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. 

__________________________________________________________________

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…

If we can imagine our waking state of consciousness symbolically as our ‘Sun’ Mind, and our dreaming state symbolically as our ‘Moon’ Mind, then dreamwork can be seen as the creative marriage and interpretive-dance-like interaction between these two quite different states of mind. The dualistic energies of our waking and dreaming minds have been symbolised through out the ages in many cultures as sun/moon, yang/yin, light/dark or masculine/feminine. They are recognised as archetypes of our psyches, representing nodes on a spectrum of consciousness, between which our human experience oscillates. Both have their own magical powers that shape our existence, and both when out-of-balance can be destructive to our well-being.

Its important to note that our Sun Mind and Moon Mind are never mutually exclusive; just as the yin-yang symbol demonstrates, each contains a good-sized splodge of the other. Also, we don’t need to be asleep to dream; we have the ability to enter our Moon Mind state of consciousness while awake through meditation, lucid journeying and sacred ceremony, as well as via psycho-active plants and substances. Likewise we can also access our Sun Mind while we are sleeping, especially through the practice of lucid dreaming.

Both our Sun Mind and Moon Mind each have their archetypal light and shadow aspects. Our waking Sun Mind is a master of order and rationality, of linear time, law and justice, and mastery over the physical world. Efficient, analytical and burning with yang energy, the light of our Sun Mind powers our action and expansion, our ability to control and manipulate the physical world through physical means. Its shadow however is to over-dominate, control and expand without limit or compassion. Our dreaming Moon Mind is the expression of our wild and untamed heart. Deeply passionate and emotional, intuitive and creative, its home is the non-linear world of the Dreaming. Its light powers our mystical experiences, the ‘knowings’ in our bones, our imagination, our creativity, and our ancient mythic connections to the universe around us and everything in it. In its shadows however, we can be over-whelmed by our emotions, lose our strength of self-discipline and our ability to function effectively within consensus reality.

Our culture currently has a ‘glaring’ imbalance towards our collective Sun Mind and this has resulted in a break-down of relationship with our dreams and with our collective Moon Mind, to the point of draining the magic, mystery and spontaneity out of our experience of the world. As well as physically destroying the earth’s wild nature and psychologically destroying our connection to our own wild inner-natures, which happen to be only our only source to creatively imagine our way out of this mess. Meanwhile, our Moon Mind is held in exile in the shadows by our collective consciousness – expressing itself in our fear, pain, anxiety, loneliness and alienation, the results of its rejection and betrayal by our collective Sun Mind.

If we want magic to come alive in our lives, we must tend to our everyday relationship with it.

Toko-pa Turner

Dreamwork is the excellent practice of returning harmony and balance to this sacred marriage of opposites, and as we weave the dreaming Moon Mind back into living-connection with our waking Sun Mind we restore the magic and mystery of divine dreaming to its rightful place as the guiding spirit of our lives. We also invite the Dreaming back into our collective world, as one by one we add the voices of our dreaming to the symphony of our shared waking dream.

The Dreaming is the Oneness from which all individual dreams are dreamt. Our Moon Mind understands this Oneness, and sees each individual as an essential voice in the great uni-verse, the song of life. Our dreaming Moon Mind encourages us to sing our unique gifts into being. She guides us through our dreams in a synesthaesic tapestry of mythic story. Its a kind of poetry-of-form that can be completely baffling to our rational and linear-based Sun Mind. Verbal and written languages have been learned by our Sun Mind through imitation and study, but Dreaming we are born with. The Moon Mind speaks the fundamental language of our consciousness; it is the language of Nature as she creates through us, her creations.

~ Artwork by Catrin Welz-Stein ~

The objective of dreamwork is to help our over-active Sun Mind to be still and really listen, to be open and to receive, the wisdom that dwells within the nightly creative expression and communication from our Moon Mind via our dreams. The first stage of MOD dreamwork is making Connections – to the feelings of the dream, to the poetry of the dream and to the parallels in our waking life. From this point we are ready to move on to the Dream Magic stage of dreamwork – dream manifestation and magical co-creation of the physical world.

Once we have recorded a dream in our Dream Journal, with the date and a title, we can begin our facilitation to bring the deeper truths of our dreams into the light of our Sun Mind. Dreams are very topical to our current waking life so its best to work with a recent dream that is freshly potent for us. Dreamwork can be embarked upon either alone or with a group of dreamers.

Connections: Feelings

The poet doesn’t invent. He listens.

Jean Cocteau

The first stage in MOD-style dreamwork is to let go of the Sun Mind’s burning desire for a clear and easy explanation or ‘meaning’ to the dream and embrace the Moon Mind’s watery ability to flow and be gently guided by the topography of the dream landscape. Although occasionally dream messages will be clear and simple, usually they are far deeper and more complex than they appear. Dreams are reflections of our multi-dimensionality, and in being so they contain multiple layers of meaning. Because dreams come from a place beyond our rational mind we want to avoid projecting our rational mind’s meanings onto them. If we can observe the feelings of our dreams from a place of neutral non-judgment, then we have a chance to allow the things that we don’t already know to surface and become known.

In MOD-style dreamwork, instead of ‘working’ on the dream, we invite the dream to ‘work on us’. A dream is like a riddle to be mused over not just by the mind but by the whole intellectual-emotional body. So we begin by really feeling into our dream by returning through the sequence of events of the dream in our minds and allowing our bodies to recall how they felt at every stage of the dream. When we allow the harmonics of the dream to ripple through our energy bodies the dream will change us from within, altering our psychic landscape and preparing us for deeply profound discoveries. For this to happen we begin by quietening the rational Sun Mind and inviting the essences of the dream to swirl their iridescent colours and feelings up through our body. Just by delicately dancing with the essence of the dream in this way can bring much of its message into the light. Identify the most potent symbols and themes of the dream, the ones that trigger the strongest feelings and curiosity, and be receptive; listening and feeling where they lead you within your body.

Our dreamwork process involves bringing treasures of truth up from our underworlds worlds to sparkle and shine in the light of day. Our dreams call us to better embody our true selves and our true feelings, and this can be challenging. Our dreams can often evoke unpleasant feelings of fear, disgust, violence, anxiety or sadness, and we usually try to avoid these kinds of feelings, not willingly embrace them. But embracing these feelings is precisely what we need to do; it can be crippling to attempt to squash these ‘negative’ feelings because to do so is to deny a part of ourselves that is aching to be revealed and expressed as our truth. We need to embody the full spectrum of life’s emotions to allow the full magic of the Dreaming into our lives. Which isn’t to say that we allow these feelings to overwhelm us, or to express themselves violently or dangerously, but we allow them to be felt and acknowledged in a safe, loving and non-judgemental way. We honour them and their validity. Their truth. Once these feelings are warmed in the light of our Sun Mind and fully embodied or heard, then they are usually able to resolve and find true peace. The terrifying dark figures who we have been running from in our dreams are often revealed to be our most powerful allies once we embrace them.

Our dreamwork encourages us to make peace with the scary and horrible aspects of our dreams, recovering the forgotten pieces of our lost soul in the process, and bringing ever deepening levels of self awareness and texture to the mythic journey that is our life. Once we have created a working understanding or ‘map’ of the emotional landscape of our dream, we begin to delve deeper intellectually, by connecting with the specific symbology within the poetry of the dream.

Connections: Poetry

What are dreams really? As well as being travels into the dreaming realms, our dreams are living poetry; they speak an ancient language of poetry-of-form. Poetry communicates deep levels of meaning through the languages of metaphor and symbology. These poetic languages are known to communicate on far deeper levels than literal language is able to. Poetry evokes emotions and points us towards meanings that are beyond the ability of words alone to convey. Our dream-makers, our Moon Minds, are master poets and every aspect of our dream is communicating multiple levels of richly symbolic meaning. This poetic language is our indigenous language and our dreams are incredibly adept at speaking it. Our waking Sun Mind, however, is quite challenged in the poetry department to say the least! So we need to really work at unpacking the symbology contained within our dreams in a linear way, to help our Sun Mind to understand the poetic connections. We do this by asking many questions and working through the dream in a linear fashion, questioning the symbolic meanings behind each symbol and character one at a time.

Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Questioning our dreams must not be an interrogation, but a process of genuine open-hearted curiosity. Because our dreams are messages from beyond the usual territory of our waking mind we need to gently probe the dream to open and reveal itself without imposing our Sun Mind’s literal meanings or judgements. The right questions will serve as keys to open the dream’s secret doors and reveal its meanings to us. Following our internal ‘Aha!’ moments, and the waves of energy that we call ‘chills’ or ‘goosebumps’, will help to lead us down the right track.

The Setting

We begin our gentle questioning with the opening scene of the dream – the setting – as this will provide clues as to what area of our life this dream is referring. We can follow our curiosity and be creative, asking many kinds of questions such as:

“What are 5 words that describe this setting?”

“Is it indoors or outdoors?”

“What is the weather like?”

“What action is taking place here?”

“What is my role in the action?”

“What other characters are there?”

“How would I describe those characters in 3 words?”

“How am I feeling about these characters?”

“What are the main symbols of this setting?”

“How would I describe these symbols in 3 words each?”

The Plot

Narrative dreams tend to follow a structure that mirrors and informs our innate human pattern of story-telling. So once our dream has established a scene it will usually now introduce a plot or story-line in which we are the main character. We will find ourselves with an opportunity being presented, or a challenge, some kind of incentive or motivation being developed, something that we want to ‘do.’ Often there will be numerous challenges/opportunities along our path and we will make decisions that lead us through the journey of the dream. The closing scene of the dream is often an expose of the results of the decisions we have made through out the dream.

Questions to ask of the plot may be:

“What is my main motivation in this dream?”

“What am I trying to ‘do’?”

“Why am I trying to do that?”

“What are the obstacles or challenges?”

“How do I respond to these challenges?”

“What are the opportunities in the dream?”

“How do I respond to these opportunities?”

“What are the main symbols that appear?”

“How would I describe what these symbols ‘do’ in 3 words each?”

“What characters appear?”

“How would I describe these characters in 3 words each?”

“How would I describe my feelings about these characters in 3 words each?”

“What was the outcome of the dream?”

“What decisions did I make in this dream?”

“How did my decisions shape the outcome?”

Connections: Waking Life

Through dreaming, one connects to the true self and recognises the potential she is here to actualise.

Connie Cockrell Kaplan

Once we have asked as many questions of our dreams as possible, and noted the answers down in our dream journal, we can begin to make connections between the dream and our waking life. As we look over the notes in our journals, we ask some more questions, but ones that relate back to our experience in our recent waking life. Keeping in mind that dreams will usually be responses to specific thoughts, conversations, emotions or events that occurred in the past 48 hrs before the dream. The setting of the dream will usually suggest the area of the dreamer’s life to which the dream relates, while the dream plot will relate to the dynamics of the situation to which the dream is referring.

Some example questions are:

“Can I see how the associations I made from the setting of the dream might relate to an area of my current waking life?”

“Can I see from the associations I made from the plot of the dream any similar motivations I have in my waking life?”

“Can I see anywhere I am making similar choices in my waking life?”

“Can I see any similar obstacles or opportunities I am confronting in my waking life?”

“Where in my waking life do I experience the same feelings?”

Usually at this stage we will be feeling some familiarity between the dream and our current waking life. Because we have collected so much extra information about the dream through our asking of questions, connections seem to appear almost magically. Just by exploring deeply our connections to the dream material, the true meaning of the dream will usually bubble to the surface of our conscious mind.

However, if we have reached this stage and still haven’t a clue of what this dream is symbolically showing us it can help to reach out to outside sources. Many people look to sources such as websites and dream dictionaries to help explain their dreams, but these are usually far too simplistic and general to shed light on our personal dreaming. Because we all have our own unique dreaming and our own unique associations with our dream symbols, its crucial to remember that we are always the expert on our own dreams. Others can give us feedback and will sometimes offer great wisdom but it is always our own intuition that must decide whether their advice is relevant or not.

That said, there is one dream dictionary that I do love and recommend; it is written by a psychologist and has excellent information on our collectively shared dream symbols and themes. You can check it out here. Still, always remember that your own intuition is your number one guide in dreamwork. I recommend to only use dream dictionaries, mythic encyclopaedias and Google searches as starting points to exploring your dream symbols, and then allow your own intuition and the world around you to lead you deeper on your personal quest into the wisdom of the dream.

We might also consult oracle cards or take a ‘lucid walk’; asking questions to the waking world and watching and listening to the symbolic responses – snippets of overheard conversations, lettering on number plates or advertisements, verses of songs on the radio, birds flying by, even the shapes of the clouds in the sky can all deliver symbolic clues that relate to our dream story. There are no limits, the whole world is alive to this conversation once we begin to engage. Because consciousness is the basis of the world we are deeply connected to it all.

A Dream Circle is a beautiful and ancient way to share our dreams with a dreaming collective and receive the wisdom and insights of our fellow-dreamers, who each bring their own unique views and associations, adding new layers of depth to our understanding of our dreams. Explains Connie Kaplan, “Sitting in circle, hearing each other’s dreams, and discovering that we are all dreaming together allows us to reconnect with mystery… The mirrors held by dreamers (in dream circle) are the mirrors of mystery, power, magical transformation, and manifestation.”

Because our dreams are multi-dimensional and multi-layered, a Dream Circle is a magical way to share and hear multiple responses to the symbols in our dreams. Every voice can add another layer of potentiality to our dreamwork. If you wish to join the MoD Dream Circle then please join our group. The Dreaming is vast and wise and when we bring the gifts of our dreaming minds together we are each deeply empowered to live a broader, wiser and far more magical lives.

Dreamworker Toko-Pa Turner describes dreamwork as like following a mysterious trail of breadcrumbs prompting us to take “deeper and deeper leaps into the unknown.” Despite delivering many ‘Aha!’ moments along the way as we glean wisdom, sometimes it can take years of carrying a dream inside us before we finally understand how the “symphony resolves itself.”

Journeying

‘Dream re-entry’ journeying (to journey back inside the dream and receive further instruction and information from the dream itself) is an amazing addition to dreamworking, and was taught to me by my teacher Robert Moss. Journeying is a kind of waking-lucid-dreaming; when we relax our Sun Mind and allow our Moon Mind to speak through the medium of our creative imagination, we can ask questions and receive clear messages from the living symbols of our dreams. There are guided journeys on my youtube channel to help facilitate this adventure into lucid waking-dreaming. When we still our Sun Mind and journey inwards we create space for our Moon Mind to converse with us in her own language of symbol, imagination and intuition. This mode of shamanic dreaming is the most powerful form of dreamwork to lucidify the gifts of wisdom from our dreams.

Types of Connections

When we make the correct associations that connect our dreams to our waking life we will feel a magical sense of connection between the worlds of the seen and the unseen. Sometimes our dreams will suggest clear guidance or a solution to the parallel waking life situation. Often times they will not give us clear guidance but will reflect a truth that we have been blind to. They may show us how our Soul is really feeling about this situation. Our dream connections will differ depending on the type of dream and, being poetry-of-form, they will usually contain multiple levels of connection and meaning.

Here are some possible kinds of connections to be made from the various types of personal dreams:

Psychological dreams will have connections that demonstrate the truth of how we are feeling/behaving/transforming in relation to a specific area of our lives.

Problem Solving dreams will have connections that offer solutions to a specific problem in waking life.

Rehearsal dreams will have connections that leave us feeling more prepared for a future event in waking life.

Mundane dreams will have connections that are either advice for day-to-day issues, solutions for day-to-day problems, or be a suggestion to the dreamer to either take a break or find a way to bring more creativity into day-to-day life.

Anxiety dreams have connections that demonstrate patterns of anxiety in the dreamers waking life and how the dreamer is responding to them.

‘Being chased’ dreams have connections to what we may be running from in our waking life.

Nightmare dreams have connections that demonstrate a very important aspect of the dreamers waking life that is demanding attention, and how the dreamer has been responding to that aspect in waking life.

Lucid dreams will have connections that suggest that the dreamer is freeing themself from unconscious patterns of behaviour.

