Lucid dreaming is understanding of the fact that you are dreaming. This awareness can vary from very weak recognition of the fact to something as momentous as a broadening of awareness beyond what has ever been experienced even in waking life.
Lucid dreams generally happen while a person is in the middle of a regular dream and suddenly realizes that they are dreaming. Once you realize this, you have the ability to control your dreams, which is pretty much the most essential part of lucid dreaming.
Tip 1
Keep a dream journal. This is perhaps the most important step towards lucid dreaming. Keep it close by your bed at night, and write in it immediately after waking. Or you can keep a recording device if you find it easier to repeat your dream out loud. This helps you recognize your common dream elements (people from your past, specific places, etc.), and also tells your brain that you are serious about remembering your dreams! It will also help you to recognize things that are unique to your dreams. You will be able to recognize your own “dream signs.” These will be recurring things or events that you may notice in your dreams.
Tip 2
During the day, repeatedly ask “Am I dreaming?” and perform some reality checks whenever you remember. With practice, if it happens enough, you will automatically remember it during your dreams and do it.
Tip 3
Try marking an “A” (which stands for “awake”) on your palm. Every time you notice the “A” during your waking hours challenge whether you are awake or asleep. Eventually you may see the “A” in your sleep and become lucid.
Tip 4
Attempt the WBTB (Wake Back To Bed) Technique. This is the most successful technique.
• Set your alarm clock to 5 hours after you fall asleep.
• Fall asleep.
• After you wake up, stay up for an hour with your mind focused on lucidity and lucidity only.
• Go back to sleep using the MILD technique.
Tip 5
Try attempting the WILD (wake initiated lucid dream) technique. Basically what it means is that when you fall asleep you carry your awareness from when you were awake directly into REM sleep and you start out as a lucid dream.
• Try to meditate into a calm but focused state. You can try counting breaths, imaging ascending/descending stairs, dropping through the solar system, being in a quiet soundproof area, etc.
• An easy way to get your body to the brink of sleep is by lying in your bed and focusing your awareness onto the back of your head where it touches the pillow. Wait until your inner-voice shuts off then you can imagine sinking into your pillow until your body is just about asleep. Now shift your awareness out of your body while trying to hold onto your awareness as tightly as possible. This will mean your body falls asleep and you will pass lucidly into the dream world.
• Listening to Theta binaural beats for an amount of time will easily put you into a REM sleep.
• See the warnings at the bottom, as these are very important.
Other Tips
• To end sleep paralysis (which is not dangerous) try wiggling your toes or swallowing. When you are in sleep paralysis, your brain is sending a signal to the rest of your body to immobilize your muscles so you don’t thrash around while you sleep. The larger muscles are usually more affected than the smaller ones. So trying to wiggle your toes tends to wake you up during a state of sleep paralysis.
• Performing reality checks upon awakening can help you to detect “false awakenings” within dreams, wherein you dream that you have woken up, and thus lose lucidity.
• If you find the dream is not going how you want it to, “close your eyes” for a bit and then open very forcefully. It might not work the first time but you will eventually end up actually opening them.
• You can try visualizing something in your hand, or in your pocket. Trying to feel its weight, shape, and texture may help. In case of a nightmare, or other frightening dream, if practiced, this can become a self-defense system against any of those perils. Of course, they will not really harm you, but it IS fun to blast a horribly disfigured monster at point-blank with a rocket-launcher of some sort.
• Keeping a dream journal is important; it not only helps you spot abnormalities, but it also helps dream recollection, thus a more enjoyable and memorable experience.
• Get your own reality check and use it a couple times a day. You could use a coin that you spin on the table. If the coin stops spinning, you know that everything around you is reality. If you make this your daily routine and do this a couple times a day, you’ll have a good chance that you will do this in your dream. You’ll notice that the coin won’t stop, and gain full control because you know you’re dreaming.
• It is also cool to teleport. Close your eyes, spin your dream body, and envision a brand new landscape and open your eyes.
• Remember that it’s a dream and some things that happen in it may never happen again. So even if it is just your dream, if you found a good friend or someone you love just tell them what you think because you may never get that chance again.
• Another good reality check can be constantly having something in your pocket. If you look at your pocket and something’s not in there, you will realize you are dreaming.
