Treatise on Lucid Dreaming

Lucid Dreaming Enhancement

by  Robert Bruce,  (C) Copyright June-10-1994. Robert Bruce (rsb@
garion.it.com.au) 16 Jun 1994 writes:

I have been developing an easier to understand, improved technique for
out of body projection via the newsgroups. I have combined the feedback
from people learning to project with my experience as a mystic and with
the OOBE. As an offshoot of this we have stumbled on a way of
stimulating and heightening the lucid dreaming experience.

I have had hundreds of reports from people using the energy raising
technique of having powerful lucid dreams afterwards, even though they
have failed having a conscious OOBE. This is occurring too frequently to
be a coincidence. Myself, I have also noticed increased lucidity in
dreams after energy raising and chakra stimulation during meditation.

What seems to be happening is that by raising energy and stimulating the
chakras, the astral body is filled with energy. This increases the
degree of awareness in the astral body and during a dream it gives
stronger, more vivid memories of it afterwards.

I would like lucid dreamers to try this energy raising method, combined
with their own lucid dreaming technique. Could you please email me with
your results and comments and also, PLEASE, post some comments to this
newsgroup so everyone can learn from this?

Below are some exercises that are designed to teach you how to relax the
body, clear the mind, raise energy, stimulate the chakras and heighten
your body's awareness of itself:

Relaxation

You must learn a full body relaxation exercise. If you know one already
it can be adapted to suit. Sit in a chair, or lie down, and relax your
whole body. Starting with the feet, tense them and relax them. Continue
this with calves, thighs, hips, stomach, chest, arms, neck and face. Go
over this a few times until you feel completely relaxed.

Breath Awareness

Breath awareness will help to calm and focus your mind and awareness.
Breathe deeply and slowly. Be aware of the breath entering and leaving
your body. Feel it coming in and feel it going out. Focus your whole
attention on your lungs and the breathing process and it will help to
occupy your surface mind. Gently push any intruding thoughts away as
they begin, before they distract you. By feeling your breath coming in
and out you are shifting your awareness into your chest.

Mental Hands

The mental hands technique will train you to shift your point of
awareness to other parts of your body. This will also give you greater
body awareness which is very important in lucid dreaming.

Calm your mind and relax your body. Imagine you have a pair of invisible
hands. Feel your awareness in these hands, just the same as with breath
awareness where you concentrate your awareness on your lungs. Stroke
yourself slowly with these hands, start at your feet go on up through
your legs and through the rest of your body. Try and FEEL these
imaginary hands relaxing and soothing you.

Become aware of and use these hands as you are doing the relaxation
exercise. Start at the feet, tensing and relaxing muscles. Feel your
mental hands in these muscles as they tense and relax them. Work your
way through your whole body this way. Feel your body relaxing at the
touch of them. Your point of awareness is in these hands. You are
shifting your point of consciousness into different parts of your body
as you do this.

Energy Raising

When you are familiar with your new mental hands, use them to pull
energy up from your feet and through your legs to the base chakra.
Imagine you are gripping energy and pulling it up through you. Combine
this with your breathing. Draw it up through you with the inhale and
hold it in place on the exhale. Do this over and over again for at least
a few minutes.

This is the natural path of the energy that flows through you. With
practise you will actually feel this energy tingling and surging through
you.

Chakras: These are situated at: 1. The base of the spine (between the
anus and the genitals) 2. The spleen (slightly below the belly button)
3. The solar plexus (1 hand-span above the belly button) 4. The heart
(centre of the chest) 5. The base of the throat. 6. The centre of the
forehead. 7. Crown (whole top of your head) . They are best imagined as
roughly the size of your hand, except for the crown chakra which is much
larger and covers the whole of the head above the hairline.

Chakra Stimulation

Chakras are transformers that convert raw energy into energy of a
different type. During these exercises your chakras will be pumping
energy into your astral body.

Pull energy up through your legs with your mental hands to your base
chakra. Use your mental hands to open this chakra. Imagine you are
tearing open a bread roll where the chakra is. Draw this energy up to
the next one and open it, and on to the next one and so on. Repeat this
over a few times. You may not feel much at first, but with practise you
will feel a tingling surge of energy like adrenalin and a fluttering or
pulsing under your skin as you do this.

Even if you don't feel anything you are still raising some energy. When
I first started using my chakras, many years ago, I didn't feel anything
happening in them for several months. Many people report feeling some
sensation in them the first time they do this. Some people seem to have
more natural chakra activity than others.

Heart Chakra

The heart chakra merits special mention due to the odd sensation it
causes. When it activates fully it will feel as if it is racing at a
seemingly impossible rate. It is a powerful sensation. Ignore this when
it happens, it won't hurt you, it is not your heart racing but the
chakra working.

The heart chakra, when fully operational, feels like this: Place one
hand on your chest, with your finger tips resting in the middle of it
over your heart. Tap your fingers on your chest, in time with your
heart. Increase this rate until you are tapping as fast and hard as your
fingers can move. The sensation can vary from a gentle fluttering, to a
pulsing, like a muscle twitching under the skin, to a deep robust
thrumming. If you place your hand on you chest when it is active you
will actually feel the flesh pulsing. The flesh over any active chakra
will throb like this.

