Video is below.

Some topics that came up include:

• How to break out of Cognitive Domestication

• Foundational practices for greater lucidity

• How positive mental habits become permanent traits over time

• The importance of playfulness for lucid dreaming induction (and why most people are working too hard)

• And what to do if you’re having TOO MANY lucid dreams.

Give it a whirl!  We used Skype to record it, so the video is a little jumpy in some places.

And here’s where to find out more about Lucid Immersion Blueprint.

One night in a dream, a tall and attractive man appeared outside my house wearing a naval officer’s uniform. I distinctly remember his blue jacket and white cap. He was a stranger, and yet I felt I could trust him. I let him in and he stayed to talk to me for a long time. Although I couldn’t remember our conversation, later that night I suddenly found myself practicing this technique:

I go back to sleep mindfully with the intent to have a lucid dream. I visualize a surfer picking up her board and then walking into the ocean holding it against her. She (I) walks through the surf—breathing in… the tide receding… breathing out… the tide flowing onto the shore.

Now mentally immersed in the scene, I see the surfer spreading herself across the board and paddling out toward the open sea, the motion of her arms the rhythm of my heartbeat. I equate the bed my body is resting on with the water beneath the board becoming ever deeper and softer.

Then, where the two opposing currents meet—waves flowing toward the shore and the waking world vs. the irresistible undertow pulling my thoughts into the dark depths of sleep—the surfer spreads herself across the board of her intent and observes the hypnagogic waves, frothing with images, waiting for the one she senses might be consciously surfed into a lucid dream.

Remaining mentally awake long enough to ride the hypnagogic waves dramatically increases the odds that once I fall asleep, I’ll be able to raise my head above a dream’s subconscious currents and declare — I’m dreaming!

The Surfer Technique is so much easier, and so much more fun, for me to practice on a nightly basis than concentrating on my breathing while focusing on successive parts of my body in an effort to relax. I totally lose patience with that, whereas I always enjoy deepening the surfer visualization by adding more sensual details—the temperature of the water, the feel of the ocean spray on my face, and so on.

The more real I make the experience, the more effective the technique seems to be.

The eye mask provides comfort against waking up too soon.

I also sometimes wear a sleep mask after four-o’clock in the morning, when lucid dreams are more likely to happen. I found this particular mask on amazon: the Clark Comfort Eye Mask–  it is quite comfortable; I have no problem falling asleep with it on as its gentle pressure helps focus my intent.

Wearing a sleep mask eliminates the concern my eyes will open—the board tipping over—and abruptly return me to the waking world.

Once awake in a dream, physical sensations help anchor my lucidity. I quickly touch different parts of my body, stripping off pieces of clothing if necessary, and plant my bare feet on the floor. I employ the classic technique of periodically raising my hands in front of my face and either thinking or saying out loud I’m dreaming.

It also helps me sustain lucidity when I keep looking around me instead of focusing for too long on one object, person or activity. Even when engaged in a conversation, every now and then I’m careful to look away from the dream character’s face.

Like a whale coming up for air, my Inner Self has the power to regularly rise up from the dark depths of sleep and take in the joyfully clear, life enhancing atmosphere of a lucid dream.

Author Bio

Maria Isabel Pita has traveled extensively and authored critically acclaimed paranormal, contemporary and historical romances in addition to the historical epic Truth is the Soul of the Sun-A Biographical Novel of Hatshepsut-Maatkare and the best-selling Kindle Single A Concise Guide to Ancient Egypt’s Magic and Religion.

Her lucid dream-related articles have been published in the Lucid Dream Exchange and her site Ancient Omnivore.

First Image Credit: Surfer Girls by PinCheck

The 2012 conference for the International Association for the Study of Dreams is June 22-26, 2012 in Berkeley, CA. If you are ready to connect with a dynamic dream research community, here’s your chance. Keynotes this year includes cognitive scientist Tracey Kahan, psychologist Patricia Garfield, and Fred Alan Wolf, aka Dr. Quantum.  Oh, and there’s over 160 other cutting-edge presentations and workshops as well.

I’m presenting two papers this year.

First, I’m chairing a symposium titled Lucid dreaming: Transpersonal Approaches. My paper is “Lucid Immersion: establishing a lucid sanctuary in everyday life.” Drawn from my recent project Lucid Immersion Blueprint, this paper is about how setting up a secure container is important for all lucid dreamers, but especially for those applying dreamwork as a spiritual life practice.

