7 Steps to Start Lucid Dreaming
Lucid Dreaming is consciously being aware within your dream. When you are dreaming and you become conscious that you are dreaming you can start to control your dreams and the direction they go in.
Lucid dreaming can help with recurring nightmares, solving creative problems, speaking with loved ones who have passed on, anxiety, and problem solving. It can be an exhilarating experience and the feeling of euphoria after your first few lucid dreams can last for days. <!–more–>
7 Steps to Start Lucid Dreaming
1. Remember your ordinary dreams.
A lot of people say ‘I don’t dream’, everybody dreams, whilst you may not remember them you still dream. To start remembering your dreams try this simple technique.
Each night before drifting off to sleep repeat the phrase ‘I will remember my dreams as soon as I wake up’. Say this phrase over and over until you fall asleep, after a few days you will start to remember your ordinary dreams.
2. Keep a dream journal
This can be tedious but it’s well worth the effort. Even writing a few short sentences about your dream is enough. This will get you into the habit of remembering your ordinary dreams and to start looking for dream signs within your dreams. It can also be a tool to analyze your thought processes.
3. Pick out dream signs
A lot of your ordinary dreams will have objects or people in them that could act as a cue to you waking up in your dreams. For example if you regularly talk to ‘Elvis’ in your ordinary dreams this is an obvious dream sign and can be used to ask yourself if you are dreaming because you know Elvis is dead.
4. Notice your waking world
To be conscious in your dream world means you have to be conscious in your waking world. That might sound crazy, as you are conscious when you are awake. However what I mean is ‘consciously focused’ . For example you are consciously focused when learning a new task, you are thinking about every action you are taking to get the right steps. When you have learned the new task you no longer have to focus as intently as you did when learning it. Being consciously focused means looking around you and saying what you see, feel, hear, smell and touch and voicing it. This has the added benefit of being in the moment and can help you to inner calmness, it’s almost zen like.
If you start to consciously focus on the world around you, you will carry this over into the dream world.
5. Ask yourself; ‘Am I dreaming?’
Ask yourself just now ‘Am I dreaming?’. Your obvious answer is to say no, of course you are not dreaming. How do you know? Don’t just say; because I know, try and think about why you are not dreaming. For example you could say if I was dreaming I would be able to fly. When you are dreaming you cannot read text for longer than a few seconds, so try reading text to prove to yourself you are not dreaming.
This again will carry over into your dreaming world and you will start asking the same questions in your dreams which can turn into a lucid dream.
6. Your first lucid dream
Many people have their first lucid dream simply by reading about it. You might find that you become over-excited and lose the lucid dream however, you first lucid dream will be remembered for years to come.
7. Staying lucid
I have used different techniques to stay within a dream however by far the best one is calming myself down with self talk and dream spinning. If you find that you are losing your lucidity you can talk to yourself to calm yourself down and just start noticing the things around you in your dream.
Dream spinning is when you feel you are losing control of your dream you mentally spin like a tornado to stay within your dream. This is focusing the mind on staying lucid.
Have you ever had a lucid dream? If you have why not tell us about it by leaving a comment.
WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY
Steven Aitchison
Steven Aitchison writes about personal development and making money on the web. His home page is at www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog.
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Comments
Mike Torres says on August 25th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Fun post. I especially like the dream spinning which I’ve never tried. I use lucid dreaming to get better at things, for example: martial arts techniques. I’ve found it works quite well (when my daughter doesn’t wake me up screaming) to use this state to “practice”:
http://www.refocuser.com/2009/.....any-skill/
Keith_Indy says on August 25th, 2009 at 10:34 am
I’ve always had a very high ability to change the conditions in my dreams.
For instance, if I have a dream of war, or aliens invading, I can instantly dream up the weapon I need.
I used to have very vivid dreams, and they would often continue from night to night. Not as much anymore though.
ben nguyen says on August 25th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I notice a dramatic increase in the amount and intensity of my dreams when I sleep with the electric blanket on.
Seth says on August 25th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I’ve never tried self talk to stay inside a lucid dream before, usually what I do is rub my hands together in my dream. Focusing on what my hands are feeling always keeps me in the dream. The problem with that, is if I stop then I tend to lose control of the dream and wake myself up.
Erin says on August 25th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Dreams are such a fascinating subject. Interesting post. Thanks.
