Lucid Powers Level 5: Manifestation and Pain Mitigation
So, now that you have gotten lucid a number of times, and have a grasp or mastery at the level 1 lucid powers, and you feel like you want to take it to the next level. Your next step is to practice and master the level 5 lucid powers. (You may ask, why this numbering system…because I chose it really). I describe these powers as “level 5″, because we start to do things without a current frame of reference. For example, it’s easier to lift an apple with your mind because you can see the apple and begin your focus on manipulating an object already present in front of you, what I am going to explain to you next is how to MAKE the apple out of thin air.
OBJECT MANIFESTATION: Manifesting objects is more difficult than manipulating an object, obviously, because the object is not already in front of you. You’re frame of reference for that object is not yet set. To manifest an object you again have to follow the two rules, but to an even more detailed extreme. You must not only visualize the object and what you want to do with it, you must also have to visualize every detail of that object and have no doubt that you will manifest that object. You have to visualize the weight, the texture, the feel of it in your hands (or in like the instance of a car, feel what it feels like to sit inside it), the overall mass, the smell even if it applies. Then you must not doubt that the object is already in your hands (even though you KNOW it was not before). In most of my experiences, I try to manifest some sort of weapon, and therefore I have to not only visualize the weapon in my hands but convince my lucid mind that it was already there. I have also found in my experiences it helps to have some sort of reveal to myself holding the object. Like a magician doing a slight of hand trick, I see my hand being empty, I close my eyes and visualize the object, in that moment I also wave my other hand over my palm, open my eyes and remove my waving hand to reveal the object of my desire already in my previously empty palm. This will take a LOT of practice, far more than any level 1 power. I have failed this “trick” many times while fully lucid for one reason or another, and without losing my lucidity, I either try again or just move on to another objective with the things already at my disposal.
ENERGY MANIFESTATION (AKA Kamehameha Wave):
Like object manifestation, this technique is also quite difficult at first because it requires you to create your own reference in your mind before you perform the move. However, it might be even more difficult for some because no human in reality has ever seen a real life energy blast, (or for reference, the Kamehameha Wave) and therefore it requires more of the dreamer’s imagination to create. For this I typically bring my hands together just like a character might in Dragon Ball Z, and I imagine what that energy would feel like between my palms. I ask myself “Does it tingle? Does it feel hot? Is it affecting other things around me?” Prompts like this help your mind manifest that idea into your lucid dream. Then I push my hands forward toward my target and imagine a “release” of that energy in a forward motion. After the energy is initially released, you must also visualize the destruction this blast might cause as it travels ahead. Another move similar to this that I have also done is the “Spirit Gun” from the anime Yu-Yu-Hakusho.
If you think I’m using a lot of cartoon, anime or movie references for the things I’m explaining, you’d be exactly right. And that’s because these media are just visualization tools to achieve your lucid dreaming goals. It’s much easier to manage and create when you already have a working frame of reference.
LIFE MANIFESTATION: Manifesting a person or other life in a dream is both easy and hard. It’s easier in the sense that you already manifest the life subconsciously when you enter a dream, you’ve already created a dream character representation of your family, friends or strangers without even trying, and without being lucid. However, it is also hard because when you are lucid you are aware, and therefore you can never shake the knowledge that the person you just created is not actually a separate and distinct mind of your own, but merely a copy of your memory of that person. And it’s because of this that I find creating people is not as fulfilling as other abilities. It might be nice to talk to your dead relatives in your dreams, but until there is definitive proof that you actually have manifested their spirit, you are mostly doing therapeutic self reflection. This can be useful and I have used it myself to get through grieving a loved one. The actual manifesting of a person is much the same as anything else, you must visualize and believe they are going to suddenly walk through that door to greet you.
PAIN MITIGATION: This technique is a favorite of mine and one I rarely see other experienced lucid dreamers, and like minded content creators, talk about or even mention. Perhaps this is because other lucid dreamers rarely have the violent, action packed and exciting dreams I tend to have, or maybe if they are faced with a situation in which they will feel pain, they find other methods of getting out of that situation. Let’s put the use of pain mitigation and it’s benefits into a contextual situation.
You are in a dream that is more of a nightmare, of which you are in a situation where you are about to be shot. Just having become lucid, you haven’t had the opportunity to change anything about the dream or surroundings, and maybe have a couple seconds to do something about this situation before you are struck with that bullet in the dream. What can you do? For me, I have found that it’s quicker and a bit easier to change things about myself vs things surrounding me. So instead of like…stopping time, or changing the dream location, I can do something to myself to save me from this situation with far less brain power than completely changing the scene. Plus, once this attacker fails to hurt me, I’m going to want a little payback.
The brain is a magnificent thing, its has the power to make you feel pain with or without actual stimuli, so if you are shot in a dream, most times your mind is going to fill in what it believes that might feel like, even if you’ve never been shot before. I have never actually been shot but have been shot in a dream, and before I taught myself this technique it was always quite painful. In at least one instance when I was young, I awoke to myself verbalizing that pain for a moment after having been shot in the face in a dream. But this ability of the brain to make you feel pain can go the other way. You can trick your brain into not telling you to feel pain, at least in the dream. In our scenario, what I would do as the attacker fires his bullet is harden myself to be as strong as steel, so that the bullet would ricochet off me as if I were superman. To do that I often tie this hardening, or becoming of steel, to the actual key word “steel”. I have practiced it enough to where just focusing on that single word makes my lucid mind trigger that hardening effect. And of course, a steel wall can’t feel pain. Another trigger word I use to do a similar idea, but opposite effect, is “water”. I literally turn my body into that of water, so that the bullet may enter and exit my body without causing pain or bodily harm. If you don’t have trigger words to protect yourself from pain, there is also imagining the pain itself feels different. So, when you are shot, instead of feeling the penetration of a bullet, imagine that bullet is nothing but a paper wad, like some kid spat it out of a straw rather than a gun. Imagine your skin to heal as quickly as Wolverine in the X-men. Do whatever is easiest, but do not allow your brain to imagine what a bullet actually feels like.
In dreams where I’ve been stabbed, I’ve also imagined my body to be numb where the knife went in. There is a thousand methods to mitigating pain in a lucid dream, it will be tough to master, and there will be times where you may feel a lot of pain, but I have found this particular power to be one of the more useful ones to allow yourself to have fun in a dream. You lose a lot of fear of things you might attempt because you can imagine it might hurt, but you know you can imagine how it won’t hurt.