The second paper I’m presenting, part of a symposium on dream technology, is titled “The Quantified Dreamer.”  I’ll be reviewing the Zeo Sleep Manager, a home sleep-tracking device. Topics include Zeo’s scientific validity and limitations compared to in-lab EEG, as well as my personal experience using Zeo to test dream supplements, hunt out-of-body experiences and track other weird sleep phenomena.

So, besides the fact that I’ll be there, rocking out in my usual way, there’s pretty much something for every dream-enthusiast at the IASD’s annual conference:

• get CE credits if you’re currently in a US-based counseling program, as the IASD is a member of the American Psychological Association. 

• catch up on the latest clinical, anthropological and cognitive studies on dreams.

• attend tracks on dreamwork, lucid dreaming and psi, arts and humanities, and dream education.

Me and founding IASD member Rita Dwyer at the 2009 IASD conference in Chicago. Photo by Bhaskar Banerji

•  join one of the dozens of workshops that take you to the edge of the known dreamworld.

Still on the fence? On the last night, we all dress up as our favorite dream figures and dance like wild feral creatures.

What happens in the DreamBall stays in the DreamBall.

Learn more about the conference here. By the way, new members of the IASD get a break on the conference registration.

The good news is that your rate of success skyrockets when you know how to focus your motivation towards the tendancies and habits that frequent lucid dreamers do everyday.

Some of these come naturally —the way you sleep, or the way you are wired emotionally. Others are lifestyle habits that appear to push the buttons of the embodied mind for going lucid in a dream.

Below is the collective avatar—the personality traits and habits—of frequent lucid dreamers. I’m not saying all lucid dreamers have all these traits. (That would be kind of intense…)

But if you find yourself in just one or two of these traits below, you actually stand a really good chance for going lucid if you haven’t already. With further training, you could begin lucid dreaming with higher frequency too.

Without further adieu, 

you know you’re predestined to be a lucid dreamer if you:

Are a light sleeper.

Self-awareness is a delicate state associated with heightened cortical arousal during REM sleep. Light sleepers are especially wired for this. All hope is not lost if you are a heavy sleeper who usually collapses without any remembered awakenings, or if you rarely wake up from disturbances. Instead, you may want to consider biphasic sleeping and other sleep disturbance tactics.¹

Have time to sleep in.

Lucid dreams are more likely in the lengthy REM periods of the morning. If you are sleep deprived, and never have a chance to sleep in, it may be difficult to achieve the lucid zone. However, stealing away for an afternoon nap when your circadian rhythms naturally dip may be the second best time for lucidity.

Have good dream recall.

One of the advantages of being a light sleeper is that multiple awakenings lead to more remembered dreams. Regardless of how you sleep, without the skill of remembering dreams, there is no room for lucidity. Luckily, dream recall can also be improved—quickly too.² 

Have an ongoing mindfulness practice.

Developing lucidity in the dream world is impossible if you are not very “lucid” in waking life. That’s probably why meditators are also frequent lucid dreamers compared to the general population.³ Concentrative meditation strengthens the mind’s ability to stay focused for long periods of time and improves emotional intelligence. But if you are not into meditation, there are plenty of other hobbies you probably already enjoy that can focus the mind in similar ways.  

Have good spatial skills.

Strange, isn’t it? One crucial but often overlooked factor of self-awareness is maintaining centeredness during periods of dream flux: those times when your senses are confused and you don’t know up from down.  Lucid dreamers tend to have good balance and may be more field independent than non- lucid dreamers.⁴ This trait involves the degree to which you are influenced by inner or environmental cues in orienting yourself.  Having or starting an ongoing body practice—yoga or gymnastics for example—may increase your odds, and so may playing certain types of video games. 

Excel at multi-tasking.

Lucidity is a balance of knowing you are in a dream and being involved in the drama. Not surprisingly, frequent lucid dreamers perform well on cognitive tests like the Stroop Task, a psychological test that measures attention during interference of multiple tasks at the same time.⁵

Are creative and/or artistic.

Many lucid dreamers are creative people who tend to see outside the box. They are imaginative and prone to fantasy.⁶

Are sensitive.

