I Found The SECRET To Lucid Dreaming

In 1975, an experiment proved that lucid dreaming was actually possible. You can become aware in a dream and control it. The phenomenon still remains elusive to most people but those who can do it describe it as nothing short of life-changing. Here’s what we know about this near superpower - how it works and most importantly, how to do it.

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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro Sketch
2:52 - What is Lucid Dreaming?
4:31 - The Science of Lucid Dreaming
5:20 - Dr. Keith Hearne
6:40 - Why Do We Dream?
8:31 - Lucid Dreaming Techniques
15:17 - Testing Lucid Dreaming
17:45 - Potential Dangers
19:30 - Sponsor - Nebula

[ThomasKelly.]

I had a few lucid dreams when I was in college. I actually solved several problems on a large project that a group of us engineering students were working on. I literally woke up with the answer to a problem, tested it, and it always worked. That’s when I took the phrase, sleep on it, literally.

[samh]

During an extremely painful and traumatic time in my childhood I went to bed one night just wishing I had my grandma, and that night I dreamed of her. Had a whole conversation that mostly made sense. I knew it wasn't real but it gave me much needed courage to continue. 😊 it was healing.

[realtalk]

Touching something in a lucid dream knowing its not real but then not being able to tell the difference is MIND BLOWING

[tomreider]

I have been able to both lucid dream and astral travel. They are two very different experiences for me. My problem with lucid dreaming is that I become very excited about it and immediately want to tell other people in the dream that this is only a dream. They look at me with blank stares and then I wake up. Or I'll go off exploring the incredible dreamscape but eventually lose awareness and fall back into regular dreaming. Astral travel, on the other hand is when I don't fall asleep at all. I concentrate on a sound to keep me from consciously falling asleep while my body falls asleep. At one point I feel a tingling sensation and a feeling of weightlessness. The next thing I know I'm lifting out of my body. If I stay calm it lasts longer but if I get too excited, I find myself back in my body. I am always in the room where I went to sleep and the farthest I've ever gotten is downstairs, out the door and down the street before waking up in bed again. The big difference to me between lucid dreaming and astral travel is during astral travel there is still a feeling of physicality, of being embodied in the actual physical world. Whereas with lucid dreaming, I'm always in a dreamscape and I don't have that same feeling of being physically in a body.

[janzenjan]

I've been an avid dreamer all my life (I'm 68 atm) and when I heard about astral projection in my twenties, I was intrigued and studied every book I could find on the subject. I gave myself 3 years to learn how to do it; it took me about 6 months. I became successful by becoming aware I was dreaming, as in having a lucid dream and using that as a platform to then consciously project some part of myself into what people call the astral realm. My environment would go from full colour in the dream state to black and various shades of grey in the astral state. There was always a huge buzzing effect in my body when I transitioned, similar to getting an AC electrical shock. This effect occurred both entering and leaving the astral realm. I always felt a sense of unease, however, when I went there, so I stopped doing it after only three successful attempts. I'd had the occasional lucid dream before then and continued to have them through the years, not that often, but often enough that it didn't totally surprise me when it happened; I always enjoyed lucid dreaming. They all happened during regular unconscious dreams when I would spontaneously notice I was dreaming and that awareness then sparked the greater awareness of a fully lucid dream. Many years later I heard about W.I.L.D. and decided to try to learn to do that. Over a period of several weeks I tried many different techniques, some I'd read about and many I made up on my own. My first success came about when I silently repeated to myself (there's the mantra effect, Joe) "I am awake, I'm in the dream." over and over and over as my body fell asleep. I'd been training myself to be aware of my body falling asleep while keeping some shred of waking awareness going in a non-physical point of selfness. That first lucid dream was like a gift - it happened full-blown and contained all the elements of dream environment symbols that I eventually learned to use to navigate through an astonishing multi-year exploration of the dream realm, or more accurately, the "between dreams" realm. Because that is where I found myself going, repeatedly - to the place where we create (and co-create with guides) our dreams. I wrote 2 articles for the now defunct "Dream Network" magazine about my explorations several years ago. I'd be happy to scan the pages and send them to you, Joe, if you're interested in the details.

