Thread: CHALLENGE: Post instructions for a novice to have lucid dreams in five or less sentences

This may not be such a good idea.

1. If someone doesn't want to read and research about this, he may not have interest in lucid dreaming. Thus no right mindset for it. And that is important to have.

2. 5 sentences will not do. And they may get discouraged if they don't get lucid on the first try.

It's not an accident that tutorials are longer than few sentences. Lucid dreaming is not done by following few steps and bam, you get a lucid dream. Someone could follow few steps, but that would be only after he reads and understands the what's and why's. And even then, those few steps may work for some, but not for others. Lucid dreaming is not math, it's an art.

So if I may suggest, have your friends come here, make a few posts, read a ton and we would be happy to help them out. But if someone has no interest, it will not work.

Good luck anyway, it's always good to be thinking of new ways of making this more approachable to rest of the population.

Originally Posted by gab

This may not be such a good idea.

1. If someone doesn't want to read and research about this, he may not have interest in lucid dreaming. Thus no right mindset for it. And that is important to have.

2. 5 sentences will not do. And they may get discouraged if they don't get lucid on the first try.

It's not an accident that tutorials are longer than few sentences. Lucid dreaming is not done by following few steps and bam, you get a lucid dream. Someone could follow few steps, but that would be only after he reads and understands the what's and why's. And even then, those few steps may work for some, but not for others. Lucid dreaming is not math, it's an art.

So if I may suggest, have your friends come here, make a few posts, read a ton and we would be happy to help them out. But if someone has no interest, it will not work.

Good luck anyway, it's always good to be thinking of new ways of making this more approachable to rest of the population.

I think most things in life can be simplified drastically. The people im speaking of have each borrowed and returned my lucid dreaming book but college and work are too pressing and they cant dedicate enough time to it. But they are very interested.

That being said i studied buddhism for 13 years. I memorized some complicated and lengthy texts, read thousands of pages of different books, went to different temples and spoke to many teachers who all suggested i learn even more varieties of things. It was like every time i lifted one object up it became two. Every single idea i started to open up became more ideas. It was never ending.

Then i met a zen monk. Now i study one phrase and thats it.

So im looking for the zen of lucid dreaming.

I find it highly unlikely that this simply does not exist.

Even if perhaps the five sentences would not be required to stand completely alone but when direction or instruction were needed the student could ask someone there should still be a way to stream line a technique.

You make a good point though. So a compromise perhaps? Maybe i should alter my thread to include giving the student a link to this site for questions? Maybe up it to 250 words or so? With these changes included i believe this is a plausible and potentially very useful idea.

Simplicity and ease are different concepts:

• If you want a simple, expect a response along the lines of "the key to increasing your awareness in dreams is to increase you awareness while awake"
• If you want easy, expect to get overly-simplified WBTB or Rhythmic Napping cliff notes.

Forcing a technique to be summarized in five sentences doesn't mean that technique will, in turn, be easier to learn. In fact, I suspect quite the opposite it true. There are plenty of nuances involved with lucid dreaming -- asking us to filter them out doesn't mean those nuances won't still be, it just means you won't know about them.

Originally Posted by TheUncanny

Simplicity and ease are different concepts:

• If you want a simple, expect a response along the lines of "the key to increasing your awareness in dreams is to increase you awareness while awake"
• If you want easy, expect to get overly-simplified WBTB or Rhythmic Napping cliff notes.

Forcing a technique to be summarized in five sentences doesn't mean that technique will, in turn, be easier to learn. In fact, I suspect quite the opposite it true. There are plenty of nuances involved with lucid dreaming -- asking us to filter them out doesn't mean those nuances won't still be, it just means you won't know about them.

thanks for giving the idea some attention you are surely right in some of this. however my outline is very specific and automatically rules out both of the deliberately simplistic/easy examples you've given. even if not, if someone posted such vague or simplistic answers i and everyone else would see them for just that and reject them as candidates for the exercise. my idea is a challenge to transcend exactly the pitfalls of which you speak. to truly get the point across in such a small amount of words. to find the middle ground between over explaining things which can accidentally cause people to have info overload, and giving too little, too vague or inefficient information.