There is also a correlation with spontaneous lucid dreamers and having thin boundaries, which is a psychological term for having high levels of social alertness, and sometimes, social anxiety.⁷ Self-awareness is a double-edged sword, as some frequent lucid dreamers are also prone to nightmares. If you have been told before, “You are too sensitive,” you may have the markings of a powerful lucid dreamer.

Are willing to take risks.

A 2011 study found that students who had more lucid dreams than their peers also performed better on the Iowa Gambling Task, a test that measures emotional-based decision making in unknown situations.⁸  This is an important clue about the importance of regulating emotions—and integrating them with other forms of cognition—for mastering lucid dreaming.  

Have a strong desire to stick with it.

Patience, in other words. We live in a culture of “instant success guaranteed!” But the truth is that most successful lucid dreamers have a strong, internal desire to become aware during their dreams. They don’t give up easily. They set intentions and keep trying.

Take mental breaks.

It’s also important to take a break now and again or you’ll just get frustrated, not lucid. Cognitive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Finding Flow, has much to say about the importance of idle time for all creative projects. Taking time off from a serious pursuit—be it an invention, a puzzle, or a quest to go lucid—allows “simple rules of association” to form.⁹ You got to know when to let your training seep in, and let the work go underground.

So do you find yourself somewhere in this collection of traits and habits? Chances are, you stand a pretty good chance of going lucid. Recent demographics suggest 1 in 2 people have had a lucid dream.¹⁰

It’s not actually that difficult to get started, provided you set strong intentions and follow through with effective practices for developing the embodied mind.

This essay is adapted from my ebook Lucid Immersion Guidebook, the central piece of the Lucid Immersion Blueprint.

First image: CC Dancing Statues by dixie_law

References

¹ LaBerge, S., Phillips, L, Levitan, L. (1994). An hour of wakefulness before morning naps makes lucidity more likely. NightLight, 6(3).

² Kahan, T. and LaBerge, S. (2011). Dreaming and waking: Similarities and differences revisited. Conscious and Cognition, 20, 494-514.

³ Gackenbach, J. (2010). Psychological considerations in pursuing lucid dreaming research. International Journal of Dream Research, 3 (1), 11-12.

⁴ Gruber, R.E., Steffen, J.J., & Vonderhaar, S.P. (1995). Lucid dreaming, waking personality, and cognitive development. Dreaming, 5 (1), 1-12.

⁵  Blagrove, M, Bell, E., Wilkerson, A. (2010). Association of lucid dreaming frequency with Stroop task performance. Dreaming, 20 (4), 280-287.

⁶ Schredl, M. and Erlacher, D. (2004). Lucid dreaming frequency and personality.  Personality and Individual Differences, 37, 1463-1473.

⁷ Galvin, F. (1990). The boundary characteristics of lucid dreamers. Psychiatric Journal of the University of Ottawa, 15, 73–78.

⁸ Neider, M., Pace-Scott, E., Forselius, E., Pittman, B., and Morgan, P. (2011). Lucid dreaming and ventromedial versus dorsolateral prefrontal task performance. Consciousness and Cognition, 20, 234–244.

⁹ Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity : Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper Perennial.

¹⁰ Schredl M, and Erlacher D. (2011). Frequency of lucid dreaming in a representative German sample. Perceptual and Motor Skills. 112(1):104-8.

Success in lucid dreaming requires the ability to navigate a realm where gravity is not guaranteed.  And where comfortable chats in a café can be interrupted by sudden feelings of spinning, drifting, or falling down an infinite chasm. During the REM dreaming state, as well as during hypnagogia, these sensations ebb and flow thanks to activation in the inner ear as well as the supercharged visual processing of REM.

That’s why working out the inner ear is the key to mastering the weirder aspects of lucid dreaming.

Phasic REM and Vestibular Land Mines

Lucid dreaming tends to occur during the active form of REM sleep known as phasic REM, which includes greater brain activity as well as more eye movements than tonic REM. 

Lucid dreams remembered from phasic REM often include awareness of vestibular (inner ear) hallucinations and intense bodily sensations as well.

It’s a trip.

How do you develop confidence during these weird experiences? I have already discussed how playing video games influence lucid dreaming, which combines saturation of an activity with often confusing visual stimuli: perhaps the perfect workshop for developing proprioception.

But we can also take a hint by looking at professional athletes, who reportedly have spontaneous lucid dreams that can improve motor skills and focus. 

Furthermore, Hindu yogis and Sufi mystics develop lucid dreaming as a side effect of their bodily training.