Collective dreams do not need to be ‘connected’ symbolically to our waking life because at this level our dreams are literal experiences that have really taken place in the dream realms; eg. a healing dream means that a healing really happened, a shamanic dream with a power animal means that you have this spirit as an ally, an astral projection means that you have travelled to a real place in the astral realm, a teaching dream has taught you new knowledge, etc…

These kinds of dreams are magical in-and-of themselves and should be recorded in your dream journal and honoured with great reverence and gratitude. For clarification of what has taken place in a collective dream I recommend journeying to ask questions directly to the dream itself. Remember that most dreams will have BOTH personal (symbolic, waking world) and collective (literal, dreaming world) layers of meanings.

~ Artwork ‘Girl from Tehuacan, Lucha Maria or Sun and Moon’ by Frida Kahlo ~

Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art.

Don Miguel Ruiz

Once we have dreamworked our dreams, made our connections and uncovered the hidden gems of truth from our dreams, we tend to wonder ‘What do I do now…?’

How can we use the information gleaned from our dreamworking to guide us on a magic-filled journey though life?

Here are some ideas…

#1 Acceptance

The first step of Dream Magic is to simply accept the dream’s teaching into the light of our waking Mind – allowing our previously hidden and unknown patterns to become known. This subtle yet profound shift will change our inner landscape, and begin to magically transform the world around us, as our Sun Mind and Moon Mind magically unite.

#2 Choices

Next we can look closely at the kinds of choices we are making in the dream and how they are effecting the outcomes. Are we happy with our choices and outcomes? Or would we, from a lucid state of mind, prefer to make different choices to elicit different outcomes. Generally, if a dream outcome was stressful and unsatisfactory, then the dream is recommending us to change our approach to this situation in our waking life. If the dream outcome is spectacular and glorious, then the dream is suggesting that we embrace more of these symbolic actions in waking life.

#3 Patterns of Manifestation

Dream Magic is the practice of re-claiming our power to co-create our world. Our dreams are poetic and symbolic reflections of the creative energies that our astral bodies are currently emanating through our chakras. If our dreams are unsatisfying then our energy body and chakras need tending to because we manifest our waking world from the patterns of these quantum energies, and we may be attracting less than desirable realities towards ourselves. This is why dreamwork is so valuable, because our dreams will show us the patterns of creative manifestation that are coming from beyond our known conscious mind. This guided meditation will clear, activate and harmonise the chakras of our astral body.

#4 Dream Re-entry Journeying

How do we shift our energy blueprints and lucidly manifest our waking world in the way we choose? Journeying back into a dream is one of the most powerful ways to lucidly re-write our dreams and heal our energy bodies at the pre-manifest quantum level.

Here we can shape our patterns of creative manifestation by consciously re-dreaming our dreams from a lucid state of mind. Dream re-entry journeying is energy-work in the pre-manifest quantum realms and will shape the creation of our waking world.

As we journey its so important to maintain a healthy balance between our Sun and Moon Minds. Re-dreaming is not about dominating our dreams with our Sun Minds, its about our waking and dreaming minds working together in harmony and balance – true lucidity. So we don’t “destroy” the demons in our re-dreaming, because this will only send them back into the underworlds more hurt and vengeful than ever. Instead we treat every dream element with love and forgiveness. We listen to our demons, and re-dream our dreams with win-win scenarios that greatly benefit every character in the dream. This involves amazing creativity within the unlimited potential of the Dreaming. To assist you there are guided dream re-entry meditations available on my youtube channel.

Love is the bridge between you and everything.

Rumi

#5 Walking the Dream Magic

As well as emanating our Dream Magic energetically, we must also take symbolic physical steps to invite the Magic into our waking world –  to ‘walk the dream’ – with the lucid knowledge that our waking world (our waking dream) is responding and aligning itself to every thought and action we make. Its powerful magic to see each dream as a call to some kind of physical action – an opportunity to step into a bigger story, to live life more in alignment with the creative essence of our own dreaming. So I like to formulate a simple plan of action from my dreams, a way to ‘answer’ the call of the dream, to ‘lucidify’ the magic of the dream by bringing it symbolically into my waking life.

The best symbolic Dream Magic will inspire and empower you to be creative and manifest your unique gifts in the world. For example if I dream of being ‘naked in public’ then the symbolic magic I formulate may be to look for opportunities to show my true colours to the world, to ‘be-friend’ my feelings of being exposed or vulnerable. I might publicly share a poem or an artwork I have created, or just speak my truth when I might otherwise have remained quiet. I might spend more time actually being naked (in private, hah) and practise feeling comfortable in my own skin. In these ways I symbolically live the essence of the dream in a positive way, collecting courage from the dream to expose more of my true self to the world.

Our dreams love our true voices and encourage us to sing them loudly to the world, not for the sake of love or praise, simply for the innate joy of our own true and unique expression.

Our indigenous voice feels no self-consciousness because it is devotional. It is an ancient song that emanates from our gratitude and sings to keep the stars in the sky and the seasons turning… It recognises itself as necessary – an essential note in the great choir of being.

Toko-pa Turner

#6 Tend your Dream Altar

Creating and tending a dream altar is another magical way to honour the power-symbols from our dreams, so be on the look-out for dream symbols that materialise in your waking life and collect them for your dream altar. They will serve as powerful talismans of your dreaming, providing a living, symbolic bridge between the worlds. For example, if you dream of a white owl and the next day find a white feather outside your house, or you dream of finding gold coins and the next day notice some on your kitchen floor, pick them up and place them on your dream altar alongside candles and other precious and beautiful objects that please your creative Soul.

Your dream altar becomes your sacred space where you can step out of time and reflect on your inner dreaming. A place to be still, to request protection and guidance from your allies, to set intentions for your dreams, to write in your dream journal and to receive messages from your dream oracle cards.

#7 Notice Synchronicities

As we become lucid to our waking world and begin to interpret the waking world symbolically, understanding it as the symbolic projection of our collective dreaming, the synchronicities abound. Synchronicities are powerful messages sent as dream symbols within the collective dream of our waking world – they are magical communications between the dreaming universe and ourselves. Take special note of synchronicities and honour them by acknowledging their deeper meanings – they have symbolic meaning in the poetic mythology of your waking life, as well as being clear signs of your Dream Magic materialising in the physical world.

Live & Dream Your Magic

I hope these ideas have inspired you to live your dream magic. Our waking life is the canvas on which we can paint the colours of our dreams. And if we keep the magic of our dreaming alive inside us as we navigate our way through our waking life, the universe aligns itself around us to support the manifestations of our dreams.

~ Artwork artist unknown ~

“A dream uninterpreted is like a letter unopened”

Babylonian Talmud

Making the effort to weave a reliable bridge between the worlds is the most imperative action of all dreaming practices. The gifts of our dreaming flow to us directly from the wisdom of nature, and are spun into brilliant and fantastical works of poetic art by our infinitely creative dreaming moon-mind. She is always reaching towards us from her silvery shadows, and the echoes of her soulful songs float about our ears as we wake. But it is our waking sun-mind who must make the effort to turn towards her—to build a dream-bridge across the chasm of our unconscious depths to meet her half-way. The effort is well-rewarded as this bridge works both ways and will allow us to travel with more lucidity and awareness into our dreamtime, as well as allowing us to return still carrying the precious teachings from our beloved moon within our hearts.

Sacred dreaming space

The first step is to set our intention clearly that we desire to remember our dreams. This requires creating ‘sacred space’ for dreaming in both our hearts and our homes. This might look like clearing all clutter from your bedroom and creating a peaceful and beautiful space for sleeping and dreaming. Perhaps misting or sprinkling salt water around the edges of the room as you visualise a protective dome of golden light and you whisper, “This space is clear and open to receive dreams of wisdom, grace and healing tonight.” Ceremony and ritual are very dear to our dreaming moon mind and often the best way to invite her in.

Setting intention is more than casually wanting something to happen – it is the energetic force behind every creation becoming manifest.

Toko-pa Turner

Rest

Honouring our dreamtime goes hand in hand with honouring our rest and our sleep. We need to be rebels against the grind culture and value the times of surrender and receptivity when we stop incessantly ‘doing’ and allow ourselves to let go and receive. Going to bed early and allowing plenty of time for yourself to sleep in and doze in the morning will give your mind the quality time and energy that it needs to dream and play.

As You Wake

To awaken gently and naturally after a full night’s rest, without the shock of a buzzing alarm blasting through our peaceful slumber, allows us to linger for longer in the liminal space where our waking and dreaming minds merge.

