#luciddream

It occured to me many times, and whenever I wake up from a dream but needed more sleep this is the part where my mini shifts occur (i just started shifting this week) i went through about the hypnagogia blogs here and that explains the phenomenon that is happening to me.

for people having trouble inducing it heres the easy steps:

(this has worked in MY experience as someone who has trouble falling asleep at 5am)

1. before you sleep set an alarm 2-4 hours from now (depends each person) since you have to be tired

2. sleep, just affirm a little but just effortlessly sleep

3. WAKE UP FROM THAT ALARM AND TURN IT OFF

4. you will gonna feel so tired bc the lack of sleep and the need to sleep more !!!!! by that, ITS EASIER to start inducing the hypnagogia state, keep your mind a wake a little using any method, now start to feel your dr, affirm, manifest, think how would you think if you are in ur dr rn, activate/check your 5 senses, visualize (dont overdo your imagination because some people get pulled out) just feel your dr and it will start to assume you are in it, this is the state that some guided meditations wants you to feel.

5. enter the void or your dr, just by affirming (in this case you can just drift completely which worked for me waking up in my dr, just let it happen until you reach it)

if you fell asleep during step 4 just naturally wake up and try again!

DO NOT RUSH STEP 4 it takes a while for some people ( some users mentioned listening to theta waves help )

edit: I found a post similar to this method, and it has more steps and i suggest to consider it too! HERE

also symptoms include random hallucinations and it can be physical, i felt my body falling or floating during step 4, even hearing crowds and seeing figures but just affirm and manifest act like you are in ur dr. this helps to shift awareness

pls update me in the replies if this works for you or it works for most beginners especially to those who can only shift thru lucid dreaming.

"the problem that i found is when i was doing these reality checks, it was almost kind of training my brain to like, look for not dreaming, like training my brain... it felt like i was training my brain not to dream. like... it was weird... ...so when i'm in the day and i'm saying, am i dreaming? like my brain kind of automatically goes to, i'm not dreaming. i know i'm not dreaming. and i even remember one time i was in a dream and i went to do a reality check, and as i did the reality check, like i told myself, this is not a dream because i was doingthat all the day or like every single day. i told myself, this is not a dream, and the reality check failed. like i used to try and push my hand, my finger through my hand, it didn't work. and then i woke up in this reality. i was like, whoa, but that was a dream..."

these words really shook me up. admit it, you did reality checks too, didn't you? If you answered yes, here's how to do it right:

"then obviously as time went on, i learned that, yeah, you meant every time you do a reality check, you're meant to actually like really test it. but what i found helped even more was this technique that i actually got from a lucid dreaming book. and i'll share this book in a moment in this book, it speaks about whatever you are doing in your day to day, actually look at it, like, right now i'm recording this video. i'm going to tell myself ,this is a dream. i tell myself this is a dream. i look around and i actually feel like, i imagine that this is a dream. like i look at the things more clearly. i feel the reality as if it's a dream. what i want you to do to increase this presence is throughout your day, tell yourself in whatever situation you're in, this is a dream. try it even now, as you're watching this video, i'm going to pause for a second, look around and say, this is a dream. as you're looking around, feel as if it is a dream. feel that, like imagine you are in actually in a dream and feel that feeling do this throughout the day. i'm going tell you, aim to do this at least 20 times in the day. like just random moments to tell yourself, this is a dream and feel that feeling as if it's a dream. this will start to build your presence in the day because you're looking for these moments to tell yourself it's a dream. but not only that, the cool thing about this is you're training your mind to actually feel as if you're in a dream. now, when you're next in a dream and you actually do it, you will actually see the dream. you will actually feel the dream. you will actually do these reality checks when you do them and it will actually not fail. it will actually pass because you will feel the dream more than you normally do"

that's not all. the author says that after checking reality, you should do what you wanted or planned to do in your lucid dream

"...and at least one time in the day, you're going to take a random situation and you're going to imagine that you're in a dream now. so you're going to tell yourself, this is a dream, but the only difference now you're going to take it one step further is if this actually was a dream. what would you do to achieve that one thing that you wanted to achieve..."

