Moscow, Russia

I went to bed with the intention of entering lucid dreaming while dreaming or upon awakening in the morning. I woke up at about 6:30 am, and decided to try the method of visualization, as phantom wiggling had not worked over the past 2 days (M.R.: no separation). Vague images gradually created a scene in front of me, which I then found myself participating in. I felt myself separating from my body, and rolled out of it. I opened my eyes. Some guy grabbed me by the shoulder and said, "You’ve left your body, be cool." I told him that I was ready. He turned me around, and I saw my body…

My body was lying on its back with open eyes, even though I had started visualizing while lying on my stomach. Not assigning any particular significance to this, I decided to deepen right away. I squatted down and began to quickly palpate the floor and the walls with the palms of my hands. I then looked at my index finger, and could discern the lines in the skin. Figuring that this was all wonderful, I went to the kitchen in order to fly (M.R.: no plan of action). However, I remembered that it was best for novices not to attempt this. I returned to my bedroom door and pictured there being a sunny beach behind it. I opened the door and immediately woke up lying on my back (M.R.: no maintaining and no re-entering)…

Vancouver, Canada

I am in LA right now, participating in an experiment at the OBE Research Center that Mike is leading.

Today’s assignment was: using the differed method and cycles of indirect techniques, roll (or levitate, or climb) out of the body and meet the aliens that are waiting for us there (this was a goal for this experiment).

Again, I woke up a bit disappointed because it was time to get ready for our second session and none of the techniques worked. I was in my LA hotel room. It looked different from how my room looks in reality but I guess in my mind it was just a different room (not my bedroom at home), so I was not really paying attention to the fact that the main door and windows had switched places, it was much lighter in color and overall amount of light in the room, there were some staff around, a camera that I don’t have, and knickknacks everywhere.

So I started becoming aware when I was in the shower and noticed that the water drops on the shower walls were dark in color. I decided to stop showering and then when I was back in the room, getting ready, everything felt so real that I don’t even know why I decided to check if it was lucid dreaming.

Imagine it yourself: yesterday you went to bed, then you woke up this morning, showered, got ready, did this, did that and then decided to check if it was lucid dreaming – and it turned out that IT IS (!)

So I decided just for the heck of it to test if it might be lucid dreaming by “breathing with the nose pinched” technique and of course it did not work at first, because I had been doing it with the “how can it be lucid dreaming, everything is so real” thought. But I kept trying and after a third attempt air got out from somewhere behind my ears and I happily confirmed for myself that I was totally in lucid dreaming.

I felt very happy. I started rising in the air and flew in a couple of circles under the ceiling. Then, I felt the need to deepen and I really focused on that. I looked a few times at my palms. I looked at myself and noticed I was wearing a towel wrapped around me. Then I started touching everything in the room. I took a camera and put it on the floor, thinking that I will check later it it’s going to be on the floor in reality. (don’t know what had gotten into me, that’s a pointless test, I guess I just remembered someone doing this once) At first it felt that my hands were numb, but as I was touching everything I got back my sense of touch.

Since perception was back to 100%, it was time to go look for aliens. They were not in the room. I looked outside of the hotel window and saw some road with huge fallen branches on it, a chain-link fence and some greenery and trees behind it. Aliens were not there either. So I decided to get into the corridor, I opened the door, it was really dark inside, even the light from the room could not penetrate it. I thought, aliens must be there, so I stepped into the darkness… At least 3 tiny hands touched my shoulder… I totally freaked and woke up… (M.R.: no re-entering)

Swimmer technique

lucid dreamingr tries to imagine the process of swimming in as much detail as possible, trying to feel all of the physical sensations of the process and even feel the water surrounding his body. Any swimming style may be used. (Best technique of 2010 and 2011 at School of Out-of-Body Travel seminars)

Rope technique

lucid dreamingr imagines that a rope is dangling above him, and that he is climbing up it. Meanwhile, one should try to feel one’s own arm movements, the touch of the rope, and the sensation of height. Visualization of the process may occasionally be added in.

Technique of visualizing the hands

lucid dreamingr tries to feel that he is rubbing his hands together, as if trying to warm them. Meanwhile, it’s important to try to feel the movement of your hands, the feeling of them coming into contact, the sound of rubbing, and also try to see the whole process in front of you. The imagined hands should be rubbed at a distance of no more than 6 inches from your eyes.

Sensory-motor visualization technique

lucid dreamingr should try to imagine as fixedly and actively as possible that he has already separated from his body and is employing a technique for deepening lucid dreaming, including the intensification of every sensation possible. He should imagine that he is walking inside a room, scrutinizing everything from a close distance, touching something, and so on. That is, he should immediately deepen lucid dreaming without using techniques to create the state or separate.

Conscious awakening is waking up with a particular thought in mind; ideally, a thought about indirect techniques. In order to start using indirect techniques upon awakening, it is not sufficient to have a cursory knowledge of the techniques to be used when waking. Due to the peculiarities of the human mind and its habits, it is not always easy when waking to recall any particular motive or idea. The goal of conscious awakening is to practice instant action without being idle after waking up.

Interesting Fact!

There exists a belief that the phenomenon of out-of-body travel is practically unattainable, and is accessible only to an elect few through practices that require secret knowledge. However, the greatest difficulty when trying to experience out-of-body travel in a short period of time lies only in immediately remembering about the techniques upon awakening without moving. This is all simple and straightforward. But it is precisely this trifle that is the largest stumbling block when trying to experience such an uncommon phenomenon.

This is not difficult at all for approximately 75% of the population. However, for the other one-quarter of the population, this is a difficult barrier to entry that can even seem insurmountable. If such thoughts arise, one should simply understand that this cannot be so, and that persistent attempts and training are the key solution.

The reasons why people are unable to remember practicing lucid dreaming upon awakening are: not being in the habit of immediately doing anything upon awakening, a desire to sleep longer, a desire to go to the bathroom, being thirsty, a desire to suddenly start solving day-to-day problems, and so on.

Conscious awakening with the intent of attempting an indirect technique should be a practitioner’s primary goal, which should be pursued at every cost. The speed at which lucid dreaming is learned and experienced depends on this.

There are several effective tricks to learning conscious awakening:

Moscow, Russia

My first entry happened at night. I was lying in bed and thinking about lucid dreaming, as I had been unable to fall asleep for a while. I dozed off for a moment and then awoke again, this time already in the proper state, and then easily rolled out (more or less unconsciously and reflexively). I went deeper by means of touching and then falling headfirst. It is a pity that I’ve already forgotten a lot of the experience, but I do remember that after deepening I fell right down onto the yard of my grandmother’s house, but then lost consciousness, and so I returned into my body and rolled out of it several times (M.R.: no plan of action). I was unable to sharpen all my senses: When I deepened one sense (touch, for example), another (i.e. sight) would fade away. After that, I have a gap in my memory concerning my travels (consciousness and lucidity were weak, and I fell asleep and “resurfaced” several times), but I remember having been to a lot of places.

Here’s how the episode ended: I dove headfirst into water from a high board (after first having deepened a bit), and then my sense of touch grew sharper: I felt “water” and hit my head against a very soft “bottom.” I resumed the interrupted fall through willpower, but then it occurred to me that my grandmother wanted to wake me up. My level of awareness was not quite adequate, as it did not occur to me that I was actually sleeping in a dormitory, and not at my grandmother’s house. That’s why I decided that I needed to return to my body. A sharp fall occurred right after that thought, and was followed by sensations similar to those one experiences when hung-over.