nonetheless you have a point and i see where you're coming from and again i appreciate the thoughts.

i'm willing to bet you could give me a good five sentence guide! you know how to avoid the downfalls of such things since you gave examples of them so i imagine you've got what it takes to come up with a brilliant summary!

but before we write off my idea so hastily let's look around a bit.

on this site we have many beautiful tutorials. then theres several books on lucid dreaming that are popular and many other internet sources.

to my knowledge one of the most popular books that is agreed upon to be one of the best out there is exploring the world of lucid dreaming by stephen laberge and howard rheingold. many of these authors ideas are displayed on this site.

it's a thick book, packed with info. however one thing stephen and howard do is summarize each technique in a page or two. sometimes almost as little as five sentences. now these are summaries that assume the reader has read the longer explanation but it still is something to think about.

i think if some people put their minds to it they could come up with some very efficient summaries akin to and maybe even better than laberge/rheingolds.

if nothing else they could be posted at the end of the tutorials. the long explanation and then an extremely short but potent and easily remembered summary at the end.

if people would put their minds to it, especially some of the great minds i see on here, the odds of it achieving nothing useful are almost nil.





the unfortunate thing is that this simply is a good idea and yet no one is interested.

if i was a famous lucid dream researcher, like say stephen laberge himself, and everyone was excited to have me on the site answering questions and i posted exactly this i would have gotten fifty responses already and some of them would have been phenomenal!

no one would even question if it was a good idea or not, they would assume it's a great plan and get to it!

some of the greatest innovations in almost every field have come from just such exercises.

but alas i'm no one special and so we can all safely assume that i don't know what i'm talking about and that this is a silly idea of no value.

oh well.

i could see if i was being insane and saying "give me instructions in five words or less." that's absurd (yet i'm sure that's another example where laberge could get us to do it lol!!! famous people have magic powers.). but five sentences can be a LOT of info if you know how to construct the longest sentences grammatically possible.

on the other hand if this was a few years ago and inception had just dropped and this site was buzzing all over with activity and excitement i imagine i would have gotten at least a couple of ideas despite my status.

maybe i'll just wait until dreaming is hot in popular culture and this site has heavy traffic and post this again years from now.

You need to allow people more than 20-30 minutes hehe. I like the idea of having a concise method written out as you say but I fear it could possibly reduce the technique/s too much, as there are a lot of intricacies involved with lucid dreaming. Also since every person has massively different experiences there isn't really a one size fits all approach that will always work for everyone, particularly that could be fully expressed in 5 sentences or less. I mean I could say:
Develop dream recall through dream journalling and constant recollection of dreams.
Identify your dream signs through looking back at your previous dreams and finding consistent objects/feelings/people etc.
Whenever you see these in real life perform a reality check such as trying to push a finger through your hand.
While dreaming you will subconsciously perform this reality check when you see your dream sign and bam, lucidity.

Thats a super simple summary in 4 sentences, but: What if a person has no dream signs? What if they cannot remember their dreams even with these methods? What if this person doesn't have the awareness while RCing to carry over into lucidity while dreaming? What about WILD? MILD? What other preparation is needed? What if this method doesn't work for them for some reason? Do you see my point.
Creating one summary to encapsulate everything about lucidity would be impossible as there is so much variance and subjectivity about lucid dreaming. Unfortunately creating a summary of a specific aspect of lucidity like I did isn't too useful either, as there are a thousand scenarios in which it isn't applicable. I appreciate what you are trying to do and wish you luck, I really hope someone could come up with what you are after, but I personally don't think it is possible.
-EDIT My post was more in reference to a complete guide to lucidity rather than a mroe simple guide for begginners, but my opinion is still similar.

LD method in 5 sentences?

well,
1- sleep for 6 hours and then wake up and sleep again after 5 minutes.
2- before falling sleep, tell yourself that you will wake up spontaneously several times.
3- each time you wake up, don't move at all.
4- try to remember your last dream or simply watch your closed your lids.
5- you are in your previous dream or you will have an FA (false awakening) and after doing RC, you are sure now that you are dreaming.

OK i won!

seriously, in this way, if you do these steps everyday, you will have at least 1 LD per week or even more (after weeks of training). i hope it helped.

