Dream Control Training Course

Hey guys. I wrote this guide a while ago, and I thought I'd share it here. You can find the original version in the Knowledge base there.
Before I begin, I would have to point out that there are links to various guides/useful topics in the other forum (this guide is meant to be used in conjunction with that material), and that's one of the reasons why I stalled a bit before posting it here. Anyway, since it's LD material, it should be permitted to do so, if quite awkward. So, one solution could be posting the important content of those in this topic aswell, or if there's any equivalent here to those guides, I'll be happy to replace the link under your suggestions. Just tell me your opinions on the matter, and enjoy the read. :)

With many thanks to Spider, Wyvern, moogle, Sliph for their help, suggestions and proofread.
With very special thanks to pasQuale for her help, suggestions, and for the dedication she put in providing us with such a wonderful and active site.

I'm proud to give you a warm welcome to the

Dream Control Training Course

This guide gathers most known techniques on how to keep a dream, how to keep it stable and lucid, and how to manage to get all the powers/achievements you may wish to accomplish in a dream ^^ It is quite a long read, so take it in more than one session if required; the guide is split into chapters, so you might internalize a few key concepts at a time; be sure to take the needed time to read through ;)

Table of Contents

Dream Practice : This part is designed to guide through your first LD's and onwards, starting with the basics of keeping a dream stable, and proceeding on to growing/gaining powers, and up to modifying a dreamscape, examining it on the confidence angle.
Daily practice : This section offers exercises of various length and requirements to train the different aspects of dreaming, from lucidity to recall to confidence and beyond that.
FAQ : Your Frequently Asked Questions answered, plus some final tips.
Final Note : Just a parting advice to all you readers that made it through the guide.


Now off with the introductions, and let's begin!

DREAM PRACTICE

Here are grouped all things to do while you are effectively inside the dream, and you are already lucid. The specifics are covered in focused chapters:

• Modulate emotions
• Increase awareness and stabilize the dream: Short-term and Long-term solutions
• Power up your Conscious
• Grow your confidence
• Establish and carry out your intent, prevent your dream from fading
• Nightmares

With my best wishes for you to enjoy the read. (:

Modulate emotions

The first moments of a LD might be all a novice LD'er gets to see - might it be for the excitement, the panic of losing the LD somehow, or not managing to overcome the fear in a nightmare. As you see, it's mostly about emotions, and you will learn to control both them and yourself in these passages.

Don't panic - Of course, one can probably learn it by the first LD or so, but emotions play a very powerful role in dreams right form the beginning - and big emotions majorly so. When you realize you are dreaming, remember to stay calm - as it will allow the dream to continue.

Relax - During the first moments of lucidity, even if you didn't burst in excitement, and managed to stay put, you can still find you're pretty much hype inside, or shaken if you got lucid from a nightmare. What you need to know is, you most likely got lucid somewhere in the middle of the dream, and thus it can still go on for a long time, but you will need the right frame of mind to avoid losing lucidity or waking up altogether. So, after the first moment, take a second to notice your emotions. The dream will wait for you, the story always waits for the protagonist. Knowing what you feel, it will be much easier to you to get a stable hold of yourself.

Take deep breaths - Now to get a peaceful state of mind, stable foundations from which your dream can become pretty much anything. (If you allow feelings to pass unnoticed, they could later modify the dream and divert your attention - troubling your lucidity.) Take deep breaths, accompanied by mantras of your choice, like "I'm calm" or "I control my emotions", or a yogic mantra if you are practiced with those. If you know any on-the-spot relaxation technique, they all work pretty well.

Be aware of your dream body - Your dream body is one of the most stable elements in your dreams, as is the most powerful representation of ourselves we possess IWL, so getting to be aware of it can keep one pretty stable into a dream. Get to feel your positions, your senses (explained in another point), your movements, and if you can't manage, then move around a little, bump into things, force experiences to happen! Streams of information from the dream is what keeps you inside, so get it flowing.

Keep anchored to the dream world - During the whole process, it's important to keep contact with the dream world, as it keeps us informed of his changes (so you might prevent loss of lucidity) and prevents us from losing the dream state and waking up. This can be easily done by keeping your eyes open, keeping contact with your surroundings by any means you can think of (touch is often used). More explanation on this will come later in the guide. This is also a great way to stay in the dream if you find your eyes closing: just keep listening, grab something (even your clothes) and feel textures, until your sight comes again (remember that it's not necessary at all for the dream eyes to open, you can just visualize something, even a entirely new scene ^^)

Take it easy - Always remember, if you fear the LD will somehow end (because of either reason, lucidity loss or awakening), it will be that fear to end your LD, and not at all the thing you're fearing. Experienced LD'ers learn to take it easy, because being confident in their abilities is often all it takes for one to make it going the way they desire. If anything, it's a dream we're talking about ;) This can be brought to the point of continuing what you were doing upon the realization, to let the transition into lucidity be completely painless for the dream scene, and more gradual, so to avoid bursts of emotions.

Slow down - While doing all this, if you often find yourself losing lucidity instead, you might want to stop what you were doing before you gained lucidity, as you will probably need some concentration the first times to maintain the lucid state. If you are in a nightmare, you could not have the material time to perform all this; however, nightmares often produce spontaneously a higher kind of lucidity, so you might not need most of the modulating practice for those. Nightmares are problems waiting to be solved, and will surely keep you in - since now you can actually be of some help in resolving the issue.

Tips

- If you possess any technique IRL which you use to focus, relax and/or concentrate, you can use that one instead, as it will surely have the same effect in dreams, if not more.

- I know, you are saying right now "But this is enormous! Must I waste minutes of my precious dream every single time i get lucid?" Well, luckily for you, the answer is no: you can indeed learn to modulate your emotions, as well as get any part of the preliminary moments to a LD done, much, much faster, with outside-the-dream practice, that is, while awake. But there is an appropriate chapter for the details.

Increase awareness and stabilize the dream

Congratulations! The first part was easy, but now it's only downhill from here ^^
Now that you're in control of yourself, you might or might not experience different kinds of problems, from inability to focus your eyesight, lack of sensory input of different kinds, to still having doubts about the dreamstate. This are related one to the another, as faces of the same problem: lack of awareness of the dreamstate - and as such, they can all be fixed with the same techniques.

SHORT-TERM solutions: These are quick, short-term solutions to increase your dream awareness: most of them are collected into Sandra's "Prolonging Lucid Dreams", but there are some less known that might work for you:

Falling backwards - it works on the same principle as the spinning tech: it alerts your (dream) body, activates the equilibrium centers, gets you more alert and aware of yourself by auto; only, if you're afraid you might hurt your head, remember that you can't be hurt in dreams if you don't want, and even if you do, it's all harmless really ;p

Looking at your hands - many find this a efficient method to refocus your awareness and intent. Coupled with autosuggestion induction "I will look at my hands in dreams", looking at your hands can become pretty much all you need to do to both get AND keep a LD.

Eye movement - Moving your eyes in any pattern, will it be circular, left-right, or random, while having a look at what you're seeing, makes you more aware of the surroundings, and alerts equilibrium centers; it is even a form of psychotherapy (EMDR, used to recall forgotten past events, mostly), so its power is already widely demonstrated.

Jumping jacks - This aerobic exercise has been found by some as a great method to become more focused on the whole dream body, bringing more lucidity forth. It also brings up renewed excitement.

Adjusting dream properties - Some visualize knobs that influence some dream properties, like focus or color, or even lucidity itself, and play with them. Just imagining of having one in front of you and moving your hand accordingly can do the trick ;-) Plus it can really work with everything, so feel free to experiment.

