Charlie Morley is my favourite lucid dreaming author, and this is his best book ever!

It contains both Western and Tibetan Buddhist approaches to dream work and thus also teaches us about Dream Yoga.

First, we’re informed about what lucid dreaming actually is, i.e. dreams in which we become aware that we’re dreaming. Charlie stresses that we’re not actually controlling our dreams. He states: “You may be controlling your subjective experience of the localized dreamscape, but there is something much more powerful directing everything else.” He quotes the renowned lucid dream author Robert Waggoner as saying “No sailor controls the sea. Similarly, no lucid dreamer controls the dream.”

The author and Rob Nairn now hold courses entitled “Mindfulness of Dream & Sleep”. These teach both mindfulness meditation, lucid dream training, and conscious sleeping techniques.

Charlie aims to allow mindful awareness to “infuse all stages of our sleep cycle”. This will lead to “lucid living”, to wake up to life with more awareness.

So this book is much more ambitious than other books on lucid dreaming, We learn much about Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan Dream Yoga. The latter is “a collection of transformational lucid dreaming, conscious sleeping and --- out-of-body experience practices aimed at spiritual growth and mind training”.

We are taught about “bardo” which means “place in between”. The after-death bardo describes the intermediate states between death and rebirth. “If we can fall asleep consciously and then recognize our dreams as dreams, we may also be able to die consciously and recognize the after-death bardo state. It´s said that if practitioners can become fully lucid within the death and after-death bardo states, then they can recognize the nature of their mind and have the potential to reach full spiritual awakening.”

The practices of lucid dreaming and dream yoga are also intended to train practitioners to become lucid in their waking state. The author states further: “The lucid awakening within the shared dream of life is exactly what transformed Siddhartha Gautama into the Buddha. This is an awakening that is possible for us all.”

Both psychological and physical healing can be achieved in lucid dreams. Visualizations can “help to reduce stress, enhance the immune system and lessen pain”. “A lucid dream is the most vivid and complete visualization we can experience,” The author has himself healed ear infections and torn ligaments in lucid dreams, Visualizations performed in a lucid dream are far more powerful than visualizations in the waking state. Phobias and addictions can also be healed!

We can do anything we ever wanted to do in lucid dreams. But whatever we do we create and strengthen neural pathways while lucid dreaming, as in waking life; and harmful acts in a lucid dream will give negative karma as in waking reality.

Charlie explains about the Gnostics, who believed that we were “sleepwalking through the illusion of waking reality, unaware that it was all just as empty of inherent existence as our dreams”. In a lucid dream we become aware that the dream is not real but just a mental projection; similarly, if we could get lucid in our waking reality, maybe we could see that life is just a dream.

There is a chapter about lucid dreaming techniques which includes how to improve dream recall, the benefits of keeping a dream diary, how to spot dream signs (which are signs that you´re dreaming), reality checks, the MILD technique and the Wake up, back to bed method.

I must say that I would never confuse dreams with reality, since my dreams are not realistic, but always “dreamy” and visually unclear. Now, if I WERE conscious in a dream, then I could say “this must be a dream, because it’s so dreamy. The thing that’s a bit irritating about all lucid dream writers is that they seem to put the cart before the horse and ask you to do things in dreams in order to check whether you’re dreaming that you’re unable to do until you’re conscious in the first place.

Dream signs are anything anomalous or bizarre like flying pink elephants, walking trees, or seeing one’s dead grandmother. If you experience any of these things, it should help you to realize that you must be dreaming. Charlie tells us: “If you spot a recurring dream sign, firmly resolve to use it as a lucidity trigger by saying to yourself before bed: ‘The next time I see my dead grandmother, I’ll recognize that I’m dreaming and become lucid.’”

He gives us both a mindfulness meditation entitled “Let’s do nothing” and a walking meditation, both valuable.

The hypnagogic affirmation technique requires that you fall asleep while mentally reciting a positive affirmation of your intent to gain lucidity, for example, “When I dream, I know that I´m dreaming”. The great master Guru Rinpoche said that we should “bring forth a powerful yearning to recognize the dream state”: you should “imbue your sleepy consciousness with the fervent aspiration to gain lucidity”.

We are provided with innumerable valuable techniques by which to gain lucidity, one of these being prayer. Pray, for example, to Buddha or Jesus whom you imagine in your heart or throat area as you are falling asleep: “Bless me with your grace. Let me dream with full lucidity for the benefit of all beings.”

There’s an inspiring and important (well, all the chapters are important) chapter on what to do when lucid, for example, interact with our higher self, meet our subconscious, talk to our inner child; we can ask “big questions”, walk through walls, heal ourselves (one of my main motives for learning to lucid dream), receive spiritual teachings from an enlightened master, integrate the shadow (that’s a big one!) or engage in spiritual practice – “just one moment of spiritual practice in the lucid dream state is worth a one-week meditation retreat in the waking state!”

In a lucid dream we are at one with all things: Oneness is reality both in our dreams and in the waking state too.

Two valuable appendices give us accounts of the author´s own insightful lucid dreams, “clarity dreams and hypnopompic insights”.

This is the best book on the subject I´ve encountered, because it also teaches us about the interconnectivity of life and about how lucid dreaming “trains us to recognize the Oneness of waking reality” and for the awakening of enlightenment. We realize that most of reality is a dreamlike illusion; the more we experience that we are the co-creator of our lucid dreams, the more can we perceive waking reality in a similar way. “ --- seeing through illusion – forms the crux of lucid living.”

I highly recommend this book. ( )