Meaning of a Dream

The Cycle Adjustment Technique, or CAT, is a simple way to learn how to lucid dream by naturally influencing your body's chemistry. It requires adjusting your sleep cycles to raise your conscious awareness during the early morning REM sleep phases.

When used correctly, it aims to generate up to four lucid dreams in a week. And it can be highly effective for beginners: in an experiment involving 10 students, the CAT technique taught 8 of them how to lucid dream in the first two weeks, reporting an average of two lucid dreams during the trial.

The CAT lucid dream exercise was created by Daniel Love, an expert lucid dreamer from the UK. He has written an in-depth book about lucid dreaming, called Are You Dreaming?, with many more lucidity techniques described in detail.

The basic steps to performing CAT are as follows:

As you can see, the Cycle Adjustment Technique is a pretty simple way to learn how to lucid dream. There are no memory cues, visualizations or other mental tricks to rehearse. The hardest part is getting up early and being strict about it! You must stick to the schedule or you are unlikely to trigger the chemical response in your body which is what will help you have lucid dreams.

What time should I go to bed while practicing CAT?

Go to bed at the same time every night. This is all about programming your body clock, which in turn adjusts its own timer for releasing certain chemicals throughout the day. The more rigid you are about going to bed and waking up at the set times, the more likely it is to induce lucid dreams.

What should I do when I wake up early?

Do whatever you like - but don't go back to bed! You should also perform reality checks during the next 90 minutes as often as possible. Then go about your day as normal. Doing more reality checks during the day will aid spontaneous lucidity.

What if I wake up early on a normal day?

If you naturally wake up early when you should be sleeping in, just lie still and remind yourself to do lots of reality checks the next time you are dreaming. Practice the MILD or WILD lucid dreaming techniques and try listening to The Lucid Dreaming MP3 which will help you become meditative and consciously re-enter the dream state.

Can I ever sleep in late?

Yes, but only on a "normal" waking day. Just try to keep it to a minimum so that you don't mess up your newly optimized sleep cycle.

How long should I practice the Cycle Adjustment Technique?

If CAT generates regular lucid dreams, you can keep using this dream exercise for as long as you like. Daniel Love recommends that you repeat step one (waking up 90 minutes early each day for a week) to refresh the cycle every few months.

Try the Cycle Adjustment Technique for yourself. Beginners may learn how to lucid dream in just a couple of weeks with this very simple dream exercise...

For more step-by-step tutorials in lucidity, check out The Lucid Dreaming Fast Track, my own digital course that teaches beginners the fastest way to lucid dreams.

Wake Back To Bed, or the WBTB method, is a variation on the Cycle Adjustment Technique with one key difference: the results are immediate. You can use this method every day of the week, or just on weekends - it's up to you. The more you practice this lucid dreaming technique, the more lucid dreams you can have.

This method is a great way for beginners to learn how to have lucid dreams. Many report multiple conscious dreams using the WBTB method, with some lasting over an hour. So if you want to control your dreams but don't give this method a go... you would have to be crazy ;)

STEP ONE - Go to bed as normal and allow yourself to sleep for six hours. Set your alarm clock or have another early riser wake you up.

STEP TWO - After six hours, get out of bed and fully wake yourself up. Find something to occupy your brain to make you alert. Read about lucid dreaming if you want to stay focused on the subject. Stay alert for 20-60 minutes. (Hint: you must get out of bed!)

STEP THREE - Go back to bed and relax. If your mind is too alert, practice meditation, listen to brainwave entrainment and/or perform Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams. Use your visualization skills to place your mind back in the dreamscape and plan your next lucid dream as you fall asleep.

Wake Back To Bed is an easy way to learn how to have lucid dreams that really works. But why?

First, it works because you stimulate your conscious brain at a time you would normally be experiencing REM sleep. This leads to consciousness in dreams. Second, when you do return to sleep, you will dive straight into REM sleep from a conscious state, also inducing multiple dreams one after another.

