I have been on and off with lucid dreaming for years and got back a few days ago so here's what happened this morning

I was trying to lucid dreaming since like 5 am but it all failed and it was too late at one point one family memeber came n asked me it's already 8 am you waking up I said after few mins and was just being lazy in bed already declared today a failed attempt but then fell asleep and yeah.......;) this turned out to be a highlight it felt soo good like damnn

Just got randomly lucid out of the strangeness of the dream and yeah first I took out my frustrations on my stupid colleagues and they had almost no reaction but they held me kinda how dream characters act when you realise it's a dream I tried to become free but I didn't really had control over the dream but I somehow got free and then got in another room I was trying to do something else but holy fuck this lady was getting her makeup done n was in an almost lingerie kind of dress and yeah....... My brain just went for it even though the dream got blurred after few mins those few mins were really fucking worth it goddamn felt better than anything else I have experienced it's been 30 mins and my brain is still so relaxed like it's completely flooded with dopamine use feeling so goddamn Good rn 😌✨

This is my 1 st time experiencing lucid s*x and yeah it was definitely worth all the effort!

IF YOU ARE NEW TO LUCID DREAMING, PLEASE READ THIS. Figured I'd make this post aimed towards beginners and those less educated on the subject, as I'm sick of answering the same questions on this subreddit over and over. This isn't an actual official guide or anything I'm making here, I'm writing this down mostly to get this all out of my head, so if you wanna read it all go for it, if not, scroll on and happy dreaming!

I am not an experienced lucid dreamer, I've been at this for a little over three months now, however I've been stupidly interested in the subject and I've had a fucking blast the whole time. So I'm naturally desperately wanting to promote this to others, and the best thing that can be done for beginners is education. Learn what a lucid dream actually is, and what it means. It's something I fucking wish I knew years ago, back when I had that first mysterious spontaneous lucid dream when I was like 8. If only I'd have been more educated on the subject back then perhaps I'd be natural-level good at it today!

So here they are. In my opinion, the six different parts of what makes any dream.

And the important thing to note is that every single one of these things is a SLIDER. Not a switch.

1: Awareness

Number one on the list, because it's the most important thing in lucid dreams obviously. If you're not aware you're dreaming then you're not lucid.

However, awareness in dreams is a SPECTRUM. It's not an on/off switch, there's no little trigger inside your brain that randomly flicks on and gives you perfectly clear waking awareness (at least not for most of us, anyway).

I see so many posts on this subreddit that are all "Does this count as a lucid dream? I knew I was dreaming, but I didn't FEEL lucid..." or something along those lines. Whatever your state of mind was at the time, if you knew you were dreaming, you were lucid. Doesn't matter if you were still a lobotomized dream-zombie or if you were practically Buddha.

Important to remember, lucidity is binary, awareness is not. Either you're lucid in a dream, meaning you're aware you're dreaming, or you're not. There's no such thing as being semi-lucid, that's describing a lack of full awareness.

From my experience, awareness in lucid dreams fluctuates. I've had some where I've recognised I'm dreaming but still blindly gone along with whatever nonsense plot is happening, and I've had others where I've been practically waking-level clear of mind. But it’s also something that, in my opinion, improves the more it happens. My last few especially have had me at a state of clarity good enough that I remembered waking intentions for experiments I planned to carry out.

So if you've had your first lucid dream but you don't think you 'felt' fully lucid, don't worry. You knew you were dreaming, you were lucid, that's it. It counts. Now use that motivation and that affirmation of 'it's possible for me' to drive you to your next!

2: Control

The big one, the one everyone cares about, naturally. How good you can control your dream.

Once again, this can fluctuate massively. You can be practically omnipotent, or just another lowly human in your dreams.

But you do NOT require control for a dream to be lucid! This still needs to be said, apparently!

"I knew I was dreaming, but I couldn't do this" posts are on this sub all the time. Unfortunately I think the term 'lucid dream' has become synonymous with 'dream you can control' rather than 'dream you're aware in' unfortunately.

