Tips
- If you ask people in your dream "Am I dreaming?"... most of the time they'll say "No."
- When you are aware you are dreaming, make sure you know it is a dream at all times. Remember, there are no social consequences, everything, even the characters are just part of your imagination, you cannot get hurt, you need make to keep your dream stable, and you have total control of everything, including your actions, other characters actions, the environment, even physics with a few thoughts. Remember that and you will have total control over dreams at all times.
- If you have recurring dreams, then aspects of these dreams can act as reality checks. If you notice something happening that is part of a recurring dream, think to yourself, "this only happens in my dreams, I must be dreaming."
- Do not use a radio alarm clock. If you hear talking or a song, it will distract you and may clear the dream out of your head. If you have to use a radio alarm clock, don't think about what is playing and quickly turn it off. Alternatively, change the radio setting to a non-assigned frequency so the alarm creates static (white noise).
- Pre-determine what you want to achieve in a lucid dream while you are awake. When you become lucid in a dream, you will already know what you want to do.
- If you want to dream about something or someone specifically, as you slip into a light sleep, think about that person or that object. The way it feels, the way it looks, the way it smells, etc.. This will cause your mind to focus on that object or person and chances are your dream will reflect upon it.
- It is a good idea to purposely wake a few minutes after becoming lucid, once you have experienced what you wanted to experience. This way, you can wake up with the dream very fresh in your mind, and have excellent recall. If you do not wake up, the dream may simply fade away into the night, and could be forgotten.
- If you find the dream is not going how you want it to, "close your eyes" for a bit and then open very forcefully. It might not work the first time but you will eventually end up actually opening them.
- Performing reality checks upon awakening can help you to detect "false awakenings" within dreams, wherein you dream that you have woken up, and thus lose lucidity.
- What a dreamer does with lucidity reflects personal tendencies and levels of skill attained usually through experience and practice. Although a lucid dreamer can influence the dream's structure, characters, course, etc., it is not a given that a lucid dream is about what the dreamer wants it to be about. Seasoned lucid dreamers who are more often lucid than not will continue to encounter psychological and developmental challenges in the dream scape. The agreeable and the distressing, the easy and difficult, beautiful and horrifying, are all occasioned much as they are in regular dreaming. But whereas a regular dream is filled with the convoluted subtleties of the subconscious mind enumerating its issues before a largely unconscious dreamer, a lucid dreamer has the opportunity to consciously explore at any level.
- Do not drink any fluids for one hour prior to sleeping. The last thing you want is to wake up from successfully lucid dreaming just because you had to use the bathroom.
- Write down what you remember when you remember it. Most people remember dreams from nights before If you write down whatever you remember, your brain will get used to remembering instances from your dreams.
- Some people find it helpful to take a low dose of caffeine (a caffeinated tea, for instance) shortly before sleeping. They claim that this keeps them mentally aware while the body is going to sleep. For other people caffeine may postpone or disrupt sleep.
- You can try visualizing something in your hand, or in your pocket. Trying to feel its weight, shape, and texture may help. In case of a nightmare, or other frightening dream, if practiced, this can become a self-defense system against any of those perils. Of course, they will not really harm you, but it IS fun to blast a horribly disfigured monster at point-blank with a rocket-launcher of some sort...
- Get your own reality check and use it a couple times a day. You could use a coin that you spin on the table. If the coin stops spinning, you know that everything around you is reality. If you make this your daily routine and do this a couple times a day, you'll have a good chance that you will do this in your dream. You'll notice that the coin won't stop, and gain full control because you know you're dreaming