Meaning of a Dream

Inside my FREE 10,000-word e-course, you'll learn proven methods to become a frequent lucid dreamer:

1. Recall multiple dreams in detail every night

2. Recognize dream signs that trigger lucidity

3. Perform foolproof reality checks in your sleep

4. Prime your mind and body for lucid dreams

5. Use hypnagogia to induce conscious dreams

6. Use self-hypnosis to program dream content

7. Safely take dream herbs and supplements

8. The easiest lucidity technique known to man

9. Stabilize your lucidity to make dreams last longer

10. Actively control your dreams and fulfil fantasies

Grab my FREE e-course now and get my exclusive Lucid Dreaming Newsletter by entering your email address.

Wishing you the sweetest of lucid dreams...

Creator, World-of-Lucid-Dreaming.com

I really want to have lucid dreams but I read that lucid dreaming is really addictive and this worries me. Would you compare this need to taking drugs? How do you keep control over it?

Rebecca says: Let me start out by explaining the literal definition of addiction: the condition of being abnormally dependent on some habit or substance. When you withdraw from the substance or habit, you get cravings and, in severe addiction, physical withdrawal pain.

This is not the case with lucid dreaming. Sure, it is a lot of fun and people want to do it, just like people want to go dancing or rock climbing or play the guitar. It can become an important part of your life like any other pastime. But, unlike the common focus of addictions like drugs or alcohol, there is no psychological nor physiological addictive need to lucid dream.

And how could there be? You dream for 100 minutes per night, and I guarantee that won't all be spent lucid dreaming (unless you have a rare condition of permanent lucidity, which develops in childhood). Even highly experienced lucid dreamers admit they don't lucid dream every night. So I ask: how can we become addicted to something so elusive as to be unavailable for 95% of our conscious daily existence?

I have read in the media that "lucid dreaming is addictive" but this is a poor use of language. They are trying to say that it's highly enjoyable and you'll want to do it more... not that you won't be able to live a normal existence without frequent injections of its chemical or mental stimulus.

Inception's writer and director, Chris Nolan, had long wanted to make this movie based on his own experiences of lucid dreams. He knew what he was talking about. And yet, there are a number of lucid dreaming myths in Inception.

Perhaps this was why Nolan chose never to use the term "lucid dreaming" in his movie. In doing so, he allowed himself the flexibility to create his own dream mythology, centered around the act of consciously entering other people's dreams and stealing / planting secrets.

Nonetheless, the central theme of being able to consciously create and navigate the dream world is impossible to ignore - this is lucid dreaming in its essence.

Even non-lucid dreamers made the association; Google searches "lucid dreaming" shot through the roof in the months surrounding Inception's release.

So where does Inception's mythology deviate from the truth of lucid dreaming?

To draw the line between fact and fiction, I wanted to highlight the three biggest myths of Inception and contrast them with the reality of lucid dreaming.

Spoiler alert: if you have been living under a rock and are yet to catch this movie, the following does contain spoilers... Check out Inception on DVD first!

This section contains expert lucid dreaming interviews. If you want to suggest a future interviewee, post it in my suggestion box.

While I take a scientific approach to lucidity, it does has many branches (out-of-body experiences, astral projection, precognitive dreams and shared dreams, to name a few) which are frequently subject to esoteric interpretation. You may find conflicting theories of mind, body and soul in these pages, and my intention is to give each subject his or her own platform to recount their personal experiences and interpretations. The views expressed don't necessarily reflect my own - but then that's half the fun isn't it ;)

An interview with Robert Waggoner, lucid dream researcher, author of Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self, and President-Elect of the IASD.

An interview with Charlie Morley, a holistic lucid dreaming teacher bringing together Western science with Tibetan Buddhist lucid dream practices.

An interview with Daniel Love, creator of the Cycle Adjustment Technique, author of Are You Dreaming?, and consultant to the upcoming show Anamnesis.

Rebecca Turner is the creator of the website World of Lucid Dreaming. In this interview she answers reader questions and shares her personal insights for beginner lucid dreamers.