In the beginning you might not remember many (or any) of your dreams. This is nothing to worry about – dream memory is a skill like any other, it requires some practice and perseverance. When you wake just remain still as you search your memory for remnants of dream images. Avoid moving or rolling over and keep your eyes closed as you explore the residual images within your mind’s eye.

Even if you can’t remember anything at first it’s important to not give up too quickly. Remain lying still with your eyes closed and spend a good amount of time and effort trying to remember what you dreamt. Think of the dream memory as a muscle, and the harder you try to remember your dreams in the morning the more you work this muscle. As the muscle gets more exercised it grows stronger, and the more vivid your dream memories will become. As you lie in bed trying to remember, ask yourself how you feel. Feelings can lead you back to dreams. Move your eyes around behind your closed eyelids – this activates different sections of your memory bank. Ask yourself questions and allow answers to gently surface in your mind’s eye, such as “Where was I?” “What did I see?” “Who was I with?”

When you do remember a dream image or scene then retrace the dream events backwards and forwards in your mind several times until you have recaptured as many details of the dream as you possibly can. Once you hold the memory clearly in your mind you can open your eyes and begin to move and stretch your body. The next step is to write it down everything you remember in your Dream Journal as soon as possible.

The Dream Journal

Keeping a dream journal – a book just for your dream experiences – is an essential practice for both dream recall and dreamwork. A nice pen that will make writing smooth and enjoyable is a big help. Keep both of these by your bed and set your intention before sleep to remember your dreams and write them down as soon as you wake up.

For enhancing dream recall it is really important to write down every dream you remember in your Dream Journal. Even if you only remember flashes or images, write them down. It can be notoriously difficult to force ourselves to write down our dreams when we wake up sleepily in the morning, but every time we do so we are strengthening our memory bridge between the worlds and sending powerful messages to our dream memory to be vigilant now. If we wake from a dream during the night then jotting down some keywords of symbols and characters is usually sufficient to trigger the larger memory of the dream in the morning.

Your dream journal is your book of Soul.

Robert Moss

Recording your Dreams

Give your dream a simple title, note the date and (if you wish) the moon phase. Try to capture the authentic experience of the dream as faithfully and honestly as you can as you write it down. Using present tense (for example, “I am floating over an ocean and I see a giant whale” instead of “I was floating over an ocean and I saw a giant whale”) will help to keep the feelings of the dream much more present and alive.

Write your dreams on the left hand pages of your journal and save the right hand pages for your dreamworking.

Dreamworking

Dreamworking with your dreams and dream fragments can begin as soon as you have written them down or, my favourite, over a morning cup of tea. Dreamworking is potent for enhancing the vividness of our dreams because more than anything else it is our active listening to the messages of our dreams that will encourage them to speak to us. Honouring and engaging deeply with our dreams, delving into the mythic language of our dream symbols and themes, and navigating our waking life by the stars of the dreaming realms are at the heart of the dreamwork method. For more on Dreamworking please read my article on Dreamwork Techniques.

An Open Mind

As you begin to remember more of your dreams you may find yourself recalling scary dreams or uncomfortable dreams. Some dreams are confronting or may remind us of painful past events that we would rather forget. We might even wake up wishing that we hadn’t remembered the dream we just had. Dreams can be can quite horrible experiences sometimes and this has caused many people to shut down their dream memory and burn their dream bridges because they feel ashamed of their own dreams. Uncomfortable feelings of fear, disgust and shame have caused many of us to conveniently ‘erase’ our dreams on waking throughout our lives.

We need to change this pattern and be gentle and encouraging with our newly awakening astral memories – don’t shoot the messenger! Instead, remember that for every shadow there is also light; dreams are always leading us to greater spiritual evolution. They are always guiding us into the light and forwards on our spiritual path. This necessarily involves bringing up our shadow sides to be revealed, acknowledged, loved, forgiven and healed. Much of our waking lives are actually spent in ego-protection mode and it is this behaviour that exposed by our dreams. Our dreams can be quite ego-destroying because they want us to drop our ego-imposed limitations and get on with living our Soul Purpose.

Repressing, censoring or denying our dream memories is effectively denying the voice of our true selves, and this will severely block our spiritual growth and potential, including our dreaming and astral traveling abilities. We need to focus instead on developing a deep self-esteem that is not ego-dependent. So whatever the dream is be sure to keep an open mind as you write down the details in your journal. Be aware of any resistance you feel to writing the dreams down – is this resistance a result of not wanting to accept something within the dream? These resistances will need to be acknowledged and overcome. Try to approach all of your dreams with the same gentle, loving curiosity. Love and forgiveness are our greatest magic powers so use them liberally as you work with your dreams. Be gentle with your dreams, and gentle with yourself. Dreams are rarely what they appear to be; they have hidden encoded meanings that work on a deep symbolic, mythic level. Remind yourself that your dreams are on your side and have your best interests at heart. They are always focussed on your personal healing and wholeness, and the healing of our collective world. When we honour them and treat them as sacred, they will reveal themselves to us. When we approach our dreams with magic in our hearts, the magic of the dream is able to shine forth.

(If you do have recurring nightmares caused by PTSD then please reach out to a professional therapist who can assist you in working with your dreams. Lucid dreaming is showing amazing results for healing trauma and restoring peace to the lives of many, but for working through deep trauma I recommend professional help and support.)

Beliefs

Some of our main obstacles to easy dream recall lie in our limiting beliefs and attitudes towards our dreams and towards our own potential. If you had a normal Western upbringing like I did, then you were probably told things like, “Forget it, it was just a dream.” And unfortunately programmed by a lot of well-meaning people who also had it done to them when they were growing up. Dreams are incredible mirrors of our own consciousness. Like sacred texts, to the uninitiated they can seem to have little or merely superficial meanings. While to those who know how to crack the codes and awaken the deeper mysteries they can have immense transcendental power and wisdom.

Let’s look at some of the basic assumptions that most of us were raised with :

Dreams are not important and basically just the garbage of the brain

There is no other realm but the physical realm

My consciousness exists inside my brain and the rest of the world is separate from me

Well, no wonder we can have trouble honouring and remembering our dreams!

We need to lucidly reprogram our old belief systems (the collective myths inherited from our parents and our society) to now include the real magic of dreaming as our innate gift. We can do this through affirmations that will help convince our Sun Mind to feel confident about expanding its sphere of awareness to include the dreaming realms and be open to hearing the communications from our dreaming Moon Mind. Our old beliefs will need to be replaced with these new ones. Allow your rational mind to relax and open to these truths to as you read them now. Choose the affirmations that most resonate with truth for you, or make up your own, and repeat them to yourself as often as you can:

Dreams are sacred journeys into the dreaming realms

When I honour my dreams their magic is revealed to me

Dreams contain important messages from my soul

I remember all of my dreams when I wake because dreaming is important to me

I write all my dreams in my dream journal because dreaming is important to me

There are no ‘bad’ dreams

All dreams are healing and worth remembering in detail

My dreams are always aligned with my greatest good

My dreams guide me on my path of my spiritual evolution

My dreams take me deep into the dreaming realm

The dreaming realm is real and I can experience it for myself

I am One with the world around me and not confined to my physical body

I am safe and protected and there is nothing I need to fear

It is perfectly safe for my consciousness to travel beyond my physical body and I can return to it whenever I wish

Journeying

There are some people who due to cannabis medicine or other medical/psychological issues will not be able to develop their dream recall beyond a certain level, if at all. Luckily we don’t actually need to sleep to access the dreaming realms. Our Moon Mind is continually dreaming, however the brightness of our waking Sun Mind usually obscures this process, just as we can’t see the stars in the sky during the day although they are always there. Relaxing our Sun Mind and shifting our focus to our Moon Mind allows us access to this dreaming stream of consciousness that is constantly shaping our reality from the shadows.

A journey is a visionary journey (also known as a shamanic journey) into your inner world that you embark upon while you are awake. This is a kind of ‘waking-lucid-dream’ in which you temporarily disengage your rational mind and allow your dreaming mind, your creative imagination, to guide you on a visual and sensory journey. This kind of waking-lucid-dreaming is often aided by shamanic drumming or binaural beats to help to guide your brainwaves into the dreaming ‘theta’ frequencies.

