An experienced practitioner will translocate within lucid dreaming and find objects in it upon first attempt when using any technique, or just pure willpower without using techniques at all. It’s not hard at all for him to lift a house or a mountain with one finger, as his mind no longer harbors the biases and patterns of the everyday world. He can take on any bodily form and conjure any sensation, including those alien to human existence or human knowledge. In other words, if there is something a practitioner can’t do in lucid dreaming, that means he hasn’t reached a high level of control over it, and has something to work on.

The things he has to work on are quite clear: intention, self-assurance, and desire. Those are the very factors that determine every facet of controlling lucid dreaming. If something doesn’t work out, then mistakes are to be sought not in one’s technique, but in how it is performed internally, inside one’s subconscious mind – which will never grow accustomed to the fact that the limitations of the physical world no longer always apply.

Robert Monroe was born in the United States in 1915. In 1937, he graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in Engineering. He worked for some time as a radio program producer and director until he established his own radio company in New York, which rapidly expanded.

In 1956, his company also conducted a study about the effect of sound waves on the abilities of the mind.

In 1958, Monroe had an accidental personal experience with lucid dreaming phenomenon, which strongly stoked his interest in the subject to which he would devote his entire career. In 1974, he founded the Monroe Institute, which was entirely devoted to studying unusual states of consciousness and the ability to influence them through audio stimulation and other technologies. One of its main achievements was the creation of the Hemi-Sync system, which was designed to help a person reach altered states of consciousness, including out-of-body states, by synchronizing the two hemispheres of the brain.

His first book, Journeys Out of the Body, was published in 1971. Two books then followed: Far Journeys (1985) and Ultimate Journey (1994).

Robert Monroe has, so far, made the largest contribution toward popularizing lucid dreaming state. However, he understood lucid dreaming more as an actual exit of the mind from the body, which is why the term “out-of-body experience” (OBE) was introduced. The book Journeys Out of the Body was such a massive success that Monroe quickly became an undisputed authority in the field.

However, the large influence of mysticism on Monroe’s work and views cannot be ignored. This is especially apparent after his second book. The majority of phenomena described in the book have not been verified in practice. The only attempt at conducting a full-fledged scientific experiment proving that the mind left the body was unsuccessful. In the end, typical misconceptions about lucid dreaming became widespread, as did awareness of the existence of out-of-body experiences.

Robert Monroe passed away in 1995.

Technique of imagined rotation

lucid dreamingr tries to imagine that his body is rotating along his head-to-toe axis. The end goal is to replace imagined sensations with real ones. Rotation may generally take place on any plane, but one shouldn’t try to visualize it or try to see oneself from the side, as the main emphasis is on one’s own vestibular sensations.

Technique of real rotation

lucid dreamingr tries to rotate the sensation of his physical body along his head-to-toe axis. In this case, the process need not be visualized or imagined. You should start off from real sensations, although the plane of rotation may be changed at will.

Swing-set technique

lucid dreamingr tries to feel that he is riding a swing-set, or that his body itself is rocking with the same range of motion. The primary goal is to achieve the realistic sensation of swinging and try to make 360o revolutions.

Along with all the positive experiences and sensations that may be enjoyed in lucid dreaming, experiences of a painful nature may also manifest. Punching a wall in a deep lucid dreaming state will cause the same pain as if a wall had been struck in physical reality.

Some actions in lucid dreaming may unavoidably cause unpleasant feelings of pain; therefore, it is necessary to know how to avoid painful actions. Focusing on an internal confidence that pain will not result from an action will alleviate the problem. A practitioner may experiment with this type of focus by pummeling a wall while resolving that there is no pain. If the experiment succeeds, then obtaining the same result will never again require the same level of effort; thinking that lucid dreaming is painless will suffice.

New York, USA

I wake up to slight consciousness and I’m unsure if I have moved or not. My first thought is to go back to sleep, but then I decide to try to enter lucid dreaming. I apply forced falling asleep and immediately start to feel vibrations. They fluctuate between strong and mild and I start to feel them subside. I then remember what I always tell myself: if I get vibrations, then I’m already in lucid dreaming. So I try to roll out of my body… There is resistance, but I am able to do it.

I stand up in my current apartment and it is completely dark. As I am walking to the front door, I try to put my right index finger through my left palm to make sure I am in lucid dreaming. It works, and so I open the door to the hallway but it looks nothing like my actual hall. It is still very dim and there is another gentleman there. I point to different areas and say the word “lights”, and sure enough, one-by-one they come on. I keep touching things to engage the senses as I am walking. I walk into a room with a young boy in it and he is watching TV. I think about my plan of action and remember that I wanted to try the teleportation technique in SOBT. I had previously been teleporting by melting through the floor but it was unreliable and I would end up in darkness sometimes. I had read in Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming that closing your eyes in a dream can cause you to wake up, but I figured that if Michael does it all the time then this isn’t fact.

I ask the boy where should I go… to a football game? He says yes, but then I figure that since I have never actually been to a football game, I should go to a basketball game instead. I close my eyes and concentrate on where I wanted to go. I start to feel movement and even get the feeling you get when going down a huge drop on a rollercoaster. When the movement stops, I open my eyes. It has worked, and I am standing in the middle of an arena while a basketball game is going on. I take a step onto the court and immediately the referee blows the whistle to stop the game and get me off of the court. I go sit in the stands and began talking to one of the prettier girls. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but after a short while she wants to exit the main arena and go towards the concession stands and bathrooms. You can guess where the rest of the experience went.