Andrew says on August 25th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
I’ve had one that I an remember. I was VERY young.. maybe 8 or 9 years old.. But i remember it vividly to this day…. that was about 18 years ago.
There were giant bugs after me,, i tripped and fell. When I got up, I just said to myself.. “wait a minute, this is a drum.” I didn’t have complete control yet, but i knew what it was.
With enough effort, I was able to grow my body to be large enough to stomp the bugs. I woke up not long after that. I didn’t have enough time to do anything else once I was safe. I’ve been trying to lucid dream again every since.
Frank says on August 25th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Whenever I find myself in a lucid dream, I immediately start to fly. Because I know its a dream, and that’s the only way I’ll ever fly without a machine helping, I try to enjoy it as long as possible (normally, only for a minute or so), then I loose lucidity or wake up happy that I was able to fly again.
matt says on August 25th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I have lucid dreams on a regular basis. One side effect that I notice is that some of the dream events tend to insert themselves into my memory in a way that I had been convinced that an event had happened when it never actually did.
pril says on August 25th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
that question are you dreaming. should be asked everyone hour in your waking time. that way you won’t forget to ask this when your dreaming you need to have something on a regular basis.
and if you can read for a time frame if you look back it wont’ be the same as well!
Domi Lontano says on August 25th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Being on a consistent sleep schedule really helps ease the process of developing lucidity.
A few other tricks I’ve learned are doing “reality checks” similar to the “Am I dreaming?” question. For example, every time you look at your feet, go through a door, or flip a light switch, pause and do a “reality check”. Once you learn your dream symbols (for me it’s seeing open or running water), then you can adjust your reality checks to coincide with your dream symbols. This is a GREAT way to jolt yourself into lucidity! :D
Have you ever had the dream where you’re trying to run, but your legs feel heavy or weak? That and other recurring dreams are good reality checkpoints as well. I agree with Frank, in that I love dream flying, especially after the heavy-legs recurring dream.
As a sidenote, a cool movie about dreaming is called “Waking Life”, by director Richard Linklater.
Steven Aitchison says on August 25th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
@Keith – We kind of lose the ability and inclination to remember our dreams as we get older, but with practice we can get it back.
@ben – That’s a strange one, maybe akin to having a fever or something like that.
@Seth – I think focus of any kind would help as in dream spinning you have to really focus for that and same goes with rubbing your hands.
@Erin – Thanks for you comments, I appreciate it.
@Andrew – Lucid dreaming is an aamzing way to get rid of recurring nightmares. I always dreamt of witches or invisible entitities chasing me and shooting through my body, very strange. When I was lucid in one of these dreams and I was being chased and scared out of my wits, I was running strangely as if I was floating a little and knew I was dreaming. I stopped running and turned to face this entity and it turned out to be a young boy looking very sad and scared – the nightmares stopped…….
@Frank – I love the flying dreams, it always leaves me with a euphoric feeling after I wake up and throughout the day. The way to get over losing luciduty is to dream spin. Imagine yourself spinning like a tornado up into the outer edges of it until you can fly again.
@Matt – Never had that except for something called false awakenings when you dream you get up and go about your normal routine, not quite a lucid dream but very vivid.
@pril – If you are serious about lucid dreaming I would say to do what you are suggesting, it definitely works.
@dome – That’s a great technique as well and one I’ve used when first starting out. Never had the heavy legs feeling and waking life was a great movie, strange but great if you’re into Lucid Dreaming.
Barbara says on August 25th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Many, many lucid dreams! the first that I remember, probably 30 years ago.
The flying is the most fun.
Going to talk with my dead father, another.
Thank you for posting this.
bb
Ibrahim | ZenCollegeLife.com says on August 25th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
A neuroscience friend and I have been exploring the idea of lucid dreams. It turns out that if you habitually test to see if you are dreaming while awake, you’ll continue to test it in your dream. Our idea was to try and fly. So a couple of times throughout the day (while I’m alone of course), I try to just jump into the air and fly away. Supposedly sooner or later I should try it in my dream and I’ll just float away.
That is usually a clear sign that you are dreaming, and you can ‘wake up’ within the dream, taking full control. Pretty cool stuff!
Suzen says on August 25th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
I have had lucid dreams, every night, since I was about 5. Always believed it meant I was crazy until my college professor explained to me what it was.
@Matt – I have the exact same side effect. They feel like real memories. I often have trouble distinguishing certain interaction in dreams from those in real life.
