Achieving Lucidity

Achieving Lucidity is something I looked into several years ago and managed to achieve at first by accident and then regularly at will through a technique taught to me through assorted occult sources and some experimentation. I was conducting a full-time dream journal at the time which acclimatized me to the various stages of sleep and the various sensations or degrees of wakefulness possible when one wakes to record dreams on a regular basis.

I will shorthand the technique and just write a few brief comments about it since it is not difficult and it does not take a lot of time to see results.

The technique requires you to write the words 'Am I Dreaming'? in clear block letters on a piece of paper that is diagonal in shape. Place this paper somewhere at eye height that you walk past frequently every day. Each time you see it stop and ask yourself - are you dreaming? Next, look around to determine if there are any signs that you are.

There are quite a few signs that I learned about through a movie called Waking Life - such as light switches working, time being visible, words in books being readable, but I'm sure anyone to any degree interested in lucid dreaming knows many more. Look for these signs and determine whether you are awake or asleep. It may sound or seem silly to ask yourself in broad daylight whether you are dreaming - but the trick here is to train your brain to ask the same question not when you are awake, but while you are asleep.

If your brain gets in the habit of doing this - as it did for mine - it has the effect of making you conscious within your dream that you are dreaming and can prompt a level of awareness known as Lucidity. In my own experiment, the paper itself appeared to me mid-dream on a wall and prompted me to suddenly become aware that I was dreaming and 'lift' my consciousness slightly higher to a point where I had considerable dream control.

I would be interested to hear others experiences or methods for achieving lucidity or experiences with this method I have shared. :)

WR