Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming Mass Market Paperback – November 13, 1991

In Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, LaBerge provides a detailed, albeit borderline "how-to" manual on lucid dreaming, which encompasses a wide variety of techniques, so there is definitely at least one that will work for everyone. Furthermore, LaBerge goes into a thorough description of the applications of lucid dreaming to real life, which proves to be quite interesting and even motivational in a very scientific approach. However, despite this and the very goal-oriented aspects of the book, this scientific approach proves to be very reductionist, so while still inspirational, one should look towards other literature for inspiration as well as motivation is a key component of lucid dreaming. From my personal experience with the book, I highly recommend this book for people new to the concept of lucid dreaming that would like to try it out.Through the incorporation of psychological studies, Tibetan dream yoga, other dream research and beliefs (such as that of Jung and Freud), and his own research at the Lucidity Institute in Stanford University, LaBerge has created a book capable of teaching even the most closed-minded of people to lucid dream. The book contains every main technique with clear instructions including a detailed description of the technique he pioneered, known as the Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams, or MILD.From the very beginning of the book, Dr. LaBerge reveals many personal experiences of other people who have written to him, thus providing a fantastical background on lucid dreaming and the expectations which can be enjoyed from reading this book. Furthermore, LaBerge also provides a FAQ for many skeptics of lucid dreaming (such as myself) who were unsure of the "risks" of lucid dreaming or whether they would be able to. LaBerge also provides a series of tips and tricks for beginners, such as keeping a dream journal, focusing on the idea of dreaming before sleeping, and "reality checks". The next few chapters provide detailed techniques to induce a lucid dream, specifically the WILD and MILD techniques. By Chapter 6, most of the induction techniques will be exhausted, and LaBerge then focuses on showing readers how to improve their achieved lucidity- how to retain their lucidity, prevent premature awakenings, awaken when desiring to do so, and guide dreams intelligently. Towards the last few chapters of the book, Dr. LaBerge even goes through many of the applications of the book, such as enjoyment in action, adventure, romance, and pleasure, spiritual growth, relieving oneself/exploring the dark side of nightmares, and rehearsal of daily life. The applications tie in the greater scheme of why one is to try lucid dreaming in the first place.After you have reached an advanced stage of lucid dreaming, the book invites you to take a new dimension with expansion of your ability regarding lucid dreaming to break all types of self-defined parameters. You can explore the dream stage to an even greater extent by constantly proving to yourself that you can go another step forward. Laberge discusses seeking out mutual dreams or trying to exercise precognition by getting a dream character to speak or write to you about a future incident. You may also try to alter the course of events of something happening in reality (LaBerge has a very fascinating personal experience with precognition involving his son and how he may have saved a life).In a quote from the book, LaBerge states, "According to `The Doctrine of the Dream State' an ancient Tibetan manual of lucid dream yoga, the practice of certain dream control techniques lead to the capacity to dream anything imaginable. Tulku makes a similar claim, `Advanced yogis are able to do just about anything in their dreams. They can become larger or smaller or disappear, go back into childhood and relive experiences, or even fly through space". Despite the seemingly extravagant claim, this is all very possible. The Tibetans heavily influenced LaBerge and today's lucid dreamers as they have been lucid dreaming for more than a thousand years. Their experiences and techniques have influenced many of the applications we believe in today and add further credibility to the use of these applications.Such applications proved to be extremely interesting, and all were further discussed with their own set of a "how-to", thus backed up by a good amount of fact. For example, in the idea of rehearsal of daily life, one could learn how to improve athleticism by learning dance moves or shooting a basketball over and over again. One could improve their confidence in these sports as well as other activities such as public speaking by having lucid dreams involving speaking in front of large crowds.Other interesting applications were problem solving and healing. A lucid dream can be a stage for all your problem solving purposes. Lucid dreams can provide countless trial and error situations to determine what kind of solution would work in reality. The metaphysical aspect of healing is discussed thoroughly as well, with interesting probed ideas such as whether or not the physical body can be healed of disease if the dream body is healed and whether various avenues of healing can be used in an attempt to help a particular ailing person.The metaphysical aspect I found most intriguing involved understanding the self. It was how LaBerge showed that lucid dreaming can have a deep spiritual effect toward understanding ourselves if we were to surrender our egos and allow our dream to take us somewhere rather than us trying to control it. Another quote taken from Tulku in this book, truly summed up the power of lucid dreaming; "Dreams are a reservoir of knowledge and experience, yet they are often overlooked as a vehicle for exploring reality." One of the greatest things I have garnered from reading this book is that we can learn so much from lucid dreams about life, death, and the time in between.If you are new to the concept of lucid dreaming, and would like to try it out, then this book is for you. Before reading I could only rarely recall dreams, and although I am still unable to lucid dream, it has only been a month and I can now recall dreams almost every night and even choose what I dream about before I sleep. I have yet to even try most of the techniques in this book, and I'm still very excited. The applications of this book are outstanding and the how-to sections make lucid dreaming very much possible for everyone. I suggest reading the book before sleeping and with an open mind. If getting bogged down by the steps, take a break and come back to it later. Lucid dreaming should be fun to learn, and from what I can tell, motivation and relaxation are key.

Very informative book help me lucid dream alot

I purchased this book at a vunerable time in my life. I had never heard of Lucid dreaming but it sounded interesting when I accidently stumbled upon it so I thought'why not?"Well half way through the book I had my first lucid dream. AMAZING!I began writing down my dreams in the morning. Even a sentence or just a word I could remember from them at first. After a few days I started rememberng more details. I wrote them down for a week. Then I wrote a page of common links I kept seeing in my dreams (ie: rejection) It was always common. And a page of things I wanted to do if I ever became lucid. I re-read all of these things often and would say to myself outload many times a day " Am I dreaming?" If I was not, I would follow up with " are you sure?"So I layed in bed one night and tried the W.I.L.D technique. I started seeing vortex swirls and colours with my eyes closed but still awake. I was then thrust into a very life like dream. I asked myself if I was dreaming. I replied to myself that 'no! Of course I wasn't" I asked myself Are you sure? And suddenly I looked around and said "Oh my god, I am dreaming". Everything suddenly changed!!! I felt like I was not in the dream but in real life. I was lucid!!Immediatley as I looked around, the room I was 'standing in' fell away like it dismantled itself and the floor dropped away from under my feet. I was falling in pitch blackness and I could see a red light.I was yelling in my dream that I was awake, and I was so excited and then I woke up. So dissapointed but I felt euphoric for days afterwards.I have only had 1 other lucid dream. I realized I was dreaming, became lucid and woke up instantly from the excitement.I became busy and stopped puttting in effort to write down my dreams and so I've not had another, but I'm getting back into it now and this book is definitley a 'how to' guide. I would recommend it to everyone.Lucid dreaming is not scary, it is an overwelming sense of joy. Good luck to all.