Journeying is an excellent way to travel into the dreaming realms from a waking state, and will also greatly strengthen our bridge-between-the-worlds, enhancing the quality of our sleep-dream recall as well.

For more on Journeying please read my article on Journeying Techniques.

Plant Allies

Plant allies have been guiding humans into the dreaming realms for thousands of years and these blessed beings remain just as helpful today – if we honour them and invite them to dream with us. The sacred plant Mugwort is a fantastic ally for vivid, memorable dreams and a cup of mugwort tea, a fresh sprig under your pillow or a mist of essential oils around your bed as you set your intentions is powerful magic for remembering your dreams. Plant allies are also powerful protectors on our dream journeys.

Celebration & Gratitude

The forementioned practices of preparation, intention, dream journaling, dreamworking, journeying and befriending plant allies make a powerful combination for all dreamers to use to build and maintain a strong and healthy memory-bridge between the waking and dreaming realms. The final step I will add is one of celebration! Practice rejoicing every time you remember a dream! A little enthusiasm goes a long way to boost our dreaming psyche’s confidence. Congratulate yourself for every dream you remember and thank the spirit of your dream for its presence in your waking world.

The magic and joy of dreaming is a gift to be sung about as we wake every morning. Happy dreaming!

~ Artist Unknown ~

When we become lucid in a dream we have the enlightening realisation that the very solid-seeming world surrounding us is not as solid as it appears to be… it is actually made of the stuff of dreams; consciousness, masquerading as form. This is a very magical feeling that really needs to be experienced to be understood. Once we are lucid, the whole dream-world seems to also wake up and come to life. Colours become more vivid and sparkling, and everything seems to glow with a kind of hyper-realism, as if the dream world itself is thrilled to be seen and recognised for what it really is.

Once we have ‘woken up’ to the fact that the dream world around us and everything in it is actually made of consciousness, we can now shape, direct and interact with this dream by using the power and intention of our own conscious mind. This opens up all kinds of possibilities for amazing experiences that feel hyper-real; flying, shapeshifting, telekinesis, romantic liasons and much, much more. In a lucid dream potentially anything that we can imagine, we can manifest – and this is truly magical feeling.

How to Lucid Dream

1/ Begin your Dream Journal

Dream recall is the first crucial step to successful lucid dreaming because there is not much point in having lucid dreams if we don’t remember them! Nothing boosts our dream memory skills like keeping a Dream Journal. Its important to write down EVERY dream image you remember EVERY morning in your Dream Journal. Keep up this practice and your ability to recall dreams in vivid detail will continue to grow. I have written a whole other post on How to Remember your Dreams if you’d like to read it.

Its very easy to be lazy first thing in the morning but journaling our dreams is incredibly important for lucid dreaming as it will not only greatly enhance our dream recall but it will also give us crucial information on the patterns and symbols of our dreams. We all tend to have personal ‘dreamsigns’ (symbols or themes that keep popping up in our dreams) and these can serve to remind us that we are dreaming. When we journal our dreams we can take note of these recurring symbols and check our reality every time they appear. For example, you might often dream of an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, so you can remind yourself, “Every time I see that ex I am probably dreaming.” We can set up these mental notes for all kinds of dream symbols.

Any blank notebook can serve as a Dream Journal, however I have designed some that I use myself and would love to share with you. This journal is available here.

2/ Begin Dreamworking with your Dreams

Dreamworking is a life-enhancing practice that brings more awareness to our dreams and to our waking life – and awareness is simply another word for lucidity. Not all dreams are lucid dreams, but all dreams contain potential wisdom that can bring magic to our waking lives if we explore and dreamwork with them. And as we engage more and more deeply with our dreams from a waking state, we bring more consciousness to our dreaming and our dreams become more vivid and more lucid as well.

Our dreamworking will help to reveal to us the patterns of our dreaming; the shapes and forms of the energies that are flowing through us and into our world right now as we co-create our reality. Lucid dreamwork is the practice of reflecting upon our dreams with the light of our waking minds and finding a way to heal and transform the energies that we don’t want to be manifesting, and celebrating and empowering those that we do.

There are many ways to use lucid dreamwork to achieve magical manifestation and the results are truly amazing.

3/ Set the Intention to become Lucid

Set your intention clearly before you fall asleep with one of the following statements (or make up your own):

“I will lucid dream tonight.”

“When I am dreaming, I will know I am dreaming”

“When I see my dreamsigns I will know I am dreaming.”

And then relax and fall asleep, trusting that your higher self has heard your intention and will be doing its best to ‘wake you up’ inside your dreams.

4/ Reality Check

During the day its very useful to be frequently asking ourselves ‘Am I dreaming right now?’ And then actually physically checking if we are or not. Its good practice to get in the habit every time you check the time – for example, every time you look at your watch, clock or phone ask yourself, ‘Is this a dream?’ Look carefully at the timepiece taking note of the numbers, then look away and back again a few times. Are the numbers the same? In the dream world there is actually no consensus reality of time, and so the numbers on the clock will usually change or look quite weird. If they do then you are probably inside a dream right now. If they look normal then its good practice to just remind ourselves that we are currently inside the dream of waking-life, and we can bring lucidity to that, here and now.

My favourite reality check is to pull on one of my fingers and see if it stretches out beyond its normal length. I’ll try this whenever I encounter anything that is dreamily strange, bizarre or beautiful, whenever I experience synchronicities, and – because I often have anxious dreams – at times when I feel heightened anxiety or get that ‘everything is going wrong’ feeling. If my finger stretches out longer than usual then I know that I am dreaming. Its a wonderful feeling to be experiencing a anxiety dream and then reality check and feel the instant relief as you realise you are actually dreaming.

Other popular reality checks include trying to push a hand through a wall or squishing a solid object as if it were putty, flicking light switches on and off, trying to fly or levitate, telekinesis (moving objects with the mind) and many more! Anything that can be done in the dream world but can’t be done in the physical world can work as a reality check.

5/ Lucid Living & Meditation

After becoming lucid in the dream, the next challenge is to stay lucid. With all the distractions and the habitual patterns of our non-lucid minds, its very easy to get lost in the dream and lose our lucidity. This is where the practice of meditation is so valuable. Daily meditation is a wonderful incubator for vivid lucid dreams at night. When we meditate we make the conscious decision to sit still and not get distracted by our thoughts and feelings as they arise. This stillness is a form of lucid practice that will help us to maintain lucidity within a dream and not lose our lucid awareness by being swept up in the action and drama of the dream.

Not surprisingly, the more that we approach our waking life with a lucid state of mind, the more lucid dreams we will also experience. Meditation allows us to practice our detachment from the waking dream of everyday life, remaining focused on maintaining lucidity. With practice we can maintain this lucidity through our whole day and night.

6/ The Dreaming Hours

Lucid Dreaming is far easiest when practiced in the early hours of the morning – the “dreaming hours,” between 3am and 6am. These early hours, as we linger on the cusp between awake and asleep, provide a golden portal for lucid dream launches. You can even set your alarm for 3 or 4 am, get up out of bed and wake your mind up a little, perhaps taking a lucid dreaming supplement, and then jump back into bed with the intention of lucid dreaming. Because at this time in the morning our minds are already in their dreaming REM state, all we need to do is stay focused on the visions of our minds-eye as they begin to appear. Slowly these visions (called hypnagogia) will become more and more vivid, and before long will lead us into a lucid dream.

7/ Lucid Dreaming Supplements

There are all kinds of lucid dreaming supplements available these days and while they are not magic pills, they are definitely helpful if we are already following the previous lucid dreaming steps. I recommend the natural, herbal varieties as they will have less potential side-effects and less toxicity which will effect the ‘tone’ of our dreams. (If our body is feeling mildly toxic this will lower our vibration and our dreams will tend to be darker and more edgy.) I have created a herbal tea mix that blends the most powerful lucid dreaming herbs with the most magical and protective plants for generating uplifting and high-vibrational lucid dreams. Made from natural organic herbs Mugwort, Blue Lotus, Passionflower, Skullcap, Lemon Balm, Brahmi, Got Kola, Rose Petals and Stevia Leaf, this yummy, dreamy tea will be available on this website soon.

