5 Layers of Lucidity

5 Layers of Lucidity

Let's assume that you are making great progress on your journey towards full lucid control and managed to achieve two lucid dreams this week, but the amount of control and awareness you had the first time was relatively weaker than the second time. You may be wondering "How come I could control one more than the other?" The answer is simple. When you become lucid, there are 5 different layers of lucidity, each allowing a little more awareness or control than the previous layer. With this knowledge, it seems logical and also fitting to study these layers and the potential they can unlock. It will also help when recording your dream journal, as after reading this post you will be able to categorise your lucid dreams by noting the layer you achieved. This will allow you to set targets and goals to reach deeper layers of lucidity. 

Layer 0

Layer 0 is when you dream about lucid dreaming, without actually becoming conscious and realise you're dreaming. Some simple examples would be reading a book on lucid dreaming, attending a lucid dreaming seminar, interacting with dream characters on the topic of lucid dreaming or simply watching a programme on lucid dreaming. The key here is that you never actually achieve lucidity.

Layer 1

Layer 1 can be one of the most frustrating layers, and certainly the reason why a lot of beginners give up on mastering the art of lucid dreaming. This is when you become conscious, gain awareness that you are dreaming, but wake up a matter of seconds later without being able to experiment. The reason you wake up within seconds is usually based on the excitement that elicits upon the realisation of achieving lucidity.

Layer 2

Layer 2 is achieved when you relise you are in a lucid dream, but you're not consciously aware of the full properties that implies - meaning you're not actually aware that your real body is back home lying in bed, that your dream characters are not real people. A reliable analogy is that you still use dream logic as apposed to waking life logic. 

Layer 3

This is when you are fully aware you are having a lucid dream. You are able to remain sleeping beyond the initial excitement and reap the rewards of the vivid and awe-inspiring fabrication of your own subconscious. However, the restriction here is that you are unable to gain complete control of your surroundings and manifest whatever you like.

Layer 4

Layer 4 is what all of us set out to achieve - complete lucidity. When experiencing a layer 4 lucid dream, you have full conscious awareness, you're aware what this implies, you also have full control of what your subconscious fabricates and you can manipulate this process to your own desire. 

Effectively, in the context of the dreamworld, the layers indicate how accurate you can make your dreams become reality, and how far further than that you can go. 

The goal, when starting out, is to achieve a dreamstate that feels like reality, even though you have the knowledge that you're dreaming. 

Achieving layer 4 lucidity takes motivation, time and practice. Don't be deterred if you cannot effectively achieve a layer 4 lucid dream within the first week. Some people are pursuing this layer for months, others weeks. It's completely unique to you as an individual. Don't give up!

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Stages Of Sleep

Stages of Sleep

Throughout the night, we transition through a variety of sleep stages, each owning individual properties. These sleep stages have been scientifically proven from as early as the 1950's. The most prominently studied sleep stage, known as REM, was pioneered by a graduate student name Eugene Aserinsky. 

There are 2 main types of sleep:

1. NREM (Non-Rapid Eye Movement, also known as quiet sleep)
2. REM (Rapid-Eye Movement, also known as active or paradoxical sleep)

Within the earliest phases of sleep, you're still relatively alert and most definitely conscious. The brain produces what are known as beta waves, which are small and frequent. As the brain begins to relax, you produce slower waves which are known as alpha waves. During this time you are drifting in and out of consciousness and may experience extreme sensations known as hypnagogic hallucinations. A common occurrence would be feeling as though you are falling. 

Stage 1

Stage 1 marks the beginning of the sleep cycle and is an extremely light version of sleep, which is often referred to as a transition between wakefulness and sleep. This period of sleep is very brief, lasting around 5-10 minutes. If you waken someone from this stage, they may report not being sleeping at all.

Stage 2 

The second stage of sleep lasts for approximately 20 minutes. There are bursts of brain activity, rapid rhythmic brain waves known as sleep spindles. You will also experience physiological changes such as a drop in body temperature and a decrease in heart rate.

Stage 3

Slow, deep brainwaves known as delta waves begin to emerge during stage 3 of sleep. It can also be categorised as a transitional period between light and deep sleep. 

Stage 4

Stage 4 is often referred to as major delta sleep, because of the slow brainwaves known as delta waves. This is a deep sleep state that lasts around 30 minutes. This is were bed-wetting and sleepwalking may occur. 

Stage 5

Stage 5 is where most of the dreaming occurs, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. We enter the REM stage, on average, 90 minutes after falling asleep. The first cycle of REM only lasts a short while, though each cycle increases as the night goes on. REM can last as long as 1 hour, at the later periods of the night.

