Controlling lucid dreaming. Dream management

It happens that after waking up we cannot remember whether we had dreams. Fully lucid dreams - quite a rare event. The ability to maintain consciousness during sleep and change the course of its course is not given to many. However, it allows you to get rid of nightmares and gain inspiration even at night. There are several simple rules, guided by which you will learn how to control dreams and even change their scenario.

1. After waking up, do not jump out of bed, but lie down for a few minutes and try to remember what you dreamed about. To do this, you can keep a diary in which you will write down all your dreams. It is important that you try to remember each of the elements of the dream and transfer them to paper.

2. Make it a rule to sometimes think during the day whether you are dreaming? Try to convince yourself that the reality around you is nothing more than another dream, and then suddenly cheer up, you might even pinch yourself. You will be surprised, but as a result, even at night you will get the feeling that you are quite consciously seeing dreams and dreams.

3. Before going to bed, convince yourself that you don’t forget to look at your palms at night. This one is simple but effective method gives amazing results.

4. Try to stop the random thoughts that are constantly spinning in your head! This will be a useful skill if you want to learn how to see OS.

5. Visualization of various geometric shapes before falling asleep is another method to control dreams. In the morning, after waking up, focus on the most important aspects sleep. Good results also gives physical activity. If the body falls asleep faster than the brain, it will be easier for you to control everything that happens in your sleep.

Harvard University Professor of Sleep Control Techniques Deirdre Barrett shares her observations. He identifies the so-called fast phase eye movements (or GMOs), and argues that this is practically the only time when brain activity is the same as during wakefulness. It is during this period that rhythmic outbreaks occur in the cerebral cortex, which are transformed into dreams. When asked how to control dreams, the professor claims that this can only be learned through daily memory training. Before falling asleep, we need to set ourselves that we want to look at ourselves from the outside, like in a movie. And that we are the directors of this film, and can change any scenery and characters. This way you can easily get rid of nightmares - realize that sleep is a partially controlled process.

However, not all so simple. Some psychologists believe that those people who know how to control dreams are detrimental to their health. irreparable harm. In their opinion, they interfere good sleep, because when using such techniques, the brain works at its peak of activity. We can say that a person is trying to interfere with a natural process that has been formed over millions of years. But still be able to wake up and get away from unpleasant dream or a nightmare by force of will is a useful skill, and with constant training it will not be difficult to master it.

Sleep, a state well known to everyone, is necessary physical body and the mind for rest and recovery. We can give the following definition of sleep.

Sleep is a naturally occurring, repetitive state of mind and body that is characterized by an altered state of consciousness, decreased sensory activity, suppression of almost all voluntary muscle activity, and decreased interaction with the environment.

Every person dreams, regardless of whether he remembers them or not. A person begins to dream in infancy and continues to dream until death. The average person spends a third of their life sleeping, which is between 25 and 30 years.

Every night we find ourselves in the unknown world of dreams. Moreover, in a dream we can be ourselves or someone completely different. We can see in a dream both familiar places and people, and places and people that we have never seen while awake.

And there is hardly a person who has not had fantastic or fabulous dreams, which he could not come up with in his waking state of consciousness.

Despite the fact that for the last 150 years psychologists, doctors and neuroscientists have been actively trying to unravel the phenomenon of sleep, this condition, familiar to every person, still conceals many mysteries.

At the same time, the secrets and possibilities that sleep brings with it have been known since ancient times. The Bible and other sacred books describe many stories in which miraculous or prophetic dreams had big influence on the development of history.

Expression, prophetic dream, is present in every culture. In ancient times, people capable of interpreting dreams were in every royal or imperial court and were revered on a par with sages.

In the Western tradition, work with dreams is more related to psychology and is based on the interpretation of the plot and meaning of dreams. In this relatively modern tradition, the nature of the dream itself is rarely explored. At the same time, it is the nature and character of dreams that have a decisive influence on the plot, symbols and meaning of the dream.

