No, you should not aim for learning how to lucid dream in a matter of days or overnight. Lucid dreaming is a spiritual skill, and you must be conquered in steps. Means, you must be ready to put in some hard work. There are many aspects such as optimizing your sleep, increasing mental & emotional awareness, enhancing cognitive strength, and developing the tolerance once you get lucid. These elements take some time to master.
Although, vetting the art of lucid dreaming takes time, yet, it doesn’t mean you won’t see improvements anytime soon. In a matter of days, you will find yourself advancing through your journey, and it will encourage your motivation. Still, don’t enter with a wrong mindset of inducing lucid dreams right tonight. In short, if you are persistent enough, the rewards and benefits are worth it.
Quick Navigation
What Is Lucid Dreaming (The Definition)
What Can You Do In A Lucid Dream
Benefits of Lucid Dreaming
Risks of Lucid Dreaming
How To Lucid Dream (Beginner to Expert Step by Step)
Phase 01: Preparing Body & Mind For Lucid Dreaming
Phase 02: Dream Processing & Planning For Lucidity
Phase 03: Best Techniques For Lucid Dreaming
Conclusion And Final Advice
What Is Lucid Dreaming (The Definition)
Lucid Dreaming is a state where your dreams are so real as if you are living them in real life. There is almost no difference between the dreaming state and a conscious experience. You can touch, smell, and feel the objects in your dreams the same way as you would do in real world. Plus, you can take it to the extreme and alter those objects with your brain power even.
Sky is the limit. You can do anything in your dreams that is otherwise impossible in reality. The laws of the universe such as gravity, not able to breath in water, can’t survive in the space, etc. doesn’t apply in the world of lucid dreaming.
What Can You Do In A Lucid Dream
In a lucid dream, you can live any of your fantasies be it flying in the sky, visiting some alien worlds, or having dinner with top public figures etc. Moreover, you can simulate situations in your lucid dreams and find their solutions. Becoming lucid can be an excellent problem solving and fear-conquering tool in your arsenal. Here’re a few things you can do in your lucid dream:
- You can fly in the sky.
- You can meet with your favorite celebrities.
- You can make love with your crush.
- You can visit different planets and galaxies.
- You can enjoy your favorite weather.
- You can face your dreams and practice your skills in a virtual environment.
- And many more things, the list is endless. It all depends on your creativity.
Consider it like Alice in Wonderland. Watch the video below till the end, this all is very much possible in a lucid dream:
Alice In Wonderland – Clip: Alice Falls Into a Rabbit Hole (2010) | HD
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Benefits of Lucid Dreaming
- Lucid Dreaming possesses some therapeutic characteristics. The study shows it can cure recurring nightmares. Thus, it helps to overcome fears.
- Lucid dreaming can enhance the cognitive abilities. You make better decisions and have a higher state of mind
- If you practice a skill in your lucid dream, it will improve your performance in the real world. Surprising but true.
- It helps you advance in your spiritual journey and make you a more enlightened person.
Risks of Lucid Dreaming
- Once you induce lucid dreams, the emotions and experiences feel real. You can enjoy positive emotions such as joy, pleasure, freedom, etc. But, the opposite is also true. If you are not enough stable mentally, you may experience pain, fear, hallucinations, etc. too.
- The level of awareness differs person to person. So there is a fear of getting stuck in an unwanted dream, for longer than you want, without the ability to manipulate it. This situation is called Dream Claustrophobia.
- Sleep paralysis is another fear of lucid dreamers. You are in a state of dream and awakening. During dreams, the body gets paralyzed so that one can’t hurt himself acting out his dreams. But if you experience the paralysis in an awakened state, it may frighten you. Convince yourself, it is just a dream and sleeps paralysis is entirely okay.
- Lucid dreaming is a safe, fun, and joyful experience for most people. Moreover, there are therapeutic uses of this technique. Still, if the risks are scaring you, don’t jump into it. For some real life case studies, I suggest you read this article.
How To Lucid Dream (Beginner to Expert Step by Step)
There are three levels of lucidity that you need to master. Level 01: You dream but you are not aware at all. Level 02: You are able to induce lucidity and remain aware in your dreams but can’t control or shape them according to your will. Level 03: You can become lucid and have full control on what should happen in your dream. Let’s know how to hit all of those 3 stages the right way:
Phase 01: Preparing Body & Mind For Lucid Dreaming
01) Optimize Your Sleep
You must understand the relationship between sleep cycles and dreams. First, a good night sleep works in 4 cycles where first three cycles are known as NREM-Stages, and the fourth cycle is known as REM-Stage.
Second, for the first 4-5 hours, NREM stages dominate the sleep, and for the next 2-3 hours REM stage is dominant. Mostly, the lucid dreaming happens during the REM-Stage of the sleep.
Very Important: In a nutshell, you must ensure, you are getting a good 7-8 hours of sleep so as to hit REM-Cycle and experience lucid dreaming.
If you have trouble sleeping, use this comprehensive guide on how to fall asleep. Also, make sure you don’t snore while sleeping. If you do, here’s how to stop snoring.
02) Develop Your Mind & Mindset
Lucid Dreaming is a mind game. If you carry on your day to day confusions and doubts to your sleep, the same will ruin your lucid dreaming experience. You need to cultivate your mind & mindset to induce lucidity. Here’re 2 important rules that you should tell yourself repeatedly every day.
- You must let go the hard & fast laws of the universe. Remember, lucid dreaming is a world of unlimited possibilities where you have the power to create or destroy the things according to your will. Once you are lucid, there is nothing that can constrain your ability to do whatever you want to do. For example: if you want to fly in your dream, you should forget about gravity.
