So you want to be a lucid dreamer. Well that’s a good start, at least you know what you want to do; but how exactly do you go about it?

It can be helpful to know why you would like to be a lucid dreamer. What do you have to gain from the process? In order to find the profit in lucid dreaming we should begin with the normal dream process.

When you go to sleep, you get into bed, close your eyes for a certain length of time, and either dream or just see black for a few hours and then wake up! It isn’t very interesting now is it?

Average sleep has a purpose it prepares our minds and bodies to carry out the duties of the next day. However, consider the idea of managing your dreams consciously.

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.

This sounds great, but how can you become a lucid dreamer? There are two ways to reach this state – one is by having a DLID, or dream initiated lucid dream. These are instances where the dreamer has taught themselves to recognize that they are having a dream and start to assert control over the direction of their dream.

The second way is having a wake-initiated lucid dream (WILD); where the dreamer goes from being awake, to being asleep with no change in consciousness. In other words, the dreamer enters their dream as if it were a door, rather than just “waking up” in a dream.

So how are these types of lucid dreaming induced?

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.

A dream journal is perhaps the best way to learn this skill. Use this to write down every detail of your dream that you can remember immediately after you wake. If you wait., it will become increasingly difficult to recall.

Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD)

This is a technique that was developed by Dr. Stephen LaBerge, one of the lead scientists studying lucid dreaming. The intent here is to simply tell yourself that you will remember something, like an object for example and then in the dream, when you see this object you will realize it is a dream.

Wake-Back-to-Bed (WBTB)

This technique is fairly simple. You set your alarm for just a few hours after you go to bed. When you wake, don’t just go back to sleep. Instead, stay awake for about an hour, then return to sleep.

According to Dr, LaBerge, this method has a 60% success rate. The idea here is to wake yourself in the midst of a REM cycle so that upon returning to sleep, lucid dreaming will be easy to achieve.

Cycle Adjustment Technique

This was created by Daniel Love, and what it is, is setting your alarm to wake you up an hour and a half before your normal time. Once you’ve adjusted to waking up early, alternate your alarm to wake you up normally and early. During times you are to wake up normally, you’re body will already be ready to wake up early, and therefore, you will be likely to be awake in your dream.

Wake-initiation of Lucid Dreams (WILD)

This technique involves maintaining mental alertness even as your body shuts down for sleep. Think of it as if you are in a movies theater, with the film soon to begin; your closed eyelids are like the black screen just before the movie starts.

You can also use this technique with tactics like counting, chanting or imagining yourself climbing stairs as you go to sleep. This method of achieving lucid dreaming is best done in the afternoon or other times when you are not terribly tired.

Technologies like strobe lights and dreaming masks can also help you to become a lucid dreamer.

Listening to binaural beat frequencies through a head set is the simplest and most consistent way to create a lucid dream.

These binaural sounds induce lucid dreaming by causing the hemispheres of your brain to synchronize, making your brainwaves reach the state required for lucid dreaming.

With self affirmations and self hypnosis combined with binaural sound, being a lucid dreamer is a goal which anyone can reach.

If you are not yet familiar with the phrase, lucid dreaming is a relatively simple concept. A Lucid Dream is a dream where you are aware that you are dreaming, even while in the middle of it. The degree of lucidity depends on a few things – how much control you can exert over events in the dream, how much of the dream you can remember upon waking and how stable the dream is.

Control over your dream is the most important element of a Lucid Dream. It is an incredible experience to be in the midst of a dream and to know that you are in fact dreaming. You are in control of everything in your dream and can have any experience you choose to have.

Just consider that for a moment. Lucid Dreaming looks, feels and engages all of your other senses as if it were really happening but you know that you are only dreaming and will be totally safe no matter what you do. This is the kind of virtual reality experience which computer experts can only dream of.

Lucid dreaming is an incredible skill that more and more people are mastering. Having a Lucid Dream is something almost everyone experiences very occasionally, but just imagine how exhilarating it would be if you could Lucid Dream whenever you want to!

Lucid Dreaming gives you the opportunity to have any experience that you can think of. You can meet anyone you ever wanted to, visit other planets, have unbridled erotic experiences, speak with the loved ones you have lost; anything you can imagine can happen.

Being able to Lucid Dream whenever you want is an ability which people once had to spend a very long time to learn. People would spend months and months in training before they had their very first Lucid Dream. Some people found that no matter how hard they tried, they were never able to have a Lucid Dream.

So are there any simple ways of experiencing a Lucid Dream?

There are those who claim that the odds of having a Lucid Dream will be increased by having certain foods close to bedtime. Some of these foods are orange juice, milk, cheese and mustard.

Other foods of note are pickles, ice cream, popcorn and fish. Although they are not as effective as the three foods and drinks described above. Some people say that they improve your overall dream recall and “prepare” your brain for future lucidity. The main problem is of course that they are high in fatty acids, salts and sugars which definitely doesn’t assist you in getting a good nights rest!

Can Technology Assist You?

