Greetings. For the past few days i had been googling for different ways and methods for inducing lucid dreams. While i was at it, i came across a few articles about NLP and how it is used to modify behavior. Also i stumbled upon two subliminal videos created by Pete Casale (world of lucid dreaming website) in which NLP patterns (Swish, Anchoring and framing) are used to induce lucid dream. Although i had known NLP for some time now, i never knew that nlp techniques could be used to induce lucid dream. After watching the videos, i thought of making a new (perhaps) technique using the nlp patterns from the video, to be included in the DV tutorials. And i came up with SPILD (Swish Pattern Induced Lucid Dream). For those who know nlp, the swish pattern (nlp technique) is a simple and well known yet very powerful submodality technique for taking minor problem behaviours or states and replacing them with more useful behaviours or states. Basically it is used to change habits and/or install automatic responses. Below i outline the way for inducing lucid dream using the Swish pattern.

SPILD ( Swish Pattern Induced Lucid Dream )

Swish patterns are usually done in a visual representation system (i.e using mental images or pictures) although they can be performed in any representational system. If are a primarily visual person, you can choose to do a visual swish. For this you need two pictures:-

1. The first picture represents the present state and must be associated i.e. the picture must be as it would appear seen through your own eyes - this is VERY important.

In the associated picture see yourself being cozy in bed and dosing off into
dreamland. Here, create the feeling of total physical and mental relaxation and
see yourself having the non lucid dreams.


2. The second picture represents the desired state and must be dissociated i.e.
See yourself in the picture, as if you are another person seeing yourself from a
different angle.

In the dissociated picture see your self in a dream becoming self aware, doing
some reality tests and finally becoming lucid.


As the swish pattern is a fast technique it is useful to take a few moments to make the two pictures as real as possible by tweaking the submodalities of each until they were just right. This way you can access the pictures quickly and easily when you come to do the swish.


Once you have the two pictures ready it is time to swish using the following steps:-

1. Access the first picture - the associated picture of the present state.

2. Imagine that the picture is on a rubber sheet. Suddenly the rubber sheet is
grabbed from behind and the picture is crumpled down to a tiny dot. Then the
rubber sheet is pulled rapidly backwards so that the picture is
drawn off into the distance with it.

3. Imagine the tension in the rubber as it is pulled rapidly backwards, further and
further, until S-W-I-S-H the rubber snaps back into place and is now showing the
second picture - the dissociated, desired state.

4. Clear the screen, empty your mind of the swish pattern you just did and think of anything. Again, this step is of importance.

5. Run the process again from step one to step 4, repeating the process seven times. It's important that you do this process as quickly as you can - you should need only a very few seconds to do each repetition.

Once you've done the swish seven times you should find that if you can think of the old picture it is immediately and automatically replaced by the new picture - the swish has become an automated process inbuilt in your neurology. If the swish doesn't become automatic after the first seven repetitions, do another seven repetitions and test again. Swish patterns usually become fully automated after 3, 7 or 21 repetitions.

The idea is to associate the act of being asleep and dreaming (non-lucid dreams) with being critically aware, so that next time you fall asleep and dream, you will have awareness show up in your dreams.