Awareness in one word.

NOW.

Lucid dreaming technique in one sentence:

Practise awareness directly through meditaiton daily.

Theory: Lucid dreaming is originally from the Dream Yoga practise, read about that. Buddhism have existed for over thousand years - why make it a mystery?

Well - I could spring a sort of trick with my first recommendation and say -

• Read as much as you can about LDing, it will bring you in the mindset and tell at least your unconscious mind what you are after and why.

• Write a dream-journal as extensive and analytic as you manage - note dreamsigns, get more awareness for your secret night-life.

• Choose one or more reality checks and practise them over the day - 10+ times, maybe?

• Do WBTB* with affirmations and intention setting, tell yourself you will detect dreamsigns, RC on strange things, generally - tell yourself you will have an LD.

• Experiment with meditation.

If you want to go down that route - taking supplements might be a worthy companion to these "basics" - just I don't have respective experience. I believe one can get ones first LDs just with this little instruction - except for trying for WILD techs, I got to say I never did anything more than that. But it's not a hobby which requires no effort while awake, one needs to be aware of that to avoid disappointment.

*no acronyms - okay - wake up after several hours of sleep and stay awake for a time - find the time to wake up and to stay awake by trial and error, start with after 6h sleep and maybe 15 min. staying awake.

1) Think about lucid dreaming all the time.
2) Develop super high levels of waking awareness
3) Work very hard on dream recall
4) Use a mantra every night as you fall asleep
5) Question reality non stop, all day long



1) Find a genie lamp with a real genie.
2) Rub said lamp
3) Use a wish to get awesome lucid dreaming powers
4) hmmm, no real need for 4 or 5
5) oh 5, get on Dream Views and tell us all the secrets.

Originally Posted by gab

This may not be such a good idea.

1. If someone doesn't want to read and research about this, he may not have interest in lucid dreaming. Thus no right mindset for it. And that is important to have.

2. 5 sentences will not do. And they may get discouraged if they don't get lucid on the first try.

It's not an accident that tutorials are longer than few sentences. Lucid dreaming is not done by following few steps and bam, you get a lucid dream. Someone could follow few steps, but that would be only after he reads and understands the what's and why's. And even then, those few steps may work for some, but not for others. Lucid dreaming is not math, it's an art.

So if I may suggest, have your friends come here, make a few posts, read a ton and we would be happy to help them out. But if someone has no interest, it will not work.

Good luck anyway, it's always good to be thinking of new ways of making this more approachable to rest of the population.

Um, Gab my dear, that was something like 12 sentences

-There are no good or bad techniques, there are only techniques which fit well to you or not.

-No tutorial will ever tell you which is the best technique for you, it´s a question only you can find the answer for.

-You can listen to other people’s advice to get a better grasp at lucid dreaming, but don´t let it limit you; if you think outside the box, you may find a way to achieve what they labeled impossible.

-People have found ways to achieve lucidity long before it has been named; so be confident, be courageous, be creative and invent a new way if the old ones don´t appeal to you; even if you have to explore untouched terrain.

-No one can ever proof that lucid dreaming is truly hard, because everyone has a way which is perfect for them; you only have to find it.




If I had to introduce someone to lucid dreaming, this is what I would tell them; nothing more and nothing less.

Originally Posted by Creation

-There are no good or bad techniques, there are only techniques which fit well to you or not.

-No tutorial will ever tell you which is the best technique for you, it´s a question only you can find the answer for.

-You can listen to other people’s advice to get a better grasp at lucid dreaming, but don´t let it limit you; if you think outside the box, you may find a way to achieve what they labeled impossible.

-People have found ways to achieve lucidity long before it has been named; so be confident, be courageous, be creative and invent a new way if the old ones don´t appeal to you; even if you have to explore untouched terrain.

-No one can ever proof that lucid dreaming is truly hard, because everyone has a way which is perfect for them; you only have to find it.




If I had to introduce someone to lucid dreaming, this is what I would tell them; nothing more and nothing less.

Ah Ha! The semicolon! You have legitimately stretched 5 sentences into 9. Using this method we can write an entire tutorial in 5 sentences.

