Stephen LaBerge > Quotes

“The fact that both ego and self say "I" is a source of confusion and misidentification. The well-informed ego says truly, "I am what I know myself to be." The self says merely, "I am.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming

“Dreams are a reservoir of knowledge and experience yet they are often overlooked as a vehicle for exploring reality. In the dream state our bodies are at rest, yet we see and hear, move about and are even able to learn. When we make good use of the dream state it is almost as if our lives were doubled: instead of a hundred years we live to be two hundred -- Tibetan Buddhist Tarthang Tulku from”
― Stephen LaBerge, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming

“How often are you aware of your surroundings, really aware? And how often are you merely reacting in the same automatic way as you do in dreams?”
― Stephen LaBerge, Fringe-ology: How I Tried to Explain Away the Unexplainable-And Couldn't

“dreams are real while they last. Can we say more of life?”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“In essence, the idea is to let your body fall asleep while you keep your mind awake.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“try to let your first thought upon awakening be, “What was I just dreaming?” Before attempting to write down the dream, go over the dream in your mind, retelling the dream story to yourself until you remember it as a whole.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“3   See yourself becoming lucid. As you continue to focus on your intention to remember to recognize the next time you are dreaming, imagine that you are back in the dream from which you just awakened. Imagine that this time you recognize that you are dreaming. Identify a dreamsign, and when you see it, say to yourself, “I’m dreaming!” and continue your fantasy. Imagine yourself carrying out your plans for your next lucid dream. For example, if you want to fly in your lucid dream, imagine yourself flying. 4   Repeat until your intention is set. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until either you fall asleep you or are sure that your intention is set. If while falling asleep you find yourself thinking of anything else, repeat the procedure so that the last thing in your mind before falling asleep is your intention to remember to recognize the next time you are dreaming.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“the average person remembers only a few dreams per week, and we all have at least half a dozen dreams per night.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“It is clear today that the ecological and political situation of this planet will force upon humanity enormous changes within this coming century. Among the future alternatives are such extremes as have been phrased, “utopia or oblivion.” Certainly the planetary situation is one of unprecedented complexity. And just as certainly, what is needed is unprecedented vision: both to avoid catastrophe and to find the path to a better future. And it is the dream that holds the key to this vision, allowing us, in Dement’s words, “to experience a future alternative as if it were real, and thereby to provide a supremely enlightened motivation to act upon this knowledge.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“The verbalization that I use myself to organize my intended effort is, “next time I’m dreaming I want to remember to recognize I’m dreaming.” The “when” and the “what” of the intended action must be clearly specified.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“MNEMONIC INDUCTION OF LUCID DREAMS EXERCISE 1   Set up dream recall. At bedtime, set your mind to awaken from and to remember dreams. When you awaken from a dream, recall it as completely as you can. 2   Focus your intent. While returning to sleep, concentrate single-mindedly on your intention to remember to recognize that you are dreaming. Tell yourself, “next time I’m dreaming, I will remember I’m dreaming,” repeatedly, like a mantra.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“To go beyond the ego’s model of the world, the lucid dreamer must relinquish control of the dream—surrender—to something beyond the ego.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“There are several reasons why developing excellent dream recall is an essential prerequisite for learning lucid dreaming. First, when you remember your dreams well, you can become familiar with what they are actually like. Once you get to know your dreams really well, you will be in the position of recognizing them as dreams while they are still happening. Second, it is possible that with poor dream recall, you may actually have lucid dreams that you do not remember! Finally, as you will soon see, the most effective lucid dream induction method—the Mnemonic Induction of Lucid dreams (MILD) technique—requires you to remember more than one dream per night.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“With continuing practice,” Tarthang Tulku explains, ...we see less and less difference between the waking and the dream state. Our experiences in waking life become more vivid and varied, the result of a lighter and more refined awareness... This kind of awareness, based on dream practice, can help create an inner balance.[3]”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“A period of wakefulness interrupting the normal course of sleep increases the likelihood of lucidity. In fact, the “morning nap” or “sleep interruption” technique, refined through several experiments conducted by the Lucidity Institute, is an extremely powerful method of stimulating lucid dreams. The technique simply requires you to wake from sleep one hour earlier than usual, stay awake for thirty to sixty minutes, then go back to sleep.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“lucid dreams occur “almost exclusively” during the early morning hours.