Putting on your glasses - For you glass users, there is an obvious solution to clear the blurriness out of the dream - putting on your glasses ^^ or cleaning them, if you find them already on yourself. Just imagine them in your pocket, or clean them with your t-shirt, and see the difference for yourself |)

Engage more senses - A general idea consists in focusing more on the dream world by taking in multiple kinds of experiences at one, and this can be easily done by using more than one sense. Try to also hear your surroundings, touch or smell anything nearby, or even lick it! Try to feel the details of what you're experiencing, the subtle textures, be engaged in the act, try with different objects, keep trying to get the most out of any encounter throughout the dream: it also allows for enhanced DR and a more full experience all-around.

The cure-all: asking - In a way, it's you who is creating the dream around you, so your requests for some change in the dream properties will be very probably answered: you can either think a request, ask in a normal voice, or shout it with full voice: the choice is up to you and how you feel at the moment (if you feel groggy, for example, you might want to get some energy circling by shouting; if you are peaceful, you might only talk instead, as there is no need to force anything). The request can be pretty much anything, form "Increase lucidity" to "Increase focus" to "I want to stay in the dream", to the point the possibilities of this tech go beyond the simple stabilization: you can really ask for anything, ranging from "Show me something amazing!" to "I want to meet X" to "I want to go to Y" to "Show me how Z is done", it's completely up to you. Just be confident in the results, and they will come.


LONG-TERM solutions: If you think you have some more time, which you probably have ;-), you can experiment with longer, more effective solutions, that work better in the long run, and can even pile up permanently if you wish so.

The most famous: the lucid pill - Put your hands into your pocket: do you feel something? Pull it out: it's a small pill, of the color you prefer, and it's got some neat properties: it can skyrocket your lucidity for the entire duration of the dream, or if you prefer, it can even extend its properties to other dreams, permanently, making you more lucid every time you realize it's a dream!

This is a quite common scenario, using a pill for enhancing your lucidity, but it is very flexible in all its properties: the "pill" can become any kind of aliment, or medication, or even a fluid in a syringe in extreme scenarios; the effects can range from any kind of lucidity increase, with durations variations, to any kind of dream property, to any power development, both IRL and in dreams (IE. it can power up your flying abilities, or your skill with a skateboard). Whichever it works or not, like any other thing in a dream, it's completely up to you, and your confidence in the process. To boost it, you can pretend it's made from some respectable source (IE. the lucidity institute, or some professional LD'er), and even contact this source beforehand to reinforce the whole belief construct.

Looking for dreamsigns - Start looking around, and find all incongruities that you can find; learn how do you feel exactly, and treasure that feeling (could be of pure joy and relaxation, to feeling weird, to being a little confused or feeling a little distorted); learn how a dream looks and feels like, so it will be much more easier to recognize it by these signs later in the same dream, or even in other dreams, opening up to faster and better lucidity in later sessions.

Undressing - Getting your jacket, your sweater, or your shoes off forces you to get a more complete idea of your dream body, and its awareness can thus become much easier to maintain. A more extreme option is getting naked, or undressing in any high percentage, and while it might sound extreme, it has its advantages: you are now completely self-aware, and that sensation will surely be a whole lot harder to shake off; it allows for more sense interaction with the dreamworld (like feeling the cold wind in your chest), always a good thing, plus it opens up interesting conversation options with dream characters :p And not only that, another reason why it's so effective is that it distances WL from your dream, as you wouldn't go parading around in public naked (typically). You're also claiming the dream. "This is my dream, I can do what I want." Reinforcing the dream = better control and lucidity.
The original idea was laid down by Wyvern, in his "Get naked" topic.

Calling for help - Ask and you will be given, a good man once said, and dreams is one of the places where it is intuitively more so. You invoke the aid of a certain character - be it your SC, your DG, your SG, any advanced dreamer, any celebrity (Jackie Chan, Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, Rock Lee from Naruto, you name it) - to accompany you in that dream. Be sure to call someone you believe in, of which the friendliness you have never doubted, and that you think it possesses the power to effectively help you. It will make a nice acquaintance nonetheless. Have a nice chat |)

Power up your Conscious

This is an optional step; you are free to skip this part if you aim for the basic enjoyment of a LD. However, you may wish for some higher form of lucidity, like the power to manipulate the dreamscape, or developing any particular ability, and for this, you might need more presence of mind.

You might recall there you felt strangely in dreams, feeling completely separated form reality, being unable to remember details of real life, or to rationalize properly, like your mind was cushioned in cotton wool. This is because the conscious, rationalizing, left-hemisphere part of the brain is toned down during the night, leaving room to the creative, subconscious, right-hemisphere part. In order to get your conscious back to full power, and gaining thus more power over the dream, you might need some exercises.

Remembering your real-life details - Try to remember what your name is, where do you live, try to guess what time it is, what is your parents' age, etc.; but keep an eye on the wandering mind, remember yourself it's a dream, and keep consciousness of the dreamscape! ;p

Math - It can range from simple additions and subtractions, to anything onward - powers, factorization, geometry, even theorems and proofs. As you probably guessed, more complicated operations bring clearer states of mind, and clearer states of mind allow for even more complicated operations.

Singing a song - Remember a song you like, or make one on the spot (it's easier than you may think); sing it in your mind, or out loud, or make someone play it for you (ranging from a friend, to a tape recorder, to your personal orchestra). It allows for more emotional participation than mere facts recollection or math, thus is more enjoyable, and enjoyable things are always more effective.

Recite some poetry - If you have a flair for it, a piece of poetry can work just like a song; always remember to pick a happy/powerful one, preferably, and one that is dear to you, most importantly. It also applies that you can make one on the spot: it can also make for great art once you remember and write it down IWL ^^

Claim the dream - This dream is yours, state it, believe it, feel it. It is entirely made from yourself, the clothes you're feeling on your skin, the faces you're meeting, the forest and mountains you see in the distance, the music you're hearing now. It's all made by you, take time to realize.
The human mind is a powerful thing, isn't it?
And if you're doing all this at once, it should be an easy enough tasks to add a few modifications to the whole thing, shouldn't it? Afterall, you can see in the eye of your mind a fireball springing from your hand and being thrown, so it is very possible to bring it into existence here, just like you can normally visualize a tree, and that tree is standing right in front of you, in the dream, during this very moment. What's the difference, really? You are seeing its leaves, touching its bark, hearing its rustling, and let me tell you this, it's actually amazing, how we can bring this sort of realism up in a fictional world, every night, for any and every object.
In the same way, you can you can feel the heat in your hands, hear the roaring of the flames, see the flash of light that draws a line in the air. If dreams are a sensory illusion, why would a particular sensory experience be more difficult to you than another? You are in charge of this dream aferall, so it's up to you to decide what to bring up.

Grow your confidence

Believing you can is really the panacea for anything you might want to do in a dream, thus it deserves its own section in this guide.
The basis of this section is, dreams are heavily influenced by your thought and emotion, because all is taking place in the same mind. So, by learning to control your emotion, stay and think positive, it will be much, much easier to keep the dream under control and make it steer in the desired direction.

Imagination is the real power in dreams: trying to lift a heavy object by brute force will rarely take you anywhere, as you are losing focus and imagining there will be some resistance, like the weight, that keeps the object down. Instead, imagining of having superpowers, or the object being weightless, will work much better. Seeing yourself succeeding before attempting will almost result in a even higher rate of success.