These bodily practices all have this in common: the development of balance.

Pick up a Balancing Act

Incorporating a body practice that develops balance and focus is key. If you have lucid roadblocks involving confusion or getting overwhelmed by dizzying sensations, bodywork can help with developing proprioception and field independence.

You don’t have to become a master yogi though. Just find some activity that is attractive to you and in line with your interests. Some enjoy martial arts, especially the energetic art of Tai Chi.

There’s also rock climbing, bouldering and sailing. Fly-fishing is another example—this is lucid dreaming expert Scott Sparrow’s preferred body meditation.

And don’t forget the Wii.

Inexpensive habits include walking the rail of abandoned train tracks at your lunch hour or following along with a yoga video online.

Even a daily walking meditation develops bodily awareness. Simply take a walk and attend only to your breath and your body as you navigate the landscape. When thoughts come up, acknowledge them, and let them go.

Immerse yourself in the lucid landscape

Me in the Mojave Desert, 2002: showing off a rare Rosewood Springs point. I had so many lucid dreams during that archaeological survey in the high desert of CA, I had trouble finding time to write them down.

Personally, I am an avid hiker, stream-walker, and rock scrambler.

Recently, I took a hike in which I walked a fallen tree over a rushing stream. That night, I had a challenging dream that took place on a steel girder high above the ground.  I found myself balancing just as I had on the tree trunk in waking life. As I slipped and almost fell, I noticed I could die and that thought led to lucidity.

Rather than escaping the scene or trying to fly, I stuck with the situational physics of the dream and found a solution that led me to safety.  

I also enjoy walking terrain to find historic and prehistoric archaeological sites. The practice is intuitive, leading me to prehistoric hunter’s camps, mound sites, and rock clusters where women once pounded acorns and cornmeal while telling stories.

The practice is mirrored in my dreams, where I often discover beautiful ruins, golden treasures, and flint knives glowing in streambeds. The discoveries in the dreams inevitably lead to lucidity.

The beauty of developing a body practice for your lucid life is that you can simply redirect new energy to the things you already love to do. The practice also keeps you grounded and prevents the flighty spinning out that can sometimes accompany an intense new focus on dreaming.

So what’s your balancing act?

—————————————

This article is adapted from my new digital kit the Lucid Immersion Blueprint, a how-to-guide for really encouraging lucid dreaming.

This is not the same old tired stuff about WILDS and DILDS you’ve heard before. 

Rather, it’s the latest research in lucid dreaming combined with the ancient wisdom of lucid dreaming lore: the best of the old and the new.

Find out more about the Lucid Immersion Blueprint here.

It’s called the Lucid Immersion Blueprint. This is the distillation of contemporary dream research, ancient dream practices and my own personal experience into a step-by-step plan for going deeper into lucid dreaming.

In a nutshell, this is the home study course I wish I had twenty years ago when I got started with lucid dreaming. It would have saved me a lot of frustration, confusion, and nightmares too.

The Immersion method is about playing smart, not working hard. This is the dream induction method I use to regularly double my usual lucid dreaming rate.

Lucid Life Practice: the Big Picture

But more than that, it’s a holistic life practice that soaks into your bones, encouraging lucidity not just in your dreams, but also in your waking life.

As you probably know as a reader of DreamStudies, I believe lucid dreaming comes naturally as a fruit of lucid living. The Lucid Immersion Blueprint shows you the nuts and bolts of how to set up a more lucid life in a sustainable way.

Check out this short video about what I’ve created:

 To learn more about my new digital course, here’s the link to the information page.

And if you’d like to help me spread the word, check out my affiliate program here.

The asclepieion on the island of Kos, where Hippocrates trained in dream interpretation.

Dream incubation is the art of inviting a dream into your life for problem solving or healing. The term comes from the Latin incubare, which means to lie down upon, or as we say today: just sleep on it.

How does this relate to lucid dreaming? Lucid dreaming induction can be thought of a specific form of dream incubation in which we are not looking for a dream message, but a specific form of dream cognition: self-awareness mixed with the magical thinking of the dreamworld.

The Great Forgetting

The practice of dream incubation is well documented throughout the ancient world, with deep roots in our Western culture. Over the centuries, however, Christianity slowly began pulling away from the idea that dreams can contain wisdom, leading to a loss of this important ability.  

But the writing is literally on the wall.