8/ Lucid Journeying

Lucid Journeying is a kind of waking-lucid-dreaming in which we relax our waking mind and allow our creative imagination (our dreaming mind) to take us on a visionary and sensory journey. With practice these imaginal journeys can become as vivid as our lucid dreams, and if we lucid journey during the golden “dreaming hours” of the early morning then our journey can easily lead us into a lucid dream or an astral projection (depending on our intention.) There are many guided lucid journeys available for free on my youtube channel.

Conclusion

Following these steps with commitment and dedication will have most dreamers experiencing a lucid dream within a few weeks. Lucid dreams can be used beneficially and therapeutically in many different ways. The process I share here at the Magic of Dreaming is one of ‘lucid dreamworking’. This process is a journey of discovering and aligning with our Soul purpose and becoming lucid in our waking lives as we discover and share our gifts with the world.

~ Art by Netanel Morhan ~

Traditionally people have used monotonous drumming or shakers to aid this shift of perception and these methods continue to be extremely powerful, as are their modern equivalents – binaural beats and isochronic tones.

The idea is not to fantasise or ‘force’ the experience, but to allow ourselves to be guided and to ‘receive’ a flow of incoming information from beyond our conscious mind. We then continue our journey as if we are in a dream ~ responding and engaging with these imaginal visions as if they are real, alive, separate entities and living landscapes.

At first, we may see only vague images or experience subtle sensations, however with practice our journeys will become clearer until we are able to step into a new realm that is just as tactile and sensually engaging as a lucid dream. Experienced journeyers can even travel directly into the astral realm.

For most of us beginning our journeying practice, it will feel like ‘just our imagination’. And unfortunately we in modern times tend to discount our imagination as not ‘real’ and think that we are ‘fooling ourselves’ when we engage with our imaginal world. However, if we can put this conditioned reaction aside while we journey and just observe what happens when we allow our imagination to show us what it wants to show us, then we are usually quite amazed by the information that we receive. We also begin to experience the power of the Journey; ie. how ‘real’ it feels for our psyche and how richly it nurtures our inner-world.

As we continue to practice journeying and observe our results, we gain confidence and begin to relax and accept the validity of the messages that we receive through the channels of our imaginal world.

Carl Jung, famous for his work with the psychology of dreams, coined the term ‘active imagination’ for this kind of journeying, and he was a huge proponent of its value and power in exploring different realms of the psyche – both personal and collective.

Journeying is a really amazing way to enhance your lucid dreaming skills because it is a practice of bringing your waking and dreaming minds together into relationship. While lucid dreaming has the goal of bringing our waking mind into our dreaming realm, journeying is focussed on inviting our dreaming mind into our waking realm. Each of these practices can help to enhance the other because they are both making pathways and bridging connections between the waking and dreaming states. However, because a journey begins from the waking state it is much easier to plan and practice than lucid dreaming, which is often interrupted by the many variables of tiredness, disturbed sleep, fuzzy dream recall, and so forth.

For our guided astral journeys I will guide you through the preparations of relaxation, grounding & protection, intention setting and building an imaginal space to journey from. You will then travel into your own realms of lucid imagination with the aid of binaural beats and isochronic tones.

Its then important to record all the details of your journey in your dream journal. The symbols and themes of your journeys then can be dreamworked and reflected upon just like any other dream.

Dream Re-entry Journeying

Once we have dreamed a dream, the memory of it becomes a powerful portal through which we can access the dreaming realms from a waking state. This is kind of Journey is known as a ‘dream re-entry’ journey. A very effective way to dreamwork with a specific dream is to journey back inside the landscape of the dream and ask questions to the characters and symbols themselves.

To take a dream re-entry Journey, lie down and allow your body to relax and your mind to drift into a light state of trance. Now imagine yourself vividly back inside the scene of your dream ~ remember the landmarks, ‘feel’ your feet on the ground as you look around the dream scene, reach out and touch the dream objects with your imaginary fingertips, feel the wind and smell the air. Transport yourself completely back into the world of your dream using the power of your memory and your imagination.

When you are ready, begin your Journey by allowing yourself to engage with your dream world as if you are lucid dreaming. Explore your dream landscape and engage with your dream characters as if they are real, separate beings. Move through the dreamscape consciously, but allow the dream visions to materialise around you from beyond your conscious mind. Allow the Journey itself to surprise and amaze you, remembering that you are always safe, and that you can return from your Journey whenever you wish.

Once you have received the information you need, gently return to your waking state and record the details of your Journey in your journal. Your Journey can then be further reflected upon, explored, sketched and dreamworked on the dreamwork pages of your journal. Your Journey will be full of symbolism and multi-dimensional Mystery, just like your dreams.

A Dream Re-entry Journey can also a powerful launchpad into a wake-induced lucid dream if you practice in the pre-dawn hours of the morning and allow your physical body to relax into sleep as you Journey.

You can experience my guided dream re-entry meditation here.

~ Art by Moki Mioki ~

AP is a self initiated OBE (out-of-body experience), usually associated with the astral planes. During the experience our sense of identity, awareness and point of perception moves outside of our physical body. We are able to turn and see our physical body from the outside. We can see, hear, move and think apparently independently from our physical sense organs. Theres a strong feeling of ‘leaving’ the physical body and being able to move in a new light body. Once we leave the body we can experience this familiar Earth-world as well as an unlimited number of parallel dimensions which feel every bit as real as this one.

Shamans, monks, witches and medicine folk have used meditation, dancing, chanting and/or repetitive drumming to enter trance states in order to expand their awareness beyond the confines of their individual physical body since time immemorial. We call it astral projection, but for many indigenous cultures around the world it is simply a natural part of human existence.

What we call astral projection might seem like a new discovery or a new fad in the world of Western spiritual seekers, but it is truly an ancient art. Studies have shown that astral projection-like states are extremely common across the many diverse cultures known to modern anthropology. They are also featured in the spiritual texts of every major religion.

The Benefits of Astral Projection

More than just a very cool experience, astral projection has huge transformative potential and most people post-experience will notice sustained results in their spiritual wellbeing. There’s an expansion of consciousness that accompanies the astral projection state that is incredibly profound. Similar to a psychedelic experience, we get taken on a ride deep into the Great Mystery of the nature of reality, but because it comes from a clear and sober state of  mind it is far easier to integrate into our waking experience than a drug-induced experience. We are given the gift of an entirely fresh perspective, from a completely magical viewpoint – from beyond the confines of our physical form.

Boundaries of separation dissolve away; astral projection is a numinous experience that leaves us glowing with awe and wonder for this amazing universe in which we live. It returns us to a childlike state of delight, seeing the world through fresh eyes, knowing that there is so much more to be discovered and we are far more connected to the world around us than we ever thought possible. I fully believe that it’s the perfect medicine for these modern times which are rife with feelings disconnection, isolation, alienation, apathy and boredom.     

How to Astral Project

The best tools I have found for astral projection are intention, relaxation and visualisation. Like athletes who meditate and visualise themselves performing and achieving their goals in the physical world, we can use visualisation extremely successfully to achieve our astral projection goals. This visualisation practice is not just about seeing ourselves astral projecting, we want to use our imagination to its full extent to see, hear and most importantly feel ourselves astral projecting.

If we have strongly set our intention to astral project and our physical body is deeply, deeply relaxed, then our meditation & visualisation practice will launch us into the astral realm.

1, Preparation

Before attempting conscious astral projection I recommend to prepare yourself for a beautiful, calm and uplifting experience by doing some grounding work and some protection work. I believe that the astral realm is very safe, however whenever we are encountering the unknown subconscious fears can easily arise. These fears can create an unpleasant experience for us in the astral realm because the astral realm will respond to whatever we are thinking and feeling.

Protection

Ritual is very powerful for our psyche and a ritual that cleanses negative energy, creates a barrier of protection and raises your vibration will ensure a beautiful and uplifting astral journey. Any ritual that feels powerful to you will work. Here are some elements that you might like to include:

• sprinkle salt water around your bed
• smudge the room with sage or mugwort
• place mugwort under your pillow
• spritz the room with your favourite essential oil blend
• whisper or ask silently, “Higher Self and angels please protect me now.”
• whisper or say silently, “Only helping spirits may enter here.”