An interview with Erin Pavlina, lucid dreamer and explorer of altered states, featuring her personal beliefs and insights into lucid dreaming and astral projection.

Peter Maich Interview

A lifelong lucid dreamer, this interview with Peter Maich covers his experiences of lucid energy/light, the conceptual dream void and taking Galantamine supplements to induce lucid dreams.

Lucid dreaming is now more popular than ever - and is certainly on the radar of journalists, directors and writers. This section is dedicated to lucid dreaming in the media. It features movie reviews, documentaries, science experiments, and other interesting media mentions.

An Inception review by a lucid dreamer; starring Leo DiCaprio and delving into the world of subconscious realities and the mystery of consciousness.

Learn how to master lucid dreaming, Inception style! Program your subconscious mind to lucid dream like Leo DiCaprio and Ellen Page.

The high profile lucid dream explorer, Robert Waggoner, describes the top 10 things he likes about Christopher Nolan's new lucid dreaming movie: Inception.

How James Cameron's Avatar in 3D threw me back into a lucid dream world, where fantasy meets reality. Amazing visuals that emulate the lucid dreamscape...

Vanilla Sky: a review of the lucid dreaming movie starring Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz. A tale of life, love, science and reality.

The Good Night Review - a guest article by Dan tea. A lucid dreaming movie starring Penelope Cruz, Martin Freeman and Danny De Vito. Full review.

European scientists have begun to translate brain signals which reveal the content of your dreams. Could you one day record and playback your lucid dreams?

Lucid Dream Explorers: A DVD documentary review. Check out this lucid dreaming DVD featuring interviews with top lucid dream experts Dr Stephen LaBerge and Dr Alan Wallace.

Lucidity is a brand new XBox Live and PC game by LucasArts for lucid dreaming fans and puzzle lovers everywhere. Enter Sofi's dreamscape and discover the laws of lucidity!

Wake Up! A lucid dreaming DVD exploring the potential of lucid dreams - focusing on creative expression, psychotherapeutic healing and spiritual growth.

Today we launched the World of Lucid Dreaming Forum - an online community dedicated to the discussions of lucid dreams and out of body phenomena. Join us!

I've gotten my fair share of weird looks when I tell people I'm doing my high school research project on lucid dreaming. It feels that people associate sleep science with palm reading and the like...

Have you ever had anyone react negatively or oddly to the revelation that you practice lucid dreaming? If so, why do you think there are so many misunderstandings about lucid dreaming?

Rebecca says: I encounter this a lot, when people ask me what I do for a living. I tell them I write a website. About what, they ask. About lucid dreaming. Then I pause and wait for their giveaway reaction.

Generally smart people already have a good idea of what lucid dreaming is. The term is becoming more of a household phrase, and these people realize it's something real. It sparks some interesting discussions, and I find more and more people I know already naturally lucid dream (but just don't call it that).

Some people just ask what it is outright, and I explain as best I can without sounding like a broken record. This can be hit or miss. On the plus side, what starts out as polite small talk quickly becomes quite deep and you get to know complete strangers on a more meaningful level. On the downside, some people just don't get it. It's hard to explain lucidity when they don't understand the difference between conscious and subconscious awareness... so that ends in an awkward moment and I quickly move on.

A few times I've had people give me funny looks and say things like "do you really believe in all THAT?" as if it literally means invading other people's dreams or psychically dreaming of the future or some other hocus pocus. Again, these are the ones who just don't get it and though I'll try to explain, it's difficult to teach people whose minds have already been made up about something, especially when you know their belief completely lacks any reasonable foundation. It's like trying to argue Evolution to a Creationist, you have to change their whole belief system just to define the concept to them.

So, why the misunderstanding?