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Performing Reality Checks

Performing Reality Checks

Reality checks are another key aspect to gaining lucid awareness within your dreams. By incorporating reality checks into your waking life, you can benefit from the integration into your sleeping state. Executing this method will increase your frequency of lucid dreams by up to 30%. Also, the practice of consistent reality checks will promote 'lucid living', which greatly enhances the vividness of your lucid dreams. 

What Are Reality Checks?

To increase your ability to induce lucid dreams, you must master differentiating the difference between waking life and the sleeping state. One of the ways of doing this is by performing what's known as reality checks.

Think about your own experience. Most of the time when we dream, it's so realistic that we only realise we were dreaming when we've woken up. 

By performing frequent reality checks in waking life, they will integrate into the sleep state and inform your conscious mind that you're dreaming. Reality checks are usually unique to everyone. Some common myths online about lucid dreaming is that reality checks aren't subjective - they are.

What Makes A Good Reality Check?

What makes a really good reality check that's easy to apply in waking life that will inform you that you are infact dreaming? To be completely honest, the possibilities are endless. However, it's important to make sure that you are performing 'correct' reality checks, one that can definitively differentiate your waking state from the sleeping state. I'll explain what I mean by 'correct' reality checks.

I might ask you, how do you know you're awake right now? You might reply:

• Because I can see clearly
• I can feel my keyboard
• I am aware
• Because I just am! I'm reading this article aren't I?

Well, the problem with those are that you can experience all this while sleeping too. It's important you perform reality checks that will stay true in the illogical dreamworld. Below I will tell you the top 10 most common reality checks.

Top 10 Most Common Reality Checks

1. Sight - Can you see clearly or less clearly that usual?
2. Breathing - Can you close your mouth, hold your nose and still breathe?
3. Flying - Can you fly or hover above the ground?
4. Mirrors - Does your reflection look normal in a mirror?
5. Math - Can you perform complex math problems and get the correct answer?
6. Time - Can you read a clock face and tell the time?
7. Words - Can you read a sentence, look away then look back and still read the same words?
8. Hands - Do your fingers look normal close up?
9. Physics - Can you travel through solid surfaces?
10. Gravity - When you jump, do you float back down?

Of course these are just some of the common reality checks and not all will stay true for you while in the dreamworld. It's important to experiment and establish which works best for you.

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Establishing Your Own DreamSigns

Establishing Your Own DreamSigns

Now you have a bit of knowledge on what dreamsigns are and how you can categorise them, you will be able to establish your own to aid you in achieving lucidity. Below is a proven 5 step process that will get you on your way to establishing and benefiting from your own dreamsigns. 

1. Keep A Dream Journal

Unsure on how to go about recording a dream journal? Click here. It's paramount that you keep a dream journal consisting of your many dreams that you can use as a reference to establish your very own unique dreamsigns. Once you have recorded around a dozen dreams, you will be good to move on to the next step.

2. Catalog Your Dreamsigns

To effectively catalog your dreamsigns, you will need to go back through your previously collected dreams and highlight your different types of dreamsigns. Simply underlining them or writing them under a title of 'My Dreamsigns' will work just fine. Be sure to get into the habit of doing this at the start of each day under your recorded dream for that night. 

3. Classify Each Dreamsign Using The Dreamsign Inventory

Next to each dreamsign on your list, appropriately put them into their respective category. For example, if you dreamed of your friend with a pigs head, this would be in the form category. 

4. Pick Target Dreamsign Categories

Count how many times you have experienced each dreamsign category (Inner Awareness, Action, Form and Context) and rank them by frequency. The highest occurring should be the next dreamsign you aim for. If you have a tie, choose whichever most appeals to you. 

5. Practice Looking For Dreamsigns While You Are Awake

As you know, humans are creatures of habitual behaviour. Therefore, it's good practice to get into the habit of doing particular activities throughout your waking life to make it more instinctive while in the sleeping state. With this in mind, make it a habit to look for events from your dreamsign category. For example, if your target category is form, study the shape of physical objects, people, their clothes and often, their usual hair colour. 

These five steps have been proven over and over again, conjured by the Lucid Dreaming guru - Stephen LaBerge. If you take your time to accomplish each one, focus and really make it a habit to search for your established dreamsigns in waking life, it will correlate with your results in the dreamworld acting as one of your main cues to lucidity. 

Another proven method for achieving lucidity and sometimes, higher levels of lucidity, is Performing Reality Checks. 

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Different Types of DreamSigns

Different Types of DreamSigns

Establishing, recognising and utilising dreamsigns is a concept developed by Stephen LaBerge. Dreamsigns are oddities, intriguing peculiarities that one experiences within a dream. It's logical then, to establish and familiarise yourself with such dreamsigns, to use as cues to gaining lucidity. 

Almost every dream contains dreamsigns that are likely personal to yourself. Once you learn how to look for them, they can be like large scale projectors emitting the message: "I am in a dream!" You can use your dream journal to establish such dreamsigns, recognisable through consistent recurrences, that signifies the ways in which your dream state differs from waking life. 

