dream. Asking yourself, "Am I dreaming?" when these situations arise should then lead to a similar testing process during the dream state, and therefore, hypothetically, to lucid dreaming. (Be careful what kind of suggestion you give yourself. One dreamworker repeatedly instructed himself to "wake up during my dreams," and found that he would awaken several times a night! The dreaming mind can be quite literal, so state your instructions exactly.) You may not need to tell yourself to begin lucid dreaming. Sometimes, meditating or merely paying more attention to dreams in your waking life is enough to bring on more frequent lucid dreaming.
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Many people learned of these and similar techniques for inducing lucid dreaming from Carlos Castaneda's popular novel
Journey to Ixtlan
, published in 1972. In the novel, the character Don Juan, who is a sorcerer, offers these instructions: "Pick one thing in advance [such as your hands] and find it in your dreams; this will awaken consciousness within the dream." Remembering to "look" at them during the dream, he said, would serve as a cue that signaled that a dream was taking place. Other of Castaneda's novels, among them
The Teachings of Don Juan, A Separate Reality
, and, most recently,
The Art of Dreaming
, have brought the ancient traditions of the South American shaman into general awareness; in these novels, he promotes the belief that the dreamworld is simply another dimension of human experience, and that we can access it more effectively through certain practices. While scientists have verified the effectiveness of some of the techniques he discussesthe hand cue we describe is one that reportedly worksthe fact that Castaneda bases his writings on his experiences alone and not on research detracts somewhat from the novels' validity, according to some reviewers. Nonetheless, he has a large following of people who try to incorporate his teachings into their lives.
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