Hi guys. 'Natural' lucid dreamer here hoping to control/refine my ability to LD!

So since a young age I've frequently experienced lucid dreams. I thought it was pretty normal until I spoke to some friends about it in my teen years. When I said "I like those dreams where you realise you're dreaming and you can just explore stuff" I was met with some confused looks which made me research it more. Over the years the frequency of these lucid dreams has significantly lessened.

I love the idea and experience of lucid dreaming. To me it's the ultimate version of virtual reality or psychadelic drug experiences (note: I haven't tried the latter). The issue is when I begin to have a lucid dream, I get excited and try and do things in a rush which causes me to wake up pretty soon.
To be honest even though I've known about groups like this for 5- 7 years, I've always been too lazy to work on improving this ability. Instead I used supplements such as melatonin, B6, LucidEsc and Dreamleaf; which help me to have vivid dreams but I don't think they increase the chances of me having a lucid dream.

Now that I'm in m 30s I think I'm ready to properly work on lucid dreaming.
From what I've read, a good starting point is a dream journal and reality checks?

Would love to get some guidance/words of wisdom from the community :)

Hi, Welcome to DV.
You are actually in a very similar position as I was 8 months ago - similar age, similar experience, similar decision (although I'd never done supplement before I got here).
One thing I feel very strongly about is journaling - I just can't understand why I hadn't done it before. It helped me with my dreams so much. It isn't only about lucidity, it also makes me more aware of my non-lucid dreams/they are more vivid and I get more of those epic non-lucids which I've always loved.

I wish you luck.

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Originally Posted by IndigoRose

Hi, Welcome to DV.
You are actually in a very similar position as I was 8 months ago - similar age, similar experience, similar decision (although I'd never done supplement before I got here).
One thing I feel very strongly about is journaling - I just can't understand why I hadn't done it before. It helped me with my dreams so much. It isn't only about lucidity, it also makes me more aware of my non-lucid dreams/they are more vivid and I get more of those epic non-lucids which I've always loved.

I wish you luck.

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Thanks man! That gives me confidence.
Anything else you'd suggest as a starting point?

Keeping a dream journal is a simple and very doable discipline with almost universal positive results. Most of the time when I hear complaints that it does not work I find that they aren't writing anything in it. When genuine effort is made dream recall improves.

Your comments about supplements and "vivid" vs "lucid" distinctions reveals that you have an excellent intuitive understanding of what is going on here.

As far as lucidity improvement goes I recommend what is sometimes called "all day awareness" practice. Basically what this does is establish a high degree of lucidity in the waking state which then naturally carries over directly into the dream state. There are some good posts on this so you should be able to search "all day awareness dream lucid" and get some good instruction. If you do not find a good link I can search it and see if I locate some good descriptions on the method. I would be surprised if there isn't an old thread on Dreamviews.

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Originally Posted by Labyrinthus

Keeping a dream journal is a simple and very doable discipline with almost universal positive results. Most of the time when I hear complaints that it does not work I find that they aren't writing anything in it. When genuine effort is made dream recall improves.

Your comments about supplements and "vivid" vs "lucid" distinctions reveals that you have an excellent intuitive understanding of what is going on here.

As far as lucidity improvement goes I recommend what is sometimes called "all day awareness" practice. Basically what this does is establish a high degree of lucidity in the waking state which then naturally carries over directly into the dream state. There are some good posts on this so you should be able to search "all day awareness dream lucid" and get some good instruction. If you do not find a good link I can search it and see if I locate some good descriptions on the method. I would be surprised if there isn't an old thread on Dreamviews.

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Thank you for the positive words!

With regards to the journal, would you write it in if you wake from a dream in the middle of the night or would you wait until morning?

Hey, welcome to the forum!

There is so much to learn when starting out and I recommend a good place to start is in the “Induction methods and techniques” section of the forum which has some great beginner guides. I would also recommend reading “Exploring the world of Lucid dreaming” by Stephen LaBerge (if you haven’t already) for what most would agree is the best “how to” guide on the subject.

Dream journaling is the best place to start and I would match this with dream recall as well which is a skill all on its own. Try to remember as many dreams as you can upon waking and write them down in your journal. It may take a few nights before you start remembering multiple dreams and details but you should see improvement after a week.

Reality checks are usually the next step and a great tool but make sure you fully understand how to do them and why to do them. I wasted a lot of time at the start of my journey getting these wrong.

The MILD technique is a great induction technique and again make sure you fully understand how to do it and why it works as it can be somewhat tricky to get your head around at the start but it really is affective.

Anyway, there’s so much I could say but you’ll probably find a lot of the information in the induction methods on the forum. :-)

Good luck!

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Originally Posted by sotondoc

With regards to the journal, would you write it in if you wake from a dream in the middle of the night or would you wait until morning?

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In the middle of the night it is probably best to write just a few key words to jog the memory in the morning. If I start writing the entire dream it can get to be a long assignment and then I get insomnia, which is no fun.

I have been keeping dream journals for several decades and I will drop the discipline now and then when my overall recall is good and I am not working on anything serious. I pick it up again when I want to sharpen my recall or when I am making specific inquiries of the subconscious nature and Inner Work.