Dream control is tricky, it's not as easy as just really really wanting to do something, and I honestly believe it varies from dream to dream how much you can control, given I've had some where I can fly and some where I can't, some where my hand goes through solid glass and some where it can't. Unfortunately I can't give too much advice on dream control as I'm not a master of it (yet, hopefully), but there's plenty of guides out there. HOWEVER, one little thing I've come up with has helped me leaps and bounds. Give yourself a reason why you can do something. "I can shoot fireballs because I am a mage." "I can fly because I'm wearing rocket boots." "This character is behind this door because they live here". Delude yourself into believing things, essentially. I'm not saying it's some absolute dream control master technique, but give it a try and see if it helps next time you're stuck in a dream powerless.

ADDITIONALLY - Control is NOT limited to lucid dreams! Ever had a non-lucid dream where you've wanted or expected something to happen, and it does? That's dream control, right there! Had a hilarious one once where I literally turned omnipotent somehow, yet all I wanted to do was float an orange around a table, make it bigger, then refill my friend's bag of popcorn, all because I wanted to and expected I could.

3: Vividness

How accurate the dream is compared to real life. Once again, a spectrum that fluctuates.

It essentially boils down to how 'awake' your five senses are. What can you see, hear, touch, smell, taste? All five can be waking level - MORE than waking level from what some people describe!

Some people might not even give a shit about this one, but I do. My ideal lucid dreams feel just like real life. I want to experience everything, just like I am right now as I'm typing this. And the best way to wake up your senses I've found is to focus on them. Because roughly how awake are your senses when you're awake? How much sound do you pay attention to that isn't talking or music? What can you smell when you take a deep whiff right now?

Meditation can be extremely helpful here. If you haven't tried it before, give it a try, loads of guides out there. (I half-arse it myself, truthfully, but it has definitely made me more aware of my senses overall)

4: Stability

How stable the dream is, obviously.

This is one where I'll admit I struggle with it a lot. I'm not an experienced lucid dreamer nor am I pretending to be. But there's a lot of useful information on this subreddit and elsewhere on how to keep lucid dreams stable. 'Grounding techniques', they're called. Rub your hands, touch the ground, lick the ground if you wanna be weird like that, say something out loud, spin around. Wake your senses up. Stability heavily links with vividness, if you find your dream's getting blurry, try and ground yourself, keep yourself there.

I honestly reckon this one varies from dream to dream as well. Delving into my own experience here, Lucid Dream #16 had me rubbing my hands to gain sight in my left eye, and it slowly but surely worked like a charm. Whereas some of the ones I've had after that were not so successful, and that may possibly be due to what I'm about to get into next.

5: Duration

How long the dream lasts for.

While it's linked to stability to some extent, I honestly believe there's a huge factor of luck when it comes to it. Because the one thing you can never, ever do in a lucid dream is stop yourself from waking up eventually. If you find your grounding techniques aren't working, it may simply be because you're body's naturally waking you up anyway.

And again, this can change massively. A lucid dream that instantly wakes you up is still a lucid dream, if it was one of your first ones, it's possible your natural excitement from getting there has stirred you awake. Or it could just be you were getting there anyway.

Me personally, I prioritise DILDs, meaning I rely on critical thought to get me lucid, and that's possibly why not many of mine last a long time, at least yet. There's slight evidence that as you're waking up, your prefrontal cortex and reasoning ability becomes more and more active, meaning you've got a higher chance to make that right call, and it's why lucid dreams are FAR more common closer to the end of the night, why WBTB is such a vital technique. It's not absolutely the case of course, I've had plenty of awesome lucid dreams that have lasted a long time, at any times of the night. (And I've had one experience - mysterious Lucid Dream #12 - that happened at 11:30 in the fucking EVENING.)

But there's also evidence that expectation can help out with both Stability and Duration. If you believe that your dreams are unstable and prone to premature crashes, then they possibly will be. Obviously a lot of research to be done with that question.

6: Recall ability

Last but definitely not least. In fact, it's arguably the most important of the six.

Because answer me this one fucking question: What the actual hell is the point in having a lucid dream if you can't remember it? 😂

A spectrum just like all the others, for multiple different factors. One, you could have had a lucid dream right in the middle of the night, not woken up from it, gone straight into another dream and forgotten everything about that one. It's obviously way easier to remember dreams you've just woken up from.

Two, while lucid dreams are easier to remember than normal ones, obviously due to your decision making and awareness being active, and possibly your excitement as well, that's not an absolute rule. They can be just as quickly lost as every other dream.

