How To Pursue Your Artistic Passions With Lucid Dreaming And Binaural Beats

Many of us have artistic passions we are interested in pursuing, but aren’t, due to a number of reasons. Whether it’s because we don’t have time, or just don’t have the skills or funds to do so, our artistic passions define who we really are inside and it is very important that we at least try to practice them as much as we can. But with very busy schedules, limited energy, and controlled funds, how can we do so? The answer is within us, literally: through lucid dreams and binaural beats!

What are lucid dreams? Binaural beats?

Lucid dreams are dreams where the dreamer is fully aware and in control of their dream. We have discussed this numerous times before, and have many guides that can help, which you can find in our blog. But the most important thing that you need to know about lucid dreams is that the experience feels very, very real, and that whatever the dreamer feels inside the dream translates to real life, in one form or another.

Binaural beats is a form of brainwave entertainment and sound/music therapy that stimulates certain brainwave patterns that have different benefits for the mind and body, ranging from creativity, to memory, to focus, to proper bodily healing, and everything in between. Listening to binaural beats on a regular basis will constantly give these benefits and improve both the mind and body’s capabilities.

How does it work for artistry?

We have previously discussed what lucid dreaming and binaural beats do for athletic performance and losing weight in previous posts. How it works, is that lucid dreaming allows the dreamer to create a dream wherein they are able to do a specific set of movements, whether it be a basketball jumpshot or simply running or controlling their diet and appetite, with binaural beats stimulating specific brainwaves to reinforce what they have done in the dream.

The same works for artistic passions, although there are slight differences that need to be done in order to focus more on the creativity and out-of-the-box thinking that are required for artistic pursuits like painting, sculpting, dancing, singing, and many others.

How to get started

While there are various ways to approach this, lucid dreaming to pursue your artistic passions have basic general steps that need to be followed in order for it to work.

1. Visualize and set your intent early - As the day starts, reinforce the idea that in the night to follow, you will lucid dream and pursue an artistic passion. This is important as it conditions the mind to work towards this goal for many hours before you actually sleep. Visualize exactly what you want to work on; for example, if you wish to improve your ability to paint, think of painting amazing works on canvas, or draw inspiration from your favorite painters by remembering their work. Keep these things in mind the whole day.
   
   
2. Create a foundation – when you can afford the time, it is good to create a foundation, where you can start your work from in your lucid dream. Depending on the art you wish to pursue, this can be done while you work, or during your lunch break, or even before heading to bed. A foundation is a piece of art you can recall during the dream and work from, like a sketch on a piece of paper, or a basic tune to a song, or the first stanza of a poem, or even just a piece of clay you have started to shape with your hands. Once you have this, keep it with you and remember to place it beside the bed when you sleep.
   
   
3. Prepare the room - to improve your chances at lucidity, it is important to prepare your room properly for lucid dreaming. Our guide to do this can be found here. But what can be done in addition to the tips we have already provided, is to place your artistic paraphernalia in the room as well. For example, painters and illustrators can have a blank canvas, a palette, and even the faint smell of some paint present to help stimulate the dream as you sleep. Musical instruments, pencils and papers, books on poetry, hammers and chisels, all of these can help by stimulating the subconscious as you prepare to sleep. And of course, your foundation should be present as well.
   
   
4. Execute reality checks – once you are dreaming, remember to perform your reality checks. A guide to do this can be found here. Another thing you can check is your foundation! Look or try to recall that work you made prior, and see if you actually can, and if you do, is it distorted, or not as you remember it? If so, this is a sign that you are asleep and dreaming, and can now enter lucidity.
   
   
5. Pursue your passion – now in control of your dream, you can begin. At this point, you can begin to pursue your artistic passion. If you can remember your foundation, you can try to recreate that in your dream, make it better or build on top of it. If not, you can just create a new work of art, limited only by your imagination. Remember, in the lucid dream, there are no mistakes, and whatever your mind conjures up is something that will benefit your skills and abilities. But one thing you should remember, is that you should do the art you wish while lucid dreaming! If it’s painting, then paint. If it’s music, then compose and hear the tunes. The possibilities are endless.
   
   
6. Record everything – when you wake up, do not forget to record your artistic work in your lucid dream journal as soon as you can. And this is beyond just words (unless your artistic passion is writing!) Draw it, play and record it with your musical instrument, write the stanzas down. You’ll be amazed by what is produced!