We live in a world where the scientific method is not revered as it should be. Science gives us every single piece of technology in the world today. Yet when you apply science to people's personal beliefs, they suddenly want no more of it. Many people believe in angels, ghosts, the afterlife, mediums, telepathy, psychic energy, chakras, auras, the list goes on... These are all beliefs based on wobbly "I-want-to-believe-it-so-I-will" theories which have not been backed by observable evidence, and so science rejects them until such time that they do. 

This creates a whole lot of uncertainty for people stuck in the middle. These are people who were never educated properly in the scientific method, and so have no system to decide what is and isn't real - yet feel we should draw the line somewhere.

So at one end of the scale you have people who believe anything if it suits their philosophy. In the middle the uncertain ones who have no way to measure what's real and what's not and so flip-flop on their beliefs. And at the other end people who trust in the scientific method to find objective truths. 

The middle group, who flip-flop over their beliefs, are the ones who will potentially label you crazy for believing in lucid dreaming. Partly because they are uneducated and don't know what it is nor the science behind it, and partly because they don't know how to categorize what's real even if the evidence hit them in the face.

If that all sounds pompous, then forgive me. I don't know everything, this is just my educated opinion. And I place a huge amount of importance on education. This doesn't mean you have to have a fancy college degree, you just need a thirst for learning. The day you stop learning and caring about finding answers, settling instead for whatever you are spoon fed by your local spiritual / religious group, then you have officially given up on meaningful intellectual progression in life.

Also, don't worry about what these other high school students think. They're too immature at the moment. When I explained the OBE vibrational state to my friends in school, they said "Haha. You used a vibrator." :/ QED

One of the best things I've found about getting older is you and your peers get wiser, and you can have more meaningful discussion of these things. So I think it's pretty awesome when teenagers ask questions like this, because it suggests you're already ahead of the game and actively applying your intelligence. Don't let your school friends put you off this method of thinking - because it really does serve you well.

August 2011, Auckland - World of Lucid Dreaming has launched an exciting new digital product teaching the scientifically proven skill of lucid dreaming to beginners.

Lucid dreaming is the ability to become conscious and self-aware within the dream state. It is a proven sleep state popularized (and somewhat fictionalized) by the blockbuster movie, Inception, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Today there are millions of lucid dreamers in the world and millions more who seek to "wake up" in their dreams...

The new course, entitled The Lucid Dreaming Fast Track, focuses on the act of becoming lucid in your dreams and mastering control over the conscious dream world. It is packed with lucid induction techniques, in-dream challenges and expert insights, including a fascinating interview with the leading lucid dream researcher, Robert Waggoner.

"We all have the natural ability to lucid dream," says Rebecca Turner, Editor of the World of Lucid Dreaming website and creator of the new course.

"We all dream every night - it's essential to healthy brain functioning - and most people are actually quite good at remembering their dreams. Lucidity is sparked by becoming conscious in your dreams, just as you are during waking hours. So it simply combines two normal things we do every single day."

The result? An amazing virtual reality world, where everything looks and feels as vivid as waking life. "This state of heightened awareness tells us a lot about human perception," Rebecca says, "and just how powerful the human brain really is."

About The Lucid Dreaming Fast Track

In the course, readers are educated about the world of sleep and dreaming, and encouraged to remember their dreams in more detail. They are then presented with numerous step-by-step tutorials for inducing lucid dreams on demand. The course also covers plenty of dream control techniques and ponders the implications of having direct access to the dreaming subconscious.

The course includes two special bonuses:

Lucid Dreaming Hypnosis narrated by Gale Van Cott. "The MP3 is special because it's based on a guided meditation technique that I regularly use to go lucid," Rebecca says. "Now I can pass this experience on to other dreamers... something I'm really excited about. I also love the background music - it's really haunting but in a beautiful way!" The Guided Meditation Handbook. "Guided meditation has played a key role in my life since I was a teenager," Rebecca says, "enabling me to access profound states of awareness and fast track my lucid dreaming skills. I wrote this bonus guide from the perspective of a lucid dreamer, including step-by-step visualization tutorials you can use to induce lucid dreams and even out of body experiences tonight."The Lucid Dreaming Fast Track is now available for instant download here.