• When recalling a dream upon waking, try not to move. Activating your muscle neurons can make it more difficult to access the parts of your brain that allow you to recall your dream.
• Write down what you remember when you remember it. Most people remember dreams from nights before If you write down whatever you remember, your brain will get used to remembering instances from your dreams.
• If you have trouble remembering your dreams, then whenever you wake up, lie back on your pillow, close your eyes, and try to remember backwards what happened in the dream.
• You can also try shape-shifting. It is hard to do it on command, but you can also make an ‘excuse’ to transform by making a transformation machine or a magic assistant that can change you into an animal.
• Though frightening, sleep paralysis is completely harmless, and will wear off once your body realizes that it’s no longer asleep.
• If you cannot remember the dream, focus on the feelings that you felt. Trying too hard to remember the dream will only take your mind away from it. Chances are your mind will think of everything but the dream.
• If you notice something happening that is impossible in real life, such as being able to breathe underwater, this can act as a reality check to alert you to the fact that you are dreaming.
• Lucid dreaming may be helpful for people who frequently experience nightmares, as it gives them a chance to take control of their dreams.
• Remember if you get very excited during your lucid dream, it might cause you to wake up suddenly. At this point, focus on your dream, rub your hands, or spin around and concentrate.
• There can be special cues to lucid dreams to find. For example, you may find colors or walls shifting and changing in unnatural ways, try to pick up these changes and you may realize you are lucid dreaming.
• Do not drink any fluids for one hour prior to sleeping. The last thing you want is to wake up from successfully lucid dreaming just because you had to use the bathroom.
• Pre-determine what you want to achieve in a lucid dream while you are awake. When you become lucid in a dream, you will already know what you want to do.
• When you are aware you are dreaming, make sure you know it is a dream at all times. Remember, there are no social consequences, everything, even the characters are just part of your imagination, you cannot get hurt, you need make to keep your dream stable, and you have total control of everything, including your actions, other characters actions, the environment, even physics with a few thoughts. Remember that and you will have total control over dreams at all times.
• Some medications can affect dreams and their frequency as a side effect.
• Keep a dream journal next to your bed to record your dreams.
• To help control specific things in your dream practice those things while your awake. For example to help yourself become a lucid dreamer try turning on and off a light switch slowly multiple times throughout the day then try doing the same action(turning on or off the lights) in your dream.
• What a dreamer does with lucidity reflects personal tendencies and levels of skill attained usually through experience and practice. Although a lucid dreamer can influence the dream’s structure, characters, course, etc., it is not a given that a lucid dream is about what the dreamer wants it to be about. Seasoned lucid dreamers who are more often lucid than not will continue to encounter psychological and developmental challenges in the dream scape. The agreeable and the distressing, the easy and difficult, beautiful and horrifying, are all occasioned much as they are in regular dreaming. But whereas a regular dream is filled with the convoluted subtleties of the subconscious mind enumerating its issues before a largely unconscious dreamer, a lucid dreamer has the opportunity to consciously explore at any level.
• Listen to Binaural Beats. Binaural Beats are often used to induce lucid dreams, and many assure this method dramatically improves success rate. Theoretically, listening to Binaural Beats lowers brain frequencies, triggering different effects such as relaxation and dream induction. Look for Theta bin-aural beats, as they use the same brainwave frequency used in dreams. You may also want to listen to Alpha and Delta binaural beats as they help you relax and fall into non-REM sleep.
• It is fun to fly in lucid dreams. To start flying try bouncing higher and higher after each step (while “walking” in the dream.) Some find that they need to train themselves, while others can just think that they want to fly, and therefore lift off the ground, and start to hover. You can also try walking on walls or the ceiling, as flying for the first time can be intimidating if you are not totally convinced that you are dreaming. Many people experience flying as being very natural and very exhilarating.
• It is a good idea to purposely wake a few minutes after becoming lucid, once you have experienced what you wanted to experience. This way, you can wake up with the dream very fresh in your mind, and have excellent recall. If you do not wake up, the dream may simply fade away into the night, and could be forgotten.
• While sleeping if your body starts to tingle then your muscles are beginning to relax and you on your way to dreaming, this is the time to tell yourself I am about to dream.
• Creativity and imagination are key for having more dreams and dreaming about the things you want to.
Have fun!
