There are three primary types of techniques that make it possible to enter lucid dreaming: direct, indirect and dream consciousness. These methods are performed while lying down or reclining, eyes closed, and the body in a state of total relaxation.

Interesting Fact!

Often, people have an out-of-body experience without prior knowledge or belief in the phenomenon. It just happens, and a large body of evidence has been gathered to support this fact. Even more interesting is that spontaneous experiences often occur after a brief study of material about the topic, like this guidebook…

Direct techniques are performed without any noticeable lapse in consciousness. While practicing direct techniques, a lapse into sleep for less than 5 minutes is not considered a breach of the technique.

By definition, direct techniques encompass the performance of specific actions for a pre-defined interval of time. Successfully applied, direct methods result in a lucid dream entrance without passing through any intermediary states. For 90% of the population, these techniques are the most difficult because the mind naturally exists in an excessively active state. It has been clearly proven within the School’s student body that novice practitioners do not benefit from beginning a training regimen with direct techniques. This is because direct techniques require a thorough understanding and masterful application of indirect techniques in order to be effective. The incorrect notion that lucid dreaming state is extremely difficult to enter is due to the fact that people are more often drawn to the more difficult direct techniques. It is always better to approach direct techniques only after becoming expert in the use of indirect techniques.

Indirect techniques are techniques that are put into practice upon awakening from sleep.

The effectiveness of indirect techniques is not dependent on the length of the prerequisite sleep cycle. Indirect techniques can be used while exiting a full night’s sleep, after a daytime catnap, or following several hours of deep sleep. The most important thing is that there is a lapse of consciousness into sleep before implementing the techniques.

Indirect techniques are the easiest techniques to practice, which is why many practitioners use them to enter lucid dreaming. Sleep naturally provides the mind with deep relaxation, which is often difficult to acquire by other methods. Since sleep is required to perform indirect techniques, it is a convenient, oft-occurring means to conduct experiments with lucid dreaming. Novice practitioners benefit greatly from the use of indirect techniques, and learn firsthand the possibility of lucid dreaming entrance.

Dream consciousness is acquired by techniques that allow entrance to lucid dreaming through what is commonly referred to as lucid dreaming.

In this case, lucid dreaming begins when the awareness that a dream is occurring happens within the dream itself. After becoming conscious while dreaming, several types of actions can be performed, including deepening or returning to the body and rolling out, which will be described later. When deepening techniques are applied in the context of a conscious dream, the sensory perceptions of lucid dreaming surpass those of normal wakefulness.

Techniques that facilitate dream consciousness are usually categorized separately from methods used to perform out-of-body travel; in practice, however, it is apparent that the characteristics of dream consciousness and out-of-body travel are identical, which places both phenomena directly in lucid dreaming. These practices are difficult because, unlike other techniques, they do not involve specific actions that produce instantaneous results. A large measure of preparatory steps must be observed that require time and effort without any guarantee of results. However, dream consciousness techniques are not as difficult as direct techniques. Moreover, the majority of practitioners, whether using indirect or direct techniques, experience spontaneous awareness while dreaming without having to apply techniques aimed at dream consciousness.

Every lucid dreamingr finds their own balance between all of the methods for entering lucid dreaming based on their abilities to work on them, their individual predispositions, and their very understanding of how to perform them. Some work with only one type of technique. Most often it’s the indirect method or dream consciousness. However, whenever possible it’s best to strive for balance and diversify lucid dreaming entrances as much as possible. Moreover, practically everything becomes achievable with practice, and in this field nothing is impossible. With a balanced approach and all things being equal, the direct method will account for about 15% of all experiences, the indirect method 50% (half of those being immediate separations upon awakening, and the other half using the techniques), while the remaining third of experiences will be had thanks to dream consciousness. However, at times the boundary between methods is so hard to pin down that it sometimes appears impossible to assign a lucid dream entrance to a specific method.

