 Hi, how's it going? Hi, I'm fine. How are you? I love how we're introducing each other, even though we've just been chatting anyway. So yeah, do you want to just introduce yourself, explain sort of what your channel is about, your experiences, how you got involved with lucid dreaming? Sure. So I've been kind of what they call a native lucid dreamer, although it always sounds, I don't know, like something better than you guys because you're using techniques and I'm like a natural talent. It's just bullshit. You're one of the lucky ones. Yeah, the lucky ones. The lucky ones that had a lot of nightmares in their childhood and probably a bullshit childhood so they get a lot of nightmares and that's kind of the natural way how you get lucid dreams, at least that's what I experienced and what a lot of other lucid dreamers experience. And yeah, the funny thing is like when I had my lucid dreams as a child, I was so uncreative. The only thing I can think of was always kind of killing myself in creative ways because I knew like nothing can happen and I always climbed on rooftops and jumped like down to see what happened. So that was really the only thing I could think of for some reason. And well, then I saw this beautiful video of Robert Wagner where he explained about his book, what is it called again? Lucid Dreaming, Gateway Turner Self, which I think is a great book and then when I read it, it really triggered so many lucid dreams that I started to do my dream diary of dreams and stuff. And yeah, how about you? Well, how did I get started? Well, I think I was about 12 maybe and I was having this nightmare and I remember sort of almost waking up in the nightmare, you know like the cliche description of Lucid Dreaming where you wake up and you're like, I looked at my hands and I just realised that it wasn't real. So obviously at that point I didn't know about the sort of deeper psychological aspects I didn't ask the nightmare what it represented. I didn't try and control anything really. I just sort of explored the world because as a 12-year-old you're pretty young. You don't really know what to do in a lucid dream. I didn't even know it was a lucid dream at this point. I just thought it was a really weird experience. I thought I was awake. So I just remember exploring this city and walking around and just talking to people. And then, yeah, and I woke up and it was a pretty profound experience. I woke up and I was happy the whole day. Cool. So, okay, so explain. If you had to explain to a beginner how to lucid dream in a week, for example, what would you say to them? I think the most important thing is really to have a diary of dreams because it really puts your mind on the whole topic. Like for me, it's really like if you're meditating, for example, it also helps a lot for lucid dreaming because you consciously like being in the moment. Like I'm living in Berlin right now and when I go to work and go to the train station, you see a lot of people in the morning just, you know, using their smartphones and reading stuff or just, yeah, phoning instead of just sitting down and, you know, be in the moment right now, look out of the window and perceive your environment. And I really saw that so many people, they're just, you know, they're sleep-waking. Sleep-waking. Yeah, sleep-waking. Most people tend to be on autopilot really, especially on the way to work and things like that. Yeah. They're just, you know, just drifting really. Yeah, you know this awesome video where they depicted kind of people in the bus station all looking down, look up. Yeah, I think that might have been one of the spoken word videos or something like that where... Yeah. Yeah, I know the one you're talking about. Yeah, and I think that's like a great depiction of what's happening right now. Like a lot of people, they think they're awake, but they're really sleeping and all day long. They're just, when they're at work, they're always having like busy work. They're not even thinking like, wow, this is just work. Let's, you know, take a step ahead. Like this is my life and it's just a part of it. But they immerse so deeply in it that they can have not the view, the kind of eagle view from above. Yeah, exactly. It tells them like, right now at work, but you know, this is just one part of my life. And then there's another part of my life where I'm the private person and just consciously drifting from present to past and to future in their minds. And then not in a moment. And I think that's like the biggest problem, why people are really also when they're dreaming, they're just like sleepwalking in their dream and then waking and forgetting everything. Exactly. So yeah, if you had to tell me one technique that's worked the best for you, what would that be? There would be a dream diary. Yeah. It's not really a technique. It's just a basic thing for me. And let me close the window. It's really loud. Yeah, sure. Have you had any success with particular induction techniques like wake back to bed or something like that? I tried those and because I'm a really lazy person, it really annoys me to wake up at 3pm and 3am and then go back to bed. For me, it's like