The Key Turning points on your path to lucidity

Hi all, I wanted to start a thread that discusses the key turning points you’ve experienced on your path to lucidity. To discuss the moments and lessons that really stood out as pivotal to your journey and progress. I’m talking about those big eureka moments that helped you achieve that first lucid. The realisation that brought you out of a prolonged dry spell after weeks of nothing. The lesson that helped you gain better dream control after been unable to stabilise them. The experiments that lead to you been able to lucid dream every night when before it was irregular. Those methods, lessons or techniques that you still swear by today.

This question is reaching out to both experienced members and beginners so that we may better understand and gain wisdom of the key moments that lead us out of the dark and into the light. I expect everyone’s journey will be very different but It will be interesting to see if we all share some common Lessons and turning points and may help some beginners out of those deep pits we get stuck in and help us all to better understand how lucidity goes from unattainable to something we excel at.

So I will go first with my pivotal moments on my journey so far:

1. To Stop over doing it and relax!
This was a big one for me. When I first started like most people I had a routine of many planned and thought out steps that had to be ticked off throughout the day, everyday without fail. Failure meant no lucids! I was RCing as much as possible, doing ADA as much as possible, visualising, meditating, DJing, researching as much as possible and it became exhausting! I decided I needed to ease off on the effort as it was frustrating me and as soon as I did I started seeing results. I learned to relax and stop putting in so much brain power into my daily practice and keep it all much more casual and less intense. I very quickly started seeing more consistent results and lucidity came much more naturally when I stopped treating it like I was studying for an exam.

2. To do Natural WBTBs
My first goal upon starting my dreaming journey was to improve recall but it proved hard at first and each morning I could only remember very vague fragments when I woke up. I then decided to try WBTB and learned I could wake myself naturally by setting my intent before I fell asleep. I didn’t think this would actually work as it seemed too easy but that same night I woke up naturally many times throughout the night without an alarm and was able to recall many vivid dreams. My record to this day is 11 dreams recorded in one night and I owe it to WBTB and waking naturally. I also believe doing this every night has also lead to some quick success with lucid dreaming as well.

3. Lucid’s may only take a moment
Now this is a small one but has really helped me. My goal each night is always to wake in the last few hours of sleep and perform a WBTB and do MILD. Sometimes when I woke though I would see I only had an hour, or worse, 20 minutes or less till my wake up alarm was going to go off! I would get in a panic and start stressing out and thinking I had no time and missed my chance. That was until one morning I thought “eh let’s try anyway”. I went back to sleep and became lucid for maybe 2 -5 minutes and since then when ever I wake up with little time left I can relax and say “hey I have 5 minutes, plenty of time to get lucid” and go back to sleep with no stress.

4. I Found DreamViews
(Aww, a little love note to the forum). But seriously before I found this site I was sort of wandering aimlessly through the internet and focusing a lot on repetitive Technique heavy ‘How to’ guides and though I learned a lot it wasn’t till I found DreamViews and started reading about other people’s experiences and more unconventional methods that I found a confidence to continue, a passion to experiment and a desire to master this skill. Hearing everyone’s stories and reading the many discussions and in depth debates has really opened my mind in a way that has inspired me and boosted my motivation to unlock the mysteries of this amazing topic. Visiting everyday has kept me enthusiastic, eager to learn and improve.

So here’s just a few I’ve had so far and hope it gets the ball rolling for others to contribute. I wonder if the next big turning point I have I learn from this thread. 🙂

Witnessing first hand the fine line between wake and dream, spiralling into a world that only exists in my mind. This was a turning point because it made me appreciate and respect the dreamstate and goal of lucidity.
TLDR - encounters with wild, bought about by doing very little, revealing how natural and easy it is to slip into a dream whilst holding onto waking awareness.

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Originally Posted by d3nd3

Witnessing first hand the fine line between wake and dream, spiralling into a world that only exists in my mind. This was a turning point because it made me appreciate and respect the dreamstate and goal of lucidity.
TLDR - encounters with wild, bought about by doing very little, revealing how natural and easy it is to slip into a dream whilst holding onto waking awareness.

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Yes! This was another for me. Mine wasn’t quite a WILD, more of a DEILD but that feeling of having my mind sucked through a portal into a dream reality was like nothing I’ve ever experienced and showed me just how weird and magical lucid dreaming really is.

Looking back, there were two major turning points for me.

The first is a little hard to define. I guess, to sum it up, I’d say it was finding a method that works for me, given my own peculiarities as a dreamer.

The first few months of deliberately trying to get lucid were a bit frustrating because what I was trying to do was develop a habit of making reality checks, but my dreaming self would never actually remember to carry them through. What I think the problem came down to was that, unlike many dreamers, I almost never dreamed about familiar waking-life locations and activities, and I was often dreaming as a person other than my waking self – a person who was not in the habit of making reality checks.