Put the two together and you have a far greater chance of becoming lucid. I have tried the Wake Back To Bed technique with consistent results.

In fact, I do it inadvertently most days. I get up early to let our puppy out to pee, and the act of getting up and moving around really wakes me up. When I return to bed I practice the MILD technique. This causes me to spend the next two hours phasing in and out of vivid dreams and quite easily leads to lucidity.

Remember though, the longer you stay up, the more your conscious brain will surface. So the first time you try this, stay up for at least 20-60 minutes.

If you really want to learn how to have lucid dreams, the WBTB method isn't much hardship. It can work even if you don't perform any visualizations or mediation (although this will increase your chances of lucidity).

Note that if you normally only sleep for six hours, reduce your sleep time even more (say, to four hours). The idea is to temporarily delay your regular REM sleep. When you fall asleep again, you will dive straight into REM sleep, an essential part of a normal sleep cycle.

So practice Wake Back To Bed whenever you get the chance - especially if you don't have any time pressures at weekends - and learn how to have lucid dreams in as little as a few days.

For step-by-step tutorials in lucidity, check out The Lucid Dreaming Fast Track, my digital course that shows beginners the fastest way to lucid dreams.

What would you recommend to someone who doesn't even remember their regular dreams, let alone lucid ones?

Rebecca says: Learn how to remember your dreams before attempting any lucid dream techniques. Improving your dream recall is quite easy if you set your mind to it. Start a dream journal and write down any snippets you can remember - as soon as you wake up. This may mean writing down tid bits in the middle of the night. However, our longest REM cycles occur in the two hours prior to waking up. So you're more likely to remember dreams and have lucid dreams just before waking up in the morning. Check out this article on Keeping a Dream Journal.

You may also want to try some Self Guided Meditation and visualizations to improve your self awareness, and create your own mantra as you fall asleep, such as "I remember my dreams." Talk about your dreams with friends, teaching your subconscious that remembering dreams is important to you.

This is a safe and natural state. It is not a literal out of body experience - because you are always asleep in bed. And if you want to, you can wake yourself up. When you become lucid, your senses become alive. You can explore the inner workings of your subconscious mind with total freedom.

Robert Waggoner details this subject in his book, Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self. He introduces new ways to interact with your lucid dreams and how to use dream figures for communicating with your inner self.

If all that isn't appealing to personal development enthusiasts, I don't know what is! Lucid dreaming is a powerful psychological tool and enlightening experience. As a beginner, intermediate or expert oneironaut, I hope you find this website and its complete guide to lucid dreams useful in your own personal quest for self awareness in the unconscious dream world...

For step-by-step tutorials in lucidity, check out The Lucid Dreaming Fast Track, my digital course that shows beginners the fastest way to lucid dreams.

I'm looking to define the specific types of dreams I'm having. I call them "beyond a lucid dream" or "a second reality" or "the Matrix". In my dreams, I possess all 5 of my senses, and there's a very small chance that what happens in the dream will physically affect me. Yet I have no ability to control the dream outside of normal interactions as if it were the real world. I'm sure it isn't sleepwalking. Is there a specific name for these kinds of dreams, or do I possess some kind of unusual power?

Rebecca says: Great question. This is one of those weird things that happen on the sleep-wake border (and when you're lucid dreaming, you're much closer to that border than usual, because you are highly conscious).

These are lucid dreams, I believe, because you possess all five senses and have heightened self-awareness. You don't have to be in full control of a dream to call it a lucid dream. In fact, the word "lucid" just means clarity - ie of the senses. It doesn't imply dream control, that's just the most appealing nature of lucid dreaming for beginners; the novelty of being able to do anything. (It IS a novelty, and there is much more to explore beyond this, when you starting going deeper, and letting the dream show you things you could never create consciously.)

Sometimes when I do something in a lucid dream, my physical body does it too. Like you say, it's not sleepwalking (the movements are too small, and anyway, most sleepwalking occurs in the non-dreaming or non-REM stages of sleep).