What I'm trying to say is, how can brute (and fictional) strength take you anywhere in a world completely made of fantasy? Dreams are the realm of the mind, and thus it must be the mind to accomplish feats, not the body (not even the dream body, as it is a representation to you of the real one). Next time you must do something, relax your body, and use your imagination instead: by visualizing how the process will be, you are already putting it into (dream) reality, as the mind is actively working towards the visualization. Get engaged with your senses, with your emotion, make it feel as real as possible for you, and it will actually become real, as you actually are in the realm of your imagination. (I really can't stress it enough)

Chances of success can be boosted up a tremendous amount by starting with something more familiar to you, or in which you already have put confidence. It can range from a jetpack to fly for the tech lovers, to a potion made from a friend you trust, to dancing side by side with the best dancer you know. Just invoke the aid for something or someone that you think it will make things easier, and it will. After that, you are free to continue using the aid or realizing it was you all along and acknowledging it as your own power.

Tips

- Always, always remember to take it easy. Getting mad at things will bring you absolutely nowhere. Take some deep breaths instead, think positive, and think of an alternate way of doing the task at hand: it won't be long before you think of another one ;-)

- If you still find difficulties, then get some help! It can come by any mean, from dream guides of any sort (already described in the long-term solutions), to instruments with magical properties, either single-use or not, to anything you feel it might help really. And go forward little by little: do something that feels easy for you first, then grow in boldness, and reach for the stars, and beyond them! As long as you think it is possible, it will be indeed.

Establish and carry out your intent, prevent your dream from fading

Now that you've reached your desired lucidity level, it's time to do, be, make whatever you planned to!

It all starts with remembering your intent - it shouldn't be so hard to remember what you planned to do before going to bed; if it is, you might want to increase your lucidity some more (look for the "Powering up your conscious" section). When you are finally aware of what your goal for today is, remember to take it easy: trying too hard leads nowhere in dreams; instead, worry less and be confident a lot more in your abilities. If you find hard to spawn a certain modification in the dream (like teleporting to a certain place, make something appear, or shapeshifting your body), remember it's taking place in your mind, and as such you can put something in your dream just by thinking it: asking for changes activates related thoughts, or you can just start visualizing the change you want to obtain, and with as much detail as possible (including multiple sensory perception), to both increase the possibility of it happening and the satisfaction with the result.

Of course, if you find the dream fading and getting blurry while doing this, you might want to raise your average awareness of the dreamworld by focusing less on your task and more on what's happening around you, and your sensations.
For getting the task done, you might find more suggestions in the "Grow your confidence" part.

Your task, however, could take longer than expected, and in this situation it is a good advice to check regularly your lucidity level, at least the first times. Do so with quick RC's or other short-term solutions, or remind yourself it's a dream every now and then. Be sure to keep awareness over a minimum level. This is easily obtained by performing impossible actions, like practicing superpowers, or flying, so that they act as a constant reminder that you're dreaming.

When a dream starts to end, you will notice senses fading, visual getting blurry and/or distorted, and losing perception in general. Act quickly! One of the things to do is simply willing the dream to stay, or you could do any of the short-term solutions to regain contact with the dream, particularly touching objects and hanging on to them, as they are dream objects, and as such, you have to stay in the dream to keep a hold of them.

Writerscube posted an insightful advice on this:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Writerscube

The next time your dream starts to fade, try treating the fading effect as physical matter--it'll make it easier to tear it off of your dream ^_^ and let some light in.
It's what I did when I first discovered how to keep myself in my dreams and not wake up.
1. Dream starts to fade.
2. Tear fade-effect-curtain down.
3. Discard curtain somewhere to the side or in a corner so no one slips on it.
4. A nearby trash can would be the best place to discard Fade-Out-Curtain.
5. (Optional) Sue whoever designed the Fade-Out-Curtain if you ever find him/her ;P I certainly haven't found the culprit for such an outrageous dream inhibiting dream-object so if YOU do, drop a fish market on him/her for me.

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More in general, since we are used to interact with physical objects in reality, we can treat events in dreams as such, effectively bending the dream to better fit our customs.
Do you think you can't do that? Then think of when people turn a knob to focus better the dream sight; now why is that, how can that happen? How can a thing such as the entire sight of the dream be related to a (fictional) hand gesture? Besides, that correlation would not at all be a fixed dream property, since one can use tons of other ways to do that, or can use the same knob later (or the same hand gesture, if there wasn't any knob in the first place ;p) to accomplish entirely different feats, such as making the sun rise, or rotating a distant object. So, who decided that pill you're ingesting will help you with your flying skills? It isn't given at all, it could transform you into a bear for all one knows before actually trying. Dreams are the realm of fantasy, afterall.
So, who's really in charge of saying what goes? Think about it. A little hint: you did wish, or command those things to happen before doing them, didn't you?
The answer is, therefore, simple: it is you. This is your dream afterall, you define the rules all the time, unconsciously for the most part. But you can take this process in your hands, and by the time you can create some really advantageous rule, you'd better sieze the opportunity ;-).

Tips

- Taking it all like a game will help a long way - not only you tend to forget about all those concerns this way (and that's a very good thing, since enjoying the dream = keeping it stable, plus the whole fun factor ^^), but it also allows for more mental agility and prowess, the kind that only rapturing moments can draw out of ourselves, and that's quite the best that could happen to you, since it's all taking place in your mind.

- And what after you did what you have planned beforehand? Don't call yourself done yet, there's still so much to do! |) You probably have thought of something else along the way, and you can now get right to it; if you didn't, you still have the other goals you planned to do in your LD; and if there's none left, either take your fun or think of new ones, not even the sky's the limit to what you can accomplish in your dreams! Or, there's always the beautiful dreamscape to explore, remember to take some time for that every now and then ^^

- If for whatever reason, you want to end your LD and wake up, you only have to disengage from it: some go to sleep in the dream, or you could just stop, close your eyes and start wandering with the mind, maybe trying to remember what position you were in while you got asleep. Just remember to do a RC after you woke up, as you could have ended up in a FA!

Nightmares

Nightmares require to be dealt much differently from normal dreams, both for the different pace of events and the urgency of the situation.
There is already a guide on nightmares by LDphone, so feel free to use both in conjunction.

First things first, Lucidity is much easier to obtain in nightmares. Sense of fear, monsters tormenting you, particular things that you do, recurring details, are all reliable dreamsigns, that can be effectively used to become lucid mid-dream.

Lucidity is also much easier to maintain, and this for various reasons: fear activates the mind (and the body) more fully, preparing for the common fight-or-flight response, making us automatically more aware of our surroundings, in order to better plan a strategy. It is much harder thus to lose the perception of the dreamstate, in any way.

There is also another reason: nightmares are obviously a signal of some problem, a problem that is calling out to be solved; if it wanted to stay a problem, it might as well have kept itself hidden; instead, it's showing its face, pleading for your attention, so you might acknowledge. For that reason, when you finally are able to solve the problem by being lucid there, it will cling to that and won't certainly let you go easily. Many people reported trying to elude the problem and minding their business in such situations, only to find themselves in a FA with the nightmare still chasing them. Nightmares are still a part of your mind, so they're not totally evil, and will often try to reason with you if you do the same.

That brings us to what exactly to do after you acknowledge the nightmare: the options are mainly 2: dialogue, and if that fails, fight.
To establish a dialogue, bring yourself above the level of the nightmare tormenting you: its only instrument against you is your fear, so standing ground, head high, against your problem, knowing that it's your dream, not its, and thus you are in control and cannot be harmed; when you let fear take control of yourself, or give your back to the nightmare, you are allowing it to happen. So just stand there, and interact. By this process, the enemy will likely stop, and dialogue can begin. It's important to to get a picture as big as possible of the whole thing, so ask generic, friendly questions:

• "Who are you?"
• "Why are you here?"
• "What do I have to do?"
• "How can i win my fear?"
• "Can you help me?"
• "Can i help you?"

and let the answers enlighten you. Ask more, of course, if you feel it is needed.

