Transcript

An Introduction to Lucid Dreaming

First Edition by Paul Eijkemans

Wake up, Alice dear! said her sister; Why, what a long sleep youve had!
Oh, Ive had such a curious dream! said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she
could remember them, all these strange Adventures of hers that you have just been
reading about; and when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, It was a
curious dream, dear, certainly: but now run in to your tea; its getting late. So Alice
got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream
it had been.
This is Paul Eijkemans, June 11th 2006 in San Marcos La Laguna, Guatemala, on the topic of
Lucid Dreaming. Well, the first thing I would like to do is to refer you to the Internet-site
BalancingTools.com where you will find the most recent version of this talk. You are listening
to the first edition at the moment, and it is quite possible that in the meantime I added some
material or corrected some errors. On the site you will find some links to information that you
might also like to hear, or see. And if you enjoyed the talk, please feel free to copy this MP3file, including the transcript please, to as many people as you wish, as it is free. And if you really
like it you are welcome to donate some money to a project which sends medical teams into the
highlands of Guatemala to help cure those who cannot afford to visit a doctor or to buy
medicines. You will find more information on this project and how to donate on the site. And,
to finish the introduction, in contrary to what MTV adds to its Jackass-series: please do try at
home what you hear in this talk!
Next on the list is to explain to you what Lucid Dreaming is, so that you at least have some idea
of what you will be listening to in the coming fourty or so minutes. Well, there are probably as
many definitions as there are experts on the topic, so lets share my personal perspective with
you. For me Lucid Dreaming is raising your consciousness in dreams to such a level that active
participation in the dream becomes possible. And with active participation I really mean active
participation to such an extent that you are able to experience your dreams as if you were
awake, and to make conscious choices in your dreams.
I realize that this may sound far out for most people, especially those who do not even dream.
But let me take you on this journey to explain you how you can induce Lucid Dreams yourself
and what you can actually experience in a Lucid Dream. Most of it will be based on my own
experiences, and there where necessary with some additions of experiences of others. And
please bear with me, after the necessary basic stuff I will get to the Lucid Dream stories that I
would like to share with you.

I do not consider myself an expert in Lucid Dreaming. I know many people who in their sleep
or in meditation fly through the various worlds just as if they were taking a stroll in the park.
But, by not being the expert I might be able to bridge the gap between you and the real experts
on these topics. On the site I mentioned you will find references to them. Also, I just love
teaching these things, even at the medium level that I am at, and I sincerely hope that this talk
will help you on your way with Lucid Dreaming. If you dont seem to get it working for you at
first, please keep trying. I couldnt do any of these things and through continuous practice I
managed to do the things that you will hear about in this Tool.
What I talk about is the way I do Lucid Dreaming, with some useful additions of friends who
are also doing this. But that does not necessarily mean that this is the way you do your Lucid
Dreams. Actually, there is no single right way of doing Lucid Dreams, so you might want to do
it your own way while trying out suggestions of others. In any way, do yourself a big favour and
never have anyone tell you how you should do things like this. Not even me. Personally I am
quite allergic to those people that go around claiming that there is only one road leading to
Rome. My advice, and you really do not have to take it: be critical and try everything out
yourself to see what is actually working for you.
OK, so when I was a little boy I have been able to control my dreams to some extent.
Whenever I had a frightening nightmare, or when I just wanted to wake up, I had my own little
thing to get out of a dream. For me it was imagining a cash-register, and hearing a loud cashregister sound. Just as in the famous 80s television series Are you being served? when they
are changing from one scene to another. Dont ask me where this all comes from, it might be
something very Freudian.