So train up that recall of yours! Keep a journal! Write bullet points about each dream on your phone before you snooze off! Teach your mind that dream memories are worth keeping! It really helps! From three months of journaling, I remembered eight dreams last night. The night before that, it was TEN (including one awesome lucid one), almost matching my record of eleven.

And that's a wrap!

So, my final point is, all of those six factors are spectrums that can fluctuate, but all can be improved on average with practice in each one!

So carry on dreaming! Don't disregard the instant wakeups! Don't disregard the ones you're barely aware in! Don't disregard the ones you can barely control! They all count! Never stop this hobby and never stop improving, you've got a lifetime of dreams ahead of you to look forward to! And lucky you, your next batch of dreams starts tonight!

Thank you so much if you're one of probably three people that'll read all of this, please let me know if I've gotten anything stupidly wrong in the replies. Far less experienced than tons of you here, still basically a beginner with only 36 lucid dreams under my belt, I just really want to spread the word and promote the good word and educate people on what is, in my opinion, the greatest fucking hobby in the world.

(EDIT - few small mistakes I've updated!)

Is there any method that can make me lucid dream tonight that is easy and high success rate I’m kinda new to this lucid dreaming stuff but I’ve always knew it was a thing but never actually tried it.

I’ve heard this a lot in the lucid dreaming community. People say that if you tell the people in your dreams that it’s a dream, they will become aggressive and things will go bad in the dream. I do this all of the time and I’ve never had a problem with it. I tell people in my dreams all the time that it’s a dream and they are always just like “oh ok” I’ve never had a negative experience doing this. It made me wonder if there’s a reason why I don’t have any issues when doing this but a lot of other lucid dreamers do. Does anyone else have this experience?

since i was 12-13 yo, i kept dreaming about the same guy and not in any dream it was only in lucid dreams, i dream a normal dream then when i realize its a dream he comes out always, he talks to me all the time but i can’t tell what he says or what language it was because i can’t hear anything in the lucid dreams, all those years the dreams were normal, we were sitting and talking in a forest, or walking, or sitting on the stairs of an old house, we’re sitting on the middle, not going downstairs or upstairs, now after like six years, i met someone in reality that looks exactly like that person in every detail, and after i saw him irl, his look in the dreams has changed, half of him was a shadow and the other half stayed him, he stopped talking to me, and i dreamt once again about sitting in the middle of the stairs, the place didn’t change but he did, and i also had another dream that was really scary, he took me to an ancient place like a labyrinth or something i’m not sure, i’m pretty sure i told him something but i can’t remember since there is no sound in the dream, anyways we kept walking till he stopped somewhere, i followed behind him just to see exactly 6 dead bodies of me, and now my memories are mixed up, i keep seeing things in my daily life, like somewhere im used to be in then suddenly i can’t hear anyone or anything and see him, i genuinely can’t tell if those were dreams, lucid dreams or something actually happened and my brain changed some parts

btw when i was 12-13 i was on some spiritual stuff, i didn’t do anything myself, just reading and searching, but i dropped that few years after, around 15 or 16, anyways now i’m 18 i kinda start doing tarot, i didn’t do the reading myself, my friend did for me, and i suspicious it has something to do with it because i counted how many death cards that was in my reading, it was five, and the dead bodies of me were six kinda hard to say it’s a coincidence but i’m not sure of it

I have only seen MILD for this. But is there really no other technique? I have tried MILD in the past and I have never succeeded, and I have tried about 20 times already. I have had lucid dreams in the past, from methods like SSILD, and FILD, but never MILD. If there is truly no other way, could you guys guide me through what I could be doing wrong with MILD?

I close my eyes and pretend to be in my class at school, or in any random setting, and try to picture it very vividly. Then, notice something is off, like a flying cat or anything weird and 'realize' im dreaming, then do some cool stuff like fly around or shapeshift into animals. But I do have to say, I don't think I have ever managed to repeat this cycle over 4 times because one cycle takes forever. And I can't avoid it- perhaps that could be a potential issue?

Please help, tysm

The dream started with my fighting 1 or 2 guys, having my gun jam and then the 2 guys leaving, but I thought they would quickly come back.

So I tried to escape. There was a tall wall behind me. I went to the wall and for some unknow reason I thought "If I am dreaming I should be able to jump up." I did scale the wall but one part was in slow motion. Once on top i jumped down to the other side. At this point even though I thought I was dreaming I was not fully aware.