personally, i would advise you, after checking reality, to imagine how you shift or enter the void. that's how I would do it:

— i would choose three colors. and throughout the day, when i saw those colors, i would start doing reality checks — i tell myself it's a dream. i look around with complete calm. i am not surprised, i am not happy, i am not panicking. it's as if it's normal for me to wake up every night in my sleep. i know that i have mastered lucid dreaming, so why should i rush anywhere? — "to enter the void state: (in your dream) take a deep breath, close your eyes, and affirm that [you are "now" in your void state] until you feel yourself there" — "to shift realities from ld: take a deep breath, close your eyes. focus on your dr and affirm that [you are waking up in your dr]. try to wake up with the certainty that you will do so in your dr, imagining yourself there"

Today i will share how to make elixir potion for lucid dream. The ingredient you can buy in store or maybe grow in street

Ingredient:

1. 5-15 datura seeds ( add how much you like, i can take 10-15 seeds with safe, everybody is different maybe you need 1-5 seeds, do research before using it because datura effect will in your system for 3-4 days so if you want use it better drink every 3-4 days so the toxic not add up) for dream vividnes induce

2. Mugwort for lucid dream

3. Holy basil for lucid dream (optional)

4. Honey (optional)

5. Alcohol (vodka, brandy etc) for make it last longer. More potent if use primum ens of Mugwort, jasmine, or lavender ; see real alchemy by Robert Bartlett for how to make primum ens, the ancient alchemical method to extract the higher self of the plant/herbs. in myth primum ens from melissa (lemon balm) make old people become young again, and so this plant have high values in eyes of modern 21st Century alchemist (not chemist but really real alchemist, yes those thing actually exist not just inner psychology and metaphore like most people including many witch believe). Although theres is danger in the process, one of alchemist i knew said you need "sweetened" the alcohol before use for extract the higher self of the plant, whatever it meant, he said he wont reveal the secret because feel cheating us from research and find its secret ourself, although he give hint about Jane Dubois class where how "sweetened" the high proof alcohol from wine are given. So if you have doubt just use vodka or many drinkable alcohol, wine good too.

Method :

First, step up datura, Mugwort, holy basil or your lucid dream tea in holy water (see my previous post, i give simple instruction for it) for 5-10 minutes.

Second, let it aside until achieve room temperature, meanwhile say your word of affirmation, incantation, and spell into the elixir water like : "creature of water be you elixir of lucid dream, make people who drink drop of you become so lucid and vivid in their dream i sealed this function unto you, so mote it be!"

For more potent in this step you can imagine a bright white star above your head, shining down into your zeal chakra (please search it in google for the chakra location) and into your hand, place your hand above water and see the light coming down into water from your hand and say the incantation above.

Third, store it in clean jar/bottle (sake bottle is look good for this).

Four, add alcohol and honey if you like, and shake it.

Five, this step additional, you can add crystal like moonstone, amethyst, quartz, rose quartz, or pearl into the elixir and bathe in moonlight (especially full moon) for more potency.

Lastly this is a spell i got from a balg forum, you can add this if you like :

Here is my update, To enhance Water Vibrations. With this chant you can besides raising the frequency of the water but seal its altered energies to the higher vibration : "Ayer Sekar Ümbriah Sekar"

🌎 OᑌT Oᖴ ᖇᗩᑎGE ᗩT TᕼE ᔕᑭᗩᑕE ᑕᗩᗷIᑎ 🌎

Dream States

Sleep states are fun to consciously control  for various reasons. They can be used to view and analyze our memory  and sense of self in an indirect way. The feelings and ideas produced by  sleep feel profound and vivid, and can be used for creative  inspiration.

The characters and places we encounter in our dreams  are reflective of the things we have experienced and imagined. We have  dedicated systems of memory for things like our stereotypes of people  and places, as well as our relationship to our environment and to  ourselves. When we are in a dream state, we see the boundaries between  ideas contained within our memory distort and change, leading to the  experience of a world created entirely from the contents of our  knowledge and memory.

