Hidalgo, México

I got conscious during a dream when I was about to go upstairs at home, just after a false awakening. The stairs where so freaking scrambled that I immediately got lucid. Suddenly, lucid dreaming faded out, and before I could realize what was happening, I went back to the dream. I appeared in the middle of a huge street (M.R.: no deepening). I didn’t have any plan, because I was not expecting this experience, and so instead of thinking about it I decided to explore running and jumping between cars and buildings in a kind of extreme parkour style.

It had been one of the most vivid and fun lucid dreaming experiences I have ever had. I have no words to describe the feeling of complete freedom I had at those moments. After exploring half of the entire city (I was running really fast) I started to have some serious problems with lucid dreaming stability, and so I decided to awaken by myself before falling into a normal dream and losing the precious memories of this experience (M.R.: wrong logic).

Testing Individual Effectiveness. Immediately after waking from sleep, remain motionless, eyes closed. Try to wiggle a part of the body for 3 to 5 seconds, but without using any muscles. If nothing moves during the attempt, try a different technique. If a sensation of wiggling occurs, even in the slightest, continue to employ the technique, striving to increase the range of movement as much as possible. This technique should be performed very aggressively, not passively. As soon as the range of movement nears or exceeds four inches – which may take just several seconds – the following situations may arise: one momentarily finds oneself somehow in lucid dreaming, or the wiggled part of the body begins to move freely. The occurrence of movement during practice of this technique allows the practitioner to transition to a separation technique and attempt to leave the body.

While practicing phantom wiggling, strong vibrations may occur, amid which separation may be attempted. Sounds also often arise, allowing the opportunity to practice listening in, which can lead to lucid dreaming entrance.

The phantom wiggling technique is not meant to produce an imagined movement by a phantom body. The point of the technique is to attempt the movement of a physical body part without using muscular action. That is, the focus should rest upon an internal intention of movement without physical action. When the sensation occurs, it differs little from its real counterpart and is often accompanied by heaviness and resistance. Generally, there is very little range of movement at first, but with concentrated effort the range of movement noticeably increases.

It does not matter which part of the body is used to exercise phantom movement. It may be the whole body or just one finger. Neither is the speed of the movement important. Increased range of perceived movement is the aim of the technique.

Training. To train the technique of phantom wiggling, relax a hand for several minutes while lying down, eyes closed. Then, aggressively envision the following hand movements, without moving any muscles, for two to three minutes each: rotating, up-down, left-right, extending the fingers and drawing the fingers together, clenching and unclenching a fist. No sensations will occur at first. Gradually, the sensation of muscular action will become so apparent that the perceived movement will be indistinguishable from real movement. During the first training attempts, practitioners are often tempted to open their eyes to see if actual movement is occurring – that’s how real the sensation feels.

lucid dreaming perception initially causes so much emotion and variety of experience that the practitioner is often not concerned with the question of how lucid dreaming might be purposefully used. The critical question of application becomes even more crucial as experience increases. Application of lucid dreaming becomes more vivid against the background of understanding how the phenomenon can provide a means of gaining information and new experiences.

Some approach lucid dreaming practice with a predetermined goal, uninterested in anything else. With a specific goal, the problem of where the goal came from might arise, as lucid dreaming phenomenon is wrapped in a thick layer of prejudices and stereotypes, which often have no bearing on the reality. The primary purpose of this chapter is to precisely separate reality from fiction. Its second purpose is to provide a detailed description of what may be obtained from the practice of lucid dreaming experiences.

Every proven and accessible practical application of lucid dreaming is based on three qualities: a) application founded on lucid dreaming’s ability to simulate any object and any space with any properties and functions; b) application based on the opportunity to connect with the subconscious mind in order to obtain information; c) application based on lucid dreaming’s ability to impact a practitioner’s physiology.

Most importantly, nothing described in this chapter is difficult to achieve. Any application may be achieved during the very first lucid dreaming if a practitioner manages to focus and apply the appropriate techniques for translocation or finding objects. Regardless of whether the practitioner adheres to a mystical or pragmatic worldview, a full range of access is inherently possible.

Possible applications of the phenomenon certainly exceed the scope of descriptions related through this chapter. It is possible that other applications simply have not been proven yet, and, so far, the correct methods of practicing these are still unknown. Only the practitioner may determine the limits of possibility within lucid dreaming. Of course, common sense should be applied – otherwise, it would be logically and psychologically difficult to disengage misconceptions. The goal of this book is to provide a real (though minimal) foundation that is firm and unyielding, whatever the circumstance. If the practitioner follows a strict approach to practice, it will be much more difficult to become lost during further practical and theoretical studies.

Out of all of the substances used for practicing lucid dreaming, only coffee is readily obtainable. However, it should only be taken by novices who sleep too hard. For everyone else, there’s no sense in using it, as one’s practice should be natural.

The essence of the this tactic is to use the deferred method in conjunction with taking coffee. For example: a practitioner sleeps for 6 hours, gets up, drinks coffee, and goes back to sleep with the intention of catching the next awakening in order to use indirect techniques or in expectation of becoming consciousness while dreaming. Thanks to coffee’s invigorating properties, one will be at a higher state of awareness during subsequent awakenings, and awakenings themselves will be more frequent. There will also be a high likelihood of becoming consciousness while dreaming.

While some hold it’s best to take a double dose of the drink, such things are purely individual, and everyone has to find what works for them. Some enjoy the same level of success when drinking black tea instead of coffee.

This is to be used in cases when some indirect technique has begun working, albeit quite weakly or insufficiently. Here, in order to bring the working technique up to the right degree of manifestation, the practitioner should begin to perform forced falling asleep in parallel to it, just as is done with backdrop forced falling asleep. That is, lucid dreamingr should try to seemingly fall asleep to the technique being performed. As a result, the partially manifesting technique will start to work much better right then, and allow for lucid dreaming to be reached much sooner.