For instance, if I close and then re-open my eyes in a lucid dream, I do the same in real life. Sometimes this causes me to wake up altogether, or sometimes I can see into my bedroom for a few seconds then close my eyes again and be back in the lucid dream. I am vaguely aware that my body is paralyzed at this point - if the sleep paralysis wears off, I usually wake up.

I've also had larger non-lucid dream movements affecting my physical body. When I was a teenager I worked on a supermarket checkout. Whenever I was stressed, I had these endless semi-conscious nightmares where I did the repetitive movement of scanning endless items of food on the checkout. Eventually I woke up to see I had been doing the same movements in my bed.

It also works the other way around too - where you incorporate external sensory information into your dream. For instance, if I wear a lucid dream mask to sleep, I end up dreaming that I'm wearing it. My first cue to become lucid is "Hang on, why can I see through this mask? I must be dreaming!" (For the record, I'm not really an advocate of lucid dream masks as there are cheaper and easier ways to have lucid dreams. But I did experiment with a lot of different tools and techniques to make this website, including lucid dream trigger masks.)

Anyway I hope that answers your question. There is a complex relationship between the brain and body during sleep; each speaking their own language and working off cues from the other. Sometimes things get mixed up, and the brain processes signals as if we're awake. This is most common when lucid dreaming, but nothing to be afraid of or worry about.

That's all! Lucid dreams don't have to involve 100% dream control - far from it! Most of the time I only control my own movements and simply follow the action going on around me. You can also be lucid and fully aware of the dream and assume zero control; just a silent observer of a miraculous dream world. Not surprisingly, most people use lucid types of dreams to fulfil desires they can't fulfil in reality. But once you look past this novelty feature, lucid dreams offer brilliant insights into the subconscious mind. Read Robert Waggoner's Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self for some extraordinary applications of lucid dreams.

is over the quota Copyright © Carl Harvey of Personal Development Planet

Creative Visualization means using your imagination to change the deepest beliefs that you hold about yourself, by vividly seeing - and feeling - yourself achieving your goals. Visualization makes you more confident, happy and assured of success - and a 20 minute session a couple times a week is ample practice.

It's startling (it almost beggars rational explanation) but life really does follow the path of your visualizations. You actually get what you think about most. I've done this too many times for it to be a cosmic fluke.

I guess that's why some of the world's top business people and sports stars use these very same techniques in creative visualization...

My experience has been that if you take the time to imagine what you want, the universe conspires in your favor - and success begins to fall in your lap!

I first came across the idea of creative visualization in Dr Maxwell Maltz's classic personal development book, Psycho Cybernetics. In it, Dr Maltz puts forward a case for visualization, based on the following principle:

So to your brain, real memories and vividly imagined events are the same thing!

As such, if you spend your time thinking rich and fulfilling thoughts about your future, it follows that your brain will begin to believe that you have already experienced these things - and arm you with the capabilities to succeed in real life.

Given that you can train yourself to think whatever thoughts you like, this simple statement holds the key to achieving true success with your life.

You can use the power of creative visualization for almost anything. You are limited only by your imagination. Some of the best things to visualize are:

The more time you spend visualizing what you want in life, the more achievable your dreams will feel. You'll be fueled with a renewed sense of focus and purpose, and your confidence will sky-rocket.

Many people feel that they can't visualize, but in fact everybody can - it just sometimes takes a little bit of practice.

To prove this, humor me for a quick second and answer the following questions:

What color is your front door?

What side is the keyhole on?

Aha... got ya! To answer this question, you had to visualize a picture of your front door. And if you can visualize something as boring as your front door, I'm pretty confident that soon you'll be able to visualize having the life of your dreams...!

Hopefully I've sold you on the benefits of creative visualization by now, and you're raring to give it a go yourself. Here are some simple step-by-step instructions you can use to visualize your dreams right now!

