People will talk about astral dreaming and lucid dreaming and sometimes wonder if a difference exists. You can be asleep yet, still conscious and even conscious while dreaming. These are sample phases of awareness.
Lucid dreamers tune out from the physical world, that is, they choose not to be in conscious sensory contact with it. They act as if they know what they are doing when they do it. You can learn to awaken your senses and experience new kinds of contact with dream worlds. One view is that astral and lucid dreaming differ based on what part of your mind is in control. Subconscious mind levels work differently.
If you believe that human consciousness only permits you to focus attention on one or a few things at once, then you begin to realize you are less conscious than you could be and it takes energy to focus and raise awareness. Consider your own experience. Reflect on these four signs you may be lucid;
1) You recall lessons you have learned in waking life during your dreams. Non-lucid dreamers experience state-specific amnesia. That is, while asleep, they only remember fragments of waking reality, if any at all. They do not sense a bridge or move beyond it.
2) You sense you are radically shifting or transforming experience. Completely lucid dreams have a profound and lasting impact on the dreamer's thoughts and perception. You move from feeling contained within the dream world to where you transcend it, realize you create it, and expand. You no longer totally identify with dream roles.
3) Insight you acquire during dreams is accessible when you awaken. Inventors, scientists, business people and others have been inspired during sleep with ideas they write and apply while awake. It enables you to access deeper answers within you.