One day I was doing a little casual dream research online when I came across a topic known as "lucid dreaming." Lucid dreaming is, literally, when you're in the middle of a dream and you realize you're dreaming. You can then control the dream, or at least progress through it with this knowledge in mind. Most people have experienced this by accident at one time or another, but apparently, it can also be "learned" so that it happens more often.

Because I believe that one of the major purposes of dreaming is to allow ourselves to fulfill adventures and fantasies we otherwise are unable to experience (for example, I might never find a Twice-as-Fancy Baby in a flea market in real life, but I've found several in dreams!), the idea of lucid dreaming intrigued me. I continued on in my search for information, visiting several dream-related sites and collecting accounts of and instructions for learning to dream lucidly. On this page I plan to recount my own experiences with lucid dreaming. I'd include the links of some lucid dreaming sites that might explain things more exactly, but I find that those sites are also usually trying to sell items that "aid" lucid dreaming -- rip-off! These techniques can work without purchasing assorted gadgets. ;)

Anyway, on to the dreaming.

I first had to work on my dream recall, because what good is lucid dreaming if I can't remember the dream? According to psychologists, most everyone dreams several times a night, every night. People who claim they rarely or never dream actually have poor dream recall -- they have dreams but don't remember them. Here's how I increased my dream recall:

~ Before I fell asleep at night, I told myself that I would have dreams that night, that those dreams would be pleasant ones, and that I would remember them in the morning (I know; this all sounds New Age-ish and cheesy, and I'm not usually one to follow those paths, but this worked for me!).

~ If I woke up and remembered a dream I'd been having, I would write the dream down -- even if it was the middle of the night. If I didn't want to recount an entire dream, I'd just make a few notes of the important elements, so that I would have a better chance of remembering the next morning. For this, I found a cute little blank book to use as my dream journal. I found it very helpful to keep my dreams in journal format, just because it kept everything in order and reminded me of how many dreams I was actually remembering.

~ Most people have their longest dreams during their last few hours of sleep, and most people are also more likely to recall a dream if they are awakened in the middle of it. For this reason, I started setting my alarm to wake me up between one and two hours early each morning. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of a dream and remember it. Then I'd note the dream and go back to sleep until it was time to get up. This last one can be a drag, but I only had to do it for a short time; then I was remembering dreams more easily, and didn't need to continue waking myself up at 6 AM. ;)

The most important aspect of lucid dreaming is the ability to recognize elements of dreams as being unusual. This is harder than it sounds -- when you wake up and recall that weird two-headed MLP you found in your dream, you can't imagine how you thought it was real... But in the midst of the dream, you probably just thought, "Wow! I bet this is really rare!" ;D If you can recognise certain elements in a dream as being wrong or impossible, then you have a better chance of realizing you're dreaming. Two methods worked for me:

~ One suggestion I read was to search my past dreams for a recurring symbol or object that I might recognise in future dreams. For me, this recurrance was finding ponies. The majority of my dreams have to do with discovering lots of rare (and nonexistant) MLPs in flea markets, thrift stores, etc. I've also found them in weird places, like my school and as prizes in those crane games at arcades! And I don't find too many ponies in my waking hours, so finding a rare MLP became something I would look for to find if I was dreaming.

~ Another tip I found was what I think of as the "clock-watcher" method. If I found a pony, or if another unusual occurance made me wonder if I might be dreaming, I would find a clock or a watch (if you're dreaming, one will probably suddenly appear when needed) and check it three times in quick succession. If the hands/numbers changed oddly, there's the proof. This is a difficult thing to remember to do, so it's good to practice it occasionally during the day, when you know you're awake. Just look at your watch a few times in a row, and get into the habit of doing this every so often. It brings you back a realization of your conscious state... And if you have that habit while awake, you're more likely to think to try it in a dream.

So has my "training" ever worked for me? Yes, although only once (I began the process of learning to dream lucidly in the summer of 1999 and had to stop for the school year because my crappy class schedule messed up my sleeping habits, blah. I am writing this in the summer of 2000, just as I am getting back into learning). Here is an account of my lucid dream:

I was in a room -- it was a kind of store, but it was very bare. It had the atmosphere of a school classroom abandoned for the summer. Standing against one wall was a grabber (one of the aformentioned arcade crane games). I could see that some of the prizes in the game were ponies, but the game was broken. Then I found that I could reach right into the game (part of the front window was missing) and take the ponies. There were four TAF babies -- I distinctly remember one being Baby Dancing Butterflies. There may have been more ponies as well. So there I was, carrying a number of little ponies when I realized, hey, this doesn't make sense. I *never* find ponies this great, so what are they doing in a grabber?

This is where my lucid dreaming training came in handy. I started to wonder if I might have been dreaming. I looked up at the wall where a clock was conveniently hung. It said 3:15 or something like that. Glanced away, looked back. 3:20. The clock had passed five minutes in a two second span of time. I knew then that I was definitely dreaming.

So I put the ponies down on the floor -- if they weren't real, then it wasn't much good carrying them around -- and went outside. I found myself on the street in front of my house, and the day was very gray and cloudy. It was quite peaceful and pleasant, actually. I thought, Well, I'm dreaming. What now? So I decided to try and fly. It took a few attempts, but eventually I was able to leap into the air and glide through the air effortlessly. Manuvering was very much like swimming, but without the resistance of water. It was lovely, and just amazing.

The dream fades out after a few minutes of flying -- I think I forgot I was dreaming, and went back into the dream again. But what a great experience that bit of lucid dreaming was!

So what good is lucid dreaming, besides the old wish-fulfillment thing?

It can help squash nightmares, for one thing. Imagine that you were being troubled by a recurring nightmare. One night, you are able to realize you are dreaming, and you confront whatever is threatening you in the dream. This can help "cure" you of that perceived threat.

It can also lessen the frustration that dreams can create. I used to be disappointed when I would wake up from another "pony dream" and realize that I didn't really own the ponies I had found in the dream. But I wasn't at all disappointed by my lucid dream, even though I had also found ponies in the first part of that dream.

That's all the info I can think of to share about lucid dreaming at the moment. I'm no expert, but if you have any questions, please email me at minty12_mlp@yahoo.com. And be sure to share any lucid pony dreams you have at the message board!