Lucid Dreaming and OBE Discussion Board

Interesting read for anyone interested in the phase

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7423429/Consc ... ucinations

"I have done scientific research into conscious dreams since I discovered them in 1976 andwas published in 1979, 1980, and 1981 in France  and in 1976 in Italy. In my articles I described what distinguishes this form of dream fromnormal oneiric phenomena and I also analyzed different states of consciousness. Thework I did is, apparently, the most advanced that has been done within the scientific field.Of course, conscious dreams have been explored for a long time by the Tibetan monks, but they had no knowledge of present-day scientific analysis. Conscious dreaming is,wrongly, called "lucid" dreaming in English. I will describe here a simple and efficientmethod for inducing this kind of dream. Moreover, I strongly believe that when most people are able to enter, voluntarily, in the virtual world of their dream world, this willdrastically change society. Manipulating your own mind in conscious dreams cannot becompared with the highly primitive manipulations of computer generated virtual realities...

It is far easier to enjoy the virtual reality in your own mind than to try to enjoy primitivevirtual realities generated by computers! To that effect, you need no money, nothing,except practice! Moreover, by doing so you start to learn a lot about what consciousnessis as, for instance, in dreams you are frequently conscious of things which are non-existent in the reality of the awake state. How you can be conscious of things whichnever existed is an important discovery which opens the scientific exploration of whatexactly "consciousness" is. I analyzed this, in detail, in my 1980 article"

Yes, the paper recommends improving your dream recall and "lucid living" (live your live fully conscious as if you were in the phase carrying out a plan of action). While this is great and can "effortlessly" make you lucid in your dreams more commonly especially if you defer your sleep at 4am it unfortunately takes up a lot of time (I used to spend two hours per day doing it).

I highly agree with good dream recall as you may notice that most of my phase experiences occur when I have been focusing on writing my dreams in full detail however the fact that writing your dreams (I'm talking 5 A4 pages per night) is incredibly boring actually makes your phase entry desire lower and you focus on dream recall rather than desire and plan of action recall.

Overall I would recommend the method in that paper to anyone who loves writing (not me even though I write phase books) and the interesting dream storylines their mind can create. Just remember to still focus on your plan of action and phase entry desire while you improve your dream recall to avoid inducing simulated phase experiences.

There are actually three independent things in his exercises.

One is, as you mention, "lucid living", or just remember to be mindful whenever possible during the day. Another is improving dream recall by writing down your dreams.

The last thing seems like it is more or less the indirect technique of observing images after waking without moving. The difference is that he suggests that it can be improved by focusing for 30 minutes on the darkness you see with your closed eyes, while trying to visualize an object and make it appear in the darkness, after going to bed.

I wonder if perhaps the Yoga meditation method tratak could also help. Basically look at a candle or a geometric shape on your computer screen, then close your eyes and focus your attention on the after image, with practice you should be able to hold the after image in your mind longer and longer as your concentration improves. Initially the after image is mainly caused by retinal fatigue, but what happens when you focus your attention on it, is that as the retinal image disappear, you keep the memory of the image in focus instead.