Sleep is essential for functioning. Contrary  to what one would expect, the brain is active even during sleep. When  we sleep, the brain goes through a process of regulating physical and  mental functions. Sleep is essential for memory consolidation. It is  difficult to retain and recall information that hasn’t yet been  consolidated during sleep.

There are several distinct stages of  sleep. Older psychological texts used to break these up into five stages  of sleep. Today, most researchers divide the stages of sleep into four  stages: NREM 1, NREM 2, NREM 3, and REM sleep. REM stands for rapid-eye  movement. During REM sleep, the eyes move back and forth quickly, hence  the name. NREM stands for non-rapid eye movement. In these stages of  sleep, the eyes are still, unlike in REM sleep.

Staying lucid  during the different stages of sleep is an interesting experience that  many enjoy and find thought provoking. Each stage of sleep is   experienced by the dreamer in a different way. Studies have been   conducted on participants who were woken up during the different stages of sleep and asked what their dreams were like. People who were woken up  during light sleep felt as though they had entered an immersive   daydream but hadn’t quite fallen asleep. People woken up during deep   sleep (NREM 3) reported feeling fully immersed in their mind, but that   the dream felt more thought-like and involved mundane subjects,   activities, and places. People who were woken up during REM sleep   reported vivid, surreal, and fantastical dreams.

Different  mystical traditions delineate between three distinct types of dream-work  which map onto lucid dreaming during the three stages of sleep.  Hedgecrossing occurs during NREM 1 and NREM 2 sleep. During this stage  of sleep, if the dreamer is lucid, their thoughts become random, vivid,  immersive, and contain spontaneous events that feel profound. Their  thoughts feel out of their control. Spiritual traditions use this stage  of sleep for the purpose of contacting spirits or interpreting some  aspect of their lives.

Lucid dreaming during deep sleep is  experienced as astral projection. Astral projection stereotypically  involves the perception of leaving the body and walking into the world  just outside of the self. Traditionally, the world becomes more random  and mystical as the person moves further from their body, which maps  onto the idea that the change in sleep states causes a subjectively  perceived change in experience while lucid dreaming.

Lucid  dreaming during REM sleep is what people traditionally think of when  they think of lucid dreaming. REM sleep dreams depart from the normal  laws of reality the most severely of all of the stages of sleep. Because  of this, lucid dreaming can easily be used to generate creative ideas  or to explore themes from one’s life through the vivid feelings produced  by the dream. In addition, it is possible to attain some degree of   psychological healing through dreams because of their connection to our memory, and because dream experiences feel vivid and thus their content  and our reaction to them can significantly impact us even when we are awake.

I will describe how to attain each dream state in the next  section. In a subsequent section, I will explain how spiritual  practitioners approach dream work. I will then explain how to use dream  experiences in a constructive way (such as through dream analysis,  creative inspiration, and overcoming traumas and internal conflicts  through dream role play) as an alternative psychological technique.

Hedgecrossing

Hedgecrossing refers to the state of mind  that occurs when one is lucid during light sleep. This state of mind is  useful for spiritual and psychological work. People who subscribe to a  mystical belief system may use this state of mind to contact spirits or  perform a ritual or detect something about the world. People who see  these states of mind as psychological tools may use this state of mind  to access parts of their memory - similar to using hypnotherapy  techniques.

Procedure

The general procedure for  hedgecrossing is to meditate in a comfortable position until the mind  begins to enter a sleeping state. There are certain tells that the mind  has entered such a state - the thoughts that automatically come to us  become random, nonsensical. As with all dream-based work, it is  important to try many times to attain and work with these states. It is  very easy to fall asleep or to fail to enter into a dream state at all  and this can be discouraging for many people. Hedgecrossing is the  easiest lucid dream state to attain because it takes place in the first  stage of sleep, so it is the first dream state entered. People don’t  feel as though they have left their body but they do feel like their  imagination has taken on a mind of its own and it can surprise them with  moments of insight and inspiration.

