Patricia Garfield was born in 1934 in the United States. From the age of 14, she kept an uninterrupted daily dream journal that would allow her and all of humanity great insight into dream phenomena associated with lucid dreaming.

She was one of the founders of The Association for the Study of Dreams. Dr. Garfield holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.

She is the author of a great number of books, with the 1974 best-seller Creative Dreaming being the most widely lauded. It was one of the first pieces of literature to approach lucid dreaming state in a practical and non-specialist way, and received worldwide interest and appreciation. The book contains good practical guidelines and also describes the dreaming practices of various cultures.

Ulyanovsk, Russia

I lay on the couch and tried to directly exit. Everything was going along well when my consciousness suddenly "checked out" for a moment. When I returned, I realized that I was lying on the bed and felt a phantom body. I tried rolling out to the side, which worked, albeit with some difficulty.

Here I began to palpate the bed and myself (I did everything a bit hurriedly). I couldn’t see yet. I decided that I could deepen and I dove head-first into the floor (that is, more exactly, into the void). I flew down a little bit, and found myself in my neighbor’s apartment below. I then flew back up to my own apartment and stood on the floor. Trying to restore vision, I opened my eyes. It felt like trying to open the eyes after a long period of sleep deprivation, my eyelids were heavy and yielded grudgingly. I looked around: I was standing in my room, it was sunny outside. I decided to try to fly (well, I love flying) (M.R.: no plan of action). I was able to fly up to the ceiling, but immediately began to gently fall back down, being pulled backwards. Upon touching down on the floor, I bounced back up. This was comparable to when a balloon falls and hits the floor, springs back up, falls again, and then bounces up again. I was only able to remain standing on the floor after repeating this process several times.

Suddenly it became difficult to breathe, and I tried to go back to my body (M.R.: wrong action), but was somehow unable to. At first panic arouse, but then I realized that giving in to the fear would do me no good, and that I would have to stick it out. But as soon as I calmed down and relaxed (M.R.: no maintaining), I had a foul (M.R.: no re-entering). All of the above sensations lasted for about a minute.

Keeping a journal can be of much help while learning and practicing lucid dreaming. When properly kept, a journal can help a practitioner to develop an analysis that will increase the quality of lucid dreaming experiences. By and large, keeping a journal helps to iron out a sporadic practice, turning it into a structured discipline that can be mastered.

An effective diary should contain a massive amount of indicators that allow a statistical study to uncover patterns. It is essential that each entry include the date, time of day or night, and a detailed account of entries into lucid dreaming and lucid dreaming experiences. Descriptions of mistakes and a plan of action for the next lucid dreaming should also be recorded. During the novice stages of practice, even noting unsuccessful entry attempts is beneficial. Later on, only successful lucid dreaming experiences may be recorded.

Here is an example of a proper journal entry:

Data:

Experience No. 12

January 5th, 2008

2:13 PM

Experience:

I woke up early in the morning. After exercising, I took a shower and ate breakfast. I watched TV and read books until lunch.

I laid down for a nap at 1 PM, right after lunch. I felt like performing indirect techniques, and affirmed this intention. I woke up the first time to movement, but after trying to employ forced falling asleep (in order to negate the effects of the movement), I fell asleep. I woke up the second time without movement and tried to roll out. This didn’t work and I tried levitating and getting up. After that, I moved on to phantom wiggling. Movement occurred in my right hand. After doing this for several seconds, I decided to try listening in. Sounds started, but I was unable to make them louder. However, images appeared before my eyes and I started to view them. After they became realistic, I decided to try rolling out and it worked without a hitch.

My vision was dim, as if through a veil. But then, the rest of the sensations I felt reached the verge of reality. This is when I went to the window. For some reason, it was summer outside, and not winter. There was a red fire-truck outside the window. There were really low clouds in the sky. The sun was above them.

Next, everything quickly faded away and I found myself back in my body. Then, I got up and looked at the time. It was 2:15 PM.

Mistakes:

1. When the phantom wiggling worked, I should have aggressively tried to increase the range of movement, and not simply done wiggling, let alone change to another technique. After all, if wiggling occurs, lucid dreaming can always be entered. 2. The same with the sounds. I had no great desire to amplify sounds or even listen in. Everything was done lackadaisically. 3. I should have started with deepening and not actions, as visual sensations were not vivid. 4. I should have employed techniques for maintaining. 5. You can’t look down for long without simultaneously using techniques for maintaining, yet I took in everything outside the window and in the sky. 6. I forgot about the plan of action. 7. I should have tried re-enter lucid dreaming.

Plan of action for next time:

1. Definitely deepen lucid dreaming as much as possible. 2. I should try to go through a wall. 3. Translocate to my Auntie in New York. 4. Translocate to the Statue of Liberty and examine her crown.

For the experienced practitioner, becoming conscious while dreaming requires the least effort and attention of all. He essentially only does two things in order to guarantee dream consciousness during the middle of the night, or better yet – with the deferred method. First, he creates an interesting plan of action that will lure him into a dream. Next, while falling asleep, he simply desires to experience dream consciousness, but without dwelling on it too much or being obsessive about it. That’s all! The practitioner would be quite surprised if nothing worked at all.