I discovered by accident that I had much better success with WILDs, though, and once I had figured out the ideal timing, I could practically guarantee one. Of course, then I had to figure out how to deal with sleep paralysis and dreams with no visual element, which were only problems when I made the transition into a lucid dream directly from wakefulness. But there’s nothing like wandering around in a dream without being able to see for developing stability. I suspect this is also how I went from having no sense of direction to having a very good one.

The second was changing the way I looked at the world around me. I had been reading a book that gave a brief outline of a couple phenomenological thinkers, and there was a passage about the difference between really looking at the world and seeing straight through it to the concept you’ve built up of it. I was fascinated by the idea, so I decided to try an experiment. I thought of a beautiful place I had been a few months before – of what it had been like standing there looking out to the sea for the first time. I remembered how that had felt, and then I tried to look at the room I was in the same way, as if I were seeing it for the first time.

What happened was almost like a joint popping back into place – like I had somehow lost that feeling of connection with my environment at some point in the distant past but hadn’t realized something was off because it was just what I was used to. I felt present in a way I hadn’t before, more fully there. At first, it took effort to maintain that level of perceptual engagement, but it quickly became easier. And that marked the point at which I went from having spontaneous lucid dreams rarely to having them on a weekly basis.

Interestingly, when I revisited the book a couple years later, I was unable to pinpoint with certainty the passage that had given me the idea. I doubt it would have been useful to anybody else anyway – and I think most of the time, effecting that kind of perceptual shift isn’t such a simple matter. But it doesn’t hurt to try. And it definitely doesn’t hurt to be open to the idea that there might be room for improvement in this area without your being aware of it because you don’t have anything to compare it to.

Nowadays, the breakthrough I’d really like to have is being able to WILD reliably again. It was, as I’ve said, my go-to method, but since undergoing back surgery a few years ago, it’s been much more difficult to maintain that balance between alertness and relaxation. And in a sleep environment where I’m lucky to get eight hours of quiet, my preferred method isn’t possible anyway. But I’ve recently found more effective ways of dealing with soreness and stiffness, and life is looking like it’s actually going to slow down for a little while, so maybe I’ll have my chance soon.

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Originally Posted by LeaningKarst

The second was changing the way I looked at the world around me. I had been reading a book that gave a brief outline of a couple phenomenological thinkers, and there was a passage about the difference between really looking at the world and seeing straight through it to the concept you’ve built up of it. I was fascinated by the idea, so I decided to try an experiment. I thought of a beautiful place I had been a few months before – of what it had been like standing there looking out to the sea for the first time. I remembered how that had felt, and then I tried to look at the room I was in the same way, as if I were seeing it for the first time.

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Lol this is the same idea I came with 15 years ago, I called it "Depersonalization", but I take it one step further, making OBE on demand possible. It's a fearsome technique, so I'm using it rarely now. It's target is not only to forget about your environment, but to forget your entire existence and because of that it can have some side effects. It is an open eyes meditation.

Now days they call it a *mental disorder*, seriously!

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Depersonalization can consist of a detachment within the self, regarding one's mind or body, or being a detached observer of oneself.[1] Subjects feel they have changed and that the world has become vague, dreamlike, less real, lacking in significance or being outside reality while looking in

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I don’t think it would be misleading to call the state I had been in before depersonalized – but really, I would say that what I had discovered was exactly the opposite, how to get out of it. And boy, did it make a difference in life.

Of course, I’m sure it’s equally possible to go the other way as well. I’ve heard stories of great Hindu meditators who detached themselves from their senses to such a degree that their apprentices could dump buckets of sewage over their heads without their noticing. There’s something awe-inspiring in the idea of having that sort of self-control – and I suppose it’s being able to choose that differentiates it from a mental disorder – but honestly, the state itself doesn’t appeal to me at all, even if it turns out to be a method leading to the same goal.

For some reason it took years for me to realize that WILD is not about what you do in bed, or how still you lie, how hard you try etc. Despite all the instructions about what to do while 'attempting' one, it is 99% about preparation and timing, just like the other methods. When the timing is right, it can happen with minimal effort.
Another turning point was the power of imagination and how little you have to do for your mind to fill in the blanks on its own. For example, when in the right state of mind, you only need to think about something, and your mind can conjure a realistic simulation of it.

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Originally Posted by LeaningKarst

I don’t think it would be misleading to call the state I had been in before depersonalized – but really, I would say that what I had discovered was exactly the opposite, how to get out of it. And boy, did it make a difference in life.

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Man, reminding me of this technique has sparked something for me again, my mind just required some time to recalibrate itself. Suddenly while watching a TV, my mind just snapped and It is like I was seeing my room for the first time, it is like I was looking it at a different perspective and I got super aware of my surroundings, like in my first lucid dreams when suddenly the magic moment strikes you. Thank you for reminding me.