Mh says on August 26th, 2009 at 2:24 am
I’ve only been lucid once in a dream. I have two roommates and I was walking down an alley with one of them. I was feeling kind of pissed off because he was drunk and belligerent. However, one of the times I looked back at him, he turned into my other roommate and I noticed this, so I thought “Am I dreaming?”
At this point, I saw a puddle and decided to test if I was dreaming by sitting in it. So I sat down in the puddle and when I didn’t wake up I started panicking like “Oh my God, I’m sitting in a puddle and I’m not dreaming! What am I going to do?!”
And that’s when I woke up, kind of startled.
jacob says on August 26th, 2009 at 5:28 am
Ben – I’ve found the exact same thing.
John Bardos - JetSetCitizen says on August 26th, 2009 at 6:23 am
Interesting post.
My lucid dreams are triggered by an interesting idea or problem that keeps me in a semi-sleep state. I have had all kinds of weird dreams. They have helped me find items I lost, solved problems I have been having, and many other interesting things.
I have even come up with several detailed plots for horror movies. I hope that doesn’t mean I am crazy. :-)
Richard X. Thripp says on August 26th, 2009 at 7:11 am
At the start of the year I was questioning reality constantly, so I had many lucid dreams. It became a force of habit: in my dream world I would try pinching myself or reading signs to see if everything acted the same as in the real world. If the result was false, I would then be dreaming lucidly.
Up until I moved into a travel trailer in the back of my parents’ yard last month, most of my dreams, lucid or not, would begin with me waking up in my bedroom, putting on my jeans, and walking around the house. Often my Dad would be on the computer just as he is in real life and I’d tell him I’m going for a walk. Then I might go outside, where my yard looked almost the same as in real life. The houses close by looked the same, but when I’d walk down the street, everything would be different. I suppose that is because those locations are less ingrained in my consciousness.
Now, my dreams are all over the place. Different locations, unknown locations, different people. I haven’t had a lucid dream in a month, and it was in my house again. I couldn’t control the environment which was very disconcerting. Toward the end of my previous lucid dreaming period, I could float through the air. It is a nice sensation which feels different from swimming. I also didn’t have to get dressed, because I could just snap my fingers, blink my eyes, and intend it with my thoughts Then I would be wearing good clothes. That isn’t working for me now.
Whenever a lucid dream starts ending, I get tunnel vision and my hearing fades away, just as it does when I’m falling asleep. If I want to prolong the dream, I start spinning in circles like a little kid while touching my tongue to the roof of my mouth. Always works, though I can’t prolong my stay in the virtual reality for more than a few minutes.
Sometimes after the dream ends and I awaken, I keep my eyes closed and don’t move a muscle. I feel my eyeballs continuing to vibrate and I’m over-heated, as if my body can’t regulate it’s temperature. Am I still in REM mode? Once, I went back into a lucid dream, but normally it just ends after a few minutes of being still, and I get up.
usedtrucks says on August 27th, 2009 at 6:27 am
i have dreams where bad things are happening and i know i’m dreaming but i cant make myself wake up. this is often combined with sleep paralysis, and its really scary :(
patrick says on August 27th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
to say that the way to maintain lucidity is to dream spin, and that in dreams you can only read text for a few seconds is shortsighted, just as the notion from “waking life” that flipping a light switch and having nothing happen is always a dream symbol. i have found it to be more often than not, and i often have trouble reading text or digital readout in dreams, but each persons individual experiences are entirely their own. for me i usually can recognize i am dreaming if a tornado or a wild bear appears in my dreams, but to say that is the case for everyone would be silly.
Moira says on September 4th, 2009 at 1:50 am
I’ve “woken up” more than once, but I always want to continue with mY dream. They’re so interesting.
Meghashyam Chirravoori says on September 4th, 2009 at 9:04 am
One thing that really struck me was – asking myself – am i dreaming? How do I prove it? And I realised that for a few seconds I was actually in doubt whether I was dreaming or not! By seeing that I could not pass my finger through my laptop screen do what I might I concluded I was not dreaming. This technique is simply awesome.
Vincey says on September 6th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I recently quit smoking with the nicottine patch method.
About 10 times during the 2 months it took to quit I had
incredible control of my lucid dreams. Come to find it
actually has a warning right on the box in the side effects
area. Has anyone else had this experience. I DO NOT recommend this to non smokers. It will prorbaly make you vomit, or worse actually make you a nicotine addict.