Originally Posted by sivason

Ah Ha! The semicolon! You have legitimately stretched 5 sentences into 9. Using this method we can write an entire tutorial in 5 sentences.

I have still beaten the less than 250 words challenge, haven´t I?

oh my god! please don't cheat in the challenge. what some of you said is not really 5 sentence but it's every sentence is an extraction of a book. i mean to understand even one of your sentence, they should go and read many books.

so i am still the holder of winner position as what i said was really 5 sentences.

just kidding.... yes, we may need to really know every fundamental to be a successful LDer. ^^
no doubt...

First, write down your dreams. Second, practice reality checks frequently throughout the day. Third, think about lucid dreaming a lot. Fourth, be aware of little details in your life. Fifth, don't try to have sexual experiences in the dream world.

Originally Posted by WarBenifit156

Fifth, don't try to have sexual experiences in the dream world.

Oops, you just lost all the young men; now they are back to x-box.

Originally Posted by WarBenifit156

First, write down your dreams. Second, practice reality checks frequently throughout the day. Third, think about lucid dreaming a lot. Fourth, be aware of little details in your life. Fifth, don't try to have sexual experiences in the dream world.

LOL! let them get their 1th lucid dream then we will think whether they should do it or not.
anyway, your instruction for gaining LD is really perfect! thanks!

Originally Posted by yaya

LD method in 5 sentences?

well,
1- sleep for 6 hours and then wake up and sleep again after 5 minutes.
2- before falling sleep, tell yourself that you will wake up spontaneously several times.
3- each time you wake up, don't move at all.
4- try to remember your last dream or simply watch your closed your lids.
5- you are in your previous dream or you will have an FA (false awakening) and after doing RC, you are sure now that you are dreaming.

OK i won!

seriously, in this way, if you do these steps everyday, you will have at least 1 LD per week or even more (after weeks of training). i hope it helped.

explain what "RC" means and you've got something pretty spectacular! i know what it means but assuming this could be written on an index card and given to someone, they wouldn't know.

Originally Posted by WarBenifit156

First, write down your dreams. Second, practice reality checks frequently throughout the day. Third, think about lucid dreaming a lot. Fourth, be aware of little details in your life. Fifth, don't try to have sexual experiences in the dream world.

explain what reality checks are and we're in good shape!

i kind of sort of agree with your fifth rule! for beginners at least. it's easy to forget EVERYTHING in the world when a pretty woman talks to you, the same is true for dreams. you could be on the cusp of lucidity and then a pretty dream woman bats her eyes and suddenly you forget lucid dreaming entirely.

is this your thinking? if not, what is your reasoning for this rule?

Originally Posted by sivason

1) Think about lucid dreaming all the time.
2) Develop super high levels of waking awareness
3) Work very hard on dream recall
4) Use a mantra every night as you fall asleep
5) Question reality non stop, all day long



1) Find a genie lamp with a real genie.
2) Rub said lamp
3) Use a wish to get awesome lucid dreaming powers
4) hmmm, no real need for 4 or 5
5) oh 5, get on Dream Views and tell us all the secrets.








Um, Gab my dear, that was something like 12 sentences

what mantra specifically? this is pretty tight, and with a specific mantra and maybe a little more clarification could be something really significant. i'm showing a guy i work with these who is very interested in lucid dreaming but is bogged down with work and school. so far i showed him my ameteur one posted as an example since i hadn't gotten any replies yet, but now that i'm getting some good data i'll see how each one goes and we'll see what we can get out of this experiment!

Originally Posted by StephL

Well - I could spring a sort of trick with my first recommendation and say -

• Read as much as you can about LDing, it will bring you in the mindset and tell at least your unconscious mind what you are after and why.

• Write a dream-journal as extensive and analytic as you manage - note dreamsigns, get more awareness for your secret night-life.

• Choose one or more reality checks and practise them over the day - 10+ times, maybe?

• Do WBTB* with affirmations and intention setting, tell yourself you will detect dreamsigns, RC on strange things, generally - tell yourself you will have an LD.

• Experiment with meditation.

