Thread: Are there things to do while awake to increase lucid dream time?

Practice mindfulness, this is the sort of mindset that really helps lengthen lucid dreams -- remaining calm, realizing that you are dreaming. Longer LDs also comes with more experience, so the more you LD, generally, over time, the longer they'll be.

I'll be quick to say that I am not a frequent lucid dreamer, but even so over the years I have seen lucidity time improve. Even so, I've had fairly short lucids more recently, but the longest lucids I've had have definitely been in the last two or three years.

FryingMan's mindfulness suggestion sounds good to me; on a similar note, I think that in general practising patience and delayed gratification are both good ideas, not only for lucidity but for life as a whole. Mindfulness could be something good to try because it's easy to get into so long as you have the will to do it. Like with lucid dreaming, I personally find that willpower and some level of commitment is important for "activities" (lack of better term) like this. So if you can develop that type of will and commitment for something like meditation and mindfulness, that's something else that can carry over from waking life into dream life too.

For months, I have hardly had time for any kind of practise, but I am sure that playing with visualisation/active imagination has played a role on what lucidity is like for me. As an activity, getting into that sort of mental state essentially lets you practise a different form of lucidity (as I see it), while awake. This is something I'd like to write a more proper post or even a guide about it, though I honestly still need to try more things and get more of my own experience in that area first. There are a few existing things on similar topics though, if that would be of any interest.

Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

There are a few existing things on similar topics though, if that would be of any interest.

Yes, that would be. Any resources that you could point me toward would be appreciated.

I've been doing a bit of mindfulness and meditation. I just started, so we'll see how it goes.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Practice mindfulness, this is the sort of mindset that really helps lengthen lucid dreams -- remaining calm, realizing that you are dreaming. Longer LDs also comes with more experience, so the more you LD, generally, over time, the longer they'll be.

I’ve been practicing now for 2 and a half years and my lucid dreams are still relatively short and haven’t increased over time as I’d hoped. They’re usually between 1-5 minutes and on rare occasions I have 10-15 minute dreams, so they’re not a terrible length but I wish I could get longer ones more often. My longest tend to occur when I have a clear plan of action and pursue goals as planned. I’ve always put this down to the fact I’m staying more focused and engaged with the dream by pursuing the goals and not getting distracted by other concerns like waking up or de-stabilisation.

I’ve heard a lot of people suggest mindfulness and meditation can help with this so I probably need to give it more time. Currently I do a 30 minute walk and try stay present throughout the duration but I’m inconsistent with it. How do you go about practicing mindfulness Fryingman?

Mindful walks are a great way to do it, probably one of my main approaches. I aim for all-day (or at least frequently-throughout-the-day) lucid presence, as recommended in The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep. The new edition (just out this August, 2022) really emphasizes this as being critical for lucid dreaming.

I concur that having a set of concrete goals that you pursue within the dream results in stable, vivid, and longer lucid dreams. I've experience this myself. Some of my longest LDs have been when I was actively working on doing the TOTM tasks. Moving from task to task really keeps you engaged in the dream.

Do your LDs end in the void, or end up transitioning to another dream, or do you always end up awake in bed (do you try to DEILD? Do you do state tests to make sure you're really awake?).

Originally Posted by cedwards105

Yes, that would be. Any resources that you could point me toward would be appreciated.

I'll put a list together for you when I get a chance.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Do your LDs end in the void, or end up transitioning to another dream, or do you always end up awake in bed (do you try to DEILD? Do you do state tests to make sure you're really awake?).

Usually the dream just fades to black and I wake up. I’ve always felt that I may be getting lucid at the end of a cycle and I just run out of time but I can’t be sure.

I’ve done dream re-entry from the void but I’ve never been able to do it after I wake up. Perhaps that’s another indication my cycles over? I do state tests in dreams for extra confirmation if I feel it necessary but not too often.

In my first “long” lucid dream my goal was to simply walk through the dream environment with full presence and awareness (like I do on my walks) and it worked. It prolonged the dream a good 10-15 minutes and when I woke up I thought “that’s it, that’s the key to long lucids” but since that dream over 2 years ago now I’ve never been able to replicate that kind of length from simply being mindful so I wasn’t sure if it was a fluke.

Link to the journal entry if you’re interested: https://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/tik...dreamer-91891/

When you do your mindfulness practice through the day is it simply being aware of the moment or is it more like a state test where you’re purposefully looking for signs it’s a dream?

I do mindfulness with reflection on my state, since my main goal with it is lucid dreams. Also, paying purposeful attention to my surroundings with the intent of remembering later, to train memory/recall and to produce more vivid memories/dreams.