We will be creating a  specific mental place inside for each of the three lucid dream states.  Eventually, our brains come to associate this internal mental space with  the state of mind provoked by each type of dream state. Over time, as  the association becomes stronger, this helps us enter into a particular  dream state more easily.

Lay down in a comfortable place that you  ordinarily sleep in. Practicing good sleep hygiene, especially the step  where you only sleep in the room/area you sleep in so that your mind can  associate that area with sleeping, can help. Beginning at a time where  you are naturally tired and normally go to bed helps. This state is  prompted by entering the first stages of sleep, light sleep.

Clear  your mind as though you are meditating. Enter your mind’s eye and focus  solely on the experience of being inside of your imagination. Ignore  external thoughts and sensations as they come up, letting go of them and  turning back inside. You are free to develop your own set of   visualizations. The general framework for developing your own system of visualizations to distract you until you enter light sleep is, more or less, this: enter the first of your visualizations and ground yourself in your 5 senses; leave the area to a second room associated with   hedgecrossing; leave to a third room where you engage in a repetitive   (hypnotic) motion; then leave to a final room where you can walk   endlessly until you enter a hedgecrossing state/light sleep state. I   will give an example below.

Enter your mind’s eye at the foot of a  blue cliff with the opening to a black cave. Feel the blue grass  beneath your feet. Drink from a nearby pool of clear water above pastel  blue sand. Look at the deep blue sky above and listen to the wind blow  through the blue leaves coming off the black trees behind you, smelling  the cool, chilly, evening air. Enter the cave.

Enter a black room  with blue steps leading down. Blue stars line the walls of the cave,   approximating the complexity of the universe. Look at them as you   continue downwards. At the bottom of the stairs is a glowing blue number  one on the walls instead of stars. This mental state, hedgecrossing, is  associated with the star symbol as well as the color blue and the   number 1. Giving specific symbols meaning like this helps make entering this state from this mental location easier in the future. There is a   door with a large blue A glowing on it. Walk through the door, feeling   the texture of the doorknob in your hand.

Enter a room with blue  crystals and a pool of water with a waterfall. Watch the waterfall flow  endlessly into the pool of water, feeling the cool water wash over your  hands. Listen to the sound of the water flowing into the pool. Dive into  the water.

After entering the water, enter a room without water.  This area is a maze. Ankle deep water and blue crystals and stars line  the walls. Walk through the cave, taking random turns, until the area  begins to randomize and things begin to change outside of your control.  You will have entered the state informally called hedgecrossing (lucid  dreaming during light sleep) when the area and things inside of it are  partially outside of your control.

Some people find it helpful to  take a small amount of caffeine; others find this does not help at all.  Stimulants can make it easier to maintain lucidity, but also harder to  fall asleep. I have narcolepsy and I’m prescribed Ritalin and I  accidentally lucid dream on it all of the time because of this.

Uses

Soul retrieval and hypnotherapy  both force the practitioner into a trance that is similar to light   sleep or near light sleep in order to enter into and manipulate the mind  in a deeper way than is normally possible in a waking state. This   allows us to cross mental barriers, such as the barriers that keep   memories repressed, and view normally forbidden materials in our mind.   This also means that, since our emotions are more vivid, the things that  we think and the way we interact in our mind leaves a stronger   impression than is normally possible during a waking state where our   emotions are more repressed. The increased emotional vividness serves as  a flag to our mind that what we are thinking is more important than   normal.

The following techniques can be practiced in other sleep  states, although the form they take may differ between stages of sleep.  Because it is difficult to remember information between a waking and  sleeping state, it is essential to keep a journal nearby in order  to write down important thoughts. Get into a habit of writing about the  contents of every lucid dream, regardless of which stage of sleep it  occurred in, as soon as you wake up. Write down every regular dream, as  well.

Symbols are important elements of our mind. Symbols  serve as associative cues to different places in our memory. When we  hedgecross, we enter into a state of mind where we are closer to our  memory, almost living in it as we do when we are deeply sleeping. We can  use symbols to interact with our mind. When we are hedgecrossing, we  can call up a symbol. Say, the color red. We visualize this color, and  because our thoughts have become more random, they will warp and respond  to the introduction of this cue. We could randomly remember a memory  connected to the color red. Or we could spontaneously imagine a  character or the beginning of a story prompted by thinking about the  color red.