If you want to go down that route - taking supplements might be a worthy companion to these "basics" - just I don't have respective experience. I believe one can get ones first LDs just with this little instruction - except for trying for WILD techs, I got to say I never did anything more than that. But it's not a hobby which requires no effort while awake, one needs to be aware of that to avoid disappointment.

*no acronyms - okay - wake up after several hours of sleep and stay awake for a time - find the time to wake up and to stay awake by trial and error, start with after 6h sleep and maybe 15 min. staying awake.

i love it but explain the esoteric terminology and acronyms? then we may be looking at the zen of lucid dreaming.

Originally Posted by Creation

I have still beaten the less than 250 words challenge, haven´t I?

the 250 word alteration and other changes were a hypothetical possible way to placate the powers that be. however they never replied. so the rules remain as they were in the first post.

Originally Posted by MasterMind

Awareness in one word.

NOW.

Lucid dreaming technique in one sentence:

Practise awareness directly through meditaiton daily.

Theory: Lucid dreaming is originally from the Dream Yoga practise, read about that. Buddhism have existed for over thousand years - why make it a mystery?

hmmmmmm. i like it but, expand?

Originally Posted by BlairBros

You need to allow people more than 20-30 minutes hehe. I like the idea of having a concise method written out as you say but I fear it could possibly reduce the technique/s too much, as there are a lot of intricacies involved with lucid dreaming. Also since every person has massively different experiences there isn't really a one size fits all approach that will always work for everyone, particularly that could be fully expressed in 5 sentences or less. I mean I could say:
Develop dream recall through dream journalling and constant recollection of dreams.
Identify your dream signs through looking back at your previous dreams and finding consistent objects/feelings/people etc.
Whenever you see these in real life perform a reality check such as trying to push a finger through your hand.
While dreaming you will subconsciously perform this reality check when you see your dream sign and bam, lucidity.

Thats a super simple summary in 4 sentences, but: What if a person has no dream signs? What if they cannot remember their dreams even with these methods? What if this person doesn't have the awareness while RCing to carry over into lucidity while dreaming? What about WILD? MILD? What other preparation is needed? What if this method doesn't work for them for some reason? Do you see my point.
Creating one summary to encapsulate everything about lucidity would be impossible as there is so much variance and subjectivity about lucid dreaming. Unfortunately creating a summary of a specific aspect of lucidity like I did isn't too useful either, as there are a thousand scenarios in which it isn't applicable. I appreciate what you are trying to do and wish you luck, I really hope someone could come up with what you are after, but I personally don't think it is possible.
-EDIT My post was more in reference to a complete guide to lucidity rather than a mroe simple guide for begginners, but my opinion is still similar.

you are so right!!!

many hours had passed since the powers that be decided to declare my idea damned and pointless and i assumed that because of this everyone else would ignore it! i'm so pleased and impressed by all of you being your own individual people and not subject to internet feudalism!

i like your technique. could you explain what dream signs are please?

an RC is a quick act so show you that you awake or not. like nose plugging. if you can breath through it, you are dreaming. oh no....so plus this one, it became 6 sentences! so i loose...

Originally Posted by sleepyzac

hmmmmmm. i like it but, expand?

There is only one thing to be aware of and that is the present moment. You can not be aware of the past or the future because all that happens in the now.

Practising awareness is key for lucid dreaming, and since the only thing you can be aware of is the now, being aware of your sense perceptions in the moment is the most effective and easily available practise for indirect lucid dreaming inductions such as the DILD technique. So when it comes to DILD I am talking about doing Eckhart Tolle like meditation during the course of the day.

For direct lucid dreaming inductions such as the WILD the key is to become unaware of the physical body and perhaps even the mind as well.
And the most effective and easily available pratise for this direct approach, is the awareness of the breath. So when it comes to WILD I am talking about Tibetan meditation where you let go of thoughts and bodily sensations and enter a state of nothingness. Since you are still alive your consciousness will re-enter the stimulus of you brain, but by being unconscious through meditation you are regaining awareness in a different way than through unconscious sleep.
So you are in a way tricking your body that you are asleep.

This is a very difficult concept to describe but by doing daily 20+ min of meditation you will understand what I mean.
Read my DJ for more details.

