Inception in Real Life: 24 Lifehacks for Lucid Dreaming

In the film Inception, a team of espionage agents is highly compensated by multinationals to manipulate people through their dreams.

Lucid dreaming is the closest thing outside of the silver screen to this. It's not hyperbole when I say that it can make your REM sleeping hours the most vividly exciting part of your day.

A few examples of my vivid and memorable experiences:

* Being a dictator of an underwater society.

* Falling through the center of the earth and experiencing zero gravity.

* Escaping from a version of Hell that would make any video game designer jealous.

* Epic Matrix-Esque Kung Fu battles with swords, lightsabers, and machine guns.

* Hanging out on a luxury yacht that would make Jay-Z jealous.

* Making love to Lara Croft from Tomb Raider.

* Being attacked by a giant killer manta ray in the ocean.

* Rock climbing caverns with family.

* Skydiving with Neil Patrick Harris, after hitting on hot German girls (yes, I know he's gay, I'm obviously a fan of Barney Stinson).

* Driving incredibly irresponsibly in high-performance cars.

* Interacting with loved ones who passed away years ago.

* Personal consultations with Winston Churchill.

* Fighting giant bugs, Starship Troopers style!

* Speed dating grandmas.

This article will present methodologies for maximizing the entertainment value and personal development benefits of lucid dreaming.

Lucid dreaming is my coolest lifehack. Why?

It takes what is usually totally unproductive, forgetful time, and turns it into world-class entertaining adventures and opportunities for introspection. It does also have some cross-over benefits to real-life personal development (explained below). And while there are a few products that enhance it, lucid dreaming is free.

You face a red pill/blue pill moment dear reader: a dream life of adventure is not for everyone. So you may want to stop reading NOW before being sucked into this surreal world of danger, sex, misbehaving physics, and confusing conversations with your unconscious...

What are dreams?

The theory that I think you'll agree makes the most sense is that dreams are a threat simulation training environment - like the Holodeck in Star Trek, where you can train for dealing with situations that might threaten your life. Dreaming, like a lot of our evolutionary psychology mechanisms is highly adaptive to the threatening situations we perceive. That's why you dream about...

* Being chased

* Being stuck

* Falling

* Technology malfunctioning

* Vehicles breaking down

* Being interrogated as a covert agent after you watch the newest James Bond movie

Our dream life adapts to the threats we have faced in real life; soldiers, veterans, and trauma victims afflicted with PTSD, often have horrible, repetitive dreams which depict the traumatic event or versions of it.

The science of lucid dreaming

The majority of the 8 billion people alive dream every night, so as opposed to being a shadowy world of uncertainty there is a substantial body of scientific research on dreaming upon which we can make credible recommendations. You can find +120 published papers or studies related to lucid dreaming on Pubmed.

Dr. Steven LaBerge of Stanford University has spent his life researching and experimenting with Lucid Dreaming in psychology labs, he has written three definitive books on the subject. Some of his research work...

* Studying eye movement and EEG patterns during sleep.

* Developed the MILD Technique (more on this below).

* Founded The Lucidity Institute.

* Developed the NovaDreamer device.

Meditation practitioners in Tibet have lucid dreamt for thousands of years but Dr. LaBerge's research has made it a scientifically credible lifestyle pursuit.

Lucid dream induction

Lucid dreaming must be induced, this happens as a result of a highly aware mindset in combination with Biohacking your physiology for producing lucid dreams.

MILD (Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams) technique

Originally developed by Dr. Steven LaBerge, lucid dreamers practice the MILD Technique after awakening from a dream before falling back asleep - so it's usually used between 3 AM and 9 AM.

* Dream review - Mentally review as many details as possible from the dream you just emerged from. Who were you with? What were you doing? Where were you?

* Focus your intent - Focus exclusively on your intention to recognize the next time you are dreaming. Your mental mantra until you fall asleep should be "Next time I'm dreaming, I will remember I'm dreaming," purposefully ignore all other thoughts that enter your mind. Counter-intuitively, do not use the phrase lucid dreaming in your mental mantra.

* Visualize yourself becoming lucid - Visualize yourself back in the dream you just emerged from (if you don't remember the dream you were just in visualize a recent dream you do remember). In this waking dream fantasy, imagine yourself recognizing that you are dreaming. Imagine yourself doing specific activities in the next dream; flying like superman, going on a date with Lara Croft, climbing a mountain with Indiana Jones, consulting Winston Churchill, killing Hitler, etc.

* Repeat - Keep repeating steps 2 and 3 above until you drift off to sleep. If you get distracted by any other thoughts, just make sure the main thing on your mind is your intention to remember when you are dreaming.

Calm down

Many peoples' first couple of lucid dreams are exceptionally short as their excitement causes them to wake up. Yes, there are few things in life as exciting as realizing you are inside of an action-packed, consequence-free dream. So it's important to keep from getting over-excited while dreaming. For example, one of the first times I experienced lucid dreaming...

I was sitting in my old living room talking to my family, I got up and walked to the door, looking outside I could see a strange fantasy world. Knowing that much stimulation would wake me up, I turned around and continued the dull conversation in my childhood home.

At the beginning of your lucid dreaming journey, it's best upon realizing you are dreaming to acquiesce a little of your free will, treat it like a movie or a fantastic ride that you are on, and let the dream take you away.

Dream signs

There's some consistency in the elements of your dreams night-to-night. There might be a particular cat you keep seeing in your dreams, a song you hear, a woman in a blue dress, or whatever. One of the best ways to recognize dream signs is to keep a dream journal (more on this below). If you spot one of your dream signs, you are most likely dreaming. A frequent dream sign of mine is being a leader or in political power, another is driving the old sports car I had when I was a young man.

Meditation

The art of disciplined