We think about the world in certain ways that are  connected to our different types of memories. We have special  neurological processes dedicated to processing things like narratives,  relationships, time, other people, cultural stereotypes, and places.  These elements become easy to notice when we engage in dream work. We  become immersed in the components of our memory, and the types of  components we can think in become obvious quickly. Elements that  frequently recur in dreams often have some significance, and it is worth  it to interact with these symbols - doing so can reveal old memories  and can allow us to interact with these ideas to inspire or change the  self. This is the process of dream analysis. By interacting with  these symbols, characters, and other ideas, we can see their meaning.  Dream analysis books offer interpretations based on cultural symbolism.  This is helpful to some extent, but personal symbolism is what matters  the most, and it can be quite contextual and idiosyncratic. It is  possible to interact with an idea or symbol in a dream and to talk to  it, touch it, see what is inspired by interacting with it. The ideas  that spring up from interacting with this element can be used to analyze  its meaning.

Interacting with symbols in the mind can be used as a  hypnotherapy tool. If someone has a troubling thought loop or memory,  they can interact with it in a dream state to learn more about it and to  gain mastery over the memory. However, it is possible to trigger  nightmares in doing so. That is the risk of good dream work - there is  some element of difficulty to it, and one must be willing to face and  master difficult thoughts to proceed. This can be used to identify core  thoughts and traumas and integrate with them in the course of dealing  with difficult personal experiences and thoughts.

Astral Projection

Astral projection is the act of lucid  dreaming during deep sleep. Qualitatively, this state feels more mundane  than a traditional lucid dream, and it feels more thought-like. As we  enter deep sleep, we finally feel ourselves leave our body.  Paradoxically, we are actually entering our memory, completely cut off  from the external world. For a moment, we haven’t yet forgotten the  rules of external reality or the context we fell asleep in. Our short  term memory takes a short amount of time to clear, and in that time when  we first enter an astral state we experience ourselves as leaving our  body where we left off before we forget where we were when we fell  asleep as our previous circumstance is cleared from our short term  memory. Some people feel vibrations; other people feel nothing at all as  they transition from light sleep to deep sleep.

The general   framework for astral projecting is as follows: lay down in a comfortable  location; focus on staying awake as you slowly fall asleep. Eventually,  you will become overwhelmingly tired that it is almost beyond your  capability to hang on to your conscious awareness. Continue to stay  focused and eventually, your body will feel strange in some way.  Different people experience this change differently. It can be difficult  to get up and to exit the body; no longer being able to move the body  means you are in an astral state. Eventually, if you stay awake and keep  trying to interact with the world, you will leave your body.

This  is a good framework, although to properly associate this state of mind  for your deliberate use later, I recommend a slight permutation to the  classic technique. Before laying down to astral project, enter into your  mind’s eye. See a green glowing 2 in the middle of a field of green  roses. The sky above is filled with green petals. Turn around and see a  door with the letter B glowing green. Reflect on your intention and  enter the door; it should be dark. This signals to your mind that you  are beginning to focus with the intention of astral projecting. Some  people might want to stay immersed in the mind’s eye and imagine a green  landscape beyond the door; a green hedge maze with infinite twists and  turns, and green marble fountains and benches. You will completely enter  your internal landscape when you fall into a deep sleep. This is  similar to hedgecrossing, and it is easy to get stuck in a hedgecrossing  state and it can be hard to transition to an astral state, although  some do it this way. It is important to fall asleep in astral  projection, whereas in hedgecrossing it is important to stay aware as  you are near sleep. In an astral state, you completely lose touch with  the external world and your internal world becomes your entire reality.

Uses

Astral  projection is fun. The vivid emotions provoked by this state of mind   can be entertaining. It is interesting to watch the changes in cognition  that accompany the different stages of sleep. It is possible to use   lucid dreaming states in order to solve or work on personal problems. As  in hedgecrossing, analyzing and interacting with the content of dreams  can be highly meaningful and symbolic.