really setting the intention. And sometimes I wake up naturally at night and then I try to actively go back into the dream. Oh, okay. So I don't like to set an alarm clock or something like that because this really freaks me out. And I'm just thinking, okay, now you're just getting too crazy, you know, being a normal person. But I try to incorporate all those techniques in a natural way. So if I know I'm awake, I try to go back in a lucid dream and really concentrate on it. Yeah, of course. I think also with the wake back to bed technique, it kind of messes with your sleep cycles. Yeah. And I think if people do that every day, they're going to just be tired all the time. Yeah. So that's why I think in my blog, I don't really recommend it. It's something to do as a daily technique because it's not really sustainable long term. You're just going to tie yourself out waking up in the middle of the night all the time. Yeah. Yeah, I don't like it too much. I think if you have a really good base like keeping a diary or some kind of reliving your dreams or writing it down or recording it, it doesn't matter how you record it. That's like the basic step. And then maybe doing some reality checks would also be very important. Yeah. And you know, if you're consciously, sorry, if you're consciously each moment, then you're kind of doing a reality check. You know, if you're just living in the moment and always trying to be conscious, then you don't even have to check your hands or to blow your nose. You don't even have to do that. Yeah. I mean, I think sometimes people can sort of forget to be conscious and like the moments I think throughout everyone's day when they're not actually completely aware of what they're doing because they're too involved in what they're doing. Yeah. If you're playing a video game or something, you don't really think about the noises going on outside the house because you're too focused on that one thing. But as long as you do reality checks every now and then, I think it's easy to get results. What would be your favorite technique? My favorite reality check or my favorite induction technique? Induction technique or technique for lucid dreaming. I would have to say it's the mild, so the mnemonically induced lucid dream. And that's, for those of you watching who don't know, that's where you sort of use mantras in order to sort of, it's to do with your prospective memory. So the idea of being able to remember something in the future instead of remember something that's already happened. The idea is you want to remember to do a reality check when you're already in the dream. So you would sort of train yourself to do reality checks when certain things happen. I think this was explained in more detail in Exploring the World of Lucid Dreams by Stephen Aburge. I'll put a link to the book in the description for you guys. But yeah, it's the idea of teaching yourself to remember to do something in the future when something triggers it, if that makes sense. One of the triggers could be when you hear someone laughing. So whenever you hear someone laughing in the future, you do a reality check when that happens. Yeah, that's awesome. And that will show up in your dream and I found that to be really easy to get results with. And are you using random signs or are you using your dream signs? Yeah, that's the other thing. You sort of combine it with your dream signs. So the things that usually show up in your dreams, it makes sense to sort of use those as the anchor. If I'm always on the train, for example, then every time I see a train or on a train in real life, then I'll do a reality check and it will show up a lot faster that way. Okay, but you're really tying it to the dreams or to things that you would see in your waking life and not to the dream signs that occur on a regular basis in your dreams? It's sort of a bit of both. So obviously if one of my dream signs is being on a plane, there's not a whole lot of chances I have in a normal day to do a reality check when I'm on a plane because I don't travel that much. But the things that show up in my dreams like just being around people or hearing someone laugh, that shows up quite a lot in my dreams. So I can use that in real life as an anchor, if that makes sense. Is it an evil laugh or is it just like... Because when you can't move, I think your mind naturally assumes that you need to be able to move in order to protect yourself. It's like one of the basic responses from the limbic system. You need to be able to move in order to defend yourself against threats. So when you can't move but you're still conscious and aware, you assume that something bad is going to happen and therefore you hallucinate it because you're obviously half asleep, half awake, you see the thing that you fear happening. So it can be quite scary, but it's important to realise that it's not actually a real threat. Yeah, I know what he told me. He doesn't even believe in such things. He told it to me like this was totally real and happened to him three times and one time this demon thing was coming and then he had an out-of-body experience where he saw himself from above. And this was just