I have just recently read two books about lucid dreaming. One was stephen leberge’s ‘Exploring The World of Lucid Dreaming’ and the other, which I forget the name of, is a book on tibeten dream yoga.
From reading these books I discovered a great technique, which goes like this;
Basically you close your eyes and imagine a spherical ball of white light between your eyebrows. You have to just keep concentrating, feeling and seeing (in your mind’s eye) this ball of light and as you keep focus, all the usual WILD experiences should take place. Firstly, you see interetsing patterns, then whole objects that appear from nothing, and voices and noises.
You have to remember to be completely passive about all the HI and to simply let it pass, each time becoming more intense. When I tried this, after I waited, suddenly the imagery became very three dimensional, and I suddenly got the sense that the imagery was surrounding me, and that is when my body started to feel very strange and I entered my dream there.
Another important thing to remember is to try to quiet the chatter in your mind. I find that when I become very relaxed and near to sleep I can start to litereally hear myself thinking, which can be detrimental to entering a lucid dream. So if this happens to you, try to consciously quiet yourself and further concentrate on the ball of light.
This technique allowed me to enter a lucid dream from a waking state (before bed and after no previous sleep) in 30 minutes of focus, this may help as a reference to anyone trying.
I too use this technique, but mine differs just slightly. (1) First after waking in the middle of the night, I get up for just a few minutes, usually use the restroom, then return to bed while still groggy. (2) I get comfortable on my back, close my eyes and concentrate on an imaginary white ball in the space in the middle of my forehead (position doesn’t really matter, this just helps me concentrate). (3) As I’m doing this I say VERY SOFTLY in my mind “I’m dreaming”, SLOWLY, over and over. If I find my mind wondering, I gently pull it back to the white ball. (4) I don’t ever experience the stages of WILD (vibrations, imagery, etc). When I pass into a dream, I black out for a few seconds, then I’m fully conscious in a dream, usually standing somewhere saying to myself “I’m dreaming”. I do a reality check to make sure, then off I go. It took me about a year to fully understand the subtleness required.
Another good addition to this, which I have recently implimented, is to imagine the ball changing colour as you become more and more sleepy and fall further towards a dream.
This helps you keep focus, and prevents you falling asleep through monotony.
I think any colours would work equally well. I imagine the light changing colour 4 times before entering the dream, but again I think that any amount of changes would be ok.
I find this technique to be very powerful. I don’t use a ball of white light though. When I focus I imagine the bright sparking flame of phosphorus. If you’ve seen it before then you understand it’s almost everwhelming. Anyway I imagine this and it eventually turns into different colors on its own. It first goes red and then transforms into hypnogacic fractal like things. The trick is to passivley watch it. That is when it spreads out and takes me in.
I have experienced the vibrations before which tend to turn into an OBE, but not when using this technique.
Robin,
I usually focus my eyes between my eyebrows, but there are other techniques. The more you stick to one method the easier it is to practice.
You can visualize anything you want - I just use a ball of light or a white circle because it’s easy to focus on when you’re groggy. You can use anything The point is just that you are concentrating on one thing. It’s the concentrating that lets your body fall asleep while you are kept busy with a mental task.