My experiences are far from unique. Most of you might remember that you had vivid dreams
when you were a child, and some of you also had the ability to have some control over them. I
lost this ability somewhere down the line, including the ability to have these vivid dreams. For
me, the dreaming started again when I did a month long meditation course in meditation and
yoga centre Las Pirmides del Ka in Guatemala. Later followed by a three months course in the
same centre. Under the guidance of my teacher Chaty Secaira I not only managed to regain my
capacity to dream, but I even managed to extend this capability to having Lucid Dreams. A lot
of information in this Tool comes, in one way or another, from her. Therefor, a big Thank
You is in its place here.
So, the first scientific proof of the existence of Lucid Dreaming was produced at the end of the
1970s by British parapsychologist Keith Hearne, but mystics have been using the technique
through the ages. Something which I found quite funny is that the oldest reference to Lucid
Dreaming, though debated among scholars, can be found in the Old Testament in the Song of
Solomon 5:2. There it reads I am asleep but my heart is awake; the voice of my beloved is
knocking. Also, the Tibetan Buddhist have been using Lucid Dreaming in yoga-practices since
the eighth century. And, last but not least it is believed that the Australian Aboriginals used the
technique in spiritual practices for many centuries. The term itself popped up the first time in
1913 when Dutch psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden wrote a book on the topic.
Lucid Dreaming has been used in psychotherapy for some time. One of the possible
applications, on which, again Dutch, Dr Victor Spoormaker wrote his doctoral thesis in 2005, is
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helping out people that suffer from repetitive nightmares. His research showed that with
individual Lucid Dreaming exercises, the group of research participants suffering from
repetitive nightmares was able to decrease the number of nightmares they had with 71%. Lucid
Dreaming made them able to change the plot of the nightmare, and put an end to their nightly
misery. Google around and you will find his thesis on the Internet. What might also work, but
on which I have not found any research yet, is treating people that suffer from phobias by
giving them the tools to challenge their fears in a Lucid Dream.
So, why would you want to have a Lucid Dream? For me having fun is the main reason for
doing Lucid Dreaming. If you have never done a Lucid Dream you just cannot imagine how
much fun it actually is to be able to consciously fly around in dream-landscapes. Second,
whenever I come out of a Lucid Dream I am just filled with a lot of energy, even if I have slept
only a few hours. And another big reason for me is that Lucid Dreams help me to understand
myself and my environment a bit better. Some explanation might be necessary here. So, let me
give you a little example.
At night, in a Lucid Dream, I found myself in a soccer stadium. It was one of these Fan
Appreciation Days in which the home team, Dutch soccer club Ajax in this case, was showing
off the new team for the season. I was there as a steward, among a whole team of other
stewards. Each of these other stewards looked the same and was dressed in a black leather
jacket. I was helping them out to keep the crowds calm and lead the people from one place to
another. Suddenly one of these other stewards approached me and asked me what I was doing
there, including the question whether I had permission from the main boss to do what I was
doing. I danced a bit around it as I did not really felt like answering this question, but finally I
had to admit that I did not have permission and that I was simply there because I wanted to
help them out. This was a trigger for them to quite harshly throw me out, despite my honest
intentions to help them. Only then I noticed that their was a logo on the leather gloves that I
was wearing. It was the logo of the clubs main competitor Feyenoord.
For me this dream was quite significant at that moment. I was strongly thinking about new
ways for working with groups of people and had a ready-set of ideas on how to do this. This
dream made me quite aware of the fact that I not yet had the right understanding of working
with groups to pursue the plans that I had. And that consequently I had to get back to the
basics. My intentions were good, but my lack of knowledge and lack of experience would have
created a mess if I tried going that way at the level I was at. So Lucid Dreaming helped me
there putting my feet back on Earth.
Hopefully this example shows that the subconscious can be used as somekind of a quantum
supercomputer that might help you crack the tougher puzzles of daily life, something which the
linearly working conscious mind is not always able to. But as with any computer, this
supercomputer needs to have material to be processed to produce a nightly landscape which
makes sense. Those wrestling with some serious questions during the day seem to have to do
little work: that what you have been thinking about all day has a large chance of showing up in
your dreams.
