lucid dreaming

”Why exist in symbols when you can transcend into direct insight.”
-- Tony Crisp

In Testing the Limits of Dream Control: The Light & Mirror Experiment, Lynne Levitan and Stephen LaBerge, the founder of the Lucidity Institute at Stanford, define “concurrent control” as the ability to determine or alter the course of a dream as it happens.

They argue that concurrent control is not limited to lucid dreaming, but occurs anytime we act in a dream even if that action happened unconsciously. The goal for our work is to move beyond concurrent control into lucid consciousness. We want to be able to make deliberate choices and take action during our dream. We want full knowledge that we are experiencing a dream and we want to be able to observe the effects of our choices. We want the ability to stop a dream, go back and begin another course of action.

TODAY’S CREATIVITY CHALLENGE:

Ms. Levitan and Mr. LaBerge performed experiments as part of the “Night Light” studies to determine how successful people are at accomplishing a well-defined task in lucid dreams. Let’s use a version of their methodology to experiment on ourselves.

Today, practice turning on and off the light in your room. Look at the light, look at the switch. If you have a dimmer, notice the changes in the light brightness. This is your practical rehearsal. Before you go to sleep, visualize yourself turning the light one and off. Try to remember the details of your light switch and the quality of the actual light’s brightness. As you drift to sleep, tell yourself TONIGHT I WILL MAKE MYSELF TURN ON A LIGHT IN MY DREAMS.

As you dream, see yourself rise out of bed and find the light switch. Turn it on and turn it off. Now, try to turn the lights on and off by just willing it to happen. You don’t need to touch the light switch. Try to change the quality of the light from dim to bright. What else can you do?

When you wake up, make sure to record your experiences in your journal.