Grounding

‘Grounding’ means to connect your energy with the energy of the earth. It is really important to ‘ground’ before any astral practice to ensure that we remain calm, balanced and harmonious throughout our journey. We can do this by using our powers of visualisation to imagine and feel our energy body stretching down deep into the earth and connecting into the energy grid of the earth. Once you feel a relaxing, cooling feeling in your body you have been successful. It can help to imagine that you are growing roots like a tree down deep into the cool, moist earth.

Once you have performed your protection ritual and grounded your energy, you are ready to begin your astral projection practice.

2, Setting Intention

Setting a clear intention is vitally important for welcoming astral projection into our experience. Our minds are vast, and the physical world only appears solid and stable to us because we are filtering out many other layers of information. Setting the intention that astral projection is very important to us will help our mind to allow astral projection through the filters and into our awareness.

Using the power of intention will help our mind to remain aware of astral projection when it happens and also allow us to remember it afterwards. Its hard to believe but many astral projections are forgotten, because often the events will usually not get written into our short-term memory at all. Clearly setting our intention to allow astral projection into our experience will encourage our mind include these experiences in the memory bank of our waking consciousness.

Setting intention is as easy as confidently repeating to yourself, either silently or out loud, something like the following:

• “I will astral project tonight.”
• “Astral projection is very important to me.”
• “The more I practice, the better I become at astral projection.”
• “Astral projection is easy, natural and safe.”
• “I easily leave my physical body and I can return whenever wish.”
• “My physical body is completely safe to sleep and rest peacefully while I astral project.”
• “I am ready to embrace my astral abilities and to learn more about my true self, for the good of all.”

3, Relaxation

For successful astral projection our physical body needs to be so relaxed that it is pretty much asleep. The mind, however, needs to remain aware while the body transitions into sleep. This is easier said than done. Positioning your body in a way that is comfortable enough for it to fall asleep but uncomfortable enough to keep your mind awake is the key.

Finding the right position for your body will depend upon your individual needs – it might be lying on your back, lying on your side or even sitting in a chair. Whichever position allows you to linger longest in the hypnagogic zone between awake and asleep is the right position for you.

Performing a body scan, tensing and releasing the muscles of your whole body, is a good way to relax your body quickly. Then, counting down from 20 to 1 while imagining yourself sinking downwards and becoming more relaxed with every count will help your body to reach the levels of relaxation needed to astral project.

4, Visualisation / Exit Techniques

Once our physical body is deeply relaxed and our mind is clear of outside thoughts, we can begin our visualisation practice to initiate our astral projection. You may be familiar with the exit technique called the Rope Technique, in which you imagine pulling yourself upwards on a rope, hand over hand, until you actually climb out of your physical body. If you are someone who loves rope-climbing then I recommend this visualisation for you

But in fact, any repetitive visualisation of physical action will have the same effect – it may be swimming, or swinging, or trampolining, or ice skating, or any other flowing and rhythmic action. The important thing is that when we imagine/visualise using our physical body with only our mind, we are actually activating and energising our astral body. So choose whatever motion is most natural and enjoyable for you. I call it astral aerobics.

As long as we are imagining this feeling as clearly and realistically as we can, and as long as we hold our undivided attention on this feeling as our body drifts in and out of sleep, the visualisation will be enough to transfer our awareness into our astral body and the motion will be enough to move us up and out of our physical body.

We want our astral body to become so activated and energised by our visualisation that our awareness is lured into choosing it as its vehicle of consciousness. So use your imagination to its full extent, creating a new body and a new environment for your mind to slip easily into.

Some of the most common visualisations are:

• imagining yourself floating upwards or sinking downwards.
• imagining yourself climbing a rope, ladder or a staircase.
• imagining yourself rolling side to side.
• imagining yourself bouncing off the walls of your room.
• imagining the feeling of a familiar object in your hand.
• imagining yourself walking around your house or another familiar place.

~ What to Expect ~

As you relax and focus your complete attention on your visualisation practice, you will feel yourself becoming heavier and heavier and more and more relaxed as you enter into a state of deep meditation. You may feel yourself drifting in and out of sleep and this is beneficial for activating the REM state that will help to launch your astral projection. Whatever happens just stay relaxed and focussed on your chosen visualisation.

Although it will be different for everyone, conscious astral projection is usually accompanied by some very bizarre sensations as you approach the separation stage.

Some of the most common sensations are:

• rapid heartbeat
• vibrations
• bright lights
• roaring noises
• strange voices
• feeling like you are being pushed or pulled by someone or something
• feeling like your body is being blasted by a strong wind
• feeling like you are floating upwards

If you have a smooth exit the first time you are one of the lucky ones. For most of us the sensations are so strong that they are overwhelming and we will abort mission and wake ourselves up. There is usually a barrier of fear to overcome. The more relaxed and calm we are, the smoother our transition into the astral realm will be. If you do get scared and ‘bail out’ don’t worry you are certainly not the first one to do so! Just remind yourself that you are completely safe and keep practising. The good news is that if you are experiencing any of the above feelings then you are very, very close to astral projecting.

Once you have managed to remain relaxed and focussed through the separation process, you will find yourself floating just above your physical body. You may have to use some force to actually move away from your physical body, and your astral body will respond much like your physical body to your request to move in any direction. This is where people use ‘exit techniques’ such as rolling over, standing up, pulling yourself out of bed or floating upwards. It takes practice to recognise when we have actually separated from the physical body and it is safe to attempt to move. If in doubt, try moving just one arm or leg downwards through the bed. If you can’t move through the bed then it is your physical limb and not your astral, so remain in your deep meditation and return to your relaxation and visualisation practice until you feel ready to try again.

You will probably feel a smooth, sliding motion as you move, as if you are a floating ball of consciousness. Your astral body is highly energised and you will feel its flowing, swirling energy surrounding you. Often the astral realm itself glows with a faint blue light. Everyone’s experience of the astral body and the astral realm is slightly different.

The first time you experience yourself outside of your physical body, keep it short and after looking around, wake yourself up quickly to keep the memory fresh in your mind. Just thinking about returning to your physical body is usually enough to return instantly. Many astral projections are forgotten and lost because we do not consciously wake ourselves up while we are still lucid, instead we wander off on a long astral adventure and eventually slip into a dream and unfortunately forget it all by the time we wake up. So its best to keep early projections short to avoid losing the memories all together.

A memory of an astral projection is extremely precious as it means that our astral abilities are filtering into our waking consciousness. Be sure to write down all of the details of your astral adventures in your dream journal so that the memories don’t slip away.

Now congratulate yourself! The experience of astral projection takes time and discipline as does any spiritual practice, but the whole journey of being on the ‘astral projection path’ is completely exhilarating and an amazing gift to our expansion and evolution. Once your astral journey is launched and you have achieved astral flight, there is no limit to where it can take you next.

~ Guided Astral Journeys ~

Listening to the Guided Astral Journeys that I create is, I believe, a very easy and effective way to practice for and achieve astral projection. These guided journeys are relaxing and enjoyable and will guide you into the astral realm through powerful combinations of intention setting, visualisation and deep relaxation, accompanied by theta/delta wave isochronic tones and binaural beats. With over 10 million views on Youtube, they have helped thousands of people to experience the astral realms.

To practice these Guided Astral Journeys simply lie down in a private and quiet space, making sure you are warm and comfortable, and listen in headphones. You can download the audio files here or listen for free on YouTube. 

You will be guided through exercises to activate your visualisation skills, energise your astral body and set your intention to astral project. The Guided Journey is unlikely to be a magic pill for astral projection the very first time you listen …although it can be so be prepared However, every time you listen you will be practising skills that will enhance your astral abilities and you will feel different aspects of your astral body being activated each time. Your dream recall and dream lucidity will naturally increase. Your waking world will begin to feel more ‘dream like’ as if the universe is talking to you through signs, responding to your wishes and desires. You will become more aware of yourself as an energy being and your powers of manifestation will expand. With regular practice and dedication it is highly likely that you will experience conscious astral projection within a few months.

I’m excited because together we will be preparing for some of the most memorable, most mind blowing and most life changing experiences you may ever have. Although it does take a lot of practice to get there, as it is considered an advanced skill by masters of yoga and meditation, I have gathered the practises and created a method to now fast track the journey. And most importantly the journey itself will be one of immense self discovery and expansion as we deepen our skills of meditation and focus, cleanse our chakras, get into the groove of our energy bodies and gain deep insights and wisdom from the visions, dreams and altered states of awareness we have along the way.