At the same time, in Eastern culture and in the traditions of many indigenous tribes of America, shamanic traditions, dreams were used as a very powerful tool for gaining knowledge, personal and spiritual development.

Eastern traditions and traditions of the indigenous Indians gave modern culture knowledge about conscious or guided dreams ideas. Some of the most famous techniques for consciously working with dreams are Tibetan dream yoga and lucid dreaming. And in the tradition of the Yaqui Indians. The latter gained its popularity thanks to the books of the famous anthropologist Carlos Castaneda.

In the Western world, one of the pioneers of the practice of lucid dreaming and out-of-body travel is Stephen Laberge and Robert Monroe. We want to talk about the above methods in more detail in our article.

But before moving on to their description, I would like to dwell in more detail on why you need to pay such attention to sleep. Some people may have a completely natural question: if sleep is, first of all, rest for the mind and body, then what is the point in continuing to do something in a dream?

Isn't it better to just make sure that your sleep is healthy and sound? Certainly, healthy sleep in itself is a great benefit for the human body. But giving away 25 years of your life to just sleeping unconsciously is like keeping all your savings in a jar buried in the yard.

In this way, of course, you will preserve your wealth, but you will not be able to increase it. In a sense, this is a talent buried in the ground.

But the truth is that lucid dreaming can not only be used to gain more effective use knowledge and skills, but also contribute the best holiday and even healing the body.

And this is due, first of all, to the fact that during sleep the connection between the mind (soul) and the body weakens. Therefore, while the body is sleeping, the soul can calmly travel through the worlds, receive the information it needs, communicate with ancestors, angels, teachers and bring this knowledge into everyday life.

Thus, a person can not only use the time allotted for sleep more effectively, but also free up waking time for those activities for which there was not enough time before.

According to the teachings of Carlos Castaneda, not all people are equally inclined to see lucid dreams. IN total number He identified people as so-called “dreamers,” people who from birth have a tendency to have lucid dreams.

Tibetan dream yoga also distinguishes people with average and high abilities to become aware of themselves in a dream. However, every person can develop this ability, it just may take more time and effort.

Conscious dream

What is a lucid dream and how does it differ from ordinary sleep? The answer to this question is in the title itself. If we try to give a definition, it might sound like this: a lucid dream is a dream in which the dreamer (the person seeing the dream) realizes that he is seeing a dream and is able to consciously participate in the events occurring in the dream.

Perhaps some of our readers immediately recalled one or more dreams from their lives in which they realized that they were dreaming and dreaming. Spontaneous lucid dreams are not such a rare occurrence.

It turns out that if you perceive a dream as a transition to another dimension and manage to realize yourself in it, it is quite possible to begin to control dreams according to at will. Of course, such power over one’s dreams can only be achieved through long-term and careful practice. But the idea of controlling reality, even if it is the reality of a dream, is too tempting to spare time and effort to implement it.

So, there are several types of exercises for dream control. All of them are based on working with memory, the ability to concentrate and self-control. The classification of exercises for dream control will look like this:

Awareness of the moment of transition to the sleep state

This dream control exercise involves repeatedly repeating the phrase “I'm not dreaming” to yourself as you begin to fall asleep. That is, it is necessary to fall asleep in such a way that the awareness of what is happening does not “fall asleep.” Having managed to get into a kind of “dream-not-dream” in this way, a person will be able to control his dream, changing it at his own discretion.

Exercise for controlling dreams “reality check”

If you train yourself to regularly doubt the reality of what is happening, you can eventually doubt the reality of the dream, and thus become aware of yourself in it. This exercise for dream control is a constant questioning of your own consciousness: “is this a dream?” By checking reality in this way, you will get used to even asking yourself this unconsciously. One day you will ask, “maybe I’m dreaming?” in a dream, and you won’t go wrong. And from awareness of a dream to its control is one step: you just have to want (literally want) - and the dream will become manageable!

Creating a Dream Body

If you are not very good at focusing, but you are good with your imagination, then this dream control exercise is just for you. To realize a dream in this way, you need to imagine, while falling asleep, how an ephemeral double emerges from your body - the so-called dream body. Thus, you can create yourself a messenger into the world of dreams and, sending him on a journey, see everything that he sees.

