward concentration toward the emotions, and 2) a connection of emotions or emotional energy to a predetermined desire.
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Inward wish becomes empowered by emotions, the lucid dreamer experiences a new type of reality creation in the lucid dream.
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Desire alone is not enough. You have to will that inner desire to the level of emotion.
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Interestingly, the will often emerges most easily when the lucid dreamer feels frustrated. At that moment, your frustration automatically moves you closer to emotions.
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The will of the lucid dreamer touches something - the abstract, the spirit, the inner Self - and that something responds. When that occurs, you realize that your intent and will help create the path that you follow.

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VARIETIES OF DREAM FIGURES
When lucid dreamers consciously engage and converse with dream figures, the dream figures frequently surprise them with their knowledge, observations, and rational comments
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By consciously asking, "Who are you?" the lucid dreamer allows the dream figure an opportunity for expression.
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She then sees "all different types of people" and learns that by understanding the various parts of herself, she then "can be a complete entity - a whole person."
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In this brief exchange, you might take away the following: 1) since some dream figures have a type of awareness, you should approach them on this basis, and 2) based on their responsiveness, you can determine what type of further interaction seems warranted.

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USING DREAM FIGURE TO BECOME LUCID
I found that dream figures sometimes assisted me in becoming lucid. Certain actions seemed intended, purposeful, and directed toward my realization of consciously aware dreaming.
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How did they do it? Normally in one of four ways: Repetition: Seeing the same dream figure twice jogs your memory. It makes you stop and wonder, "Where did I see that person before?
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Odd Creations: Watching a dream figure do something totally odd can call up that critical mindset
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Persistent Attention: On some rare occasions, the dream figure or figures may continue interacting with you to prompt your lucidity. I recall once, a whole group of twenty or more dream figures sang songs for me, told jokes, and so on until final y I became lucidly aware and they began to applaud! Suddenly, I recalled they had tried this same thing the night before
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Questions: At least once, I have become lucid when a dream figure asked me a question. Having to think about the question and my response made me realize that I existed in a dream. Questioning seems a potent way to elicit lucid awareness.
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Thus, deceased dream figures help increase the likelihood of lucid awareness and provide lucid dreamers with a rare opportunity to interact consciously with them.

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ASKING THE DREAM FIGURE
Open yourself to a real, conscious interaction, consider the following guidelines:
1. Don't limit the dream figure by expressing prejudiced assumptions, such as "You're a creation of my mind!" or "Do you know I'm dreaming you?" Most dream figures just stare at you when you say these things. Instead, ask them an open-ended question, like "Who are you?" or "What do you represent?" or "Why are you here?" Then listen for their response.
2. When you have a choice, look for the most appropriate, aware, or intelligent dream figure to talk with. If you see Aunt Nelly but remember that Aunt Nely was always confused, asking her questions will , most likely, lead to questionable results.
3. Develop your most important question, or series of questions, in the waking state. Sometimes in the excitement of being lucid, you may be unable to think of anything appropriate to ask.
4. If confused by the dream figure's response, ask for clarification!
5. Asking general questions ("What is my purpose in life?") may lead to cryptic responses ("To live.") Instead, ask specific questions such as "What does this white horse symbolize?" or a question that has an unknown answer, as in "When the Cubs play next, what will the final score be?" Or, get some advice about how best to manipulate the dream.

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PRECOGNITIVE DREAMS
Three come to mind:
1. If a positive-seeming dream figure delivers a warning to you, seriously consider heeding it. By positive-seeming, I mean dream figures for whom you have a personal and positive regard.
2. If you feel confused by the symbolism or fail to understand the message, seek to have a clarifying lucid dream in which you actively search for more information about the possible warning and possible steps to avoid it.
3. If you have few or rare lucid dreams, then before going to sleep, simply ask for or incubate a dream of clarification in which information about the troubling dream will be made clear to you.

