So you want to lucid dream. Well that’s a good start, at least you know what you want to do; but how exactly do you go about it?

You also need to think about exactly why you want to become a lucid dreamer. What are the benefits of dreaming lucidly? To help us find the benefits, let us first look at ‘normal’ sleep.

Normal sleep helps us refresh ourselves for the next day. However, when you experience lucid dreaming, you would be able to control the period of time when you were dreaming.

Normal sleep just seems to serve the purpose of simply refreshing ourselves in order to live out the next day. But what if you could control that period of time that you have dreams?

Lucid dreamers are in complete control of their dreams. This allows them to explore new worlds in their mind and expand the scope of their dreams. Lucid dreamers can also conscious choose not to have nightmares - they just change the dream.

So if you want to become a lucid dreamer how do you do it? There are actually two ways. The first way is having a dream-initiated lucid dream (DILD), which is where the dreamer is in a dream and then realizes that they are, restoring their sense of consciousness within the dream.

The second way is having a wake-initiated lucid dream (WILD); where the dreamer goes from being awake, to being asleep with no change in consciousness. In other words, the dreamer enters their dream as if it were a door, rather than just “waking up” in a dream.

So what are the actual methods used to induce these two types of lucid dream experiences?

Dream Recall

If you’d like to lucid dream, perhaps one of the most successful way of doing so is known as dream recall. Dream recall is simply the ability to remember one’s dreams. By remembering your dreams, you are able to recognize them when you are sleeping, because most likely, you will have the same dream, or at least aspects of it, more than once.

The best way to practice dream recall is through keeping a dream journal. This is a tool in which you write down whatever you can remember about your dream so you can recall it in the future. Do this right after you wake up - dreams are harder to remember the longer you wait.

Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD)

This technique was developed by Dr. Stephen LaBerge, one of the lead scientists in the field of lucid dreaming. To use this method, just tell yourself about an object or element that you will remember. When you dream, there’s a good chance you’ll see this element, then realize that you’re dreaming.

Wake-Back-to-Bed (WBTB)

To use this process, go to sleep with an alarm set to wake you up five to six hours later. When you wake up, don’t go right back to sleep. Instead, do something else, like think about lucid dreaming or read a book, for about an hour. Then go back to bed.

According to Stephen LaBerge, there is a 60% success rate of this technique. The reason why is that you would have woken up during the process of sleep, meaning that your mind is not fully aware of this, and are still in the middle of REM cycle. So basically, it’s like going to your mind and telling it that you want to lucid dream.

Cycle Adjustment Technique

This was created by Daniel Love, and what it is, is setting your alarm to wake you up an hour and a half before your normal time. Once you’ve adjusted to waking up early, alternate your alarm to wake you up normally and early. During times you are to wake up normally, you’re body will already be ready to wake up early, and therefore, you will be likely to be awake in your dream.

Wake-initiation of Lucid Dreams (WILD)

This method was described before. If you would like to achieve a lucid dream this way, all you have to do is to keep your mind awake while you body falls asleep. This is perhaps the most interesting way of entering a lucid dream. It is as if you are getting ready to watch a movie. You are in the real world, you sit on your couch, you turn on the TV and press play (starting to sleep), the screen is black (in the same way as when your eyes are closed), and all you have to do is wait for the movie to actually start.

There are several different ways to hold onto awareness, including imagining going up or down a flight of stairs, chanting, counting numbers, breaths, or anything else, breathing control, and muscle relaxation. These and other self-hypnosis methods will give you something to concentrate on, but don’t do this when you’re tired, or you may lose consciousness.

Technology has moved on in recent years, and there are various devices like dreaming masks and other scientific appliances which contain such things as strobe lights to induce lucid dreams.

These work by synchronizing your brain’s two hemispheres. They almost instantly allow your brain waves to reach the frequency that occurs in REM sleep and which is needed for you to be a lucid dreamer.

These work
because they’re able to synchronize both brain hemispheres, giving the effect of an almost instantaneous change to the frequency used in REM sleep, which is also necessary for lucid dreaming.

Combined with self affirmations and sessions of self hypnosis, these methods make it easy to become a lucid dreamer. You just need the practice and determination