This is perhaps the most important aspect of visualizing - and something that a lot of people overlook. If you take the time to note down what you want to visualize, you give your session structure. And if you get distracted, you can open your eyes, refocus, and start again.

If you like, you can break up your visualization into sections, for example, work, play, relationships and finances. Simply make a few bullet points of what you are going to creatively visualize. It doesn't have to be too detailed - just jot down a few of your goals so you have them in front of you.

Crucially, make a note of what you would feel if your visualizations were real. The more you can generate feelings of success, the more effective your visualizing will be... and the more your brain will accept these experiences as reality.

When you visualize, you need to be as relaxed as possible. It's a lot easier to imagine the things you really want when you're in a state of deep relaxation.

Focus on lowering your heart rate and taking slow, deep breaths. This will make your brain activity drop a bit too. Keep your body still, either sitting or lying down, and push away your busy mind chatter. Give yourself a few minutes to do this.

I recommend using a meditation machine or binaural beats to fast-track this process, but you can do it without - it just takes a little more practice. Using binaural beats will get you in a ready-to-visualize state in a little less than five minutes, so if you're strapped for time it's a worthwhile investment.

When you're feeling relaxed, open your eyes and take a quick look at your notes... Now you are ready to visualize!

The key is to make the pictures in your mind as bright and vivid as you can. Really see yourself acting the way you want to be. Look around and take in your surroundings. Where are you? Who else is there? Are they happy and in control like you? Take the time to meet these people and have a chat with them.

Notice what you are doing - and how you are doing it. Pay attention to every little detail of your visualization. What are you doing differently here that is different to how you act in real life? Go further into the details and uncover every last one.

Try to see, hear, smell and touch everything in your imagined world. Make the vision as sensory-rich as possible. Remember, the more detailed this image is, the better. Have some fun making the pictures of your success as lifelike as possible - and always remember to make the feelings as intense as you can.

Please remember that today, in your imagination, you are acting ideally. It doesn't really matter if your life isn't much like this yet.

The first hurdle to overcome when visualizing is facing the uncomfortable feelings of doing things that you do not yet know how to do - but the safest place to do this is inside your head. Even in your head it takes bravery and courage to address these issues - but you feel a million times better for doing so.

When visualizing, you don't even have to have faith that this is how you will act tomorrow, or the day after, or next month. If you continue to practice, this will take care of itself.

Just enjoy the feeling of watching yourself act in an ideal way for you. It's pretty fun to see yourself doing this - and it helps you realize the simple truth that if you can act this way in your head, it's likely you can act like this for real.

Finally, I've mentioned this a couple of times already, but it really is the most important aspect of creative visualization: aim to generate the same feelings of success as if you had already achieved your goals.

Play around with this. I promise you it will be worth it in the long run!

With this information you are ready to give creative visualization a go. You can find more instructions on visualizing - including some advanced techniques - at my website, Personal Development Planet. There, you'll also learn how to take charge of your life with techniques from NLP, generate an abundance mindset, get swagger and learn day-to-day tips like how to get a pay rise.

Creative visualization made a big difference in my life. By taking the time to imagine what I truly wanted, I began to get it. I'm sure it will work for you too!

I've never had a lucid dream as such or unable to control one. Really want to try and see how powerful the mind. I would like to ask about programming dreams in advance: I thought of things-such as my best friend and calling people-and then I have weird dreams, a friend, or calling people. Many other details to jump into place, are unrealistic and not what I'm thinking before sleeping. This behavior occurs because the program does not provide a sufficient level of detail, or what?

PS-I just wanted to say I love your site information.

Rebecca says: Yes you program consciously of your dreams-this includes anything you can think of during the day, and by night in a dream. That is why, in practice, is so powerful; you program specific work literally into the dream that gives way to clarity.

