Controlled dreams: methods and advice from a psychologist. Lucid dream management: new opportunities for self-development

Based on the experience of lucid dreamers, we have compiled a list of tricks that will help you control your dreams. We note right away that even if you train hard (4-5 times a week), lucid dreams will begin to come at best after a few months. After all, even experienced oneironauts (as those who can control sleep are called) rarely see more than 15 controlled dreams per month. By the way, we provided the recommendations with the memories of some of these same oneironauts.

Our expert: Roman Buzunov (buzunov.ru), Honored Doctor of the Russian Federation, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Head of the Department of Sleep Medicine at the Barvikha Clinical Sanatorium (sleepnet.ru) and its supervisor for therapy, board member of the National Society for Somnology and Sleep Medicine.

“Modern science admits the possibility of controlling dreams. For this, it is necessary that the human consciousness does not turn off during sleep, which can be achieved by many months and even many years of training. However, science is not able to accurately differentiate between a lucid dream and an unconscious one, so oneironauts have to take their word for it. I mean that no research equipment can determine what a person is dreaming of and whether he really builds a chain of events himself. However, studies conducted at Stanford and Harvard Universities, among others, as well as at the California Institute for United Research, show that when subjects dream, the brain is activated and close to the state of wakefulness. On this basis, we can say that lucid dreams exist. Science is also well aware of a similar phenomenon, when a dream is introduced into wakefulness. This condition is noted in those suffering from narcolepsy, a neurological disease in which "waking dreams" are noted during awakening or falling asleep. On the one hand, a person feels that he is in a room in his bed, on the other hand, a snake crawls along the ceiling.

remember dreams

If you are one of the lucky few who can remember dreams in detail, consider that the first step on the path to lucid dreaming has been taken. Are the memories almost gone? You'll have to do hard training.

Get a special notebook and every time you wake up, write down what you saw in a dream. For starters, it can be scattered moments or objects - even the smallest details matter. Over time, you will remember entire episodes. Still later - dreams entirely.

Alexey, 30 years old

Timur, 27 years old

Learn to be aware that you are dreaming

Without realizing that everything that happens is a dream, you will not be able to control and change dreams. It turns out that it is not easy to do this with an almost disconnected consciousness. When a dozen described (at least partially) dreams appear in the notebook, analyze them and on a separate sheet make a list of sleep signs - objects, actions and situations that are repeated most often. This list should be regularly updated and re-read. The signs of dreams, if you remember them properly, will play the role of beacons, informing you that at this moment you are in a world invented by your own consciousness. Moreover, one person has completely different dreams often begin the same way: for example, you are walking through the park with Nikita Dzhigurda and you are eating ice cream. At such moments, you can very quickly realize that you are already asleep.

I have been lucid dreaming for six years. Found that the list of sleep signs is limited and may not expand. I have not replenished it for two years: it still has 19 signs.

Vlad, 38 years old

Develop critical thinking

It will help you realize that you are in an imaginary world. It is necessary to practice critical perception of the world even during the period of wakefulness, so that state control works automatically. For example, while talking with a friend, try to take off (what if this is a dream?). Or read what is written in the newspaper, turn away and delve into the text again. Since memory in a dream works in a limited mode, practitioners assure that letters and numbers almost always change in dreams, it is worth looking away from them.

Train your inner speech

Try as often as possible not just to think, but to pronounce thoughts in your mind. When the inner voice becomes as habitual as a stain on jeans, he will be able to "wake up" during sleep. If you not only think, but also pronounce desires, then it will become much easier to influence the course of events in a dream.

Thanks to lucid dreams, I got rid of nightmares. First, I learned to wake up during scary moments. And then - just change the course of events. All you have to do is say, “Wouldn’t it be great if the lion that was chasing me turned into a kitten!” And he turns.

Masha, 26 years old

Engage in self-hypnosis

During the day and, most importantly, before falling asleep, suggest to yourself that this night you want to become aware of the state of sleep. Also, imagine that you are sleeping. Moreover, you need to fantasize using several signs of sleep from a notebook. Decide that this night you want to perform some specific action - for example, take off.

