Prolongation of lucid dreams

how to stay aware without waking up

Most of us, if not everybody, have had a lucid dream in their lives. Lucid dreams are those dreams in which the dreamer gets aware of being in a dream, being thus able to change what happens in it. It is known that children are more susceptible to experience these kinds of dreams. They seem to have lucid dreams more easily than adults do as researcher Deborah Armstrong-Hickye claims. In these cases, though, lucid dreaming just happens spontaneously, there is no desire for it to happen or even knowledge on how to lucid dream. As people grow it gets more difficult to have lucid dreams. If an adult seems to get aware of being in a dream, it’s more likely he will wake up. The key point for an adult for lucid dreaming is then to maintain the awareness state without waking up, which seems easy for a child but difficult for a grown-up. Avoiding to wake up once you have realized you are in a dream can be achieved through some techniques that allow to prolong the lucid dream. Stephen LaBerge, the main lucid dreaming researcher, proposed two ways to prolong a lucid dream. One is to spin one’s dream body and the other is rubbing one’s hands. Both techniques are based on the idea that the dreamer must involve in some kind of physical action which is not compatible with the fact that the dreamer’s real body is in fact lying on bed. The performance of this techniques show a prolongation of the lucid dream in 90% to 96% of the volunteers that took part in LaBerge’s experiment. This very same idea is also recommended by lucid dreaming enthusiasts who propose a few alternatve techniques. Nevertheless, their common basis is the idea of focus on and/or increase the tactile or sensory engagement with the dream world.