?I found myself sitting by the edge of the road on a red hot summer's day. The sun was high in the sky and I could feel the sun beating down on me. I was so hot, why was I wearing my winter coat? I looked around; some of the familiar buildings looked strange. This is so odd I thought. Suddenly an overwhelming feeling ran through my body from head to toe, a feeling of excitement mixed with anticipation. I understand what's happening..... I'm dreaming! This is unbelievable. I am awake inside my dream.?

The paragraph above is an account of what happened to me one night when I was a young boy, no older than ten or eleven years of age. It was many years ago, but I can remember it like it was yesterday. Although I have had many experiences which have been similar and often better than that first experience, that feeling of realization that I had become fully awake whilst still inside my dream will stay with me forever.

All those years ago, I had no idea what had happened to me, just that it was great fun, and I couldn't wait for it to happen again, which luckily it did. As I became more proficient at lucid dreaming I developed certain ideas and techniques along the way which helped me achieve my lucid dreams. Unknown to me at the time, (The Internet didn't yet exist in its present form.) many other people were having just as much fun and using their own methods and techniques.

How Does A Dream Differ From A Lucid Dream ?

When we dream, we usually have little control over what happens in the dream. It is as though we are being swept along in a story and we have very little say in what happens in that dream. In addition to this, crazy things may happen within the dream and we just carry on as though nothing is out of the ordinary. We tend not to rationalize anything or if we do, it gets explained away. Recently I dreamt about talking with a centaur, a mythological creature that is half horse and half man. We sat down on a park bench. In my dream I never once questioned the fact that I was chatting with a centaur! When we awake the next day it is often amusing to think about how silly we were for accepting such strangeness.

When we become lucid, that consciousness and realization that we feel when we awake the next morning actually happens whilst we are still in our dream! This enables us to exist in this dream world with the full awareness that we have in our everyday lives. The ability to be totally aware whilst still dreaming is what we call a Lucid Dream.

Why Would I Want To Have A Lucid Dream ?

I have been asked this questions many times by people who have never experienced a lucid dream and I always have a simple answer for them and that is ?because you can!? The ability to have a lucid dream is in all of us, yet so many of us do not even know how or why. They are missing out on one of life's great experiences. I have lost count of the friends who have come to me after learning the techniques, had a lucid dream and then said ?Now I know what you were talking about.?

It can often be difficult to express in words how exhilarating lucid dreaming can be but hopefully after reading this book you will be able to discover this for yourself.

Imagine a world as real as the one you are in now. You can see, touch, smell, hear, talk, walk, and run. Everything in this imaginary world is exactly the same as the ?real? world but there is one major difference. In this imaginary world you can do anything. There are no rules, no limits. You are limited only by your imagination. If you can imagine it, you can experience it, as realistic as the real world is to you now. Just take a moment to think about what you would like to do given the chance. In a lucid dream you could do those things.

Copyright 2006 Andrew Strachan