Some people use dreams to  help deal with psychological issues. Profound visions, such as religious  experiences and positive dreams, can be used to help improve mood even  if one isn’t spiritual. It is possible re-enact difficult memories or  scary situations and to master them in dreams, which leads to one  feeling more comfortable with that memory or situation in waking life.

Because  of the way we think, we often encounter certain types of forms when we  astral project. These forms reflect the way our brain encodes and   interacts with the world around us in our memory. We have specific types  of memory rather than just one unified type of memory; we have memories  for knowledge, behaviors, habits, associations between ideas, and  events. We also have further subdivisions in our memory for our   perception of ourselves, others, places, cultural stereotypes, objects -  and our relationships (which can take the form of opinions, a   perception of personality, narrative plots, and themes) to these things.  We can interact with these elements of our mind in a literal way in   dream states and understand how our memory itself is structured.

People  often encounter elements of our memory- and its ability to create novel  versions of things it has introjected- in specific forms in our dreams.  Some people refer to these constructs as deities or spirits, others see  them as thoughtforms depending on if they subscribe to a spiritual  belief system or not. We can perceive other people or ideals as  characters that feel emotionally profound; we can perceive otherworldly  places that feel as though they are beyond us. We can perceive the  elements of our memory in a vivid way that is highly creative because of  the memory shuffling that is occurring during memory consolidation  which happens during sleep. I am convinced that dreaming is people  watching the process of (some part of) memory consolidation in a literal  way.

Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming takes place during REM  sleep. In a normal person who isn’t sleep deprived, REM sleep sets in  after about 90 minutes. This makes entering a lucid dream through the  traditional way of meditating through the previous sleep states  difficult, although it is possible. Some people attempt to enter REM  sleep directly by waking themselves up and then going back to bed again;  because their mind is interrupted mid-sleep cycle, they may enter REM  again quickly.

The best way to attain lucidity during REM sleep,  in my opinion, is to engage in reality checks. Reality checks train us  to check during dreams automatically to see if we are sleeping or not.  We pick some detail about dreams that sets them apart from reality, and  during the day we check several times to see whether or not we are  sleeping. Eventually, this habit carries over into dreams and we  naturally question whether or not we are dreaming - which prompts us to  enter a lucid dream if we ask this question while we are dreaming.

Here  are some examples of reality checks: dreams constantly change and   shift, so if you look at something, look away, and then look back - if   you are dreaming, it should have changed. If you aren’t dreaming, it   will stay constant. In dreams, you can manipulate things with your mind;  try changing some element of the scenery as you would in a dream, or   try to fly. Trying to do these mental exercises from a waking state   feels silly and doesn’t work, but in a dream it can trigger you to   realize you are dreaming if you check to see if you can do these things and you can. Regularly check to see if you are dreaming during the day,  and check for these properties found only in dreams. Eventually, you   will ask the question during a dream and will become lucid.

Intentions  are helpful for the attainment of lucid dreaming. Before bed, enter   into your mind’s eye and find yourself on a red beach with a large red   3. A door with a glowing red C awaits you. Enter it, holding your   intention to lucid dream that night as you allow yourself to fall   asleep. When you attain lucidity, think back on the red C and the red 3.  This will associate these concepts with sleep. You can think on these red concepts in order to help with dream recall. These is called an anchor.  Anchors can be used to help keep you present during the dream and   remind you that you are lucid. Regularly think back on the red room with  the C; create a glowing C or 3 in your hand. The action of doing this grounds you in your dream and prevents you from losing your lucidity or  from waking up.

Additionally, you can check your dream journal for  patterns you are encountering during your natural dreams. These should  be your REM sleep dreams as these are the easiest to recall if you  weren’t lucid during them. Recognizing common types of dreams and dream  locations can help you recognize that you are dreaming.

Uses

Lucid  dreaming is fun. REM sleep dreams are vivid and highly creative. Lucid  dream states can be used to flesh out story ideas or to obtain inspiration.  The emotional vividness and the surreal ideas encountered in this state  of mind are ideal for creative inspiration, like to get inspiration for  an otherworldly landscape to draw or for a fictional place or character  for a story.

