The best-kept secret for radiant beauty? It’s way beyond a box of moisturizing cream. Or nip and tuck. Or a pound of make-up on your face. I won’t keep you guessing. The secret to radiant beauty is to go get some sleep. They don’t call the fairytale Sleeping Beauty for nothing. And sleep doesn’t cost a single peso!
However if this article is all about sleep, it should end up in that paragraph up there. Well it doesn’t. Because there is a technique that will really make you healthy and beautiful in your sleep. It’s called lucid dreaming.
And all you need is a pen and a notebook for recording your dreams plus a more regular sleeping pattern. And take note: a good sleeping rhythm alone can already make you healthy. It strengthens your immune system. On the other hand, you can use your dreams to answer pressing questions. Is he the one for me? Or… Which of these is a more profitable business? To get your answer, simply condition yourself to receive insight when you wake up. How many scientific and industrial inspirations were taken from dreams? The sewing machine that made your outfit was one of them. So’s benzene, an ingredient of the detergent you used to wash your jeans. But we’re getting off-topic.
So what can lucid dreaming do for you?
Lucid dreaming can be used to manage stress, fears, and depression. AND it aids in healing physical injuries. Lucid dreaming specialists and enthusiasts are looking at the possibility of stroke victims regaining their neuromuscular function through lucid dreaming. How? The patients simply make a mental movie of themselves. There they walk, talk, or move as if they’ve never gotten sick at all!
There you go. Lucid dreaming is good for your health. You can also use lucid dreaming when your veins shout adventure. Where else can you fly? Where else can you get that exhilarating feeling of release? Of freedom?
Use lucid dreaming to get over your fears and nightmares. Do you have horrific dreams that keep coming back? You can simply alter the dreadful scenes, vanquish darkness, and let light win the battle.
Use lucid dreaming if you want self-improvement, better health, higher salary, and a house of your own.
Now you are perhaps on the verge of strangling me because I haven’t answered your one question: what the heck is lucid dreaming?
When you know in your sleep that you are dreaming, that’s it. Can you direct or alter the images in your dreams? If so, you are engaged in lucid dreaming.
This life-enhancing technique has levels. The simplest is when you are just about aware that you are dreaming. At this level you are not able to control the events in your dreams. You are just a spectator. When you reach the highest level (it’s surprisingly easy), that’s when you’ll fully know that you are asleep but you have total control of your dreams. You can alter them, remake them, and even produce dream sequences at will.
Now back to health and beauty and making them come true in your sleep. Here are several pointers before I give you the how-to:
*To dream about being beautiful or getting healed, your feelings about having must be strong enough to attract them to you. Step one and step two will show you how.
* Make sure you have a journal. Very important! This is where you will record how you felt about the dream.
* Eat a light dinner, preferrably before six o’clock. The secret is to pay attention to your food and stop eating when you are 80% full. A heavy meal results in disturbed sleep. You don’t want that.
And now the How-To:
Step One. In the morning, just before breakfast, imagine what you’d like to dream about that coming night. For example, you might want to have smooth, firm facial skin and muscles. Make a movie about this. How? Picture your facial skin and muscles being nourished by good food, enough sunlight, and Vitamin E. You may also start visualizing giving your face a gentle massage. Now while you are doing that, imagine yourself becoming younger-looking. Make step one’s movie your personal, vivid, 3-D beauty film.
Step two. Repeat that beauty film, play it in your mind after an hour. If you want to make changes in it, that’s okay. But make sure to make small and simple alterations only–to avoid confusion.
Step three. Repeat your beauty film every hour after breakfast. It should become alive in your thoughts. You should feel very happy as you imagine yourself becoming younger-looking and more beautiful. Get to know your beauty film by heart such that you can say (pardon the pun) you know your film by heart even when you are asleep.
Step four. While you are winding down, as you prepare for bed, say to yourself with conviction: I am going to rest well and will wake up refreshed. I will dream about my beauty dream with total awareness. Then run your beauty film in your imagination before you go to sleep.
Step five. What should be the content of your beauty film? Dream that your face is being repaired during the night with a magic cream. When you wake up and face the mirror, make sure to say, “I am getting more and more beautiful. Thank you!”
Now for extra tips.
Some people find that they can engage in lucid dreaming when they wake up very early in the morning. Try it their way: set your alarm clock an hour earlier than your waking time, say at 5:30 a.m. (if you regularly wake up at 6:30 or seven). Chances are, you will wake up at that 5:30 mark and be in a half-sleep, half-awake state. Replay your health and beauty film while dozing off again.
So you think you can’t do it? Even if it’s a natural human ability? You think it’s hard? Nobody’s perfect! It might take you a while to succeed in lucid dreaming, but keep doing it. For a beauty regimen, this secret doesn’t cost anything. It has proven health benefits and it’s more time-saving than visiting your botox doctor.
Studies have shown that positive visualization works. We all know this. Now experts found out that lucid dreaming also yield the same results. Why? Because it is an easier and more powerful way of positive visualization. There’s even a sleep laboratory in Stanford University where sleep specialists gather subjects and investigate lucid dreaming among other things!
For me lucid dreaming is five times or so more effective than mere visualization. Wh? When you engage in lucid dreaming you are already in your alpha state of mind. All that’s left for you to do is coast along the flow of your alpha wave. But visualization? You need yo reach your relaxed state as prelude to visualization. Then you need to neter your alpha state of mind. And only then can you do your visualization exercise.
I know that you doubt internet articles as sources of reliable information. Where did all these information come from?
I wrote this article based on my own striving and interest in lucid dreaming. Also because I keep getting fun and favorable results.
I am sharing some reliable sources here:
Katherine Ramsland’s book “Bliss: Writing to find your true self”. She devotes several pages on dreaming using the Jungian approach, including active imagination (I’ve yet to try that one, seems exciting!) and gives us an exercise on lucid dreaming skills. Her objective here is to develop lucid dreaming as an inner guidance system so that you will discover your bliss. I remember seeing “Bliss” at Powerbooks the Sunday that I went book-shopping. It wasn’t on my list. Not in my budget either. That night I tossed and turned in my sleep haunted by the what-if-somebody-buys-it-before-I-do ghosts. The followin g day, Sunday, I went to the Mall first thing in the morning and got the book. It’s a treasure.
Jose Silva’s “The Silva Mind Method” book. Everybody has a copy of this. Get yourself one! For best results, attend a Silva Mind group in your community.
Julie Soskin’s “How Psychic Are You?”. She gives easy instructions on how to engage in lucid dreaming. Plus, what I like about this book is its colored pages and the fun tests to check your psychic abilities.