I never have been able to reprogram the entire plot of my dreams, without having to become clear in the first place. So you may be able to add a little more detail and determine the outcome, but I would say that it is much easier to become aware of your dreams and still clearly. The dream is a lot more vivid and you will have a self awareness. I would suggest that the clarity of the cue next time; It is assumed that your friends visit you and is really excited, because they want to tell you something amazing: "you dreaming!" Try it and see what happens)

Since it has existed, music has been used by humanity as a tool to enter altered states of awareness. Even the common example of a teenager hooking up to their iPod to relax and forget the fight they just had with their parents is a way of changing self perception, by shifting attention away from certain situations.

The central nervous system (CNS) has two different functions: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). They are not separate neural pathways, but two distinct, complementary functions.

The SNS is activated by adrenaline and is needed in extreme situations to ensure our survival. It helps us react faster when we need to fight or flee. When it is active our heartbeat and breathing accelerate, and our visual and auditory perceptions become sharper. Our muscles tighten.

The PNS is activated by noradrenaline and is needed to help us rest and recover. When it is active, all our muscles relax, and our breath becomes deeper and slower. Our heartbeat decelerates.

These systems work in the same way that a complementary pair of muscles work. Both have to play their role so that we can be balanced. But if we are stressed all day long - if our SNC is active for longer than it should be - this depletes our energy. We run out of adrenaline, and when we need it, it's not there.

As adrenaline and other substances related to the SNC accumulate in our muscles, we enter a state of perpetual stress. Our muscles are chronically contracted - and this takes a LOT of energy!

Naturally, the PNS should be primarily active during sleep. Our capacity to remain alert in our dreams depends largely on how deeply we can relax. But if our muscles are permanently stressed out, there is no way we can achieve profound relaxation, and there is no way for our dreaming attention to flourish.

Playing, singing, dancing, or simply listening to music is a very direct way to shift into the PNS. In this sense, it can be described as a direct pathway into the world of dreams and enhanced self perception - even during wakefulness.

It can be no coincidence that so many cultures have made music and sound the focal point of their search for the indescribable. For these traditions, sound is the border that divides the physical world and an underlying world of energy.

Traditions from the world over have used music, chants and dance as ways to glimpse other realities. From the Aboriginals of Australia, to the Shamans of the steppes of Russia; from the Sufis to the Hopis, we can find this search for the unknown through our intrinsic connection to sound. Although the musical styles, instruments and specific interpretations and cultural edifices around music and sound vary immensely, the basic truths remain constant.

Music has always been a basic part of human culture, a basic building block of society, and a channel to achieve a deeper connection to ourselves and the universe. Sadly, music in the western world, and everywhere else, through its influence, is becoming merely a commercial product, with no deeper significance, and its true power goes unperceived by more and more people every day.

This section is for beginner lucid dreamers who understand how to become lucid - but find themselves flung into a crazy, unpredictable dreamscape. You may feel you have very little dream control and this is totally normal for beginners. That's because the dreamworld obeys very different laws compared to physical reality.

In the waking world, if you want something to happen (like walk forward three steps) you simply will it to happen and your body does the rest. As long as it's within the realm of physical possibility, control of your waking reality is easy.

In a lucid dream, the rules are changed. You are suddenly in possession of a ghostly, ethereal body that can run through walls and travel through time. The dreamworld cares little for Einstein and Newton. The dreamworld is governed by your subconscious mind, and it is your task to work with it - not against it.

The following articles may sound utterly bizarre to non-lucid dreamers, but if you have any lucid dreams under your belt you will begin to understand the language of the subconscious mind. You'll learn how to tame its logic and most importantly control your lucid dreams exactly how you want to.

How to prolong lucid dreams and enhance the clarity and consciousness of your guided dream. Includes a range of very easy dream stabilizing techniques.

How to control your dreams with clarity. My own first-hand lucid dream research with advice on how to actively control and manipulate your lucid dreams.

How to Maintain Dream Control

Three ways to maintain dream control when you start to lose lucidity. Plus, why dream control isn't always what your subconscious dreaming self wants most.

Learn how to create dream characters in your lucid dreams. These six ways of summoning new characters will help you understand the nature of dream control.