In addition to the techniques described above, there are also non-autonomous means and tools: various devices, programs, external influences, and so forth, which can be used to enter lucid dreaming. It is necessary to mention that these are only useful to practitioners who are able to enter lucid dreaming without supplementary assistance.

Various chemical substances and herbal supplements have been recommended to assist lucid dreaming entrance, though using them is unlikely to do any good, and use of these has never yielded the effect that can be achieved through unadulterated practice. As such, the use of a chemical crutch is regarded here as completely unacceptable.

While still in human form in lucid dreaming, one should briskly imitate the movements of the target animal while taking on its external appearance. During this process, it’s important to not only imitate the movement of the creature, but also try to feel oneself being it. The practitioner will gradually take on all of the anatomical sensations and external appearance of the target form. For example, if the practitioner has decided to become a tiger, then he should try to run in leaps on his four extremities, trying to feel the entire body of the big cat along with its sensations, starting from the touch of its paws and claws on the earth to the tip of its tail.

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So last night after about 4 hours of sleep, I woke up and did a few little things, went to the bathroom, lit some incense, and then went back to bed. As I was falling asleep, I started to observe dream images coming in and out of my awareness. Once I felt that one was strong enough, I just got up and fell off the end of my bed. I was now in lucid dreaming.

I was in complete darkness, which happens to me a lot when I exit my body, and so I started deepening techniques untill I could see. Here’s the interesting part: I’ve been wanting to do an OBE “test” for a while, and so before going to bed that night I had shuffled a deck of cards and put one high up in my room where I couldn’t see it (I hadn’t looked at it). As soon as I could see after deepening, I climbed up and looked at the card. What I saw was the 8 of diamonds.

After doing this I jumped out my window and explored a “lucid dreaming” garden. Two alien-like creatures drove up and pulled out guns on me, but I disarmed them quickly. I stole their car and drove around crashing into things for fun. Then I had a false awakening. I was back in my room, but had woken up in a standing position, and I so instantly knew I was still in lucid dreaming.

This time, I decided to try something else I had wanted to try. It might sound a bit crazy, but I spoke to the plants in my room, I made them grow huge and they filled my room. It looked spectacular. Then, the spirit of the plants manifested as my bag, which was strange, and he spoke like an old English man. I don’t really remember what he said.

Shortly thereafter I woke up for real, and it took me a little while to remember what I had done in lucid dreaming, but once I did I jumped up and checked the card to see if I was right. It turned out to be the 8 of clubs, so I got the suit wrong but the number right! I was still pretty happy – even though I didn’t get it 100% correct, it was close enough for me!

Moscow, Russia

I became conscious in my dream almost immediately after falling asleep. I was in my apartment standing in the corridor. Being surprised by having so suddenly found myself in lucid dreaming, I started to touch the walls with my hands to test their firmness or, "realness," as well as to intensify lucid dreaming by touching. I entered the room (M.R.: no plan of action). There was a bed standing next to the wall, with my mother sleeping on it. I could not see her face, only her body under the blanket. The room and corridor were exact replicas of their real-life counterparts.

While thinking about my sleeping mother, I suddenly started to feel somewhat uneasy. When I approached the window, I saw a grotesque landscape behind it that was similar to pictures from movies about catastrophes: a wasteland, houses in ruins, odd pileups of building materials, slabs of concrete, garbage, craters from explosions here and there, and I noticed human figures in some places.

Fearing a foul caused by the fact that I was taking in a panoramic view (the view from the window spanned 180 degrees and cut off at the horizon, which is in fact almost exactly as the view from my apartment is in real life), I turned back into the room and started to touch the wardrobe, and then knelt down to touch the floor. All the while, my fear had been growing stronger and stronger: both out of thinking about my sleeping mother and due to the view from the window. Anxiety turned into real fear within a matter of several seconds, and then graduated into terror and panic. I lost the ability to think critically. I had only one thought: I had to go back to my body (M.R.: wrong logic). I darted back to my bed and suddenly found myself lying on it. I closed my eyes, but could not understand if I were in my real body or still in lucid dreaming. My terror grew even stronger when I half-opened my eyes and saw that my mother was getting up from her bed. She looked like a character from a horror movie and apparently was hostile to me.

