Life Hackery

How would you like to fly over your neighborhood, over mountains and seas with the clouds all around you, and the wind on your face? How would you like to share a very intimate moment with your crush, perhaps kissing her on a bright sunny day in a beach? Sounds impossible? Not when you’re dreaming.

The good news is you can actually learn to control your dreams. This is called lucid dreaming, and it starts when you become aware that you’re in a dream while you’re sleeping. Inducing lucid dreams takes a lot of practice, but once you master it, you’ll be able to do anything in your dreams.

• Recall your dreams: The first step to control your dreams is to recall them. Some people say they don’t dream, but that’s not true. All people dream, but not everyone remembers their dreams. Dream recall is important because later on, you’ll have to identify certain “dream signs,” and this is only possible if you can recall a large part of your dreams. Another reason why you should recall your dreams is that it’s very likely that you’ve already had lucid dreams before, but you’ve forgotten them when you woke up.

The best way to remember your dreams is to make sure that you get enough sleep at night. Fatigue clouds focus, and you’ll notice that you have less dreams when you’re tired. Another technique is to run through your dreams immediately when you wake up. Close your eyes and try to remember the sequences of events, the objects in the dream, and the people involved. Repeat the dream’s summary to yourself during the day to ingrain them in your mind.

• Keep a dream journal: The easiest way to remember your dreams is to keep a dream journal. A dream journal is simply a notebook that you keep within reach of your bed. Some people also use a tape recorder for easier recording. Upon waking, focus on what you dreamed of, and then write the essential points down in the notebook. To remember the proper sequences of events, ask yourself, “What was I doing before that?”

• Recognize dream signs: Dream signs are cues that you are dreaming. Most dream signs are weird or highly impossible in the real world, but you accept them as normal in the dream world. Common dream signs include: flying, falling down a seemingly endless cliff, being chased by a monster, walking across a road without getting hit by a car, or saying odd things like, “Drink your coffee, so you can see Santa Claus.”

Some personal dream signs though, are quite ordinary, so keeping a dream journal is a must. You should be able to identify recurring dream signs when you’ve made several entries in the journal. Whatever your dream signs are, try to remember them throughout the day and before you go to sleep. If you’re successful, they should be able to alert you that you’re dreaming: for example, if you find yourself having a conversation with a talking clock, you should be able to say, “Wait a minute, I’m talking to a clock. I must be dreaming!” and that should launch you into a lucid dream state.

• Question everyday events: One way to recognize the weirdness of dream signs while you’re dreaming is to train your mind to question things. Ask yourself during the day if the events that are happening are logical, weird, or rare. Once your mind gets used to questioning the things around you, recognizing the strangeness of dream sequences will be easier. It takes a long time to train your mind to think this way, but it should prove useful when you’re already seeing giant chihuahuas in your dream.

• Focus on what you want to dream about: Lay in your bed at night, and concentrate all your thoughts on what you want to dream about. For instance, if you want to dream about your crush, picture her face close to yours, what she wears, and how she sounds like. Imagine also the setting that you want for your dream, whether it’s in a luxurious hotel, beach, garden, or even your home. Turn off your cellphone and avoid all other distractions while you go through these thoughts. It’s better if you’re able to fall asleep with these pictures in your mind.

• Wake-back-to-bed (WBTB) technique: Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is a stage of sleep where your large voluntary muscles become paralyzed, and your brain activity becomes doubled. REM sleep is typically the stage when people dream. REM cycles get longer as the night goes on, which means you’ll be able to have more dreams if you can wake up later in the night, and then sleep again to catch these longer cycles.

In the WBTB technique, you have to sleep tired and then wake up five to six hours later. Focus all your thoughts on lucid dreaming for an hour, then go back to sleep. If you can induce lucidity while you’re dreaming during this time, you should be able to have longer lucid dreams and a higher chance of controlling your dreams.

• Adjust your sleep cycle: Another way to induce lucid dream is to adjust your sleep cycle. First, set your alarm clock to 90 minutes before your normal wake time. Wake up at this time every day until your body gets used to it. Next, alternate waking up at your normal wake time, and adjusted wake time. Your body should try to wake up at normal wake times, increasing your alertness in your dreams and making you more lucid.

• Stay half-awake, half-asleep: The hypnagogic stage of sleep is within the border of being awake and being asleep. Your chances of inducing lucid dreams increase if you can enter this stage of sleep. You can try to listen to soft music as you lay in bed, keeping your mind focused on the notes or lyrics of the song. Some people also chant to themselves, control their breathing, or picture themselves climbing or descending stairs. As you enter the lucid dream, you’ll feel like drifting into another dimension, where the images you’re trying to visualize gradually sharpen and become more real.

• Take some lucid dream supplements: Nonprescription lucid dream-inducing capsules are now available on the market. There’s no guarantee of course that these drugs work, but lots of people say that they at least help them have more vivid and memorable dreams. Lucid dream supplements (LDS) balance the levels of dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, and norepinephrine in the body, enhancing your ability to keep your self-awareness in the dream. These drugs are safe, and you can take them while doing the other techniques in inducing lucid dreams.

• Use lucid dream induction devices (LDIDs): Dreams can be affected by external stimuli. In some cases, simply hearing someone mention a name of a person while you’re sleeping is enough to include the actual person in your dream. LDIDs use this idea to alert you of the fact that you’re dreaming. Typical LDIDs include masks with lights that stimulate your eyes, beeping devices that go off while you’re dreaming, or vibrators that are placed on the hand. You can purchase many of these devices online.

The possibilities of lucid dreams are limitless. Some expert lucid dreamers even say that they can induce lucid dreams where they’re making love with the people they’re attracted to. Others can induce dreams of flying above oceans with jumping dolphins beneath them. Remember that controlling your dreams takes practice. Don’t get frustrated if you fail to be lucid in your first few tries. Keep on recording your dreams and remembering dream signs, and you’ll soon bend the sandman to your will.