What is Lucid Awareness?
Lucid dreaming is really ALL about awareness and the kind of awareness we have during the day is the same awareness that will follow over into our dreams. The reason why kids naturally have lucid dreams and us adults usually don’t, is that we adults are on auto-pilot through most of our day, we’re not really present most of the time. Kids are much more questioning of everything and aware of the present moment so they end up having much more lucidity in their dreams.
Because lucid awareness during the day equals lucid dreaming at night.
You’ve probably all seen that experiment with the gorilla dancing around but no-one notices it because they’ve been told to focus on the ball being passed? You know the one?
That’s how we are throughout the day, we’re focused on achieving tasks and we’re not really present to what’s happening around us. Which is why we don’t notice when during a dream we are back with our ex partner, or living in our childhood home or our cat is playing gin rummy with us, or any other number of curious scenarios that we don’t really notice because we’re so focused on our tasks.
Instead of how many times does the ball get passed, what if the task in the experiment had been does a gorilla dancing through the scene? Then the of course it would have been noticed every time, because their minds were be cued to look for it.
So this is what we need to do with our mind – cue it and prepare it to look for signs that we are dreaming, through out the day. Because at some point in the next 24 hours we will be dreaming – can we cue our mind to be ready to notice when we’ve switched into a dream world?
To do so we need to develop this skill of lucid awareness which is being on the look out for signs that we have switched into a dream world. We need to start being discerning and paying close attention to our reality throughout the day.
So are we dreaming right now?
It might seem strange to ask and it may seem obvious that we’re not dreaming, but its actually not because when we are dreaming it doesn’t actually feel like a dream, it feels just like this.
So if it feels pretty much the same, then how do we know if we are in the physical world or the non-physical world right now?
Reality Checks
There are few ways to check physically if we are non-physical right now.
One is to try to pull on your finger, because your dream body is stretchy and can lengthen or rearrange into any shape. So lets try it now…
Not stretching… seems like it might be a physical reality… Lets try another check just to be sure…
Another one is to try and fly, we can fly in the dreamworld because there are no laws of gravity there.
However, one of the catches is that you have to actually believe that it’s possible that you could levitate and fly right now; it has to be a real possibility or else your mind will just stop it happening, even if you are in a dream.
So let’s open our minds to the possibility that this really could be a dream, and we really might be able to float upwards right now… Are you ready? Let’s try and levitate!
(Author tries to float upwards.)
Well, I’m still on the ground. So it looks like we probably are in the physical world right now.
We can also try to put our hand through something solid like the floor.
We can hold our nose and try to breathe.
And a very classic one is to look at your hands, look away and then look back, because they will often appear different, like fingers missing or added, if we are in a dream.
So these kinds of physical checks are called Reality Checks and they are very effective for triggering lucidity, and are super popular with lucid dreamers all over there world, because if we are checking what reality we are in regularly during the day it will become a habit and we’ll start doing it while we’re dreaming, and then our finger will stretch, we will levitate, our hands will change, our check will show us – yes we are in a dream world right now.
So I recommend to set an alarm on our phone for at least 10 times a day to remind us to do our reality checks all through the day.
We also want to do reality checks whenever something weird happens because a lot of weird things happen in dreams, and especially do a reality check whenever we are stressed out because dreams are often stressful too, and you wouldn’t believe how GOOD it feels when you’re having a nightmare and then you think to do a reality check and realise its all a dream and suddenly EVERYTHING changes, there’s nothing to be scared of anymore… It’s such an amazing relief!
So when your alarm goes off during the day your reality check should include:
Performing at least 2 of the physical checks we just talked about
Also looking around you for anything strange or dreamlike in your environment
Tune into where you are and what you’re doing here and does this make sense?