Our memory is arranged in such a way that even if you fall asleep and do not understand that everything that happens is unreal, you can still remember that you need to take to the air. And you will probably get up. Sooner or later your brain will understand that in real life this is impossible, and then you will have every chance to ride the dream.

I can’t compose the entire plot of the dream in advance. That is, I can, for example, in a waking state decide that I want to fly. But where I will do it and where I will fly, I have to decide already in a dream, changing the environment with the power of thought. I also manage to change it with the help of a door: it is enough to decide where you want to be and enter it.

Max, 29 years old

Dream before bed

Having plunged into fantasies, you can enter your own dream directly from the state of wakefulness. To do this, you need to lie down in bed, relax and, without straining, start dreaming with your eyes closed. Superficially observe the images that arise in the eyes. Very soon they will begin to turn into coherent stories, and you, without realizing it, will gradually fall asleep. After hard training, you will be able to transfer what you thought about into a dream, and become a good director.

I understood why almost everyone who starts lucid dreaming first starts flying. This is the simplest action that can only be done in a dream!

Lida, 31 years old

Choose your time

Dreams that come early in the morning are easier to control, and there are two reasons for this. Firstly, you, immersed in lucid dreams, are close to the state of wakefulness, and therefore, in order to concentrate attention, the brain needs to rest. Secondly, the last dreams are the longest and the most memorable. It’s easier to watch for them if you sleep, say, six hours, get up on an alarm clock, do some business for an hour and a half and go back to bed. Sleeping after a forced awakening takes at least a couple of hours to catch at least one phase of REM sleep, which repeats approximately every 90 minutes and is characterized by rapid eye movements (hence the acronym). Most often, dreams come during this period. As you go about your business, don't forget to tell yourself that you want to have a controlled dream, and think about what exactly you want to see. You can also wake up, lie back in bed, and fall asleep again. True, in this case, the opportunity to see a lucid dream will be lower: you have every chance not to have time to be distracted from past dreams and you will see their continuation. And the installation to control what is happening to the brain may not have time to reach.

I see expanded dreams when I sleep for twelve hours. Apparently, for 8 hours I do not have time to rest.

Peter, 38 years old

I decided to diversify the subject of the blog with one of my hobbies - psychology. Hopefully this won't be too much of a burden to regular readers. After all, it’s not every day to write about something. Therefore, today I will tell you a little about what lucid dreams are and how you can learn to control your dreams.

Lucid dreaming- this is a state of consciousness in which a person understands that he is dreaming and can control it to a certain extent. This phenomenon was officially confirmed by scientists in the 19th century. Now many researchers are working in this direction, but Japanese scientists have achieved the greatest success.

Application

A big plus of lucid dreams is that you can participate in events and perform actions that are impossible in real life (for example: flight, transformation, etc.). A person is able to analyze his actions in such dreams and benefit from this analysis in the formation of personality outside of sleep. Learning to control your actions in lucid dreams is not very difficult. In addition, you can get practical benefits from this. Replacing a fall with a flight in a dream, controlling the course of events, influencing the plot of what is happening, a person gains self-confidence. This can be beneficial in getting rid of some phobias in life.

Learning to manage your dreams takes practice. Training attention and remembering the moment of falling asleep will contribute to this. You can also use exercises that affect the subconscious. By controlling the mind at the moment of falling asleep, one can continue to be aware of the surrounding reality while fully immersed in the sleep of the body. At this point, the person may experience hallucinations. For example, the appearance of certain visual images, an altered perception of space and time.

To achieve only physical sleep, sports are enough. Go to the rocking chair during the day. And after you get home, go to bed. In addition, you can try to fall asleep in the morning, immediately after waking up. Another entry into lucid dreams is possible after you wake up in the middle of the night, when consciousness is on the verge of sleep and wakefulness. The most important aspect of this practice: you must want to control sleep. Quite often, people become aware of themselves in a dream and without any training. But starting to think about all the possibilities that open up to the dreamer during lucid dreams, they almost always wake up.