If you find your nightmares are too short for any of this to happen... do it in daytime. You could outline the problem beforehand, by remembering what could be a cause for the nightmare to occur. What are you doing before the "bad part" occurs? How do you feel about the situation? Why do you perform those particular actions? For what reason this happens?
When you have found out more, you'll discover the dream is telling you something, and the next move is up to you. Acknowledgment and acceptance can work in most cases: fears can be useful after all (like fears of pointy things), you just have to acknowledge it so you can choose whether to act out of it or not, where it is needed. So just try to find out more on the situation, and try a friendly approach with the problem : it's all parts of yourself we're talking about, after all ;-).

The next phase often consists in a positive outcome: The nightmare could represent a memory tormenting you, and then it undergoes a transformation into a much friendly and nice looking entity; or, it could be an unaccepted part of the self (like a particular fear) and thus it need integration. A hug is usually the most obvious choice of action, and the nightmare can either disappear and become part of the dream self, or undergo a transformation like said before. You can now enjoy your LD |)


Remember, those scenarios are purely representative; being a product of your mind, like all dreams, nightmares are sure subject to changes in form and behavior: this, however, is a general code of conduit that has been proven useful in most cases.

Tips

- In some cases, the nightmare might refuse to cooperate. This can be because of multiple reasons, but mainly it could be because it represents a situation in which courage and action are required, like when this situation is lived through daytime with submission. It's up to you, then, to fight it, but only shouting and commanding him to go away might prove useful: the important part was taking action and imposing yourself in that situation, after all, and that's what you just did.

- After the nightmare is defeated... demand a gift! Those gifts can be prove themselves the most amazing experience in your existence. It can vary from some beautiful music, to feelings, to a more all-around enlightenment; be sure to treasure it!

DAILY PRACTICE

Did you enjoy reading through the dream practice? |D It sure is a lot of stuff to do, and one wonders if all these developments in skills, attitude and confidence could be helped outside dreams. Well, the answer is, they indeed can, and here we are, at the Daily Practice part. You probably noticed your behavior plays a major role in dreams, so by learning the right behavior during daytime, you can affect dreams positively, and be sure to get the best out of your next LD's.

Show your motivation, and pick and exercise or two (more are of course a good choice ^^) to practice through your average day, and remember to have fun doing them, they can be both fun and quite interesting :) They will cover multiple grounds, from building confidence, to actually developing recall skills, to focus, to lucidity, to getting used to the idea of staying lucid, its practice, and its consequences. Find the one technique that appeals you the most, and apply it, for the time you need, remembering to put quality over quantity. Whenever you do it, mean it. That's all I'm asking, for bringing your sessions to full results.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pasQuale

What do you do in real life, when you want to stay calm? Try doing that in your LD.

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Content summary:

• Using your dreams:
  Rewriting dreams; Learning from your previous dreams; "Chose NOT to"; Interpreting your dreams
• Going through your ordinary life:
  Lucid DayDreaming; Retracing your thoughts, retracing your day; Lucid Living; Affirm your intentions
• Taking time for yourself:
  Keeping your motivation high and getting a checklist; Meditating; Beyond the Impossible; Law of Attraction

Tips

- You can also verify what method should work better for you, to keep lucidity in a dream, during daytime! In fact, the main difference between being lucid in a dream or not, is not a property of the dream itself, but rather how you relate to it; in this sense, you can practice anchoring yourself to your surroundings even if what's around you isn't effectively a dream. When experimenting with ways to stay lucid, see how well you manage to grasp the bigger picture and stay aware: there are several symptoms, as sensing like your view has widened, more senses got engaged, there is more awareness of your position of your body, while keeping check on what happens around you; you know what your present thoughts are, without being dragged by them in the daily rambling, and this by diverting your attention on what's outside, in the present moment. It is possible to sense a distinct feeling of being there, alive, participating actively in the context, being the "I" that experiences its senses. With practice, it becomes easier and easier to bring up this state at any moment, thus being able to maintain lucidity for extended periods. It complements extremely well with LL, since it brings about the same sensations, and both methods can aid the other in keeping an increased awareness of the surroundings.

Using your dreams

I guess we can start from what we know here, and you sure should know your dreams, having several years of experience behind your shoulders: you've been dreaming your whole life, every night, and that ought to count for something |) so let's grab all this experience and make good use of it.
As a side note, exercises concerning recent dreams are more executed the sooner you do it after the dream, mainly for recall issues. Those extra details can help you a long way in joining the pieces of the puzzle together ;-).

Rewriting dreams

This exercise is in a way similar to MILD practice, as it revolves around remembering dreams (mostly by looking at journaled ones), or just making one on the spot if you feel like it, and putting your long-sought lucidity in it, just like that. You can imagine anything, from doing a RC to a dreamsign you previously missed, to just realizing you've been in a dream for some time, to starting the dream lucid, whatever feels right to you is fine.
After that, have fun in daydreaming/imagining/visualizing/writing down all the things you wanted to do ^^. Try to put all the details you want from a LD in there, and let it be as long as you desire. It's your dreams, so no need to restrain yourself in here, just make it as good as you want it to be ;D.
Trying to keep a first person view is important as for LD's, so try to feel yourself there, being surrounded by your desired environment, interacting with it just like you are already there. Try to really feel you're there, imagine touching that bark of the tree, smelling that salted air near the ocean, hearing the voice of your favorite DC. Any level of "trueness" of detail is fine, really; a much more important thing is emotional participation, and quantity of details that you can "perceive" at any time.

If you hear/perceive in any way some external distractions, and find them bugging you, you can just incorporate it in the daydream, like the hum of that old fridge is really a hummed chant of wise ancients in the distance, or that fly that passed in front of you sight was really a faerie of sort. Just let it be the first thing that spawns into your mind, the more spontaneous the better.

With some practice, you might amuse yourself at how close these daydreaming sessions can be close to real dreams. And that means, you can easily learn to administer LD's more wisely, while being outside, preparing for the night thing; it's like training sessions for a sport: it's just so much better if you prepare for a match, instead of training your muscles only as a result of the matches themselves.

Tips

- This can be easily be coupled with affirmations, to anchor your present state of (induced) lucidity to actual dreams more fully. Phrases like "Next time I'm dreaming, I will remember to recognize I'm dreaming" or anything generic like that can work, or anything more specific like "In my dreams I will do X" if you feel like it would be better for you. Check the appropriate section for more info.

- Try to keep continuity of the daydream, as the reason there was an interruption in the daydream might cause an interrupted LD in the same way. Notice what caused you to lose focus in the fantasy, and study it closely, then decide what to do with it. It can range from feeling you are done there, to some panic that makes you interrupt abruptly. Just examine it, the reasons for that behavior will eventually come up, and you will be able to treat the problem appropriately.
The same can of course be said for the opposite problem, the loss of lucidity. If you lose control and find yourself spacing at one point, try to remember what caused you to get distracted (even external causes, like some noise), get the bigger picture, and act appropriately, by getting more interested in the fantasy, and being aware of your thoughts as the same time, so you can channel them on your current goal, just by doing what you do at the moment. It's mostly a matter of seeing them from a distance, so you'll be able to let them pass by focusing on what you care about, instead of getting trampled and carried away. This way, you will get longer and longer LD's, to the point of lasting entire REM phases, not to mention more enjoyable and full.
I can't stress enough times how participation, form emotional to sensory, is the main propeller of this tech, as many others; you are spending this time anyway, so better do it with some effort, to multiply the results, and the enjoyment!

- There is a more engaging way of doing this practice, called "dream acting", that is essentially the same thing, only now you do it moving your body too. It can be a little straining at first, because you obviously need to limit your movements, according to the place you're in, but you can get accustomed to that sort of movements soon enough. This way, you can simulate moving, touching something (even if the texture will feel different, of course), changing postures (like sitting down), or making movements feel a little bit more real (like tilting your head when imagining flying).
It can work for some, because the participation of the body can bring a fuller immersion, while for others it can just be a big distraction that keeps them from fully enjoying their fantasy. You are free to experiment.

