“All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream”. ~Edgar Allan Poe
A lucid dream is defined as any dream in which the dreamer is cognizant that they are actually dreaming. During the lucid process, the dreamer has some control over the story, dream characters, and settings. As you might be searching online for the best lucid dreaming techniques you will notice lots of options.
Though most important you must start with the basics as lucid dreaming takes time and practice. The first and most basic step of learning how to lucid dream is to have journal handy. Have a look at some of the basic steps to give you a nice kick start to lucid dreaming.
Dream Journal
Writing in a dream journal on a daily basis will improve dream recall drastically. The people who forget their dreams are the same ones who don’t take the time to remember them. It is important to note that we lose most of our dream memory the very first minute we walk up.
This is essential that you try and gather as much of the dream you can remember then writing it down in your book. If you just remember an object, just write it down as you strengthen your memory for the next night.
As time will go on you will notice more and more objects, scenes and scenarios in more detail. Even if you get up in the middle of the night, you can use this opportunity to thinking back to what dream you just had. You will then use this chance to open the door to start lucid dreaming.
Wake Up From Sleep
Lucid studies have confirmed that once you program yourself to get up from sleep then go right back induces lucid dreams. The reason is you are more likely to jump right back in to a lucid state because your brain is active but your body is still wanting more sleep. This technique has been quite successful for the beginners to lucid dreaming.
Reality Checks
Increase your lucid mindfulness through out the day. It doesn’t matter if you are working or walking your dog, telling yourself “Am I dreaming” are one of the basic reality checks to tune your unconscious in.
Making these reality checks a habit as well as recognizing that you are aware and not dreaming. Touch your mouth, clap your hand and drink water. Look at your movements as in your dreams all of these symbols become distorted.
Intentions Before Bed
Say to yourself before you hit the pillow that “I will become aware in my dreams” “I will become lucid when I dream” before you sleep. This will unconsciously remind you that you want to lucid dream by showing awareness.
This technique is known as Mnemonic Induction to Lucid Dreaming, or MILD. Mnemonic induction simply means “using memory aids,” or in this case using a rote phrase to turn the awareness of your dreaming into an automatic habit.
Meditation
Different forms of breathing meditation or mindful meditation helps increases ones chance to lucid dream. Once you are focusing on the here and now when you mediate, then you will be able to focus on the hear and now when you are dreaming easier.
Becoming more in tuned with oneself in their walking life creates a separation between the ego and self. As this happens you can become more consciously aware of yourself and your mind and thoughts will be more at ease. This can also help train you to control your thoughts, like when you are having a lucid dream you can control the settings.
Lucid Dreams Experiences
Steve. B
“I had an amazingly lucid dream last night where I was running up some stairs and then I just started flying and had complete control of where I was going and how high or low I was flying.
I had so much control that as I was flying past a tree I thought to myself I want to fly through the branches and was able to stop, turn around and fly back to the tree and weave in and out through the branches.
It was the most incredible dream I’ve ever had. But I got so excited about the control I had and how good I felt that I lost focus and woke up. When I woke up my arms were both pointed out in front of me towards the ceiling in my bedroom. I was smiling from ear to ear all day, and even now as I’m writing this and recalling the dream”.
Grace:
“When I was in middle school, I was falling asleep in the living room and I remember my dad messing around with the tv. (Mom was somewhere on the side where I couldn’t see her but I could hear her moving around.)
He was telling me about some sort of special signal/channel that was supposed to come on that day. Then he turned on the tv and a movie was starting, only it didn’t all fit on the screen. It was like a projection where the projector is pointing too much to the right.
Then I closed my eyes and fell asleep but the movie didn’t stop. I could still see and here everything. It was a pretty good movie, but I can’t really remember it anymore. (Something about finding treasure, pretty sure there was romance in it) As I was waking up, I realized that I was in my room on my bed. I was still sleepy and if I closed my eyes I could still see the credits rolling down (but I didn’t focus on the credits since I never do anyway).
I didn’t remember seeing the movie title so I closed my eyes (the credits were still going) and focused on trying to remember the name. Two words came to mind for some reason but I wasn’t sure if that was the title. Slowly the credits started to fade as I became fully awake. I went to the living room to use my dad’s computer.
My dad was there so I asked him what the movie we saw last night was called. He looked confused, so I asked him about the special signal/channel and reminded him of how he was messing around with the tv the night before. He didn’t remember anything. Neither did my mom. I used the computer to go on yahoo movies.
I Typed in the two words. It showed up and the summary matched with what I saw. It had just come out recently and was playing in theaters. My parents asked if I wanted to go see that movie (they probably thought that I just wanted to go see it really bad since I seemed to be so interested in it), but I smiled and said, “Why would I do that? I’ve already seen it.”
Kirsty .O
“I had a lucid dream where i had control of the environment and believe me it was wonderful experience :like your own virtual world.… So moving to lucid dream is good for confidence and problem solving skill”.
Dave. M
“I experience something similar. When I was a kid around the age of 7 or 8, I began to have horrible realistic nightmares. They were gruesome vivid dreams about things like mass genocide and Armageddon. I would wake up from these dreams crying then when I went back to sleep I’d fall back into one of these types of nightmares. These dreams were so crazy that my mom didn’t want me to tell her about them anymore because she would freak out.
Eventually she would tell me that when I woke up from one of those dreams I’d have to chant to myself “Turn off the bad dreams and turn on the good dreams” and pretend that it was like a TV set where I can just change the channel, so when I fell back to sleep I wouldn’t have another nightmare.
I started doing it every night before bed until eventually I wouldn’t even have to chant anymore. The moment my dreams started to become a nightmare I would change it to anything I want. I always new when I was dreaming and I could alter anything my appearance my surroundings, anything and it has been this way ever since.
As I started getting older I stopped lucid dreaming every night as I don’t really have the need to anymore but they still do happen often without me trying. There are moments in my waking life where I find that I am unable to tell if I am dreaming or not.
Along with having moments like these I sometimes also get hit with strong forms of deja vu and it seems like as the years go by it last for longer and longer periods of time. I can start to see things before they happen and as long as I focus on it and follow along with it, it can last for a little while”.