Closing The Chakras

After any work on opening the chakras it is Very Important to close them
unless you are going to use them, or go to sleep shortly after. During
sleep they will close naturally after an hour or so. This closing is
especially important if you feel strong activity in them. If you leave a
chakra open during normal day to day activity, you can bleed energy.
This will can fatigue and health problems. To close them, simply reverse
the process until no activity is felt. Feel your mental hands closing
them and push the energy back down.

Stop and Check

Keep checking your muscles for any tensing during the energy raising and
chakra stimulation exercises and re-relax as needed. Your muscles will
automatically try and respond as you draw energy up through you.
Remember, this is all mental. Your body must stay calm and relaxed
throughout this.

Practise

The relaxation, breath awareness and mental hands exercises should,
ideally, be carried out daily. They can be done anywhere and anytime you
have a few minutes to spare. You will, in time, condition your body to
respond quickly and easily. Every time you do these, keep in mind your
intention of having lucid dreams. Whatever your lucid dreaming trigger
is, keep this in mind while you are doing these exercises.

Lucid Dreaming Trigger

To become aware in dream you need a trigger to make you realize you are
dreaming. You can, for example, program yourself to become aware when
you find yourself flying during a dream. Another way is to look at your
hands many times a day and repeat to yourself: "When I look at my hands
I will know if I am dreaming."

Every time you look at your hands, do a reality check. Ask yourself, is
this a normal situation? Is this part of my normal life? Is there
anything strange about where I am and what I am doing? Look around you
for anything that doesn't seem right, strange people, weird animals and
that sort of thing. This trigger programing and reality checking must
become habitual.

Another good aid for lucid dreaming trigger programing is an electronic
watch. Set the timer to beep every half hour or so, until it becomes
annoying. Every time it beeps look at your watch and do a reality check.
Try and anticipate when the watch is going to beep, so you look at it
more frequently. This will become a habit and will have you looking at
your watch during a dream.

When you look at your watch during a dream do a reality check, you will
realize you are dreaming and can take control over it. It is then
important to convince yourself you are going to remember everything when
you wake up. Tell yourself over and over again. " I will remember all
this when I awake."

To Prepare For Lucid Dreaming

Do the relaxation exercise and use breath awareness to calm your mind.
Raise energy through you and stimulate your chakras for five or ten
minutes, or until you start feeling heavy.

This heaviness happens when you enter a trance. The trance state is
brought on by deep relaxation. In a trance you are very open to self
hypnosis and suggestion. This is the best time to program yourself with
the trigger to become lucid in a dream. In the trance state you may feel
like you are paralysed but you can usually move if you try, its just a
big effort. If you can't, do your lucid dream trigger affirmations and
go to sleep.

Note: Once you reach the trance stage, stop any further energy raising
or chakra stimulation and proceed with the trigger programing stage.

Do your normal affirmations that remind you to become lucid during your
dreams and remember all when you wake up. Say to yourself, " I must
remember to look at my watch" or " I must remember to look at my hands"
Say this over and over to yourself until you fall asleep.

Note: These exercises are best done, one at a time, apart from the
combined energy raising - chakra opening one, lying on your back.

If you have trouble and feel it is all too much to do at once, do them
one at a time in this order. 1. Relax. 2. Clear your mind with breath
awareness. 3. Raise energy. 4. Open chakras. 5. Raise energy through
chakras. 6. Trigger affirmations. 7. Go to sleep and dream.

When you have completed them and are ready for dreaming, assume your
normal sleeping position for the night.

Remembering It All

One of the biggest problems with any kind of conscious OOBE is
remembering it all when you wake up.

Here's what you can do about this not remembering. As soon as you awake,
sit up in bed and pull those memories back. Sit up and think hard. Put
aside a few minutes quiet time each morning to do this. It will train
your dream memory.

During this quiet time, run key phrases through your mind until you hit
on something. Say things like:

                       I looked at my watch and...
                       I looked at my hands and...
                            I was walking...
                           I was talking to...
                         I was just going to...
                            I was over at...
                          I was flying over...
                            I was having a...
                            I was inside a...
                              I was with...

These are examples of phrases that can lead you to a fragment of dream
memory you can lock on to. Make up some more phrases to suit yourself.

It may not feel like there is anything in your mind to remember, but try
hard and put some REAL effort into it. They are there, you just have to
reach in and locate them. Once you lock onto a fragment of memory, more
can be located and more and more. You will be surprised how much you can
remember this way.

It is important to write these down as you remember them. Even if you
wake up several times during the night. They may seem vivid and
unforgettable at the time but dream memories will usually vanish in a
few seconds if you don't record them. Just write down a few key words
and you can fill in the blanks later. With practise, this writing down
can be dispensed with as your dream recall develops.

Please email me with results and also, PLEASE, post something to this
newsgroup so everyone else can see what's happening too.

Any comments or suggestions for improving this technique are welcome.

Robert Bruce