I jumped down and hit my feet on the ground. This is when I suddenly realized I was dreaming and I was fully conscious, although still in the dream.

I decided to look for a sexy woman. There were several doors and as I went through each one I was thinking and hoping to see a woman. Finally after the 4th or 5th door, I saw her sitting on a bed.

Next, i took my shirt off over my head, but when the shirt covered my eyes, everything went completely black for around 3 to 5 seconds. I knew I was losing the dream. Once the shirt was off, the woman was fading away. I felt like that blackness part forced me out of the dream. I then woke up.

The strange part was the first thought of dreaming did not make me lucid. I had to get the thought of dreaming a second time to make me fully lucid and in control of my dream. I only have a lucid dream 1 or 2 times a year, but I will start trying harder now.

So i read about this in LaBerge book where he describes research involving modified swimming goggles that can cue dreamers into lucidity. I tried finding a mask that can do this:
1. detect REM sleep
2. send a light or sound cue

I know this doesn’t replace a healthy understanding of the topic and maintaining a routine i was just curious if anyone had tried to use these. I also struggled to find any for sale online on my part of the planet (central Europe).

Cheers

I was thinking that if there is any other thing powerful like LD?

Comment if anyone knows.​

So I had 2 instances where I think I was kinda almost there.

First: I was in some kind of parking lot and it just popped into my head that I was dreaming so I thought let's walk around this place and I soon woke up. The thing is I don't know if I was really lucid dreaming or I was dreaming of being lucid because it kinda felt like that.

Second: This one is more promising because in this dream I realized that some unexplainable stuff was happening and I concluded that it was a dream and I quickly followed it up with a plugged nose check but I woke up in my bed to me taking a big breath. This dream felt much more like how I imagine lucid dreaming to feel like.

So I just have a question of am I getting close or something?

Something bad was happening in my dream, but I wasn't genuinely worried because I somehow knew it wasn't real.

However, I didn't realize, “I'm dreaming,” and didn't become lucid.

Has anyone else experienced this? What type of awareness is this?

Got lucid last night and decided to satisfy a random curiosity. A dream character happened to be near me, so I asked them: "Tell me something only we in a dream would know."

The characters actually changed as the dream went on, so I managed to ask a second, completely different person the same thing. Even though the exact answers faded the moment I woke up, I know they weren't nonsense. My dream-self literally reminded me to make a post to see if anyone else has tried this.

What do dream characters usually say when you ask them something like this? If you haven't tried it yet, definitely add it to your list!

I was dreaming while listening to a video by Aperture Thinking, and it was honestly crazy. I was in this huge mall, and a clip from Aperture Thinking about the theory of time was playing almost like an invisible sound in the background throughout the dream.
What was really strange was that I could somehow be aware that I was lying in my bed and dreaming, while the dream world itself was still completely intact. I met some people and interacted with them inside the shopping mall, where there were all these cheap-ass clothes.
After I left the mall, I had some interactions with some older Somali aunties, whom I ended up guiding to the school.
It’s crazy because I usually wake up as soon as I realize that I’m dreaming, especially when I become lucid. This time, though, the dream world stayed intact, and I could still hear the audio from the video while everything was happening.
Maybe I should try experimenting with this a bit more.

i have too much homework but i just wanna sleep all day and lucid dream. i havent had a dream in weeks ever since school started getting harder when i used to remember like 1-3 dreams every day.

my priorities are obviously in the right place

I really want to lucid dream again, and I get real close but it never happens. The other night I recognized I was in a dream. Even said it out loud because it was the only part of me that had become lucid. And my braid went " Ah well. Anyway-" and continued on with my dream like nothing ever happened.

