How do you control your dream once you become lucid?

[periwinkle]

After a few months of trying to have a lucid dream, I finally became lucid for the first time a few nights ago. The first thing I wanted to do when I became lucid was to change my surroundings, so I tried to make it go from night to day time. I looked up at the sky and tried to imagine it getting lighter, but nothing happened. After a few moments I either woke up or the dream ended, because I don't remember anything after that.

Does anyone have any tips on what to do once you become lucid? How do you control your dream and make it play out the way you want it to?

[zeitgeist]

Originally Posted by periwinkle

After a few months of trying to have a lucid dream, I finally became lucid for the first time a few nights ago. The first thing I wanted to do when I became lucid was to change my surroundings, so I tried to make it go from night to day time. I looked up at the sky and tried to imagine it getting lighter, but nothing happened. After a few moments I either woke up or the dream ended, because I don't remember anything after that.

Does anyone have any tips on what to do once you become lucid? How do you control your dream and make it play out the way you want it to?

I had a lucid dream the other day and when I realized that I was dreaming I decided that I wanted to fly. It worked and it was a lot of fun. Yet after some flying I got so excited with the activity and the reactions of others, that I lost consciousness of the fact that I was dreaming again.

Perhaps we should just decide to experience the dream and leave the plot up to our subconscious?

[MiBeloved]

It is a matter of "keep trying".
Even though some persons get it right off the bat, you may have to keep trying over and over and then it will happen over time.

Main thing is not to try to build up expectations about what should happen since that might cause frustration and expecting too much to happen in too short of a time with practice.

Relaxing once you begin and not pressure yourself helps much too.

[periwinkle]

Thank you MiBeloved for the advice, I'll just have to practice and take things slow.

Also, I was wondering if anyone had any experience with astral projecting from a lucid dream? What is your experience with it and how is it done? I'd like to try this in the future once I get the hang of lucid dreaming.

[MiBeloved]

Astral projection can evolve into lucid dreaming and visa versa. Some of these experiences come about by themselves, spontaneously without desire and without trying to control or cause them to happen.

Everyone is hung up on controlling this but many of the experiences just happen or you find yourself in an astral projection after it began and your realize it for what it is. In other words imagine if I was regularly sleepwalking.

So my wife usually tells me how I get up and go to the toilet and then go to get my car keys, and then go back to the toilet and then again I go to get the car keys and then I start the car.

Then I just go back to bed.

So I am never aware of this even though it happened factually to the extent that my wife can show me that on a video which she taped. So then why did I not know what I was doing? If I am so much in charge of whatever happens on the subconscious side and on the dream side, then why am I sleep walking.

So then one night while I was doing it, I caught myself with my pajamas on in the act of starting the car. Then I tried to realize how I got out of bed and got all the way to the car without knowing what I was doing.

In the same way we usually find ourselves astral projecting or lucid dreaming. It is not that in most cases it is deliberately done, even though many sites on the Web advocate that.

I will deal with your questions indirectly because I feel that to understand what astral projection is as contrasted to lucid dreaming, will clear up much and will help to open your subconscious mind so that you can become aware of these experiences when they happen on their own.

The first thing to admit is that astral projection is happening every time the physical system sleeps. Now this is a premise which you should try to accept on my word. On this one thing, I ask for your confidence. At least until you can realize that factually for yourself.

So with that here is how to see those two types of experiences.

First there are three factors involved:
1. Physical body
2. Astral or subtle body
3. Imagination

In the physical world, imagination is something which I think up in my mind, it is a mental construction. It is related to reality but it is not reality. In the astral world imagination can be reality however. In other words in the astral world something I dream up can become very real. In the physical world if I dream that I have a book in my hand and there is no physical action to actually pick up a book, then there is nothing I can really do with that imagined book but in the subtle world depending on what level I am on, that dream book can become a real book in my hand.

Because in the subtle world imagination can become reality, it is hard to know when imagination has that power and when it does not have that power. So we have to agree that astral experiences are to an extent illusory. In the physical world we do not have to deal with that because our imagination just does not have that sort of power, since physical substance does not yield to our wishes that easily. If I dream up an iphone, I have to either hire people to make it or I have to buy it from someone who dreamt it up and hired people to make it. But in the astral world my iphone dream mighty just be a real astral phone, all depending on how the astral level responds or does not respond to my desire.

In astral projection the astral body is displaced from the physical body, so that you are in the astral body and you are not simultaneously in the physical form. When this happens you are in an astral world or subtle level of existence, in the hereafter, and you use the astral body there.

In lucid dreaming the astral body remains in the physical body and you are more aware of the astral form but you are slightly aware of the physical one. In other words the astral body is not fully displaced from the physical one but your attention is more in sync with the astral one and it is no longer fully in sync with the physical one.

So that is the difference. It is a difference of full displacement of the astral form or just a slight displacement. In the case of lucid dreaming the astral and physical systems share the same space, they remain interspaced in each other. But in the astral projection the astral one moves out of and away from the physical one.

I hope this provides some clarification. And of course others might not agree to these definitions, and that is okay.