Those who want to do more specific steering might want to put a large amount of related
material in their head and see what happens at night. As an example, when I studied Dion
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Fortunes book The Magical Qabalah for several months I actually started dreaming about
aspects of the Tree of Life, which is the main symbol used in Qabalah. All the associations that
I put into my head during the day were woven into a perfect tapestry of dream experience at
night. Depending on your interests, reading Greek mythology or even the Old Testament will
do a similar trick. So, if you have had fantasies about finding yourself back in the lions den,
ahead you go.
So, now you know that Lucid Dreaming is possible, the next question is how to do it. Well,
there are two keys to this. First of all you need to start remembering your dreams, which is
fairly easy, and secondly you need to wake up in your dreams. If you look at all the scientific
theory behind Lucid Dreaming you will be bombarded by tons of methods on how to do it, all
bearing three or four-letter acronyms. I suppose that you are not so much interested in all these
acronyms, but rather get started, so I will do my best to provide you with the methods without
getting into the scientific mumbo-jumbo.
To my knowledge everyone dreams every night, but not everyone of us is able to remember
their dreams, let alone being able to make them lucid. Therefor, getting you to remember your
dreams is our first target. There are several things that you can do before you go to sleep. The
one thing that works best for me is a small meditation of about twenty minutes just before I go
to bed. This will help calm the mind and put and end to the thoughts that have been swirling
around the whole day. Another trick is to do some auto-suggestions before your go to sleep.
Examples of this are repeating the phrase I remember my dreams a few dozen times after
you have turned off the light, or simply writing this mantra down on a paper and signing it.
Many people that do Lucid Dreaming have developed their own little ritual to increase the
chances of dreaming and getting a Lucid Dream. In my opinion it is not so much about what is
exactly done in this ritual. More important is that a lot of attention is put into the effort by
actually having a little ritual. And there can be some crazy rituals, as long as it helps you to
focus. One ritual that I have heard about, but do not practice myself, is the following: look into
a lighted candle for a minute, and repeat this little I remember my dreams-mantra several
times. For those who like to meanwhile burn some incense, and have some water and a crystal
near: please go ahead, whatever helps you to focus. Interesting to note about the crystal is that a
good friend of mine swears that putting a crystal under his pillow, especially quartz or
moonstone, makes him have bigtime dreams.

One thing that I found out while travelling around Central America and sleeping in crappy
hotel-beds is that a hard mattress helps in getting a lot of dreams. I guess that the discomfort
itself prevents the body from falling into a deeper kind of sleep during the night. After this
experience, whenever I encounter a hard mattress in a hotel, my first reaction is Oh, shit.,
turning into Oh, boy, dreamtime! quickly. What might also help you to increase the number
of dreams is changing the direction of your bed, which tends to be a bit more difficult when
your are travelling. What the exact trigger for more dreams is, is unknown to me. I heard
people talk about the effect of the electromagnetic field of the Earth influencing dreams, but it
might just as well be that the change itself triggers a change in the way you dream. Additionally,
for some people it might help to sleep one or two hours more than you usually do. Just go to
bed a bit earlier or set the alarm clock a bit later.
There are also some big No-Nos for remembering dreams. One No-No is having your
stomach full of food when you are going to bed. It is supposed to be not a very healthy thing to
do anyway, but for Lucid Dreaming it is funest. With a full stomach the energy going around at
night will be spend on digesting your food instead of fuelling the brain to start doing Lucid
Dreams. So, no more bed-time snacks. Another subject is the use of alcohol: drinking more
than the occasional glass of whatever alcoholic drink, dramatically decreases your changes of
being able to control your dreams. Which is not quite so different from drinking too much
alcohol anyway.
Those who drink some tea before they go to bed probably like to make some Mugwort-tea.
Mugworth is quite a bitter herb that you should be able to obtain from your local Natural
Remedies store. Infuse a handful of dried Mugwort in hot water for about thirty minutes to get
two cups of tea. Drinking it about one hour before going to bed definitely helps increasing
dream awareness. And for the girls listening: an additional benefit is that Mugwort helps against
menstrual pains.