Do this on a regular basis and very surely your artistic abilities will improve and make you a better and more confident artist! Oh, and one last thing. A binaural beats track for lucid dreaming is very, very useful, like our new track, Float High – Lucid Dream Enhancement Music:

Feel bliss and tranquility as you journey through your dreamscapes tonight. Using a complex series of binaural beat and isochronic tone frequencies, we have divided this music track into four parts. The first part will bring you into a state of deep relaxation, creative inspiration for imagery that you will use for your dreams, and introductory frequencies to help trigger lucid dreams. The second part starts in the Theta range and drops slowly down to the Delta, where deep sleep and lucid dream frequencies can be found. Here, you will have decreased awareness of the physical world and can give an awake awareness to your subconsciousness. The third and fourth parts will continue to flow up and down these Theta and Delta ranges, but focusing more on enhanced inner awareness and easy access to inner resources that will help create the dreamscape. In a spiritual level, these will help you seek inner peace and self-renewal.

Related Articles:

How To Be Part Of Your Favorite Movies, TV Shows, And Books With Lucid Dreaming

How To Unlock Time Travel Lucid Dreams With Binaural Beats

Using Lucid Dreaming To Solve Problems

Dream Desires: Lucid Dream Sex 

Reality Checks And Building Awareness: Triggering Lucid Dreams

Set Your Lucid Dream Intentions: Why And How

Check out these items that will help with your lucid dreaming!

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Lucid dreaming guide to the inner self

Is Lucid Dreaming Dangerous?

Lucid dreaming is one of the most amazing experiences one can ever have. We have discussed how to prepare for lucid dreaming, and what to expect when lucid dreaming, with the latter including an insight on possibly encountering sleep paralysis, and how to deal with it should it happen. Sleep paralysis can be a frightening experience, and while it does not pose any physical danger, many people are turned off from trying lucid dreaming because of it. In fact, many people are fearful of lucid dreaming because of all its alleged risks, some of which are even claimed to be fatal. But is lucid dreaming really dangerous?

No. From a physical and physiological standpoint, lucid dreaming is not dangerous.

In fact, some scientific experts have shown that lucid dreaming (more specifically, lucid nightmares) is a very good way to help people deal with their own fears, and is a good treatment for regular nightmares. Being in control of dreams gives people the capability to be more confident in facing their fears, because despite experiencing terror, the phrase “this is just a dream, nothing will hurt me” is ingrained in the dreamer, and will allow them to face their terrors in safety, thus conditioning their mind and having that carry over in their waking lives.

Having said that however, there are some concerns that people often raise and need to be addressed.

Here are 3 of the most concerning.

Lucid Dreaming Concerns

1.) Death in the dream – One of the most terrifying and controversial concerns is about what happens when you die in your lucid dream. Many claim that dying in a lucid dream causes you to die for real, or stay in a “lucid dream limbo” where you can be asleep for days, weeks, or even months, and if you eventually wake up, a long time would have passed and you wouldn’t even know it.

This is false. Dying can happen in dreams; have you not died in a non-lucid dream before, only to wake up in yet another dream, or wake up entirely? That’s precisely what will happen. Granted, dying in a lucid dream may truly be a terrifying experience, with everything being very vivid, but the dream itself will not physically kill you. Oftentimes, claims that people who have died in their sleep was due to dying in their dreams have turned out to be false as autopsies would often reveal other causes of death.

This is when the dreamer’s physical factors come into play. People with a pre-existing condition, especially heart problems, may suffer from side-effects, the same side-effects one may feel with actual traumatic fear when they are awake, like tightening of the chest or shortness of breath.  It is these conditions that may cause physical effects, not the dream itself.

There is also a concern about astral projection and what happens when the silver cord is cut, but this is an entirely different topic and will be discussed in a future article.

2.) Dissociation and blurring the lines of dreams and reality – Lucid dreaming can be very vivid, and can feel very real. Some people claim that doing lucid dreams blurs the lines between what’s real and what’s not, and may cause people to experience dissociation and being unable to live normally, having different expectations from the real world. This is a legitimate concern but one that is easily addressed by being well-informed and well-practiced.

The issue arises when people who have had no ability to remember their dreams before are all of a sudden thrust into remembering dreams due to lucid dreaming, and now have memories that they previously never had upon waking up.

