Originally Posted by
Placebo
Hey SleepingAwake - Welcome to the forums!
I know the information can be really daunting, but take it one step at a time ;)
We're here to help you with any questions/directions you need
Usually we'd just show you to the tutorials, etc as the others have, since it's no point repeating the same thing over and over again
But I've just come back from a long vacation from the site (I was a mod), and feel like the typing practice ;)
(I tried to keep this short, but it got a bit longer than expected)
Getting your bearings
Firstly, you need to find out where you are, in terms of your lucid dreaming skillz :P
But to do that, you need a general overview of what there is to know
In that respect, maybe I can try give you a topic overview
Reasons
The fact that you're on the site means you already have decided to try lucid dreaming out, so I won't dwell to long on this.
But it's vitally important that you are really excited and motivated to do this
You motivation, positivity and strength of will affects your chances immensely
Whether you're doing it for fun, exploration or combatting some gremlins in your mind ... lucid dreaming is an amazing experience. It's well worth any effort you put into it to just get one decent lucid dream, I guarantee it will change your perspective on things for life.
There's just nothing like the feeling of waking up after a great LD (lucid dream)
You feel like you can take on the world
The Steps
The overall steps are:
1) Correct any bad sleep habits/health
2) Learn to remember your dreams very well (dream recall)
3) Learn to become aware in your dreams (lucid dream)
4) Learn to have good control in your lucid dreams
Sleep health/habits
If you have insomnia, delayed sleep phase syndrome, or generally just don't wake up feeling refreshed in the mornings, then it will affect your dreams and ability to be aware in them.
So get to the bottom of whatever issue you have.
I can't possibly talk about all the different possible problems, but perhaps do some google searches about 'melatonin', as it might help some of them.
But also keep in mind that most people under 40 have enough natural melatonin anyway
Dream recall (remembering)
If you can't remember your dreams, then being lucid in them is more or less useless, isn't it?
But more importantly, your mind/subconscious needs to understand that you are
interested in your dreams. If you have been ignoring your dreams thus far, then your subconscious will have learned that there's no point dwelling on them or remembering them.
So how do you fix that?
- Most importantly, keep a journal with a pen/pencil next to your bed
- Try to wake up naturally without an alarm clock. You naturally wake up soon after a dream state, so this helps a lot
- When you wake up, don't jump up immediately and go about your thing ... rather lie there for a few minutes and mull over your dream. If you can't remember much, think of how you feel. What caused those feelings? Once you remember a little something, then ask yourself what came before or after... ask how, why, etc
Elaborate on your dream and try to push the borders of your memory and the sequence of the dream (which can be quite confusing sometimes)
- Once you feel you have most of the overall dream remembered, then sit up gently and write down your dream in your journal. I suggest a bullet form approach - try to write it all down as quick as you can.
- When you have your dream all down in bullet form, then feel free to elaborate on the bullets, and fill in the little details of how you felt at the time, and how wierd it was, etc.
Keep doing that, and your recall will soar.
Try to reach an average of about 3 dreams a night
The how of dream awareness
There are so many methods to learn to lucid dream, and the bad news is that the ones that work for me might very well not work as well for you.
It's going to take some playful exploration and maybe patience on your part to try some out, and see how they feel.
At the root of it though, there are two avenues of learning to lucid dream, although they do overlap in some respects
A) LDs that happen quickly after you fall asleep, maybe because you stayed aware through the entire falling asleep process (as with the technique 'WILD')
I call them WILDS, but as a category and not a method - as methods like MILD, VILD and HILD all fall into this arena.
I'll describe some of them in a moment
Pros: You can eventually train yourself to lucid dream on demand, and feel zenlike in your control of your thought processes. WILD dreams are usually more controllable and useful to experiment in for that reason, but of course, this is just a matter of how good you are at controlling your LDs.
Cons: It takes some skill to learn how to e.g. WILD (fall asleep and keep awareness). It also forces you to take time to have a lucid dream, rather than just allowing it to happen as part of your usual sleep patterns
B) LDs that happen when you're in your dream, and suddenly notice that it's not reality.
This is what I call dream induced lucid dreams (DILD)
Once again, some people may think of DILD as a technique, where I'm using the term as a category of techniques.
With this type of lucid dreaming, you train yourself to notice your reality as much as you can, and allow that training to ebb into your dream state and cause you to notice your dreams.
Pros: You aren't forced to 'decide' to have a lucid dream. You just have them regularly at night. This is also considered a more natural approach. Also In my case at least, I find lucid dreams of this nature to be more powerful and vivid. But I've also heard the opposite from others.
Cons: You aren't guaranteed of a lucid dream when you want it. If you end up having a 'dry spell' you might be in danger of becoming increasingly negative and depressed about it. If this happens, try one of the WILD techniques (MILD/VILD/HILD/WILD/BLAH-ILD :P)
Wake-induced category of lucid dreams
Normally when you go to sleep at night, you fall very quickly into a deep sleep (slow wave sleep)
You don't dream very often in that state, so there's not much point in trying to stay aware while you fall into it.
So the trick with these techniques is to fall quickly into dreams instead of deep sleep.
One way is 'Wake Back To Bed' (WBTB)
The idea is to let your body get it's fix of deep sleep finished with, because later into the night, your sleep naturally has more dreams and less deep sleep.
WBTB means that you let yourself sleep normally as before, for about 6 hours (perhaps set an alarm, or find a gentle way to wake yourself)
If you wake up really groggy after those 6 hours, then add or subtract 15 minutes from it to see if that helps you feel less rubbish.
Once you're awake, take a stroll outside, and then do something slightly brainy to stimulate your mind (but nothing that will keep you up for hours). Maybe a crossword puzzle, a book, something like that.
After about 20 or 30 minutes (some people say a full hour), it's time to go back to sleep using the wake induced technique of your choice.
Wake induced techniques (in very very short summary):
WILD = Never losing awareness while falling asleep. This is considered a more zenlike technique, and is very interesting to experience the paralysis and imagery/sensations (called hypnagogic imagery)
MILD = Just like you would try to remind yourself that, e.g. in 15 minutes your favourite TV series is on .. as you fall asleep, you program your mind to remind you to check if you're dreaming (described later in DILD explanation)
VILD = While falling asleep, repeatedly visualizing a scene that, when dreaming, causes you to realise you're dreaming. After a while, you may find yourself realising that you're actually dreaming it
Look around for more techniques - there's lots of tutorials, etc
Dream induced types of lucid dreams
The main strategy for DILD is to train yourself to notice your reality regularly (or constantly) in your waking life. Soon this becomes a habit, and you find yourself doing it in your dream (and noticing that it's a dream)
There are a number of tests that can be done to determine if you're sleeping or not (called reality tests)
One of my favourites include holding your nose shut, and breathing naturally. If you can still breath out you're nose, then the 'reality check fails'
Other notable ones are to count your fingers, push a finger through your palm, recall what you ate last, jump and test gravity (or throw a ball)
To train yourself to remember to do these tests, there is what is called 'dream signs'
These are preferably things that you dream of often, and are also in your waking life a fair amount.
The concept is that every time you see or think of that dream sign, you do your reality checks.
There are also other ways to do this, for example playing a sound in your room that makes you dream of the dream sign of your choice (something I used successfully myself)
Look around the site for more ideas :)
Sorry to make you read all of that, but that will give you a good footing to understand what we're all talking about when we go on about 'dream signs', 'reality checks', 'hynagogia', etc.
Good luck, and feel free to ask questions!
