Thread: RC Techniques LD Techniques, and What do YOU use?

Dream signs can vary greatly. They can be people you know, objects, even scenarios. The important thing about them is that they tend to repeat themselves in your dreams. They don't necessarily appear in ALL your dreams, but you can expect them to appear in most of them. Since there are loads of dream signs, you should start by finding your "main" ones. You can do this by checking your dream journals by things that repeat. Example:

Dream 1 "I was at the phone with a friend. We decide to take the airplane and visit China...."
Dream 2 "I'm at the church. Everyone is talking about something I don't understand. My family is now outside calling me. I go to them and we decide to go to the park. I grab my phone and ask my friend..."

As you can see, the phone here repeats. A dream sign can be a very minimal thing, even something you wouldn't give yourself importance but if you look closely, it's there.
Other than that, you can simply do reality checks with things that are common during your day. I prefer not to use doors, but that's due the amount of them I cross. You can choose something in the lines of "Every time I move from one place to another I will question my reality", or "every time I find something odd I will do a reality check". At a later point, you can switch these with dream signs or even combine them. They are there just to make yourself used to questioning your reality, so whatever makes you remember best, do it. As you'll find, lucid dream is a lot about trial and error.

About my technique, I like to perform DILD. This means: keeping the habits of questioning reality and performing reality checks in hopes the habit goes into the dream. But as said above, the technique is just a "cover". The habit and the wanting to achieved lucidity is the key. There are VERY successful lucid dreamers that achieve lucidity simply by spending 5 minutes before going to sleep looking at their hands and repeating "I will look at my hands and I will realize I'm dreaming". My advice is focus more on keeping a good pace, not worrying if you miss a day or two, but keep present the intention of becoming lucid. The lucid dream will come, but every practice only makes it come faster. About MILD, it relies largely on your ability to store an intention or resolution in your brain, aka, telling yourself that you will do a reality check when you dream, or even going as further as visualizing yourself becoming lucid. I suggest you to read tutorials on MILD, because it's great for beginners, since the excitement to have a lucid is half the way to achieve it.

About your routine, let me add a few tips which really help:

1. Yup, that preparation before bed helps a lot. When going through your memories of the day, your brain might remember that you still have something to do, which is, reality check!
2. This is also a very good way. Imagine yourself questioning reality, finding something weird. You can even go to the point of putting some "heroic" music and imagining yourself experiencing the first seconds of you becoming lucid. After you have your first lucid, you can use that memory to induce more because emotional connection makes way powerful memories!
4. When you wake up, don't feel the urge of getting up and run to your pc/notes to note your dream. Lie there, as if you would continue to sleep. Now start to think on the memories that come to your head. Something about a book? Maybe I was at school or at the library...Why am I thinking about that colleague? Hey maybe we were doing something. If you feel scared, or worried, think about that. Maybe you had a stressful dream. Sometimes I end up staying almost 10 minutes and suddenly the dream starts to show up. Only AFTER you thought and recalled the most information you could, you get up and record it. Don't worry too much about if this detail is true or not, if at the time it seems it is, point it out. Also, think and write the dream in the present, as if you were experiencing it right now.

For last, don't stress about it. The fun in this experience is that everyone can become an expert. They just need to figure out what triggers lucidity for them. A week ago I went to bed and said "screw it, won't even note my dreams when I wake up" and then I got lucid. Good luck!

PS: if you find yourself struggling to keep this habit, thinking "4 days and still no lucid. This sucks..", trust me is totally normal. Your brain might to fight a bit due this new routine but eventually it will play along. Although you seem so positive that I'm sure your lucid will come sooner than you'll expect. Keep it like that ^^