Well I've still got a few more days to perfect it but this is the jist of it
I'd also like to say to those who doubted me, you guys know what you can do to yourselves
The Blue Method
To give a quick summary of this method, the whole idea is to enter the dream state while aware so you begin the dream lucid. This is a whole lot easier than trying to figure it out during the dream, and especially effective for those of you who do not do reality checks (like me). This also means that every time you enter the dream state you will have to encounter Sleep Paralysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis For those of you who are afraid of SP this method is not a good idea.
This is pretty much a combination of techniques, but primarily based off the WILD or WBTB technique (I don't even know the difference). Now the following is optional, but it really helps increase the consistency of lucids in my opinion. See the best way to attain lucid dreams is during REM sleep, which is 5-6 hours after you sleep at night. So you'll need to either set an alarm every morning or train your body to wake up on it's own. Now I've trained my body already (it's not hard) and it works every day. I go to sleep around 1:00am and my body naturally wakes up around 6:30-7:30am. In order to train your body's sleep rhythm this way you'll need to set your alarm for 5-6 hours after you sleep, every day for about a week. After that you won't need to set it anymore, your body will adjust on it's own. If you have to work that same day then I suggest going right back to sleep when you awake, that way you won't lose any sleep. Again if you don't want to train your body this way it's not imperative to the method, but you will have to set your alarm for 5-6 hours when you do this anyway.
Step 1 - Preparing Your Body: The first step to this method is to wake up 5-6 hours after you sleep. If you're not used to doing this every day you might wake up extremely drowsy, forget that you're trying to remain lucid, and fall right back to sleep. If you go right back to sleep after you wake up your chances of remaining conscious are reduced dramatically. Once you wake up you'll need to stay awake for 10-15 minutes. Anything less than 10 minutes has proved not to be long enough to gain sufficient awareness. Make sure you DO NOT get out of bed. The body seems to wake up too much and it's harder to fall back to sleep. You can use this 10-15 minute time period to adjust yourself into a comfortable position. It actually works best if you find your most comfortable position and use it every time. Mine is on my left side with my right leg over my left leg (I actually find it hard to get to sleep on my back). You can also use this time to plan your dream out. It's not a good idea to plan your dream out when you're trying to get to sleep. The mind tends to focus too hard and it'll take longer to fall asleep.
Step 2 - Relaxation and Awareness: Once the 10-15 minutes is up then it's time to go back to sleep. The most important thing to do in this step is to remain aware. If you lose awareness and drift off you will most likely lose consciousness before you start dreaming. The best thing about staying awake for only 10 minutes (instead of 30-60 like the traditional method), and waking up after 5 hours is that your body will be ready to fall back to sleep very quickly. The goal is to remain aware, but relaxed at the same time. I've been trying all kinds of different techniques (and I'm still testing some out). The best one that's worked so far is a modified version of counting breaths.
The counting-awareness technique is listed below (if you have your own techinque for falling asleep then you can skip this part and go to Step 3)
First get into your most comfortable position. Then you need to completely relax all the muscles in your body. Imagine that your head is completely separate from your body, almost as if you're paralyzed from the neck down, and you couldn't even move your body if you tried. Now it's time for the breathing part. Make sure you breathe through your nose when you do this. Breathing through your mouth doesn't work nearly as well. Now count each breath on each exhale. If you count on each inhale your mouth tends to produce saliva for some reason and you'll be swallowing a lot. Make sure you do not change your breathing rhythm. Don't rush your breathing to keep rhythm with counting. The breathing part has priority and you should always wait for it to come first, then adjust your counting rhythm. It's very important to remain relaxed. Do not become anxious to do the technique exactly right. If you mess up a few times it's ok. It's more important that you remain relaxed. Count to 100 and then start over at 1. Now on each breath you need to bring mental awareness to one of your limbs. For example, 1 - right arm, 2 - right leg, 3 - left arm, 4 - left leg. It doesn't matter which order you do it in, but it needs to be the same order, don't just do it randomly (this will not produce any rhythm and your mind will have to think too much). The whole idea of this is to give your mind something to do while it's waiting. Counting breaths by itself can become boring after a while. You can match your breathing / counting with something else, but make sure it's in rhythm and it isn't random. Now if you do this right you'll feel SP start to begin within minutes, maybe even seconds.