Hypnosis or self-hypnosis works great. To realize the fact of sleep, you can come up with some kind of conditioned signal, when you see it in a dream, you will understand that you are dreaming. To simplify, you can use audio recordings before bedtime. When self-hypnosis is recommended to use the following technique:

1. Lie down comfortably in bed and try to relax completely;
2. Imagine a staircase with 10 steps;
3. Count the steps slowly as you do so, suggesting to yourself that you can control your dreams;
4. Be sure to set the goal for which you want to control the dream in order to try to program the plot of the future dream.

How to recognize a dream

The main problem with dream management is to recognize that you are already dreaming. Try to take off in a dream or pierce the wall of a building with your finger. If you succeed, you will know that this is a dream. If it doesn't work the first time, try again. Scientists advise the following actions to determine sleep:

• Cover your mouth and nose with your hands. If you can still breathe, then it is a dream.
• Look for differences in what surrounds you from the real world.
• Find and read some inscription several times in a row. If the text changes, you are asleep.
• Look at the clock.
• Remember what you did a few minutes ago. If you can't remember, you're in a dream.
• Turn the lights on or off. Such actions in a dream often give rise to strange phenomena not inherent in real life.
• Look at your hands for a while. In a dream, they will change.

There are cases when a person realizes that he is sleeping, manages sleep, but at a certain point in time loses control over events. In order not to get lost in such situations, begin to carefully consider the things around you, focusing on the details.

In Russia, the study of lucid dreams is mainly carried out by enthusiasts. And on the net you can find communities in which people share their successes in the field of dream management.

Instruction

Imagine that you can do everything - of course, when you find yourself in conscious dream. That you are a wizard, a magician, that everything in the world around you obeys, because the way it is, your dream is a whole universe that cannot exist without you, since you created it.

Start controlling your dreams small. Realizing yourself in dream, to begin with, look around, take a closer look at what created your . And then practice controlling your body. Do you like to fly in dream? Fly, it will serve as a good workout - and "body" and, because you can fly wherever you want.

First of all, while sleeping, try to look at your hands. As soon as they begin to blur, look at another object. concentration on one object dream will lead to "ejection" from a lucid dream. People who enter sleep lose it as soon as they concentrate on the fact that it is a lucid dream. So you can be in such a dream more and more time. From the hands, go to the review of other images in dream. Try to summon unusual abilities. For example, lift a stone or a car with the power of thought.

Sources:

• The practice of lucid dreaming « Psychology for advanced

Emotions are what makes a person human. The world of inner experiences reflects the richness of the human soul, creates the uniqueness of the individual. Only a soulless machine is unable to sympathize, love or hate. But not always emotional impulses can carry a charge of positive energy. Is it possible to learn yourself and your emotions?

Instruction

Since man is a social being, the ability to control his emotional manifestations is often an urgent need. Both at home and at home, the ability to manage feelings is a valuable social skill that testifies to personality.

An emotionally unsustainable person often finds himself at the forefront of conflict situations that can lead to undesirable consequences, whether it be dismissal from work or a break in marital relations. It is no secret that our physical health is directly related to our ability to deal with stress. How can you learn to control yourself? And can it be done?

First of all, it must be remembered that the greatest danger is represented by emotions that are negative. Irritation, anger, resentment, can lead to the development of malignant tumors, cardiovascular diseases.

If you feel the onset of anger, try to distract yourself from the situation that caused it and invite yourself to take part in an internal conversation with yourself. This approach will allow you to track your feelings and the true source of their occurrence. The internal dialogue will also help to make an assessment of the situation, to understand the possible negative consequences of its development. In most cases, it turns out that the harm from the continuation of the conflict is not worth the time, nerves and health spent on it.

General recommendations for managing your emotions are as follows: accept your feelings, realize the deep ones that caused them. If this or that feeling manifests itself in you quite often and in similar situations, think about what is common in these situations.

It is pointless to try to punish yourself for the manifestation of any. Remember that the emotional sphere of your personality is its integral part, which signals that something in your world is not going quite the way you would like.

The release of emotions is a completely normal physiological reaction that allows you to regulate mental life. The manifestation of feelings contributes to the release of unnecessary internal tension. It is only important that the release of the emotional charge remains within socially acceptable limits and does not violate the dignity of others, norms of morality and law.