Learning from your previous dreams

For anything you might want to do in dreams and can't manage, or you would want to improve, you already have plenty of examples, as close to you as they can get, upon which you can deduct your personal techniques: your recalled dreams. The question can be anything, from "How do I keep a dream stable?" to "How can I teleport successfully?"; just look at your previous attempts, and look for patterns. Has this technique worked before? Can you find ways of making it more effective? What if you used it in conjunction with something else? Play with the ideas, feel free to experiment, and remember to write it all down in the morning, so you can use it as the stepping stone for your future attempts.

"Chose NOT to"

It may seem a original idea, but in any dream, you really know you're dreaming. Parts of your mind are actively generating fictional sensory perceptions, other are putting the coherency of a dream together, and so on; so somewhere inside your head, you really know it's a dream; it's just the conscious, surface you that doesn't.
Or does it? How many times have you found yourself acting differently than IWL in a certain situation? Most of the dreamsigns are things that would be impossible, or very difficult, to experience in your daily life, and I'm sure if you met that pink elephant IWL, you would have started doubting something, instead of just looking at it and going on talking with that friend of yours that you're haven't been seeing in months. There are countless examples of situations in which dream and real behavior can be drastically different, so the only conclusion must be, you somehow know, each night, that what you are doing, what you are experiencing, is not reality; and if it is not reality, it must be a dream then! But if we know it is a dream, then why don't we get lucid? That's a really good question, as it differs from person to person, and that's what I want you to find out with this exercise.

Start with remembering a dream you had, the vivider the memory the better (the aid of a DJ is of course advised), and whenever you find a dreamsign that you feel it should have made you lucid, ask yourself: "Why it didn't?" "Why didn't I become lucid?". Blaming the thing on external causes, such as moon phases, the government, or your SC (if you feel it is a separate entity form you), will bring you nowhere: you knew from the start it was a dream, so somehow it's you that chose not to become lucid. Again, the reasons may vary, and they can from the popular reasons for people to think LD's are dangerous/bad for you, to any kind of doubt you'll effectively get lucid (which can have deep reasons for their existence, but that doesn't mean they can't be understood and got over with), to various fears.

So, when you ask that question, try to be honest with yourself, as this is the only way of knowing. If the answer doesn't come to you, you should wait some seconds in mind's silence (10 is fine), and either try to reason over the motives, or just wait and let the answer come to you, by itself; if it doesn't, let it pass, take it easy, and go on to the next dreamsign, asking yourself the same question: the answers can be multiple, and you can find them either in a single session, or in a week, or in a month, of analyzing your dreams closely.
While doing it, listen to what your mind has to say, and whatever it might spawn, however feebly it might be whispered, write it down, immediately, and I mean it, that's really important. Why, you might ask? Because by getting it on paper, you got it cornered.
I'll put here an example: you might be investigating through your dreamsigns, and casually, you get to think that lucid dreaming is hard. Write it down. Seriously. Now that you did it, you can now have a more objective view on things, and realize that one of the reasons why Lucid Dreaming is hard for you is thinking that it might indeed be hard. It's actually a common one. Ironic, isn't it? Drop that conception, go on with investigating if you can't manage, the picture will get bigger and clearer each and every time. By doing this, finding solutions becomes a whole lot easier, so I only have to wish you good luck ;-) .

Interpreting your dreams

A dream that is not interpreted is like a letter that is unread. - The Talmud

It may seems this has no place here, but interpreting your dreams does have a nice effect on getting lucid. First, dreams are showing you you deepest beliefs, conceptions, feelings, and fears, and since you are probably adventuring into the world of Lucid Dreaming partly to master yourself, you may as well start discovering yourself with your ordinary dreams |). Since each and every dream is entirely made by us (with some exceptions, some may argue, but that's not the point), it is all about us, and every little object, word, DC is telling something about ourselves. It is an acknowledged practice to ask for advice about any particular concern to get related dreams, that may enlighten you on the subject. You could even ask dreams about Lucid Dreaming itself ;p if that's ok with you.

Plus, by the time you're knowing your real concerns and freeing yourself from them, in your dreams there will be much more space for lucidity, instead of all those problems and doubts jumping about and keeping you from your goals. Learning to interpret your dreams also means getting more in touch with them, learning to remember every possible thing, plus giving a more than valid motivation to do it, improving your recall by a great deal as a result. More recall <-- More participation in dreams --> Sooner, more often and higher Lucidity.

As a side note, remember that Lucid Dreams can be interpreted too, and often with even greater results, because you're getting more of the dream into your experience, plus your SC can be much more clear and straight with you by the time you're lucid and reasoning (to the point you can have a chat with your personified SC - going well beyond the "interpretation" part :lol:)

Going through your ordinary life

These exercises, you can do on the fly, while being at work, taking a break, walking down the road, or driving home. They're just thought exercises, so if you have a free minute, just go for it and pass the time in a useful way. They're also very fun to do, once you get the hang of them |)

Lucid DayDreaming

If you catch yourself daydreaming in the day, you can either interrupt it, change the subject, or continue with the train of thought: with this technique, I'm suggesting you do the latter, only this time, pay active attention to what you're thinking, where the fantasy is heading.
It is not at all required to bring heavy thoughts into it, or derailing from what you were naturally thinking, just stay there and watch, and let it flow. You can surely add details, like if you started from a song, you can now see an orchestra playing it, or you going on an adventure with that as your personal soundtrack. If you found yourself losing grip, just get back to it and continue observing the present thoughts.
Get accustomed to your thoughts, learn the patterns they naturally follow, get used to being there and just watching them, learn how to stay lucid with the minimum effort on your part: it can get easy really fast, since being lucid is just composed of passive observation, and becomes thus effortless quickly. It's just a back-of-the-head feeling that you're there, and that in front of you is a fantasy, no need for anything else, your curiosity and enjoyment will do the rest, believe me.

Did you guess where I'm heading? By doing this, you will be able to insert lucidity into ND's much more easily, without even risking of breaking the flow. From there, you are free to let the dream continue with you lucid, or pave your own road.

Retracing your thoughts, retracing your day

At random moments, stop for a minute and say "what did I just do?"; I can be either because you caught yourself daydreaming, or were distracted by some event or thought. You can trace the events backwards, starting at the last one and looking for the triggering cause of each, going more and more backwards in time, or forward form one particular event you remember.

Sample forward retracing: you stop, think of the exercise, remember you looked at a flower at some point, look back at it --> remember the chain of thoughts chain of thoughts "Beautiful flower" --> "That yellow is nice" --> "I have a yellow shirt somewhere" --> "My cabinet is messy" --> "I have to clean up my room today" etc. onwards.
Sample backward retracing: you think of your last thought and go find the cause for each: "I was thinking of my friend B" <-- "B looks really like the protagonist from that game." <-- "Maybe that PC shooter would do for him" <-- "Trying to choose a good gift for A" etc. backwards.

You'll notice you'll be able to remember better if you were more aware during that period, and this is in general a great training, both for DR directly (you'll notice how remembering dreams and reality are actually very close in their workings) and awareness indirectly (forcing yourself to remember tells a message to your SC, that you want to remember, thus you get to be more and more able to remember details of what happened, by being aware of them in the first place).