Or more precisely, since I'm working with the illusory form practice of dream yoga, I'm constantly recognizing the dream-like quality of all waking experience, so it's not like I'm looking to see if I'm in the dream state as the main goal, but instead to realize that I'm already dreaming...but yes, still with the subject of recognizing my state .

I like how the new edition of TYoDaS states it:

Often, and throughout the day, become vividly aware of exactly where you are and what you're experiencing in the moment. Wake up from the dream of distraction. The more often, the better...
It's particularly helpful to become aware as you react to situations...

I think that it really is about consistency, and depth of practice. My own experience shows that constant attention to dreams, mindfulness, etc., purposeful attention to experience, throughout the day, leads to longer and more stable dreams in general. As dreams and awareness become stable, the lucid dreams should also be longer. The more time you spend in the lucid state (waking or dreaming), in my theory, the better the brain gets at it, the easier it is to enter and to maintain that state over time. It was around the 2nd year of practice that I started having very regular, long, "epic", ultra-vivid "alternate life" dreams, the kind you wake from and are confused for a moment, and think "wait....you mean....that was a dream?" At the time I was noticing all wakings throughout the night, spending time recalling dreams, and doing detailed voice recording.

It's really important to be honest with oneself as to the dedication and consistency one puts in over time. I know that a large amount of the time in the recent I'm only half-ass'ing it at best, and so can't really complain that my results are also only so-so. You can't get to Carnegie hall playing a couple scales on the piano once or twice a day.

Based on my experience and from what I see from my LD friends and acquaintances, the most sure road to success lies in *consistency* and dedication. The changes in the brain take places over months/years, not days or even weeks (in my experience). It takes time for lucidity to seep into the subconscious and manifest in dream.

lenscaper here on DV is a prime example: he has a very regular schedule (more than anyone I know, including rock solid regular to-bed and wake times), and measures his practices in years. As in, "I did the TYoDaS protocols for two years [EVERY NIGHT!], then I moved to doing [other practices and meditations] for another two years." As a result, he says every dream he has now is with full waking awareness. That speaks to the power of the TYoDaS type protocols, and mostly, to the power of consistency.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I do mindfulness with reflection on my state, since my main goal with it is lucid dreams. Also, paying purposeful attention to my surroundings with the intent of remembering later, to train memory/recall and to produce more vivid memories/dreams.:

That’s similar to what I do. I don’t necessarily look upon waking life as another form of dream but I do enjoy imagining that what I’m experiencing during my walk is a dream I’m lucid within. I imagine that the people around me are dream characters and my reality is a stable dream reality that I’m navigating through so that I can practice staying calm and present in the moment as I observe my surroundings. The purpose to train this mindset and utilise it again when I’m actually in the dream.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I think that it really is about consistency, and depth of practice. My own experience shows that constant attention to dreams, mindfulness, etc., purposeful attention to experience, throughout the day, leads to longer and more stable dreams in general. As dreams and awareness become stable, the lucid dreams should also be longer. The more time you spend in the lucid state (waking or dreaming), in my theory, the better the brain gets at it, the easier it is to enter and to maintain that state over time. It was around the 2nd year of practice that I started having very regular, long, "epic", ultra-vivid "alternate life" dreams, the kind you wake from and are confused for a moment, and think "wait....you mean....that was a dream?" At the time I was noticing all wakings throughout the night, spending time recalling dreams, and doing detailed voice recording.

I agree about consistency. I’ve managed to do dream journalling, recall and MILD pretty much every night since I began and get a good 7-8 hours sleep but really struggle to keep consistent with the day work. Mindfulness/ RCs and such which is what I’m working on. I get lucid regularly but really want to start having those longer lucids where I can achieve more.

I’ve recalled some amazingly vivid, long regular dreams in the past but that I’ve always put down to my strong commitment to recall. The faster I’m able to notice the moment of awakening the more likely I am to remember more of the dream and its details. I can see how being more present and aware of your experiences could enhance this though. Thanks for the advice.

Originally Posted by Tiktaalik

That’s similar to what I do. I don’t necessarily look upon waking life as another form of dream but I do enjoy imagining that what I’m experiencing during my walk is a dream I’m lucid within. I imagine that the people around me are dream characters and my reality is a stable dream reality that I’m navigating through so that I can practice staying calm and present in the moment as I observe my surroundings. The purpose to train this mindset and utilise it again when I’m actually in the dream.