Can you change your feelings? In most cases, this is possible, although it requires certain skills of self-regulation. Say, if you are experiencing negative feelings towards a colleague, do not keep them in yourself. Formulate your claims and express them to the person in the correct form. Sometimes it turns out that the situation ceases to be tense, and all the negativity disappears.

Of course, sometimes you cannot do without a qualified consultation of a specialist, who will help you to know yourself better and choose the appropriate methods for gaining the ability to manage yourself in a quality manner.

Sources:

• How to learn to control negative emotions?

Many of us have experienced the feeling of free flight in our dreams. It is believed that most often children fly in their sleep, and this is due to physiological changes in the growing organism. But even an adult who seems to have nowhere to grow, no, no, and even dream that he easily breaks off the ground and soars in the air.

Specialists in the field of esotericism explain the origin of night flights by the fact that during sleep the astral body separates from the physical shell. A person feels in a dream the hovering of his own astral essence. Therefore, among many peoples, sleep is considered a sacred act and it is strictly forbidden to wake a sleeping person abruptly, otherwise the astral body will not have time to reunite with the physical.

Interpreters of dreams interpret flights in a dream in a rather contradictory way. Some dream books portend great luck and career growth, while others, on the contrary, argue that flying in a dream promises missed opportunities, fleeting love, job loss, fruitless dreams.

Proponents of the theory of the alien origin of mankind suggest that the human ability to fly was lost in the course of evolution or blocked when omnipotent immigrants from other stellar galaxies settled on Earth. A person who easily flies in a dream sees himself as he was originally - able to independently move through the air, water, solve any tasks that are difficult for an earthling.

The American writer Jack London adhered to a different point of view. In one of his novels, he explains dream flights by saying that some of the earliest ancient people lived mainly in trees, like some species of monkeys. Flights in a dream reflect the ancestral memory of our distant ancestors - during sleep, they often fell off the branches of the tree on which they settled down for the night. This was always accompanied by extreme horror for ancient man, since, falling to the ground, one could become a victim of wild animals. According to Jack London, this ancestral fear has been passed on to all subsequent generations of people up to the present, and flying in a dream is just a fall from a height.

As you can see, a single answer to the question of why people fly in their sleep cannot be given. Having diluted the seriousness of this topic with a bit of humor, let's summarize: if you have never had to feel like flying during a dream, perhaps you are not from other planets, but a native earthling, whose ancestors lived on flat terrain and did not fall from tall trees.

Almost every person has moments when in a dream he realizes that he is sleeping. Such cases of spontaneous awareness are very rare, but there are special practices that allow you to learn to have lucid dreams almost every night.

There are several variants of lucid dreaming, differing in the quality of awareness. In particular, in the Russian environment of dreamers, lucid dreams and lucid dreams are often separated. Terminologically, this is not entirely correct, since a lucid dream, or lucid Dreaming, translated from English, is a lucid dream. But the division has taken root, is often used in the communication of dreamers, so it should be taken into account in order to avoid confusion.

So, lucid dreams are often understood as a lucid dream with a low degree of awareness. In such a dream, you understand that you are sleeping, but you are drawn into what is happening, you are a participant in the plot.

In a fully lucid dream, the degree of your control over what is happening is very high. The plot of the dream no longer affects you, you do what you want and how you want. Your consciousness works almost as well as in reality. You know that you are sleeping and everything that surrounds you is.

How to learn lucid dreaming

On the net you can find a lot of tips on how to learn to dream. But this usually does not take into account the main thing: dreams are possible only with a high level of energy. It is no coincidence that most spontaneous dreams occur between the ages of 15 and 25-30, that is, during the period of maximum sexual activity. A high level of sexual energy allows some people to dream without any practice. But later dreams disappear - the level of sexual energy drops, and there is no ability to accumulate and use other energy.

That is why it is very important to learn how to save energy. Stop being nervous over trifles, get angry, swear, worry - it is with emotions that the maximum amount of energy needed for dreams is spent. Eliminate everything superfluous from life - many hours of communication on social networks, long TV viewing, frequent attendance at entertainment events, etc. - that is, everything that actively attracts your attention, makes you react emotionally.