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MISCELLANEOUS TOOLS
Look to your hands to stabilize the dream
I look at my hands, then look away, then at my hands, back and forth, trying to stabilize my lucid state.
First look at your hands. Now when they start to get fuzzy, look away at the scenery, and when that gets fuzzy, look back at your hands. And keep doing that."
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Spin to create a new dream
Those who have read LaBerge's books realize that he used spinning to create an entirely new dream scene, particularly when he felt that the current lucid dream scene might col-lapse.
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Wave your hand to change the dream
she proposed another technique to change the dream scene: simply wave your hand while expecting the scene to disappear.
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Collect the energy of the dream
Aware in a lucid dream, I began to collect all of the energy of the dream and reclaim it, calling the energy back to me in sweeping motions.
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Engage with the dreams figures
Ask them an open-ended question, like "Who are you?" or "What do you represent?" or "Why are you here?" Then listen for their response.
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Asking the dream
The first guideline in "asking the dream" involves the importance of properly wording the request.
When a lucid dreamer wishes to experience a concept, he or she has a choice of intent: either to sense the concept or to become the concept. Remember that it's best to request to sense the experience and not to become the experience until you're truly prepared to let go of normal modes of self reference.
Write out your request and see if each noun, preposition, and verb reflects your actual intent.
Then, when you become lucid and feel the time and set ing are right, ignore the dream figures and objects and simply announce your intent to the dream.
Lift up your head and shout it out. Then, stand back and wait to see what happens next.
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Experience complete absence of gravity
For example, imagine being lucid and telling the dream, "I want to experience the complete absence of gravity!" Now become more specific and tell the dream, "I want to experience gravity as if I were on the moon!" You can continue with other examples, gravity on Mars, gravity in a black hole, the variations are endless. Concepts have depth of experience, and the conscious unconscious seems to have unfettered access to them.
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Experience unconditional love
We can imagine a lucid dreamer ignoring the dream figures and shouting, "I want to see unconditional love!" In response, a profoundly emotional scene may appear for the lucid dreamer to look at visual y and absorb. Contrast that to the lucid dreamer who shouts, "I want to become unconditional love!" He or she may then begin to feel intense emotion, bordering on the mystical, and swoon into the depths of unconditional love. Depending upon the concept we seek to become, the intensity of "becoming" may approach the over-powering and all consuming.
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Experience inner peace
We may do best initial y to seek simpler concepts. Instead of asking to see God, we could announce to the dreaming, "I want to feel divine grace!" or "I want to experience inner peace!"
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Healing in lucid dream
Another success factor appears to be the healing method itself.
Lucid dreamers have approached the task of lucid healing by using a variety of methods, such as the fol owing:
1. Symbolical y and literal y entering and manipulating the dream body
2. Directing healing intent, which often manifests as an unexpected light
3. Directing affirmations, chants, or sound energy
4. Creating symbolic, healing imagery
5. Seeking information about the cause or meaning of the illness
6. Seeking a dream doctor, medicine, or healing environment
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Looking into the eyes
I had become quite enamored of looking into eyes in the lucid state, a characteristic reported by other lucid dreamers. Even in lucid dreams, eyes seem to have a particularly fascinating and powerful aspect to them. Lucidly aware in the dream, I see the eye of a friend's child.
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Ask for the eventual passing of a family member
told my dreaming self that I wanted to know about the eventual passing of my aged father. Unlike most people, I opened up to and consciously al owed the information.
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Searching for a recent passing away
Only a month after my father's passing, I decided to take mat ers into my own hand. I would lucidly go in search of him. Consciously aware, I sought to push my way through the trans-world gate and visit the other side (September 1997):
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Asking the dream why we experience that
Handle recurring emotions: For a small portion of lucid dreamers, they may become lucid and soon be confronted by something emotive: an intense sexual desire, a frightful figure, or something exciting. When lucid, you decide how to respond, but when it comes to recurring emotion producing situations or dream figures, it seems most helpful to ask such things as, "What do you represent?" "Hey Dream! Why am I experiencing this?" and await the response. Dealing with recurring figures or situations seems invaluable for moving forward and creating a proper foundation for growth.
Etc..
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to see the beginning and the end of the universe.
Going to Infinity and Beyond
to Meditate
Becoming a Color

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EXERCICES

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TEST YOUR STATE
Ask yourself the critical question as often as possible (at least the five to ten specific times you selected in Step 1): “Am I dreaming or awake?” Don’t just automatically ask the question and mindlessly reply, “Obviously, I’m awake, “ or you will do the same thing when you actually are dreaming.
Look around for any oddities or inconsistencies that might indicate you are dreaming. Think back to the events of the last several minutes.
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1. Plan when to test your state. Pick five to ten different occasions during the day,ask yourself if you are dreaming or awake?
Might decide to ask, “Am I dreaming?” when you arrive home from work, at the beginning of each conversation you have, every hour on the hour, and so on. Choose a fre-quency of state testing that feels comfortable.
2.Any time you come in contact with something that resembles a dreamsign, ask yourself if you are dreaming or awake?
3.Whenever anything surprising or unlikely oc-curs or anytime you experience unusually powerful emotions, or anything dream like, ask yourself if you are dreaming or awake?