If you start looking for information on Lucid Dreaming on the Internet you will find loads of
various dream-inducing machines being offered to you. They all seem to have names which are
made up of the words Brain and Dream, combined with a random verb. I have never tried one
of these machines, so I cant possibly tell you from personal experience whether they work or
not. However, I know that Lucid Dreaming also works without an expensive tool, so you might
save yourself some money by using the methods described in this talk. Additionally, learning to
do Lucid Dreaming the natural way releases the need for carrying a machine to wherever you
lay your head.
If all of what I have mentioned does not work: just keep trying. Some people are natural talents
in Lucid Dreaming, but in my opinion anyone can do it. And you do not need to meditate for
five hours every day to get it working for you. To get yourself from not remembering dreams to
fully remembering your dreams takes about two months of practice. It is not guaranteed that
you are able to fully remember your dreams every night, but practice does make perfect.

So, at one moment you will get there and your are able to remember your dreams to some
extent. The key to subsequently making a dream lucid is to become aware in your dream that
you are dreaming. This is the trigger for becoming conscious, without your body actually
waking up. If you manage to keep your focus and keep your consciousness attached to the
dream, you prevent yourself from waking up. And its that simple.
Probably you already know this but many things that you do during the day, are repeated in
your mind unconsciously at night. So, if you ask yourself Is this a dream?, or an equivalent in
your own language, continuously during the day, your mind will repeat these words during the
night when you are asleep. Thus helping you to trigger to become more conscious. Another
reminder system is to hang little notes with Is this a dream?, in various colors, all around the
places where you spend time during the day. But if you are working all day in an office with
other people it might be a bit strange to do. And to prevent strange glances of your collegues
you can do it the same way I did it. 3M made this electronic Post-It utility that enables you to
hang virtual Post-Its all around your computer screen. Do some Googling around and you will
probably find it somewhere on the Internet. Be aware though, that regularly changing the colors
and the locations of the notes is necessary to prevent getting too much accustomed to it and
not being triggered anymore.
An additional instruction to induce Lucid Dreams was issued by shaman Don Juan in Carlos
Castanedas Journey to Ixtlan. His instructions state that before going to bed you must look
at you hands very intensely, and say to yourself When I am dreaming I will look at these
hands. And when I see these hands, I will realise that I am dreaming.
It might help if you look for strange things happening in the dream, which assist to trigger your
consiousness. Obviously, for this to happen you must already be dreaming and be in a passive
state. Look for clues that remind you of the fact that you are dreaming, basically because
something that you do not expect to happen in real life happens in the dream. These clues can,
according to literature, be divided into four categories. The first category is Inner Awareness,
where you notice in yourself that in your dream you have unusual emotions, an altered
perception of things or strange sensations which you normally do not have. An example of this
is being able to hear somebody talk from miles away. The second type of clues is Actions
happening in your dream. This might be you or a dream character doing something which is
unusual, like if you are teaching people and you are not really a teacher in real life. The third
type of clues have everything to do with Form. If you see yourself or someone else having a
different body shape than usual, or even morphing to various shapes, you can be triggered to
realise that you are dreaming. The last category is Context. If you live in California and you find
yourself in an iglo, or you are a senior citizen and find yourself back in High School, than thats
a major clue that you are dreaming. With all these clues, the moment you go Hmmm, that is
strange, might I be dreaming? is exactly the moment that you gain consiousness in your
dream.

As an example, while I was in Guatemala I had a dream in which I found myself in a half-ready
office building. Near me was another person. I recognised this person as someone I had
worked with in the past. This triggered me to go Hey, this person cant be here in Guatemala
where I am at the moment, I must dreaming, and I consequently gained consciousness in my
dream.