About The Author

Rebecca Turner has been lucid dreaming since 1997 and is the Founder and Editor of World of Lucid Dreaming, one of the biggest lucid dreaming websites on the net. She lives in New Zealand with her partner Peter and two dogs.

Dreaming itself is a healthy biological function; we all dream every night (even if you don't remember) and we all experience varying states of consciousness while awake. To lucid dream simply means combining these states. Hence: conscious dreams.

Sounds simple, right? So why do I receive countless emails every week from people who claim it's impossible for them to become lucid? They all love the idea of controlling their dreams, and they say they've been practicing, but to actually attain consciousness while they're asleep just seems like a paradox to them.

Most often, I find the problem is inadequate education. They've picked up a few techniques from the internet and rushed into things without fully developing the mindset of a lucid dreamer. I know that lucid dreaming is a learnable skill, and with the right tutorage, anyone can pick it up. Sometimes within just a few days.

That's why I created my own hands-on approach to learning lucid dreaming. In my view, it blows other beginner courses out of the water. It's specifically designed for every reader who lands on this website crying, "I can't lucid dream! It's too hard!"

Well, I've got news for you...

I discovered lucid dreaming as a teenager - it was in some paranormal magazine alongside bigfoot sightings, UFO theories, remote viewing and tales of the legendary chupacabra. (Of course, lucid dreaming is the only scientifically proven concept among all of these alleged phenomena.)

Like anyone with a pulse, I really wanted to try lucid dreaming for myself. I wanted to feel the freedom of doing absolutely anything inside my own private virtual world. So over the following weeks I studied lucid dreaming and read up as much as I could. I kept a dream journal and practiced self-hypnosis.

Soon, I acquired the mindset - and had my first lucid dream.

It was a breakthrough moment for me. Suddenly, for the first time ever, I "woke up" inside my dream world. My environment surged into focus and I existed entirely in that reality, much like how you exist entirely where you are sitting right now. It was not fuzzy or vague. It was real. I was there.

I did a reality check - pushing two of my right fingers through the palm of my left hand - and marveled at the feeling. My lucidity became stronger.

Then I made a rookie mistake. I got all excited and ran outside to tell one of my fellow dream characters I was lucid. I found a woman I didn't recognize and shouted in her face. She didn't react, but just looked straight through me. In the last moments of my dream, I kept shouting at her: "I'm dreaming! I'm dreaming!"

By then I was so excited, I accidentally woke myself up.

Over the following weeks and months I experienced many more lucid dreams. Most of them were short-lived and never lasted longer than a few minutes. That was before I learned how to prolong my dreams.

Mastering lucid dreaming is not just a case of knowing how to "wake up" in your dreams. It requires special knowledge to stay lucid and manipulate the dreamscape. Though some people are naturals at this, most people need to be given specific instructions in order to learn how to:

Become fully conscious / increase the dream intensityProlong the dream - potentially up to an hourControl your own movements with accuracy (eg flight)Change the dream scene to program a new adventureSuccessfully interact with other dream figuresObtain information from your subconscious dreaming self

It took me a long time to become a proficient lucid dreamer, because I never realized the importance of developing this lucid skill set. I just bumbled along in my lucid dreams, wondering why I sometimes couldn't fly (once I just stood in a field willing myself to go up, and felt totally frustrated when absolutely nothing happened). I also made the mistake of frequently pursuing sexual encounters - when I didn't even know how to stay fully lucid when things got exciting, nor how to interact with dream figures (tip: they rarely behave how you expect them to).

Eventually, I got some good tutoring and found the answers I needed. There were simple solutions available to me all along, if only I'd realized. For instance, if you're semi-lucid, vaguely aware that you might be dreaming but not really focused enough to do anything about it, you can quite simply rub your hands together to stimulate kinetic sensation. This awakens your senses and the conscious part of your brain, thereby heightening your lucidity immediately.