A more advanced routine can be practiced late in the day, possibly before going to bed: it consists in the same thing, only you try to retrace as much of your day as possible, this time you must do it backwards. Try to get as much as possible back: what where you doing, where were you going, who did you talk to, what did they say, what did lunch taste like, what were your thoughts etc.
Don't worry if you forgot something, as it is natural at the beginning; if you find yourself dwelling over some detail, just skip it and get to something else, it will come by itself eventually. Plus, if skipped some parts at some point, noticing that you did means that you effectively remembered, and that's a good thing by itself ^^

The idea can also be thought in the following way: if life were a dream, what would you write in your DJ at the end of the day? Be sure to remember all of the parts important to you ;)

Lucid Living

A good idea for learning to cope with being in a dream is, getting used to the idea, getting used to the feeling.
When you are in a dream, you surely look at things in a different way, experience an array of emotions that differ wildly from IWL experience, think completely different things. It is possible, anyhow, to become accustomed with it, and that can come with dream practice; but supposing we would speed up the process, you can always do that while awake. Imagine you're dreaming right here, right now; what do you feel? Do you keep looking at things in the same way? I can bet a storm of thoughts has flooded your mind; what I'm asking you is, keep that belief alive, that wonder, and keep believing what is surrounding you is genuinely a dream.

You will have to keep this thought in mind, and you could repeat it to yourself every now and then if necessary: in such a way, you are training yourself to keep your awareness high, and to keep lucidity for longer; but in another way, you're getting accustomed to the idea of finding yourself in a dream, so that next time you do find yourself in a dream, you would stay calm and think rationally, as you have prepared a great deal for this. Have you also noticed, how you started looking, listening more to things, noticing details you didn't those many times before? Do you feel like your view has widened, you senses sharpened, and you have a general feeling of being there, alive, participating? That is indeed a very good thing, and is your awareness having a high time: it is a wonderful feat to possess in our daily lives, as its benefits go way over the LD-related ones.

You will find yourself more reactive while more relaxed at the same time, more aware of your body and more able to control it, and much more critical about your surroundings. You can notice how these benefits are both useful in dreams and IWL.
By doing this, you will be getting the chance factor out of lucidness, as you will be always lucid, be it in a dream or IWL.
To learn more, take a look at our Lucid Living topic part I and II, full of informed opinions and enlightening experiences. Always remember, life is but a dream :).

Affirming your intentions

This works on the same level of autosuggestion: you say out loud your intentions, your desires, and command that they be satisfied; but what are you doing this way? You are sending a message to your SC, multiple times, affirming a particular craving, stating it clearly; and by doing that, your SC will start acting towards your goal, silently and steadily. There is the need, however, to trust the method completely, and leaving things work their way. You can start observing the workings of this tech with simple tasks - "at the hour X" or "the next time I see Y" (it can even be a dreamsign, for combo points) "I will look at my watch/remember something/do this particular thing (maybe a RC)"; now, if you are thinking about it at it all the time, you are not helping at all, as it is not necessary to ponder about it before the time comes; so you just forget about it, and when the time comes, you'll find yourself doing it automatically, and wonder how it happened. Well, that was your SC at work, and it can come of great aid for everything you state clearly and let it do by itself, trusting its work.
Leave your doubts behind, and just say you'll do it, then go to bed happy. For direct LD inducing, you can use "In X minutes" or "At XX:YY" then "I will do a RC" or "I will know it is a dream" or any variations of the aforementioned. A nice topic on the subject was made by BenDrummin58.

Tips

- This can be coupled with MILD practice: when you affirm before bed that you'll notice that dreamsign and check for reality, you are stating your intention, in the same way this technique suggests; just remember to build confidence in the practice with simple/unrelated-to-LD goals, and build up your way to what you really strive for; as already stated, setting a dreamsign as a trigger is great practice for powering up your recognition of the dreamstate.

Taking time for yourself

Most of these exercises need a little dedication, and do not require a particular time of the day to be performed, thus it is better to do them when they'll be more effective, that is, when your mind is free from the concerns of the day. You might want to do them in the morning, for a small time after waking up (if you can manage), or before going to bed; alternatively, you could find a small window of time during the day and resolve to use it for one of these exercises, without interferences. The world can wait half an hour, I assure you.
Trance states can also enhance results, but don't worry before the big word, light trance states can be as mundane as being peaceful and relaxed for the time being.

Keeping your motivation high and getting a checklist

Like any big thing in life, if you want to be lucid in your dreams frequently, you gotta have good reasons for it. Not there's a shortage, or will ever be. The motivation can be really limitless, from simply having a lot of fun, to sex, to doing anything you always wanted to do IWL, to practicing any superpower, to search for enlightenment/spiritual answers, to find inspiration, to meet any celebrity/person/fictional character you would like, to know yourself better, to go on magical adventures, to find your true future/soulmate, to practice any skill you want, to experience the impossible, anything you might conceive really, not even the sky's the limit there, only your imagination. It's just a matter of finding what appeals to you, and after that, saying "I will get to this in x days". You can find your motivation all over the place, just look for dream journals, and the to-do lists, or any similar topic, they're just crammed with ideas and reports of success, in anything you might want to attempt. There's dreamers (some even among the LD4all community) who have been using their dreams consciously for approximately their whole life, and they still have to get bored once ;p the possibilities are endless!

So, what I want you to do is, pick objectives. Try ordering them a little, basing on your level and your primary goals, and then make a checklist. Think about things to do during this week, during the month, during the year, put any kind of goal in front of you, waiting. Learn to believe each and every one of these goals can be reached, with a little willpower, a little practice, and a little confidence. Learn to believe your goals are just around the corner, waiting for the moment you will accept the single fact that you are worthy of reaching them.
Learn to know each one of them is just a step, however big or small, important or trivial, a middle step towards your big, final goal, that you will always be looking at, and that you will reach by the time you've given yourself; and when you'll have reached it, there will always be room and time for more, and I'm sure you will be full of new ideas ^^
Remember to always think that now is the time, and each dream you're having is your opportunity to do what you've planned to; remember to check things off when you've done it, and notice it is indeed possible to reach your goals, at a rate that maybe even you didn't think possible at first.
Take it easy, whatever may happen, and know that anyway it might go, you've been always going forward: by studying what went wrong, you can be more prepared next time; by savoring the feeling of success and awareness, you can bring it up more easily in next dreams.

Remember to keep detailed record of your progress, and look at what you've already achieved that you hadn't before, any time you need some confidence. Get some new goals planned if you want, especially short-term ones to replace the accomplished ones, and keep dreaming.

Meditating

I'll be stressing the importance of this forever and some more, meditating is one of the main roads to getting aware in a dream. Choose a preferred method, a position, there are so many guides and topics on the matter, just choose one that appeals to you; and practice it daily.
Learn to silence your mind, by starting to listen instead. Open yourself to your surroundings, to your feelings, to your body sensations, to your thoughts (the important part is acknowledging them), and relax. Learn to be aware and conscious, as it will be much easier to carry this state in your dreams. To briefly put it, you are in control of your dreams as much as you are in control of your thoughts, and meditation teaches you to do that.

By meditating, you learn to reach the peace of mind, and that is immensely useful: it can open the road to the SC, and become source of peace, wisdom and inspiration; it greatly raises your average awareness, so that you will be so much more able to spot oddities and DS's; you will be able to WILD more successfully, as you will get accustomed with letting the body relax and fall asleep while keeping the mind focused but calm, awake but still. You can also have brief meditation sessions during WBTB to greatly raise the odds of becoming lucid after you go back to sleep.

Beyond the impossible

A general-purpose technique to boost your confidence on whatever skill you might want to get better at, requires any kind of visualization and/or writing, you can look at the details in its own topic.

