Did you know that you can lucid dream all night? It's true, as there are dreamers who practice all-night lucidity (both in dream and non-dream states). You could even be lucid all night every night. Lucid dreams aren't limited to specific times. They are only limited to as long as you sleep. You can be lucid in your sleep any time for as long as you desire. There's ways you can train yourself for this if you don't already have it naturally.
This guide is meant to dispell some of the common myths that get in the way of serious practioners who want to take their dreams to the next level, setting up the proper mindset by removing mental roadblocks and damaging misconceptions—after all, lucid dream induction is in part based on intention, so believing that certain goals are impossible will not benefit you. If you want to take advantage of your full potential and have longer lucid dreamers, you need to believe in your goals. Other lucid dreamers have already achieved all-night lucidity, and you can too. Even if you aren't aiming for all-night lucidity, this guide can help increase the duration of your lucid dreams.
One of the most simple yet powerful things you can do to lengthen your lucid dreams is to dispel myths that cause lucid dreams to end. One of the most common self-limiting myths is that each dream must be neatly confined into 90 minute REM intervals. Necessity of REM for lucid dreaming is outdated science, and believing it can throw off your progress if you are trying to extend the length of your lucid dreams.
There is another similar myth that dreams at the beginning of the night without REM are impossible. This second myth stems from the former. Both should be cast aside in order to move forward with your practice.
The truth is, you can dream any time you sleep and you can be lucid any time you sleep.
It's normal for dream formation to begin during the transition switch from waking to sleep, such as with hypnagogia during the process of WILD (a technique for lucid dreaming). Hypnagogia is a dream in the beginning stage of formation and can be experienced in the middle of the night (after you wake up from a previous dream), at the beginning of the night, or with daytime naps. Hypnagogia is possible any time you go to sleep. Lucid dreaming directly from hypnagogia (with WILD) is possible any time you experience hypnagogia. This is because there are no physical barriers to when you can fall asleep and form a dream.
Because lucid dreams can be formed any time you sleep, lucid dreams can also last as long as you sleep. You could have a lucid dream last 4+ hours, or an entire night. Lucid dreams can be generated any time we practice present moment awareness during sleep regardless of the physical sleep stage your body is in, and can continue until you wake up.
So what causes lucid and non-lucid dreams and why can we have them seemingly any time? Lucid and non-lucid dreams are a conscious perception of experience during sleep, but there are also other possible states of consciousness (or unconsciousness) during sleep as well:
1. (lucid or non-lucid).
2. (unconsciousness or pure awareness)
3. (waking or without waking)
As you might have noticed, you can either be aware or unaware in all three of the above states. Awareness is not tied to the state, but is something you train yourself to maintain.
If your goal is to have lucid dreams, then your goal is to substitute unawareness with awareness. With awareness, you can substitute any state with dreams.
Learning to lucid dream is about becoming conscious of what was previously unconscious, and that includes decisions about your perceived reality. As you practice lucid dreaming, you'll learn to switch states automatically without effort, making conscious decisions in your sleep that were previously unconscious.
Note that it's because these choices exist that lucid dreams can emerge with nothing but . For example, you can have lucid dreams after telling yourself the mantra I will lucid dream tonight before sleep. Techniques such as MILD are more effective induction tools for beginners, but it's still possible to have lucid dreams simply by choosing to have them. This is what we learn to do by training with techniques, which are merely the stepping stones to higher levels of conscious choice.
Because pure intention is a core part of lucid dreaming, telling yourself that you can only have lucid dreams at a certain time (such as the 90 minute REM intervals) is detrimental to your practice, but thankfully, just knowing that these myths exist can eliminate the problem. If you absorbed these myths, you'll automatically remove mental blocks that artificially shorten your dreams simply by reading this guide.
If you still find yourself having short lucid dreams after reading this guide, it's worth mentioning that there may be nothing wrong with that you're doing.. You may simply be in the process of learning, and just need to keep working on lucid dream induction.
There are two ways a lucid dream can end: A) you can either lose lucidity or B) wake up, thus ending the lucid dream. You will either find yourself continuing to dream without lucidity or awake in physical reality. The key to lengthening existing dreams is to identify and resolve the things that cause you to lose lucidity or wake up out of your existing lucid dreams.