One way to keep the distinction between dreams and reality is keeping a dream journal, which we discussed in a previous blog post. When a dreamer is unsure about what is real and what is not, consulting the dream journal can help. And in time, and with regulated exposure to lucid dreaming, distinguishing dreams from reality will be easier and easier.

But for the most part, people with an average, healthy mental constitution will almost always be able to distinguish memories from dreams and those from reality very easily.

3.) Dream addiction – Another concern is that people may end up wanting to just sleep their lives away and spend most of their time in lucid dreams. This is because of the amazing and fantastic possibilities of lucid dreaming, one that may be used as an “escape” from reality similar to how drugs are used by addicts.

There is a problem with this, because the body cannot always physically continuously sleep that long and that frequently. The body can only have a limited time of REM sleep (roughly around 100 minutes), which is something that most people do not exceed. Remember, dream sleep is different from regular sleep, and just because you will sleep for 8 hours a day, doesn’t mean you’ll dream for the same amount. And once your body has gotten its required sleep, it will be very hard to go back to sleep again, let alone go and get REM sleep again.

There are other concerns about lucid dreaming, those that are more controversial and supernatural, which we will tackle in a future blog post.

As with everything, the best way to deal with concerns about lucid dreaming is through proper information and proper training. Don’t plunge head on into lucid dreaming without studying it properly, and preparing yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically.

Check out our blog for information about lucid dreams, as well as listen to this binaural beats track for studying that can help you learn properly.

As well, visit our binaural beats music library for more albums and tracks!

Related links: 
How to prepare your room for lucid dreaming 
What to expect from lucid dreaming
How to deal with sleep paralysis
Keeping a dream journal

What Are False Awakenings? What To Do When It Happens To You

Have you ever experienced, whether as a normal dreamer or a lucid dreamer, finding yourself in a normal everyday situation (getting up, showering, getting dressed, having breakfast, and heading out to work or school) only for you to find yourself back in bed after you thought your day had already started? Only to find out after waking up “for real” that you still actually haven’t? 

This is what’s called a false awakening, a phenomenon that can happen to normal and lucid dreamers, where the dream changes into the dreamer waking up but is actually still asleep and dreaming. This episode can happen multiple times when it does, leading to confusion and amusement at best, and terror at worst, feeling like you’re trapped in a time loop. And it is almost difficult to know when it happens, because the dream is so vivid, it is virtually identical to reality itself.

Why does this happen?

While there are a number of reasons why false awakenings happen, many experts have come to the conclusion that they most commonly happen when the dreamer is anxious or highly excited about the following day. It is the mind’s way of simulating what would actually happen when the dreamer wakes up on the big day, with many believing it is to prepare them and make sure they are reminded what to do and how to do it.

For example, if you’re stressed about a job interview you’ve been wanting for a long time, you might dream about it the night before and be subjected to multiple false awakening episodes before finally waking up for real. The same can be said about a wedding day, a big vacation or purchase (which is common for kids and will often be when they first experience their false awakenings) or even a sporting event, leading dreamers to believe they’ve “predicted” who would win!

Escaping false awakenings

This is where things get a little complicated. As mentioned earlier, false awakenings are very difficult to recognize due to the vivid nature of the dream blurring the lines between what’s in the mind and what’s real. Oftentimes the false awakening episode is so close to the dreamer’s real life routine, that they won’t even do anything different that could potentially make them escape the episode. With these tips however, it can be managed and over time, it will become easier and easier, even leading to more lucid dreaming!

1.) Reality checks – the most common way to try and escape false awakenings is the reality check. This is when the dreamer tries to find out if “everything is in order” so they can see if they are dreaming or not. But this doesn’t always work, especially since, as mentioned above, the dream is so vivid and close to reality that it is hard to spot incongruities. But it still works, especially when you go about your routine and see that you now live in a 30 bedroom house as opposed to your 1 room apartment when you open the door to take a bath. Things like that can jar you and wake you up.

2.) Read, Write, Remember – This method is quite effective as it uses the brain itself to try and jar you from your false awakening. In a dream, it is very hard to write, read, or even just recognize words and numbers, as well as remember details from your life that involve words and numbers, as the parts of the brain that are involved in those processes are still shut down due to being asleep. So, to help escape your false awakening, add tasks that involve these in your daily routine: check your clock every morning, read a passage in a book or your phone, remember your home address or your own phone number. If you find yourself able to do these easy when you wake up, then you’re truly awake. But if you can’t even see what time it is or remember your own phone number, you’re still asleep and in a false awakening!