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EXERCISE: SCHEDULING TIME FOR LUCID DREAMING
1. Set your alarm
Before going to bed, set your alarm to awaken you two to three hours earlier than usual, and go to sleep at your normal time.
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2. Get out of bed promptly in the morning When your alarm goes off, get out of bed immediately. You are going to stay awake for two or three hours. Go about your business until about a half hour before returning to bed.
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3. Focus on your intentions for your lucid dreams For the half hour before you return to sleep think about what you want to accomplish in your lucid dream: where you want to go, who you want to see, or what you want to do.
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You can use this time to incubate a dream about a particular topic
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4. Return to bed and practice an induction technique
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5. Give yourself at least two hours to sleep
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Set your alarm or have someone awaken you if you like, but be sure to give yourself two hours to dream. You are likely to have at least one long REM period Sometimes we can awaken from a dream and reenter it moments later.

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EXERCISE: 61-POINT RELAXATION
Learning to Relax Deeply
Before you are ready to practice techniques for inducing lucid dreams, you need to be able to put yourself into a state of attentive relaxation, with alert mind and deeply relaxed body. They are important for helping you to clear your mind of the day’s worries so that you can focus on lucid dream induction.
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1. Study the figure Figure 1 illustrates 61 points on the body. To do this exercise, you need to memorize the sequence of points. (This is not difficult, because the points are arranged in a simple pattern. ) They begin at the forehead, travel down and up your right arm, then across to your left arm, down your torso, down and up your right and left legs, then back up your torso to the forehead.
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2. Focus your attention on one point at a time.
Begin at your forehead.
Focus your attention between your eyebrows and think of the number one.
Keep your attention fixed at Point 1 for several seconds until you feel that your awareness of the location is clear and dis-tinct.
Think of your self being located at this point.
Be-fore moving on to the next point, you should feel a sense of warmth and heaviness at this spot.
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3. Move through each point in sequence In the same manner, successively focus your attention on each of the first thirty-one points.
Proceed slowly, and imagine your self being located at each point as you reach it. Feel the sense of warmth and heaviness before moving on.
Do not allow your mind to wander. At first you may find this difficult to do; you will discover that at times you suddenly will forget that you are doing the exercise and start daydreaming or thinking about something else. If you lose your place, return to the beginning or the last numbered point you attended to, and continue.
Practice with thirty-one points until you can attend to them all in sequence without daydreaming or losing track.
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4. Extend your practice to include all sixty-one points When you can attend to thirty-one points in sequence, repeat Steps 1 and 2 with all sixty-one points. Practice this until you can do all points without losing your focus. Now you are ready to use this exercise with lucid dream induction techniques.

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POWER OF RESOLUTION TECHNIQUE
Consists of “resolving to maintain unbroken continuity of consciousness” throughout both the waking and dream states.
1. Day practice
During the day, “under all conditions” think continuously that “all things are of the substance of dreams” (that is, that your experience is a construction of your mind) and resolve that you will realize their true nature.
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2. Night practice
At night, when about to go to sleep, “firmly resolve” that you will comprehend the dream state—that is, real-ize that it is not real, but a dream.

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INTENTION TECHNIQUE
1. Resolve to recognize dreaming
In the early morning hours, or during an awakening in the latter pan of your sleep period, clearly and confidently affirm your intention to remember to recognize the dream state.
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2. Visualize yourself recognizing dreaming
Imagine as vividly as possible that you are in dream sit-uations
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3. Imagine carrying out an intended dream action. In addition to mentally practicing recognizing dream-signs, resolve to carry out some particular chosen action in the dream. While doing this be sure to firmly resolve to recognize the next time you are dreaming.

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COUNT YOURSELF TO SLEEP TECHNIQUE
1. Relax completely
2. Count to yourself while falling asleep As you are drifting off to sleep, count to yourself, “1, I’m dreaming; 2, I’m dreaming,..., “ and so on, maintaining a degree of vigilance. You may start over after reaching 100 if you wish.
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3.Realize you are dreaming. After continuing the counting and reminding process for some time, you will find that at some point, you’ll be saying to yourself, “I’m dreaming..., “ and you’ll notice that you are dreaming!

