Dream music/soundscapes as a platform for becoming lucid

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For more than 2 years, I have developed the habit, upon naturally waking around 3 in the morning, of inserting ear pods and turning on some dream music on my smartphone before diving back into the dream world. (Over time, I have developed quite a collection of soundscapes mp3s that are perfect for dreaming, and sound even better during a dream than during wakefulness).

This gives a few hours for me to drift into and out of dreams, and gradually become lucid in a dream. Many times, during a dream, I hear the music, as it is perceived during the dream, and I even think how beautiful it is. Now I have started developing the habit during the day, while listening to music, of asking myself “Ah, there is music – am I dreaming now?” Getting into that habit, hopefully that asking this question all the time will become automatic and rub off on my early morning dreaming.

Has anyone else had any experience with dream soundscapes like this?

-Bill

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Welcome. What a great opening number!

I’ve seen a few soundscapes posted on YouTube and often wondered if people were using them as you describe. I’ve been hesitant to put anything in my ears overnight —I wear hearing aids and have been cautioned about falling asleep with them. I tried playing some of those tunes on my smartphone, but never seemed to penetrate my dreams. Can you suggest some music? Are you using Apple Ear pods?

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Hi Barry - glad you liked the idea of listening to soundscapes while you dream. I can’t get any of my friends fired up about it enough to try it out, but maybe some of the lucid dreamers in this group might.

Ah, you wear hearing aids - that might indeed conflict. Better ask the people who sold them to you. Earpods are nice during the night for more than just music - a few hours ago, I woke up at 1:30 and couldn’t sleep, so I listened to a few podcasts, then settled down to some dreamy soundscape, before meditating a while and finally dozing off.

If earpods just are not going to work, look on AliExpress or Amazon (much more expensive than Ali) for “headband bluetooth”. I tried one for a while, but it only had a 2 hr. lifespan before recharge, so I switched back to earpods, which deliver the music right in the ear canal, and give 3-D stereo.

The earpods I use are from AliExpress (Alibaba in China is larger than Amazon and eBay together). At $1 apiece, that beats any price in Western stores - I go through many every year, but it’s so cheap it doesn’t matter. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000040559661.html
Or search aliexpress.com for ‘earpods’.

As for which music I recommend - I am rather fanatical about ambient music, having collected it for 40 years, now up to 3000 hrs on my PC. My favorite composers for dreaming are Max Corbacho (especially “The Talisman”), Warmth (esp. “Home”), Dan Pound, Hirotaka Shirotsubaki (esp. “Wet Petals”), Philip Wilkerson (esp. “Labyrinth”, which is good for your inner dreamer to construct a story on), and all the Space Ambient Mix that you find on Youtube. All these can be listened to on Spotify or Youtube. An easy way to download Spotify music to your computer is the software “Ondesoft Spotify converter” ($25). Be sure to download the pieces to your device (easiest to DL to a PC, then transfer to a smartphone, and use can use Audacity software to edit them, or delete sections you don’t like). Lots of browser extensions for downloading mp3s from YT. You don’t want to listen to a piece in bed via wifi, since it might go to another piece that is not at all conducive to dreaming and break up your session. Download first.

Watch out, this is very habit-forming. Some of them can produce much more pleasure in your dream state than while listening to the same piece during waking state. But then train your unconscious to ask “am I dreaming?” when you hear this kind of soundscape, and you’re on your way to lucidity!

If you want to really cast the line further out and see what ambient/space music there is, look at http://ambientmusicguide.com or synthsequences.com for reviews of all the albums. Whew! I’m still making my way through all this, it just grows exponentially as this type of music is ever more appreciated.

And let me know which ones you like… or if you explore other composers, I’d love to try new ones!

Bill

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Bill,

Thanks for the recommendations. I’m going to try using them from my iPhone, for the time being, to get acquainted with the process. Not sure if the pods will hurt my ears—do you find that to be a problem? I will work with some of the ones you cited to get started. I use lavender scent to perfume the room and I sleep in a shrine room, so the ambiance works well. I’ll get back to you after I give it a go. What fun!

Barry

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Nice one @samuibill !!

That’s a perfect daytime practice that evolved from your nighttime practice! Next thing you’re going to start walking through walls and levitating and all that! :wink:

I have no such experience, but something about sound and music is really powerful for me. Singing even (if no one is in a nearby galaxy, that is!).