The second condition for the rapid emergence of dreams is the intention to perform some action in a dream. For example, find a person, fly, go through a wall, look at hands in a dream, etc. If you just want to dream, nothing will work, what is needed is the intention to do something in a dream. The action can be absolutely anything - it is not important, but the attraction of your intention.

If you save energy and every night, when you go to bed, you intend to perform the planned action in September, you just have to be patient. It is this that is usually lacking, after a week or two the practice of lucid dreaming is safely abandoned. To prevent the same from happening to you, keep a dream diary. Write down your dreams in it, make notes every day. This focuses your attention on the dreams, allowing you to continue the practice. Before the first dream, you can take from several weeks to several months.

A moment of realization in a dream

Awareness comes at the moment when in a dream you suddenly remember that you wanted to do something. Or you do it, and remember that you were going to perform this action. For example, you are flying - and in flight you remember that you wanted to fly. At the same time, you seem to wake up, your awareness takes over. The dream ends, the dream begins.

The duration of the first dreams is usually a matter of seconds, less often minutes. Experienced dreamers can dream for hours, but this is a very high level, which only a few reach. The continuation of the practice of dreaming depends only on the level of energy. The level of energy decreases, and dreams disappear.

Sleep is one of the most interesting and unexplored phenomena. Someone sees bright color images, and someone sees black and white. It used to be thought that dreaming was just resting of the brain. However, later researchers from the University of Chicago found that during the night, for several minutes, sleep turns into an active process.

Have you ever heard that you can manage this process? Do you think this idea is just fantastic? In vain! It turns out you can learn to manage your dreams. How can you manage your sleep? Today we will talk about it.

It is useful to control dreams

Being in this state, we receive a lot of information from our subconscious. The brain sorts this information and remembers the useful.

Lucid dreams allow us to go anywhere, experience moments that we cannot experience in real life. And these are endless possibilities, because we can work out the skill of communicating with a foreigner or consolidate our knowledge about driving a car. Imagine now how useful it is to manage sleep.

Can this be learned?

How can you learn to control sleep? Here is a guide to help:

• how to fall asleep to control sleep? First you need to feel yourself in a dream. That is, it is necessary, as it were, to wake up there, to understand - you are not awake;
• then you have to learn to concentrate on objects or beings. As soon as the picture begins to blur, you need to look at another object, and then return to the original subject again. Gradually you will learn to focus your gaze;
• the next step is to memorize everything. Often a person remembers that he dreamed of something, but he cannot specifically tell. So this is what you need to learn;
• the moment of awakening is very important. It is necessary to lie down for some more time, to feel where you are - is it reality or dreams;
• notebook. Get yourself a notebook or notepad where you will write down everything you remember: events, feelings and emotions;
• during the day, remember your feelings and compare them with reality.

In order to manage your dreams, you have to train a lot. When you learn how to do the above exercises correctly, move on to the next, more difficult ones.

How to manage sleep at home

To learn how to really use those limitless possibilities that we talked about, you need to do the following exercises:

• before falling asleep, set yourself up for a certain plot: to visit a familiar place, for example;
• Think very carefully about what you want to see, whom you will meet, what should be around. The more precisely you think over everything, the easier it will be for you;
• give the installation - why do you want to see these images;
• when you feel that you are falling asleep, feel yourself right there, and then repeat the installation to yourself;
• after waking up, you need to remember everything.

Sleep is a very mysterious phenomenon. For anyone to manage it, you need to work hard. Of course, it won't work the first time. Don't be discouraged, you have to try again and again.

When the exercises are easy, you can try another technique. It is much more difficult than the previous one.

Its essence is to change what is happening there with the help of willpower. That is, you need to wake up, imagine what exactly you want to change and fall asleep again. You must return to the same situation and change it.

Fighting fears

By learning these techniques, you can try to deal with your fears. You can't run away from your fear. You have to meet him face to face. Check it out and get to know him. Try to talk. It's even better if you make friends.

This is how you can get rid of your phobias:

• first think about what you want to see, give yourself an installation;
• if it’s already getting scary, feel that it’s not real and you will feel better;
• find your fear, remembering all the time that it is a fantasy;
• sit next to me, get used to it, understand that you are sleeping and you can leave at any moment;
• talk and see how events develop further.