In order to know what's causing your lucid dreams to end, it's important you develop adequate dream recall so that you can look back at your previous dreams and identify patterns for what happens right before your lucid dreams normally end. If you keep a dream journal, you can write down speculations about what you think could have ended your dreams, taking note of things you noticed right before it ended. It's okay if you don't know every time. The more you practice lucid dreaming, the more you can start to identify ongoing patterns.
If you can't identify specific patterns that could be causing your lucid dreams to end, turn your focus onto induction techniques. Techniques for lucid dreams are always a good fallback for when you're not sure why your lucid dreams are short. Training with techniques naturally lengthens your lucid dreams over time anyway, so this guide is not required. Even if you don't identify the reason for your lucid dreams ending, you can still have longer lucid dreams simply through training with induction techniques.
Note: If you notice yourself only becoming lucid at the ends of your dreams before waking up in the morning, this simply means you need more practice with induction techniques. It's normal for beginners to attain lucidity towards the natural end of sleep. This naturally improves with experience. Shorter lucid dreams is normal for beginners in general, so the more you practice induction, the more this can naturally resolve.
Stabilization is used to keeop your asleep so that you don't wake up from a lucid dream. Before getting into how it can help you, we need to again dispel two more myths.
Stabilization is a hot topic in lucid dreaming which can help lengthen your dreams. However, there's a myth that dreams need to be stabilized. The truth is, dreams are naturally stable whether you're lucid or not. We commonly see beginners struggle with stabilization if they have been exposed to this myth. When we teach them that stabilization isn't necessary, the problem often goes away on its own and they proceed to have longer dreams. If you have fallen victim to this myth, cast it aside!
There is another myth that excitement causes you to wake up from lucid dreams. We encounter the same issues with this one. The truth is, you can be excited in your dreams without waking. This includes laughter, dance, sobbing, outrage, and other intense emotion. These emotions aren't tied to the mechanism for waking up, which is handled by the same mechanism behind dream control.
The problem with the excitement myth is that it ties the waking mechanism to excitement, creating an expectation for waking up through schematic association. Schematic associations and expectation are powerful dream control tools, which can be used unintentionally to wake oneself up through the myth itself. So this is another one worth casting aside.
With myths aside, there's some truth to stabilization. Although dreams don't automatically need to be stabilized, stabilization can be helpful when you are about to wake up.
Using stabilization can keep you in a dream longer than you would be in it normally, allowing you to intentionally ignore disruptions to your sleep (such as a dog barking outside or an alarm going off). It's a handy tool for when you don't want your sleep to be interrupted, or if you simply wish to sleep in. Even if you have gotten a full night of sleep, dreams can usually be extended by a half an hour or longer. Be careful not to oversleep, as too much sleep can be bad for your health.
Stabilization is a grounding process that involves engaging with the dream reality. By becoming more engaged with the dream, you can keep your attention on it longer and remain asleep. Here's a few tips on different ways to stabilize a dream:
1. Spin yourself in a circle as many times as you'd like.
2. Look at your hands, or other parts of your body.
3. Rub your hands together or touch other parts of your body to ground yourself.
4. Count or say a mantra such as I am dreaming.
5. Go do things in your dream, such as interacting with dream characters or scenery.
Lucid dreams can be cut short if you lose lucidity and revert back to a non-lucid dream narrative. This is common for beginners and can naturally resolve as you gain more experience (such as by using induction techniques for lucid dreaming).
When you're trying to lengthen your lucid dreams, it can help to ask yourself what's causing you to lose lucidity in the first place. Stabilization comes in handy if you are waking up, but what about when you lose lucidity without waking up? If you lose lucidity mid-dream, you can continue into a non-lucid dream in which you have no awareness that you are still dreaming. This can be caused by illusions of waking up in the dream or pure forgetfulness.
Some of the most common ways you may revert back to non-lucidity in a dream:
1. You get lost in a dream that mimics waking life. For example, you may realize that you're dreaming in your bedroom, then you walk through the front door and see the bus. Upon stepping outside, you find yourself going to school or work, and forgetting that you are dreaming because the scene mimics mundane life. This is most common at thresholds such as doorways and other natural scene transitions.
2. You experience a false awakening. These can make you feel as though you woke up from a dream, but you are actually still dreaming! Sometimes you may appear inside a dream that mimics your bedroom. It may look just as real and vivid as your physical bedroom, but it is in fact a dream.
