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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