Dreamscape Erin by Heidi Hallifax - HTML preview

Lucid Dreams

Freud (1900) considered dreams to be the royal road to the unconscious as it is in dreams that the ego's defenses are lowered so that some of the repressed material comes through to awareness, in distorted form. Dreams perform important functions for the unconscious mind and serve as valuable clues to how the unconscious mind operates. (wikipedia)

Lucid dreaming explained

A lucid dream is a dream during sleep where you become aware that you are dreaming. Once in a lucid

dream you have the power to do, be or see anything or anyone!              

You can begin to explore your dreamworld with total clarity. Everything you see, hear, touch, taste and smell can be as authentic as reality. (When I myself have a lucid dream it sometimes feels so’real’ that I almost doubt if I am really dreaming or not. My dream check is to fly. Then I know for sure. But everyone can have their own dream check. If you’ve seen the movie Inception you will know what I mean.)

You can fulfill any fantasy. Fly over mountains or oceans, have sex dreams, perform in front an audience, time travel, visit other planets and so on. Your lucid dreaming can be as big as your imagination! You can overcome personal psychological issues. In the safety of the lucid dream environment you can face your fears, phobias, anxieties, nightmares, past traumas and recurring dreams. (This takes time however. I personally can never seem to understand that I am dreaming whilst I am having a nightmare. This is something I want to get better at and like anything else, practice is key!) You can solve problems, create music or other artwork. The list goes on!

Anyone can lucid dream. Research suggests that about half of the worlds population have at some point had a lucid dream, however, only a small percentage do it on a regular basis.

Learn how to lucid dream

I have tried a few different theories over the last few years and even though I haven’t done it on a regular basis it has definitely worked!

1. Write ’Am I dreaming’ on your hand. Every-time you look at your hand, ask yourself that question. Look around. Does everything seem normal to you? You may seem foolish in the beginning but no one knows what you are thinking, trust me. This question will soon creep into your subconscious mind and you will start asking the question when you are dreaming.
2. Ask the question at certain times during the day. You might find it embarrassing to write it on your hand. Decide on a specific task you do several times a day and every time you do that task, ie. go to the bathroom, make a cup of coffee or looking at the time, you ask yourself ’am I dreaming’? Again, you look around. Is all as it should be?
3. Look at the clock twice! Every time you look at the clock, look once more! If you are dreaming, the clock will almost certainly show a different time the second time you look. The first time might say

14:23 and the second could say 08:15. More often than not there is a significant difference there.

4. Bedtime affirmations. When you go to bed. Make yourself comfortable. Put on some nice relaxing music if you want to. I find that I drift off much easier with low relaxing music or sounds of nature. Tell yourself several times ’I will be aware that I am dreaming’.

How to stay lucid

I have read a few tips on this. I find it hard myself to stay in a lucid dream. Once in a lucid dream I sometimes get too distracted and forget what it was that I was meant to do. However, when I have remembered, it works! Which I keep getting better at so like I mentioned before, practice is key!

1. Rub your hands together. Once when I did this I felt like I was lucid for ages. Neat little trick!
2. Keep reminding yourself that you are dreaming.
3. Do reality (dream) checks. Like looking at the clock twice or lifting off the ground. Your pick really.

What are lucid dreams?

Some say that it is astral projection into where the fourth dimension is. A theory suggests that the fourth dimension is where you manifest instantly. This can both be amazing and scary. Imagine anything you’re thinking of coming to life instantly. Love, money, beautiful landscapes - yes please! Monsters, war, depression - No thank you!

Being aware of your thoughts is important in our world too! How you feel is determined by your thoughts, so go easy on the negative vibes and stay positive so that you can stay healthy and happy!

Some critics think that lucid dreaming is just a dream where we are slightly more aware or waking up but that it doesn’t mean anything else other than psychological aspects of our subconscious mind that we may have repressed.

One can never know for sure, or at least not yet, however, a lucid dream is an opportunity! It’s a place where you can process different fears or fantasies. If you have a reoccurring nightmare you can face it, knowing that you are not in any actual danger. If you face your fear the fear itself tends to go away and or replace itself with something nice. If a bear is chasing you for example, and you face the bear head on, it could possibly come up and hug you rather than kill you. You can prepare for things. Let’s say that you are holding a speech or singing at your daughters, sister’s, brother’s or friends wedding and you are feeling nervous about it. You can set up this scenario in your lucid dream and practice. Since the lucid dream seems so real you can rehearse as much as you like. In your wake-state you will have tricked your mind into thinking that you have already done it, your body will respond by being prepared in a much calmer way since in your mind, you have already done it and it went well!

This is also a good technique you can use just by meditating and visualising that you are on the stage or in front of the people you are going to meet and seeing it all go well and remembering the feeling of it.

Loads of love and sweet dreams <3 / Heidi