Statue of Aesclepius from the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece. CC: DerHexer, 2008.

The work of archaeologists and classicists has reconstructed the Western practice of dream incubation based on ruins, documents and statues. During the Hellenistic era (the first three centuries of the Common Era), the practice took place in dream incubation temples that were staffed by priest-physicians.

In fact, dream temples made up the single most popular spiritual healing institution in the Mediterranean world. These restful sanctuaries were designed to produce dreams that provided healing wisdom—and also instant cures—if we are to believe the boasts of ancient graffiti.

The dream healers of ancient Greece were also surgeons and herbalists, teaching their young doctors the art of empirical observation coupled with an environment of safety and spiritual cleansing.

Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, learned from his dream healing mentors to make empirical observations rather than simply following untested beliefs.

By the way, Hippocrates also wrote a medical dream dictionary that focused on a number of common dream symbols that indicate bodily ailments.  So cool.

The divine figure associated with these dream temples is Aesclepius, the Greek god of healing. When doctors take the Hippocratic oath today, they still give thanks to Aesclepius and his daughters.

Aesclepius was commonly depicted standing with a large staff with a snake curling up it, identifying his origins as an earth spirit related to healing and the animal powers.

5 reasons why the ancient dream temples are relevant to lucid dreaming

•    Sleeping practices. Clients slept on special ritual dreaming beds known as klines. More like a couch, the kline often included a stone neck or head rest, facilitating clients to elevate their heads and sleep on their backs. These sleeping styles are known today to encourage lighter sleep, more awakenings, as well as longer experiences in REM sleep.  Given the universality of sleep biology, it seems as if Aesclepian temples directly encouraged vivid dreams as well as realistic hypnagogic hallucinations.

•    Disruption of circadian rhythms. When those seeking healing crossed the threshold of the healing sanctuary, they entered an inner sanctum where sleep and prayer intertwined until a strong dream came. This pattern can also seen in Native American vision quests,  where disrupted sleep (and attempts at night-long vigilance) leads to powerful visions often involving visitations with larger-than-life figures.

•    Positive expectation. Clients hoped for and actively sought an interaction with a healing figure.  Priests and priestesses also whispered in the ears of the sleepers to encourage dreams of Aesclepius. Today we know that dreams can incorporate sounds and suggestions into the dream narrative, as well as smells. LaBerge’s DreamLight may be considered a modern variation of this technique.

•    Relaxation and cleansing. Before the intense dreaming incubations began, dreamers relaxed in baths, walked around the beautiful gardens around the temple, and took naps. They were removed from their everyday life in order to focus on healing. They also adhered to a cleansing diet while staying at the temples, further setting the stage for ritual purification in the final part of the healing process.

•    Good dreamsigns. Snakes roamed the temple unmolested. As an ancient symbol of healing, snakes are at the center of the Aesclepian worldview. Dreams about snakes were taken to be dreams of Aesclepius himself. So, physician-priests made good use of the startling presence of snakes. According to lucid dreaming educator Tim Post, this is the perfect example of an effective dreamsign: one that is focused, meaningful and has an element of the bizarre.

Introducing Lucid Immersion

This article is drawn from the Lucid Immersion Blueprint, which will be available for download Thursday, December 8! UPDATE: January 2, 2012.

Drawing from the wisdom of dream cultures like the Aesclepian sanctuaries, as well as the latest in lucid dreaming research, Lucid Immersion Blueprint is a home study course. 

The Blueprint sets you up with a container of mindful and structured rituals to effectively stimulate greater self-awareness in the dreamworld…. and waking life.

Interested? Watch my short video about Lucid Immersion. 

Mom was wrong: video games don’t rot your brain. 

Gaming can actually develop your focus, self-esteem, and mental balance; which are all useful skills for encouraging lucidity in dreams… and in waking life.

Lucid dream researcher-turned-technology psychologist Jayne Gackenbach has collected some solid evidence that playing video games may increase the chances of going lucid. In 2006, Gackenbach reported in the journal Dreaming that frequent gamers have more lucid dreams than those who don’t game at all.¹

Although this research is still in its infancy, it appears that playing video games can develop consciousness in similar ways as more traditional methods, such as meditation or chanting.

Gaming targets and augments several abilities simultaneously:

First, gamers develop concentration by engaging in a goal-oriented task amongst many distractions.

