Thread: Meditation for lucid dreaming?

So far I have noticed a correlation between consistent meditation and increased dream recall/vividness.

To test this out I started meditating daily and keeping a record of the length/date of each session. I started out 20 minutes a day but slowly increased the length. I didn't notice any difference after a month but kept going because I enjoyed it.

According to my logs, after around 60 days I started getting consistent and detailed dream recall. This occurred even though I wasn't writing my dreams down in a journal, like I used to. I continued to meditate for another month after that, and the dream recall remained strong but I still didn't have any lucid dreams. I was prepared to be patient.

Then I hurt my back and couldn't sit to meditate anymore. I stopped for about a month, and the dream recall pretty much disappeared.

Last week my back improved and I started meditating daily again (just a short time, 10-30 minutes max) and before a week had passed I started remembering my dreams again.

This doesn't prove anything conclusively but I think it is strong evidence that meditation at the very least improves dream recall, which we know is a crucial element to lucid dreaming. I think some additional techniques will help one to actually have lucid dreams but this seems like good "groundwork" to make any attempts more likely to bear fruit.

I should also mention that meditation is NOT RECOMMENDED for anyone with mental health issues, whether it takes the form of emotional disturbance or schizophrenic delusions such as intrusive thoughts, paranoia, etc. Some of the comments on this thread are worrying.

If you have a history of mental health issues you should only take up meditation under the guidance of an experienced counselor or teacher.

Meditation is one of my lucid must-do's. I find that meditation done laying back down on my bed is most useful. I follow basic meditation technique for deep relaxation and mindfulness, and I walk myself slowly down until I hit the first stage of Jhana (a powerful electrical sensation shooting throughout my body). Once I hit this stage I let the electricity feeling ebb and I have full attention of my inner mind. Once that's done, I simply talk with myself and tell myself how excited I am to lucid dream, and how I will lucid dream whenever I want.

Interestingly enough the lucids always come the day AFTER an intense meditation, and not the night of... Like an aftershock of sorts. (Interesting to me, anyway).

But I'd say meditation is good at any level, but laying down meditation mimics the walk into consciousness like WBTB techniques and allows for mantra's in a sleeping position.