I’ve come to have my fair share of dreams about bridge, tournaments, and the ghost of Ely Culbertson preparing to play.

While I’m not sure how many bridge players statistically dream about the game too, I can imagine that there must be at least a few. When a pastime becomes as integral to your life as contract bridge, it’s going to show up in your dreaming mind.

If you have ever dreamt of bridge, how would like better control over what happened in the dream? In fact, if you have ever had a paralysing nightmare, what could taking control of the dream mean to you?

The second question there is what brought me to study the skill of lucid dreaming at a young age.

Simply, it’s dream control, and it’s something that can be learned with patience and time.

Here’s how to learn the skill of lucid dreaming (& bridge played in the mind).

What is lucid dreaming?

Lucid dreaming is a therapeutic sleep technique, often taught to people who desire more control over what happens in their dreams.

The skill teaches how to visualize better, how to realize that you are dreaming, and how to take full control of dreams (and how you’re moving into them).

That’s pretty useful.

It can be used to imagine games, view locations, or deal with fears like stage fright or scary bridge games head-on. Trauma can be processed in the form of a more controlled dream,

How is lucid dreaming triggered?

There are several ways.

Sometimes, it can be triggered from within a dream when you suddenly realize you are dreaming. Once you see something in a dream that defies gravity, logic, or common sense, learn to tell yourself that I AM DREAMING.

Yes, that sentence is deliberately in caps. If you dream about it later, congratulations. That’s a lucid dream.

The second method is called WILD. It’s short for Wake Induced Lucid Dreaming. When done through the WILD method, the idea is to “stay alert” during the body’s transition from wakefulness-to-sleep.

It’s a little more complicated and takes more practice for some people, but I’ve written a paragraph to make it easier. Just read on.

How does WILD work?

First, I want you to look up sleep phases through your nearest online encyclopedia. Then, look up the term Sleep Paralysis. You’ll need to understand these to pull this off – and to make sure it’s a relaxing experience, and not a terrifying one.

The concept of WILD is a direct transition from being awake into a conscious dream.

When going to sleep normally, the brain switches to another phase without knowing it. But during WILD, the goal is to keep the brain awake and aware during the transition. That’s where you go through Sleep Paralysis.

Some people try counting, others use music. The trick is to breathe, and to focus on the goal as much as possible without moving your body at all. Tensing-and-relaxing the muscles helps.

Sound complicated? That’s exactly what I said earlier, but it’s not difficult.

Sleep paralysis is when the brain “switches off” the body, to make sure that you don’t act out your dreams when asleep. If you keep your brain aware here, you might see lights play across your eyes, or you might hear things you’d only hear in a dream. By this point, your body feels a little heavy.

If you spot this, WILD is working – and this is just before the switch to a dream.

Focus on where you would like your dream to go, and you’ll be there before you know it.

Did you ever imagine you could get to a bridge game in your head, much like the movie Inception (but minus the equipment)? Now you do – give it a try!