Ryan says on September 10th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Steven, this is a great nuts and bolts article about lucid dreaming. I particularly like your call to “notice the waking world” which is often the step that is missed. Because if we aren’t lucid in our waking life, we won’t be in our dreams either! My favorite reality check is to notice I’m aware everytime I go through a doorway. Now I try to notice it everytime I go through a “threshold” too such as a break in the trees, or through a tunnel when driving. It’s been very effective for lucidity as a dreamsign.
Terry says on September 13th, 2009 at 12:16 am
Many people mention that as they get older, they lose the ability to be lucid in dreams. I noticed that problem at 55 along with difficulty falling asleep. I started taking Melatonin and now I fall asleep easily and have VIVID lucid dreams regularly…At 60, I’m again flying at night!
Anastasia says on September 15th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I’m only 13, and I usually remember my dreams as soon as I wake up. I have been attempting to have a lucid dream for a month now, (maybe I was just trying a little too hard), and I had one just last night. I was flying, and it was so amazing! But I didn’t really feel like I had total control of MYSELF! I didn’t feel that concious, or really there. Is this normal?
Mystic Tuba says on September 22nd, 2009 at 11:09 am
I had my first lucid dream in a very long time last night. I recently was tested for pyroluria and started treatment; one of the symptoms of pyroluria is an inability to remember dreams. I hadn’t remembered dreams for years. If you don’t remember your dreams even with the proper focus, google pyroluria and see if you fit the profile. It is fairly common but not well known, and it won’t be found via a blood test. The test is a very delicate urine test, and must be done by an expert lab.
chat odaları says on September 23rd, 2009 at 7:41 am
The test is a very delicate urine test, and must be done by an expert lab.
World of Lucid Dreaming says on September 24th, 2009 at 1:34 am
This is an excellent overview of lucid dreaming – well done! Help spread the word http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com – dream control is within everyone’s reach :)
CEEBEE says on September 25th, 2009 at 7:35 am
My experience has been similar though I never knew about lucid dreaming until I read this post. My lucid dreams have been about being able to breathe underwater when swimming, instead of flying. After the first one I kind of thought I could still breathe underwater when I was awake, remembering the method I used. The dream reoccurs now and then, and if I think about it all, it really seems that at some point I have definately taken a breath under water when wide awake!! So the memories from the dreams are firmly embedded and entwined in reality for me. I wish!!
wethecom says on October 30th, 2009 at 12:18 am
Lucid dreaming is somthing i have tryed to do for years..trying to control my dreams..
i finally achieved it and seems now i cant sleep properly without medication..
because i stay conscious in my dreams and i never get any rest…half awake half asleep..be careful what you wish for
Some person says on November 4th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Sometimes I am aware I am dreaming.I can dream up guns but they have limited ammo. I have no idea how to fix this. Sometimes I NEED to dream up a weapon fast but nothing works. I can dream up a bazooka but fires very slowly but is very hard to dodge for some reason lol.
Adam says on January 2nd, 2010 at 10:00 am
Amazing! I don’t know if it was just the fact that I was reading this post and all of the comments RIGHT before I went to bed last night, but I had my first (intended) lucid dream last night! I went to bed with intentions of having one and I did.
I remember (because I wrote it down) EXACTLY how I realized I was dreaming and took control. I was trying to make a phone call to my girlfriend and my phone started laughing at me and making strange noises… I though to myself, “This cannot be happening; I’ve GOT to be dreaming.” I don’t remember the transition, but I then remember flying! Not arms-flapping flying, but like a jet. Weird. haha. Awesome! Hopefully I’ll be able to do it again, but STAY in the lucid state.
dreamer says on January 5th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Like the Tips! I’ve had lucid dreams most of my life, and fortunately early-on realized you can somewhat control. So Interesting, an altered reality only limited by our imagination. And sometimes you see things you didn’t think you imagined, fascinating :: Evernote.com is great for cataloging, you can keyword and group, track. Or for reoccurrings. Also, foods before bed increase potential, popcorn, spicies, foods w/effects (,of course). ::
Jochen says on January 7th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Our daughter died a few weeks ago, at almost 8 months of age. I’ll keep an eye on my dreams now for the future, thanks!
lucid dreamer says on February 4th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
I don’t have a lucid dream often, just about once or twice a month.
i heart JB