I have to tell you that none of my Lucid Dreams starts off as a Lucid Dream. Usually I have got
some other dreams, which I call Garbage-Dreams, that seem to take some clutter out of my
mind to clear the freeway on which the Lucid Dream can run. These dream are mostly made of
unrelated events, slowly morphing into a whole which is understandable. It is those clear
dreams that you are looking for to become lucid. Generally I have more Lucid Dreams toward
the end of my sleep than in the beginning. Given this, please dont think that the only time for
Lucid Dreaming is at night. You have far more chance of getting a Lucid Dream during a short
nap in the afternoon.
Just to temper your expectations: the first time that you will have a Lucid Dream you will
probably be so scared or so excited that you will loose focus and wake up. So, when you
manage to wake up in your dream: keep it cool and keep concentrated. Keep your feelings
under control, stay tranquil, focus and start experimenting. And do not worry when you drop
out of the dream: practicing makes perfect, and with practicing you will be able to keep better
concentration.
At some moment, when you are able to hold on to the Lucid Dream a bit longer, you will see
that when the dream comes to an end, the scenery slowly fades away and you will wake-up. In
order to prevent waking up you can try a method which I am just starting to use. It is called
spinning and it requires you to spin around in your dream-body like a top, just as kids do, as
soon as you notice that your dream is fading away. At the same time, repeat in yourself that the
next dream that you will be in is going to be a Lucid Dream. Continue the spinning until the
world around you becomes stable again. Please always check whether you are awake or
dreaming after spinning, as it might feel that you have awakened but actually are still in the
dreaming state.
Good to also know is that there are several levels of awareness in your dreams. First there is the
obvious non-consciousness state in which you remember nothing. Second there is something
which I call the Observer-state in which you are conscious but the whole dream seems to pass
by like a movie. Third, there is the state in which you have active consiousness where you can
do some steering. However, it depends very much on your proficiency level to what extend you
can steer what you see in your dream. It is all about willpower. Just think strongly about
something within your dream and you start manifesting it. It works quite a bit like the holodeck
in the Star Trek movies, which in the movies is also used for practicing real-live situations in a
simulated environment. However, unlike on the holodeck, where everything can be manifested
instantly, the more proficiency you show in the Lucid Dream the bigger things you are able to
manifest. This is one reason why some mystics say that Lucid Dreaming is nothing less than
teaching you how to manifest in the physical world.

If you are wondering: the level that I am currently at is that in most Lucid Dreams I am able to
actively interact with the characters that appear in my dream. And additionally I am sometimes
able to change scenery by just exercising willpower over it. But despite that, I definitely have
not yet reached the stages where you are so full in it that you can make about anything happen.
Whenever I say anything to people they always look at me with a naughty smile and ask me
Really everything?. Well, I have got the hint by now, and I have to say yes, it is possible to
engage in sexual activities in your dream. I have had such an experience in one of my Lucid
Dreams, but it might be a bit different than you would imagine. During the day I met this really
nice woman, and there surely was a mutual attractiveness. However, I was in the meditation
centre mentioned earlier, and was in a program which required me to be absolutely silent for
over a month, 24 hours a day. And I can assure you that being in silence does not help in
making contact with other people. But at night in my dreams I found myself floating around in
pure blackness stretching out to all sides. I looked at my body and noticed that it was made
completely out of bright white light. When I looked up I saw the woman that I had met that
afternoon, also floating in the blackness, with the same kind of light-body. Well, what a
coincedence! We floated closer to each other and our bodies just melted together into one big
blob of light. Then we started to make all kinds of perfect geometrical figures with our meltedtogether-bodies, which was not only great fun doing, but which also resulted in an orgasmic
feeling whenever a geometrical figure was completed. Indeed a bit different than usual.
Unfortunately, the next day I could not find the woman anywhere so I was not able to check
whether she had dreamed the same thing as I had. Despite that, I know that people sometimes
do dream the same dream. One of my best friends had this experience with his girlfriend, and it
definitely added some flavour to his relationship.