After I learned these new dream control techniques, my inner world became a rich and infinite source of fascination. I was no longer held back by my own illogical beliefs ("I can't fly, I'm too heavy") nor my own lack of lucidity. Now I had access to the complete lucid universe, able to teleport around the world in a flash, soar so high above the clouds I would end up in space, and work with my fellow dream characters so we all got something out of the experience.

Now, after 14 years of lucid dreaming, I'm experienced in the surreal workings of the subconscious dream world. I know how to induce lucid dreams and program my dreams in advance, plus (more importantly) how to understand and shape my dream world to achieve anything I want when lucid. I'm also now an avid explorer of passive lucid dreaming - dreams in which you allow your subconscious dreaming self to show you anything it wants, and lead you down the rabbit hole...

The Lucid Dreaming Fast Track is a comprehensive collection of all these lessons and more. It was designed to educate and inspire, arming you with valuable tips and tutorials as taught by leading lucidity experts like Dr Stephen LaBerge, Dr Alan Wallace and Dr Jayne Gackenbach. Indeed, the course finishes with an exclusive interview with Robert Waggoner, lucid dream author and advocate of using conscious dreams as a gateway to communicating with the inner self.

Here is a breakdown of the course contents:

Part I: The Art of Lucid Dreaming:
The Pursuit of Conscious Dream Control

In this comprehensive 111-page ebook you'll learn many tried-and-tested methods of lucid dream induction and dream control. It contains a goldmine of information for beginners including first-hand insights and troubleshooting.

You'll learn the background of sleep and dreaming, hands-on techniques to apply to your dream life, specific lessons in dream control, and lucid dream challenges and ideas.

The book is illustrated with dream-inspired fantasy art by Jeremiah Morelli.

By following the step-by-step instructions in this book, you will discover:

How to dramatically boost your dream recall - enabling you to recall up to 4 or 5 dreams per night (page 40).How to have your first lucid dream - using the step-by-step tutorials described here (pages 40-61).How to visualize your way to a lucid dream - entering your own imagined world on any night you choose (page 51).What dream herbs will intensify your dreams - the lazy man's way to a night of vivid dreaming (page 65).How to prolong your lucid dreams - using tactics which can potentially extend your lucid dreams up to an hour (page 74).How to program your dreams in advance - by visualizing your desired dreamscape or dream plot before sleep (page 48).How to summon dream characters and share intimacy - by reaching out to dream characters on their level (page 87).How to stop nightmares and turn them into lucid dreams - by lucidly turning the nightmare in on itself (page 93).How to interact with the awareness behind the dream - by specifically addressing your subconscious inner self (page 99).Part II: The Guided Meditation Handbook:
Meditation Advice for Lucid Dreamers

Modern lucid dream research has shown meditation can enhance your ability to lucid dream, as explained in this practical 26-page ebook.

It features step-by-step visualization tutorials to induce lucid dreams and OBEs as early as tonight. You'll learn how to visualize effectively and create intricate landscapes and scenarios in your mind's eye which can lead directly to lucid dreams (WILDs).

You'll also learn how to hypnotize yourself and place active affirmations in your subconscious mind to help program your dream content in advance. This is also excellent practice for entering altered states of awareness on demand - helping to trigger more lucid dreams in both the short and long term:

How to visualize effectively - and create intricate dream landscapes in your mind's eye.How to do guided meditation - to relieve stress and take an inner journey to find new insights and creativity.How to hypnotize yourself - and place active affirmations in your subconscious mind to program your dreams in advance.How to do night-time meditation and conscious dream entry - using your natural hypnagogia (the swirling lights and fleeting impressions on the sleep-wake border).Part III: Lucid Dreaming Hypnosis Sessions

Hypnosis is a powerful way to plant instructions in your subconscious mind - such as the intention to recognize when you are dreaming and become lucid.

Narrated by voice artist Gale Van Cott, I created two deeply relaxing hypnosis recordings to lead you into a blissful trance state whenever you listen.