Exercise for controlling dreams “Dream Diary”

This dream control exercise involves writing down your dreams regularly. Every morning, having just woken up and not yet forgotten the dream, you need to take up the “Dream Diary” lying next to your bed and carefully write down everything that happens in your dream, all your sensations during sleep, all the smallest details that you can remember. By constantly keeping such records, the mind will get used to monitoring and remembering what happens in a dream, and, over time, becoming aware of it. This way you can discover the “land of your dreams” and learn how to manage it. This exercise for controlling dreams requires much more time than the others, but it will allow you to become aware of your dreams gradually, exploring them step by step. While other dream control exercises involve a more abrupt transition to dream awareness, this method is more suitable for people who prefer to feel every inch of the ground under their feet.

Dream Control Exercise by Stephen LaBerge

Dr. Stephen Laberge is the most famous researcher in the field of lucid dreaming. The dream control exercise he proposed requires a person to wake up in the middle of the night and immediately begin to carefully recall his dream. You can also write it down for greater persuasiveness. Then you need to carry out a special procedure for visualizing the dream you just had and go back to sleep. Laberge assures that after this exercise a person will almost immediately fall into a lucid dream and be able to control it.

Exercise to control dreams by Carlos Castaneda

The great American mystic Carlos Castaneda, following his teacher Don Juan, gave lucid dreaming great value, even devoting one of his books to this topic - “The Art of Dreaming”. The essence of the dream control exercise proposed by Castaneda is as follows: first you need to have clear intention realize the dream. Once you are confident in your desire, you need to force yourself to look at your hands in a dream. To do this, you should fall asleep while being able to look at your hands. If you can fall asleep while still remembering to look at your hands, consider dream control in your pocket. Next, you should do the same exercise to control dreams, but with the participation of other parts of the body, until you see your whole self in a dream.

As you can see, enough ways to become aware of your sleep and exercises to control dreams have been invented. So a person who is determined to understand this facet of reality can choose the method that suits him most. But we shouldn’t forget that the most important thing in dream control exercises is not to stop controlling yourself.

Sleep takes important place in our lives and is a natural need of the human body. For some, it's just a way to regain the energy they've lost during the day, but for others, it's more than that. Dreams are an opportunity to travel to other worlds, to be who you only dream of becoming in life. Sometimes you really want to influence the course of your night vision, but few people know that this is possible. Learning to control sleep and influence events in dreams is not at all difficult if you put in some effort.

What is a lucid dream?

The concept of “lucid dreaming” has a rather long history. Also in Ancient Greece philosophers devoted their research this phenomenon. The meaning of such dreams is that the brain is active all the time. A person understands that he is just seeing a dream, but it can influence the situation, the plot, and the people participating in the action. The dreamer understands that this is just a fantasy, but he is able to become an active participant in events, and not just a passive observer. A lucid dream is sometimes compared to the astral plane, but still these concepts are not identical.

This technique is often recommended by psychologists, since during such sessions a person can “dig” into himself. During night fantasies, the patient is honest with himself, he sees his true desires, problems, sometimes answers to his questions even come to him. exciting questions. There are known cases when, during a lucid dream, musicians, artists, etc. see their works. As an example, we can recall D.I. Mendeleev with his table chemical elements. For research this issue such famous scientists as: S. Freud, F. W. Eden, T. Brown, K. Hearn, C. Castaneda and others addressed.

You should learn to control your dreams only if you are absolutely sure that you need it. If you don't know what exactly you want to see, you shouldn't start.

How to learn to manage your sleep

In order to learn to truly control your dreams, make some efforts. The rate at which such abilities develop depends on individual characteristics personality. For some people it will take several weeks to achieve success, while for others it will take several months. The main thing in this matter is not to despair and confidently move towards your goal. You can achieve positive results only by repeating the techniques regularly.

