This is an article I did for PsiPog’s forums, to cut down on posts that were essentially about the same thing. I also later co-authored an article about dreaming with JesseRevis.

Vibrations- These are something that are usually experienced on the border of sleep. They are heavily associated with OOBEs because of Robert Monroe. He always describes leaving his body while having these “vibrations” The physical sensation is something that has to be experienced to really “get.” However, once you experience it you will be completely sure that you were having what is described here. The vibrations are sort of like being electrocuted (Minus the pain) with a very high voltage. There are various methods of inducing these vibrations, which is in another topic.

Sleeping Aids- Most sleeping aids tend to disrupt dreaming. Many of these shorten REM cycles, which are typically the times dreaming occurs. There are a few that don’t have this effect, and may even aid dreaming. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list, so I’ll let you do the background research on those, but the majority of the popular sleep aids will inhibit dreams, or in the best of cases, not affect them all.

Hypnagogia- This is an odd phenomenon experienced on the wake/asleep border. It can either be experienced when falling asleep and losing consciousness, or when waking up and regaining it. These are hypnagogic and hypnopompic occurrences, respectively. It is worth noting that hypnagogic experiences are much more common then hypnopompic. These periods are typically described as seeing flashes of vivid imagery, sometimes seemingly real. Sometimes people will also hear sounds, feel touch, and in even rarer cases, smell and taste. These are all hallucinations, and can not hurt you.

Muscle Spasms- Muscle spasms are not uncommon before sleep, and a person may experience them as much as once every thirty seconds or so. There is also another kind of spasm, which is a little more then just a simple twitch. This is a Hypnic Jerk. This is when you misinterpret hypnagogic imagery as a real situation, and react accordingly. This happens to me a lot when I try to WILD. You usually end up coming out of your trance-like state when this occurs, at least in my experience.

Lucid Dreaming- Controlling ones dreams. This is known by few people, practiced successfully by even fewer. It is relatively easy to induce lucid dreams given the right technique; the trick is finding it among the relatively large amount of techniques available. The most popular techniques are: WILD MILD and WBTB, not in any particular order. I can personally say all of them work, but they all take a lot of practice to get consistently.

WILD- Stands for Wake Induce Lucid Dream. This has been called the “holy grail” of lucid dreaming techniques, because you can go from waking consciousness right into a lucid dream with almost no intermission. It can also be used to exit ones body, at a different point, during the vibration period. This state may have to be induced, however. I won’t go into the specifics of this technique, as it is very complex. Here is a very in depth article written by Seeker. In short however, this technique is basically relaxing the body so that it falls asleep, while the mind is still awake. This effectively takes you consciously into a dream.

MILD- Stands for Mnemonic Induced Lucid Dream. Created by Stephen LaBerge, it was and still is a very effective method of induction. Peebrain recently posted it as an article. This method is effectively training your memory to prepare for a lucid dream, and then repeating to yourself that you will have a lucid dream before you fall asleep.

WBTB- Stands for Wake Back To Bed. In my opinion the easiest method to learn and practice, it is basically getting up a certain amount of time into your sleep cycle, before your longest REM periods. You then think about having a lucid dream and try to awaken your mind while leaving your body sleepy. You then go back to bed; here is a very good walkthrough on how to do it. It should be noted however, that in my experience, an hour is much too long and I am too awake after that long. Also, in my opinion, the shower is not necessary; it is just a tool to keep you relaxed.

OOBEs- Stands for Out Of Body Experience. Also written as OBE. This is usually described as leaving ones body. From that point the person can fly, teleport, or many other things that are not possible during waking life. Many people think that this is the same as lucid dreaming, just on a different scale. Others say that this and Astral Projection are the same, and that OOBEs are just on the Etheric plane. I won’t get into those theories, as they are somewhat religious and do not require an explanation for this article. Even further, others completely discount the OOBE as a powerful hallucination of the brain.

Reality Checks- A reality check is an action that works in reality but acts differently in a dream. These are used to check whether you are dreaming or not. The typical usage involves doing reality checks through the day; so that you will eventually do one in a dream and notice that it didn’t work. A few fairly common reality checks are: Looking at your hands, which are typically disfigured in dreams, holding your nose and trying to breathe through it, and looking at a clock or other writing and then looking back again, in dreams it will usually be nonsense and will change.

Shared Dreaming- This is the sharing of a dream between two or more people. This usually requires one or both of the people involved to be lucid so that they find each other, but it is theoretically possible without becoming lucid. The typical techniques involve finding a door or a portal, and thinking or saying to oneself that when you step through this doorway, you will be in ____’s dream.

Sleep Paralysis- This is typically experienced as being unable to move. It usually occurs when waking up in the hypnopompic state, after being awakened during REM sleep. Sometimes hypnagogic hallucinations accompany it. Sometimes these hallucinations are frightening, and more often then not tend to play out in one of the following ways: An evil figure is near, or a crushing weight is felt upon oneself, or a general sense of doom and death. This is also known as an Old Hag.

False Awakening- This is when you wake up after a dream into another dream. This new dream is usually in the place you went to sleep. The person then often will carry out their morning rituals, until they wake up into real life. This can happen multiple times and is very disorienting.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogic_jerk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia
http://www.psipog.net/welcome.php
Journeys Out Of The Body, by Robert Monroe
My own personal experience.

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