Introduction
So what exactly is a lucid dream? A lucid dream is the concept of one knowing that they are dreaming whilst asleep. Often confused with dream control. While the two tend to come together, dream control is not a part lucidity. However one can become lucid with no control or have control but fail to realise that they are dreaming.
Preparation for lucidity
Dream recall: How many dreams can you remember? And how vivid? Dream recall is important with lucid dreaming, there isn't much point in lucid dreaming if you can't remember what happened. Memories are some of the most important aspects to life, and this is no different to lucid dreaming. The average person remembers up to 3 dreams a night. Ways to helps with recall is to record your dreams.
Dream Journals: Just find a notepad or random book and jot down anything that you can remember from the night before. It can be anything from people, events, locations and emotions. You can even use self-suggestion and make yourself wake up after each dream. Don't worry about being tired if doing this though as you can just write down keywords and then write out the dream later in the morning after looking at the key words. After frequent use of recording your dreams, your recall should improve.
Dream signs: The use of dream journals are important to lucid dreaming because not only do they improve recall they also help you recognise dream signs. Dream signs are common occurrences that happen throughout your dreams. They can come in any shape or form. One person may see a repetition of buildings that have some meaning such as a childhood school or perhaps an old friend or pet whilst another person could have random events occur such as teeth falling out ect.. Knowing what your dream signs are can help because a person can simply use a reality check.
Reality checks: These are ways of questioning your reality. By repeating reality checks throughout the day you enhance your chance of becoming lucid as the reality checks will eventually make their way into dreams. Reality checks usually come in the form of a simple question “Am I dreaming?” however they can also come in physical forms as well by just simply squeezing your nose and seeing if you can breathe out of it or see if your finger can phase through your palm. It's recommended to do reality checks several times a day to maximise success, an easy way to remember to do them is by making your watch bleep every hour. However reality checks are also recommended when you see your dream sign, for example do a reality check when you see your school. When it appears in your dream you will automatically perform the reality check and hopefully become lucid. However if your dream sign is an impossible event, simply use a reality check when you see a pig or something flying or when ever you think of the dream sign.
Now with all the preparations to lucid dreaming completed, here comes the fun stuff,
Techniques: There are many techniques which aid in lucid dreaming. However there are two basic branches which the techniques stem from. DILD (Dream Induced Lucid Dream) and WILD (Wake Induced Initiated Lucid Dream). A DILD is when you spontaneously become lucid in a dream without trying (usually the result of an unusual event of a reality check) where as the WILD is where you go from being fully awake to dreaming while being fully conscious. Also another technique of enhancing lucidity is by using the WBTB (Wake Back To Bed) which is where you wake up after a certain amount of hours sleeping, preferably five, to help your chance of becoming lucid.
Thank you for reading!