Categorising Dreamsigns

Dreamsigns can be broken up into 4 distinctive categories:

• Inner Awareness (Thoughts and Feelings)
• Action (Activities and Motions of the Dream Ego, Other Characters & Objects)
• Form ( Shape of things, People and Places)
• Context (Odd Combination of Elements - People, Places, Actions or Things)

Inner Awareness

You experience a strong emotion, have a peculiar thought, feel an unusual sensation, or witness altered perceptions. The thought may be one that could only occur in a dream (unusual to your usual thinking pattern), or one that 'magically' alters the dreamworld. The emotion could be extremely overwhelming. Sensations include feelings of paralysis, out of body experience (OBEs) or an unexpected feeling of sexual stimulation. Perceptions could be clouded; you may not see or hear things the way you normally would in waking life. 

Action

You, a dream character or something else does something that's unusual or not possible in waking life. The action must occur in the dream environment (as apposed to a thought or feeling within the dreamer's mind). Malfunctioning devices are a good example of action dreamsigns.

Form

Your shape, the shape of a dream character, or a dream object is oddly formed, deformed or transforms. Some common abnormalities are unusual clothing and hair shape and/or colour. Also, the place you are in (the setting) may be different than it would be in waking life. 

Context

The place or situation in the dream is strange and doesn't fit with your normalities. You may also find your self in a very odd social situation. E.g You have bad stage fright, yet you're performing infront of thousands of people. Another common context dreamsign is that the dream could be taking place in the past or the future. 

These are the common categories of dreamsigns. The next post will show you how you can Establish Your Own Dreamsigns. On top of that, in later posts we will describe lucidity induction techniques that will make use of your collected dreamsigns. 

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Keeping A Dream Journal

Keeping A Dream Journal

Keeping a dream journal will open the door to lucidity. I would go as far to say it is impossible to master the art of lucid dreaming without one. Get a diary or notebook for recording your dreams and ensure that this is the sole purpose of the diary - to record your dreams. Set it beside your bed every night to embed the intention to wake up and record your dreams. 

To keep a dream journal, you don't have to be a talented writer. The journal is simply a tool that only you will read. Through time and upon gaining further knowledge on lucid dreaming, you will adapt to a journaling style that works for you. 

Since so much is happening within dreams, you are probably wondering "What should I record in my dream journal?" An effective framework to refer to are your senses; how things look, feel, smell, sound or even taste. Details that seem useless to you at first can prove to be effective dreamsigns and helpful cues for gaining conscious awareness within your dreams. Record anything unusual, things that would never happen in waken life. E.g - Flying animals, the ability to breathe underwater or developing x-ray vision. 

Before going to sleep, put the date at the top of your page and record your dream under that date. It's good practice to skip a page for recording the next dream to leave room for exercises you will do later.  No matter how much or how little you can recall, write it down anyway. This will encourage the habit for the future. If you don't remember anything, write something like: 'No recall'. 

After a few weeks, you will have gathered a significant amount of raw material with which you can look back upon and ask yourself questions about your dreams. This can be anything from dream interpretation to your subconscious shadow. However, more importantly, through dream analysis you will be able to develop DreamSigns which will act as your triggers to lucidity.

Check out the next post on DreamSigns.

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The Importance of Dream Recall

The Importance of Dream Recall

How many of us remember our dreams? Well, some not at all, some very little and some more so than others. The underlying fact when it comes to dream recall is it's significance to induce lucid dreams. It's fundamental, therefore, that we have knowledge of this and also how we can go about improving our dream recall. After all, what use it it having lucid dreams if we cannot remember them when we wake up?

Getting lots of sleep at night is the first step towards improving your dream recall, as when you're well rested, your ambition isn't clouded by fatigue. One thing that's important to note; falling asleep when you begin to feel mildly tired is a lot more beneficial for dream recall than waiting until your eyelids are burning. This allows the brain more time to relax and slowly wind down into sleep.

Since humans are creatures of habitual behaviour, it seems necessary to capitalize on this. As you lay down to go to sleep, repeat over and over again "I will have a lucid dream tonight, or some time in the near future." Consistently repeating this every night before you go to sleep will improve dream recall by around 25%. Another proven method for increasing your ability to recall your dreams, is to drink a great deal of water before bed. Although this might not be practical for you or as easy to regulate every night, it will greatly enhance your efforts.

On top of all techniques mentioned, the concept that pioneers is recording your dreams - more commonly referred to as keeping a dream journal. Recording your dreams immediately after waking up puts your waking state in touch with your sleeping state which gradually results in integration. This is by far the most important and effective stage in recalling your dreams.

To get started, take a look at Keeping A Dream Journal

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