So what addition lessons have I learned since the 15 day mark?

1) Keep your pen in your journal on a blank page. Makes it much, much easier to just flip open your journal and write first thing in the morning. You won’t believe how much momentum you lose just in those few moments of looking for a blank page, and sometimes you’ll even write in the dark which makes fumbling impossible.

2) I’m still waking up in the middle of the night after a dream. Bah. A friend of mine who’s done the same thing assures me that it stops after a while.

3) Most of what I remember seems to be from the tail-end of a dream. I have this feeling sometimes that the dreams I can remember are only the ones that happen closest to waking time, and not the whole night’s. Can any experienced lucid dreamers verify this?

4) Dreams reflect reality. I’ve definitely had dreams where stuff that happened that day was reflected in the dream, but in a weird way. Perhaps dreams are a form of defragging after all?

5) Some dreams are stronger than others. Sounds obvious, but some dreams you remember with such emotion, while others only feel like passing scenes. You wonder if the stronger dreams have a deeper meaning or purpose…I had a really dream last night where the last line I uttered was; ‘there is a better world’ before I knocked into the alarm clock and caused myself to wake up (Jung would scream synchronicity!).

6) Some dreams repeat. While I can’t say why, I’ve realized that I’ve been to some dream places more than once, and some people appear in my dream again and again.

7) I still haven’t had one lucid dream yet. Hmmmm.

Even though I still haven’t had one lucid dream yet, this 30 day trial has been interesting. I’m going to extend this another 30 days, because I still feel it’s a fun skill to learn, it doesn’t cost anything except a few moments in the morning, and after 30 days of writing down my dreams, it’s become a habit.

P.S. If you want to join me in my lucid dreaming journey, Bill runs an entire blog with articles about lucid dreaming you can read at Lucid Blog.

Have I managed to lucid dream? Not yet, but I very nearly managed to twice. The first time I was dreaming, then consciously remembered I needed to wake up for work and then woke up.

The second time I dreamed someone was holding a baby crocodile close to my friend’s face (I know, it doesn’t make sense but hey, that’s dreaming for you), I was so agitated I started willing myself to push his hand away. I could feel the will and emotion to move welling up stronger and stronger – which caused me to wake up.

Seems like it’s true, any excited emotions will cause the dreamer to break out of the dreaming state into wakefulness.

For the record, I’ve managed to record 8 out of 15 nights’ worth of dreaming. Some mornings I couldn’t remember my dreams upon waking, some mornings I had to rush to get out of bed, and I confess, some mornings I was too lazy to write them down.

Here are some interesting observations I’ve made so far.

1) Dreams are easier to remember when you wake up naturally. The sudden jolt of being woken up by an alarm clock tends to drive the dream memories away.

2) Dreams repeat. Looking back at what I wrote, it’s interesting to see people and themes repeating themselves. I have no idea what this means.

3) Some dreams feel like a defragging process. They seem to be reflections on what’s happened during the day or in the recent past, as if the brain processes waking experiences during dream-time…I’m not sure what this means either.

4) I’ve started to wake up after dreaming. I’m not sure if it’s because of my intention to write down my dreams after waking, but I’ve woken up in the middle of the night immediately after finishing a dream. If I go back to sleep, I’ll dream another. It’s interesting, even though it’s breaking my sleep, because I sometimes have the feeling I’m only remembering the tail-end of my dreams closest to waking time.

5) Never trust that you can remember your dreams. I remember waking up remembering most bits of it perfectly, and telling myself I can write about it later…only to forget.

6) Never press the snooze button. I can remember my dreams best if I wake up and write them down immediately. If I hit the snooze button they tend to be lost within those few minutes of drifting in and out of sleep.

7) My handwriting sucks. Already so in normal life, even worse when I just wake up, and extremely bad in the dark. Luckily it’s still halfway-readable.

You remember your dreams better when you sleep better. When I don’t get enough sleep I can hardly remember anything.

9) And most encouraging of all, it’s possible. A friend of mine read my first post about lucid dreaming…and managed to lucid dream a few nights later. Rock on!

Back in November I shared the 9 Rules To Get Out Of Plateaus in which I realized why I was stuck in one and how to get out of it.

One of the 9 rules was to constantly improve, and I had to ask myself: in what do I want to improve myself and how?

After all, I had studied Neuro-Linguistic Programming, hypnosis, martial arts…how do I take my personal development to the next level, and what would be fun?

Then I asked…why not learn how to make my dreams real? Why not master…the art of lucid dreaming?

I’d heard of lucid dreaming before, but really got intrigued after reading Steve and Erin Pavlina’s personal experiences on their blogs (read Learning to Fly by Steve and listen to Erin’s podcast on lucid dreaming).

Lucid dreaming is when you become aware that you’re dreaming and can manipulate the dream to your liking. Lucid dreams appear as real as reality, if you dream you’re flying you actually feel as if you’re really flying. And thus, all your dreams become real…that’s the (clever) catch

Who wouldn’t want to be able to fly, shape reality at will, and not just spend all those hours at sleep unconscious?

3 Steps To Make All Your Dreams As Real As Life

Now, with a little research, I found that most lucid dreaming tutorials follow these basic steps:

1) Start by remembering your dreams.

Keep a dream journal by your bed, and everyday when you wake up jot down all the dreams you remember. It helps to focus on the intention to remember all your dreams before you fall asleep each night.

2) Practice staying conscious up until the moment before you fall asleep.

Erin describes this technique in her podcast, you keep yourself as conscious as possible in the twilight between the waking and sleeping world as you fall asleep, until you slip naturally into sleep and your conscious awareness with you.

3) Recognize dream-signs and stay calm.

While dreaming, practice recognizing signs that you’re dreaming. You might see an upside-down building for example, and realize that you’re in a dream – now stay calm! Any excited emotions might stir you out of the dreaming state. Remain cool, and start testing the dream environment – fly, for example!

My 30-Day Dream Trial

Following Steve’s 30-day trial technique for making personal changes, I’m going to devote the next 30 days to the first step in making my dreams lucid by keeping a dream journal.

In-between and at the end of 30 days I’ll update my progress and learnings.

This should be fun