Table Of ContentA Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming
Mastering the Art of Oneironautics
Dylan Tuccillo, Jared Zeizel, and Thomas Peisel with illustrations by Mahendra Singh
WORKMAN PUBLISHING • NEW YORK
1. Starting the Journey
2. Packing Your Bags
3. Arrival
4. Exploring a New World
5. Mastering the Terrain
6. The Next Frontier
CONTENTS
Foreword
Part One
1 A New Discovery
2 What Are Dreams?
3 A History of Dreaming
Part Two
4 The REM Stage
5 The Power of Intention
6 Remembering Your Dreams
7 Keeping a Dream Journal
8 The Reality Check
Part Three
9 Becoming Lucid
10 Staying Lucid
Part Four
11 Transportation
12 Creation
13 The Natives
14 Superpowers
Part Five
15 Defusing Nightmares
16 Healing and Wholeness
17 Dream Incubation
18 WILD
Part Six
19 Know Thyself
20 Waking vs. Dreaming
21 A Future Vision
Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
FOREWORD
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we
started And know the place for the first time.
—T. S. Eliot, poet, playwright, aka “Old Possum”
For as long as there have been blank spots on the map, there have been pioneers—those unafraid of
the fringe, who relish the untamed, the unknown, and the undiscovered. These individuals are inspired
by the adventurous impulse to survey new ground, to chart new territory, or to discover new ideas.
They are the innovators, creators, visionaries, and explorers.
Today we find ourselves on the brink of yet another frontier. You, holding this book, are about to
enter this unknown world. Where are you going? What’s left that hasn’t already been mapped out?
The only blank spots left are in the depths of the sea and in the vastness of outer space, but you won’t
be going to either of these places. This journey is a tad different. You won’t find this place on any
map.
You’re not a stranger to this land. In fact you’ve traveled there every night of your life, whether you
realize it or not. You leave your familiar world and experience this place, which has its own rules,
customs, laws, and native population. You can traverse this frontier just like you’d walk through a
forest. Here, you can learn, discover, heal, and awaken to different realities.
If you’ve read the cover of this book, you know what we’re getting at: dreams! The goal of this
book is to help you explore your dreams using the art of lucid dreaming. We will explain what lucid
dreaming is and how you too can use it to survey the ground floor of your own subconscious. We will
teach you how to become an oneironaut, a word derived from Greek that means “dream navigator.”
Lucid dreaming is the ability to know you’re dreaming while you’re dreaming. A lucid dreamer is
able to go to sleep at night and wake up within his or her dream. With this unique awareness, you can
generally behave like someone who is awake, exercising the free will, imagination, and memory of
waking life. Once lucid, you can explore and even change elements of the dream.
If you were to travel down the Amazon River, you’d need a field guide to tell you which plants to
eat, how to navigate the terrain, and what to do when dealing with the natives. Consider this book
your field guide to the dream world, a map to navigate through your subconscious. If you’re a
newcomer to lucid dreaming, the idea of exploring your subconscious may seem crazy or daunting.
Don’t you worry, we searched for the best techniques out there, made some improvements, and then
boiled them down to their simplest forms. For those of you who have already experienced lucid
dreaming, this guide will help you master this ability while traveling beyond what you thought was
possible.
We’ll teach you:
1. How to reconnect with your dreams
2. How to have a lucid dream
3. What to do once you’re lucid
This book is filled with step-by-step advice, stories from the dream world, and wonderfully
maddening ideas. It’s based on our own experiences with a decade of lucid dreaming as well as the
real-life experiences of many other lucid dreamers, writers, and scientists. Our goal was to report
back from the dream world and write about the things that we actually observed and experienced.
Unlike other field guides, this book is designed to be read from start to finish, just as if you were to
travel down a jungle trail. Information from the first chapter will be used in the second chapter; tips
from the second chapter will pop up in the third chapter, and so on. So try and hold off the urge to
jump around.
Here’s an important note to remember before embarking on this inner journey: While dreaming is a
skill that can improve with practice and focus, it’s not something foreign to you. You dream. You do
so every single night, whether you remember it or not.
Ready to start? Here’s your first lesson. The icon of a compass, seen above, will appear many
times throughout this book. TRY THIS: Every time you see a compass, ask yourself the question “Am
I dreaming at this very moment?” Look around you and really try to answer this question.
It may sound ridiculous to doubt your reality (of course you’re awake, after all, you’re reading this
book). But for reasons you will soon learn, this reality check is the first step in waking up in your
dreams. If you’re able to master this technique, you’ll have no problem with lucid dreaming.
So take a moment now and ask yourself this seemingly bizarre question:
“Am I dreaming?”
PART ONE
STARTING THE JOURNEY
1
A New Discovery
It’s April 12, 1975, in the Department of Psychology at the University of Hull in England. Researcher
Keith Hearne is trying desperately to stay awake. He sits alone, monitoring a man named Alan
Worsley as he sleeps, watching the monotonous up-and-down charting of ink on his polysomnograph
machine. Worsley looks the same as any sleeper does—eyes closed, chest rising and falling. It’s
almost 8:00 a.m., and so far there is nothing out of the ordinary about this quiet Saturday morning. But
in just a few minutes something incredible will occur.
At this very moment, these two scientists are attempting to make a discovery that will change
history. They are trying to prove scientifically an esoteric ability that humans have known about for
centuries: We can be consciously awake inside our dreams.
