Lucid Dreaming: How to Control Dreams While You Sleep

Lucid dreams consist of becoming aware, “wake up” within the dream while we continue sleeping. It has been estimated that at least 70% of the population have these experiences spontaneously. However, we can all induce them through practice, As we will see in the final section of this article.

Lucid dreaming is a field of experimentation with infinite possibilities. Realizing that we are dreaming, we have the opportunity to…

Visit places we’ve never been including outer space.Free fly or jump from a precipice without fear of hurting ourselves.Front facing monsters or situations that cause us fear with the certainty that we are safe.Display powers superhuman. Travel to the past or the future. Make our sexual fantasies come true. Thanks to this freedom we have, we can explore parts of our unconscious that we do not know, while we develop our intuition, since it is a highly creative experience.

Why be aware of our dream world

We should all pay attention to our dream world, since thanks to it we access the non-visible part of the iceberg, everything that is submerged under consciousness.

Carl Gustav Jung compared it to a mansion from which we only know a small part. When dreaming, we lose ourselves in the corridors and stairways of our mind. We enter secret rooms that surprise us, as well as storage rooms where we discover relics from the past. Sometimes we enter rooms flooded with clarity and beauty that take our breath away. Through the windows, we see sublime landscapes, with trails that lead to places never imagined.

In our mansion of the unconscious we will also meet people.

Some will be familiar to us and others will not. Depending on the door we open, a beautiful prince or a fearsome monster will appear. Dreams are like stories through which the unconscious communicates with us, so everything that happens has something to teach us. In fact, Jung dreamed more than once that he was literally wandering through a mansion. As he explains in his book Memories, Dreams and Thoughts:

“I was in a house unknown to me that had two floors (…). When descending to the ground floor, everything was somewhat dark. I would go from one room to another and think: now I have to explore the whole house. I came to a heavy door and opened it. Behind her I discovered a stone staircase that led to the basement. I went down and found myself in a beautiful and very old vaulted room (…). I also observed the pavement that consisted of tiles. In one of them I discovered a ring. Pulling it raised the slab and again I found a ladder. It had very narrow stone steps that led to the bottom. I went down and came to a small cave. On the floor there was a lot of dust, bones and broken vessels, like the remains of a very ancient culture. I discovered two half-destroyed human skulls and apparently very old”.

A method to release complexes, blockages and repressions

Dream lucidity is also very effective in freeing our mind from complexes, blocks and repressions. AND It can be especially useful to combat fears and phobias, as Alejandro Jodorowsky did in this dream that he explains in his book Psychomagic:
“Once I wanted to know what it was to die: I threw myself from the top of a building and crashed to the ground. Immediately, I found myself alive in another body, among the crowd that was looking at the body of the suicide bomber. Thus I discovered that the brain does not know death.

Many people take advantage of these trips to communicate with people who have passed away. In my case, after the death of a cousin who was like an older brother to me, he appeared for years in my dreams and we held conversations that allowed me to grieve.

On another occasion, during a lucid dream, I was visited by an unknown teacher who brought a message for me. It happened at the end of spring, when he was entertaining the idea of ​​founding a small publishing house. I was in the garden of a hotel, when a man with long white hair approached me.

—I come to ask you not to carry out this project that you have in mind. Instead, I suggest you do something else.

It was the first time he had received such precise orders through a dream, so I questioned him consciously so that I could know what he expected of me. The white-haired man explained his alternative plan, which involved a nine-month task that would lead me to discover unknown aspects of myself, he assured me. I don’t know if this mentor was a teacher from elsewhere or my future self, as a psychologist friend suggested to me later, but I attest that the new path that he pointed out to me in that dream is really the right one.

The lucid dreaming technique: looking for “glitches”

Although our dreams are simpler, we are lucky to have access to our secret mansion every night, whatever form it takes. And if we develop this lucidity – realizing that we are dreaming without actually waking up – that is when we can move around it at will and discover all its secrets.

Lucid dreams allow us to have a certain degree of consciousness within the dream, control our steps within these wonderful scenarios and full of teachings. Fascinated by these journeys into the unconscious, in 2004 I published the fable El castillo de los 9 espejos. In its first edition I signed with the name of the protagonist, Irene Mond, but in its updated 2020 edition, at the editor’s request, I have used my own name.

It tells the story of a young woman who, after losing her way in life, begins to see a therapist who specializes in lucid dreaming.

In the first consultation, he proposes to Irene that she enter the mansion of her unconscious to discover nine mirrors, one every night, that will gradually reveal an aspect of herself that she needs to know. When Irene asks how to achieve this lucidity, the therapist explains:

“There are many techniques to achieve this, but it is essential to pay attention, even if you are sleeping. In dreams, the known world often has glitches, as if the setters have worked in a hurry: doors and windows may not be where they usually are, elements from different people or places may be mixed up, or things may happen. that defy terrestrial logic: you know, soaring into the air and all that. When you detect one of these signs, you should tell yourself ‘I’m dreaming’.

Practical exercise to become a dream traveler

Although there are people who have lucid dreams spontaneously, the profession of oneirauta, that’s what the dream travelers are called, can be trained:

Avoid stimulants and alcohol. A prerequisite for dreaming is to enjoy a deep rest. For this reason, from early afternoon you should avoid caffeine (coffee, tea, chocolate…). Nicotine also makes it difficult to sleep and causes us to wake up during the night. Likewise, alcohol must be dispensed with before going to sleep, as it makes our sleep more fragile and superficial.Display an image to take off. If you want to lucidly dream about a particular place or person, it will be very useful to have an allusive image before you close your eyes. If, for example, you want to chat with someone who is no longer in your life, spend some time talking to her in front of her portrait. Tell him that you are going to meet her and that you really want to talk to him or her. If it is a particular space, looking at photos, filming or documentary will help the secret dream office to prepare the “movie” that you are going to live.Find the differences. There are many clues that tell us that we are in a dream. Detects differences with respect to reality in wakefulness. People behave differently, or appear dead. We go back in time or see acquaintances as they were long ago. We live a forbidden romance or are persecuted in an unexpected way. We take big leaps, fall down ravines or go at impossible speeds, or we get paralyzed and, for no apparent reason, we can’t move forward. Often we are missing an item of clothing while walking or waiting for the bus.Meditate before the lucid trip. Any mindfulness technique favors lucid dreaming, as it makes us aware of everything that happens inside our mind. Psychologist and dream specialist David Fontana suggested this simple technique: “Choose a place that is as quiet as possible and sit cross-legged on a straight chair or on the floor. To begin with, it will be enough for you to meditate for five minutes. As you progress in practice, you can lengthen its duration until you reach about 20 minutes. Lower your lids so that only a faint sliver of light enters your eyes, or close them completely, if you prefer, and it doesn’t make you drowsy.”Write a dream journal. A notebook and a pen on the nightstand is the basic kit for any oneraut to explore the nights. Write down each morning the most interesting details of the adventure you just had. The more dreams you remember, the easier it will be for you to become aware when you begin to travel within them.