So, you are having these dreams in which you find all kinds of things, but what do they all
mean? Step into any bookstore, and you will find tons of books on dreamsigns. Personally, I
wouldnt buy any of these book. In my opinion dreamsigns are so personal that it is near to
impossible to write a book about them. If in your dreams you are climbing a large tree with
purple leaves this will relate to events in your life and not the life of someone else. Yes, there
might be something in the archetype of a large tree itself, like climbing your way up in society
or progressing in life, but I assure you that with some common sense thinking you hardly have
any troubles in figuring out what it all means for you. In figuring out clues please look at the
dream signs from various angles. Look at what the dreamsign might literally mean, but more
important: look at what it might mean figuratively speaking.
And I have got a little story on that. In a Lucid Dream I found myself on a tropical island, with
a beautiful white sand beach and palmtrees all over. On that island there was a little cabin, my
cabin, that contained many books on all kinds of topics. When I started to explore the island I
noticed another island, a bit bigger, quite close to the island that I was on. I noticed that the
two islands were seperated by a land bridge which was about two feet underwater. After
crossing the bridge and exploring this second island I found out that there was a cabin on this
island too, but filled with many more books than my cabin was. Within my dream I recognized
that these islands were respectively my consiousness and my subconsiousness, and that the land
bridge between them represented my ability to link the two. Well, the land bridge was still
underwater so now you know how far I got with that. So, when I was done exploring the two
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islands I saw a third island in the distance, it didnt take me too long to understand that this
third island on the horizon represented superconsiousness, which was not accessible yet.
In translating these dreamsigns I am not buying into the Freudian school that dreaming is
primarily to discharge a repressed instinctual impulse. In my belief dreams have a development
function. They help to stimulate psychological growth, change and transformation, by
providing a laboratory for harmlessly experimenting with various situations, even if you do this
unconsiously. I also have the opinion that not everything you see in your dreams has
significance. Or, as Freud himself would say: Sometimes a sigar is just a sigar. For me, those
things that appear in my dream and that have significance, feel that way in the dream. So I
hardly have troubles interpreting what I have dreamt, since I will discard the information if it
did not feel significant in the dream.
One of the more interesting Lucid Dreams that I had was when I was studying the Qabalistic
Tree of Life. I do not wish to go deeply into Qabalah here, but stick with the remark that if you
start studying this Tree of Life for some time you might end up actually meeting the various
guardians associated with this symbol. These guardians are apparently made of pieces of
information in the mind, and in dreams they take the shape of actual persons with which you
can interact, or even have to interact if you want to gain greater understanding of what the Tree
of Life is all about.
So, in the dream I found myself in McDonalds at the ground floor level, munging on a burger.
Suddenly I heard sounds coming from the first floor. I took the stairs up and found myself
among a large group of party-people. Being quite polite I asked if I could join the party, which
was OK with these people. It was a weird party: there was loads of very very greasy food and a
lot of wodka. At some moment there suddenly was a lot excitement in the corner and it turned
out that someone caught a snake. When this green snake was shown to me I noticed that the
head of the snake was actually the body of a little green man. In the dream itself this gave me
the first clue of which part of the Tree of Life I was dreaming of.
Then I decided to leave. But then the manager of the McDonalds came up to me and told me
that I had to pay for the party, since it was my party. Well, I really did not agree with him on
that but he was able to grab my wallet and take it from me. And since he was quite a big guy I
was not able to take it back. Feeling very out of power I ran down to the street to hail a police
car. One happened to just drive by at that moment, but as you might have already guessed it
just speeded away, leaving me standing on the sidewalk. I decided to go up again and do a little
power-playing with this manager. I approached him and asked him quite arrogantly if he knew
who I was, and told him that I could really get him into trouble. He just looked at me and asked
me if I knew who he was... So, that trick did not really work. Then I started to look at him
more closely and noticed that he had quite a friendly face and definitely had some likeability
over him. Consequently I told him that he looked like a nice guy and that I really did not
understand why he played such a trick on me. He only laughed, and handed me back my wallet.