I wanted to disappear, dissolve, and wake up! I hectically tried to recall the techniques for an emergency exit from lucid dreaming, but with poor results: I tried to freeze, relax and touch my fingers to my toes in order to feel a connection with my real body. At some moments I felt like I had it, thinking, “The connection had been restored!” I opened my eyes, but realized that I was still in lucid dreaming when I saw that the room had changed, and was now awash with garbage.

The fact that the attempts kept ending with false awakenings was driving me crazy. I was especially shocked when I got up after one of the false awakenings and saw my mother standing at my bed, still looking threateningly at me, like a vampire or a zombie from a horror movie. Plus, she started to reach out toward me with her hands!

I nevertheless kept on and tried to freeze and wiggle my toes, this time without opening my eyes, and not checking where I was. I started to calm down after some time, but I was unable to feel my real body, which was confirmed by the fact that sounds were coming in from lucid dreaming: I heard sparrows chirping outside the window, though it reality it was too late for sparrows to be out. However, the chirping and the associations that it brought (i.e. day, warmth, sparrows, and sun), probably helped me a lot and calmed me down, as I finally managed to sense my real body and found myself in reality. Nevertheless, after I got up, I immediately started to verify for about half a minute that I was no longer in lucid dreaming by touching objects, making sure that they were hard, and feeling all of my bodily sensations.

When at a high level of practice, a lucid dreamr is not surprised by lucid dreaming itself (as is the case at other levels). The only surprise comes from unsuccessful attempts when he is unable to enter it. This is especially true regarding indirect techniques. Three key factors lead to such a success rate.

If techniques performed upon awakening do not work due to an aggressive approach, this is always remedied by correct use of forced falling asleep in parallel to the techniques. They always start to work, and so choice of technique is not important here. And if a technique has started working upon awakening, then that’s a clear sign of a deep lucid dreaming. That is, working techniques are markers of lucid dreaming. Many experienced practitioners immediately begin to use forced falling asleep in parallel with performing the indirect techniques, which is why they are either immediately able to exit the body, or the first technique that they use works.

An experienced lucid dreamingr does not perform indirect techniques in order to obtain the right state. He moves directly towards that state, and might perform some technique in order to control his conscious mind. The task is to obtain the right state – a certain physiological process – upon awakening. And if that state’s already there, and if that state is already quite familiar, then it only remains to go for it! That’s the whole secret. It’s almost impossible to describe how it feels in words, yet many do it intuitively in practice. It’s usually more a combination of recollection of the state, forced falling asleep, and an intense desire to enter lucid dreaming no matter what. The most important thing is to aim right for lucid dreaming.

Understanding a logical fact dramatically increases the effectiveness of indirect techniques: practically every time a practitioner is waking up, he is already in lucid dreaming, be it a deep or shallow form of it. Physiologically speaking, a person who has just woken up is in lucid dreaming by definition. Once a practitioner understands this, he will act in a much more self-assured and focused manner during attempts, and results will follow. It’s no secret that a substantial portion of unsuccessful attempts – if not 90% of them – are unsuccessful due not to any action, but because lack of confidence finds expression in the results. This is due to lucid dreaming’s tendency to model expectations. You expect nothing to happen, and so even if you are in lucid dreaming – nothing will happen. Believe that you will do it right here and now because you are already in lucid dreaming – and enjoy the result! We are actually already in lucid dreaming upon every awakening. One can even take the following approach to this understanding: when waking up, our task is not to enter lucid dreaming, but to deepen it. This is easily observed with the technique of sensory-motor visualization, which essentially consists in performing deepening without any separation or prior employment of techniques. There’s a reason why this technique works well for experienced practitioners, and novices have a hard time getting it.