Setting a lucid dream intention means consciously planning an objective to fulfill to make your lucid dreams more rewarding. Find inspiration here...

Flying Dreams Infographic

The Dream Exit Induced Lucid Dream (DEILD or dream re-entry) is a condensed version of the WILD technique, allowing you to slip into a lucid dream from a waking state. Under the right conditions, it's a wonderfully effortless way to become lucid.

Once you get to know the DEILD technique, you'll be able to use it multiple times per night in what is also called dream chaining. You can also use it to deliberately re-enter a great dream (lucid or non-lucid) if you prematurely wake up.

If you're a light sleeper (you wake up at various times during the night) then DEILDs may come very naturally to you. If you're a heavy sleeper, you might need the aid of an alarm clock or lucid dreaming app (like the Singularity Experience) which is designed to momentarily wake you from REM sleep...

The ideal conditions for a Dream Exit Induced Lucid Dream occur after 4-6 hours of sleep, when your REM cycles are starting to become longer. You must briefly wake up from a dream in order to implement the DEILD technique. If you find this happens naturally - great. If not, use an alarm as mentioned above. The alarm should be disruptive enough to rouse you from the dream state, but not enough to wake you fully. It should also shut itself off as soon as you are partially woken.

Failing that, allow your adorable Shetland Sheepdog to sleep on the bed with you and disturb you in the night. Works for me :)

As your mind straddles the border between a dream and wakefulness, keep your body absolutely still. Any movement now will trigger the firing of motor neurons in your brain and transfer your full consciousness to the waking world. Any sense of sleep paralysis will also completely wear off. (This is why you don't want to have to move in order to shut off your alarm.)

With your body unmoving, keep your eyes closed (or immediately close them) and recall the dream you were just in. Place yourself back in the exact same moment you were in before you woke up. Sometimes this happens automatically and the DEILD becomes effortless. If not, try to mentally recapture that dream in as much detail as possible. Recall the sights, sounds, emotions and tactile sensations of the dream. If you find this alien, see these tips on How to Visualize with all the senses.

This part is automatic. If you performed the last two steps accurately enough, your brain will re-create the dream and send your awareness back in - only this time, you'll be fully lucid. Like Wake Induced Lucid Dreams, DEILDs are highly vivid because you enter the dream with a heightened sense of awareness carried over from the waking state. Once you "sink" or "pop" into the dream, remind yourself that you're dreaming and perform a reality check for good measure.

The time between waking up and re-entering your dream lucidly can be as little as a few seconds. If you find you are lying in bed for several minutes, then the moment is almost certainly gone. But don't worry - you can still have a lucid dream at this point by following the steps outlined in How to Have a Wake Induced Lucid Dream. You're already in an ideal state of mind and body to have a WILD so make the most of the opportunity - just drift and start to visualize a whole new dream scene...

If everything you see, hear and feel in lucid dreams is the same as when you're awake, how do you know you're dreaming? Can you confuse lucid dreams with reality? What is the objective difference?

Rebecca says: Great question. This is a common misapprehension about lucid dreaming and I'm more than happy to set the record straight.

In my experience (and, I'm sure, the experience of many lucid dreamers) it is not possible to confuse lucid dreams with reality. With the power of conscious thought behind you, knowing you're dreaming is as intuitive as knowing you're awake.

Any deviation from that truth would be an indication of psychosis, and I see no evidence whatsoever to tar lucid dreamers with that brush!

In fact, this myth of confusing dreams with reality stems from a common misunderstanding that lucid dreams can "feel" exactly like waking life. People think that if this is so, then the two states must be indistinguishable.

While conscious dreams can FEEL real, there are other factors, such as memory and logical thought processes, which clearly distinguish these states.

To illustrate this I have mapped out three separate states of awareness - waking reality, lucid dreams and normal dreams - as I experience them:

So while lucid dreaming is a conscious experience, it's a completely different state from being consciously awake, and it is easy to distinguish so.

