Do expert lucid dreamers lucid dream with no effort?

**Chronicle** · 09-03-2015 03:13 PM

I'm a beginner lucid dreamer. I've lucid dreamed only a few times before using the WILD method, but it won't be very practical for me to set an alarm to wake up in the middle of the night every single day. I want to know that if you are an expert lucid dreamer, do lucid dreams come naturally to you with no effort at all? Like do you just fall asleep and the lucid dreams come? If so, how long would it take to get like this?

**Laurelindo** · 09-03-2015 05:03 PM

Originally Posted by Chronicle

I'm a beginner lucid dreamer. I've lucid dreamed only a few times before using the WILD method, but it won't be very practical for me to set an alarm to wake up in the middle of the night every single day. I want to know that if you are an expert lucid dreamer, do lucid dreams come naturally to you with no effort at all? Like do you just fall asleep and the lucid dreams come? If so, how long would it take to get like this?

Hi and welcome, Chronicle.

Some people become lucid every night, usually because they started practicing lucid dreaming at a very early age so that it eventually became natural to them.
However, this frequency is fairly rare, although you can certainly increase your own number of lucid dreams to a more than decent level.
One of the most well-known lucid dreaming researchers - Stephen LaBerge - managed to increase his numbers of lucid dreams up to something between 20-30 lucid dreams per night over three years;
here is a diagram of his own documented number of lucid dreams during this interval.

The way he practiced lucid dreaming was fairly simple - he simply decided that he was going to "be ready" the next time he was dreaming, and went to sleep with the intention to notice his dreams and question them.
If you keep doing this for some time (which is essentially the MILD technique in a nutshell - remembering to recognize that you are dreaming) you will surely start noticing results after a couple weeks or months, depending on how motivated you are.

**Chronicle** · 09-03-2015 08:22 PM

Thanks! I'll try out the MILD method from now on and see how it works for me

**Rothgar** · 09-08-2015 02:55 AM

I think that was 20-30 per month, as graph shows.

**Rothgar** · 09-08-2015 03:32 AM

I think that was 20-30 per month, as graph shows.

**SinisterDezz** · 09-08-2015 10:49 AM

Originally Posted by Rothgar

I think that was 20-30 per month, as graph shows.

Yea, no kidding. Wish I could have 20-30 per night. I don't think we even dream that much.

**FryingMan** · 09-08-2015 01:18 PM

Originally Posted by SinisterDezz

Yea, no kidding. Wish I could have 20-30 per night. I don't think we even dream that much.

If you count transitions to scenes with unrelated plot/actors/locations as different dreams, it's conceivable we sometimes do have that many, or at least approaching that. When I was actively noticing wakings I could recall around 4 dreams per waking (using that early definition of "dream"), and if you have a nice long sleep or do alarm based frequent wakings, the dreams can really add up.

I think we dream a LOT every night and just forget most of it.