Is Meditation recommended?

Quest for Lucidity
1

Well, I just joined here last week or so and I’ve been reading, trying the method (WILD) to induce the lucid dream for a few days. All I got is frustration and I ended up staying up night. Anyhow, I’ve been reading some books about the lucid dream, and they all seem to recommend meditation or relaxation. I want to ask that if the meditation is necessary for any kind of methods or is it just for WILD?

Another thing I would like to ask is that I’m having quite a trouble recalling dream and read in a book that repeating a mantra in your head such as “I’ll remember my dream when I wake up” helps you, is that true?

2

I do think it is recommended to meditate but it’s certainly not necesairy. There are a lot of people who can WILD and LD without meditation. (Link to The BIG meditation as a LD Aid topic)

That mantra does help in remembering your dreams. An important thing is also to keep a notebook and a pen besides your bed. So you can write down your dreams immediately if you remember them.If you want more tips on remembering dreams you could read the big remembering dreams topic :wink:

3

If you read up on meditation you’ll see that WILD and MILD themselves are meditations. To practive any other meditation can only help. Mindfullness meditation makes you more mindful, wich is to say conscious, with is to say lucid but it’s usually applies to waking life. That is not to say it doesn’t carry over into your dreams although it won’t necessarily do that.

4

While it is still possible to lucid dream without meditation, I have noticed a drastic difference in the amount of lucid dreams I have based on whether I meditate or not. This has happened to me far too many times just to be a coincidence. Some time ago, when I had meditated nightly, I noticed that I was having them up to two or three times a week, although many of them were short and vague. Afterwards, I stopped meditating for a while, and the lucid dreams stopped, as well. It wasn’t until I had started up again that the lucid dreams returned. I also think that it might be possible that meditation has more of an impact on dreams when meditating in the evening, not very long before going to sleep. That might not necessarily be true, although I’ve been meditating in the afternoon lately, and I haven’t noticed a huge amount of lucid dreams. Back then, I meditated in the evening. I’ll just have to look into this some more. :wink:

As for a great site for meditation, I’ve been a big fan of WildMind for months now. :grin:

5

I would recommend meditation although it is not necessary.

I have noticed whenever I meditate before sleep I have dreams straight away instead of waiting till REM cycle. And the dreams in this state seem to last what seems like days. Not to mention it can lead to better things like increased health & mentality, also spiritual development & enlightenment.

This site is good:
meditationiseasy.com/mCorner/tec … /index.htm

6

Heh, what a coincidence. I’ve recently posted about this on my website.
I’ve been listening to one podcast which I have linked to there and trying to do some basic meditation. So far I can’t say it helped. But I can’t say I actually succeed doing meditation too, so whatever. :wink:

Anyway, give it a shot.

7

Personally, I’ve found no correlation between meditation and number of LD’s. I practiced meditation at one point while having LD’s (WILD’s to be specific) and didn’t find any dramatic increase or decrease. After I stopped meditation, I still had about the same amount of LD’s.

Of course, meditation helped with everyday life, so I say practicing it for a bit just to see if it helps with anything is a good idea.

8

Meditation will help with everything, not just LD’s. But I think that meditation sharpens your awareness, which, obviously is benificiary to LD’ing.

9

meditation is very helpful and lucid dreaming would be one of many byproducts of it.

in order to truely transition consciously from the waking to the dream state at will focus is required.

meditation (generally on the breath) will entrain you to always be aware of your breathing amidst distractoins, and it teaches your brain that all you want to do is breath and not anything else.

then, while falling asleep, you can stay aware of the breath and use it to WILD by simply breathing in and out while drifting out.

But really meditation should be done for the sake of meditation, lucid dreams, like thoughts, are distractoins from enlightenment. If you read this and think whateverrrrrrr then i will explain. Lucid dreams are great, and through meditation you will be more aware of your dreams, but there are states of bliss indescribable [these are also not the goal! the goal is freedom from suffering, sounds paradoxical kind of, but if you are free from suffering then everything is good.] and the ultimate goal of meditation is complete and total freedom and happines in every waking/sleeping moment.

For the sleep yogi, conscious deep sleep is more spiritually rewarding than lucid dreams. Lucid dreams are and can be useful but they can also be just as distracting as a train of thinking.

You could use lucid dreams to gain tremendous insight into how you work as a person, or you could steal cars lol. So really the dream state is just like the waking state in terms of how your mind/thoughts/distractions/ideas go.

So if you meditate, yes it will help with WILD, and yes LDs can help with improving yourself and being happy. But we meditate FOR the sake of meditation, in order to improve ourselves constantly each time we do it, gradually wearing away the illusory barrier between RIGHT NOW and ETERNAL PEACE. Because eternal peace is indeed here, we jsut have to erode the obstacles.

It’s like going to Disney Land, sure you get to ride the log ride, but Disney Land isn’t just about the log ride, its about the sum of all experiences.