But this is how it usually is for me. I start to meditate and my only goal is to observe my experience of thoughts, discomfort, emotions etc. When I accept these, they dissapear and I enter a state of nothingness and I remain in this state until my alarm rings, but if I fall asleep in this manner it's sort of like waking up in a dream. Sometimes I do not wake up in the dream, but just experience strong awareness and vividness of a normal dream which is pretty cool too.

Tell me if you want to know more. I love to talk about it!

(Remember this is just my view.)

There is no right or wrong, good or bad - Buddha

1. Stop looking for "simple and easy", this theme pervades your posts on DV. Anything worthwhile is worth spending the effort, or choose something else to do.
2. Start with sivason's excellent response:

Originally Posted by sivason

1) Think about lucid dreaming all the time.
2) Develop super high levels of waking awareness
3) Work very hard on dream recall
4) Use a mantra every night as you fall asleep
5) Question reality non stop, all day long

3. Learn enough about LDing and experiment enough to be able to adapt sivason's steps to yourself: follow your own path
4. Dedicate yourself to the practice, no vacations/time off, ever, especially from dream recall.
5. Stop looking for simple and easy.

(i) Habitually notice, sense or imagine dream-like scenarios and odd things in real life and test them for example, by pinching both your nostrils together with your main fingers and thumb whilst trying to breathe through the nose itself.
(ii) Retire to bed at your usual regular time thinking about imagining how easy it is to remember, record, notice and then change your dreams.
(iii) Wake up in the middle of the night, or preferably early morning to go for a toilet or longer break, before returning to bed still half asleep and relaxed with your dream goals in mind.
(iv) Stay relaxed and focused with the aim of falling asleep, either to form your dream or to be aware that you are dreaming.
(v) Upon awakening slowly recall your dream mentally by keeping your eyelids closed and then transcribe your dream experience in a regular journal, either as keywords, written down or dictated whilst keeping bodily movements to a minimum in a dimly lit room.

Originally Posted by sleepyzac

the 250 word alteration and other changes were a hypothetical possible way to placate the powers that be. however they never replied. so the rules remain as they were in the first post.

So the only reason why my Post isn´t featured in your quote list is because I´ve smuggled like extra tree sentences in.

…I knew I should´ve just used commas instead. Clearly, nobody would´ve noticed it then.

On reading through the posts here, SleepyZac, I'm sensing a pretty clear running theme:

Yes, you can certainly pare down the process for gaining lucidity into five steps and less than 250 words. For instance: Lie down, hold still, and, without losing your self-awareness, wait for sleep and lucid dreams to come. But the consensus seems to be that every part of these brief instructions require additional explanations, definitions, expansions, and a whole lot of time and dedication.

There really is no responsible, effective shortcut to LD'ing Zac; you really must do some work (and yes, as FryingMan noted, I couldn't help but notice your various threads looking to LD without effort or time). I had thought this thread was primarily tongue-in-cheek, but in case you actually think your contest is going to produce a 5-line instruction sheet for newbies, be assured it will only produce annoyed newbies.

Respectfully, I hope you can understand that there is no conspiracy among LD instructors; we are not putting out these "complex" sets of instructions and terms just to confuse newbies or hear ourselves talk, and we are not secretly holding on to some "easy" route to LD'ing. We are all trying to make this process as simple and accessible as it can possibly be. (and honestly I think we're doing pretty well). If there were a short, simple, work-free route to lucidity, I would be the first to try it and promote it. Getting people to write fewer words that essentially summarize a difficult task will never make the LD'ing process easier or less time-consuming.

The best things never come easily, Zac, and lucidity is one of the very best.

If you don't believe us, just look at your experience. You say you had 31 LDs. Not sure if DILDs or WILDs. But in any case, I would bet, not 2 of your experiences were the same. Starting with state of mind, how many RCs did you do, which ones you saw in your dream, how you realized, how long you slept, WBTB or no...

You write instructions in 5 short sentences and see, if you could replicate your experience if you follow your own instructions.

No matter what you write, the instructions will be incomplete. If you were looking for few sentences how to best describe lucid dreaming to those that never heard of it, just to excite them and entice them to look up more about it, that would be a different story. But for that you could also use your own experience.

What's worth doing, it's worth doing right.