Once under, you will be led into a natural wonderland that you will come to visualize in vivid detail, engaging multiple senses. This is your trance-state gateway to a lucid dream. Besides encouraging meditative states and incubating lucid dream triggers under hypnosis, the recordings may even prompt spontaneous lucidity.

Set to beautiful and haunting digitally-mastered music, you can listen to these hypnosis MP3s as often as you like to:

Help you relax when you get into bed - by systematically relieving your body of tension and silencing your inner monologue.
Hypnotize yourself into a semi-dream state - from which you are primed to receive the lucid dreaming autosuggestions.
Go on a guided meditation - molding your hypnagogia which can lead your mind directly into a lucid dream.
Help you program your dreams in advance - by laying down vivid content and lucidity cues to help you have more lucid dreams.

Lucid dreaming isn't just about flying to Mars or getting intimate with your favorite celebrity. In my course, I discuss more powerful applications such as:

Improving your creativity - Simply explore the lucid dreamscape and ask the dream to show you new things. Artists can find new inspiration by browsing their own in-dream gallery, full of original and surreal art which they can replicate upon waking. And my partner Pete regularly uses his lucid dreams to create new instrumental songs (his first was aptly named Lucid). It's quite amazing to follow the free-flow of ideas from the subconscious mind without your analytical left brain becoming critical about it. Overcoming your fears - Behavioral psychologists say that phobias are ill-conceived subconscious fears projected onto a specific stimulus. So, your irrational fear of spiders may be about a whole lot more than just the perceived weirdness of the eight-legged freaks. The solution when lucid is to summon a giant tarantula and talk to it - you can even pet it and make friends with it! Though surreal, the spider can talk freely about what part of your subconscious it represents and why you may be feeling so anxious about encountering it. The lucid dream world is a safe place to realign your miscalibrated childhood beliefs and overcome these fears with confidence. Communicating with your subconscious mind - By the same token, you can have profound and life-changing conversations with the best therapist in the world: your inner self. For instance, any time you are lucid, approach another dream figure and ask them what they represent. Ask if you can help them achieve something in particular or if they have anything they want to tell you. My course discusses more ways to interact with your inner self and ask probing questions - the answers to which could leave you truly awe-inspired.

Once you know how to induce lucid dreams (virtually on demand, but that's just a matter of commitment) and remain fully conscious for prolonged periods of time, there is unlimited potential for advanced lucid dream exploration.

In Dream Yoga - the Tibetan Buddhist's approach to lucid dreaming - the ultimate goal of lucidity is to dissolve the dream state. Deprived of physical stimulus (from the physical body) and conceptual stimulus (from the dreaming mind), you have the unique opportunity to observe the purest form of conscious awareness.

Whether you are religious or atheist, tuning into these rare states of altered awareness make way for some profound experiences. I'll show you how you can use your lucidity to explore your personal beliefs about the nature of being. Touching "God", having out-of-body experiences, and exploring beyond the outer reaches of our universe are all exciting vehicles to explore the nature and meaning of human consciousness in our own way. We'll explore this concept further in the course.

I invite you to explore the exceptional realm of the lucid dream world... An incredible simulated reality that is all at once intense, exciting, mind-expanding, thrilling, erotic, surreal, magical and fun.

Best of all, your dream world is unique and personal to you - it is your own private playground to use as you want. Whether you seek the ultimate physical freedom, sexual fantasies, evolution of the mind, or a spiritual quest, there are no rules, limitations or boundaries in your own lucid universe.

Creating The Lucid Dreaming Fast Track is my way of touching lives with this extraordinary concept. You can gain instant access to this fully downloadable course, sleeping sound in the knowledge that if you don't have any lucid dreams, you have 60 days to claim a full refund. I'm pleased to say that 96% of customers choose to keep the course. Plus, all customers have the option of receiving free lifetime updates, so any new materials and expansion packs will land in your inbox absolutely free. Click here to kick-start your lucid adventures and join the club.

Best wishes,

Rebecca Turner
Creator, World of Lucid Dreaming