Once again, everything depends on correctly forming an intention. An experienced practitioner forms an intention in a fundamentally different way than a novice. A novice would think to himself, "I want to become conscious in a dream", while a lucid dreamr would tell himself, "I’ll soon become conscious during my dream", which allows for the programming to make it much deeper into his subconscious mind. Moreover, his prior practice has already trained him for that moment, and there’s nothing else that he needs to do.

Actions. Direct influence on the organism while in lucid dreaming is attributed to the effect of the body reacting at all levels to the impact of lucid dreaming experiences, as was described in the section regarding the technique of taking medicines. That is, when something is done to the organism while in lucid dreaming, the effect is immediately felt there, and, at the same time, there is a real effect on the body in the physical world, just as if everything were happening in real life. The main difference with techniques for direct influence is that the problem is approached not through an intermediary (medicine), but is instead tackled directly. This is essentially a more thorough method, but also a more difficult one.

In practice, it works like this: a person goes into lucid dreaming state and begins to directly influence the sick organ or organism using all means at his disposal – both those that exist in the physical world and those that do not. Moreover, he can influence the body simply at the level of perception, without external contact. The very perception of direct influence is the key factor here. Without it, there’s no real point to applying the technique – nota bene.

There are many options for directly influencing the organism as a whole or influencing its individual parts: heating, cooling, releasing energy, numbing, massaging, administering injections, smearing ointments, radiation treatment – in general, everything that is possible or impossible in real life. This process requires both taking the initiative and a creative approach.

One may influence either the entire organism as a whole, or any separate part of it while in lucid dreaming. For example, one can easily warm up the entire body, heat up only the brain, or even massage it, as incredible as that may sound. Though this may strike some as unbelievably strange, one may actually put one’s hand through the body while in lucid dreaming, feel any organ, and influence or affect it as necessary. Doing this feels so realistic that people are often long unable to bring themselves to attempt it, if only out of the fright that strikes them when they feel their own hand passing through their own body and touching their internal organs. For example, if a person wants to have an affect on the liver, he will be able not only to hold it with his left hand, but also to directly feel the liver itself, as well as the sensation of holding it. This may be particularly frightening when acting on the heart or the brain. lucid dreaming is the only place where one may do all this. And this is truly more than just an incredible experience that leaves an emotional impression lasting one’s entire life. Significantly, one can affect not only a disease, but also its symptoms. By alleviating and eliminating symptoms, one will likewise influence their source. This is especially important when the source of the symptoms themselves is not well understood.

Of course, as with most other techniques for influencing the body while in lucid dreaming, a single direct treatment is often not enough. As a rule, the procedure should be performed several times by entering lucid dreaming for several days in a row, or even implementing a treatment regime. Either way, all this depends on a practitioner’s level of skill in employing the technique. It goes without saying that an experienced practitioner need perform far fewer procedures than a novice.

Therapeutic indications. Directly influencing the organism is easiest when it comes to a problem whose localization is known. It is very difficult to directly influence an imperceptible illness of an unknown nature that exhibits few symptoms.

Example. The example of an injured leg will now be taken up again. The practitioner enters a deep lucid dreaming and immediately begins manipulating the leg in every way possible. First, he concentrates on his leg not hurting and being already healed, and tries to circulate internally-generated therapeutic heat and vibrations about it. The healing effect must be felt immediately. If there is time left, the practitioner uses the technique for finding objects to summon a syringe loaded with painkillers and fast-acting bruise-treating medication. He injects the entire does into his leg, trying to immediately feel the effect of the preparation. This comes easily: the practitioner feels numbness and pleasant sensations emanating from the shot. If possible, he finally rubs in a specially created ointment onto his leg, further accelerating the healing process. When the practitioner returns from lucid dreaming, he is likely to immediately feel that his leg hurts a lot less, and that it will soon begin to recover. Nevertheless it’s best to perform the same procedure several times.

Another example: kidney stones. The practitioner enters into a deep lucid dreaming, and for several minutes tries to "blast" the kidneys with warm vibrations that dissolve the stones. To do this, he first tries to simply feel his kidneys, and then invokes the necessary processes in them by force of a strong desire to do so. Afterwards, he slips his hands into his abdomen, holds one kidney in each hand, and starts massaging them in such a way as to dissolve the stones in them. Then, he carefully slips his fingers into his kidneys, and uses them to rub the stones into a harmless powder. For maximum effect, the practitioner should carry out this procedure regularly and consistently on this problem, as it is not one that is quickly resolved.

Effectiveness. In most cases, the technique of direct influence is a very effective means of treatment. This is especially true when the problem is palpable and obvious. Effectiveness can reach 60 to 80 percent even for a novice, to say nothing of what more experienced practitioners can achieve.

Difficulties. Directly influencing the organism while in lucid dreaming involves no substantial difficulties. It is only necessary to feel the effect of such influence, which is easy to do when desire is strong enough, even without prior training. There remains the minor problem of fear arising when hands are inserted into the body, a phobia that tends to be difficult to overcome. However, the fear often becomes surmountable when one’s goal is serious enough. Sometimes curiosity alone is not enough to bring oneself to hazard the venture.

Accessibility. Directly influencing an illness or health problem is sufficiently easy in lucid dreaming, in addition to being quite effective. Therefore, even beginners are encouraged to use this technique from their very first attempts and never forget about it, even after having mastered other techniques for healing themselves while in lucid dreaming states. This technique is one of the fundamentals.