Hello There :)

Hi everyone, im new here as you can obviously tell and im super interested about lucid dreaming. Ive known what it was for a while and now i really want to dive in a try to experience some lucid dreaming.

Ive read quite a bit already but im not exactly sure where would be the best place to start. I looked at most of the techniques so far and im kind of confused because theres so much to know. If someone could point me to the best begginner guide or something along those lines it would be greatly appreciated!

Welcome to DreamViews, KillbillyKing! The good news is that you are not the first person asking the question on where to start, and thus there is a special place on our forum called "Where to Start" :) - you can find it here: http://www.dreamviews.com/welcome/14...ere-start.html the best technique for a beginner is probably DILD/MILD. Also have you read the book "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" by Stephen LaBerge? I recommend it as a good guidebook. Please feel free to ask as many questions as you like, and we will be glad to try to help. Best, Joanna

Thanks for the help Joanna! After reading more about DILD, i would just like to clarify with you something. So let me get this straight, in order to do the DILD method which is recommended for beginners, one has to start using reality checks throughout the day constantly so that once your asleep eventually your mind will remember these reality checks and you will eventually perform these checks while your asleep which will lead to a lucid dream?

Correct me if im wrong but thats how i understood it? So once you keep doing these checks eventually you can know that your dreaming by distinguishing odd things happening while doing the RCs in your dream like extra fingers on your hands?

Kind of. Except that few people actually get lucid from reality checks themselves. :) the reality checks are just a tool. The main thing is that you become more aware, and start to question reality. Think of the reality checks as opportunities to question reality, and habit forming, so that you get into the habit of seriously questioning whether you could be dreaming right now. Think about it seriously for a moment. Is this a dream? How would you know? Do you remember how you got to where you are? If you expect to be able to do something that would be impossible during waking life, can you actually do it - in dreams if you expect to be able to be able to push your thumb through your hand, and you really believe you can, in dreams you will be able to do it, whereas in waking life no matter how much you expect to do that, you won't. It's not the pushing of the thumb through the palm that makes you lucid, it's actually the expectations and the questioning of reality. Most of us just assume we are awake all the time, and so then we do not recognize dreams. If you change that mindset and start expecting that you are dreaming and regularly checking whether you are, ultimately this changed mindset will seep into dreams, and you will at some point question reality when dreaming. Does that make sense?

Ok thanks, i understand it a little better now. So multiple times during the day i question myself if im really dreaming at that moment to conciously think about if i am awake or not.

And then once your asleep you will start to realize your dreaming and become "aware"

Hello and welcome :)
What Joanna said is some really good advice! I know how it feels when you first encounter this flood of information. You could just drop down some important notes in a notebook of some sort so that you get the most important things sorted first (that's how I started). After a while you will just naturally know what to do and when to do it... it just becomes routine and that's your goal. If you implement things into your daily life so much that they become routine, you will then eventually start to do those things in your dreams as well (--> you will become more aware of your surroundings which increases the vividness of your dreams and your dream recall in general and you are more likely to do Reality Checks in dreams once you start doing them in waking life quite frequently).

Oh and may I just introduce the idea of a Dream Journal? Basically it's a notebook (or even an audio recorder or anything that does the job) where you just want to note all of the dreams that you can remember. Why would you want to do that? Because 1) it's fun to find out more about your dreams, 2) you can analyse them (interpret them, find re-occuring patterns, etc.), and last but not least 3) you become more familiar with what your dreams are like. That's an important step because if you increase your awareness in waking life AND do your Reality Checks then it will be much easier to tell the difference between dream and reality if you roughly know what your dreams look/feel/sound/... like :) So the more familiar you are with your dreams the easier it is to be on the lookout for dreamlike objects, patterns or anything at all.

If there is anything else you would like to know or if there is anything you don't quite understand, feel free to post on the forum or PM me.

Enjoy your time, good luck and sweet dreams.

- Benni

edit: PS: The book of Stephen LaBerge is great. I would recommend it as well! :)

Thanks Benni, your right when you say it is alot of information :) Im deffintly going to pick up the book by Stephen Laberge. I already got myself a dream journal to write down all the things i can remember from my dreams. So right now im going to try and stick with the DILD method for a little while, atleast until i get my hands on "Exploring the world of Lucid dreaming"..

Sounds like a good idea. I will probably stick with DILDs for a lot longer because personally I find them really intriguing and interesting :) I want to get really good at them before I start anything else like WILD or DEILD. Just a personal choice though. As long as you are happy with what you chose to do then it will be all good ;)
I think that's also another key to success. If you just change methods like you change your clothes then it is highly likely that nothing will work. I'm not quite sure who said it on the forum (sorry for not qouting him/her), but it was something along those lines: 'Trying DILD one week and WILD the other week is like learning to play piano and then trying out trumpet.... not much success'

Anyway, good luck :)