like when he told me, I knew how it felt. It was really intense for him and he was scared to death. Yeah, it can be quite intense. Have you had those experiences too? I've had only three scary sleep paralysis experiences. But then after the first one or two, I literally went on Google and just searched for hours because I was obviously terrified in search for hours about what it was and how to stop it being so scary and intense. And once you understand what it is and how to actually deal with it and how to turn it into a lucid dream, it's not as bad. You realise it's part of the process. Pardon? What happened to you in those sleep paralysis? In the first one, there was a giant spider. Yeah, I just saw the giant spider legs going across the room like this and it was really scary. But no demons involved? Not really, no. The second time I think there was a dark figure, almost like Slenderman standing in the corner of the room. But it didn't really move, so that wasn't too bad. Yeah, those kind of dark figures or whatever, that's the same thing that he experienced. And for myself, I'm kind of, you know, the thing is like the same as... Hello? Hello? That's my phone right now because my laptop, as you can see it. To design it to turn off. Brilliant. What would you say is your dreams for the future of your lucid dreaming channel? I mean, what do you want to do in the future? Do you want to teach workshops or write a new book or something? I would definitely like to get more involved with the community and also with the international community. Right now I participated in a lot of German lucid dreaming hangouts that were managed by Christian Reinhardt. I mean, the German community is really small. There are about seven YouTubers, but everyone knows each other and that's really cool. You get a kind of community feeling. And I would love to do that like on a broader scale also with international lucid dreamers. Is there a demand for your e-book or are you struggling right now? I think there is a demand because beginners always want to learn. But at the same time, they don't want to invest money, even five dollars or so. They don't want to spend that money when they could find the information elsewhere. But I think it's important to realize that it's not just a compilation of information. Actually, my experience is in me teaching exactly how to get results instead of just teaching about lucid dreaming. It's teaching how to actually do it. So, yeah, the people that have brought it have been really happy with it. Yeah, maybe you should post some reviews of the virus of the e-book. Yeah, testimonials. Yeah, I really should. And how many lucid dreams per week do you get? It's usually about five to six, but it kind of depends. It depends on what happens. Say if I go out drinking and I have REM rebound, then I can have sort of four or five lucid dreams that night. Or if I take choline, if I listen to binaural beats at about three in the morning, then I can increase that. It really depends on what I'm doing, like if I'm working or if I'm busy. But usually I naturally have about five to six. What about you? It really depends. Right now, there's a lot of change going on in my life. I move around a lot. And if I don't get a lot of sleep, I'm not able to record my dreams, then I get really lazy and there's a really small number. But on average, I'd say three to four a week. Yeah, that's a healthy number, actually. Yeah. Yeah, what would you suggest to prolong a lucid dream? To make it last longer and be more vivid? Yeah, so the thing that I could recommend the most would be to rub your hands. That always works really, really well for me. Kind of really feel your hands and you know, activate it, it's just the best for me. And then a second, not as good, but also really good would be to look at your hands and really focus on it. Yeah. Third would be to really calm down, to relax and to just don't get too excited because then you've got to be thrown out of the dream. Yeah, especially if you get emotionally involved, it just collapses. Yeah, it's like, yay, I'm lucid dream, I'm lucid dream. Yeah, and then wake up. And well, fourth thing, I cannot recommend this because it didn't work for me, but a lot of lucid dreamers, they report that it also helps if you spin around in a dream. Yeah, I found that. Yeah. Yeah, when I do that, I spin around and then I'm in a black room and I have like problems emerging new dream images. Yeah. The thing I found that works the best, I don't know if you've tried this, but it's dream commands. So once you're actually lucid and you can decide what you do and what you say, if you just sort of shout out to the dream, I want this dream to be more clear. It actually responds and it does it. So yeah, I found that really, really works quite well. That works for me as well. Like something like clarity now. Yeah. Okay, thanks for having me in this really nice interview. Guys, if you liked this, check out my video. I'm lucid lela and I bring it to YouTube, but if you want to do what you do in a lucid dream, for example, there's a video coming up and already one posted. Check my videos out and I hope you like it.