The initial task will be to remember ordinary dreams. When you wake up in the morning, don’t rush to get up quickly, it’s better to lie down and remember what you saw at night. It is advisable to look for some kind of connection in your visions; perhaps you already control them, you just don’t understand or don’t remember it. Especially vivid dreams can be analyzed; some addicted individuals even keep a dream diary. You can make notes in your notebook even in the middle of the night. Try to note every little thing, there will be no point in dreams if you don’t remember them.
When you wake up, you can’t open your eyes right away. It's better to lie down for a few minutes and fantasize. Imagine how the story you just dreamed could end. Remember all the little things, faces, details, surroundings. Live the first minutes of awakening in a dream.
Be sure to determine which dreams you have more often: bad or good, long or short, etc. This will help in the future.
Before going to bed, “program” your brain. To do this, persistently think about what you want to see, if it is a person, then think about him, remember his facial features, voice, habits. When falling asleep, it is very important to visualize the desired images.
Repeat the same steps every day before going to bed. For example, we washed ourselves, drank a glass of milk, and lay down. (Everyone has their own actions, this is just an example). The body will get used to it over time, and you will fall asleep and change your sleep much faster.
In order to fully control the plot, you need to understand that your mind is already doing something. If scenes, pictures, characters, etc. quickly replace each other, this means that you are already in control of your vision, but you don’t realize it. Try to “take the furrows of government into your own hands” and change something.
While dreaming, try to awaken your consciousness. Try to change the course of events, pay attention to the situation. In fact, it’s not at all difficult, you just need to understand that you are not in reality, but in a dream, and then everything will work out.
Psychologists advise paying attention to your hands throughout the day. In a dream, they change their appearance, the lines become blurred, the contours become unclear. If during your dreams you pay attention to your hands, you will realize that this is a fantastic dream world and you will be able to control the events in it.
To achieve greater relaxation, you can use incense or. Some smells promote the development of imagination and open up the unique capabilities of the human mind. These scents include: , neroli, jojoba, cardamom, rose, etc. They can be used in the form of essential oils or special diffusers with sticks.
For achievement positive result give up, especially alcohol and drugs. A person in any intoxication sleeps very soundly, and he does not remember his dream, and accordingly he will not be able to control it.
Sleep should last as long as possible. The most vivid visions come in the morning, but in the evening you should go to bed early, especially if you get up early.
Constantly think about lucid dreams, and then you will definitely succeed.

Psychologists have developed a whole system of exercises that will help develop the ability to lucid dream in beginners. By following all instructions conscientiously, you will be able to master this technique in as soon as possible.

Exercises for training

The desired dream can be sketched and hung in a prominent place in the apartment. Thus, the picture will “get stuck” in your mind, and you will see the given plot or place. This is not yet a completely lucid dream, but it is already the first step towards it.
This practice was invented Tibetan monks who are fluent in the technique of guided dreams. Initially accept comfortable position and close your eyes. Then remember all the bright events of the past day. It is very important not to analyze behavior and events, but simply think about them. Next, imagine putting the day in a vessel and throwing it into the abyss of the ocean. This technique is similar to meditation before bed. After these steps, you will quickly fall asleep and be able to control your visions.
Having learned to be aware of your dream, try to change the environment. It makes sense to start with small parts: rehang the picture, rearrange the chair, etc. But over time you can move on to more complex tasks.
Regular meditation will help to train you to control your dreams. During meditation, our mind is in a “suspended” state, which is very close to sleep, namely lucid sleep.
Before each dream, you need to set yourself that you are going on a journey and many incredible adventures await you.

It is very important to understand that a lucid dream is not some kind of magical ability and an incredible skill, it’s simply an opportunity to look “inside yourself,” to communicate with your inner self. During sleep, the consciousness rests, and the subconscious begins its activity, so this is a great way to get to know yourself, determine the desires and capabilities of your body. Some trainees consider controlled daydreaming as a way to escape reality for a while, to reset the negativity accumulated during the day.