Law of attraction

This may overlap with some of the other mentioned techniques, but it does deserve its own section in its right.
What I'm asking you with this exercise is, daydream about you, having already reached your goals. While doing it, I suggest to relax, and take it as a simple, harmless speculation, a pure "what if", and just enjoy it.
As always, visualizing/imagining is recommended in 1st person, and with as many details as you can. Take interest in finding out how your dreams, or your life, would be changed if you managed to get what you wished for. Can you see yourself clearly? Is there any uncertainty, or conflict that seem to block this vision? Be sure to find out and get at the heart of the issue, to see your most profound motivation behind your path you walked so far in your quest. Besides, you can find more and more reasons to want to achieve your goals this way, and get more motivated and surer about why you want what you want.

Be sure to enjoy the process throughout, and when you're done, and only then, identify yourself with the vision, state it clearly: "That's me, I'm already this way, if I can envision so I can be so". Be sure of this; and afterward, leave it at that, forget about it, and go on with your life; seriously.
Think only of the feeling, and no more. It is not given to know the actual ways you'll get there, nor it is necessary.
Does a baseball beater knows the way he'll hit the ball before seeing the actual throw? Before his moment, he's just confident that he'll make it, concentrated, and observant, so he might read the throw faster to respond in time. In the same way, just be alert for your opportunities, like dreamsigns, and act appropriately in the context. In the same way, you'll be able to respond in the right way when you'll be in a dream, without actually having known what would the triggering cause be (since it is not given to know beforehand). Each path has its own roughness, and being in the right mindset, knowing what's the precise direction you want to head, will give you the confidence and strength to get over any problem ;)

This exercise will help you unconsciously identify the steps that will bring you to the visualized goal, plus it will make the whole thing to get into motion easily, since you got more specific and clear.
If you want a more professional (and esoteric) view on the technique, my suggestion would be this article, which gives clear, easy rules on how to apply successfully the Law of Opulence (same thing, really)

FAQ

Q: What if some DC keeps bugging me, or I am called somehow to another situation?
A: If you feel urgency, it may be a serious matter; listen to what you feel, and if you feel it is important, you should definitely attend to that matter first; remember to ask a lot of questions, to be as informed on the matter as possible, so you can take the right decisions easily.

Q: My lucid dreams end up too fast, i need help!
A: The entire guide is here for that ;p but if it lasts only a few seconds, if not a single instant, it can be due to multiple causes:
- You gained awareness of the dreamstate on awakening: this is indeed possible, but you will feel it clearly, so it cannot be confused with other reasons; from this, it is very easy to chain, knowing that you are aware of the transition between sleep and wake, and you just have to stay relaxed and still to let the dream reappear around you.
- Your emotions woke you up: it can either be extreme excitement, fear of losing the dream, or desire not to stay (masked, of course): examine closely how you felt when the dream started to fade, and remember that your behavior is always the cause (of what happens in a dream) first, and the effect only secondary. You can now fight the problem face to face: there is more or less a section for each ;p

Q: Ok, but I still end up fearing to wake up! What can I do?
A: In my opinion, Drahcir's words need to be quoted on this one:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Drahcir

My lucid dream started becoming longer when I started worrying about the quality instead of the length.

---

We do find waking up from a ND before it has actually ended happens very rarely, and that because we are just going with the flow, thinking what surrounds us is reality; you can do the same in your LD though, to keep it stable: just enjoy it, and even if you know it's a dream, you can still see it as your true and only reality for the time being: what good will it be if you wake up in the middle of the night, by doubting it? What's the use for all those concerns, if you can keep a dream going for hours, every night, without even trying? ;p You have plenty hours ahead, so just enjoy the ride, and have fun ;)

Q: Can't get to use a particular power?
A: There are a few things to learn:
- First, look up in the confidence growing section, and learn how to control imagination to spawn what you desire in your dream;
- Secondly, there could be a mental block, due to the fact you didn't visualize properly what will happen after you obtain that power: you could see that goal as a definitive and final one, thus you strive to reach it so that it will stay that way. A solution involves imagining having your power already, and thinking of what you could do with it, taking it relaxed and easy, knowing it is completely under your control, and many people have done it already with similar ease.
- Every time you fail, do it again, only this time, be relaxed, be attentive, and imagine your success.

Q: You end up losing lucidity during the dream?
A: A way to take lucidity under control is focusing on the tasks it can bring to completion: remember to do RC's often to remember yourself of the dreamstate, and think often about your goals, knowing inside that you will complete them tonight. Put some willpower in it, and get it done! ;D

Q: Think it wasn't your fault if you woke up at that point?
A: The dream may have ended by itself, check if 60 minutes or more have passed after you got asleep: if they do, the REM phase may have terminated, so you are not to blame :)

Q: Some final Tips to share?
A: - If you wanted your LD to be longer, you can always try chaining :lol:; if that fails, remember to be happy and grateful about the LD still ^^ so to link LD's with happiness. Gratitude and happiness go a very long way for LD'ing, like for all the rest.

- In general, it offers a terrific help to empty the mind when going to bed, so write down any concerns to let them for the morning after; be just sure about the results, and let go of those thoughts, those will only keep you awake; calm your train of thoughts instead, and focus on your tech of choice.

- Always, always remember, that if you smile to the dream, the dream will smile back to you. Being happy and careless is important, terribly important, and is very good for your mood and health too |); the dreams cooperates with those who let things happen, instead of taking every little thing as a personal challenge and focusing with all oneself on it. That way you're only blocking yourself, be happy instead. In a dream, you wouldn't be able to walk if you think you wouldn't, and the same thing is for anything else, so just think you can, and let it be done by itself! How could you deny yourself something you believe so firmly in, that you don't even think about it when you perform it, like writing?
You make something more difficult by thinking it's a big thing; let it be the simple fact that it is instead, and go for it! And remember that enjoyment is the biggest distraction from concerns you can find on the market.

- Let the doubts drop to the ground, as the useless weights that they are, and let instead your good emotions talk, the truest part of yourself: this during dreams, like before sleeping (with techniques like Imagine the feeling and The body remembers), and like in life in general.

As a Final Note:

Remember: all these techs are not at all necessary by any means - many have reached lucidity and get their long and awesome daily LD's without any of these advices. The only - I can't stress it enough - the only thing you need for getting and keeping a LD is self-confidence, nothing more, nothing less. This guide is only offering various means to get those who don't truly believe in their abilities to develop belief and confidence in any required part. As I already said, not a single tech or point is truly required to get your great LD's, only your happiness and confidence are.


Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing |) With my best wishes for your Lucid Adenturing career.
Don't forget to PM me for any question or suggestion ;)

Awesome! This has helped me already >:D

I keep ending randomly in my dreams... Even before 60 minutes. Now I think I know how to stop it >:) Ty once again! :shadewink:

:banana:

Bumps this should be on the first page. Emotional modulation post helped me notice a few things about how to prepare for dreaming

Gah -- I need to read through this all properly, but it's late and I'm sleepy :D

Regardless -- despite being one of those annoying natural LDers, the blurry dream angle gives me grief fairly often. I've also worn glasses for years, but the idea of combining them hadn't occurred to me.

It's awesome, and I almost hope I hit a blurry dream tonight so I can try it. I'm very curious as to how much we're limiting ourselves when it comes to our realistic it could be, and so how we could suddenly fix it with neat ideas like this :)

Pure excellency. Love this, thanks for sharing. Should be sticked.

thanks for this incredible compilation of information.

when i check in, i have all sorts of reasons for not becoming lucid.
i don't want my non-lucid to end, for example. or i am feeling "tired" in my dream and don't want to have to "wake up" and lose sleep. or i am already feeling frustrated (whatever)... hence powerless... so why should i be able to become lucid?

i think looking at these is great... so i can discard them!

This really helped me.

Thanks guys for the warm comments ^^
I'm in the process of expanding slightly the guide, mainly by incorporating the concepts of passive/active control originally laid out by BillyBob.
For now, seeming as there is some registration needed to view the "Beyond the Impossible" topic on LD4all, and not everyone would want to do that, I'll quote its first post here.

