The Sensibility Test
Don’t psyche yourself as your make your attempts at controlling dreams
So far we’ve discussed prep work in waking life, some cursory looks at methods to achieve and maintain dream lucidity and control, and a bit about the nature of dreams themselves.
Here we’re going to start going into more depth about what to do when you’re actually dreaming.
So far, you’re remembering dreams, writing them down, doing focusing exercises, and doing the meditations and visualizations that help make controlling dreams possible.
What about when you’re actually dreaming?
The number one thing is to maintain the state of consciousness that naturally manifests as awareness in the dream state. The available tools that lead to the lucid dream state and controlling dreams provide a great boon here.
There’s also the in-dream testing methods. If you’ve read previous articles here, you may be saying:
“I know that already. At certain occasions in waking life, I ask myself if I’m dreaming or awake, and eventually, I’ll begin doing so while dreaming. This is because habits in waking life carry over into the dream state.”
If you just said that to yourself (or something similar), congratulations, you’ve been paying attention! But there’s a little more to it than that.
You see, your mind can be very sneaky.
How many times have I heard a student of dream control say, “I asked myself the state-check question while in a dream…but nothing happened!”
A certain level of consciousness is needed to reach and then maintain the desired awareness while in the dream state. If you’re not careful, you may be conscious enough to remember to ask the state-test question (“am I dreaming or awake?”)…but NOT conscious enough to have that question snap you into full awareness!
So what are some ways to procure the level of lucidity that we need to start controlling dreams?
One way is the sensibility test. While you’re dreaming, you’ll want to ask yourself, “does this usually happen?” Or you can ask, “does this make sense?”
Given the nature of dreams, there’s usually something awry.
Are you all of a sudden hanging out with someone that you haven’t seen in years and now lives in another country? You’re dreaming!
Are you giving an Oscars acceptance speech, even though you’re not a famous film actor? You’re dreaming?
Are you riding a giant green panther across a desert with a Chinese-speaking Abraham Lincoln behind you? You are definitely dreaming!
Dreams are weird, wacky, and often fun. So play with them.
Consistently controlling dreams will make them even more fun, but to get there, you have to cross over into the right awareness. The sensibility test is a powerful tool for this. And you may very well end up having some laughs the next morning!
The Unexplainable Store is a large depot with many tools to induce mystical and useful mental states in you.
They offer specific products for lucid dreaming (the second orange box on the home page). Happy exploring!
This concludes our first article on in-dream state tests.
You can go to the next article by clicking here.
You’ll receive our posts automatically when you subscribe to our RSS feed.
Out statement of disclosure can be found here.
