Learn How to Lucid Dream

What is Lucid Dreaming?

Lucid dreaming is a form of dreaming in which the dreamer becomes aware that he is dreaming and then able to consciously control what happens in the dream. It's a very odd, but exhilarating experience because it is a very vivid form of visualization. The dreamer has to merely put forth a thought and the subconscious will fill in all the blanks. It requires a constant mental effort or else the subconscious takes back over the dream. Through this technique the dreamer can do just about anything. Some of the things that a lucid dreamer could do is fly, go skydiving, run crazy obstacle courses, play video games, create worlds of energy, create two dimensional realities. It's like reality+. You can do just about everything you could in real life plus more, and it's all completely under your control.

How to Lucid Dream

Some people find lucid dreaming much easier than others. There is a way to train yourself to lucid dream. It can take up to a year, but if you're persistent then there should be results. There isn't anything crazy that you have to do, but it needs to become routine. One annoying factor is that you're going to have to give yourself some extra time in the mornings, so you'll have to get up earlier than you usually do.

Also, if you are taking anything that causes you to not dream, that's something you're going to have to eliminate in order to be able to lucid dream. Alcohol, for instance, greatly cuts down the amount of time that your brain experiences Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, which is the period of sleep in which you dream.

If you're having trouble dreaming in the first place, there are a couple things you can do to stimulate it. First off, try concentrating on the idea of dreaming as you go to sleep. Tell yourself that tonight you will dream. Practice visualization as you drift off.

It's also very possible that you just forget you even had any dreams. It's easiest to remember your dreams if you wake up straight out of REM sleep. If you're finding that you're consistently not able to remember having any dreams, try setting your alarm to go off an hour or two early and see if that doesn't work (obviously, you don't want to do this on a regular basis).

Finally, there's drugs, which I am very cautious about recommending since dreaming is a completely natural function that you're trying to stimulate, so using drugs as a jump start can work, but don't let yourself become dependent on them in order to dream, or sleep for that matter, as that would be counterproductive. That being said, melatonin can greatly stimulate the dream process, and lucid dreaming for that matter. If you do use melatonin, make sure to do so on a night where you can get plenty of sleep.

The Dream Journal

So, the first step on your journey towards lucid dreaming is to get a Dream Journal (DJ). This is something that you should keep at your bed, preferably within reach without having to get out of bed. Obviously, you'll need a pen to go along with it. Each time that you wake up from a dream, immediately write down everything you can about it. Don't fall into the trap of assuring yourself that you'll get to it in a minute. Force yourself to get up and write. Write down every detail, no matter how disturbing. Depending on the content, you may want to keep your DJ private. This stimulates your brain to consciously access the part of your brain that was dreaming. At first you'll only get a couple lines down for each dreaming session, but eventually you'll be able to remember more and more. Don't worry if you're rambling, as remembering one part of the dream will spark a remembrance of another part.

Once you've gotten to the point where you dream regularly and can write down your dreams in a decent amount of detail, start analyzing them. You'll obviously need quite a bit of content to do so. Identify elements that keep popping up in your dreams. This could be anything from specific people, animals, objects, or situations. Make a list of these Dream Identifiers (DI).

Reality Checks

Next, you need to create a Reality Check (RC). Remember how in the movie Inception DiCaprio had a top he would spin to verify that he wasn't dreaming? We're going to do just that but for the opposite purpose. The first RC that I recommend is to look at your closed hand and slowly open it one finger at a time. In a dream your fingers will distort. They'll stretch out, become wavy, or melt into two dimensional strings. Another RC is to look at the clock. Analog clocks work best since in a dream you'll see the hands moving, but a digital clock works as well since the numbers will change, especially if you look at it, look away, and the check the time again a second later. There are a couple others, such as flipping light-switches on and off repeatedly, but I don't like a lot of them since you can't perform them anywhere, and if you do them in real life (which we're about to get to), you'll probably annoy the people around you. These RC's must be something you can perform at any time a DI pops up.

So, the next step is to start performing a RC whenever you encounter a DI while you're awake. You need to turn it into a habit. This habit should make it's way into your dreams, and when you perform your RC things will start to get a little weird. You'll have a hard time accepting that you're dreaming at first since it seems so real and vivid, but you'll know logically that you must be in a dream since what you're experiencing just does not make sense.

Lucid Dreaming at Last

And then you'll wake up. You'll wake up a lot once you hit this point. Don't get discouraged, as you've taken a monumental step towards achieving lucid dreaming. At first you'll wake up the moment that you realize that you're dreaming. When you hit that moment of realization, concentrate on staying in your dream. This is hard to do since when you realize that you're dreaming, you become aware of your body lying and sleeping. This is what wakes people up.

Eventually, you'll achieve a sort of union between sleeping body and dreaming mind. This is when you stay in the dream. You'll still be completely aware of your body sleeping, but you'll stay in the dream and be able to move your focus back into it. I remember the first time I lucid dreamed I realized that I was dreaming and expected to wake up like I had so many times before, but I didn't.

This is a very exciting moment. You won't know what to do with yourself at first. Just play around with the dream world. Think of anything and your subconscious will fill in all the details. Avoid taking too much control as your subconscious will simply not be used to it and you'll wake up. Instead, slowly implement more and more control as you have more and more dream sessions. Also, avoid anything that is too physically stimulating as that too has a tendency to wake you up in your early days of lucid dreaming.

Some Additional Information

Finally, lucid dreaming is like working out. If you stop, you will gradually loose your ability to do so. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it's something that you should be aware of if you throw in all that effort to achieve lucid dreaming. Figure out your own priorities.

Also, eventually your RC will stop working as your mind will be able to create more stable dreams. By that point you should be fairly experienced with the dream world, so you'll have to create your own reality checks on the go within the dream. A great way of doing this is to try to take control of the dream. Just be vigilant (in real life as well as in the dream world) and pay attention to things. If you're dreaming without having realized it, something will pop up that just doesn't make sense.

The more you dream, the longer you'll be able to stay in the dream world. Lucid dreaming works the same way. The first couple times I had lucid dreams, they only lasted a couple of minutes. As I become more acquainted with lucid dreaming, though, I was able to stay in my dreams longer and longer. Eventually I got to the point where I could spend a couple days worth of time in a dream. This can be a little disorienting when you wake up, but it doesn't take too long to remember where you are or what day it is.

Happy dreaming!