Thread: What is the best way to start

I'm a newbie in this area, but I'm sure more advanced LDers might say the same thing as what I'll say. It is of the upmost importance that you have above average dream recall before jumping into a LD. So, record all your dreams. Keep a dream journal. Another very important step is to do reality checks often. This is the area where I fail. I can't seem to settle on a few good RCs, and the one I've been doing (breathe through a plugged nose test) I don't do often enough, so I've never tried it in a dream. At least that I can remember! So, good luck and the best to ya. Oh yeah, have a ton of patience! Anything good is worth waiting for, right! I'm still waiting for my first LD.

I have known about Lucid dreaming for about 2-3 weeks and I have had 2 very short lucids, and I always get vivid dreams now too. The only thing I do is Reality checks. I always poke my left hand with my right hand. And that is how I got lucid in both of them.

this has been answered hundreds of times...
protip: search function

However, quick rundown...

worry about creating a dream journal first... it can be anything, a small note pad, an art book, anything. Just write your dreams when you wake up... this will help you recall your dreams

this is the most important step, if you can't remember your dreams, there's no point in being lucid in the first place

Originally Posted by cruush

I have known about Lucid dreaming for about 2-3 weeks and I have had 2 very short lucids, and I always get vivid dreams now too. The only thing I do is Reality checks. I always poke my left hand with my right hand. And that is how I got lucid in both of them.

How often do you do reality checks a day? Do you just randomly do them? Do you try to do them 3 times a day, one every hour?

Right now I find myself doing them maybe 5 times an hour. I will check the time on my watch, look away and look back. I will pick up a book that I know has text in it and see if it is empty then look away and look back to see if the text has changed. I will poke my palm with my finger, pinch my nose and try to breath.

I hope those are good reality checks, my only problem is how often should I do them? Next week I head back to college and I have signed up for a ton of classes and I just don't really see myself being able to do them as much as I do now. So hopefully I can find out a good number of reality checks to do and try to do that many a day.

The WILD technique is considered by many to be one of the more difficult techniques, so don't worry if it's not working for you. It's a good idea to try several different techniques several times, so you can discover which ones work best for you.

I've had lot's of LDs, but only one or two were started with a WILD. I'm not good at them. I usually get lucid through random DILDs, or I do a WBTB but without combining it with any other techniques. That's what works for me.

Originally Posted by Iamerik

The WILD technique is considered by many to be one of the more difficult techniques, so don't worry if it's not working for you. It's a good idea to try several different techniques several times, so you can discover which ones work best for you.

I've had lot's of LDs, but only one or two were started with a WILD. I'm not good at them. I usually get lucid through random DILDs, or I do a WBTB but without combining it with any other techniques. That's what works for me.

Yeah my first one was very odd. Granted I knew nothing about them when I tried it, but I did know that you had to stay really relaxed and to focus on something enough to stay conscious but not to focus to much. However when I did it I started to see little blue balls that were swirling which if I read correctly meant I was doing it right, however seeing how I have a cold right now every time I started to see the little balls of blue light swirling around I would start coughing ruining it. So I gave up on that after awhile and for now I am going to start focusing on doing reality checks and dream recalls.

Where on Earth did you here that it takes roughly 4 weeks? It could take a day for you, or a year for you. It will vary. But that's were the practice comes in.

I agree with Iamerik, experiment to see which method is right for you, and don't get your heart set on just one.

As for how many times you should do an RC, do it whenever you see, hear, etc. something out of the ordinary. Doing it that way usually works better than RCing every something minutes.