Sleep

The Mirror
Sleep
2002-07-20 08:00

How wonderful it would be if you controlled your dreams – if you wanted to meet old friends or visit far-off places, and could, simply by taking command of your sleeping mind.

Sleep by Salvador Dali who In the 1970’s Uri Geller was a pupil under.

The extraordinary truth is that you can do this, through a practice called lucid dreaming. The first step is easy: keep a journal, a bedside dream-book. Whenever you wake, try to emember that your dreams have been. If it’s still the middle of the night, don’t force yourself awake to make your jottings: a simple scrawl, a word or two, is quite adequate. Later, those scribbled words may be enough to bring the whole dream flooding back. Practice helps, and the more you experiment with keeping a dream journals the more clear your memories will become.

The next step for a lucid dreamer seems logically impossible. It helps to remember that dreams, above all, are not logical. When you feel the onset of a dream, tell yourself: “I know I am asleep. I know I am dreaming. I give myself permission to take control of this dream.” At first this may cause you to wake up – you can counter this with calm preparation before sleep, using the same spoken formula: “I know I will dream. I give myself permission to take control of the dream, and to stay asleep as I do this.” The freedom you permit your mind is vital. It’s not enough to issue a command – “I will have a lucid dream!” The unconscious mind doesn’t take kindly to orders.

When you have full control of a dream, it’s like sitting behind a movie camera while watching yourself simultaneously on the big screen. One breathtaking test of your control is to take flight -to say, “Now I’m going to fly!” And you do, in the most extraordinary rush of dizziness and freedom. It feels as though you’re wide awake, and at the same time it could only be a dream.