Scott Free Thinking

After being inspired to pursue lucid dreaming, I became reminded, even in spite of the focus I’ve given to it here on the site lately, to pursue it yet again in the very near future. So the other night, after making the decision that, “I’ve had it! I’m going to have a lucid dream,” I did just that. This last dream was a bit difficult to swallow, however, as I experienced some difficulties in the manipulation of it. Whatever world I was in during the dream itself, I felt very anchored down, and the laws of reality that so often govern one’s waking state felt as though they were held ruthlessly in place. Also, some thing were distinctly out of place to a point I did not much wish them to be. My fingers looked as though they were a flat, two dimensional image with wavy and cropping ends at some points of staring down at them, and other parts of the dream were very unstable as well, including words that were written all over the ground in one room, where I could not stop looking at them with an overlapping, divergent gaze. The text was impossible to read this time, even though in some dreams reading text is no problem, at least reading it at a first glance(text can change after several viewings in dreams).

But, heck, even with the instability, I was lucid anyway, so I might as well do something with my time! Lately I’ve had trouble trying to think of something to do in my dream. One issue I’ve had with my normal life in reality is that I spend all of my time either writing here, working on this site, or going to college. I don’t really spend a lot of time socializing in the past 6 months, and I don’t spend a lot of time doing anything that would be considered traditionally fun. After a few seconds of in-dream boredom, I decided, why not sex? This is where I ran into another problem and realized that perhaps my actions were a little bit askew, or not on track, with what I probably should have done in treating this dream.

First, it was trouble to get the girl I had intended to appear, to appear. I went into about three different bedrooms in a hallway, and was saying to myself, this is odd, usually it is no problem trying to get anything to appear. On the upside, there was at least the benefit of beds being everywhere. If I got tired of doing this search, I could drop down onto one of the many beds in the many bedrooms in this empty place. Ultimately, however, I decided, no, I want to have sex in this dream, and she’s got to be here somewhere!
Finally, she appeared in one of the doorways that I had looked in before but had gone back to, and was wrapped up in a blanket. She waved me in, and much to my frustration the dream faded in its vividness until I found myself once again conscious. Drat!

What I had forgotten about, and that I should have done, was try spinning. For those of you looking to prolong your lucid dream experience, spinning is probably one of the best things that will help prolong the dream from fading. The faster the spinning, the better. Just let yourself become a flippin’ tornado inside the dream, or a nuclear powered centrifuge(whoa)! Other techniques my friend Bill recommends you try are also yelling out loud, and anchoring(How to Stay in a Dream as Long as You Want).

I think another part of staying lucid is part of where your focus is. This is definitely part of it. Similar to PhotoReading where you have the task of maintaining a particular focus, lucid dreaming is the same way, but it is a mental focus you are worrying about. You do not want your focus to be on the excitement of a particular moment if you can avoid it, because often this will arouse a physiological response that causes you to awake. Now, lucid dreaming sessions are generally experienced as being pretty short, and you are probably going to wake up eventually. There is no way you can stay in the dream forever that I know of. The ideal point of focus is simply being the alert observer while still remaining calm. Watch all that happens around you and take it into recognition, especially as you aid in creating it. At the same time, you do want to enjoy yourself, just remember to stay relaxed, keep yourself soothed in this dream state by simply mentally directing yourself where ever you can.

Also, be clear of your purpose. Purpose is critically important to virtually anything in life, and lucid dreaming is no different from that. Before you go to sleep every night, find some way to affirm, both mentally and physically, that you are clear of what you want from a dream. Also knowing that part of your purpose in having a dreaming experience is to have one that lasts long in duration. Do not just make it a goal, decide that this is what you are experiencing when you go to sleep.

In holding a clear purpose, and remembering to remember the techniques, you can now work to prolong your dream experiences. Another very important thing to also remember is to always keep your recall active - keep writing things down and keep remembering, do not stop, as your ability to do dream recall aids in your experience of how long the dream itself lasts. Happy dreaming!