Secondly, gamers have a highly developed sense of proprioception, or knowing where their avatar is in relationship to the game matrix. Gaming appears to develop field independence, a psychological trait that has already been correlated with high lucidity levels.²

Finally, gamers have a “can-do” attitude and excellent self-esteem after playing, a trait that bleeds over into other aspects of your life. So if meditation is not for you, a regular gaming practice may actually develop your awareness.

I can't recommend lucidity training with violent games, unless you want to numb yourself down

Interestingly, gamers do not have more nightmares than non-gamers, even though they spend much of their waking awareness shooting zombies. On the contrary, playing violent video games may dampen your response to violence.³

So, when using violent first person shooters games to develop your awareness, ask yourself “what am I training for?”

You gain an appreciation for architecture after trying to recreate it. I keep accidentally building Norman castles.

Personally, I have been recently spending an inordinate amount of time playing the indie hit Minecraft. This game is styled after classic 16-bit first-person shooters, but it’s really a building game like SimCity with strong role-playing influences a la Final Fantasy.

There is no goal: you are free to build structures and terraform your world all while picking up resources and making tools. Currently, I spend my time building to-scale Neolithic megaliths on my private ice planet.

The game also encourages vigilance due to the zombies and monsters that come out at night, but it’s not a violent game unless you seek it out or hang out in dark caves.

Just like real life.

This article is drawn from my upcoming course The Lucid Immersion Blueprint, which with luck will be available for download in early December.

Sources

¹ Gackenbach, J. Video game play and lucid dreams. Dreaming, 2006, 16(2): 96-110.

² Gackenbach, J. (2010). Psychological considerations in pursuing lucid dreaming research. International Journal of Dream Research, 3 (1), 11-12.

³ Anderson, C. and Dill, K. (2000). Video games and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior in the laboratory and in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78,  772-790.

Emotions are often put aside when we are looking for ways to increase lucidity in dreams. This is definitely a missed opportunity, because by design dreaming is built upon emotional logic.

Navigating the lucid dream successfully, whatever your intention, demands the skill of dancing with the powerful emotional traces that construct and inform the dreamscape. This is a form of metacognition that involves being aware of your emotional state in the dream and making choices in light of this powerful force.

How emotions affect lucid dreams

Thanks to activation of the amygdala gland during REM sleep, our fight and flight responses are in overdrive during the dreamstate. Negative emotions far outweigh the positive: dreaming is not exactly the CandyLand depicted in popular media.

The most common emotions include fear, anxiety, anger, and confusion.

Dreamworker Jeremy Taylor has written eloquently about how facing fears and giving up unhealthy psychological projections in waking life can stir up dream lucidity. Emotional know-how can also help with dream navigation: so you can stay lucid in the dream for longer than a few seconds when it gets weird. (And it always does). 

The average dream: not exactly a stroll through Gumdrop Pass

As Robert Waggoner suggests in his excellent book, to maintain the lucid dreaming state, we must modulate our emotions. If we don’t learn this, we have a host of issues, from waking up too soon from excitement, to becoming enmeshed in the dream drama again.

Lucid nightmares, of course, are intense struggles against strong feelings that threaten to blow us out of the dream into a panicked awakening.

Remembering how to feel

Unfortunately, we are taught in our culture that emotions cannot be controlled and they are to be feared. Men especially are acculturated to always be strong and never cry. Meanwhile, women are taught that shopping, entertainment and distraction is the best way to calm down.

Essentially, we live in an emotionally undeveloped culture that rewards (and profits from) us not knowing how we are feeling. As a result, when we embark on a quest for more awareness and choice in our dreams, we can be blindsided by emotional surges that we never expected and don’t know how to handle.

Growing gratitude

With this in mind, working with your emotions takes some training.

Start with gratitude. It’s easy and… so refreshing.

Gratitude evaporates one of the greatest lucidity killers: negative expectation. Given the major role that expectation plays in lucid dreaming outcomes, gratitude as a practice protects the dreamer by grounding the lucid mind in a spirit of trust and confidence.

Gratitude in waking life spills into the dream when we need it the most: when we’re scared, facing dark truths and being challenged by terrifying dream figures.

(Don’t get me wrong: sometimes we need to face shadows. In fact, that’s another emotional skill set altogether.)

Interestingly, the effects of gratitude extend into sleep physiology. A 2009 study suggests that gratitude is correlated with good sleep quality above the effect of all the other personality traits.