Perhaps you will find it funny, or maybe you will become best friends with your fear. The main thing is that you will stop being afraid of something, you will become freer.

Try to learn to listen to dreams

When you wake up, you absolutely do not understand what and why these pictures were given to you. However, this is all superficial analysis. You have to be deeper.

First of all, think in pictures. Do not try to fit everything you saw at night into daytime rational frameworks. When you think of nighttime images, focus on inner sensations: where during the memory you feel warm, and where you feel cold and uncomfortable.

You've probably seen the science fiction thriller Inception, or at least The Matrix. Both films vividly illustrate how lucid dreams work. Remember how he realizes that since he is actually sleeping, it means that the spoon does not exist, and it can be bent with one effort of thought; or how the visionary architect Ariadne shifts the force of gravity in her sleep, bending the road in half right over her head. The same effect can be achieved in a dream by any person who trains his self-consciousness enough.

Phenomenon in science

The term "lucid dreaming" (Lucid Dreaming) was coined by the Dutch psychiatrist and writer Frederick van Eeden (1860-1932). It denotes an altered state of consciousness in which a person is aware that he is sleeping and can control the content of a dream.

However, another scientist, Stephen LaBerge, who devoted several scientific works to this issue, undertook to prove the phenomenon in practice. His scientific experiment proved the real possibility of a clear self-awareness during dream viewing. At the moment when the devices recorded the phase of REM sleep, the subject gave conditioned signals by moving his eyes - for himself, these movements were carried out in a dream (he remembered the need to do this), and physically the eyes moved synchronously with his dream - which could be observed from sides.

You can become aware of yourself in a dream not only during normal sleep, but also during “waking sleep” - this is due to an atypical strong inhibition of the cerebral cortex. Attention and concentration fall, and the person himself does not notice that he has frozen with his eyes open and is dreaming (hallucinations - if you like).

The use of lucid dreaming

Why is it necessary - to train and strain your thinking even in a dream, instead of having a normal rest?

Of course, the first thought - cheers! - finally it will be possible to eat imaginary cakes and ride pink unicorns. But this is far from the only plus of lucid dreaming.

The ability to "wake up in a dream" is not easy and not immediately - but it will help you learn to "wake up" in time and in reality. That is, to distinguish when something lacks logic, someone deceives you, or you are too carried away with something and crossed the line.

In a dream, we are faced with many different situations - and this is a great simulator! We learn to find a way out, but, realizing the unreality of the situation, we are not afraid to make a mistake. On the contrary, we allow ourselves to operate in a wider range of options, thereby developing and evaluating our new reactions. When you wake up, you can use the information received for deeper introspection and correction of the way you act in general.

You can also train your will in lucid dreaming, learn to do things that don't work (for example, instead of flying, you fall). Having coped with the problem, you will feel a surge of faith in yourself, transfer this confidence to real life and at the same time get rid of various fears or phobias.

It must be admitted that lucid dreams have not yet been sufficiently studied by modern psychology and medicine, and esotericists even broadcast about the dangers of such a practice: who knows, suddenly you decide to visit in a dream, and then your soul cannot return? But one way or another, the practice of dream control is already being used in psychotherapy to expand the tools of Freudian psychoanalysis.

How to control the plot of a dream?

The easiest way to train your mind to wake up in a dream is self-hypnosis or listening to hypnosis audio recordings before going to bed.

P.S.- I have heard about lucid dreams more than once, but after writing this essay, I went to bed and ... it worked! True, not completely: I began to check if I was sleeping, and tried not to breathe. Yes, that's bad luck, it was terribly unpleasant, just like in life. I could hardly catch my breath and thought: "I give up, this is all really" ... :) The next night I remembered again and decided, therefore, to repaint the moon. The moon was indignant and woke me up. These are pies ... Have you ever managed to wake up in a dream? Or daydreaming? It's strange, but over the past two days I managed to try this on myself, completely by accident. This has happened before, but you don’t know how it’s called and how it works yet - you just don’t pay attention.