Lucid Dreaming: What If You COULD Control Your Dreams

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Have you ever wished you could control your dreams?

Or even better yet, has it ever happened that you got to decide what happens next in your dream? Let’s say, you wanted to get into a car that you see in a dream and you actually get into the car and drive off.  

Sort of like being the director to your own dreams.

Mind blowing, huh?

What I’m talking about isn’t only something that we see in the movies – it’s a concept that’s more known as lucid dreaming.

And in today’s podcast, we’re going to take a deep dive into the concept of lucid dreaming and explore methods that are going to help you experience lucid dreaming yourself.

Lucid dreaming is yet another skill of the mind, a powerful way to talk to your unconscious and uncover forgotten parts of yourself.

I’m Bernadette and thank you for listening to my podcast – let’s get started!

 

[h2] What is lucid dreaming actually?

Lucid dreaming isn’t the same as daydreaming or active imagination.

It’s a whole new level of diving into the unconscious… and let me just add, lucid dreaming isn't everyone’s cup of tea. Some people love it, others are just freaked out by the whole experience. 

In short, lucid dreaming is being aware that you’re dreaming… in a dream. Cool, right? In other words, you’re dreaming and in that dream, you are aware that you’re in a dream.

The cool thing about lucid dreams is that when you’re aware that you’re dreaming, you can try and control the dream. For example, if you’re dreaming that you have superpowers, you could be able to control those superpowers in a lucid dream – you could fly or travel through time.

Some people can go even past the dream, leave that particular simulation, and enter another one. That’s next-level, I can tell you that!

So that whole experience of balancing the thin line between dreams and reality is more than enough to get some people hooked on lucid dreaming. It’s a very empowering, though somewhat addicting experience, I have to say.

But lucid dreams aren’t only cool to experience. If you’re able to master lucid dreaming,  it’s like a whole different level of self-awareness and self-development. Lucid dreams are much more memorable, so it’s easier to connect to the collective unconscious, recognize and work with your archetypes, and just get to know yourself in a whole different way.

Over the years, I’ve had multiple lucid dreams. Some were extraordinary, some were downright petrifying, especially in the beginning when I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on. I was terrified of everything, I struggled to recognize my archetypes and it was just not a very pleasant experience. Mind blowing, but not pleasant.

Over time and with a lot of practice and determination, I can now say that I’m finally at the point where I enjoy lucid dreams. To me, active imagination will always be my preferred method to talk to my unconscious but lucid dreams are something that you should try and experience at least once in your life!

 

[h2] How to master lucid dreaming

That brings me to my next point – how to trigger lucid dreams.

Believe it or not, it’s easy and everyone can do it.

The first step?

Be determined that you’re going to have a lucid dream – that’s more than enough to set you off in the right direction. 

There are lots of different techniques and everyone can choose what works best for them. As with every other skill of the mind, lucid dreaming takes a lot of practice and commitment!  

Surprisingly, even though most of our dreams happen there, lucid dreaming doesn’t take place in the REM-stage of sleep. It happens in a stage called NON-REM.

That’s the stage where you’re aware that you’re in a dream but you’re still dreaming. That’s the place where sleep paralysis and out of body experiences happen too!

To experience lucid dreaming, the goal is to learn how to manipulate the mind and the body so you reach and stay in the non-REM sleep stage.

There are lots of different techniques to do this.

BUT I have to say to be careful when choosing which technique you’ll go with.

Some of them may require you to wake up frequently throughout the night, which may affect you in daily life (waking up multiple times at night is NO FUN and sleep deprivation is really problematic!) and others involve taking herbs and supplements and mushrooms… not judging just saying it’s very easy to go down that rabbit hole.

My favorite lucid dreaming method is called Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams – also known as MILD Lucid Dreaming.

Don’t let the name fool you – that’s one of the most powerful, yet completely safe techniques available out there!

Let’s first explain what mnemonic means. You’ve probably learned this in school!

Mnemonic is a memory recall technique that allows you to easily remember a string of words or elements. 

For instance, here’s a mnemonic to help you remember the order of the planets from the sun:

My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas

(Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto)

For our brains, it’s a lot easier to remember something simple and ordinary like that rather than a complex string of elements. Think of it as a sticky note for the brain, a shortcut to access your memory at any given time.

Stephen LaBerge came up with the MILD Lucid Dreaming Technique.

His technique uses the same memory shortcuts but in this case, for lucid dreaming.

According to his technique, the key to success is making the brain believe that a lucid dream is possible and then helping the brain enter the non-REM sleep stage.

His technique is simple: you sleep, you wake up, imagine that the dream you had was lucid, and then go back to sleep with the intention of having a lucid dream. Over time, the odds of you experiencing a lucid dream drastically increase.

The technique works wonders because the brain doesn’t know the difference between imagination and reality. For instance, if you think about something you’re scared of, you’ll soon sense your heartbeat going a bit faster, even if you’re nowhere near danger. If you imagine that you’re lying on the beach somewhere, you’ll instantly calm down, even if you’re in a busy office.

You’re doing the same principle with the MILD lucid dreaming technique.

Only in this case, you’re imagining a lucid dream – and thus confirming to the brain that a lucid dream is possible, that an experience like that is possible, that you’re capable of having a lucid dream. You’re creating a fake memory, a fake experience that the brain doesn’t know is fake – it stores the memory as a real one, thus allowing you to access the real experience later on.

So yes, this is an exercise of imagination but it’s enough to create that shortcut, the mnemonic connection your brain’s looking for.

You can grab a notepad if you want, here are the four steps to practice the MILD Lucid Dreaming technique.

1) Go to sleep while having the intention of having a lucid dream

2) Wake up from the dream – some people go as far as scheduling alarms after 4-6 hours of sleep; if you do this, make sure you’re well-rested, it’s going to mess up your sleep quality any other way!

3) Imagine the dream you’ve had – and imagine what it’d be like if it were a lucid dream

4) Go back to sleep and think about the previous lucid dream while falling asleep.

That’s pretty much it!

Though I also have to add, a few side effects might happen.

Some say that this tweaking around with the sleep cycles leaves them sleep-deprived; others manage to get themselves into sleep paralysis, which isn’t always the most pleasant experience.

However, as long as you’re well-rested, eating properly and managing your stress levels with meditation and journaling, give lucid dreaming a go and see how it goes.

If nothing else, you’re in for a lot of interesting dreams!

Thank you for listening – come say hi on my Instagram and let me know if you’ve ever had a lucid dream!