Lucid Dreaming & Astral Projection: Practice

Entering The Astral World

Hello World.

As I personally never had the pleasure to experience either one of these things, I have researched  ways on how to induce these states, here's a little guide, so give it a try!

(remember lucid dreaming doesn't necessarily have to be induced, it may also happen completely by accident when you "wake up in a dream" and I'm sure you've woken up in a dream before, but instead of staying in the dream, our minds get too excited and literally wake ourselves up in the physical world)

Things you should do during the day

During your day to day life, perform reality checks. 

Ask yourself a couple of times during the day... "am i dreaming?", and truly ponder the question...

When entering a room, flick the light-switch once or twice, and watch the light go off and on.

(in a dream, the light won't go off or on, the atmosphere would stay exactly as it was)

Try to physically put your index finger through your palm ( i know it sounds ridiculous) but simply imagine pushing your index finger through your palm without any problems, and seeing it coming out on the other side, do this a couple of times during the day.

(In a dream your index finger would go through your palm because anything is possible!)

Check fine writing on your surroundings, or even check your watch from time to time.

(In your dream fine details are distorted because we don't pay attention to them)

Get into the HABIT of doing these things. The Habit is the key. All of these techniques make a crucial difference in telling whether you are dreaming or not.

By making these things a habit, you are transferring them into your subconsciousness. Since your dreams are based of your subconsciousness, you will be more likely to do one of these reality checks in your dream, and as a result realizing that you are dreaming!

*Important* : once you do find yourself awake inside your dream, STAY CALM, our mind tends to get over excited and wake ourselves up before you even get to experience all the fun things you can do, so try and rub your hands together, or swirl around, or do anything to keep yourself focused on your dream.

Another factor which helps inducing Lucid Dreaming is ... going to bed early!!! 

By having a longer sleep you have a higher chance of inducing Lucidity in the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stages of your sleep.

I cannot stress how important this following part is so please read carefully:

While we sleep, we have complete muscle atonia which prevents us from acting out our dreams.

This means that our muscles are completely paralyzed during our REM sleep (during REM sleep is when our brain is most active, and displays the same activity as though our body was awake)

The reason i'm telling you this is because of a common phenomenon known as "Sleep paralysis", remember that this event can occur during any kind of sleep, and doesn't depend on any specific factors,

(unless you have the neuromuscular disorder narcolepsy) 

Sometimes it has been reported occurring after some lucid dreams, rather more frequent than normal dreams. (Sleep Paralysis is entirely dependent on how stressed you are!!!) 

Sleep paralysis occurs when our REM sleep is disrupted while falling asleep or wakening, this is often associated with terrifying visions of either demonic visitations, or intruders in the room etc... it may also give you the feeling of something sitting on your chest preventing you to breathe properly, all whilst you are unable to move. 

It is important to remain calm, and focus on your body to snap out of this state and to start moving, usually there are always some parts of the body which you can move so try to keep moving those parts faster telling your brain that you are awake, or even just lie back, relax, and dream! Sleep paralysis is completely natural and you undergo this every night. In-fact you must induce sleep paralysis to willfully lucid dream! The only reason you are starting to freak out is because you do not understand why you are paralyzed! 

The most terrifying thing about it is when it happens and you do not understand what is going on.

So just by reading this, the worst part is over ;)

Remember Sleep Paralysis can happen at any time whether the result of a lucid dream or a normal dream, so please do not be discouraged to lucid dream!

Here's the basic 5 step process of how you should go about trying to achieve this goal

1. Practice Meditation, and the art of controlling & clearing your mind of thoughts.

2. Go into a comfortable position, whether it's the traditional meditation position, or you can simply lie down on the bed.

(the bad part about lying in bed is that you may fall asleep during the process and render your experiment unsuccessful) 

3. After you assumed a relaxed position, focus your mind on relaxing every single muscle in your body.

4. Once you have done so, remain motionless and relaxed, with your mind cleared of thought.

(it's okay if you can't remove all thought since it's almost impossible) best way of doing so is to focus your mind on the feeling of air passing through your nose... in and out, in and out... with slow deep breaths.

5. After you are feeling the state of complete bodily relaxation , and your body feels almost as though it was numb, focus your mind on your hands or feet and imagine moving them without physically doing so. Try to imagine your hand moving, try to feel it moving, without literally moving it. 

(this is the closest I have come to OBE, there were times I could feel my hands and feet moving, and only moments later realized that I wasn't actually moving them as the sense of the physical body, rather they were moving extremely vividly in my imagination)

6. By this step, you should be able to move your entire body freely and easily, simply through your mind, your physical body is in a relaxed, and completely motionless position, your mind is calm and thought-free focusing at the task at hand. imagine projecting yourself into the world :) , trust me you'll know once you are in a lucid dream.

Good luck with the practice and i hope you will lucid dream :) 

Thanks for reading.