Welcome to the magical path of Dreaming…

Art by Rob Gonsalves

Astral projection is not always easy and it definitely requires persistence, dedication and plenty of will power. If you are struggling to experience astral projection and feeling frustrated, you are not alone! I hear you because I have been there myself, and I’d like to share with you some of the solutions that I have found to the common problems that we all face when we begin our astral projection journey. (Please read my post How to Astral Project for an introduction to astral projection.)

Problem #1 Falling Asleep

Solution: Astral projection (AP) requires a delicate balance of walking the fine line between awake and asleep. So if you find yourself continually falling asleep during your practice then I would look to adjusting a couple of things namely your timing and your body position.

For timing you want to choose times to practice AP when you are not too tired. Right at bedtime is not a good time for obvious reasons. Early mornings are usually the best – around 3 or 4 am or 2 hours before your usual wake up time – when your mind is well rested and in a naturally dreamy state. Afternoon naps can work very well too for some people, so try them out and see what works best for you. I actually recommend to keep practising at different times and to keep practising often. The more often you practice at any time of day, the more likely you are to hit the perfect timing for you. Dozing in and out of sleep as you practice can be very beneficial as it may help you to access your perfect brainwave state for AP.

In terms of body positioning, if you are falling deeply asleep then try a position that is a little less sleep-inducing. Lying flat on your back is the classic position for AP because most people don’t usually sleep in this position. If this is too sleepy for you then try sitting slightly upright, either propped up with pillows or on a comfy chair. Just try to find the position that will allow you to linger longest in that delicious zone between awake and asleep.

Problem #2 Staying Awake

Solution: Now at the opposite end of the spectrum let’s look at the problem of staying awake. Although we don’t want our mind to fall asleep, we don’t want it to remain fully awake either. We need a shift of perception to achieve AP, away from the physical world and onto the astral world. We don’t project into this world, we project into the astral realm and this requires us to enter an altered state of consciousness.

So if you are experiencing physical body distractions such as discomfort, itchy skin, swallowing, or are simply being kept awake by a busy mind, then you need to detach more from the physical world by allowing yourself to sink a little closer to sleep. If you are lying on your back, then try a more comfortable position such as lying on your side instead. Find a position in which you are deeply relaxed and let your mind soften a little more. Don’t try too hard. We can’t force astral projection, we need to let go and surrender to it.

Again, practicing in the early morning while our mind is naturally in-between the worlds will greatly increase our chances of success.

Problem #3 Feeling vibrations/rapid heart beat/strange sensations and waking up

Solution: For beginners the sensations that accompany the separation stage of AP can be VERY intense and our challenge is to remain calm and detached from our physical body despite these feelings. Often when we get to the separation stage we will find ourselves getting too excited or too fearful to continue. This is where we need to stay very calm and focussed on whatever astral exercise we have been doing to get us to this point, because it is obviously working and we are on our way to the astral realm.

Some of the sensations that are totally normal to feel are: racing heartbeat, intense vibrations, voices, roaring noises, feeling the presence of other beings, clenched jaw, full body tension, and many more.

Prepare yourself beforehand to encounter these sensations by imagining and visualising yourself experiencing them and maintaining an attitude of neutral acceptance towards everything you experience. Personally, nothing could have prepared me for the intensity of the noise and vibrations that I experienced the first time – it felt like an angle grinder was making its way up my spine and the noise was DEAFENING! I was so shocked of course I woke myself up. However the second time I had prepared myself, so when the sensations began I was ready and stayed calm… and successfully projected.

This attitude of neutral acceptance is extremely important for all our astral work; because the astral realm is very sensitive to our thoughts and projections, we need to be as calm and detached as possible in order to observe the astral realms objectively.

Problem #4 Fear

Solution: There is often some fear to overcome when AP’ing because we are entering into an unknown world. And, like our familiar physical world, the astral contains both light and dark energies of which we need to be aware. However from my own experience and many others who have AP’d thousands of times, it seems that the astral realms are usually safe. That said, I do recommend to take protective measures to ensure you have a beautiful, safe and high vibrational journey.

Feeling fearful will usually block our AP attempts and with good reason – because fear on the astral plane can be dangerous as it will attract negative energies towards us. The best ways I have found to overcome fear and stay safe and protected while AP’ing is through affirmations and working with plant spirit allies. I have a strong connection to the plant mugwort, which is a powerful dreamer’s plant and an incredibly wise and protective plant spirit. I smudge my house often with mugwort that I grow myself, put fresh sprigs under my pillow and mist essential oils on my body and around my room. I will speak a protective incantation as I cleanse the space, usually “Only helping spirits may enter here. May it be so.”

Other plants that have been used traditionally for psychic protection are rosemary, white sage, clove, basil and garlic. Treating the plant spirits with respect and gratitude will foster a loving and protective connection between you.

Calling in your angels, guides and power animals and speaking affirmations such as, “I am completely safe and protected and surrounded by loving energies,” will further help to keep you feeling safe and protected in the astral realm.

If you have a fear of encountering ‘negative entities’ while in the astral realm, I recommend to explore dream work and lucid dreaming to encounter your own personal dark entities and welcome them into the light. I think its best to have done a lot of shadow work before we AP so that we are not projecting our own subconscious fears into the astral realms. In the astral realm if we are fearful we may attract negative experiences towards us, so it’s important to be in a calm, confident and positive state of mind when we AP. If we do find ourselves seeing or feeling negative energies while in the astral realms, the best option is to stay calm and simply move away by flying straight upwards or just waking ourselves up.

It’s important to have a healthy reverence for the astral realm and its inhabitants and to remember that we are visitors there, and act accordingly with deep respect for this very magical and mysterious realm.

Problem #5 Lucid Dreaming

It’s very common to find ourselves lucid dreaming instead of astral projecting when we begin our practice. This happens when our astral body is projecting but we are experiencing this projection through a dreaming state of consciousness. The difference between an astral projection and a lucid dream is simply that we are in a different state of consciousness. During lucid dreams we are creating a lot of our experience with projections from our own subconscious mind. Its a highly subjective world we inhabit when lucid dreaming, constructed from the living-poetry of our own personal mythology. During astral projections we are in a shared & collective dream-space, it is a more objective reality. However the lines between objective and subjective are always being blurred somewhat as our own state of consciousness is usually fluctuating throughout our astral experience.

The feeling of lucid dreaming is similar but different to the feeling of astral projection, and takes practice to recognise. Personally, when I am astral projecting my energy body ‘buzzes’ in a unique way. Sometimes when I am lying in bed lost in my thoughts I will suddenly recognise this buzzing feeling and realise I am actually floating above my body and can then begin my astral adventure.

The best ways to encourage an astral projection experience rather than a lucid dream one is to first set our intention for what we really want (astral projection in this case) and second work on enhancing our skills of objective observation (ie. lucidity/mindfulness meditation.) For successful astral projection, we need to enter a very detached, very objective state of consciousness so that we don’t slip into our habitual dreaming mode. We can practice our astral projection lucidity by practicing meditation while awake in the physical world. Holding our concentration and awareness on the present moment without being seduced into following our thoughts and feelings will allow us to enhance the skills of neutral observation that are needed for AP. I recommend every day to practice eyes-open lucid meditation or taking a lucid walk; practising being a pure observer without judgement or thought, just being pure awareness in the present moment. This state of awareness will take us into the objective astral realms rather than the subjective dreaming realms when we astral project.

Outro

I hope these tips will help to launch you into your astral adventures. Willpower is also key so if you don’t really, really, really want to astral project then you may not ever get there… but if you really, really, really do then just keep practising and you WILL!! Remember that every time you practice you are getting closer and closer, and every practice could be the one that is successful.

Also, please remember that an AP practice is about so much more than just astral projection. It’s about meditation, learning about our energy body, and experiencing all kinds of altered states of consciousness including lucid dreams, vivid dreams, hypnagogia, the trance state of deep relaxation, and many more. I really recommend pursuing a dream-working practice in parallel with our AP practice because the two are intimately linked. Please see my other posts for more on dreamworking and lucid dreaming.

And please let me know if you are having any other AP issues and I will try to address them too.

Much Love and Enjoy your Astral Journey!

~ Awesome art by Elena Masci ~