by O.Grimstad

Created on: February 16, 2009   Last Updated: February 11, 2010

Of course lucid dreaming is fact. A dream may be seen as fictional in retrospect, though.

For instance, you dream that you are in a classroom. Your awareness of having finished school long ago is somehow assimilated into your dream story as some kind of new rules about repeating subjects together with your old classmates. "Seeing is believing" and you accept it as real. Why doubt objectivity? You can\t take your focus away from the action because you don\t want the teacher to get angry at you. But even the small doubt has given rise to another level of consciousness into your dream, until you find yourself thinking:"What if.this is a dream? No, it can't be. It’s so real…but may be…oh my God  it is!" You are having a lucid dream!

The initial feeling I often get in a lucid dream is disappointment. I was so emotionally into the drama moments earlier, only to discover that I was fooling myself. I often want to continue, but can't help getting start telling people that they are inside my dream or using the new perspective and freedom in other ways. Still I may keep the feeling that I may risk making a fool out of myself for a while, because in that lucid state the external reality usually seems as real as any objectivity during daytime. But remaining lucid makes the possibilities endless. It’s the ultimate freedom!

One frequent problem I have experienced is that the awareness of dreaming makes me think that the real I must be located in bed, which of course takes my conscious experience to bed. I experience waking up, and may go and get the morning newspaper. Later I have often realized that I was dreaming that too. So then I've had to do the morning procedures all over again. It is like playing hide and seek with myself. Like, now this has to be real, so I better start focusing attention on what's happening out there in the real reality' – fooling myself into the same mindless feedback loop I had when dreaming normally. Fooled again! I have realized that the solution to this is to view the corporeal image in the dream state as valid as any. I sometimes touch my arms or face to confirm that I am as real as ever.

I've also taken the time to sense other objects, run my fingers through grass, picked up a straw and tasted it, for instance. It is a mind-blowing experience to find yourself fully conscious in another reality. If you're a lucid dreamer who have never really stopped up in the dream to that extent in order to sense, feel and reflect upon reality I recommend doing so. You’ll probably be surprised how close you can get to your daily experience without waking up in bed. Often the temptation of enjoying the freedom is too big to do that, though. Flying is amazing, riding snowboard, running around naked or whatever you always wanted to do. But after a while of enjoying the freedom something tends to catch my attention. Events are experienced to be too serious for fooling around, and the lucid dream turns into a normal dream again.

I have never used any method for achieving lucid dreams. But I have experienced that focusing on the topic increases the probability of having a lucid dream. My advice to those who want to have one is making a habit of asking yourself how your emotions and beliefs affect your experience of reality. Are you fooling yourself? May be your external drama isn't as seriously in need of exclusive as you think? If you often think like that when awake you eventually will in the dream state, too. It will expand your awareness during day as night.

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