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This article is about an innovative technique — using EFT in dreams. It explains the theoretical background in why EFT combined with Lucid Dreaming can have a major impact on people's lives, and how to do it. Anxiety can be defused if we become conscious in our dreams. Part 2 will go into the background with more techniques.
Combining EFT with Lucid Dreaming
EFT is a feast - a gift to all who use it. It can instantly dispel the toxic waste that accumulates around negative feelings. But just consider how doubly effective it might be when you do it while you are dreaming. Many of us have the ultimate goal of finally ridding ourselves of anxieties, and with EFT this is attainable. Yet, Adults spend 25% of their lives in sleep — for babies it’s 50% — time which might be wasted for self-development, if sleep is only used to recharge batteries. We are often plagued by unknown anxieties in dreams. If we can learn to do EFT while the brain is in lower frequency brain wave patterns, it could impact directly on these anxieties, stimulating, clearing and realigning the meridian energy flow of the sleeping body.
In some way dreams help regulate and control how effective we are in life. Yet many people experience what Freud called "free floating anxiety." This often manifests in dreams with tense experiences that bleed into our waking lives, causing untold confusion, weakness, procrastination and fear. The anxious dream can be a bumpy ride filled with horrors. You wake up feeling jittery, and that carries into the day, triggering habitually ineffective reactions and responses. Now techniques developed by lucid dream experts can help you develop greater flexibility in your approach to waking life. It involves becoming conscious in your dreams. While this may not seem easy to control, people report having spontaneous lucid dreams and feeling elated at the memory. Surely, being lucid in any state of consciousness is desirable?
EFT and Lucid Dreaming
One day I started mental tapping while in this half-awake state, while immersed in my worries. It felt different. Tapping at this deep level of mind worked away at the underlying physiological roots. The brain makes no distinction between imagination and the real thing as many studies have shown. My worries were stripped away in layers. So I wondered — what if conscious dreamers could tap on issues during their dreams? This innovative combination of techniques has rarely been tried outside psychotherapeutic practices. Be among the first to consciously tap while encountering a dream figure that seems threatening. It might just change your life.
Dreams occur in REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep which has a 90-minute cycle throughout the night. Admittedly, this might be tricky to pull off, like trying to see the end of your nose while tight-rope walking. As soon as you realise you are doing it, you are likely to wake up. Some theories suggest that lucidity is itself adrenaline-fueled, the energy we need to become awake and get up.
Lucid dreaming expert, Stephen LaBerge, recommends that you should just slip back into the dreamscape. It’s easy enough to do EFT with eyes closed, mentally, developing strong inner visualisation of the meridian points. Imagine tapping them. This works rapidly to counter negative thoughts that sprout habitually from patterns woven into the fabric of the subconscious. Perhaps results won’t manifest immediately, as to do it while asleep may take some time to achieve. While this practice requires strong intention, plenty of patience, good timing, awareness and skill, everyone should be able to do. You might just find that you have a knack for it.
Using EFT in Dreams
Bad dreams are good opportunities to practice EFT to re-balance and re-harmonize internally. Carlos Castaneda even suggests that these dreams stem from ‘inorganic entities’ (The Art of Dreams, 1994).
Imagine the scenario: you’re about to open a door; there is darkness, shadows; you feel threatened, in grave danger. What’s behind the door? Maybe nothing, but that does not help you when you are there. It is survival mechanics. We are prone to such experiences in dreams as the dream body is separated from sensations so has free reign to create phantoms and bogey men. The subconscious mind is at large and completely unedited. This gnawing feeling of disquiet may appear as someone chasing you, or as standing on a cliff, or a high building. You are teetering on the edge, falling or running away from a demon tiger that hasn’t had lunch yet. It is not enough to know this might be a projection of your own fears. We need to take action there and then. The fear works so fast, we have such little control that it may already have triggered the molecules of emotion that create our reality, and pumped adrenaline into your system, leaving you exhausted and full of inexplicable tensions when you wake up. This cycle could continue for years without our realising.
EFT Tapping While Dreaming
Here’s what you can do: When you catch yourself dozing, and running through nightmare scenarios, with free floating anxiety, mentally do EFT on them. Fully imagine yourself tapping eyebrows, side of the eyes, under the nose, chin and collar bone and mentally repeat the phrases. The power of intention is undisputed. This is not just mental tapping which you can do any time of the day, but goes deeper into slower delta and theta brain wave patterns. Observe any dream phantoms melt away.
1) Karate Point/Sore Point: Even though I’m feeling anxious I love and accept myself completely.
Eyebrow: This anxiety
Side of Eye: This fear,
Under the Nose: this trembling, …… this horrible feeling…. this weakness, this enemy within.. etc.
2) Karate Point/Sore Point: Even though I’m being chased by a monster round the house, I love and accept myself completely. This beastly face. .. this demon.. this shadow self.. this mirror of myself.. this un-integrated part… this thing that chases me
3) Karate Point/Sore Point: Even though I’m paralysed with fear, I love and accept myself completely and profoundly.
Meridian points: This fear.. this petrified state.. this impasse .. this stalemate.... this blockage.. this sign I need to change… this inflexibility.. feeling paralysed etc
Breathe and even drink an imaginary glass of water to aid the flow of energy. The effect of repeating these words in this way is like a mantra. It helps increase greater awareness in dreams, and sharpens the experience of everyday life. A bonus is that it provides the groundwork for expanding the mind’s capacity to be flexible and supple, just as in yoga practice. You need never become fixated on anything if it is "just a dream" dredged up by the layer of your own attitudes, assumptions and beliefs.
Kieron Devlin
London, England
Originally published on August 25, 2010.
Jade Barbee says
Thanks Kieron. While I have never tapped intentionally in a dream, I do tap on dream scenes as I remember them. I rely on dreams to tell me what is really bothering me, and they seem to speak in a very symbol-oriented language. I’ve come to trust that the symbols, people and events in dreams (like a bottle of champagne, a hike or familiar friend), reflect my emotional reality – my life concerns – at any given time. I also find that as I replay dream scenes and tap (like a version of the Movie Technique), I get resolution around the people and places that have appeared.
It’s been quite a trick to learn to recall my dreams – and I often forget to do so. However, I have come to trust that what I feel in the dream and how I feel when thinking about the dream upon waking are both very revealing. Incidentally, I have found the surest way for me to remember a dream is to intend to remember it the night before and sit with whatever images I can recall. While lucid dreaming is rare for me, I will certainly try it with the intention of tapping along with what’s going on! Thanks for sharing your experience in this area – and thanks for sharing this innovative and exciting tapping exploration. It obviously has got me thinking! – J
Klaus says
Thank you! Very interesting article! I have “caught” myself doing EFT while dreaming. Sometimes, after awakening from a bad dream, I automatically start tapping the points which usually has me turning around to sleep on without problems, not even having reached the underarm point.
Klaus