Yes! That's what I do, too. Done consistently, I think the result are very powerful and absolutely manifest in dream in time. I'm in particular really working on instantly recognizing all people as dream signs and dream characters. That's particular relevant for me since I live now away from the city and interact with people other than my wife only a couple times a week at most.

BTW, about treating waking life as dream, in the new edition of The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep: Practices for Awakening (HIGHLY recommend!!!! More clarification, explanation, and IMO less Buddhist jargon/leaning, more western-facing), Tenzin clarifies what he means by treating waking life as dream:

Originally Posted by TYoDaS

... it doesn't mean we can suddenly fly or transform into a lion, it's the realization that the entirety of experience takes place in the mind and that how we make meaning of an experience and react to it is due to our conditioning.

For me that pretty much seals the deal. I had more or less already resolved my earlier cognitive dissonance with treating waking experience as dream, really truly starting to feel waking experiences as dream, but this framing is so digestible that I'm 100% on board with this idea now.

Originally Posted by TikTaalik

I agree about consistency. I’ve managed to do dream journalling, recall and MILD pretty much every night since I began and get a good 7-8 hours sleep but really struggle to keep consistent with the day work. Mindfulness/ RCs and such which is what I’m working on. I get lucid regularly but really want to start having those longer lucids where I can achieve more.

Tenzin has a section on consistency in TYoDaS in the Four Foundational Practices. If he bothered to put it there, it must be important!

Originally Posted by TYoDaS

The importance of the day practices to the later stages of dream yoga cannot be overstated. They are much more powerful than they appear to be....Simply doing a practice before going to bed may be ineffective, but with consistent practice of the foundational practices during the day, it becomes much easier to attain lucidity in dream...

Originally Posted by TikTaalik

I’ve recalled some amazingly vivid, long regular dreams in the past but that I’ve always put down to my strong commitment to recall. The faster I’m able to notice the moment of awakening the more likely I am to remember more of the dream and its details. I can see how being more present and aware of your experiences could enhance this though. Thanks for the advice.

Me, too! I love those epic non-lucids, miss them, and am working to get them back. I think it's a combination: the recall work, the attention/lucidity/mindfulness. In order to have something to remember, you need to pay attention to your experiences, and be there, present in the moment. I think it's a symbiotic relationship between better recall and more lucidity and epic non-lucids: they each build and support the other. I now think epic non-lucids are a form of pre-lucid dream, the only missing ingredient to being fully lucid is the strong intent to recognize the dream in the dream. And as Sageous says, some dreams are fine just the way they are!

As an update, I basically had my first epic non-lucid just last night: a sailing adventure that took up the whole night of dreaming, some 10+ scenes.

Originally Posted by cedwards105

Yes, that would be. Any resources that you could point me toward would be appreciated.

Here's a direct link to the meditation sub-forum, in case it's helpful or you've missed it: https://www.dreamviews.com/meditation/

One of the more structured posts I found on the subject of meditation: https://www.dreamviews.com/meditatio...appy-free.html

Unfortunately it has been difficult for me to locate guides or structured posts for certain topics that I thought might have some. It seems that the meditation sub-forum in particular is actually smaller/less populated than I'd remembered. I still think it's a good idea to read things that other people have struggled with or have found helpful even in the absence of structured posts; of course as they say, "mileage may vary" and some of it may not apply to you. This is especially important when getting into learning something new like lucid dreaming, mindfulness and other things. It's something I didn't realise at first when getting into lucid dreaming; yes, there are core things that are mostly true or useful for everyone, like good recall and so on but these core things do not invalidate the fact that people experience things differently. Basically someone else's expectation or cause-effect scenario is not necessarily what will be the case for you.

This may be of some help for meditation: https://www.dreamviews.com/wiki/The-...tion-Technique

As mentioned at the end of it, the 61-point relaxation technique is mentioned elsewhere in La Berge's "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming". I have also come across stuff that's very similar through therapeutic practitioners and personally, I have found over time by experimenting with consciousness (when attempting meditation, WILD, visualisation and so on) that techniques like the above can be modified to feel less "standard" too. For example, my visual and physical imagination (i.e. induced physical sensations that are false) are fairly decent, so one adaptation of the technique for me has been that during the meditative process I will feel myself enveloped by a serpent that coils along my body like in the above technique, starting from the feet, up to the head, and back again and so on.

Obviously that's something which works for me and is physically more interesting than simply trying to "feel" my way up my body with my mind, though I do sometimes just do that too. I can imagine other people might be put off by this specific way of imagining sensation for this purpose; the only point is to say that like with lucid dreaming, I personally believe that techniques are not "solid" in the sense that they'll work for everyone or that they need to be followed word for word, and that it's okay to adapt and change things if it seems to make sense to you personally.