- If you want to have a lucid dream tonight, then you are on a wrong train. It is a skill that requires some persistence to master. Instead, have a long term goal. Be regular in your practice and eventually the rewards are worth it.
Timeframe: 08-10 Days
Expected Outcome: 1) Your body is getting 7-8 hours of deep sleep every night. 2) Your mind is prepared to put in hard work and not tempted with the idea of inducing lucid dreams overnight.
Phase 02: Dream Processing & Planning For Lucidity
01) Plan What To Dream About
Inducing lucid dream, for the first time, is a powerful experience. Often, it brings about a feel of anxiety with it. The dreamer gets so overwhelmed that he is unable to decide what to do once he is lucid. I don’t want that happening to you. The solution is planning for your dream in advance.
Before going to bed every night, make it a habit of planning your dream and deciding what to do in the virtual world. Don’t mistake and be sure about what you will do once you are lucid. A few dream ideas for the beginners could be:
- Flying off the ground.
- Meeting with some celebrity.
- Overcoming stage fear.
- Visiting some new place.
- Or having an erotic dream.
02) Keep A Dream Journal
You must have a system for constant monitoring of your dreams. It is necessary for the analysis purpose that helps to make improvements.
- At night, make an intention to remember your dream.
- In the morning, write your dream down, in a journal, as the first thing.
- Make sure you write them as detailed as possible regarding characters, landscapes, and climate in the dream. Label each dream with date, time, and a title.
03) Perform Daily Dream Analysis
Once you have recorded your dreams in your journal for a couple of weeks, you will have enough data to analyze.
What we are looking for is finding a pattern that repeats itself in the dream. It could be a particular object, person, strange form, environmental factor, etc. that is appearing over and over again in dreams. Finding this pattern is necessary to increase awareness and differentiate fiction from the real. Analyze your journal and see what is common among all or most of the dreams.
04) Do Reality Checks Multiple Times A Day
Doing reality check is crucial. As you know, there is almost no difference between a lucid world and a real world; a reality check is a way to calm yourself down and realize that it is a dream.
To know if you are dreaming or it is happening for real, do something that you can’t do in a real world. A few reality checks that you can perform are:
- Try crossing your finger through your palm. In a real world, you can’t do it, but it is possible if it is a dream.
- Try reading something. Dreaming is done by the right brain but reading by the left brain. So, you can’t read with ease if it is a dream.
- Observe the objects carefully in your dream. They won’t be as accurate and detailed as they would be in a real world.
Timeframe: 25-30 Days
Expected Outcome: 1) You are sure about what to do once you are lucid. 2) You have enough data to perform the analysis. 3) You found the repetitive pattern occurring in your dreams. 4) You can differentiate between scenarios of the real world and happenings in a dream.
Phase 03: Best Techniques For Lucid Dreaming
Very Important Concept: Your body transits from a sleep state to dreaming state for many times during the night. This transition is at its highest during the REM-Sleep that happens during the last 2-3 hours of a 7-8 hours sleep. We want to hack this transition period with different techniques. Keep that in mind and let’s discuss the different lucid dreaming techniques:
01) Wake Back To Bed (WBTB) Technique
With WBTB technique, you interrupt the sleep, wake up, spend some time staying awake, and go back to sleep. When you sleep back, the chances are very high that you start dreaming and become lucid. Do it as:
- Set the alarm, 5-6 hours from the time you sleep. Wake up with the alarm and stay awake for 30 minutes or so. It will heighten your awareness.
- During the awake period, pick your dream journal up and rehearse your dream thoroughly.
- After 30 minutes, go back to sleep. Keep saying to yourself- I am dreaming, I am dreaming, I am dreaming, and so on until you fall asleep.
- Soon, you will fall asleep, and may have your first lucid dream.
It is the best technique for beginners as its the easiest one. But don’t do it often as you have to interrupt your sleep and it may affect your health. Doing it a couple of times a week should be fine.
02) Mnemonic Induction Of Lucid Dreaming (MILD)
With MILD technique, you perform the same steps that you do with WBTB technique, but the trick to inducing a lucid dream is different.
Instead of rehearsing your planned dream, you rehearse the very last dream that you recall upon waking up. Alongside, you visualize yourself becoming lucid in the exact dream. It is a moderately difficult technique to master.
03) Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming (WILD)
With WILD technique, the trick to induce a lucid dream is different. Also, you don’t stay awake for 30 minutes but a couple of minutes.
Instead of rehearsing a dream by reading it or reinforcing your last dream, you practice visualizing a dream of your choice. Remember the visualization should be highly detailed and vivid. Each and every object, environment, character’s emotions, and your role should be visualized in great detail. It is the most difficult technique to master but worth it.
Timeframe: 45-60 Days
Expected Outcome: 1) You have tried all three techniques and found which works best for you. 2) Congrats! You have experienced your first lucid dream. 3) You are able to induce a lucid dream on any night of your choice.
Conclusion And Final Advice
Lucid dreaming is not just a hobby or fun. It is a higher mental state that can’t be mastered easily. It helps you advance in your spiritual journey by taking you to some new heights of awareness. So take it seriously and be ready to put in work.
Unfortunately, the newbies are tempted to the shortcuts or quick methods. As a result, they can’t stick to one way and therefore fail miserably. Remember, lucid dreaming demands physical and mental development and this development takes persistence, time, and efforts to happen. BeddingPal advises you to proceed with your lucid dreaming journey, but by one step at a time. Otherwise, you will fail to crack the code. Good Luck.