PVD's Tips for Lucid Dreaming

PVD's Tips for Lucid Dreaming


note: I didn't create these techniques/ideas. I just put together a little list I think will help someone.

1. REMINDERS - Make as many reminders as you can to do reality checks.
   
   
   
   a. Put up pieces of paper in as many places in your house as you can that say something like “You are dreaming!” or “Do a reality check.”
   
   
   b. Make a wall paper for your computer to remind you to do a reality check every time you see it.
   
   
   c. Wear a watch that will go off multiple times to remind you to do a reality check or set your cell phone to remind you.
   
   
   d. Write down “This is a dream!” or “You’re dreaming!” on your hand.
   
   
   e. Go to sleep with a piece of paper that says “This is a dream!” or “You’re dreaming!
   
   
   f. Have a friend remind you to do a reality check.
   
   
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2. ASSOCIATION – Associate reality checks with habits and/or hobbies.
   
   
   a. A Hobby that you really enjoy and do often.
   
   
   b. A habit you do on a daily basis that has some significance.
   
   
   c. A place that is very familiar to you that you dream about.
   
   
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3. MEDITATION – Learn and practice meditation to help keep your mind awake while sleeping.
   
   
   a. Any form of meditation really, but it would help if you did a mantra meditation with a word or phrase like “I’m dreaming.”
   
   
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4. DREAM JOURNAL – This helps you learn the feeling of being in a dream and what you dream about the most.
   
   
   a. After you write your dreams down think about them and notice how they are different from waking life.
   
   
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5. AWARENESS - Be consciously aware of things in waking life your usually unconscious about.
   
   
   a. Your surrounding environments. Notice them in detail.
   
   
   b. Your bodily functions that are controlled by the subconscious such as breathing, heart rate, etc...
   
   
   c. The way food tastes, smells, and feels like in detail.
   
   
   d. And anything else you can think of.
   
   
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6. TIME – The best times to use methods to attain lucidity.
   
   
   a. When you wake up in the middle of the night. The more you wake up the more your mind is refreshed which means you have a higher chance of becoming lucid.
   
   
   b. When going back to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night.
   
   
   c. Before you take an early nap.
   
   

Pretty generic and basic, but eh, pretty good.

The reminders are a little weak; you don't want to rely on external stimuli like a watch alarm or computer wallpaper to perform reality checks really... in your dream, your computer may have a different wallpaper entirely that doesn't remind you to RC. You may not have a watch in your dream, and the alarm may not carry over into dreamland.

You want to do RCs based on events (such as what you describe in the next section), or when strange things happen.

Sorry if this is generic and basic also, I'm exhausted and need to get to bed so I can WBTB in a few hours.

It is pretty generic and basic. But, the REMINDERS section is to do as many reminders as you can in as many different ways possible so you always know to do a reality check and so eventually itll become a habit without needing the external stimuli itself. It's good for people like me who always forget small things like this, lol. What you say is true though. I appreciate your feedback and if you have anything to add let me know.

For me, anyway, the most important Reality Check of the day is when I first wake up; I have quite a few false awakenings, so I try to perform a reality check as soon as I open my eyes and before I move a muscle... I've had most of my LDs this way.

It helps to form the habit if you write at the top of each page of your dream journal "Are you dreaming? Do a reality check!"

Not only does this help you form the habit of doing an RC first thing in the morning, it also give you something regular to read... If you ever wake up and find that the top of your dream journal says "You are a smelly poopynoggin" instead of "Are you dreaming? Do a reality check?", you know you're dreaming... it's a reality check in itself!

LOL, That is a good idea. Will have to try that.