Lucid Dreaming 101
How (and why) to start waking up in your dreams
When I was little, I used to do what I now know was lucid dreaming—that is, waking up in my dreams and then becoming free to travel wherever I wanted.
What I wanted was to travel the cosmos, and so I did. It was scary, but exhilarating.
As I grew up, while my dreams have remained colorful and adventurous, I lost the ability to regularly lucid dream.
In the last year or so, they have returned. And now that they have, and I’ve experienced that exhilaration and freedom once again, I’m committed to “waking up” in my dreams more often.
I remember learning in my yoga studies that if we humans can’t “wake up” while dreaming, how could we expect to “wake up” upon death? And if we don’t wake up upon death, we will simply cycle to the next reincarnation—Do Not Pass Go, Go Directly to Your Next Life.
I don’t know that I believe this exactly as taught, but I think there’s something to this idea that if we cannot remain conscious enough to contribute to the direction of our dreams, how could we contribute to the direction of our afterlife?
Lucid dreaming means that in the dream, you realize that you’re dreaming, and can then shape the dream however you like.
For the last year, anytime I’ve woken up in a dream I’ve gotten so excited I’ve just started causing chaos. I knocked fancy paintings off museum walls and tipped over waiters’ trays (so that might’ve been my fault if that happened to you!). I was so excited to know that this was just a dream world, I did all the forbidden things.
In the last months, I’ve been focusing on slowing down in my lucid dreams instead of freaking out. I went to the beach recently and woke up with the scent of saltwater in my nose. One time I visited a huge Map Room, where I could point to where I wanted to go, and I’d be there instantaneously. I woke up just after I chose to go spy on my parents.
I want to be able to do this more often—stay in these dreams longer and eventually travel the cosmos again, as I did as a girl.
My spiritual guide is a lucid dreamer, but she cannot teach it as it happens so naturally for her every single night. So, I recently signed up for a Lucid Dreaming course with Mike Dooley and Dr. Clare Johnson.
Last night, I finally had my first lucid dream since the start of the course. I realized I was dreaming because I was waiting for someone, and I was stressed about it. Then I thought, “I don’t have to wait anymore,” and with that thought, I was awake in the dream and started telling everyone around me before I woke up.
I’m practicing lucid dreaming as a method of deepening my consciousness and my awareness. And of course, for all the other reasons to remember our dreams, even the non-lucid ones: our dreams are a source of guidance and insight into our lives.
If you’d like to try lucid dreaming, here are a few tips that I can pass along at this point in my journey. I will share more as I learn them.
- Do “Reality checks” during the waking hours. Throughout the day, ask yourself from time to time, “Am I dreaming?” Try pushing a finger through your hand, or holding your nose closed and trying to breathe through it (mouth closed too). If you can’t push your finger through your hand, and you can’t breathe—then you know you are awake. But if you can, then you know you are in dream consciousness. The idea is that the more you do reality checks in waking hours, the greater the chance you might do a reality check in the dream state—and then realize that everything around you is a dream.
- Light some sage before falling asleep. I learned this tip in a book, and for me, it seems to work. I have no idea why.
- Set your intentions. Place a note beneath your pillow stating your intentions to notice when you’re dreaming. Also, write it down in a journal dedicated to your dreams.
- Keep track of all your dreams. All dreams, not only lucid ones, have power and messages within. The more you pay attention to them, the more they will speak to you. The more you dream and remember your dreams, the better chance you will become lucid in them.
- Do visualization exercises during the day. I had my most vivid lucid dreams while doing a course that involved regular daily visualizations. Something about shaping the sequence of events in a waking visualization seemed to trigger the ability to shape the sequence of events in sleep.
Lucid dreaming is something we can all learn to do. It is a practice, like any other, and one that can greatly enrich our daily life—bringing healing, transformation, guidance, and understanding.
Enjoy your journey to the dream state.
Thanks for reading!
Keri Mangis
Award-Winning Author & Wholeness Advocate
Founder: KeriMangis.com
Interview on Illumination
Author: Embodying Soul: A Return to Wholeness — A Memoir of New Beginnings, winner of the 2020 IPA for Body, Mind and Spirit
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