The art of lucid dreaming and out-of-body experience is grounded in concentration and will power. If you decide to do it, if you want to do it, and if you persist in your efforts to do it – then you will succeed. That said, there are certain factors that can influence the degree of success.
First off, your relationship to sleep. If your body is tired then it will take its fill of unconsciousness until it is no longer tired. There is little point in trying to attain the lucid state if you are mentally or physically exhausted. Conversely, if you go to bed with any problems or issues nagging your mind, it will opt for consciousness as a means to deal with them, rather than abandoning itself to sleep. There are occasional exceptions to both these sets of circumstances (especially when first starting out on practice), but for success in the long run it is important to approach this work with a fully rested body and mind.
A sure-fire way to ensure that you are fully rested and fit to try for the lucid state is to oversleep.
Make some time and have a lie-in for an extra hour or two. Or take an extra nap in the afternoon.
Some people – myself included – find the sensations that arise from oversleeping a tad unpleasant. I usually feel heavy, torpid and irritable if I’ve had too much sleep, yet I’ve never encountered any evidence that these symptoms lead to any lasting harm. It’s best to regard any effects from oversleeping as simply an occupational hazard. Their effects can be overcome by physical exercise and stimulating yourself mentally.
The art of lucid dreaming is a form of concentration meditation, or ‘shamatha‘, and it is advisable to practise straight-up shamatha in addition to lucid dreaming. To become good at shamatha it’s vital to learn patience and acceptance. There will be prolonged periods when lucidity eludes you. This is because it is in the nature of mind to frustrate the demands and expectations of the ego. Resist the temptation to become frustrated or disconsolate. Resist also the urge to focus on a perceived sense of failure. Rest the attention instead upon the object of your practice; upon what is, rather than your reaction to it.
As in concentration meditation, in which we re-focus the mind back on the object whenever we notice it has wandered, so in lucid dreaming practice we constantly abide with whatever arises, rather than identifying with our response. Lack of lucidity is simply that; it needn’t be the occasion for getting swept away in some self-recriminatory story.
To lie on the back whilst sleeping is very helpful; I don’t know why. So is learning to keep still in bed, not moving the limbs but keeping the attention focused upon bodily sensations, without opening the eyes. This can keep you ‘in the zone’ of the lucid dreaming state when it becomes difficult to sustain it, or when a dream ends and you’d like to begin another one.
A recent article in New Scientist (Ananthaswamy, 2009) described some research that suggested out-of-body experience is connected with activity in a region at the back of the brain, called the temporoparietal junction (TPJ).
This region seems to be concerned with spatial and proprioceptive awareness and the sense of embodiment (p. 35). Separate studies confirmed the activation of this region in people with neurological disorders that had resulted in sensations of disembodiment; but also in healthy subjects who had been set a task in the laboratory of merely imagining their body to be in a different position from its actual position (p. 36).
My own experience suggests that there is something very helpful in this research. Visualising yourself spinning around or falling backwards can help induce the lucid or out-of-body state, when done correctly. Your visualisation should focus on the bodily sensations that would arise from the spinning or falling, rather than the purely visual effects.
Even more effective, I’ve recently discovered, is simply to imagine (in the same way) as strongly and persistently as you can, whilst falling asleep, that your body is in a different position from its actual position.
If you are lying on your back, imagine that you are lying on your side or front, or are standing next to the bed. Each time the mind wanders or the visualisation loses its intensity, bring back awareness to it.
I made the unexpected discovery that, even whilst awake, persisting in this provokes unusually vivid mental images to arise quite automatically, alongside the physical sensations that are consciously being imagined. The look-and-feel of these visual images was strikingly like those of a lucid dream, even though I was still fully awake.
The intensity of the imagery increases as sleep approaches, until finally it is entered into entirely. But for some reason there seems a much higher chance of regaining consciousness in the dream that has arisen by this means, rather than from simply falling asleep naturally.
The scientific research has left the neurologists wondering: ‘how are the self and body related?’ (p. 36). I suppose this seems a valid question – if you’re a dualist! But perhaps what is happening is simply what it ‘seems’: our body-identity-world is a unity and will coalesce from any sensations to hand. If those sensations come from non-material images rather than physical sensations then we have re-clothed ourselves in a different mode of both world and being.
Reference
Anil Ananthaswamy (2009). The mind unshackled. New Scientist (10th October) 35-6.
Thank you for this it has proved very useful. Overslept last week while on holiday in Cornwall (more sleep than usual) and used spinning technique. Next thing I know I’m back in my house in London. Popped into bathroom and put hand in bath to check sensory perception (why was the water cold?). Went out into the street and met man with face painted red. Following your lead asked him who was in charge. He seemed most taken aback and started stuttering. At this point woke up. Had been contemplating the correct attribution of mars on the tree of life the previous evening so don’t know if this was connected. Maybe he was expecting a question on that topic.
Anyway my first lucid dream for some time so thanks again.
Hi Antony! Glad it worked out. Like all methods for inducing ludicidy, however, I’ve found that it falls under the law of diminishing returns. Which is another thing that convinces me all this stuff is a form of concentration practice… the more you chase it, the more you end up just chasing rather than experiencing it… Once you stop caring and relax back into it again, suddenly you get results!