I had a couple practices for my Kool-Aid Kult (spiritual path or whatever). The one that was supposed to be soothing and “they” push - doesn’t resonate. The one that they put to a tune - so singing? That’s my go-to.

And because this is totally irrrelevant - I learned that people who have a stutter when speaking can sing no problems. It engages a different part of the brain. I haven’t dug into the details why, I’m content just being fascinated at the power of sound/music!

@_Barry, there are headphones that have a ‘thumper’ that beats the beats into your skull.

A past friend worked for a company that sold a product/service for ADHD kids. It used sound (classical music), ‘percussion’ from the headphones, and motor-skill engagements to “train out” the ADHD. (I’m pretty sure martial arts accomplishes the same thing). I’ll save the ‘why’ of it.

The friend had access to an old “set” (ipod + balance board + ball on a string + non-thumper headphones) that he let me use when I was starting to lose my marbles. The combination of the complex noise, trying to wobble while hitting a tennis ball hanging on a string with my head, remembering what I was supposed to be doing, and the shut-down that comes with too much stimulus actually did SOMETHING. I had some surreal shifts. No progress tho (still living in moldy condo but wasn’t aware of it yet).

I wonder if you could utilize some of those percussion headphones? Wouldn’t be comfortable, and would be quiet w/o hearing aid (a rite of passage. I’m doomed to lose my ears and my teeth pretty soon here - cheers mom and dad and birth control! < long story there - just say that when women go off birth control pill, they suddenly can’t stand the smell of their husbands - it’s a dna phermone mismatch that was masked).

But headphones like that could do something I’d wager… :thinking:

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Physical hurt? They do not hurt my ears, and I must have pods in my ears 6-7 hours a day (I go to the beach here in the Thai island where I live to surf Youtube video interviews, and the pods sometimes need a USB amplifier for low volume audios - also available at AliExpress). But for your ears, since you use a hearing aid, I don’t know. Ask the people who installed your hearing aid, they’ll know.

(If your question concerned volume: it’s best to play the soundscapes at low volume… but there is a lower limit two - you don’t want to listen to near silence).

You said it, what fun! I spend much of every morning exploring new music and downloading it, separating it into “good for reading”, “good for contemplation”, “good for meditation”, or “good for dreaming”. With the advent of Binaural beat meditation soundscapes or Jeffrey Thompson mp3s (a pleroma of this on YT), it is interesting to listen to these soundscapes while meditating, in that state of “awareness without thought”.

And then, to our category of interest: using these mp3s to trigger lucidity in dreams. For me, it is not so much (yet) for me becoming lucid while listening to the soundscapes, but of making up stories for my dreams to take, and being slightly able to direct the dreams. This is even developing a new category of music on my music library: “narrative”, i.e. soundscapes that help give the imagination a boost to create stories in one’s mind. Kevin Braheny - After I Said Goodnight, or Chris Russell & Philip Wilkerson - Labyrinth… both are good examples of this. Actually, I am searching YT this week for a guided meditation – a story form that can be played at the same time as the soundscape (edjing is an app that can play 2 mp3s at once on a smartphone).

Happy listening/dreaming!

Bill

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@samuibill,

When I was fitted for my hearing aids at the VA clinic they advised not falling asleep with them in, so I’ve been careful about that. Actually, I use the bluetooth capability to listen to books and music rather than aiding my hearing. You mentioned living in Thailand, which triggered a memory of falling asleep to various tracks of “Let it Bleed” by the Rolling Stones, when I was stationed at Korat for a few months in 1970-71. I can’t recall if that led to any dreams but who thought seriously about dreams in those days? Add The Incredible String Band’s “Job’s Tears” to the mix. Thanks for the followup track recommendations.

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@_Barry - a quick comment about using Spotify to download pieces. You do not need to sign up for the paid subscription if you use Ondesoft Spotify Downloader software ($25), since the software takes care of their (loud) advertisements. Just sign up for their free service. It is just a matter of defining a landing spot for, say, 10 pieces in an album, then joining them in one one-hour mp3 file. (I use the terminal to navigate to the folder with the pieces, then give the command “cat *.mp3 > joined.mp3”, rename ‘joined.mp3’ with the album’s name, and it works like a charm). Ondesoft has a limited free trial, I think.
$15 (Windows): https://www.noteburner.com/spotify-music-converter-for-windows.html or
https://slickdeals.net/f/14001668-spotify-music-converter-for-mac-or-windows-15
$20 (Windows/Mac): https://deals.ondesoft.com/sales/spotify-music-converter-for-mac

-Bill

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Actually, I use the bluetooth capability to listen to books and music rather than aiding my hearing.

