Dream journal

The dream log , Know thy self and know understanding.

Keep a dream log. I will say it again, KEEP A DREAM LOG!
 This is the most important step to success in lucid dreaming. Keep a small notebook or pad near your bed, and write in it immediately after waking when the dream is still fresh in memory. An audio recording device works for many people. I have on occasion used my phone to record a dream log entry and later when transcribing it I recalled even more details. I have tried to use my phone, laptop, and online dream journals but find myself drawn too far into conscious by electronic devices. I have had success with voice notes that I will later transcribe or send to myself as a voicemail through a service that tries to transcribe them and all I have to do is make minor corrections at a later date. There is several programs that provide voice to text for free and voicemail services but often the act of listening to it brings back left out details and allows me to transcribe myself and add to the log entry.

  I eventually transcribe all of my written entries and set aside time each month to do this. This allows me to color code triggers and common themes or items while giving the liberty of adding lined and editing quickly in such a way that is hard on paper. Almost all of my entries start on paper and over the years I have boxes of full dated journals and logs from the last 20 years. The sketches also seem to be easier on paper and almost impossible on the other formats without coming to full wakefulness.  These journals have all been transcribed or scanned onto my computers for ease of access and editing. I have used word counts to find patterns and I am currently experimenting with a program to do all of this for me (I may have to write it).

 By keeping a detailed list of dreams and going back through it there is patterns to be discovered. I often suggest to leave several lines or a space after each entry for later additions due to recall and to highlight common items, places,people etc and make notes.

Perhaps it is the odd side of me but before bed I will write the date, time, supplements if any and any unusual deviations such as diet or pre bed activity. This has led to the discoveries such as what supplements vitamins, food, and activities help me. Upon waking and writing I write the entry and then the time because the clock often distracts me for an instant and leads to loss of the dream memory details.

 When keeping a constant journal or log you are establishing the habit as well as telling your brain the importance and intention of recording a dream and small details..With the habit well established your subconscious will start paying better attention to detail and and abnormalities in the dreams that you may not have noticed before..

  As most people rush around with a modern busy life you normally awake and then think of what you must do with your day rather than take a few moments to focus on dream recall. This becomes a well established habit after years of repetition and the brain is trained to disregard dreams and focus on other matters from an early age when getting ready for school. Most people set their schedule by starting the day with a very small gap between waking and a scheduled activity such as work, commuting or other such activity.  Going to bed early and waking early has been a habit for me for many years and having an hour or so of relaxation and time for planning has always seem to help quite a bit versus being ready for a job and in the car in less than an hour after waking. I have often considered the auto accidents and other slight mistakes in judgement that could be avoided if the majority of our society would leave time in their daily itinerary  to be fully awake when leaving the house. This also would leave time for a dream log and several dreaming experiments.

  Start by writing the date in the book before falling asleep to give a mental clue that you must write when you awaken. When you first awaken try to lay still and not move a muscle while you try to remember what you can. Faces, Names, places, events, items, emotions or any other notable content.  Often a small memory can trigger a cascade and flood of memories before they fade away.  Then write it all down.

Binaural beats

Relaxation and brain wave manipulation

Binaural beats

Binaural beats or tones were discovered in 1839 by Heinrich Wilhelm Dove but didn't gain much public awareness until the late twentieth century based on claims that the effect could influence brain waves and induce relaxation, creativity, meditation and other desired effects. the effect on brain waves depends on the frequency produced by the difference in auditory frequencies. for example if 510 hz is played in one ear and 500hz played in the other the brain would perceive 10hz and the produced frequency of the binaural beat would be 10 hz and activate and reinforce the area affected by 10hz.

  The brain makes a phenomenon that results in low amplitude in areas of the brain when two sounds at different tones at slightly different frequencies are introduced separately, one to each ear using headphones or similar devices capable of delivering exact sounds at once. This effect is altered if used through speakers because of the difference in distance and a slight doppler effect that changes sound according to distance.  Research shows that the difference between the sounds must be under 1,000 hertz for the beat to be noticeable but less than 30 hertz for there to be a noticeable effect.

 There have been claims regarding the use of binaural beats to simulate the effects of recreational drugs, help memorize, stop habits, tackle dysfunctions and improve athletic performance. in a blind study 7hz was found to enhance meditation while 15hz harmed focus.

