What most helped me achieve lucid dreams was to have a mission. I don't believe in astral projection, the existence of souls, etc. I'm a very athiest non-mystical person. But I thought it could be fun to have a little experiment to motivate me.
I agreed with my friend in the States that we would both practice the techniques (dream recall and reality checking), and once we attained lucidity in a dream, we'd go to a familiar place that both of us knew. This place was an obelisk in Buenos Aires (she's in the States). Once we 'met' at the oblelisk, I would tell her a secret word that only I knew, and she would tell me her own secret word. The idea was to finally get to that point, and then ask the other, in waking life, if the word we were told was correct. Obviously, it didn't matter if we 'met' on different days - we didn't have to dream at the same time - because neither time nor distance mean anything in dreams.
So anyway, we concentrated on the project for weeks, and I started lucid dreaming (DILDs). When I'd realize it, I'd immediately think, "I have to get to the obelisk before I wake up!" On several occasions I started making my way over there, for example, I'd catch a passing bus that was coincidentally going in that direction, or I'd 'fly' there myself, etc. But I actually saw her there only once. When I saw her, I said, 'tell me your word', but she was mute. She wrote the word down on a paper, but it was just a scribble. I asked her to draw the word (as in Pictionary). She got a piece of paper out of her pocket, with a drawing of the word. I said, "ahhh... so that's it!" But I didn't remember it once I woke up.
My friend never got as far as the obelisk, but she went from not even being able to remember dreams, to one night, waking up and seeing herself sleeping on the bed. This was really great progress and it was due to the techniques she had started using to become more aware in dreamland.
I am now conducting this experiment again, though focusing on WILD methods instead of waiting for it to happen naturally. I've already gotten some cool results which I'll be writing about in the Lucid Dream experiences sub. Just wanted to share this because I found that these little missions have motivated me a lot to attain lucidity, as the task is always at the back of my mind both in waking life and in dreams.