[cathyglascock]

I had a vivid dream the night before my Dad passed away. He and I went to a beautiful realm where there was no gravity and colors were neon like. We bounced in a place that seemed like a church. We made the comment that we were “dancing in the rafters”. Coming back(waking up) felt heavy and dense. The next day Daddy was hours from death and unresponsive. When I told him we went to this beautiful place, he squeezed his eyes. My sign he knew. Never had anything that surreal since. It was a gift. Found out later it’s called “shared death experience”.

[chantsmantrasandrelaxation]

I've had lots of lucid dreams. As a child (pre 1975) my parents taught me that I could control what happened in my dreams. Nightmares were ways your brain challenged you to figure something out. They were and still are extremely rare (at least as far as I can recall). WILD states seem like 'astral travel' - I like adding music to my sleep routine ( specific style type) and those times when I find myself flying across landscapes often have great soundtracks. I used to work with children and at the end of the day when there were only a few left and it was dark outside (winter time) I used to sometimes do a 'relaxation/meditation' session with them. The parents were amazed that their kids were so quiet and peaceful, but I loved the kids telling me their experiences when they opened their eyes. "I was lying on a cloud" one six year old said. Lucid dreams have somehow often been linked to flying for me. Thanks for this topic.

[ashtraylol]

I had a dream after my grandfather died last year where I saw him, and he told me, "It's going to be okay." Really helped me get through that pain, especially since it had been only about a week since he had passed away at the time, and I was about to go back in school so it helped me understand and process that pain.

[trevinbeattie]

I’ve had lucid dreams plenty of times; the initial trick is to be _just_ conscious enough to realize I’m in a dream, but not conscious enough to wake up. Laying in a comfortable position and temperature is critical for this balance. Once I’m in this state, I have _some_ control over the dream environment, but still have to wrestle with a lot of the random stuff my brain dredges up sometimes.

[andrewfriedrichs]

I have had lucid dreams, but what has always bugged me is knowing the difference between a controlling a dream, and dreaming you are in control. Also this sounds like something those psychopaths who can just sleep do.

[michaelkeefer]

Used to have horrific nightmares. When developed the ability to lucid dream, none of the monsters ever showed up again.
The really weird thing, one night, my wife had a bad nightmare. Told her to go back to sleep and I would deal with the monster. After we were back to sleep, the monster showed up in my dream and I destroyed it. My wife never had that nightmare again.

[TheZeroNeonix]

I've been a lucid dreamer for pretty much my whole life, but the amount of control I've had has varied. It started with me having nightmares, recognizing that I was in a nightmare, and trying to force my eyes open. Sometimes I would think it worked, but I was actually "waking" into another dream. Later, and this was when I started to have actual control over my dreams, I had a dream that I was in a swimming pool. I thought to myself, "If I'm in a dream, I don't need to hold my breath." So I sat on the bottom of the pool and breathed normally. After that, I would remember that I didn't need to hold my breath any time water was involved. I had some really fun dreams, swimming around in colorful coral reefs.

I've never had total, god-like control, however. For some reason, I seem to have limits to what I can do in a lucid state. First of all, it's not exactly like being awake. I'm still limited by dream logic. For instance, one time, I was lucid dreaming, and my little sister told me she needed to find a bathroom, and I actually thought my real sister needed to find a real bathroom in my dream.

Second, I sometimes lose control, often when I experience what I have come to recognize as a nightmare trigger. One time, I pointed at the sun and flicked my finger, and the time of day changed as the sun would follow my finger. It would change from day to night, and vice versa. But one time, it got stuck on night, and I was in the dark. The fear seems to strip control away, and there are certain things in my dreams which trigger the switch into nightmare mode. The glass door at the back of my parents' house, for instance, was associated with a lot of nightmares where something would be standing on the other side of the glass.