Step 3 - Entering the Dream State: Soon after you've been relaxing you'll begin to feel symptoms of SP. The important thing to do here is not to panic or become excited because this might make you lose your focus and you very well could fall asleep without being aware. Becoming excited also runs the risk of losing SP and having to start over again. When you feel SP you need to just remain focused on your relaxation technique, which should involve some form of awareness that will keep you aware through SP. Make sure you don't start thinking of the dream prematurely because this also might cause you to lose SP. Now here's the tricky part. For those of you who enter dreams lucid you know that 99% of the time you wake up in the dream in your own bed. This happens to me every time. You might go through SP, start dreaming, and be in the dream still trying to fall asleep. This has happened to me a few times before. The best way to tell if you've left SP and entered the dream is to try and get up. If you're not familiar with this, be aware that your dream will seem extremely life-like and you might end up in a dream thinking that you failed falling asleep. For me personally I know the difference when I'm dreaming and when I'm not, but for some of you it's a good idea to do a Reality Check at this point. Now that you've successully entered a dream lucid you can go on and do whatever you want. But remember, entering dreams lucid results 99% of the time with you being in your bed at your house. So try to plan your dream activities around that area. I also have a list of suggestions on how to keep your dream from fading.
The dream-fading prevention techniques are listed below (if you have your own techniques then you can skip this part and go to Step 4)
The best technique to sustain the dream is to rub your hands together. Rub them together like Mr. Miyaghi from "The Karate Kid". If you haven't seen that movie, you need to rub them together very rapidly like you're trying to start a fire. Another technique is darting your eyes from point to point. I use this as a back up to the "hands-rubbing" technique. Just keep moving your eyes and looking at different things around you. The last technique is spinning. Don't spin like a child when he's playing. You need to make your spins quick like Michael Jackson's. I also jump when I spin and it seems to work better.
Step 4 - Continuing the Lucid Experience: After a while your dream will completely fade out (after anywhere from 5-20 minutes). When you feel your dream starting to fade try to remember using some dream-fading prevention techniques. This will only buy you some time though. Eventually the dream will fade completely. Now sometimes the body will try and play tricks on you. 90% of the time you will have a False Awakening http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_awakening. These can be pretty life-like and if you're not focused you will easily lose lucidity (most likely for the rest of the dream). What you need to do is once you feel the dream start to fade, remind yourself that a False Awakening is most likely about to occur. If you do this you will have the False Awakening while lucid and you can just get up and continue having your dream. I'ts probably a good idea to do an RC here as well. Sometimes your dream will fade and you will be in complete darkness. You will feel your eyes blinking as if you were awake but you will not be able to see anything, almost like being blind. Don't panic if this happens. In this situation you're actually still dreaming but your body is acting weird for some reason (haven't figured this part out yet). If you do get freaked out you can just wake yourself up. After a few seconds of darkness you will either have a False Awakening or your mind will drift off and you will lose lucidity (usually after you lose lucidity you begin dreaming again). I've never just stayed in the darkness for long periods of time; I usually get bored and wake myself up. The darkness part doesn't happen every time either. It's usually False Awakening 90%, Darkness 10% so don't worry too much.
Step 5 - Stringing Lucids Together: This is separate from a False Awakening. This is when you actually wake up from your dream. I have to give credit to the person who discovered this because it works really well. I've been able to get as many as 8 straight lucids in a row doing this. What you need to do is always be aware when your dream is fading because there's a really good chance of continuing your dream. When your dream fades and your body wakes up, keep your eyes closed and your body completely still. If you do this right you'll be back to dreaming within 20 seconds. You should be able to do this every time you're about wake up and have many consecutive lucids. However, after you've been asleep for a while this will not continue to work anymore and you will just be remaining still with your eyes closed, unable to get back to sleep. This is a sign that it's time to get up. (I've recently discovered that this can also happen after only 1 lucid dream if the dream is long (like 15-20 minutes). If you're lying in bed with your eyes closed and body still for more than 5 minutes, and you haven't entered another dream, it's best to either change positions or get out of bed for a while and then go back to sleep. I haven't figured out this part yet.)
So anyway that's the Blue Method. I've got a few more things to figure out before it becomes fool proof. If I discover anything new I'll go ahead and add to it. Feel free to add any suggestions yourself as well.
These are just some things to know
- Awareness is always more important than relaxation when trying to attain lucidity. Even if you're doing math problems in your head and there's a bird chirping outside your window you'll still fall asleep eventually, but if you're not aware when you fall asleep it's extremely hard to become so during the dream (at least if you don't do RC's).
- Unfortunately for me there are these birds outside my window that howl or something every morning at around the same time I get up. I've found that using a normal cooling fan works to drown out the noise. If there's something that's distracting you while you sleep you can also try putting cottonballs in your ears. Or you can invest in some type of "white noise" machine, but they tend to be expensive
- Try finding a comfortable position that you can use every time. This will make it easier to fall asleep and will save you the time and energy of finding one each day.
- One advantage to waking up in a dream in your bed is that your surroundings tend to be a lot more clear. Since the area you're in is familiar to your mind it tends to be more realistic and is less distorted.
