Oneironaut: A Guide to Lucid Dreaming

Chapter Five: The Methods

WILD, DILD, Sleep Paralysis, and Audio are some methods that can help you out in lucid dreaming with strong results.

Before going into how to use sleep paralysis to your advantage, I have to present two things: Wake-Induced Lucid Dreaming (WILD) and Dream-Induced Lucid Dreaming (DILD). These two are the most common ways people get into lucid dreams.

Earlier I talked about keeping conscious as you sleep, or let your body sleep while keeping your mind awake. This is often difficult to achieve but they often provide the most vivid dreams. This is basically what the WILD method is about.

It is important to review these steps before you go into a WILD.

You must lie down on your back in a dark or at least dimly lit room, with your hands at your side.
Scan your body to make sure no part is tense or unrelaxed. Let gravity do its thing.
Lay still for 15-60+ minutes. The hardest part is this because there are a series of sleeping tests and these involve the "itch" I spoke about earlier. This is so your body knows that you are asleep and it can soon go into sleep paralysis. The tests can also include things like an urge to roll over to your side, open your eyes (which is why an eye mask is good to have too), an urge to move your legs or reposition any body part really. Even your eyes under your lids shouldn't be moving but some movement is allowed along with your breathing.
You will feel a vibration of some sort going through your body. It will feel like some electricity, nothing painful at all. Do NOT let this alarm you. If you move or stop laying still, you will have to try it all again.
Once you induce sleep paralysis, that is when you know you've succeeded the first few steps. You should be soon noticing the area around you, seeing everything if you get to open your eyes (not your literal eyes, but your mind's). It is important not to get too excited or else you will wake yourself up.
Here is when you get to start visualizing! Start imagining things or a different location. Every time I am in sleep paralysis, I start to visualize myself in my living room instead of my room and I see my scenery literally changing like that in a movie. It is quite exciting since at this point you have already started dreaming.

With the DILD method, you simply realize you're in a dream and from there you take over and turn it into a lucid dream. Some tips below can be useful in doing this:

With the dream journal from earlier, you will and should be able to recognize dream patterns. Common themes, reoccurring dreams, symbols that constantly show up that don't usually find themselves around you in waking life. That's when you should instantly realize you're in a dream and change things up for your experience. For example, a close friend has once told me that whenever they notice a pink elephant around them, far back in the scenery, they use that as their sign of dreaming and they move forward to creating
Reality checks help here. Do them in waking life and eventually you will also do them in your dreams to get started.
Anything out of the norm? Something impossible happened? You are probably dreaming! I often have dreams where my abue speaks English and it is an undeniable fact that my abue does NOT speak English at all. That's how I know I'm dreaming.

Other tips for WILD and DILD:

Can't keep your mind awake for ? Some things I do is count, backwards from 100. Others count and add the phrase "I am dreaming" -- 1, I am dreaming. 2. I am dreaming, 3, I am dreaming.. etc.
If you're in a dream and you feel yourself waking up, rub your hands together or spin around in my dream 'til you feel like you are okay.
When you are about to go to sleep, I find it that it helps a lot to think positive and present. Instead of saying "I will lucid dream" you should say "I am already lucid dreaming." This tip is a lot like the first tip but this tip only emphasizes that it is important to have this mindset rather than the one that goes "I will lucid dream." By saying "I am" instead of "I will," it helps a lot to achieve goals.

Earlier I spoke about how sleep paralysis can be a gateway to lucid dreaming and if it wasn't caught earlier in the list, to recap:

1. Once in sleep paralysis, it is important to remain calm no matter what the situation is. There can be scary entities around (which is part of your hallucinations) but if there is trouble like that, you can always just tell them to go away. They can't hurt you after all, even if you feel some pressure. It won't go beyond that.
2. When everything seems to be calmer or you have at least calmed yourself enough to think, think or imagine a location other than your room. Imagine the details of this location. I previously mentioned that a living room is great to start but even outside is an option. Imagine you are there and quickly you will be able to find yourself there.
3. Once there, you can either explore the space or change the location again. Start actively controlling your dream and making things appear or disappear, or happen. Have fun!

The more often you do this, I have experienced that sleep paralysis tends to get more intense. However, you also get more tolerant of it. This eventually helps you overcome many fears and grow along with each experience, maybe even while growing more spiritually.

Finally, there is the option to take down sounds and guided meditations. There is even an app for lucid dreaming that is currently in the works and yet available for folks to try out.

The sounds are better know as binaural beats, isochronic tones, or any audio that falls under guided lucid dreaming. There hasn't been too many studies on these beats but usually they require headphones as each headphone transmit sound to each ear, sometimes different in each headphone (or earphone, if you prefer to call it that). The audio of recorded voices guiding you through sleep can also help some people achieve lucid dreaming.

Note: The difference between both is that isochronic tones are regular beats of a single tone that are used alongside monaural and binaural beats. They are used often in brain entrainment (yes to train, not entertain). It is a tone being turned on and off rapidly. Binaural beats can be described as more like sounds that are caused by specific stimuli. These are often used to bring in relaxation, help creativity, and other desirable mental effects. It involves two different frequencies or sounds at a time.

These sounds are usually available in Youtube for free and sometimes there are better engineered sounds that are created elsewhere for purchase. People are different so they react differently with each and so it's up to you to test any sound available to you and see how you react and which work for you. Some may require multiple runs.

Maybe this next item may be what can help you lucid dream exactly if you have a smart phone, most likely an iPhone or even an iPod touch/iPad, you can download an app called Dream: ON. This app has sounds (or what it calls "soundscapes") that should work with your sleep cycle in order to influence your dream. You get to choose more or less what type of dream do you want to have, should it be a dream with paparazzi following you or a more erotic, dream. You have the "lucid dreaming" option for all the soundscapes and ones without in case you don't want to have that awareness on a good dream that makes you think "aw darn! this is only a dream!"

A few different methods that take quite a bit of practice and trials has been presented but I saved the best for last. The Wake-Back-To-Bed method is one that often gives the best results.