Charlie Morley is an expert on lucid dreaming. He teaches all about lucid dreaming in retreats and workshops and can help you have a lucid dream and work with them in a way that benefits you. He knows from experience that lucid dreaming is a powerful experience that can benefit your life. I recently listened to Charlie Morley talk about the power of lucid dreaming, and the following quotes are just a few of the insights and tips he shared about lucid dreaming.
1. What Is Lucid Dreaming?
Charlie Morley says that a lucid dream is not a premonition dream or a dream where you are out of the body. It’s simply a dream where you recognize that you are dreaming. You become aware that you are dreaming because of some trigger, such as an odd aspect of your dream, and then suddenly you are in a dream with the awareness of what is going on.
Charlie Morley says that lucid dreaming happens during REM sleep when dreams occur. In normal cases, you can lose all sense of yourself during REM sleep. This is when you will dream about being someone or something else. But, in lucid dreaming, you recognize that you are you.
Some people say that they’ve never had a lucid dream, but Charlie Morley says that if you’ve had a nightmare where you telling yourself that you got to wake up, you were having a lucid dream.
And, by the way, he says that you shouldn’t wake up when you have a nightmare because you can turn around with awareness that you are just in a dream and face the issue that led to the nightmare. It’s a great way to work on issues in your life.
2. Why Would You Want To Lucid Dream?
Why pay all the money to have a virtual reality experience when you can do it yourself for free during a lucid dream! In a lucid dream, you aren’t limited to the experiences that the company offers you, as you can come up with whatever scenario you want.
Charlie Morley says that he first used his lucid dreaming for sex and skateboarding. This is when he was a teenager, so it makes sense, right?
One of the best simulations I’ve experienced in a lucid dream was after one of my dogs died. I became lucid and was able to call my dog to me and hug her and love her and enjoy her one last time.
What would you want to simulate during your lucid dream?
3. Having A Lucid Dream Doesn’t Mean You Have Total Control
We often think that in a lucid dream we have complete control, but we don’t.
Charlie Morley says, for example, you may be able to choose to fly in a lucid dream, but what is choosing to put this tree there and that building there and that person there? He says that your subconscious mind still plays a big part in your dreams, even if you are lucid.
Charlie Morley says that lucid dreaming is not about control, it’s about making friends with your subconscious mind. You can work with it to have a dream that benefits you or gives you the results you want.
For instance, you may want to find an answer to a question that’s been bothering you, and your subconscious mind may present 3 doors to choose from, even if you had no intention of bringing up those doors.
4. Lucid Dreaming Can Help Change Your Most Inner Thoughts
Hypnosis helps you to reach a relaxed state where you are more susceptible to beneficial ideas. You can use hypnosis with positive affirmations to help you change certain beliefs you’re holding and adopt new, more positive beliefs that benefit your life.
Charlie Morley says that with lucid dreaming, you can go even further into the subconscious mind than you can with hypnotherapy, and, for that reason, he believes that lucid dreaming is more powerful than hypnotherapy. In a lucid dream, you can work with negative thought programming, trauma, confidence-boosting, and much more.
But Charlie Morley points out that lucid dreaming is not as accessible as hypnotherapy, so unless you are able to get into a lucid dream often, you may want to stick with hypnotherapy as your main tool for reprogramming yourself.
5. Lucid Dreaming Is Not A Made-Up Experience
Don’t let someone tell you that your lucid dreams are just in your head. They are as real as the conversation you are having with that person who is rejecting the idea of lucid dreaming.
As Charlie Morley points out, all the research on lucid dreaming is out there. It’s an actual phenomenon that happens and has been studied. It happens in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
Even though evidence of lucid dreaming didn’t occur until 1975 thanks to Keith Hearne, lucid dreaming has been practiced for thousands of years by various cultures.
6. Change Your Brain While You Sleep With Lucid Dreaming
Charlie Morley says that once you become lucid in your dream, the brain doesn’t think you are sleeping, imaging, or dreaming. The brain thinks you are awake so the brain starts to rewire itself jus as it would if you were awake. So, use lucid dreaming to practice and train yourself and your brain will rewrite itself to your benefit!
7. No, You Can’t Damage Yourself In A Lucid Dream
Honestly, this was something I had worried about with lucid dreaming. I know the power of our brains, so I didn’t want to hurt myself in a lucid dream. But Charlie Morley says that you can’t damage yourself in a lucid dream. And I have not seen one person say that they have been hurt in real life thanks to a lucid dream. So, don’t let the fear of getting hurt or hurting someone else stand in the way of having a lucid dream!
8. Lucid Dreaming Is For Everyone
Some people in my life associated things like lucid dreaming with certain religions (or lack of religion). But, that’s not the case with lucid dreaming.
Lucid dreaming is not about Buddhism, as Charlie Morley says, it’s about humanity. It’s something that everyone can benefit from, just some people already know the benefits more than others, so they are using it more than others.
9. Practice Your Meditation In A Lucid Dream
Charlie Morley says that when you are in a lucid dream, you are in a brain wave state that makes a practice such as meditation much more powerful. So, if you want to practice meditation, you may want to try it in a lucid dream and see what the benefits are.
10. You Can Have A Lucid Dream If You Want
Lastly, Charlie Morley says that everyone, with a few exceptions, can learn how to recall their dreams and ultimately end up in a lucid dream.
He says the first step is to remember your dreams and record them in a dream diary. This helps make your dreams more important and gets you into the habit of actively thinking about dreaming and recalling your dreams.
Then, when you are dreaming, you can look for weird things that can help you ask yourself if you are dreaming or not and, ultimately, become lucid.
Charlie Morley says one of the best ways to start recalling your dreams is to affirm it to yourself. Simply say, ‘Tonight I will remember my dreams as I have excellent dream recall!’. Say it over and over to yourself so that you believe it and your chances of remembering your dreams will increase greatly.
Where To Learn More From Charlie Morley About Lucid Dreaming
If you are interested in lucid dreaming, then Charlie Morley is your man to keep up with. He has an upcoming quest on Mindvalley. I’ll be taking it thanks to the Mindvalley quest all access pass.
You can also keep up with Charlie Morley on his website here or through Facebook here.