  This may seem somewhat deep, but hang in there.human hearing is 20-20,000hz. Human brainwaves are below 40 hz down to about 4 hz or less. human brain waves at 40 hz and below have been produced by binaural beats and measured scientifically. When the beat frequency is in the range of the delta,theta,beta,alpha, or gamma range of brainwave frequencies, the brainwaves entrain to or move towards the beat frequency. 

 By my simple conclusion and research the brain becomes more acceptable over time with use to manipulation by binaural beats and thus manipulation.

Dream control - flying

Flying Like Neo

 

  I know people that in their first few lucid dreams could just take off like a rocket and have great flight control at first, that wasn't the case for me. My first few flights had me taking off only to lose control and end up tangled in a big oak tree and once even unable to come down from the ceiling of a room. Other times I had no altitude control and could only hover or do something close to moon jumps. Is there a secret or trick to lucid dream flight? I think so. Training and control of the dream. 

  To try anything against the laws of physics in a dream that you don't have full control of seldom works  because of the result the mind expects results that then gets projected as reality within the dream. Without full control you can't break the laws of perceived physics and throw a car (because of perceived weight), Invent items, sculpt a scene, create characters, or fly. 

  First you must follow the steps and do reality checks to tell your brain that physics no longer apply. I often do this several times in a dream getting more and more extreme. from the point I pushed my pen through the desk I may know it is a dream and move up the scale of lifting my desk with one hand to walking through walls and changing the color of the sky. I start to pay attention to detail and my mind keeps confirming that the normal rules do not apply any longer and also that I am in control. These reality checks tell my brain I am dreaming and reinforce the fact that physics no longer apply in the dreamscape.

Start testing gravity by running and jumping. Jumping can often result in maintaining velocity but just hovering along. You can touch down anytime just by reaching downward with a foot and picturing contact with the ground. An occasional grounding can help with fear of heights, losing control and to reassure that you are OK and safe.

 Next would be the high jump with increasing height and distance. You can start with a car or fence and move up to trees and buildings. Bridges, city blocks, lakes, and soon skyscrapers become easy. 

  If you  get caught in a hover or start with one it is a good thing. Start to play with the hover and feel for the control as you stretch limits. Move left, right, up, down, forward and back to reassure your own control.start with a few inches the on to a few feet. With confidence building you will soon be above the clouds or rocketing along the landscape with the precision of a missile.

 The best practice I have found was when I would fly between planets and among the cosmos.

Barren planets can be explored and used as your own private training ground. light years become blinks when the speck of a star zooms into a solar system and you touch down on an alien planet seconds after leaving the ground.

My experiences have been great and I fly in almost every lucid dream. There has been superman and matrix style but also I have crashed through trees and power lines when I didn't have full control. My first lucid dreams as a child were triggered by flight induced by jumping while running but I wouldn't come back down and continued to fly.

Repeating dream signs

Repeating dream signs

This is easily found by use of recall technique and a journal. Do you dream of schools but haven't been there for years? I have a snow owl that has visited my dreams for 10 years and is in my dream log at least every 2 months and sometimes several times a week.  The snow owl dream sign became quite comical when I saw one in the real world and stood there doing reality checks and found myself quite disappointed yet excited to see a real one.

 In my dream journal I will go back through and highlight or underline signs and common themes. This along with constant reality checks may lead you to watch a particular area such as items, animals or whatever is the most common type of sign you have remembered and recorded.  Once you form the habit and tune your brain to look for these signs they will become much easier to notice in dreams and trigger memory and lucid dreaming.

 

Lucid dream time adjustment

   Time adjustment personal note 

 

 A nap a few hours after waking is one of the best times i found initially for lucid dreams however this also usually threw off my sleep schedule a bit. 

   For quite some time I would get up about 2 hours early, shower, layout clothes and then go back to bed for about an hour and a half with great success.

    At the time I didn't know the term lucid dreaming or done any reading or research into the subject. I had noticed patterns with being woken up early by dogs barking or to grab a snack in the night was usually followed by a vivid or lucid dreams. Also the interrupted dreams were often easy to remember and make a dream journal entry. 

