Dreaming With Eyes Open: The Overlooked Skill of State Mastery

One of the common habits I see among coaches, trainers, and NLP practitioners is this: when they are eliciting a state, they have their clients close their eyes first (and they do the same with themselves).

At first glance, this sounds harmless and even helpful. Closing the eyes seems like a natural way to cut off distractions, focus inward, and stabilize one’s inner world, but there’s a problem. Ultimately the outer world is where we will need to access our resources, and if you only practice your desired states with your eyes closed you won’t develop the ability to carry them into the real world where distractions and interferences are unavoidable.

Think about “The 6 Levels State Mastery”. At the early levels (1–3), the aim is to make changes in the inner world. Here, closing your eyes is perfect. it allows you to block out input and stabilize your desired internal representations.

But at the higher levels (4–6), the game changes. Now the task is to bring those inner transformations outward and to live them and to respond from them within real-world conditions. In these contexts, practicing with eyes closed sets you up for a collapse the moment you step back into life with its ever-changing stimuli, distractions, and interruptions. Real self-mastery will require you to hold your state stable in the presence of outer distractions.

One way to approach this is through progressive training, what I call the “rings of risk”.  For example, once you’re able to access and anchor your desired states with your eyes closed, the next level would be to maintain your state with your eyes open in that same calm environment. Learning how to stabilize the state without needing to shut out the outer world (of course we could even make finer distinctions within that first ring, for example one may need to practice with eyes open yet blurred/defocused before they can be fully present in the moment and gaze focused outwardly while fully maintaining their state).

Once you can do that, the next step could be to practice in mildly distracting or lightly triggering environments. And then you can keep expanding into more and more challenging environments until you can reliably hold your state in the most testing contexts where you’ll need them most.

The good news is that every time you “fail” to maintain your state in a progressively more challenging context, you’ve discovered the edge of your current capability. That isn’t a setback, it’s just a map of your current level of preparation and your next level of practice.

When you can consistently hold your state with eyes open, you’ve begun bridging the gap between your inner world and the outer world. This is one of the core skills of self-leadership: living inside-out, being self-directed, operating from your inner authority and creating a stable core from which to respond to life’s inevitable ups and downs.

Of course, this doesn’t mean fully cutting yourself off from the outside world. If you refuse to take in feedback, you risk drifting into closed-mindedness, self-centeredness and being out of touch with reality. But when you cultivate a strong and healthy internal core, you can remain open to receive feedback without getting thrown off balance or losing yourself within yourself. You strengthen your ability to choose your responses, rather than being pulled into old habits by external triggers.

So practice with eyes closed first, then with eyes open. Practice in calm spaces first, then in real life trials. Persist and you can discover how deep your rabbit hole goes.

“Dreaming with open eyes means daring to see beyond what is, into what could be.” And that’s my invitation for you.

Don’t just dream with eyes closed, learn to dream with your eyes open. Practice your states in the world where they matter most.  In doing so, you’ll find yourself not just imagining change, but transforming your dreams into reality.