Anyone have a better lucid dream control technique?

Question

I was wondering if ANYONE has or know of any techniques that will help to control your dreams? I have read about keeping a diary but that doesnt work for me, and also I cant keep setting an alarm to wake up and go back to sleep. So if anyone has any easier or better techniques, I would be so glad to know them as I have been trying this for a long time now and dont want to give up on this!

Answer 1

Many people report having experienced a lucid dream during their lives, often in childhood. Although lucid dreaming is a conditioned skill,[20] achieving lucid dreams on a regular basis can be difficult and is uncommon, even with training. Despite this difficulty, techniques have been developed to achieve a lucid dreaming state intentionally.

(See also, the how-to link in references for a long list)

There are some factors which can affect the ability to experience lucid dreams:

* Meditation, and involvement in consciousness focusing activities can strengthen the ability to experience lucid dreams.[21]
* Children seem to have lucid dreams more easily than adults do. The ability to sleep appears to decrease when people get older.[22]
* Hypnotism may help induce lucidity[23]
* Induction techniques can help a great deal in becoming lucid.

Dream recall, the ability to remember one's dreams, is often practiced in conjunction with learning to lucid dream. A better dream recall ability makes one more aware of their dreams in general as well as allowing one to remember if they did have a lucid dream.[24]

Common induction techniques

Reality testing

Reality testing is a common method that people use to determine whether or not they are dreaming. It involves performing an action with results that are difficult to re-create in a dream. By practicing these techniques during waking life, one may eventually dream of performing a reality check—which will usually fail—helping the dreamer realize that they are dreaming. Common reality tests include:

* Holding one's nose, then breathing through it. Often, it is possible to breathe through the nose, even though it is pinched shut.[citation needed]
* Read some text, look away, and read it again, or to look at your watch and remember the time, then look away and look back. Observers have found that, in a dream, the text or time will often have changed.[25]
* Flipping a light switch or looking into a mirror. Light switches rarely work properly in dreams, and reflections from a mirror often appear to be blurred, distorted or incorrect.[26]
* Pinching oneself or hitting an object hard. The acute pain usually cannot be felt in dreams.[citation needed]
* Counting one's fingers. The number of fingers will often be higher or lower than 5, or not be easily counted, or even shift before the dreamer's eyes.

Another form of reality testing involves identifying one's dream signs, clues that one is dreaming. Dream signs are often categorized as follows:

* Action — The dreamer, another dream character, or a thing does something unusual or impossible in waking life, such as photos in a magazine or newspaper becoming 3-dimensional with full movement.
* Context — The place or situation in the dream is strange.
* Form — The dreamer, another character, or a thing changes shape, or is oddly formed or transforms; this may include the presence of unusual clothing or hair, or a third person view of the dreamer.
* Awareness — A peculiar thought, a strong emotion, an unusual sensation, or altered perceptions. In some cases when moving one's head from side to side, one may notice a strange stuttering or 'strobing' of the image.
* Cohesion — Sometimes the dreamer may seem to "teleport" to a completely different location in a dream, with no transition whatsoever.

Though occurrences like these may seem out of place in waking life, they may seem perfectly normal to a dreaming mind and learning to pick up on these dream signs will help in recognizing that one is dreaming.

Mnemonic induction of lucid dreams (MILD)

The mnemonic induction of lucid dreams is a common technique used to induce a lucid dream at will by setting an intention, while falling asleep, to remember to recognize that one is dreaming, or to remember to look for dream signs. Because it is easy to master (almost everyone sets intentions frequently), it is ideal for those who have never practiced lucid dreaming induction techniques before.

Wake-back-to-bed (WBTB)

The wake-back-to-bed technique is often the easiest way to induce a lucid dream. The method involves going to sleep tired and waking up five hours later. Then, focusing all thoughts on lucid dreaming, staying awake for an hour and going back to sleep while practicing the MILD method. A 60% success rate has been shown in research using this technique.[27] This is because the REM cycles get longer as the night goes on, and this technique takes advantage of the best REM cycle of the night. Because this REM cycle is longer and deeper, gaining lucidity during this time may result in a more lengthy lucid dream.[27]

Wake-initiated lucid dream (WILD)

The wake-initiated lucid dream "occurs when the sleeper enters REM sleep with unbroken self-awareness directly from the waking state".[28] There are many techniques aimed at entering a WILD. The key to these techniques is recognizing the hypnagogic stage, which is within the border of being awake and being asleep. If a person is successful in staying aware while this stage occurs, they will eventually enter the dream state while being fully aware that it is a dream.

There are key times at which this state is best entered; while success at night after being awake for a long time is very difficult, it is relatively easy after being awake for 15 or so minutes and in the afternoon during a nap. Common techniques for inducing WILDs abound. Dreamers often count, envision themselves climbing or descending stairs, chanting to themselves, exploring elaborate, passive sexual fantasies, controlling their breathing, concentrating on relaxing their body from their toes to their head, allowing images to flow through their "mind's eye" and envisioning themselves jumping into the image, or any various form of concentration to keep their mind awake, while still being calm enough to let their body sleep. During the actual transition into the dream state, one is likely to experience sleep paralysis, including rapid vibrations,[13] a sequence of very loud sounds and a feeling of twirling into another state of body awareness, "to drift off into another dimension". Also there is frequently a sensation of falling rapidly or dropping through the bed as one enters the dream state or the sensation of entering a dark black room from which one can induce any dream scenario of one's choosing, simply by concentrating on it. The key to being successful is to not panic, especially during the transition which can be quite sudden.

Induction devices

Lucid dream induction is possible by the use of a physical device. The general principle works by taking advantage of the natural phenomenon of incorporating external stimuli into one's dreams. Usually a device is worn while sleeping that can detect when the sleeper enters a REM phase and triggers a noise and/or flashing lights with the goal of these stimuli being incorporated into the dreamer's dream. For example flashing lights might be translated to a car's headlights in a dream. A well known dream induction device is the Nova Dreamer;[29] however, as of 2006, the device is no longer manufactured.

Answer 2

You can try doing reality test while you are awake. If you do them often enough, you are bond to do one in a dream, if you do one in a dream, then something just clicks and you realize you are dreaming. I found it is easier to do it in the morning. Once you wake about, go take a nap for a few hours. Your more likely to expirence paralysis sleeping. Once this happens, try to stay awake, so that you can hopefully control your dream. You can also try lucid dream pills. Just do a google search and you will come up with a lot of search results, not sure if they work though.

Answer 3

Whenever I did lucid dreaming it was a sort of dissociative process whereby I became objectively aware of dreaming. Try practicing some sort of 'distancing' when you are awake in daily life. A good exercise in this might be to do a concurrent, running, third person narrative of you activities in your head periodically throughout your day. When doing this acually picture yourself. Try not to even think about having a lucid dream until you've caught yourself doing this without trying. It might help you to familiarize yourself with how it feels to switch from an experiencing subjective state to one that objectifies its own subjectivity. Especially, if you can do this in stressful situations. Habituation of the exercise might help if dissociation doesn't come naturally to you as a coping mechanism.

Answer 4

It seems to work if you're very tired first. Then lie on your back and meditate for a while on pleasant but vague thoughts. The times it works for me is when I've worked out super hard and then fallen into bed.

Answer 5

I always give myself verbal cues about it just as i fall asleep it works quite a bit, oh wait....this is a dream.....I am so scared....I .....see....dead people