  When I started to notice the pattern I started to attempt to repeat the effects and still to this day set multiple alarms sometimes going for a snack or others just to roll over and make a dream log entry and sometimes to jot down an idea. I then will return to bed and lay comfortably as I think of a previous dream or imagine a landscape for a new one that often becomes the playground of a lucid dream.

Dream signs and triggers

Signs, Themes and triggers

Most experienced lucid dreamers use dream signs and themes as triggers to recognize they are dreaming.Once the recognition is in place you become spontaneously lucid to some extent and that can be reinforced through further exercises.The triggers become recognised by the brain and cause the rationality of the trigger to become "This is a dream".

  With more attention and practice it becomes habit and the more they will be noticed and trigger a lucid dream night after night and often several times per night.

Dream Signs

So what is a dream sign? People with wings, talking items and creatures, deceased people, flying, wrong reflections in mirrors, changing text and clocks, pushing your hand through a wall, and countless others. Basicly a dream sign is something that breaks the laws of reality as we know it and signals that this is dream physics.

 

Super power test

Tools - Super power test (reality check)  

I perform reality test regularly throughout my day every day. I use small notes on my wall, in the car, my computer monitor and when I see it I try to push my right index finger through an object and check my watch (digital watches seldom show correct in dreams). With enough practice,you will automatically remember it during your dreams and phase into lucid dreams.

 I like to call these my super power test because of my concept that how can you know you don't have super powers if you have never even tried to use them because of logic and physics. I imagine a grown man being told he could fly or walk through walls by a doctor and being asked why he had never done it, only to reply he never tried.

 I do this regularly and quite often it is the initial trigger that gives me control of dream when I do a check and push a pen through my notebook or my finger through my phone.  The small motions seem to work best and can be done without anyone noticing. I started with my watch chiming on the hour and I would perform a test. Now I test anytime I have a fork, pen, or other object in my hand. I don't just lean or sit on an object - I will try to bend push and lift objects that physically can't be done. It can be as simple as dropping a piece of trash or my favorite, a small random skip when no one is watching. The small random skip has resulted in a flying dream more than once.

 Reality checks and dream signs.

With the combination of tools you can learn to do several reality checks any time a dream sign or something out of the ordinary is seen or happens. I seem to end up doing this a lot around Halloween and if shopping very early in the morning. The reality check can confirm a that you are dreaming and becomes a very strong tool for reinforcing and stabilizing the dream world.

 When in a dream a reality check is very important for stabilizing a dream and keeping control of a lucid dream if it starts to slip or become fuzzy.

 I have the almost constant habit of doing noticeable reality checks when around people after many years of practice and go from a vivid dream to a lucid dream with complete control with a reality check being my most common trigger. Many sources say to do them on a set time schedule or when you notice something out of the ordinary but I have triggered lucidity in a dream when I did a reality check out of habit and everything around me seemed normal.  The first time this happened happened to be when sitting at my computer I went to put out a finished cigarette. Over the years when I use a tool such as a fork or pen I will try to slightly push it through an object without the notice of anyone around me and this habit seems to have carried over into my smoking habit. The first time I did this totally habit reality check and noticed I was doing it was when it succeeded and I followed it up with other reality checks that all succeeded. I did not actually expect it to work because I was perceiving everything around me as normal and had not heard my watch chime (the watch chime used to trigger a reality check for me).  The normal triggers for a reality test would have failed because I had no reason to even conduct a test.  After the success of the almost constant test by habit I have increased it and had more success.  I still do a check when something seems strange but I no longer worry about setting a timed test because I now test several times an hour when awake and hopefully more than that when asleep.   Many habits carry over into sleep also.

 I have a theory that over time your brain will become accustomed to the response  of a test and become slightly numb to the repeated results. After so many repeated results it may project this into a dream and give you a real result even in a dream much like most of my dream characters will tell me i'm not dreaming if asked. This conclusion has led my to slightly alter my strategy over time and incorporate new test and alter old ones slightly. I often change up test and try new things such as I recently started checking pens to see if they warp like rubber with slight pressure, when I pick up a bottle or can I try to insert my thumb into it or apply slight pressure to warp it.  These test go unnoticed by others and give me a few extra things to watch for.