State Testing for Lucid Dreaming
Are You Dreaming?
Among the practices that form the foundation of Dreamwork include maintaining a dream diary, proper nutrition and habitual state testing. In this video I get into the topic of State Testing. In a nutshell this is simply asking yourself, "Am I dreaming?" several times daily on an ongoing basis. The question must be approached with sincerity and the attitude that you may actually discover that you are indeed dreaming at that moment. Eventually this habit works its way into a dream. The first few times you do a state test in a dream there is a good chance you will falsely determine that you are awake, only to discover upon waking that you were actually in a very convincing dream. In the beginning it is often difficult to believe in the possibility that the reality you are being presented with is just a dream, but once you've done a state test in a dream a couple times you realize just how convincing the dream reality can be. It is a rite of passage for aspiring oneironauts.
State Testing for Dreamwork (Excerpt)
...if you can get into the habit of asking yourself, "Am I dreaming?" and really trying to figure out if you actually are dreaming or not, the more likely you'll do that habitual behavior while dreaming. And hopefully if you're asking the questions sincerely enough every time hopefully you will recognize something that tells you, "Yes, this is a dream! Holy crap!" A lot of times people will immediately wake up, like instantly as soon as they realize that they're in the dream. Some people say it's because of excitement. Other people say it's because it's hard to believe that it's even possible to be conscious and dreaming at the same time. Whatever the reason, it used to happen to me as well, but there's a trick. If you start spinning around like a whirlwind or Tasmanian Devil from the cartoon or something like that, usually that will stabilize the dream environment.
As long as you keep doing it for a bit you'll start to feel the dream environment starting to stabilize. And as soon as you don't feel like you're going to wake up anymore you can stop and explore the dream environment. Now my theory is that it's just because you're increasing the amount of sensory input from the dream environment itself that you're accepting or trying to generate. So it does make it seem a bit more real or more real than the information coming from your physical sense organs.
Now how do you test genuinely to see whether you're dreaming or not? A lot of... the classic example is, "Pinch me!" You know? "I think I'm dreaming" or something like that. But sometimes in a dream you'll feel pain. Like, I've felt pain in my dreams before. There are some dreams for sure where I've experienced, you know, blunt trauma. I remember falling out of the sky one time and just landing on the ground but didn't feel a thing. But other times you feel really intense pain in a dream. So it's not a very consistent.
Now if you've experienced dream testing or state testing within a dream, I mean you'll probably realize how easy it is for yourself to be fooled. It's so... dreams feel so real that even when you're questioning, "Am I in a dream?" A lot of times when you do encounter anomalous behavior you'll rationalize it in some way. Like if you look at your digital clock or on your wrist watch and it says ab12?*, okay? You're gonna be like, "Oh, maybe it's something wrong with it." or "Maybe the battery's running out or something. That's happened to me before where that exact example has happen to me and other people that I've talked to as well.
The above was an excerpt from the video embedded above. To read the full transcript, visit my website at http://www.jeremycrow.com/state-testing.html
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I use an app called Awoken. It plays a tone throughout the day and reminds me to do a reality check. Then it plays it during the night to help me reality check in my sleep. Only about a month in and I have recognized my dream state a few times. It also has a dream journal section for tracking what I can remember.
Very cool. When I was a teenager I had an Ironman watch (not the superhero. lol) and I set it to go off every 90 minutes. I let it run 24/7 and every time it went off I was supposed to do a state test. Of course, some of the time I was asleep and might not hear it, but I definitely found this method useful. I picked 90 minutes because I had read somewhere that it was the average length of one sleep cycle. It really helps develop that habitual behaviour which will increasingly work it's way into your dreaming behaviour. Keeping a dream journal is also huge. Especially for increasing dream recall. It's crazy how many dreams you can remember in a single night if your subconscious mind is programmed to understand that remembering dreams is important. Stay Lucid!
Fascinating! I've had spontaneous lucid dreams but I had no idea you could train your self to do it. Will be trying this out!
Thanks for the comment! It changed my life when I found out you can do things to make lucid dreams happen more often. I'm so happy that I happened to be the one to introduce you to this knowledge.
The video from this post is 7 years old but I created a new one a few months ago giving the top 8 tips for lucid dreaming. I put a lot of effort into it and am quite proud of how it came out. If you're interested, here it is:
Hi Jeremy, thank you for sharing your video, i've watched it twice now. It is a really great video :) It's interesting that digital clocks don't seem to work in dreams. Would that be possible as a result of no time?
I've had spontaneous lucid dreams but they are more frequent in a nightmare kind of form. A couple of times a year, only like 2 or 3, I can be experiencing a nightmare ish type of scenario, demons always involved and yeah im in a dangerous situation in the dream, In these more negative type ones i always become lucid, almost out of necessity, like it will dawn on me that im in dream space and this isn't real per say, but it doesnt bring a sense of relief it's accompanied with more of a sense of shit i need to get out of here and some sort of mental battle will ensue, as to who's thoughts are strong enough to alter the dream state. So for example the last time this sort of dream happened a few months back, I had realised I was lucid and not in a good situation. I could see 2 not pleasant figures at the other end of the room. I knew i needed to get out of the door so I would try and head for it but then find that my legs wouldn't work, or I was just floating instead of walking, the next thing I was strapped to the wall and i really started to panic. So it's like with the power of my will i have to push past the fear and tell my self no real harm can come to me if i can keep my shit together as it's dream world but I have to get out of here and keep my shit together. The thing that always works is when i finally manage to recite the lords prayer fully without interruption. I never remember this bit right away, but after a while I always remember oh yeah the prayer! Ill start reciting it and my thought pattern will get interrupted, or something will happen to try and stop this, but when i manage it i wake up with that thud in the bed with my heart racing. I've also been having sleep paralysis issues since I was a child, and it's not necessarily super frequent. A couple of times a year.
It's all so confusing, and sometimes terrifying. But it's like with each one im less fearful as at some point i will recall all the others and think well i got out of every single one before so im confident ill be fine.
It has not made me fearful of trying to experiment with lucid dreaming, it's just confusing. Have you had experienced anything like that???
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