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“lucid dreams occur “almost exclusively” during the early morning hours. Our research at Stanford indicates that extended stable lucid dreams seem to occur exclusively during REM periods. Moreover, later REM periods are more conducive to lucidity than are earlier REM periods. Although it is certainly possible to induce lucid dreams during the first REM period of the night using MILD, it is much easier when practiced later in the sleep cycle, say after four and a half hours (REM period 3), or six hours (REM period 4).”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“To remind yourself of your intentions and get yourself into the spirit of your dreams, read through your dream journal at bedtime. Learning to remember your dreams may take particular effort at first, but if you persist, you will almost certainly succeed—and may find yourself effortlessly remembering four or more dreams per night.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“There are two kinds of sleep. The first is an energy-conserving state known as Quiet Sleep (QS) associated with growth, repair, restoration, a relaxed body, and an idling brain. The second is a very different state known variously as Active Sleep, Paradoxical Sleep (PS), or REM.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“sometimes while dreaming, we consciously notice that we are dreaming. This clear-sighted state of consciousness is referred to as lucid dreaming.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“Whether awake or asleep, your consciousness functions as a simplified model of yourself and your world constructed by your brain from the best available sources of information. during waking, the model is derived from external sensory input, which provides the most current information about present circumstances, in combination with internal contextual, historical, and motivational information. during sleep, little external input is available, and given a sufficiently functional brain, the model is constructed from internal biases. These will be expectations derived from past experience and motivations—wishes, for example, as Sigmund Freud observed, but also fears. The resulting experiences are what we call dreams, the content of which is largely determined by what we fear, hope for, and expect.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“Most readers will probably have experienced instances of the rehearsal function of dreams. By dreaming about a significant, upcoming event in advance, we can try out various approaches, attitudes, and behaviors, perhaps arriving at a more effective course of action than we otherwise would have. We may also be forewarned of certain potential aspects in a future situation that we otherwise would not have imagined or considered.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“according to various surveys, the average dream is unpleasant. That average, of course, is of nonlucid dreams. As for lucid dreams, the opposite appears to be the case, with the typical emotional valence being unmistakably positive. Many lucid dreamers have remarked on the emotionally rewarding nature of the experience. The lucid dreamer is free to act out impulses that might be impossible in the waking state.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“Most of the dreams you recall will contain at least one but more likely several dreamsigns. Until you have developed at least a moderate degree of lucidity, you will almost never recognize these dream oddities for what they are, and this leads to a pitfall which can block progress until it is understood and corrected: the mistake (common among novice lucid dreamers) is to focus on how uncritical their minds are during dreaming, using each missed dreamsign as another example proving that they never recognize dreamsigns. This is a mistake! If you do this, you use missed dreamsigns to learn that you are too unreflective, stupid, or simply lacking in the capability to become lucid.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“So how does one go about accepting Shadow figures in dreams? There are many approaches, all of which involve entering into a more harmonious relationship with the darker aspects of oneself. One direct and effective approach is to engage Shadow figures in friendly dialogues.[8] This will make a difference with most people you encounter in dreams (or waking life) and might have surprising effects when you try it on threatening figures. do not slay your dream dragons; make friends with them.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“Another benefit of getting plenty of sleep is that dream periods get longer and closer together as the night proceeds. The first dream of the night is the shortest, perhaps only five to ten minutes long, while after eight hours of sleep, dream periods can last forty to sixty minutes. We all dream every night, about one dream period every ninety minutes. People who say they never dream simply never remember their dreams. You may have more than one dream during a REM (dream) period, separated by short arousals that are most often forgotten.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“The basic strategy of using dreamsign awareness to induce lucid dreaming is to firmly resolve to (i.e., set your intention to) recognize any dreamsign noticed in the future for what it is, and thus become lucid.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“the poet Rainer Maria Rilke surmised, “Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”[4] In Jung’s view the presence of shadow figures in dreams indicates that the ego model of the self is incomplete. When the ego intentionally accepts the Shadow, it moves toward wholeness and healthy psychological functioning.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“In the more common of the two ways that people experience lucid dreams, the dreamer somehow realizes that he or she is dreaming while in the midst of an ongoing dream in uninterrupted REM sleep. This is termed a Dream Initiated Lucid Dream, or DILD.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life

“Be aware that the expectation of possible awakening sometimes leads to a false awakening in which you dream of waking.”
― Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life