Becoming Lucid: Self-Awareness in Sleeping & Waking Life, Hypnotic Practice in Lucidity & Dreams

by Lincoln Stoller

Lucidity in dreaming starts with lucidity in waking life.

Lucidity is consciousness itself. It exists in a realm of experience beyond words; achieving it is not an intellectual exercise. To become lucid is a transformation of emotions, memories, and thought patterns to reach an altered state. It’s not your image of the walls that you want to dissolve, it’s your image of reality.

This is the first book to approach lucid dreaming through hypnosis. Each chapter has an introduction that you read, and a trance induction you can listen to through online MP3 audio files. These hypnotic inductions offer you experiential tours of altered states. Listen to them while falling asleep and they will become your lucid dream environment.

Other books view lucid dreaming as awakening in a dream. This book views all states as dream states from which lucidity is possible. And what one becomes lucid of, when one becomes lucid, is another dream state as all states are our own constructions. Lucidity is an awakening to a level of consciousness that’s higher, broader, deeper, and more connected. Lucidity is not a goal, it’s a process; it’s not something you get, it’s something you become.

Doing silly stuff in your dreams is as enlightening as doing silly stuff while awake. It’s fun for a while, but you grow out of it. On the other hand, breaking open your mind to move into what’s now not even comprehensible is something you don’t grow out of. This is not sleep work or dream work, it’s life work.

Exploring the impossible is just the start. Let’s explore the inconceivable.

Drawn from the author’s experience as a theoretical physicist, neurophysiologist, and hypnotherapist who focuses on sleep and trance states, Becoming Lucid would like to take your hand and lead you into states of mind you can’t even imagine.

"Lincoln Stoller takes the de facto approach to lucid dreaming and turns it on its head. Rather than yet another guide book, this work represents a paradigm shift to an entirely new mode of thinking." — Chris Hammond, Chief Lucidity Officer at www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com

Genres: Nonfiction

Kindle Edition

First published August 3, 2019

About the author

Lincoln Stoller grew up around and was mentored directly by the colleagues of Frank Lloyd Wright, Alexander Calder, Bucky Fuller, and Albert Einstein. As a teenager, he traveled the world climbing mountains and, in the process, fell 1,000 feet off the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies, swam across the arctic sea, crashed his airplane, collapsed his horse, stepped in quicksand, was buried in an avalanche, and became a cultural ambassador to families in Central America, Mongolia, and the Caribbean. During this time he attended seven colleges, got a doctorate in Quantum Mechanics, and founded a software company specializing in business automation. Building on his interests in physics, neurophysiology, psychology, education, and culture Lincoln is now a therapist and mentor living in British Columbia, Canada, where he works with clients remotely. He has two wonderful ex-wives, and two wonderful sons. Committed to supporting intuition and the feeling mind, he can be contacted through his web site at mindstrengthbalance.com.

Reviews

[Iolar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Becoming Lucid is an exploration of states of consciousness beyond the conventional practice of lucid dreaming. It provides a relaxed, yet serious, journey into your mind, so that you question your old notions of what lucidity really means. I recommend it for anyone already interested in or practicing lucid dreaming, as a means of moving the art to a deeper, fuller, and more complete place. I also recommend it, though, for anyone who is interested in dreams, the mind, or personal growth in general.

The reader is guided gently through different ideas and information, and given hypnotic sessions for each step of development. It must be noted that real life hypnosis is not the zombie mind control thing of the movies. It is more being in a relaxed, quiet, receptive state; where we can access modes and areas of the mind which we do not normally, and, in doing this, work freely with things on a deeper or less comprehensible level.

The book and hypnosis may not all make sense, but, if you allow it, there are parts off the mind to whom it speaks very clearly. This book can be enjoyed as a unique contemplation, or as a guide, working with the unconscious towards the goal of awareness.

[KT Townsend · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read Becoming Lucid by Lincoln Stoller twice at this point. I can say, looking back now, that the first time I worked my way through the book and accompanying audio files, I was asleep in my own life. Becoming Lucid helped me wake up.

This book looks at lucidity in dreams, but more importantly, the insights within help one develop greater lucidity in waking life. This has helped me take an active role in crafting the life I want to be living. I cannot express the depth of my gratitude.

[Eve Stark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been interested in Lucid Dreaming as a means to understanding myself since I was very young. This book piqued my interest when I saw it on NetGalley. Unfortunately, it is written quite strangely and hard to follow. Stoller's language is convoluted and often seems to follow a tangent that doesn't quite connect. The recorded hypnosis sessions were interesting and useful, though. It just felt unpolished.

Thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the ARC to read and review.

[Bookgyrl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always been interested in lucid dreaming, ever since I learned a bit more about it and wondered why I sometimes just ' knew' I was dreaming.

This book has a very unique perspective on it. The author explains in more detail the how and why and through recordings of hypnotic sessions you can train yourself to have more dream remembrance and have more lucid dreams.

[N · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book takes it to a rudimentary level in its simplest form which I really appreciated. I was able to lucidly dream in my earlier years without any prompts but found as life's stresses got in the way it became harder and harder to retreat into that dream world. I recommend this book for any first-timers as well as those who may have lost their way and want to get back to this practice.

[Lincoln Stoller]

I like all the books I write, but this was nice because it's short and clear and it have a great effect on people. It's about how to appreciate reality.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Initially I picked up this work as I had heard it was an interesting take on lucid dreaming. After reading, I found Dr Stoller's work is in fact a unique and fascinating take on the topic of lucidity more generally. It separates the idea of lucidity from dreaming, inviting (and teaching) you to become lucid in your waking life as well. It does this through well written, thoughtful, and terse prose, and then backs this up with "hypnotic sessions" - audio sessions that you listen to before sleep or other times during the day. The method is to read a chapter, and then listen to the associated audio for a week, before moving on to the next one.

As far as I am aware, this approach is new to the genre, and I found it to be an engaging approach that not only recreated my understanding of lucid dreaming, but added a whole new dimension to my understanding of lucidity more generally. Without exaggerating, this has profoundly changed the way that I view the world.

My main issue with the book, which has nothing to do with the author and his work, is that I do not respond very well to hypnosis. Because of this, I think the hypnotic sessions did not work as well as they could. I only had one lucid dream throughout the course of reading the book, although it most definitely increased my dream recall and also changed the way I thought about what was happening in my dreams upon waking. Highly recommended!

[Martha Larson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read!

[Csimplot Simplot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book!!!