Also, while on the topic of consciousness experimentation/perception. This is a comprehensive guide on self-hypnosis, well worth reading even if just for something different to think about: https://www.dreamviews.com/induction...ripts-use.html

In my personal experience and view, most of the states that are involved in meditation/mindfulness, lucid dreaming techniques, creativity techniques and other such "inner mind" exercises even such as prayer, seem very similar. I am too tired to give you a fuller account of mine on this, not mention while keeping it succinct, and all I really want to add now is that by exploring more than one or two of such topics and techniques, you may find things that are helpful in all related areas. That isn't to say it's a bad idea to focus on a single thing; that would be good too, because it keeps you focused. Think long-term when getting into these topics, not short or medium-term. It'll be easier to deal with disappointment and frustrations this way, I feel.

Other posts to read that may be of interest, regarding meditation:

https://www.dreamviews.com/meditatio...ml#post2147826

https://www.dreamviews.com/meditatio...xperiment.html

Needless to say, there may be posts elsewhere on the internet that offer more structured advice regarding things like meditation, but beware of click-bait-y stuff or "too good to be true" topic lines. I'm not saying those topics should be dismissed entirely, because often even in hyperbole there may be helpful elements and comments. Like with researching anything, you need to develop a feel for what sounds good or truly helpful and what sounds fake (or exaggerated).

Let me know if any of this was of help or if you have any other questions/thoughts.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Yes! That's what I do, too. Done consistently, I think the result are very powerful and absolutely manifest in dream in time. I'm in particular really working on instantly recognizing all people as dream signs and dream characters. That's particular relevant for me since I live now away from the city and interact with people other than my wife only a couple times a week at most.

BTW, about treating waking life as dream, in the new edition of The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep: Practices for Awakening (HIGHLY recommend!!!! More clarification, explanation, and IMO less Buddhist jargon/leaning, more western-facing), Tenzin clarifies what he means by treating waking life as dream:

Originally Posted by TYoDaS

... it doesn't mean we can suddenly fly or transform into a lion, it's the realization that the entirety of experience takes place in the mind and that how we make meaning of an experience and react to it is due to our conditioning.

Hi FryingMan, maybe I'm overthinking this but I'd like to understand the exact thought process a little better: if you're treating everything as a dream, do you regularly go through an extra process of thinking what type of dream is this one? Is it the waking dream or the sleeping dream? It seems to me you still need that distinction so you know when it's appropriate to try and fly or turn into a lion and when it isn't.

Or is it simply enough to develop an awareness of dreams at all times and that recognising sleep versus wake just follows on effortlessly from that? From my own experience I can see how it might.

The problem with quoting a small part of a book is that is necessarily misses the (very considerable) context that surrounds it. I don't have a lot of time right now so I'll probably do a bad job (I really recommend getting the book for the whole big picture!). It's not that you're "treating everything as a dream," it's that you're "recognizing the dream-like nature of all experience." One of the goals is to undo the unconscious conditioning that causes us to react unskillfully to our experiences, to be able to see things (objects of experience, and our reaction to experience) clearly. To train oneself not to mindlessly follow and get lost in the stories that our mind is constantly telling us 24x7. This leads to clear, lucid awareness in both the waking and (over time) the dreaming states. Being able to clearly recognize the nature of one's experience, includes the recognition of the dream state while in the dream.

Once that stable, clear, skillful lucid awareness is developed and maintained over time, lucidity in dream basically follows effortlessly, yes. The book has of course much more detail on the other foundational practices (this is the first one of four, the others being recognizing behavior (reaction to experience) as dream-like, setting strong intent, and developing (dream) memory, i.e., dream recall).

In my experience, once even the notion of dreaming and that I might be dreaming makes it into my dreaming mind, it's probably 99+ % likely that I will get lucid. I have no trouble telling waking from dreaming experiences apart, generally.

I do think that there is probably a big factor of incubation involved in this practice, that gets the idea of dreaming into the dreaming mind.

BTW there is one passage in the book in the section describing this first foundational practice that basically instructs to do critical reflection on whether or not the current experience is a dream:

It's not enough to simply repeat again and again that you are in a dream. Feel it. Is it true? Look, touch, smell, taste, listen. Is it a dream?...

Edit: upon further reflection, I think I must correct my earlier statement. Yes, the practice is to basically "treat/understand everything as a dream."