Possible danger

No matter how beautiful the world of dreams is, frequent practice of lucid dreaming (especially for inexperienced beginners) can be dangerous. Which unpleasant moments can be?

A person cannot immediately distinguish reality from a dream, and during an unpleasant vision one can get serious psychological trauma. Very often they are embodied in dreams hidden fears, so consciousness may react inappropriately.
Beginners sometimes have such a problem as false awakening. This is a state when a person wakes up and thinks that he is already in real world, but in fact he is still sleeping. Such moments are very frightening. Often this phenomenon haunts a person during a nightmare, when the awakened person has already caught his breath and thinks that everything is over, but the dream continues, and the person does not wake up.
If the dreams are too beautiful, the practitioner may perceive reality inadequately and escape from life’s problems into the world of night dreams. This is not good, you cannot replace real life with dreams.
If you get too carried away with controlling dreams, you can confuse what is reality and what is just another fantasy. This problem is due to the fact that conscious visions are very well remembered and in perception they are quite similar to events in ordinary life. human life.
To individuals with mental illness This practice is strictly prohibited.

Lucid dreaming is not only an interesting activity, but also useful. You can use the ability to manage sleep not only for entertainment, but also to solve life problems, raise self-esteem and even improve your health. physical health. Yes, it’s no secret that problems with nerves are the cause of many diseases, and this technique helps to cope with ailments nervous system. In this way, you can improve your whole life as a whole, because the main thing is positive attitude, and managing your dreams will provide it to you.

The question of how to control dreams is relevant for many people. He is truly interesting. Well, first I would like to say a few words about the term itself. Lucid dreaming is a deliberately altered state of human consciousness in which the person understands that the picture is a dream. But at the same time he can control its content.

Important information

So, before we talk about how to control dreams, I must say that no one will be able to immediately master this technique. You need to work on this long and hard, because the question here lies in the subconscious. At first, awareness varies from a barely noticeable understanding of the dream, but then, if everything works out, it will be possible to significantly expand the pictures visible in the dream and the boundaries. Usually a lucid dream begins with the fact that in the middle of the night a person who was in a calm, peaceful state suddenly understands - he is dreaming! This usually happens when a person immediately moves from the awakening stage to the sleep stage, but no lapses in consciousness occur. Well, what's the point? The fact is that people who control their dreams in this way see more colorful and emotional pictures.

Preparation

Well, you need to start small. How can a beginner learn to control sleep? You should start doing very simple things. For example, write down your visions. And be sure to keep a notebook with notes next to your bed so that after waking up you can instantly record what you see. Some people even do this at night if they suddenly wake up. Moreover, you need to write down both the plot and your emotions and sensations. For what? Due to this, you will be able to remember both the contents of the dream and your feelings. Some people use a voice recorder for these purposes and record everything on audio. In addition, before recording, it is recommended to concentrate on the memories, lying still.

Exercises

People interested in the question of how to control dreams should know that nothing will work without training. That's right, there are special exercises that seem strange at first glance. But they help in this matter. One of the most popular is called “reality check”. Every couple of hours a person should ask himself: “Am I dreaming?” And prove that it is not. How to do it? There are several ways. The first is to pinch your nose, close your mouth and check if you can breathe. The second, easier one is to just look at your feet or hands. If this is a dream, then they will be distorted.

What is the point of this exercise? The fact is that by doing it regularly, you will be able to develop the habit of doing it constantly. Even in a dream. It turns out that when a person, during his vision, does such an exercise, which has already become familiar, he will understand that he is not in reality, seeing that he can still breathe, and his limbs are unusually distorted.

Connection with the outside world

Talking about how to control dreams and how to learn it, it is worth noting another important nuance. To perform a reality check, all you have to do is look at your watch. Then turn away and then look again. The text or time in a dream usually always changes or turns out to be different.

Some people also advise doing something flick. Many people even dream quick action performed at incredibly slow speed. Whether it's running, a sharp kick or punch, or a jump. Everything is easy in life, but in a dream it’s not.

