When I dream, I always buy everything whole-heartedly. Whether my dream is of eating bologna with my friends or disco dancing with Taylor Swift on the moon, I believe my dreams are real.
It doesn’t matter that my friends and I find bologna mutually disgusting or that the moon and Taylor Swift are equally out of my reach in my waking life, when I’m dreaming I think it’s real.
This fact about my experience with dreaming is probably what makes lucid dreaming so interesting to me. I salivate at the idea of gaining agency in my dreams and making them even more real.
But beyond that, I’ve learned that that lucid dreaming actually has the power to actually affect waking life, which is why so many more people are beginning to engage with the idea of lucid dreaming.
Starting the Lucid Dreaming Journey
Once you’ve decided that lucid dreaming is something you hope to accomplish all you have to do is get started, which means doing as much research as you can. Since you are reading this post, it looks as though you’re getting your research started, which is an excellent place to begin.
You may have heard that lucid dreaming can be fun, but did you know that it can actually help you deal with many different things?
- Lucid Dreaming Can Diminish Nightmares. Because lucid dreaming gives us the power to take control of our dreams, it allows us to change the course of our dreams and even give our nightmares a happy ending.
- Lucid Dreaming Can Improve Dream Memory. Most of our daily dreams are forgotten, but with lucid dreaming, you can begin to remember more of your dreams.
- Lucid Dreaming Can Give You Personal Insight. We like to believe that we know ourselves perfectly, but that isn’t always true. Our unconscious self operates without our knowledge or permission, but in our lucid dreams we can come to know that self more fully.
- Lucid Dreaming Can Give Us Further Control in Waking Life. Lucid dreams are a great tool for practicing real life skills. The more time you invest in lucid dreams, the greater the effect will be on your waking life.
As you can see, the benefits of lucid dreaming stem far beyond the realm of fun, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun while you are at it.
Discovering Your Own Lucid Dreaming Method
Everyone experiences lucid dreams in different ways, for some people it comes as easily as dreaming itself, but for the rest of us it takes a bit of work.
One generally accepted technique of lucid dreaming is the tell and trigger. Simply put, this is a method of recognizing you are in a dream, and then using that to gain control. A good tell should be something that is possible in a dream but unlikely in waking life.
Once you’ve mastered the art of finding your tell, you may want to supplement your dreaming experience with dietary aids. These help by creating an optimal neuro-environment for lucid dreaming to be experienced within. The best lucid dreaming elements are simple and natural, which makes them healthy additions to your waking life.
Whether it is something as simple as a banana, or a specialized supplement like Dream Leaf, finding the right additions to your diet can really improve your lucid dreaming experience and your success in achieving lucid dreams in the first place.
Continuing the Journey
I am nowhere near the end of my lucid dreaming journey, and I am excited to see what comes next. Keep following the Dream Leaf blog to follow my story, and don’t forget to pursue your own lucid dreaming adventure.