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.

cabeludo@hotmail.co.uk

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.

Success at entering lucid dreaming depends on two factors: quantity and quality of attempts. Accordingly, the greater the quantity of high-quality attempts, the greater the odds of having a lucid dream experience. However, practically all practitioners encounter certain psychological difficulties that deprive them of 30 to 75% of all attempts. That is, lucid dreamingrs often experience only half of what they could due to certain patterns of thought.

This mainly occurs during two common situations in which practitioners simply lose all desire to even try: a) excessively alert awakening b) awakening to physical movement. Even if a lucid dreamr suddenly decides to give it a try in such situations, his attempts are understandably performed waveringly and poorly, which is equivalent to not trying at all. However, in the absolute majority of such cases, no attempt is even made.

The hilarity of the situation consists in the probable falseness of the sensations of both excessively alert awakening and awakening to physical movement. For example, the thought, "I woke up way too alertly, nothing’s going to work now" is usually immediately followed by falling back asleep. However, a substantial portion of movements upon awakening are false, even though it may seem that they are made with the physical body. But even if there is an actual alert awakening and actual physical movement, the likelihood of entering lucid dreaming does not actually decrease as much as one might think. That’s why it is not only possible try to enter lucid dreaming in such situations – it is a must. Those who follow this simple principle alone may enjoy twice as many lucid dreaming experiences as those who do not.

However, mindfulness of this principle alone is often insufficient to compensate for psychological certainty that nothing will work during a specific attempt. In order to solve this problem, one may use one a most effective psychological trick based on self-deception. If it seems to the practitioner that there is no sense in making an attempt as nothing will work anyway, he ought think exactly as follows: "Alright, entering lucid dreaming will hardly work out, but now I’m going to simply practice for future attempts and do everything as if these were ideal conditions". Afterwards, a high-quality “practice session” will occur, during which it might be easy to have a real lucid dreaming experience. So, if it seems that nothing at all will happen upon an awakening, then simply give it a go and practice cycling indirect techniques, without worrying about the outcome.

It should also be noted that a lucid dreamr will often lose out on an attempt through the belief that he has to catch the right moment of being half-awake. Many think that catching that moment is a mandatory prerequisite for the indirect method. It generally is, but that moment of transition usually doesn’t begin at the second one awakens – rather, it arises right when performing cycles of techniques! That is, the moment of being half-awake is not so much something to catch upon awakenings, but more something to induce using the techniques themselves – which is actually exactly what they’re there for. That’s precisely why there’s no sense in giving up a chance for an attempt.

Every practitioner simply needs to be well aware that one may fall into lucid dreaming upon any awakening, no matter what it may seem and no matter what thoughts may cross one’s mind. That’s why you need to not over-analyze or over-think it, but simply to mechanically try, try, and try again.