How Do I Know This Isn't Real?

Philosophical arguments aside (what if reality is a dream itself?) here's a more specific example from last night's lucid dream and why I couldn't possibly confuse it with reality. There's nothing special about this example and I believe you could apply all the same rules of logic to any other lucid dream.

In my dream, I was standing on a mountain over a forest. The desire to fly made me realize I was dreaming. I became lucid and the scenery shot into focus - suddenly I could see thousands of pine trees as vividly as real life. I got a sense of how high up I was, and now, when I looked into the distance, I could see the shiny silvery sea. If it looked so real, how could I be sure I wasn't awake?

But, you might argue, this scene was too fantastical to confuse with reality. So what if I dreamed lucidly of a very boring and lifelike scenario...?

Lucid Dream vs Reality

My experience of being in my living room in a lucid dream is not the same as my experience of being in my living room in reality.

The lucid dream version is self-contained. I can only hear things in the immediate vicinity or whatever my consciousness is focused on.

I don't necessarily know what day it is, nor what time of day.

The world beyond the living room doesn't exist yet until I go there. As a result, I tend to perceive only my localized bubble of awareness and there can be little room for separate lines of thought that don't directly manipulate my dream reality.

And of course, the big giveaway is, in a lucid dream I can do impossible things like push my own fingers through my hand (see: reality check). However, this is typically used to distinguish a dream from reality, and not the other way around.

Indeed, 95% of the population goes to sleep every night and fully accepts their dreams as reality. It's only when they wake up they realize it wasn't real.

In this sense, you can confuse normal dreams with reality, can you not?

But there is never a concern - for a sane mind - to think you are dreaming, when in fact you are awake. And it's just the same with lucid dreams.

False Awakenings

A final word on false awakenings - aka dreaming of waking up.

These can be exceptionally realistic dreams, like the most vivid kind of lucid dream, and yet you still don't know you're dreaming. Because you dreamed of waking up, you naturally assume you are now awake. Confusing, much?

A false awakening has all the characteristics of a lucid dream (vivid, intense, self-awareness) without realizing you're dreaming or taking conscious control. It is a good example of a scenario where you can confuse a dream with reality based on it's tangible and realistic nature.

The worst case scenario in a false awakening is you get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, head out the door for work... only to wake up, back in bed again. This next awakening can be a false awakening, too. And so it can be a frustrating cycle.

The answer is to perform a reality check when you wake up. Often this transforms a false awakening into a lucid dream!

And while the experience is frustrating as it plays out, I don't believe there is really any doubt of reality when you finally do wake up for real. A moment's objective thought will reveal whether you are dreaming or not... and the only reason a false awakening continues in the first place is because dreams lack objective thought.

This is the key to distinguishing your reality for what it is - and it's automatically provided by a healthy human consciousness.

Some foods naturally enhance your dreams thanks to their nutrient content. Specifically, we're looking at foods that are rich in vitamin B6 and tryptophan - as both are linked with greater dream recall and intensity.

Although this is not a magic bullet for lucid dreaming (no food or supplement is) you can use this to boost your dream recall and dream vividness. In doing so, this increases your chances of lucidity when paired with some basic techniques like dream journaling and reality checks.

Before we look at specific dream-enhancing foods, let's examine how and why these ingredients affect dream intensity and what levels are safe to ingest, both in terms of food consumption and as a daily supplement. Consider this a two-pronged approach: below I'll explain why you'll want to take a B6 supplement and eat tryptophan-rich foods in combination in order to stimulate your dream life.

In 2002, a double-blind study revealed that participants who took a daily 250mg B6 supplement reported a significant increase in dream content - as measured in dream vividness, bizarreness, emotionality and color.

This is actually greater than the recommended maximum daily intake for healthy adults, which is 100mg. In fact, you only need about 1.3mg of vitamin B6 each day, and you usually get that from the foods you eat.