3. Getting caught up in something that distracts you emotionally. For example, a scary dream about losing your teeth or being late for an appointment can throw off lucidity if you get too caught up in your emotions. Any kind of distraction can do this, but emotional distracts are common.
So what do we do when our dreams throw us for a loop? One of the easiest and most powerful fixes is to use MILD or DILD hook techniques to recognize specific patterns of events that lead to non-lucidity. Treat them as a dream sign! When you encounter the event, check your state and become lucid again. Presto!
For example, if you experience false awakenings, you can train yourself to do a reality check (or simply question whether you're dreaming) whenever you wake up in bed. Whether it's in the morning or the middle of the night, practice checking your state every single time you wake up. As a result, you'll no longer lose lucidity when you have a false awakening. Likewise, you can train yourself to check your state whenever you go through a doorway or experience an emotion.
Training yourself to induce lucidity when non-lucidity triggers appear allows you to regain lucidity instantly from them, transforming your non-lucidity triggers into personalized induction tools.
Another powerful way to keep yourself lucid is to include themes of lucidity in your dream plots. Through scenery, characters, and plot structure, you can dream about things that will continuously reinforce your lucidity rather than dreams about mundane life. You can do this with dream control and incubation.
Here's some ideas for plots you can use to increase the length of your lucid dreams:
- You're on a mission with other lucid dreamers. The goal of the mission could be anything you want, but the presence of other lucid dreamer characters will remind you that you're dreaming continuously as you interact with them.
- Including mythical creatures, magic, or other fantasy elements that remind you that you're dreaming. This works best if you've trained themself to become lucid from these encounters (which can be done with the MILD technique.
- You're traveling to another universe, such as a dimension that's entirely underwater—and you can breathe underwater! Being able to breathe underwater or travel other impossible locations can remind you continuously that you're dreaming.
- You have a companion who knows about your lucidity. Animals and mythical creatures are great for this role because their presence can continuously remind you that you're dreaming.
- You're a lucid dreamer in training and there's a mentor showing you the ropes. You might even get some good advise!
- You've traveled to a temple for dreamers. This temple causes lucidity in everyone who visits, and has.
Lucidity themed plots can be powerful tools for remaining lucid all night, even if you've never lucid dreamed before.
Shorter lucid dreams may result from the expectation that dreams can end. Let's remove the expectation for an ending altogether, and assume your dreams will never end.. You may lose lucidity from time to time, and sometimes you might wake up, but you can return to any dream as many times as you'd like.
This isn't a hypothetical, but something that many lucid dreamers discover on their own. You can continue from one dream to the next, continuing the same story with the same plots, locations, and characters. This type of dreaming is called a Persistent Realm.
With a persistent realm, you can start out on a mission with other lucid dreamers on the first night, but then you lose lucidity and fail to become lucid again that night. No problem! You try again the next night, appearing in a meeting with your fellow lucid dreamers. You tell them Yeah, I lost lucidity last night, but I'm back now! So what are we doing?. They inform you that you will be going to an underwater world with an assistant to clean up pollution. Great! But then you lose lucidity again... No problem! The next night, you try again and continue into the underwater without it affecting your story.
If you tell yourself that all of your dreams are connected, you can continue the same dream endlessly. This means your dreams will never end unless you want them to.
You can also use DEILD (Dream Exit Initiated Lucid Dreaming). This technique is almost identical to the WILD technique and you can use WILD guides to learn how to perform it. The steps are mostly the same as WILD, but with the difference being that DEILD is done right upon waking up from a dream with the intention of re-entering back into the same dream. DEILDs are usually quicker and easier than WILD because you are already drowsy and the dream you just had should be fresh in your mind.
Any time you wake up from a dream, you have the option to re-enter it with DEILD. Simply by performing WILD immediately (which is usually easier right upon waking from a previous dream), you can go right back to what you were doing. This nullifies the problem of waking up from dreams, since waking is more of a temporary pause than a true ending to the previous dream.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter if you lose lucidity or wake up. Even if you've been woken up for a while, you can still go back to the same dream. Sometimes just knowing this can help prevent you from waking up in the first place because it removes pressure and expectation, which are some of the underlying mechanics for dream formation.
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