You finally decided to go to bed after a long and tiring day, and suddenly you’re completely conscious that you’ve fallen asleep and that you entered a dream-like state. In this situation, you’ll probably be able to identify your feelings and views, and if so, you should know that this is something often referred to as lucid dreaming.
At different periods, you may be capable of managing them, which means that you could alter the conditions, individuals, and story of the situation you’re visualizing. By doing so, it could assist you with reducing nightmares, but more importantly, the stress and anxiety that you might be feeling.
However, if you never successfully managed to do this, you might be wondering – can I control these visions, and how can I do it? To put it simply, yes, you’ll be able to do it, but, you’ll need the right strategy and a lot of patience to do so. So, without further ado, let’s take a closer look at what you could choose to do:
Try to Get to The REM Stage
The very first thing that you should understand is that lucid dreams most commonly occur during the REM stage, which means that spending more time in it could help you raise your chances of controlling them. You could extend that stage by getting high-quality and enough rest.
But, you’ll also need to ensure that you have healthy habits, which means that you’ll need to have a schedule, you should exercise every day, at all costs avoid using your gadgets before you head to bed, avoid consuming coffee or other sugary beverages before you go to bed, and you must ensure that you create a nice environment in your bedroom.
You Should Keep a Diary
You would be surprised by the number of people who choose to keep a diary. Why should you do this? Well, by putting all the things you saw and experienced on paper, you’ll be capable of remembering them, which is something that can help your brain realize that it’s resting.
Now, keeping a diary can sometimes be daunting since we’re all prone to forgetting what we saw quickly, which is why you should keep it and a pencil next to you, on your night table. As soon as you open your eyes, write down what you experienced, and if you want to teach your brain to understand that it’s resting, go through what you have written frequently.
Reality Tests Are a Thing
According to the experts from luciddreamsociety, being alert and dreaming has the same amount of consciousness, hence, if you choose to improve your awareness when you’re conscious, you’ll be capable of improving your awareness once you’re in the bed and resting. One of the things that you could choose to do is to go through a reality test since it’ll train your brain.
You may be thinking that you’ll have to do this while you’re resting, however, this strategy includes you checking your reality while you’re alert, and then trying to do the same thing while you’re resting. Some of the most common methods for checking your reality are:
- Press Your Fingers on Your Palms – you should press your thumbs against the palm of your other hand. If they go through it, you’re resting and visualizing things.
- Find a Mirror – you should try and find a mirror. Why? Well, when you’re resting, the reflection you can see in a mirror won’t resemble you at all.
- Hold Your Nose – another thing that you could try is to close your mouth and hold your nose for as long as you can. If you’re capable of breathing, you’re definitely resting.
- Read a Few Lines of Text – find something to read, and then look at a different thing. Once you glimpse back and if the writing is changed, you’re dreaming.
- Look at Your Tattoos – if you have tattoos on any part of your body, take a look at them. While in a dream, they’ll seem completely different than what you actually have.
Keep in mind, you should do all of these tests throughout the day, instead, opt for one method, and then practice it multiple times during the day. Additionally, you might want to try different ones out, mostly because this will help you determine which one is the most suitable one for you.
There Are Induction Strategies That You Can Try
By this point, you understand that these visions happen randomly, they don’t have a time when they occur. However, this doesn’t mean that you cannot induce them with a few strategies. The most common methods for inducing these helpful visions include the following things:
- “WBTB” – you should set an alarm to wake you up 5 hours after you went to bed. Once you do, you should immediately try sleeping again. Why? Well, once you fall asleep again, the chances of you entering the REM stage while still being conscious are increased.
- “MILD” – this is a situation where you need to tell yourself that you’ll be encountering and entering a lucid dream that night. Now, you could choose to do this right before you go to rest or you could also choose to tell yourself this during WBTB.
- “WILD” – if you choose this method, you should know that you’ll enter the REM stage from being awake, however, while you’re still alert. This process will require you to lie on the bed until you experience something that is called a hypnagogic illusion.
Are There Any Benefits That I Could Gain From This?
A lot of people don’t realize it, but, there are some potential benefits of you being able to control what you’re seeing. For starters, if you suffer from nightmares, you should know that it could cause you to feel stressed and anxious, and lucid dreaming could provide you with a way to reduce the number of nightmares you’re having.
Another thing that it could assist you with is improving your motor skills. After all, when you’re imagining movements or situations, you’ll be able to improve your chances of actually doing them, something that can be done during the sleeping stages, where you’ll mentally practice the skills you have.
Lastly, it might help you with being creative. In most situations, individuals that are more creative are more prone to experience lucid dreams, which might occur because of their ability to remember what they have dreamed of. Hence, you might feel more creative when you wake up.
Conclusion
Although it will take you a lot of time and patience, it’s completely possible that you control your dreams. And, if you choose to follow some of the strategies we mentioned above, you’ll certainly be able to make the entire process easier, less daunting, and more importantly, you’ll do it in the right manner.
So, now that you’re aware of what you could – and definitely should – do, you might not want to lose any more of your time. Instead, return to the beginning of our list above, and go through it once again in order to determine which strategies and methods are the most suitable for you.