If you are going to use a lucid dream state for some  purpose, set your intention ahead of time. It can be fun to explore  dreams without an intention, but for goal directed purposes it is  important to set your intention or else you will forget while you are  maintaining your hold on your lucidity. Do you want to work on a story  idea? Okay. Do you want to focus on the plot, the setting, the theme, or  the characters?

Dream States

Sleep states are fun to consciously control for various reasons. They can be used to view and analyze our memory and sense of self in an indirect way. The feelings and ideas produced by sleep feel profound and vivid, and can be used for creative inspiration.

The characters and places we encounter in our dreams are reflective of the things we have experienced and imagined. We have dedicated systems of memory for things like our stereotypes of people and places, as well as our relationship to our environment and to ourselves. When we are in a dream state, we see the boundaries between ideas contained within our memory distort and change, leading to the experience of a world created entirely from the contents of our knowledge and memory.

Sleep is essential for functioning. Contrary to what one would expect, the brain is active even during sleep. When we sleep, the brain goes through a process of regulating physical and mental functions. Sleep is essential for memory consolidation. It is difficult to retain and recall information that hasn’t yet been consolidated during sleep.

There are several distinct stages of sleep. Older psychological texts used to break these up into five stages of sleep. Today, most researchers divide the stages of sleep into four stages: NREM 1, NREM 2, NREM 3, and REM sleep. REM stands for rapid-eye movement. During REM sleep, the eyes move back and forth quickly, hence the name. NREM stands for non-rapid eye movement. In these stages of sleep, the eyes are still, unlike in REM sleep.

Staying lucid during the different stages of sleep is an interesting experience that many enjoy and find thought provoking. Each stage of sleep is experienced by the dreamer in a different way. Studies have been conducted on participants who were woken up during the different stages of sleep and asked what their dreams were like. People who were woken up during light sleep felt as though they had entered an immersive daydream but hadn’t quite fallen asleep. People woken up during deep sleep (NREM 3) reported feeling fully immersed in their mind, but that the dream felt more thought-like and involved mundane subjects, activities, and places. People who were woken up during REM sleep reported vivid, surreal, and fantastical dreams.

Different mystical traditions delineate between three distinct types of dream-work which map onto lucid dreaming during the three stages of sleep. Hedgecrossing occurs during NREM 1 and NREM 2 sleep. During this stage of sleep, if the dreamer is lucid, their thoughts become random, vivid, immersive, and contain spontaneous events that feel profound. Their thoughts feel out of their control. Spiritual traditions use this stage of sleep for the purpose of contacting spirits or interpreting some aspect of their lives. 

Lucid dreaming during deep sleep is experienced as astral projection. Astral projection stereotypically involves the perception of leaving the body and walking into the world just outside of the self. Traditionally, the world becomes more random and mystical as the person moves further from their body, which maps onto the idea that the change in sleep states causes a subjectively perceived change in experience while lucid dreaming.

Lucid dreaming during REM sleep is what people traditionally think of when they think of lucid dreaming. REM sleep dreams depart from the normal laws of reality the most severely of all of the stages of sleep. Because of this, lucid dreaming can easily be used to generate creative ideas or to explore themes from one’s life through the vivid feelings produced by the dream. In addition, it is possible to attain some degree of psychological healing through dreams because of their connection to our memory, and because dream experiences feel vivid and thus their content and our reaction to them can significantly impact us even when we are awake.

I will describe how to attain each dream state in the next section. In a subsequent section, I will explain how spiritual practitioners approach dream work. I will then explain how to use dream experiences in a constructive way (such as through dream analysis, creative inspiration, and overcoming traumas and internal conflicts through dream role play) as an alternative psychological technique. 

[ If you liked this, check out my book, The Path: Psychomancy. It goes over this particular topic in addition to covering how to practice and understand other occult and alternative psychological techniques.

https://www.amazon.com/Path-Psychomancy-Astora-Diam-ebook/dp/B08F2YD1GM