I am in the mood for dreams, exploring around as part of the dream exploration taking place here in FS. I am doing this following a basic route plan I have established based on the previous data recollection. In this post I will discuss this plan and its implementation.

Marc Chagall – The dream (1939)

Aiming for traveling into my dreams was the obvious next step. I could have considered exploring someone else’s dreams but it would not have been as fun. For the explorer, there is nothing like the feeling of getting inside unknown territory, even if it’s as common as your own dreams.

Sometimes you get to explore a known territory but in a new way. In these cases, what’s new is not the territory but the way you look at it. I’m exploring the same dreams I usually have, but I am entering into them with new eyes.

Charting your path, making a basic route plan is a must. In every exploration you have to start with one. You must do this even if you know that the real road could differ much, in which case, your basic route plan will work as a frame of reference.

At first, I considered trying “Lucid Dreaming” as an exploration technique. Lucid Dreaming is a dream where you are completely aware that you are dreaming and you have some autonomy over the decisions you make in the dream.

Although it was very appealing, I decided to temporally not to explore that route because:

1. Lucid dreaming requires some degree of training. Although I have had spontaneous lucid dreams in the past, doing it voluntarily requires a skill I don’t have and would take me extra time.
2. Acting voluntarily in a dream allows the possibility of altering the dream itself and, by this, affecting the data validation.
3. Lucid dreaming has some degree of difficulty which acts contrarily with the spirit of Frugal Science, which claims that anybody can become an explorer without special training.

Nevertheless,the previous data recollection makes Lucid dreaming still very appealing to me and it is very likely that I consider this practice in the future.

The basic route plan for this exploration targets the common dream and it can be outlined as follows (Note: keep in mind that the goal of the exploration is not understanding my subconscious but the dreaming realm itself):

• Setting the same bedtime atmosphere consistently.
• Thinking about a specific question related with the exploration before falling asleep.
• Writing down whatever I remember of the dream as soon as I wake up.
• Reentering the dream afterwards.
• Journaling.

Reentering the dream means trying to remember not only the scene of the dream but also trying to reproduce the dream’s atmosphere – the feelings the dream produced in me – since, as mentioned in an earlier post, emotions are highly related with remembering dreams.

In order to reproduce the atmosphere of the dream, I choose a specific moment of the day (since I don’t have all the time I would like, this moment cannot be other than 5 p.m.), I go to a previously chosen (comfy) place and bring myself to a very relaxed state, almost like sleeping, and then try to focus in remembering the things I’ve written about the dream.

I do this because, based on information given by doctors who currently work with dreams, it is possible to reënter your past dreams in that moment when you are not either awake nor sleep. This is what I mentioned in a previous article when I said that there was a portal to dreams.

Consistency is very important in any exploration, and especially in this one because there is documented evidence that any external influence may affect the dream; so, I try to maintain the same bedtime atmosphere and also try to reënter the dream at the same schedule and at the same place.

There are countless ways for putting yourself in a relaxed state. I choose to control my breathing for a couple of minutes and fix my attention to specific parts of my body. Before trying to remember the dream, I picture myself stepping down a ladder (It seems like the brain likes to be cued when learning new skills like this, making it possible to become more effective in further intents).

The questions I fix in my mind before sleeping are chosen dynamically, according to what I am learning. For instance, I have fixed questions like: how does the ground feel in the dream? Are there any colors? Have I dreamed this in another time? And so on.

If you try to follow this route, there is one important tip you should consider: when you wake up, try not to move and remember the most you can (you have like one to three minutes at most before they vanishes) and write a few words that could give you a clue for remembering the dreams afterwards.

So far, the results of following this basic route have been fun and interesting, and have produced many other questions which will trigger an even more detailed research.

More on these outcomes in future posts.

NOTE: If you found this article interesting, you should read our book “Why Do We Dream?”, where we propose a new mind-bending theory about where do dreams come from and the nature of dreams. Find the Amazon version here.

Why Do We Dream?

The Dream Connection Hypothesis

The amazing new hypothesis about the nature of dreams -  written without scientific jargon -, now available in Amazon.

 

 

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