You have heard about people who lucid dream and think it is something you would like to do. That is a good starting point but exactly how do you begin and what are the steps to being a successful lucid dreamer?

Knowing why you have chosen to become a lucid dreamer is important. How can it benefit you personally? To know this we can work backwards from what it considered normal sleep.

Why is lucid dreaming different from normal sleep? When you lie down to go to sleep, your eyes close and hopefully you go to sleep. When you wake up you remember dreaming something or you don�t remember anything at all.Kind of strange when you think about it.

The sleep we normally have fulfills the purpose of allowing us to rest up for the next day.However, what would it be like if you were able to control your dreams? Instead of being a spectator to your dreams, what if you could be an active participant?

Consider the idea of taking control of your own dreams. What would it feel like to purpose what direction your dreams would take you? Explore new worlds that are only limited to your control and imagination. This is what it means to be a lucid dreamer, kind of the ultimate fantasy world where you call all the shots.

How can a person achieve this? How do you learn to be a lucid dreamer? DILD refers to a dream initiated lucid dream. You need to realize you are dreaming. In other words, if you are dreaming and know it, you are having a lucid dream.

WILD refers to a wake initiated lucid dream. You slip into a dream before you are fully asleep. Instead of going to sleep before you dream you simply enter into the dream with your mind still conscious.

How do you go about achieving these two states of lucid dreaming?

Remember your dreams.

A simple place to start when you would like to lucid dream is in dream recall. This is where you can remember and perhaps recite your dream in part or in whole. You are very likely to have the same dream more than once in your life and being able to remember them will alert you the next time you have that particular dream.

To make dream recall easier you can keep a dream journal. This is a notebook or pad of paper that has the sole purpose of recording your dreams. Whenever you have a dream, you should write all you can remember in the journal as soon as you wake up. The longer you are awake the more details of the dream that will be lost.

Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD)

Dr Steven LaBerge is a leading scientist who studies lucid dreaming. He was the founder of MILD. This method involves telling yourself you will remember your dreams or perhaps an object in the dream. When you see the object while dreaming it will trigger your mind into knowing you are in a dream.

Wake-Back-to-Bed (WBTB)

In this technique, you sleep and set your alarm for only a few hours from the time that you go to bed. Upon awakening, don’t go right back to sleep � stay awake for about an hour, then go back to bed.

Dr, LaBerge says that his method has a 60% rate of success. Why is this? Basically, you wake in the middle of an REM cycle, so when you return to sleep, you will have a better chance of lucid dreaming.

Cycle Adjustment Technique

Developed by Daniel Love, this involves setting your alarm to wake about 90 minutes earlier than usual; once you acclimate to this, set your alarm to wake you up alternately early and at the time you used to get up. At those times when you wake up at the usual time, you’ll be accustomed to waking early. This means that you are more likely to lucid dream during this last hour and a half.

WILD refers to Wake Initiation of Lucid Dreams

To get into this correct frame of mind if you will there are a few tricks you can use. Focus seems to be key so try to focus your mind on things like your breathing, counting, perhaps chant or meditate. In a way, you are practicing self-hypnosis. Use this technique when you are not extremely tired, perhaps during a late nap.

Some of the methods which can keep you mentally alert are chanting, being aware of your breathing, counting, and picturing yourself climbing up or down stairs and focusing on relaxing your body from head to toe. All of these techniques fall under the umbrella of self hypnosis. The best time to use this technique is when you are not physically tired, especially in the afternoon.

They now have tools you can use to make it even easier to induce lucid dreams. You can get dreaming masks and devices with strobe lights to help you get into the right state of dreaming.

The best and easiest way to achieving the state of lucid dreaming is by using headphones.You should listen to sounds that naturally alter your brainwaves, these are called binaural beats.

This type of sound can alter your brain and bring you to the REM stage of sleep very quickly. This is where your lucid dreaming will occur.

With a combination of self affirmations, self hypnosis and binaural sounds, being a lucid dreamer is something anyone can do successfully.