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Of course, I’m sure it’s equally possible to go the other way as well. I’ve heard stories of great Hindu meditators who detached themselves from their senses to such a degree that their apprentices could dump buckets of sewage over their heads without their noticing. There’s something awe-inspiring in the idea of having that sort of self-control – and I suppose it’s being able to choose that differentiates it from a mental disorder – but honestly, the state itself doesn’t appeal to me at all, even if it turns out to be a method leading to the same goal.

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Like you said this technique can have multiple outcomes, what I was talking about is way different than those hindu masters. I'm talking about an open eyes meditation separated in slow steps.
1)Detach yourself from your surroundings/memories - you got this step right

2)Detach yourself from your body - it is like you see your body for the first time. Are you always has this body or you just got inside it. Your awareness can go a little above your head, it's like you are getting out of your body.

3)Detach yourself from the World - What is this world? How you got here? You will start to wonder what is a rock or tree or clouds. Why the sky is blue? What is air? Cutting all mental associations. On the end of this step you will start to have 360 degree vision.

4)Detach yourself from yourself - Who am I? What am I? You will become a Blank, a nothingness, one with everything.

I'm always give up at the beginning of step 4, because I'm getting the feeling that I'm going to disappear. If all 4 steps are completed successfully, one will reach a enlightenment/transcendence.


P.s. But I'm still not sure how this helped you to have more dreams starting from a familiar location, like your room? Can you remember the name of the book you read about this.

OK, I think I get what you’re saying. That does sound similar, only you’re describing it in a different way from how I would, in a different framework for understanding it. For me, detaching from associations would mean getting closer to the world, not getting farther from it, and so I didn’t get that that’s what you meant by ‘depersonalization.’

The book is one I've actually just been revisiting, The Myth of Sisyphus. I doubt reading it would be of any help to you, though, in relation to what we’re talking about – or anybody else except for me in that precise moment. It was just what happened to give me the idea.

While being able to induce WILDs at will did usually result in dreams starting in familiar locations, the main reason I found more success with that type of dream was that the unfamiliar settings and characters and so on made it difficult to reconnect with my waking sense of self once I was already dreaming, but I didn’t need to figure out how to do that if I could just maintain the continuity directly from waking into sleep. The book and my experiment were a different realization – although, in retrospect, they did reveal that there were probably reasons my initial approach wasn’t working besides the unfamiliarity.

Honestly, I don't think I've had any "aha" moments yet on how to achieve lucidity.

The only true moment of this kind for me with dreams, I think was when I realised at some point I didn't need to be afraid of dreaming bad things, of having nightmares, etc. Do I still have fears? Of course, but I have managed to reach a state where I simply don't have bad dreams anymore. I can't really explain how this works, I don't have an understanding of it that I can put into words, but it's like "negative" emotion has become something I can appreciate over time as a result. Not to say I love being sad, scared or angry or whatever, but within the dreaming context these types of emotions are now much easier to accept.

I did have "aha" moments about other things because of trying to achieve lucidity though. My whole perspective on pain changed a lot with my first adult lucid, as it was the first time I understood what it was like to feel no pain; or to be more precise, to feel the absence of pain. It's a small nuance there, but once I achieved this realisation, this small nuance has been obvious ever since and this has been one of my biggest drives towards lucidity and keeping myself motivated on other things too, even just the motivation to continue with life sometimes.

On the path to lucidity I did also find that I could use willpower (when sufficiently motivated) to ignore painful (external) physical stimulus that would otherwise prevent me from doing certain things. I more or less learned how to ignore even very strong pain provided I have enough motivation to do so, for example by knowing that it won't be for long. In a way this has also lead me to understand how to override a lot of automatic things in terms of physical sensation, for example the sensations we get when a limb "goes to sleep" and then is "waking up" again, typically always felt really painful but now I no longer perceive it as pain anymore, but as something entirely different which I can even appreciate now.

I feel like I could ramble on for ages about lots of things but it'll end up not being directly related to lucidity (in the dreaming sense), which is more the point of the thread I suppose.

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More on topic, I can identify somewhat with LeaningKarst's first reply to the thread, especially in regards to WILD, because I too never seem to remember to do RCs when I'm dreaming, even during periods when I'm being very conscious of dream-like cues or dream-signs during waking life. WILD and WBTB both work very well for me in terms of getting closer to lucidity, though because of my pain and sleep issues I have never been able to move further with WILD; and WBTB is made difficult for too many reasons but sometimes I can manage to do some WBTB stuff.

I rarely have nightmares anymore either. When I do, they are mundane things like having a bad day at work, or uncomfortable social situations, or bad things happening to people I care about. If I have dreams about being chased, attacked or haunted, whether I am lucid or not I feel powerful enough to stand my ground and fear doesn't overcome me. I think if I was less tired I would be able to gain lucidity from these situations more often.