I was then taken to another place where a whole new episode in the dream unfolded, which
gave me additional understanding of the Tree of Life.

This Lucid Dream had various interesting elements. First, it gave me insight in a lot of material
that I studied earlier that day. And it thus connected several dots into a coherent figure.
Furthermore, it learned me more about my standard behaviour in stressful situations and how
much more I would benefit if I just made some little changes in that behaviour. Thus the dream
seriously helped me to teach me about myself.
You might start to wonder if I take the advice that I get in my dreams as true. Well, would you
accept everything that you hear as true? I dont. It works just like in the real world. For me it
really doesnt matter who says something: I always check if I myself agree with what has been
said, regardless of the person who says it. So whether the advice comes from a friend, a
politician, a dream-character, or even you: I always check if it makes sense what I hear.
And for those wondering what I was doing in a McDonalds restaurant munging joyfully on a
burger: no, you really do not have to be a veggie to do stuff like this. And if you are a veggie
and have unsuccesfully tried to do Lucid Dreaming for several months I suggest that you might
start eating a good slab of grilled cow for a change.
Another interesting aspect within Lucid Dreams is moving from one scene to another, which I
usually call taking a wormhole. For me most of the times taking a wormhole is simply
taking a taxi. That means, when the scene is basically over I find myself in a cab that transports
me to the next location. Although I do it by taxi, I have heard various people using different
means of transportation, including just flying there themselves or opening certain doors in the
scenery as if it was a Loony Tunes cartoon.
An example of this is when I suddenly found myself in a chunky yellow-cab, the ones that you
see in cartoons. Being clueless about where we were going I asked the driver. He turned
around, and with a big smile answered: We are going to the Fifth Dimension. Well, that
surely was something to look forward to. After a quick taxi ride I ended up in a tent-camp in
the middle of the desert. The sky was dark indigo, filled with shining bright stars. The tents
were all yellow-red circus-like, both large and small, and there were people walking around in
yellow-red arabesque circus-dresses. I wandered around a bit before I shot out of the dream.
Their basically are no limits to learning in your Lucid Dreams. Other than in the physical world
you can try out things or do things differently, without being permanently damaged by your
actions. Especially those people with deeply rooted fears of things like touching spiders, being
alone in the woods, padding dogs, eating frog-legs, being around homosexuals, engaging in
public speaking, or whatever you may be afraid of. They might actually have a ball by engaging
in that very activity that they fear. And consequently releaving themselves from that fear.
For those of you wondering whether Lucid Dreaming resembles what is happening in
blockbuster-movie The Matrix when in the physical world the main character Neo plugs into
the virtual world and starts exploring this world: yes, it is quite similar to that. Though, unlike in
the movie you are not hurt in the physical if you are hurt in your Lucid Dream. When you are
doing a Lucid Dream you usually just wake up when something bad happens to you. Just as you
would in a nightmare.

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So you had this marvellous trip, gathered a shipload of information, woke up, and then. you
realize that you are not remembering anything of what you have just been dreaming, and are
only left with the notion that you had this wonderful Lucid Dream. How frustrating!
I had this once when in my dream this dodgy Westerner in a lotus position explained me the
true meaning of Infinity, with tears in his eyes. It was just a brilliant explanation, including a
whole line of reasoning to get to that conclusion. I found it so brilliant that in my dream I even
started to teach his words to others. Of course, when I woke up I only remembered the punchline, which was Whatever you do, wherever you go, you will always end up in the same place
as where you started.. The whole reasoning to get to that conclusion was gone with the wind. I
spend days frantically and unfruitfully searching the Internet to see if I could get anything back
in my memory.