So 100mg a day is a fair whack of a dose, especially if you take it on a prolonged basis. In the study above, participants took the 250mg dose for just 3 days. So this is not a long term experiment and should be maintained at your own discretion.

How much is too much? Doses of 500-1,000mg, taken daily for several months, can lead to sensory neuropathy (pain and numbness of the extremities).

To get started, know this: casual experiments by other dreamers have shown the amount of B6 needed to increase dream intensity varies from 100-500mg depending on the person. Try starting with a safe 100mg vitamin B6 supplement taken an hour or two before bed for just a few nights in a row, then have a break for a few weeks. If you don't see any benefit, you can increase the nightly dose at your own risk, but remember not to do this on a prolonged basis.

Unfortunately, if you don't want to take a B6 supplement, you'll have to eat a heck of a lot of B6-rich foods to make that 100mg quota. (Rice bran is especially rich in B6 and yet one cup contains only 4.8mg. Meanwhile, yellow-fin tuna offers 0.88mg in a 3-ounce serving.) So, while you can eat certain B6-rich foods, getting a high enough dose to affect your dreams will realistically require a supplement.

One of the roles of vitamin B6 is to convert the essential amino acid tryptophan into serotonin and niacin. This helps the body regulate appetite, sleep patterns and mood. As a result, tryptophan is used therapeutically to treat insomnia, depression and anxiety. Low levels of tryptophan are also linked with poor dream recall.

The Recommended Daily Allowance for tryptophan is 392mg for men and 322mg for women, assuming a normal RDA-level protein intake. While there is no upper limit identified, it's interesting to note that doctors prescribe tryptophan therapeutically in doses exceeding 5g per day with no adverse effects.

On the flip side, you should also be aware that the FDA doesn't allow the sale of tryptophan as a supplement due to a suspected link with EMS (eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome). Though many experts now believe the 1989 scare was caused by a contaminated batch, tryptophan is now only available on prescription.

So, in order to increase your tryptophan intake, you need to eat tryptophan-rich foods. Luckily, it's not hard to eat sufficient tryptophan to affect your dream intensity. We'll look at the best food sources below.

(Note: If you want to skip the whole process of eating tryptophan-rich foods and pop a pill instead, there is another workaround to the FDA ban. Instead of getting more tryptophan, take 5-HTP instead, which is what your body naturally converts tryptophan into before it becomes serotonin. A 100mg 5-HTP supplement an hour or two before bed should do the job.)

The purpose of taking higher doses of vitamin B6 and tryptophan/5-HTP is to increase your serotonin levels, which play an important role in regulating the sleep/wake cycle. In particular, serotonin creates more vivid dreams at higher levels.

You may be wondering why you can't just skip the middle-men and take serotonin supplements directly. Unfortunately these aren't available because serotonin can't easily cross the blood-brain barrier. Instead you must produce serotonin naturally.

All this can lead to significantly increased intensity of your regular dreams, providing the springboard many beginners seek for having lucid dreams.

Now that we've got all the messy explanations out of the way, here are those foods which will enhance your dreams by ramping up your serotonin conversion.

When you're ready to begin the dream-intensity challenge, take your vitamin B6 supplement and then fuel the fire with plenty of tryptophan-rich foods such as:

I realize that list is a little meat-heavy, and if you're a vegetarian it doesn't give many options. So here are five more veggie-friendly foods:

Dreams of Baby Animals

Studies have found that when expectant mothers guess the sex of their baby based on their dreams during pregnancy, they are correct 50% of the time. As the odds of having either sex are practically equal (51:49 is the global boy:girl birth ratio) the result shows no element of prophecy - it's the same as random chance.

Further research has looked at women who had short labors vs long labors. A strong connection was found between dream content and length of labor. Amazingly, 94% of women who gave birth quickly had been assertive in at least one dream about birth, reflecting their self-confidence. Of those who endured long labors, 70% had suffered nightmares about birth where they felt like victims.

Discuss your pregnancy dreams in our lucid dreaming forum.