Then that’s your answer for how to listen at night - get the Bluetooth earpods. Come to think about it, there is no reason that the wired version that I quoted earlier this week should not also work. Might be safer too (Bluetooth’s microwaves might not be too good for your brain, listening a few hours every night… but maybe this is wrong…)

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I often listen to music, soundscapes, podcasts and even news while falling asleep. I don’t like earbuds and have found that the “sleep headphones” with flat built in speakers work nicely. I don’t think bluetooth is very healthy and have gotten use to dealing with wires. If you are a side sleeper, don’t like headbands and don’t mind monaural listening, you can take the little speakers out of the headband and place one under your ear. When I wake up in the middle of the night and want to listen some more, it’s easy to find the speaker and readjust its position. The sounds I listen to often enter my dreams. If I’m listening to a podcast or NPR, a person in the dream will keep talking without interruption. That’s a good trigger for lucid dreaming, although getting the person to shut-up is impossible without removing the speaker from my ear. I can sometimes do that without interrupting the lucid dream.
~Timothy

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So I decided to use a bluetooth hearing aid in my left ear because I sleep on my right side, so it won’t get smushed. Listening for a couple of nights. Easier to fall asleep. No dreams yet, but lots of liminal images. Have to give it some time.

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Barry, what is the problem with falling asleep with hearing aids?

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I was cautioned by the VA Hospital staff about that. I figured that side-sleeping might damage them? I realized that I sleep on the right side, as recommended anyway, so it wouldn’t be a problem. The devices are pretty expensive and high tech so maybe people have been crushing them at night?

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Thanks, Barry. Just wondering. I figured it would be either a) damage to the hearing aid; b) damage to your ear; c) waking up half-asleep in the middle of the night and thinking “hey, a jellybean!” and eating it

~ArthurG

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Pretty ugly bean. Looks more like a beetle.

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@_Barry, I later bumped into the headphone ‘technology’ I mentioned prior.

“Bone Conduction Technology”

Sound waves are sound waves, and if they aren’t jiving with your eardrums anymore, they’re still waves. You know, when you can “feel the bass” sort of thing?

If it’s something you’d be interested in pursuing, here’s a launching point:

I know there are preferences and pains and sometimes falling asleep issues. Bone conduction could possibly bypass the need to sleep with an expensive beetle in your left ear. Yet might aggravate the other stuff.

I don’t see why a band or even those airplane neck pillows!!! couldn’t be jimmied with ‘bone conduct’ sound thingeys underneath/behind your ears. It’s been around long enough now that prices shouldn’t be stoopid high/proprietary still.

Shouldn’t.

Cents-on-the-dollar 1970’s blocky ‘other’ tech units for brainwave training are still going for >$1k.

(where’s China when we need them? They could do some good here! Oh, producing massive quantities of crappy knock-off random identical products with different logos and bad english descriptions that dominate amazon-dot-com anymore! :wink:)

(d’oh, Complaint Practice, Courtney! :ghost: I’ve wasted DAYS of my life trying to find a ‘real’ products - Amazon’s search is sneakier than Google’s, never relevant, and I can’t contact the company to enter a bug!)

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Actually, I figured out how to use a single hearing aid successfully. I lay in the Lion position so the HA is in my left ear. Works like a charm.

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or?

I pass out long before I can scrunch the lotus small enough to fit in my throat, much less the central channel, and getting the perspective of looking down.

Thank you for the orientation pointer. That’s Ph.D. level stuff, but I’ve noted it!

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@Courtney, that’s me lion, detachable tail.

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As a further note, based on a recent experience listening to Corbacho’s"The Ocean Inside" between dream and barely awake. (https://open.spotify.com/album/07ldtWPfUap2nQvPhAYce1?si=MpsfBhqeQ2ixaJtQxCkUGg) This soundscape brings back memories, which can come into images. Just a matter of inserting oneself into the set, in the early morning hours.

Bill