Other times, even if I'm not having a nightmare, I will not be able to do something no matter how hard I concentrate. I'm not sure why I can move the sun across the sky, but I can't concentrate something into existence, but it's just how my brain works.

[Abby-kmvr]

The most vivid lucid dream I’ve ever had was a fever dream when I had covid. I was standing in a grassy field. I lay down and could feel the grass beneath my body and the sun warming my skin. It was absolutely surreal.

[ryan.hanthorn]

There was a time when I was lucid dreaming pretty regularly. I learned a few things.
1. It's easier to lucid dream when you're on the edge of sleep and consciousness. I had the most of them when I had ongoing insomnia. Many instances I was both aware of the dream and my the presence of my physicals body in bed. It did occur to me that maybe special forces could use this to sleep while still being aware of their surroundings in dangerous environments but it would probably be tricky to reliably train.
2. Alcohol consumption can help you get to sleep but hurts your ability to stay asleep, so I had this happen most in a stretch of time when I was drinking more. Not encouraging alcohol abuse, just food for thought.
3. You can NEVER just directly control your dream through force of will. If you're in a spooky mansion and want to be on a sunny beach and you just choose to be on the beach you'll just shock yourself awake. It will never work. Instead you need to employ a narrative device to gradually change the dream in a logical way. So it's just a matter of realizing there's a door behind you in that spooky mansion that leads to that sunny beach and all you have to do is turn arround, open it and step through.
4. Leave a reminder next to your bed in a place you'll see as soon as you wake up saying something like "What did you dream?" and immediately write it down or record yourself describing the dream. It'll fade quickly from memory so you have to commit it immediately.

[yehoshua]

I could do this as a kid. As I would drift off to sleep I could go outside, fly around, go places. Some of these experiences were the most comforting experiences I’ve ever had and the most “connected” I’ve ever felt. Wish I could do this as an adult.

[emilyrooks]

It is absolutely astral projection 😊I’m on my journey as well. Very early in. It’s a practice and takes time. Work at your own pace, finding a balance that works with your lifecycle. If you are worried about lack of sleep if it doesn’t work early on, do it on a weekend so you can catch up without fear. Also notice that a thought that you might not get enough sleep or a worry you might have trouble falling back to sleep is actually an intention you set that is incongruous with your goal. Add that to your intention: I will fall back to sleep after wake back to sleep or something. The point is your mantras can be designed to help your particular journey and you know what you need best. Listen to the way you are talking to yourself through your practice and see where you might make a change in your perspective and set the intention that will help you achieve your goals. Your belief alone is what gives you all the power to create whatever you want on the astral plane. Good luck to you all! I’m excited to be on this journey with you 🤗

[EJD]

I use to be a heavy drinker so I never dreamt. I couldn’t get over this girl for 3 years and as soon as I quit drinking and dreamt, I was able to get over this girl in a week and a half. I truly believe dreaming helped me. It’s almost like I wasn’t able to process the breakup until I could actually get some real sleep.

[SamRoxUrSox]

As someone with complete aphantasia, dreams are the only time I experience mental imagery and lucid dreaming is the only time I've been able to control or conjure "real" images. It is extremally difficult to get into that state and rare for me, but I am always so so excited when it happens because I get to experience a small sliver of what the average person does for most of the day haha

[PhailingMath]

I don't always pay much attention to your comedic openings like this one, but this one was actually hilarious! Great video too, of course. Keep up the great work, Joe!

[MisakaMikotoDesu]

15:35
I had an episode of sleep paralysis where I woke up to the sound of someone banging on the front door of my house, SCREAMING at me for help. As soon as I realized I couldn't move, I heard a horrifying, blood chilling scream, and then felt pure evil staring at me through my window. I could not see out of it, but I felt like whatever was outside wanted nothing more than to destroy me. It was 100% realistic and not fun at all. Still gives me goosebumps to this day.