There are several things you can do to help prevent this to happen. When you wake up, just
keep your eyes closed and go back to what you have dreamed. Do not move, not even a
muscle, as moving seems to release chemicals which help to forget your dreams. Try to
remember what exactly happened in the dream, including all the little nitty gritty details that
might pop-up. Especially try to remember the emotions that you had in your dream. Just keep
focus and dont let your mind wander away by starting to go off topic. Repeat this
remembering-process two times, until you are sure that you remember most of what happened.
Also, watch out that you do not fall asleep again, because in most cases you will loose what you
have just dreamed from memory. There is an exception to this, though. If you had this
wonderful dream, suddenly popped-out of it, and you have the feeling that there might be more
in the cookie jar: just close your eyes again and slow down your breathing to get back into lalaland. In most cases you will fly straight back into where you left.
So, you went through the dream several times, with your eyes closed. Now, open your eyes,
turn on the light, grab your notebook and start writing. You might not wish to bother,
especially if it is 3:00AM. But writing your experiences down will seriously train your brain to
start remembering more of your dreams and to become more awake in dreams. Some people
prefer drawing or painting to writing. Or use a tape-recorder to record their story. All is fine,
just do whatever seems to work for you.
Watch out for a so-called False Awakening here. This happens when you actually are
dreaming that you have woken up, after which you start writing your whole dream into your
notebook. It is only after really waking up that you realize that you were writing your dream
down in a notebook that only existed in your dream, thus producing some double work for
you.
When you have written everything down, reread it, and go back to sleep. If you are lucky
enough more dreams will come or you will continue where you left off. Usually when I am
doing some serious dreaming I have several dreams a night, with a record maximum of seven
so far. Not everyone of my dreams is lucid, but the more dreams the more chance of getting a
lucid one. Or in the words of late Chairman Mao: The larger the pond, the larger the chance
of big fish..

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I have also a tip for those of you that wake up very early and get grumpy when they see on the
alarm clock that they could have slept for another hour. Get up, do a little meditation of about
fifteen minutes and go to bed again. Since most Lucid Dreams seem to occur at the end of a
nights sleep, you will probably hit the jackpot right away.
So, when you have finally got this working for you and are at a proficient level, you probably
will be asking: What is the next notch up?. Well, to be honest, there always is a next notch up,
at whatever level you are. The next thing that you can try is to apply the same techniques when
you are daydreaming, something which many people do. Similarly, you might be able to apply
some of these methods in meditation. As I only just started to experiment with these there is
not much to comment on yet, but as soon as I got this working for me it will be in the next
edition of this talk. After daydreaming and meditation, the next notch up is falling asleep
without even losing your consciousness and actually observing your mind slowly moving into
the dreamstate while your body is fast asleep. There are some advanced yogis who seem to be
able to do that, so there still is a long way to go. And those who like to exercises their brain
probably like to ponder a bit on what difference there really is between the dreamworld they
were actively participating in, and the real world.
Well, this is about it. Thanks for listening to this Tool. I truly hope you get this technique
working for you, and gain more insight into yourself. If you by now consider me to be one of
the biggest fruitcakes around, please try Lucid Dreaming yourself and lets see who is the
fruitcake here. This Tool is open for contributions from you. So, if you have any new
information on Lucid Dreaming or found a technique that I do not know yet, please do not
hesitate to contact me so that I can add it to the next edition. I do teach about topics like this,
so please check out BalancingTools.com to see where I am at the moment and what there is to
teach.
I would like to finish with some big thanks. First of all there are many people who contributed
bits and pieces to this talk. Of the bigger pieces I already mentioned Chaty Secaira and her
meditation centre Las Pirmides del Ka in Guatemala, but the other people working there also
deserve a huge Thank You. Also, I want to thank psychic psychologist Rob Robb and his
tapes for inspiring me to actually publish talks about topics like this, you can visit his site with
some interesting stuff at robrobb.com.
Sleep well and happy dreaming, and remember what Edgar Allen Poe said: All that you see or
seem, is but a dream within a dream.

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