How to Lucid Dream.

Step #10 - Active Dream Control

"I was lucid and I knew I was dreaming. But when I tried to fly, I couldn't lift off the ground, not even by a few inches. My dream refused to respond no matter how much I wanted it. Why couldn't I fly when I really wanted to?" - Amanda, Gloucestershire, UK

If you've ever had a similar experience, you'll know how frustrating it is to be lucid, yet unable to feel in control your dream.

Something strange is happening - but what?

Simply put, dream control is a by-product of lucid dreaming.

In fact, there are many other amazing applications for lucidity that don't involve any real dream control at all... You may talk to and interact with your subconscious self via dream characters, for example. Or you may observe your dreams, passively, but with intensely heightened awareness. You may even partake in "live" dream interpretation.

But what if you actually WANT to control your dreams and express the ultimate physical freedom? What can you do to maintain full control?

Today's lesson is about mastering active dream control... by recognizing the two biggest hurdles that tend to trip up beginners:

1. Lack of Lucidity

What exactly is lack of lucidity?

Though technically lucid (aware that you're dreaming) you may struggle to maintain sight of that fact. Your conscious focus slips away and you experience only partial lucidity.

The main cause of this is failing to become fully lucid in the first place. That's why it's so important to perform the stabilizing steps described in lesson #9. (If you can't remember what these are, go back and read them again now.)

Indeed, sometimes you become so preoccupied by distractions in your dream world (like chasing down sexual fantasies) that you may simply forget you are dreaming altogether!

Sounds crazy? It's really not: dreamland produces an entirely separate state of consciousness and there are different rules at play. Memory, language, cognition and self-awareness all function differently when you're asleep. It's easy to forget that you're dreaming if you don't remind yourself regularly.

And as a direct result of this mental fogginess, you may inadvertently pass control of the dream back to your subconscious self. This is the part of your mind that produces all your normal dreams (and continues to co-create the experience even when you're fully lucid).

In Amanda's example, her subconscious had other intentions for her dream. Flying was not on the agenda - no matter how much her conscious ego wanted it to be.

Unfortunately, when you're stuck in the fog, the subconscious mind tends to win over. You are in subconscious territory after all.

But you can overcome all this with a few grounding actions. The single best way to attain active dream control is to fully stabilize your lucid dream and achieve maximum conscious lucidity.

Only then should you attempt to employ The Expectation Principle.

2. The Expectation Principle

This simple mindset defines the way you actively control your dreams. As the name suggests, if you expect something to happen, it surely will.

If Amanda had been fully lucid, then her problem could have been that she didn't truly expect to be able to fly. In the back of her mind, her learned experience of gravity in real life may have blocked her ability to fly in her lucid dream.

All she had to do was genuinely expect herself to lift off the ground. Notice, expecting is different from wanting. When you expect, you KNOW it's going to happen. There is no doubt in your mind.

This can be a little odd at first. That's why I encourage you to perform impossible reality checks in waking life in which you fully expect your hand to pass through a solid object, or to take off the ground.

Once you perform an impossible reality check in a lucid dream, it is much easier to expect other impossibilities - like breathing underwater, teleporting across vast distances, and running through walls. You can have a lot of fun finding out what's possible...

Here are some other ways to control your dreams using The Expectation Principle:

Change the scenery from a desert to a tropical rainforest -- by turning away and expecting it to look like your desired location when you turn back.
Travel through time 65 million years by stepping into a time machine and expecting to greet friendly dinosaurs when you emerge.
Summon dream figures or personal heroes by saying to the dream "I'd like to meet X around the corner" and truly expect to see them when you look there.
Find any dream object by reaching into your pocket (and expecting to find it) -- or even drawing a crude picture of it with your finger in the air and expecting it to come to life!

One you achieve these goals, you will be well on your way to becoming a master manipulator of your dream world...

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed this mini course on lucid dreaming. It sums up a great deal of research and personal experience.

If you would like to discover more lessons in lucidity, including more lucid dream induction techniques, applications for guided dreams and advanced practices taught by today's experts, check out the fully downloadable course, The Lucid Dreaming Fast Track.

Thanks... and have some real sweet dreams ;)

Have fun lucid dreaming.
(Comment any epic lucid dreams you've had)