I know what you’re thinking: I want to learn how to lucid dream, but I’m not a little bald dude in an orange robe so why do I need to meditate?
If you want your lucid dreaming abilities to skyrocket then you have to. Sorry. It’s one of the best lucid dreaming techniques in the world.
The good news is — it’s actually quite fun. Lots of cool things happen during meditation that you probably didn’t know.
It can feel like you’re on some very strong painkillers. Light head. Heavy body. And the world spinning around while you wonder what’s going on.
Do you want to become great at lucid dreaming?
Although we talk about waking up in dreams, all you really do is become aware. And to stay lucid inside the dream what do you need to do? Stay aware.
Self-awareness is the most important part of lucid dreaming. Meditation is the best tool in the world to improve self-awareness. See where I’m going?
If you’ve had a lucid dream already there’s a good chance it was because of a reality check. Maybe you checked your watch and realized it was a dream because you couldn’t read the time.
When you build up a great level of self-awareness you will automatically realize you’re dreaming without needing to perform reality checks. At some point in the dream you will just become aware it is in fact a dream.
Closing your eyes and entering the dream
A wake induced lucid dream is the ultimate method of becoming lucid. To lie in your bed, close your eyes and you’re automatically sucked into the dream world.
That’s how it’s described, but it’s not that easy. To go from a wakened state straight into the dream world needs a calm mind. Meditation is the ultimate tool for producing a calm mind.
Meditation and lucid dreaming are like two peas in a pod. Improve your meditation and you’ll improve your lucid dreaming
Killing misconceptions
Meditation is not thinking; it’s lack of thought. If anything — it’s feeling, or sensing, or watching.
Meditating the right way will kill inner dialogue. If you don’t think you have an inner voice that won’t shut up, let’s do a little test:
Sit still and see how long you can keep your mind empty without any thoughts popping into your head.
You probably didn’t last too long. That’s fine. It’s to be expected.
Feeling like a million bucks
Once you enter a meditative trance it will begin to feel very weird. Here are some of the things that happen to me:
- My head feels empty and very calm
- My body feels heavy and starts tingling
- I feel like I’m inside a cocoon
- Wave vibrations run through my body
- It feels like I’m laying on the ocean
- It feels like someone is massaging my head
- The world feels like it’s spinning around
That’s not taking into account hypnagogic imagery and strong visualizations which lean more towards lucid dreaming. They don’t all happen every time I meditate and it depends on how deep I go, but you can expect to feel all of those sensations at some point.
Getting comfy
I’d probably get blasted by meditation experts for saying this but I meditate laying down… on my bed.
Apparently it’s a big no-no and the only real reason I ever hear is because you could fall asleep. Well I don’t and I’m not going to stop. You can meditate in any position you feel comfortable. If you want to sit in the lotus position with your hands making funny shapes, that’s great. I’ll stick to my bed.
Eventually I’m going to buy a nice expensive hammock to use for meditation. I’m excited. It’s also where I’ll have a lot of my lucid dreams.
Here are the basics
I’m going to be writing a lot about meditation techniques because it’s going to help you have more/longer lucid dreams. I love to play about and find new and exciting ways to induce trance.
But you want something easy to get started so here it is, four steps that will lead you into a meditative trance:
1 – Lie down in your bed, or sit if you feel more comfortable
2 – Make sure your body is relaxed and close your eyes
3 – Watch/feel your breathe
Imagine you’ve taken a step back from your thoughts and you’re positioned at the back of your mind, just watching. Watch your breathe as in enters and exits the body. Don’t interact with it. Just watch. Feel it go all the way down to your stomach and come back out through your mouth.
Can you feel the vibrations as it enters your mouth? Can you see it pass through your stomach?
4 – A simple mantra
Recite a mantra to help keep thoughts out. A nice easy mantra you can recite is — UM.
Breathe in – UUUUUUUUUUUU
Breathe out – MMMMMMMMM
That’s it. Easy as pie.
It’s hard, but it’s worth it
Don’t be discouraged if a thought pops into your head. It will. I used to think my efforts were wasted if I began to think about something. I was wrong!
Don’t focus on the thought. Let it pass. Just switch back to focusing on your breathe. Repeat every time a thought pops up. It’s not going to ruin your trance.
When will you feel the effects?
Once you become skilled you can induce the trance state pretty quickly.
I want to talk to the people just starting meditation. It takes time. It took me months to build up what I’d call the basic skills.
Don’t let that discourage you. I’m not saying you won’t enter a trance. It took me a good few sessions to induce a trance. It just takes time to get good.
Start of slowly, even 5 minutes per meditation session. I’d love if you meditated twice per day: once in the morning and again at night. Build up to 20 minute sessions at a pace that suits you.
Don’t worry if you can’t keep thoughts out , or if you don’t feel like you’re in a deep trance. Make sure you concentrate on your breathe. Always go back to the breathe. The rest will follow.
