How to Lucid Dream – Simple Lucid dreaming Techniques
A lucid dream is when one becomes aware they are dreaming and can exert control over the dream environment. It is more than being able to change events or alter the environment of the dream—you must be fully aware that it is a dream. Although there is a debate as to how ‘aware’ or conscious one has to be. The vividness of the dream can range from looking ultra-real to fuzzy and blurry and perhaps even being partially blind in it. Sometimes you can be partially blind or have other senses that feel significantly dulled down.
How to Lucid Dream
Learning how to meditate will significantly aid you in achieving the lucid dream state. My first lucid dreams happened after I had started a daily practice of meditating for a few months. The main requirements in lucid dreaming are to increase your awareness and the ability to get into a relaxed state of mind and body; this is what meditation will help you achieve. Another aid to the practice is the ability to quiet your mind. Quieting the mind allows one to become more aware and alert in their everyday life; it also focuses and disciplines the mind.
Focus is highly essential for lucid dreaming, as you will need the ability to recognize the signs of being in a dream. Our daily life is often mirrored in dreams, people we know and places we’ve been will show up in them, so we need to be able to detect when things are not quite right.
Simple Lucid Dream Techniques
This article is a simple guide on how to achieve the lucid dreaming state; I won’t delve into the more complicated lucid dream techniques. In my opinion, these simple methods are quite powerful. Also, they won’t over-tire you or force you to start setting alarms to wake up in the middle of the night.
Start a Dream Journal
Keeping track of your dreams and their content is essential in multiple ways. The effort of writing down your dreams immediately after you awake will help to improve your dream memory. Also, you are signalling to your brain that dream memories are essential. Keeping a record of your dreams allows you to look for patterns; this could be reoccurring themes, people or objects that appear in your dreams. You can then use these signs that you are dreaming in a mantra: “I will know I’m dreaming when I see a flying pig.”
Mantras and Setting Intentions for Lucid Dreams
Mantras are words or sounds that are repeated to aid you in meditation; words can be used mentally or out loud. Mantras are also a way of setting intent on accomplishing a future goal or task. Using a mantra to set an intention might be something like this, “Tonight I will become lucid in my dreams. I will remember my dreams.” Repeating this in your mind, while you lie in bed, not only helps put you into a relaxed, meditative state, it helps to set a trigger for you to become lucid while dreaming, especially if you end up repeating the mantras in your dreams. This technique may take several days or weeks of practice before it works.
Nose plug Trick
Periodically throughout the day, you will plug your nose slightly, and gently attempt to breathe in. Do not fully plug your nose and try to breathe in hard—this may cause damage to your eardrums. Somewhat plug your nose and gently breathe in through it, and then take a moment to observe your surroundings then ask yourself if you are dreaming or not. Repeat this as many times as possible throughout the day.
How this works is that eventually, your daily practices carry over to your dreams, and you will soon start to do this while dreaming. If you find that you able to plug your nose and still be able to breathe in through it freely, guess what? You’re dreaming! This technique has helped me many times to ‘wake up’ inside of my dreams. Do not forget to take a moment to observe your surroundings as you practice this technique. Dreams can be illogical with absurd plots, and you want to be able to recognize the signs.
Hypnagogic Hallucinations
Hypnagogia is the state right before you fall asleep. While in this state, you can start to see colours, lights, sounds, subtle shapes or images in your mind. The further you fall into hypnagogia, the more vivid the hallucinations can become, even to the point of full realism. Hypnagogia frequently happens to me when getting into deep meditative states. The most common images I see are that of black and white treelike structures as if I am laying done in a forest; at times, I can see what appears to be shadowy forms of people standing around me, even leaning in to look closer.
Another common experience for me is to see a bright beam of light passing over my eyes; it moves like a searchlight, and when it crosses over the pupils of my eyes, it feels intense. Other experiences are seeing various colours of blobs floating towards or away from me.
This information is essential for when you start to experience it yourself; then you know that your dreams are not far away. On one occasion, I got into a deep state of relaxation, and the hypnagogic hallucinations became surprisingly vivid. For quite a while, I observed random images growing in detail. Eventually, a scene opened up before me; what I could see was a lively corridor of a mall filled with people shopping; slowly, I felt myself being pushed through an invisible field that gave resistance and stretched as I was being pushed through. My excitement and surprise got the better of me, though, and just before I pushed through and entered into the dream, I woke up!
How to Stabilize and Accomplish Goals in Lucid Dreams
You’ve finally accomplished it—you’re lucid dreaming! Sometimes lucid dreams can feel very unstable, and you may find it a struggle to focus; here are some techniques to help maintain your lucidity.
Stabilizing Lucid Dreams
Calm down! Observe your surroundings and forget about having goals to accomplish. Straight away in the dream, repeat a mantra such as, “This is a lucid dream, and I am in full control,” or “I am fully aware and conscious.” Continue to use these mantras throughout the dream. It can be easy to lose lucidity, so continue to keep yourself grounded and aware. Getting too excited is an easy way to end the dream.
Look at your hands. If you find the dream to be unstable, this may help to centre yourself by focusing on something simple. Your hands may look misshapen or too large; as an experiment, you can try and see if you can normalize the shape with your mind. Now turn your attention back to your surroundings, repeat the mantras above, and you may find it to be more stable now.
Learning to stabilize your dreams is a skill you will need to develop. Even without skill, some dreams will be extremely stable while others are the opposite and won’t last long. Another thing is not to be afraid or superstitious. This can cause unnecessary stress in dreams, which will only hamper your progress.
Controlling Lucid Dreams
In the beginning, managing the dream may be difficult. Using mantras, or simply stating what is going to happen next can help you gain greater control over the environment. For example, if you’d like to summon an object, person, or travel to a new location, you can first state it out loud like this: “When I turn around, so and so, or such and such will be there.” Then actually turn around with the full faith that it will come true.
One technique to travel to new locations is to set the intention of where you want to go, and that you will arrive there after you spin around. As you spin around, have full confidence that it will work — and hopefully, it will! Keep in mind these are just beginner tips until you gain more confidence.
In lucid dreams, it’s possible to teleport at will to new locations, walkthrough obstacles, and summon virtually object or person to you. At first, it may be challenging to accomplish, but try not to limit your mind with rules and limitations of what is possible or not.
Beware of Illusions and Distractions
In lucid dreams, some people or entities seem more real than others. You may see people you know, but when you try to talk with them, they don’t know how to respond or even speak. At first, I thought these were something like NPC characters in video games, something that the brain generates for the plot. Now, with some more experience, I come to fewer and fewer conclusions, though, because things have only gotten stranger over time. Question yourself if you see things as they indeed are, and it will at least keep you more aware.
Other people or entities, may seem super intelligent, and you may even find them observing you. If you accept everything at face value, you will be easily deceived by your dreams. There were times when I’ve come across highly intelligent-looking humans, and that’s when distractions were started in the dream, things to divert my attention, and soon after, I lost my lucidity. It would have been great to engage those entities and try to discover more, but I lost many chances because of being easily distracted.
In Conclusion
The path to lucid dreaming isn’t so much as finding a secret technique or magic pill; it is a way of life—something you’ll continually pursue. If you can become more conscious and aware of everyday life, the same will happen in your dreams. It is much more of a journey than the destination. Reaching the goal is exhilarating each time, but the realization comes that it requires a disciplined mind to explore the dream world fully.
You can read about my first night of lucid dreams here: My First Night of Lucid Dreams.
Do you have any tips on how to lucid dream? Please feel free to share them in the comment section below!