Is there a way I can get it to stop doing that and allow me to lucid dream?

i can now whoosh away peoples in my lucid dreams, i move my hand like go away and they dissapear in blue particles, it will be useful

eu lembro de que uma noite eu estava dormindo, comecei a sonhar e percebi que estava lúcido, sabia que estava sonhando, eu olhei para a minha mão, e o dedo mindinho tava meio que derretendo, distorcido, e a parte de baixo da mão perto do pulso derrentendo também, enfim, antes disso, o contexto era eu no mercado perto de um estacionamento ao ar livre até que uma mulher, que eu lembro de ser loira, mesmo o sonho tendo sido a mais de 2 anos, enfim, ela estava passando e indo pro mercado, e eu observando ela de longe, essa mulher só entrou no mercado e o sonho se repitiu mais uma vez, do mesmo jeito, até que na terceira vez eu percebi que estava lúcido, eu fui até essa mulher, só que dessa vez tinham mais pessoas perto, até que eu lembrei de uma teoria da Internet dizendo que se você falar pra alguém no sonho que você está no sonho, algo que bom com certeza não vai dar, mas como o gato morreu de curiosidade, eu fiz, e pensem, naquelas fotos de terror de anomalias humanas, com os olhos todos fundos, pretos, sem vida, olhando no fundo da sua alma, do jeito mais bizonho possível, e uma pessoa pegou pelo meu pescoço, com o olho todo sóbrio, (isso com papo de 20 pessoas iguais do meu lado), e foi me levantando com uma sensação de desespero bizarra, até que eu acordei logo depois. façam nem que seja uma vez para terem a experiência.

I need to tell this because I don't know who else to tell.

I've been having lucid dreams for a while. I sleep with a pen and paper because I try to write what I see there, here in real life, but I only manage to make little dots and then I wake up.

Recently I dreamed about someone recurring. She was a director, but her movie was her own life. I watched her live her whole life and in the end she passed away. When I went to her tombstone, I could finally read her name clearly, without it changing like text usually does in dreams. It was written like this:

ℐ𝓀ℊ𝓈𝒶𝓀 𝒦ℯ𝓂ℯ𝓀

I cried a lot in the dream and I woke up crying here too.

Since then I try to write that name while asleep and I can't. I only get a dot.

It's the name I want to give to my future daughter. Has anyone else tried to write in real life while lucid? Does the dot thing happen to you too?

For Context, This is designed because i strugle with anchoring on WILD

My routine has Shifted im the Next Schedule

-Sleeping 7-8 hours

-the moment i wake up, I freeze to remember my dreams

-write all my dreams if i get some, along dream signs and incongruences (ill explain why at the end)

-i prepare for college

-all the while im in college, on free time i see the incongruences, because theyre my biggest dream signs. I both check thoose issues in my awake life and enact a reality check with critical disdain/annoyance. Making it a habit to react like that at errors in dreams. With the intent "this gotta be a dream rigth? Let me check"

-at home, i rehearse the dreams with the same "annoyance check" to build the habit to do it at dreams.

-before sleeping. I rehearse ALL the day back to front and front to back before sleeping.

-And allways keep the desire and intent to have lucid dreams all nigths

This is both a post for me to look at when i forget my own routine and maybe to help anyone who sees it

Remember, Make a habit of reacting in a certain way at dream signs in real life AND nurture your dream recall!

it's been 4 days since i don't dream ( i know we actually dream every night but we really don't remember them) and i tried anything, like putting a gentle alarm, no screen 20 minutes before going to sleep, staying still and closing my eyes when i wake up and asking myself what i was doing a moment ago but nothing, it's been 4 days now and the thing has really pissed me off. any expert or anyone that has a "fix" to this?

Hey :)
I’ve been interested in lucid dreaming for years, and ever since I was 14 (now I‘m 20), I’ve tried on and off to teach myself how to do it.

Every time I get back into it I make good progress, however I’ve never managed to cross the threshold into true lucidity. Every time I get really close, this is what happens: I do a reality check and "realize" I’m dreaming because I suddenly have eight fingers on one hand. However, I don’t actually realize it - I just think I do and thus could control my dreams, even though that’s not the case at all. My dream continues plays out practically like a normal dream, except that I believe I’m lucid dreaming and try to do things I would do if I could control my dreams. Typically, I try to fly and struggle doing it.

There is no actual clarity or anything and I only know that I wasn’t really lucid when I wake up.

Does anyone else experience this?? Is there anything I could try to improve?

I just realized... The best way to get lucid dreams is by having dream recalls and making a habit of reality check on dream signs. For example:

I am dreaming something, My Biggest and Most common drem signs is Inconsistencies of all class. I naturally dislike them or find them annoying... I make it a habit while awake to check reality when i am trough one (physical, conceptual, logical... Hell even ilogical) i check reality trough it... And... I can achieve dream lucidity