How to Lucid Dream.

Step #5 - Hypnagogia and Visualization

For at least 1,000 years, Tibetan Buddhists have explored a ritualistic form of lucid dreaming called Dream Yoga.

Today we're going to lay the groundwork for inducing lucid dreams the same way these yogic monks have been doing for centuries.

It involves walking your mind directly into a lucid dream state.

And it begins with exploring your hypnagogia and visualizing your way into the dream reality.

Getting Started

The hypnagogic state marks the onset of sleep and dreams. It happens to everyone - and you've probably been aware of it many times before as you drift off to the land of nod...

Hypnagogia is most commonly marked by visuals behind your closed eyelids - starting with slowly swirling lights and geometric patterns, advancing to familiar faces and entire landscapes.

If you've ever stayed awake that far into your hypnagogia, you'll have an idea of how complex and impressive these visuals become.

If you stay awake long enough (and allow your body to fall asleep), you'll see they can take you all the way to the lucid dream world!

Bizarrely, the hypnagogic state can also include physical sensations (like floating), sounds (such as people calling your name), and even fleeting imaginary sensations of taste, smell and heat.

Hypnagogia is just one more gateway to your lucid dream world - so how are you going to access it tonight?

1. Exploring Hypnagogia

Start by performing the total relaxation technique described in our last lesson. Allow the fluorescent hypnagogia to emerge from the darkness. This happens when you are truly relaxed or tired and ready to start dreaming.

When the hypnagogic imagery appears, follow it for a minute and then try to will it into different shapes. Play with it. In your mind, tell the shapes to become horizontal lines, circles, squares, hexagons or grids. It really does bend to your will.

Now try for something more complex. Summon the face of a loved one or an animal. As you focus on these drifting visuals, you will be hypnotized into a deeper meditative state...

When you feel your awareness is fully detached from the real world, go for the Big One:

Shape your hypnagogia into an entire landscape, one that you would like to explore in your lucid dream. This will require some visualization.

2. Exploring Visualization

Scenes of nature make for great visualizations. Stand on a beach, for instance, and visualize looking out across the sand. Practice having your hypnagogia shape itself to this image.

Intensify every aspect of your visualization. Scan the horizon, pick out vivid shapes and colors, really put yourself in the moment and relish the intensity of the imagined scene.

Do it correctly and your awareness will soon "pop" into the landscape, so that you are no longer imagining a scene but are fully immersed in a lucid dream world.

The transition can be exhilarating. And, though it may seem elusive at first (most people require a good number of trial attempts) when it does happen it will seem almost totally effortless...

Congratulations! You have achieved what is known as a Wake Induced Lucid Dream.

Troubleshooting

If you can't summon your hypnagogia, or have trouble inducing that half awake / half asleep state from which the dream imagery develops, help is at hand:

1. Listen to brainwave entrainment

For years, I have used brainwave entrainment to induce deep states of meditation in the early morning, from which I can induce vivid lucid dreams. I recommend Meditation Power's Lucid Dream MP3 to attain a relaxed hypnagogic state on demand.

2. Take a Galantamine supplement

Identified by the Ancient Greeks for its powerful effects on dream intensity and recall, this Red Spider Lily extract stimulates short term memory and the visual imagination. Take a Galantamine pill around 4-6 am to create the optimum state for a WILD.

Final Thoughts

As you continue to explore the borderland sleep states, assume the mindset of an intrepid explorer of the inner realm. Meditation can open up some strange new pathways, so be prepared for some new experiences, remain fearless and keep probing.