Many people want to experience a lucid dream. If you’re among them, the first thing you need to think about is how you want to go about learning.

You’ll need to think about why you want to be a lucid dreamer, as well as the benefits of it. First, we’ll take a look at normal sleeping.

Normal sleep helps us refresh ourselves for the next day. However, when you experience lucid dreaming, you would be able to control the period of time when you were dreaming.

Instead of having to observe passively, you could be the person who leads your dream to be whatever you would like.

What if rather than being an active observer, you can be the one who can lead your dream to be whatever you want, rather than your dream leading you? This is what a lucid dreamer is; someone who is in total control of their dreams; able to explore new worlds that are not bound to the physical, societal and time-space laws of the real world.

If you want to become a lucid dreamer, there are two major ways to accomplish it. The first way is called DILD, or dream-initiated lucid dream. That’s when you’re in the process of having a dream, realize that it’s happening, and retain your sense of consciousness inside the dream.

The second method is called WILD, and stands for wake-initiated lucid dream. This is when you start out awake and fall asleep, but do not experience a change in consciousness levels. This is the process of simply entering a dream, the same way you’d walk through a door, instead of waking up inside the dream.

So what are the actual methods used to induce these two types of lucid dream experiences?

Dream Recall

If you’d like to lucid dream, perhaps one of the most successful way of doing so is known as dream recall. Dream recall is simply the ability to remember one’s dreams. By remembering your dreams, you are able to recognize them when you are sleeping, because most likely, you will have the same dream, or at least aspects of it, more than once.

The best way to practice dream recall is through keeping a dream journal. This is a tool in which you write down whatever you can remember about your dream so you can recall it in the future. Do this right after you wake up – dreams are harder to remember the longer you wait.

Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD)

This technique was developed by Dr. Stephen LaBerge, one of lucid dreaming’s lead scientists. The method used here is telling yourself that you’ll remember something in your dream. Once in the dream, you’ll see this object, recall what you told yourself, and realize you’re dreaming. Wake-Back-To-Bed (WBTB)

To use this method, first go to sleep. Set an alarm beforehand to wake you up a few hours later (about five or six). Once you wake up, don’t go back to sleep. Read for a little while, or think about lucid dreaming for a while, then head back to sleep.

The process here is to go to sleep, doing nothing but setting your alarm to wake you up a few hours later (5 or 6). Once you wake up, DO NOT go back to sleep. Instead, do something else like read for a while, or think as much as you can about lucid dreaming for around an hour then go back to bed.

According to Stephen LaBerge, there is a 60% success rate of this technique. The reason why is that you would have woken up during the process of sleep, meaning that your mind is not fully aware of this, and are still in the middle of REM cycle. So basically, it’s like going to your mind and telling it that you want to lucid dream.

This technique was created by Daniel Love, and involves setting an alarm that will wake you an hour and a half before you’d normally get up. Once you’re used to waking up early, alternate between the early alarm and your old alarm. When you’re waking up normally, your body will already be expecting the early alarm, and make you more likely to “wake up” in your dream.

Created by Daniel Love, this method involves setting an alarm to wake you one and a half hours before your normal wake-up time. Once you get used to this early time, alternate your alarm between a normal time and the early one. When your alarm is set to wake you normally, you’ll find your body’s already ready to wake up early. That makes it more likely that you’ll wake up in your dream, and dream lucidly.

This method was mentioned above. To achieve a lucid dream using it, all that’s needed is keeping your mind awake while your body falls asleep. This is one of the most interesting ways of having a lucid dream. It’s as if you’re getting ready to watch a movie – you start in the real world, sitting on the couch, and turn on the television and press play when
you start to sleep). The screen begins black, just like when your eyes are closed, and all you need to do is wait for the movie or dream to start.

Several ways to stay aware but not awake include imagining descending or going up stairs, chanting, counting, breathing control, counting your breaths, and relaxing your body from head to toe. This all falls under self hypnosis. Don’t do this when you’re tired, or you’ll simply fall unconscious.

Recent technological advances mean that dreaming masks and other useful devices have been developed. They contain strobe lights and other devices that are believed to induce lucid dreaming.

The most reliable and easiest way of inducing a lucid dream may be listening to binaural beats sound frequencies through headphones.

These work by synchronizing your brain’s two hemispheres. They almost instantly allow your brain waves to reach the frequency that occurs in REM sleep and which is needed for you to be a lucid dreamer.

Combined with self hypnosis sessions and personal affirmations that help prepare your subconscious mind, these methods make being a lucid dreamer a reality for anyone.

Combined with the self hypnosis sessions and affirmations to prepare your subconscious mind beforehand, becoming a lucid dreamer is something that everyone can now experience!