It just feels good to pay respect. The world deserves a little more love. And so do you.

The practice of Ho’oponopono

Gratitude must be rooted in forgiveness. Especially self-forgiveness.

In Buddhism, this is known as maitri, or complete self acceptance. Pema Chödrön writes, “Only when we relate with ourselves without moralizing, without harshness, without deception, can we let go of harmful patterns.” (2002 p. 25).

Self-acceptance in the lucid dream is a powerful place to lean against; allowing flexibility and courage when the dreamworld shifts and moves with the visionary intensity of REM.

I recommend repeating a Hawaiian reconciliation affirmation, known as Ho’oponopono. (pronounce each o like “oh”:  Ho-o-pono-pono. In Hawaiian, it’s said very quickly.)

Traditionally, this ritual is used when someone is ailing, or during community conflicts, guided by a ritual authority.

I’m very careful to not culturally appropriate native ceremonies. But this practice has been offered to the world by Hawaiian elder and kahuna Morrnah Simeona, who modified the traditional chant and philosophically integrated it with both Eastern and Western cosmologies.

Recently, the practice of Ho’oponopono was clinically investigated as a relaxation method. The practice resulted in significant drops in both diastolic and systolic blood pressure, showing that the practice could be useful as a complementary therapy in many medical settings, including the treatment of hypertension.

Try the following affirmation in waking life. It’s particularly effective (and sometimes mindblowing) with your romantic partner. In the dream, the practice of Ho’oponopono can also be grounding, courage building and love infusing.

Repeat slowly, and mean it:

I love you
I’m sorry
Forgive me
I’m thankful.

Recently, I tried the affirmation while looking at myself in a mirror, in a lucid dream:

I watch my reflection morph and shimmer as I repeat the words. My visage changes from uncertainty to acceptance. Now I have a beard, as well, and look older than I am in my waking life. My heart opens as I forgive myself. As I say the words, the mirror becomes like a sheet of mercury. I tap it with my fingers and concentric rings dance across it. I slip inside it, dissolving into a dark and spacious space. Now I have no dream body, and I breathe fully, protected and safe in the dark void. (10/10/11)

What would happen if this affirmation was the way we started every day?

Or the standard greeting for meetings of the United Nations?

We would live in a more lucid world.

This essay is excerpted from my forthcoming project Lucid Immersion: a holistic blueprint for conscious dreaming. The blueprint should be available in the next month or so… stay tuned.

First Image: Forgiveness by Taston CC 2008

This is a special year, as several founding lucid dream researchers—including Stephen LaBerge—are kicking off the event with a one day pre-conference workshop “Lucid dreaming, Consciousness and Non-duality.” This workshop is really a once-in-a-lifetime reunion: it’s well worth the road trip.

Other notable lucid pioneers in attendance include:

• Gregory Scott Sparrow, author of the 1976 book Lucid dreaming: Dawning of the clear light and founder of Dream Star Institute
• Jayne Gackenbach, technology psychologist and co-author with Stephen LaBerge of the foundational academic text on lucidity, Conscious mind, sleeping brain.
• Fariba Bogzaran, co-author of Extraordinary Dreams and how to work with them and founder of the Dream Studies program at John F. Kennedy University.
• Patricia Garfield, author of the 1974 lucid dreaming classic Creative dreaming and co-founder of the International Association of the Study of Dreams.

Stephen LaBerge's keynote presentation is an overview of lucidity "from science to transcendence."

That’s just the half the line up! All the workshop participants are discussing the cutting edge of spirituality and lucidity: how the remarkable (and learnable) lucid dream state is a gateway to mystical experiences that have been the subject of poetry and sacred literature for eons.

Zooming out, this pre-conference workshop is a warm up the 2011 Science and NonDuality Conference (SAND), a dynamic meeting grounds for scientists, spiritual teachers and philosophers to share the fruits of 21^st century wisdom. The conference runs from October 20-24, 2011.

Keynotes for SAND include A. H. Almaas, Ken Wilber, Dean Radin, Michael Harner and Fred Allan Wolf.

When: October 19, 9am-6pm

Cost for the workshop: Full-day $130 or half day $65. (SAND conference attendance is separate)

Location: Embassy Suites Hotel – 101 McInnis Parkway, San Rafael, CA 94903

Here’s more information about the SANDS lucid dreaming workshop.