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HYPNAGOGIC IMAGERY TECHNIQUE
1. Relax completely
2. Observe the visual images
Gently focus your attention on the visual images that will gradually appear before your mind’s eye. Watch how the images begin and end. Try to observe the images as delicately as possible, allowing them to be passively reflected in your mind as they unfold. Do not attempt to hold onto the images, but instead just watch without attachment or desire for action.
While doing this, try to take the perspective of a detached observer as much as possible. At first you will see a sequence of disconnected, fleeting patterns and images.
3. Enter the dream
When the imagery becomes a moving, vivid scenario, you should allow yourself to be passively drawn into the dream world. Do not try to actively enter the dream scene, but instead continue to take a detached interest in the imagery.
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Probably the most difficult part of this technique to master is entering the dream at Step 3. The challenge is to develop a delicate vigilance, an unobtrusive observer perspective, from which you let yourself be drawn into the dream.
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As Paul Tholey has emphasized, “It is not desirable to want actively to enter into the scenery, since such an intention as a rule causes the scenery to disappear.

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TIBETAN VISUALIZATION: WHITE DOT TECHNIQUE
Another approach to the induction of WILDs, much favored by the Tibetan tradition, involves deliberate visualization of a symbol while focusing on hypnagogic imagery.
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As you will see in the following exercises, yogic visualizations relating to sleep are frequently situated in the throat.
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One of these, the throat chakra, is said to regulate sleep and wakefulness. The degree of activation of the throat chakra is reputed to determine whether wakefulness, sleep, or dreaming occurs.
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1. Before bed firmly resolve to recognize when you are dreaming and visualize in your throat the syllable ah, red in color and vividly radiant.
2. Mentally concentrate on the radiance of the ah. Imagine that the radiance illuminates and makes visible all things of the world showing them to be essentially unreal and of the nature of a dream.
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Concentrate your mind upon a dot, colored bony white, situated between your eyebrows (Point 1 in the 61-point relaxation exercise). D. Continue to focus on the dot until you find that you are dreaming.

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DREAM LOTUS AND FLAME TECHNIQUE
1. Relax completely While lying in bed, gently close your eyes and relax your head, neck, back, arms, and legs. Completely let go of all muscular and mental tension, and breathe slowly and restfully. Enjoy the feeling of relaxation and let go of your thoughts, worries, and concerns. If you have just awakened from sleep, you are probably sufficiently relaxed.
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2. Visualize the flame in the lotus.
As soon as you feel fully relaxed, visualize in your throat (Point 1 in the 61-point relaxation exercise) a beautiful lotus flower with soft, light-pink petals curling slightly inward. In the center of the lotus, imagine a flame incandescent with reddish-orange light.
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3. Observe your imagery
Observe how the image of the flame in the lotus interacts with other images that arise in your mind. Do not try to think about, interpret, or concern yourself with any of these images, but, under all circumstances, continue to maintain your visualization.
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4. Blend with the image, and with the dream Contemplate the flame in the lotus until you feel the image and your awareness of it merge together. When this happens, you are no longer conscious of trying to focus on the image, but simply see it.

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EXERCISE: THE DREAM TELEVISION
Before bed set your mind to remember this experiment.
When you achieve lucidity, find or create a large, ultra-high resolution, total surround sound television set. Make yourself comfortable. Turn it on. Find the volume, brightness, and color saturation controls and slowly ex-periment with them. Turn the sound up and down. Tweak the color.
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THE SPINNING TECHNIQUE
1. Notice when the dream begins to fade
2.As soon as the visual imagery of your lucid dream begins to fade, quickly, before the feel of your dream body evaporates, stretch out your arms and spin like a top (with your dream body, of course).
3. While spinning, remind yourself that the next thing you see will probably be a dream Continue to spin, constantly reminding yourself that the next thing you see, touch, or hear will very probably be a dream.
4. Test your state wherever you seem to arrive Continue spinning until you find yourself in a stable world. You will either still be dreaming or have awakened. Therefore, carefully and critically test which state you are in.
By repeatedly reminding yourself that you’re dreaming during the spinning transition, you can continue to be lucid in the new dream scene.

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