Self-hypnosis

Many people who already know something about how to induce controlled sleep resort to the technique of self-hypnosis. And it is right. Every time before you go to bed, you need to repeat to yourself next phrase: “I will be aware that I am dreaming.” And this sentence must be pronounced without stopping, that is, until the person passes out. Any other phrase that will help the dreamer come to awareness and become more confident will do. This technique has its own name. This is known as mnemonic lucid dreaming. It means that a person resorts to the so-called “properties of memory” or to a mechanically memorized phrase (in in this case). This constantly repeated sentence seems to turn on the awareness of night visions, thus turning everything into an automatic habit. As with the reality check mentioned earlier. By the way, some people enjoy practicing phrase repetition with this exercise. It's simple - you not only need to constantly repeat the same sentence, but also simultaneously examine your hands. And all - exclusively before falling asleep.

Attention and concentration

Is it possible to control dreams? Definitely. But for this you need to be an attentive person. You should identify for yourself the “signs” of your visions and write them down in a notebook. These are usually recurring events, situations or settings. Having remembered this, in the next vision, seeing something familiar, you will realize that the person is not in reality.

And finally, one more method, but it is suitable for those people who already have some experience in terms of controlled dreams. Our consciousness is so unique and inimitable that we can... order a dream! But for this you need to be extremely attentive and concentrated. After a person lies down on the bed, that is, gets ready for sleep, he needs to start thinking about the plot. That is, in other words, inventing in your head the beginning of the dream, the development of events, drawing the situation, the characters... It’s worth remembering - after all, when we talk with someone for a long time before going to bed or remember about someone, this person often appears as the one in the dream at night! In other words, you need to start worrying. However, not everyone will succeed and not right away. There is a certain complexity here. And it lies in combining the incompatible. The dreamer must be extremely calm and peaceful. Otherwise, being excited, you won’t be able to go into a state of sleep - just remember the situations when you drink coffee at 11 o’clock, and then toss and turn until three. But at the same time, the consciousness must empathize with the plot, otherwise it will not be able to develop into a dream, remaining thoughts. In general, this technique needs to be practiced.

Another world

And finally, you can go directly to the question of how you can control your sleep, namely its development. In all, absolutely all visions, man is his main actor. It's like a film shot from the first person. Although sometimes the dreamer sees himself from the outside, this is not important - the main thing is that he is there. So, now about controlled sleep. How to make it possible to experience it and everything that happens in it, as if in real life? Go where you want, say what you want, change the situation? It's complicated. This happens to people who have managed to master the previous technique (that is, “constructing” a plot while still awake). Why? After all, along with the plot developing into a dream, its owner, the man, flows into this state. This can be compared to moving to another world through a magical portal. Many people think that after falling asleep they lose concentration. But no. Our consciousness is designed in such a way that the state in which a person fell asleep is preserved. Therefore, the dreamer will continue to be attentive and concentrated.

"Helpers"

If a person fails to achieve at least some result even after many months of training, there is no need to rush to get upset. There are special “helpers” called light alarm clocks. It should be set to operate every hour or two. Light - best stimulant for dream awareness. A person does not wake up completely, but due to a short-term awakening, which instantly turns into reverse stage peace, it turns out to realize the fact of sleep.

Advantages and disadvantages

Well, controlled and lucid dreams are very interesting and unusual. But there are both pros and cons. The first include a bright picture, a feeling of being in the film, unusual sensations, interest, emotions with feelings as in reality, and the opportunity to create in a dream the kind of world that you would like to see in real life. What about the downsides? Perhaps the main drawback is fatigue. Human body able controlled sleep not fully resting. After all, the brain works! He generates a picture, follows the plot, and participates in the development of events. Due to experiences in a dream, a person’s muscles tense in reality. Some, under the influence of what is happening in their unreal world, actually cry, they may even accidentally hit themselves, etc. The result is a broken state in the morning. For many, of course, it goes away by the middle of the day, but still experts do not recommend getting carried away with this technique. Well, in general, it’s a good practice that helps you get to know yourself better, your own capabilities and your consciousness.