3.) Go with your gut – As simple as this sounds, people often miss it. If you wake up one morning and begin to have doubt, asking yourself “am I dreaming?” then you probably are. If you feel like something is off or amiss, even without doing a reality check or a memory check, then you probably are still dreaming. So trust your gut!

Once your mind recognizes any of these flags, it will usually make you escape the false awakening by waking you up, or by readying you to take control to turn that false awakening into the start of a lucid dream, which we will tackle in a future blog post soon!

In the meantime, listen to this binaural beats track for relaxation and calming the mind using ambient alpha range music from Brainwave Power Music. 

And if you enjoyed that, check out our expansive binaural beatsmusic library here and get more awesome tracks for you to use! http://www.brainwavepowermusic.com/the-music-store

Keeping A Lucid Dream Journal: Basic How-To And Benefits

Lucid dreaming is an amazing experience that anyone can have and enjoy if they know what lucid dreaming is about, how to prepare for a luciddream, what to expect from lucid dreaming, and what to do in a lucid dream. But what should you do once the lucid dream ends? What post-dreaming benefits will you gain from lucid dreaming? This is where a lucid dream journal comes into play.

Your Mind’s DVR

A lucid dream journal is simply your way of recording what you have seen, felt, experienced, and done in your lucid dream. Many people have amazing normal or lucid dreams and enjoy the experience while it is happening, but moments after they wake up, it is lost, and they struggle to recapture the amazing feelings all throughout the day. It can be quite a loss to feel that, so the best solution to be able to relive it is to record it ASAP!

Fortunately, it is quite easy and fun to record your lucid dreams; it can even be the first thing you do for your daily routine. And like any skill, the more you do it, the better you become at it, and the more you can enjoy the benefits of the lucid dream journal!

The Basics

We’ll have a more detailed guide on how to use a lucid dream journal to record your dreams in a future blog post, but for now, here’s what you need to know and what you should have:

1. Have a notebook, notepad, or actual diary (with a pen of course!) ready to record your dreams by your bedside within reach. It is important you can easily grab your journal as soon as you wake up because your dreams will start fading at that moment, so be quick!
2. As soon as you wake up, write everything you can remember. It is best to write them in the present tense so you keep the “moment” experience when you read them back.  Be sure to add as much details as you can. Don’t think about grammar or spelling. Don’t correct anything! Write things down!
3. Draw what you saw. It doesn’t matter if it’s stick figures or if it looks like a 3 year old made it. Dreams are mainly visual after all, and this will help you recall your dream when you read back.
4. Don’t skip a dream day. Write it down every time you dream, whether it’s a normal dream or a lucid one. This will train your mind to do it.

Oh, one more thing. It is important to have a dream anchor, something that will trigger your mind to remember your dream when you wake up. To do this, simply select an object in your room before you sleep and tell yourself that that object will make you remember your dreams. Always look at this object before you sleep, if you wake up in the middle of the night, and of course, upon waking up. Training your mind to do so will associate that object to your dreams, making you remember better!

The Benefits Of Keeping A Journal

The main benefit of keeping a journal is improving dream recall, and extending the experience of the dream into reality. Just like how re-reading a book or re-watching a favorite movie evokes the feelings felt when experienced the first time, only more potent and personal. This is most especially important with lucid dreams, as lucid dreams are of your own conscious creations, and like any work of art, you don’t want it to go to waste!

Another benefit is training your mind to be able to revisit your previous dreams, or at least, the theme of said dreams. Have you ever experienced dreaming about very similar places and experiencing very similar things over the course of your life? Imagine being able to consciously go back to those dream places when you lucid dream. The journal, with its records of details, will help you with that.

And finally, it also helps expand your mind. Making effort to recall your dreams, and the skills and the knowledge you have gained in those dreams, makes your mind stronger, its reach bigger than before. Think of it like bodybuilding, but for your brain. And the stronger your mind gets, the more potent your dreams and the potential they carry can be.

More details about recalling dreams and keeping a journal will be coming soon! In the meantime, enjoy this binaural beats track formemory and learning, which helps with dream recall. 

Listen to more useful tracks in our binaural beats tracks library here! http://www.brainwavepowermusic.com/the-music-store