[toc]Lucid dreaming is a place of deep creativity. With flying through walls, breathing underwater and visiting the moon all part and parcel, it’s no wonder that so many lucid dreamers see dreaming as nothing more than a private adventure park.
Lucid dreaming is the most powerful personal development tool that we have. The dream world is our silent gift. We spend a third of our lives sleeping, yet as most of us choose to ignore our dreams, they quietly fade away until sleep is nothing more than a daily slot of temporary coma.
How to Overcome Fear?
We carry around fears and issues that have developed through instinct and conditioning.
“I’d love to start a new business, but it will never work. I wish I was more outgoing but I hate confrontation. I wish I had the courage to ask for a pay rise.”
Working through issues within dreaming is very empowering, and it’s not even difficult!
The idea is to live out the fearful situation in the lucid dream, comfortable in the knowledge that you are in control and can just open your eyes any time you want to.
There are two techniques that I use to conquer fears and practice new skills.
Technique #1
Whilst falling asleep, you can use a regular present tense lucid dreaming mantra such as “Right now, I am lucid dreaming, and it’s great” and combining it with a positive, present tense mantra stating your intention, such as “I am using this lucid dream to meet ‘John’ and tell him that I really disagree with the way he spoke to me last week.”
The key here is not the eloquence of the mantra, but the intention behind it. The more powerful your intention and visualisation is, the greater the effect.
If you don’t find that the mantra is effective in itself, switch to just creatively visualising the scenario playing out as you fall asleep, with you being lucid within it – that’s the key.
Ultimately, the induction technique itself is not the only part that matters. Your efforts should be focused on becoming lucid, and any time you can dedicate to all day awareness, reality checking and meditation during the day, the deeper and richer your experiences will become.
Once you find yourself lucid in the dream world, if you’re not already in the scenario you visualized, then you need to get there. Just command loudly and clearly,
“Take me to meet John”
Then spin around until the scenario appears.
You may then bring yourself to full awareness of the situation, and go to face the fear. If it is something that you are deeply fearful of like: fear of flying, fear of public speaking, or fear of heights, then just imagine a protective white ball around you and repeat loudly,
“I KNOW that nothing can hurt me here.”
You can now play out your experience, remembering that you are fully in control. Experience it calmly and with awareness, paying particular attention to any point where any strong feelings or emotions arise. You can do anything you want – it’s your world.
Technique #2
A completely different method you might try, is to set aside the issue entirely in your induction, and simply focus on becoming lucid. Once you find yourself lucid, ask out loud,
“Show me what is really behind my fear of confronting John.”
Spin around and see where you are once you stop.
As you awaken from the experience, try to keep still with your eyes shut, then replay your experience as clearly and vividly as you can. The more you mentally rerun your experience at this point, the stronger it gets committed to memory.
Once you open your eyes and start moving, you’ll be losing crucial details by the second, so get it written down as soon as possible. If you review your journal for the next couple of days, and mentally relive the experience, the experience will leave more of a long-term impact.
Happy Experiencing!
This post: “How to Overcome Fear With Lucid Dreaming – Heights, Public Speaking & Flying” is written by Adam Palmer at Astral Zen. Adam has been consciously practicing lucid dreaming and exploring the out of body state for over 10 years now. Now he wants to help others share the experience.