Spoiler for Beyond the Impossible:

Rather than an experiment, this is a full-fledged technique that I recently developed. Gotta thank all the dreamers that participated in the "Mind sets its own limits" topic, you helped me a lot ;-)
This exercise will help you to get over any block you might be facing, be it not enough LD's, or bad dream recall, or lack of particular powers in dreams, you name it. It's a large-spanning method, and in fact may work with whatever you might want to experiment with. My final words before the actual tech are, hope you enjoy |)


First, pick a big goal of yours. One of those you think you'll maybe reach in a year or two, or in a decade, or maybe in your lifetime. If you don't have any such big goals, it's time to create some ;) , and more than one at that: it's always good to dream (pun intended). It can just be an exaggeration of a present one, it's up to you.

What I want you to do is, either see yourself, or tell us your story, of striving for an even bigger goal: it can get to the point the exaggeration brings this to purely fictional levels (for example, if you strive for perfect dream recall, your character might be trying to remember multiple dreams at once!), and most importantly, give any previous, required goal for granted, and tell us of how you're getting to that one instead.
Narrate us a story, in which you use your powers, get lucid, meet the person you wanted to etc. like it's something you've learned in childhood, like if it's easy as riding a bike. He/she does already possess what you're striving for, and is reaching for a lot, lot more. An example would be your character learning to juggle 13 balls when you can barely make it with 4, or learning to do it while walking on a rope. The point is, your goal is necessary for reaching the higher one, and is absolutely taken for granted, like when you're sure of knowing the alphabet when you're trying to write a successful book. Thinking big is the key here, just let your desires go wild on this one.

In this story, your character must do some progress towards the (bigger) goal, and keep a positive attitude during the whole experience; but what I care more about is detail.
The story must be detailed, particularly in the parts (s)he uses the abilities you're striving for. Describe feelings, sensations, happenings, all you can of those crucial moments, cram in all senses, see things, hear sounds, smell odors, feel textures, and more importantly, make the whole thing realistic to you. I want you to truly believe this is a good way for you (your character) to do that thing, and it doesn't matter if it's weird, crazy, or anything, as long as you feel, deep inside, that this one is really a way to go. Remember always it's not the real you we're talking about in the story; the character has already mastered what you're reaching for. However, it is a fictional you, that still thinks, acts, and feels in a way that is true to yourself. They are very important points, remember them.
So, in order to write the right thing, keep trying until you really feel good about it, without it being stretched, cheesy, or anything, only right. Remember also to have fun during the whole thing ;-) it's not really useful if you're not enjoying the process. Also, take it easy on you, it's just a story you're fantasizing about, so try to avoid linking the story with your present experience. :) Instead of the perfect day of the present you, think of it as more of a normal day of the new yourself.

When you're trying to figure out a way to do something, write the very first thing that comes to your mind, period. Then analyze it, it is often the right one. If it's not, feel free to try again ;p A useful way would be brainstorming, if you find yourself having problems of any kind.
Remember that there's a always a solution: it's your dreams we're talking about afterall, and if you can do anything in there, there must be a way to do it; just take time to figure out your particular way, and your reasons to do it. Don't do it just because everyone else does, do it for your sense of freedom, of exhilaration, of fun, for your enlightenment, what strikes you the most.

You may feel emotions surfacing when you're trying to visualize a fitting way to do it: that means you're on the right track, regardless of the type of those emotions. If it's joy, peace, or excitement, just let them guide you forward, let them write the story for you; but instead, if it's discomfort, worry, or even fear what you're perceiving, then it's time to go deeper, continue trying, and find out the precise reasons of these feelings. Once you've nailed them out, write down the precise moment, or reason, that triggers that emotion, and start working towards a resolution. You know now precisely your problem, and knowing is half of the battle. Try to know the reasons for your fears, accept them, and find an alternative way out, because fears have a valid reasons to exist, and it is guiding you in though situations, but that's no reason for you to let them limit yourself.

Once you know your fear, you can start working around it. For example, if you strive to fly, you could find you're afraid of heights; if you dig into it long enough, you could find it's related to a painful experience that either you or someone close to you had in the past. Now that you know the reason of your fear, it's finally up to you to decide if this fear is reasonable or not in the single contexts, if it's right to act out of it or not. Knowing this, you can continue visualizing and writing, until you feel finally satisfacted about it. Always remember that's not the real you that you're writing or visualizing about, it's about a future you, that knows/does a lot more than the actual you, and the adventures (s)he undergoes are ordinary to him/her, even if they're still thrilling and exiting |D .

After you did it, and the story is completed, you may find you're feeling good about this: read back/remember the most interesting passages if needed. Now treasure that feeling, for it shall gently guide you to success in the moment of need. You can even anchor it (like Spider described with dream recall, but it can be used for pretty much anything), so it will be always ready for use. That's all that is needed. Treasure the memory of the adventure if you liked it (and I'm sure you did :)), but more importantly, treasure the feeling.

If you want to use this as an induction/incubation tech, just wonder in bed about the story, see yourself doing all that great stuff, but be aware of doing it with a hint of detachment (brought by the supposed normality of the events), or the excitement could keep you awake: it the thought can keep you awake, you should avoid saying things like "I'll do this tonight" or similar, unless you're going for a regular MILD (with powered-up objectives ;p). Instead, just think nothing of the experience, just keep that happy feeling inside yourself, it is sure enough to tell your SC you want a similar LD ^^ and it's easier than you may think for the SC to grant your wish.


Tips for visualizing: you can just do it in a daydream and hijack it to your wildest desires, or start visualizing on your own, thinking about a past dream that you'll become lucid in this time, or just start off a fantasy, (advice: fantasies along the lines of "the average LD of my new self" are better than, say, "my perfect LD"). You can even do it in HI, or in meditation, for greater results.


Tips for writing: here are some templates you can use to set up a story:

Sudden realization: the protagonist learns how to face a certain problem by stroke of inspiration, maybe aided by words of friends or wise teachers.

Dream school: You heard me, an entire school to learn to LD. Describe your days there, the classes, the dialogues, and of course the LD's, where you put to use what you've learned. :D

Rewrite with lucidity: just put the protagonist in a dream you've had, make him/her recognize and remember it, and this time go crazy with all the powers (s)he's acquired so far.

Help a friend in need: a friend of yours is in need to learn a certain thing (still one of the big stuff), and you are well above that, and proceed to teach him throughout (option to train him/her in a shared dream).

Gift of power: you get a gift from various sources, including a creature/fear you just defeated, your SC, your DG, a friend (maybe in a shared dream), and proceed to try it out. (Include the part where you earn the gift)

Instrument of power: Invent, earn, buy, materialize said object that grants you the desired power (preferably something bigger than that) and narrate your adventures with said dream object (possible endings: integration within dream body, "it was you all along" twist).

Invent: think of your own story! Use your imagination! You can even take inspiration from some of your dreams to find some good plot ;)



There are several ways I can improve this guide: one is providing a list of common thought roadblocks with answers to solve them, and I'll be eager to answer any of your questions; just PM me if you find it too private, or post it here, and we'll think of a solution.

Another is posting examples of stories/visualizations; if you want any particular template/plot ot be sampled, just ask, and I'll write it :) Don't forget to ask if you need any concept/part explained better.

Another one would be explaining the reasons why this works, and posting the theory behind all this, but it is best left to the really curious, for various reasons; however, you are free to PM me and ask about anything, and I'll answer right away. You may even find a way to make this guide even better ;)


As a summing-up: dream big people. Dream higher, dream better, dream longer, dream smarter, dream dreamy-er. And enjoy the process.

Post your stories and your visualizations here, as they'll be of inspiration for all the other readers |) and post your dream successes with the technique as well.