I have a 3 minute lucid awareness meditation that you can set as an alarm on your phone, it’s available on Patreon along with a bunch of other great resources 😀
Waking up from the Spell
You know when you’re dreaming and something really bizarre happens like your cat starts talking to you, but it just seems normal in the dream… We might wonder why events like this don’t immediately alert us to the fact that we’re dreaming? And a lot of it is that we’re not in the habit of actually asking the question are we dreaming or not, so that’s going to change when we start doing our regular reality checks.
But there’s something else going on here…
It’s because when we’re dreaming it’s like we’re under a spell or in a state of hypnosis; we’re in a state of suspension of disbelief. It’s kind of like when we’re watching a movie and we know its a bunch of actors and its a fictional creation, but we willingly allow ourselves to get swept up in the storyline and we laugh and cry and we engage with the movie as if its real, because its almost like being in a trance. If you watch people who are watching TV you can see something’s happened to them and they’re in some kind of trance state – you know that dazed look in their eyes – they’re awareness has really left their bodies and is completely immersed in the story on the screen. When we watch a show or a movie, or even read a book, we forget all about ourselves and just melt into the world of the story.
So when we dream I think its similar; there is always some part of our consciousness that knows it’s a dream, but the dream is even more seductive than the screen because we’ve lost the awareness of our physical body, so its almost irresistible to not just get swept up in the action and melt into the dream and forget that we are actually the person dreaming the dream.
We’re completely absorbed in the story, the movie of the dream. We can be dreaming that we are a completely different person, living a completely different life, but we are so immersed in the story and the action that we don’t even notice.
‘Lucid awareness’ is consciously waking ourselves up from the spell of the dream, and realising that we are not what we are dreaming, just like we’re not what’s on the screen; we are the ones dreaming the dream. So lucid awareness is bit like watching a movie and being able to follow the story, but at the same time maintaining the awareness of ourselves as an outside observer of the movie. Not getting swept up and forgetting ourselves as the dreamers.
So let’s practice a style of lucid awareness meditation now this is a Gnostic teaching called the Key of SOL. SOL stands for subject, object and location. And the idea is to balance our in a mode of ‘multi-tasking’ between these 3 different point of view… and lets practice it now as I explain it:
Key of SOL Meditation
Sitting now eyes open and becoming aware of Subject (your subjective experience), the essence of how it feels to be you right now. Observing the feelings of your breath, observing the feelings inside your body, and observing your mind and your thoughts. Being aware of the awareness that flows through your whole body.
And while maintaining this awareness of your subjective experience, expand your perception to observe objectively the details of the world around you. Becoming aware of everything in the space around you as objectively as possible. Can you see anything strange or dreamlike? Maintaining awareness of your self, always aware of your self as the observer, as you scan the world around you like a detective, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Encouraging your mind to be on the look out for any strange or anomalous occurrences.
And maintaining awareness of subject and object, now analyse your location with discernment. Where are you? What is your purpose in being here? Is it clear where you are and how you got here? Or is it vague and dreamlike? Now whatever your doing in this location – in our case its meditating – just do what you are here to do in this moment, being completely present and aware of yourself at all times. Just doing the work of this moment, but without daydreaming of past or future and losing awareness of your self.
Beautiful, and relax now but try to maintain this awareness as you continue reading now.
So the key of SOL: Subject – awareness of self. Object – awareness of surroundings. Location – awareness of where we are and what we are doing here.
This is the kind of perception and awareness that we want to hold though as much of our day as possible. Master dreamers will be able to hold this awareness of themselves throughout the whole day.
Because every time we start to lose awareness of our SOL we slip back under the spell of the dream, we lose lucidity.
Every time we do a reality check it’s a perfect time to remind ourselves move back into this state of SOL awareness. It’s waking us up from being swept away in our thoughts and our daydreams, to becoming present with who we are, where we are and what we are doing here.
Every time we do a reality check and move our perception back into the key of SOL, we are becoming lucid in our waking life, and lucid dreams will naturally follow.
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Just a closing thought…
We might assume that we are the dreamers and the world ‘out there’ is the dream, but maybe it’s actually the opposite and the objective world is the dreamer is and we, the subjective experience, are the dream…