Just starting out.

Hey, people. I just had my first lucid dream in at least 10-12 years last week, completely out of nowhere. It was really exciting for the five or ten seconds I could control it (sort of) before waking up. That motivated me to try to achieve lucid dreaming on my own terms.

The big problem for me, as far as I can tell, is that my dreams usually aren't nearly vivid enough to induce lucidity. The dream I had last week just happened to be unusually vivid, and I just happened to see something that looked so absurd I knew I was dreaming. Ever since then it's been straight back to the same old dull, disconnected fragments. I've been keeping a dream journal and all that, and I've started doing the reality check thing in my waking hours, but are there any techniques you use to increase vividness? That seems like the first obstacle I have to overcome.

Welcome to DreamViews!

When your dream recall gets better your dreams should become more vivid as well, because by keeping a dream journal you are basically telling yourself to pay more attention during your dreams.

If, however, you already have good dream recall, another thing you can try is to be more aware when you are awake. Pay attention to everything around you.

For example, look around. Notice the many different shapes and colours, as well as any movement. Listen to any sounds you hear. Are they low pitched sounds, or high pitched ones? Do this for all five senses. Repeat this several times during the day, and eventually this should carry over to your dreams, making your dreams more vivid.

This will also help you get more lucid dreams, since being more aware in your dreams increases the chance you'll notice something strange in a dream and become lucid.

I suggest you also take a look at Puffin's Sporadic Awareness Technique and KingYoshi's All Day Awareness Technique. These tutorials describe what I mentioned above in more detail. They are meant to induce lucid dreams, but will also increase vividness in your dreams.

Well to increase vividness, besides using a dream journal, etc. Is waking up more often in the middle of the night (setting alarms, drinking a lot of water before bed so you will wake up, etc.) but this isn't even for sure, just keep practicing with dream journals and what not. It'll go up soon :) maybe say mantras/autosuggestion before bed, just be confident.

Thanks for the guides and suggestions. Looks like there's a lot to dig through there!

It seems having a positive mentality is a big part of inducing lucid dreams. And in case that doesn't help, I have some melatonin I got from the pharmacy.