how should i start Lucid Dreaming

[xo.myaa4]

i tried it before, but for some reason i was never lucid, it was just way harder for me to find sleep and i had dreams about different languages. any suggestions?

[kai]

Hi,

from shamanic perspective whether you are lucid or not is not that important, lucidity is more of a mind thing, meaning you can be lucid but still stuck in very shallow levels of dreaming, without being able to move with any kind of power. The dreaming practices in this tradition for example don't rely on lucidity at all and it's not really a goal per se. 

That said, when I was younger lucid dreaming was something I was very much interested in. For me, making a habit of performing 'reality checks' while awake worked best. For example checking the time on a clock, looking elsewhere and then checking time again. If you are awake, results are very predictable, but in dreaming for most people the clock might have turned into a pink hippo the 2nd time. If you keep doing that with the intent of also doing it in dreaming, it will become a routine for your mind and it'll perform it for you in dreaming as well, at which point you should realize things are wonky and become lucid. The reality check itself can be anything, even just looking at your hands and examining them intently. 

Like I said, it's not really important for shamanic dreaming movement and becoming lucid by itself will not really do much for you, but it can be fun and stretch the boundaries a bit. 

 

[xo.myaa4]

4 hours ago, kai said:

thanks for that, i have heard about reality checks i just really didn't know what they were talking about, now i do. and sure it won't help me much, but i feel like i should at least try out and practice the basics. also, when you said  "you can be lucid but still stuck in very shallow levels of dreaming, without being able to move with any kind of power", were you talking about sleep paralysis?

 

Edited October 25, 2019 by xo.myaa4

[kai]

I meant without being able to move energetically, from shamanic perspective we want our dreaming energy free, so that it can touch and affect the world. I know it sounds crazy but there you go Most people have their dreaming energy caged by the mind, so that you can only dream of what the mind dumps there. As a result the dreams tend to be bizarre and disjointed. There's a disconnect, shamans want to and need to bridge that gap so that they can access all of their energy and do things intentionally with it. There are practices for that, but it's unrelated to lucidity really. Becoming lucid doesn't really bridge that gap, it's mostly a mind thing, though it does poke a tiny hole into the wall between awake/dreaming. 

Sleep paralysis is different, if you ever experience it, there are things you can do to get out of that state. In sleep paralysis you are kind of stuck (but not really) between two different states, your body is asleep but you are not fully in your dreaming energy and thus aware of your body, but not enough to affect it. There's no reason to be afraid of that state, you are not really paralyzed and you can either wake up or fall asleep at will. If you want to go back to dreaming, you can just relax and sort of fall back fully into dreaming energy. If you want to wake up, probably the easiest way to do that is to focus on your breathing and let it be your guide into becoming more fully aware of your body, which will wake you up. Or you can just get really angry at the fear and will yourself awake, but that's more jolting and not as eloquent.  

Kai

[Alex]

12 hours ago, kai said:

If you want to wake up, probably the easiest way to do that is to focus on your breathing and let it be your guide into becoming more fully aware of your body, which will wake you up. Or you can just get really angry at the fear and will yourself awake, but that's more jolting and not as eloquent.  

I've been in a sleep paralysis state before. Kind of made my body feel super tingly all over. I just willed myself out of it by pushing myself into a more wakeful state. Kind of like that feeling when you are doing a push up where you feel some resistance to completing it. You will yourself to continue until you complete the push up. It was similar for me with sleep paralysis. My entire body felt that resistance towards any movement. I pushed through it to get past it.

[xo.myaa4]

i appreciate all the help on this topic i'll keep this in mind

[Stacey]

To add to the topic of sleep paralysis, just BC I feel I'm *quite* the seasoned expert on the subject ,

 Myaa, if this is a relevant topic to you or not lol: I came to a point recently where I  choose 'radical acceptance' of it when I feel it coming on. This allows me to ride over it like a cloud, pushing my breathing into the space below my belly and opening my heart wide. It's an opportunity to intend everything you need to in this spitfire manner. For me, i come out of it all aware and enlightened. If sleep paralysis happens to you and you try it, Myaa, you might see that in a sense we choose to color our perceptions in the way that seems to make the most sense to us (eg. Terror upon entering REM paralysis), but if you switch it to the opposing perception (love upon entering REM paralysis), you notice how capable of speaking directly to God/what-have-you you are...

For anyone who reads this that has seizures with auras, this applies too...my last seizures I saw everything so clearly, like a great owl swooping around me and a huge ball of light, I heard myself think, "THERE IT IS!"; came out feeling cleared out of all my ish and enlightened.

< 3 S

[xo.myaa4]

thanks for that peastacey I appreciate all the info about this topic