There are new technologies which can assist you in having Lucid Dreams. There are sleep masks and eyeshades which turn on LEDs when REM sleep is detected; the idea is that the red light of the LED will let dreamers know that they are dreaming; this is the first step to taking control of the dream.

Another of the new developments is an audio technology known as binaural beats. Different frequencies are played in each ear of the listener; this has been found to be helpful in achieving Lucid Dreams.

Binaural frequencies help to synchronize the hemispheres of the brain and make your brain more likely to reach REM sleep, which is needed in order for Lucid Dreaming to happen.

For anyone wondering what it is like to experience a Lucid Dream, then this is definitely the easiest and most reliable way of getting started!

Sometimes known as conscious dreaming, Lucid Dreaming is the art of keeping self aware and knowing that one is dreaming while in a dream. This includes being conscious that the events unfolding around you are only part of the dream and being able to exercise control over the dream. All of this is possible for the person who has learned how to use lucid dreaming.

The power of having complete control over the direction of your dreams is something straight out of metaphysical existence. Suddenly, all the limitations you ever felt in life just cease to exist.

But is it as simple as it looks like? Can everyone experience lucid dreaming and bring to life what otherwise seems difficult or impossible in this reality?

In fact, lucid dreaming is not too difficult an ask. If you are determined to learn this powerful medium of expressing your inner desires, there are tried and tested ways of achieving this.

Foremost, you must be absolutely clear about your objective in trying to master the art of lucid dreaming. Do you just want to have your own private playground in the form of lucid dreams, or there is some specific reason for developing this skill? Whatever may be the reason, it should be crystal clear in your mind.

Once you understand your reason you will begin the learning process of how to lucid dream. You will need to learn Dream Recall. This is the ability to recall a dream from the previous night. You will not be able to lucid dream until you can recall a dream.

The process is slow, but it can be achieved by maintaining a Dream Recall Register in which you enter as many details as you can remember about your dreams daily. Slowly but surely, you’ll realize that you can remember even the most vivid details of your dreams. Periodic reality checks during the course of dreaming will train your mind to be aware in dreams.

Hypnosis can be very helpful for many in preparing their minds to have lucid dreams and can get the process of learning lucid dreaming off to a good head start. In fact, hypnosis can have people remembering their dreams in detail in as few as a few sessions. When you can do this, you are ready to try out lucid dreaming.

Occasionally you may find yourself wide awake while you are lucid dreaming. You will be able to easily recall all the vital details of a dream with the power you have so far achieved. Simply allow yourself to relax and go back to sleep. You can continue your dream in your desired direction. You will begin to realize that you have experienced the power of conscious dreaming the previous night, after you wake up.

Another good way of inducing lucid dreams is to wake a few hours earlier than usual, then go back to sleep. The dreams you will have in these few hours are the easiest to make into lucid dreams. You may even find yourself unsure whether you have been sleeping or just thinking to yourself as you lay in bed. Just set your alarm for a few hours early, wake and reset the alarm and then go back to sleep and you will be more likely to have lucid dreams.

You can easily set an alarm to go off a couple of hours before your scheduled wake-up time. And when the alarm sounds, just wake-up, switch it off, and go to sleep in order to enjoy lucid dreams. In this regard, it’s extremely useful to keep track of your sleeping patterns so as to discover the best time to have lucid dreams.

Lucid dreaming can help people with insomnia and other sleep disorders. If you have trouble sleeping, just tell yourself “Sleeping equals lucid dreaming” and your subconscious mind will help you become free of the thoughts keeping you awake.

It once was the case that it could take years to learn lucid dreaming; the only way to prepare the mind was meditation, which took a long time to master. A lot of people lack the discipline and would simply give up. New technologies, especially audio technology have made it possible for anyone to experience lucid dreaming.

Many people are finding that the most reliable and certainly quickest way, of having a lucid dream is by listening to binaural audios.

These work by playing slightly different frequencies in each ear and have the result of deeply relaxing the listener and bringing their brain waves to the correct frequency for lucid dreaming to occur.

Before this time the only way for you to learn how to lucid dream was to make use of meditation techniques that took several years to master with firmness and strength of mind power. However, many individuals felt it to be too difficult to continue, before this new technology became available.

When binaural sound waves and hypnosis are used for preparing the subconscious mind it is very possible for you to experience lucid dreaming sooner.

You have decided you want to be a lucid dreamer, otherwise known as a conscious dreamer. Knowing what you would like to do is good, the question remains on how do you accomplish this?

You may have heard that there are benefits to being a lucid dreamer/lucid dreaming. This is the case, but to get a clearer picture of what these benefits are, you need to take a look at what usually happens when you go to sleep.

Sleep itself is not so interesting; you get ready for bed, lie down and close your eyes. Then you may have uncontrolled dreams or not and several hours later you awaken.

Average sleep has a purpose it prepares our minds and bodies to carry out the duties of the next day. However, consider the idea of managing your dreams consciously.

What if you could be an active instead of passive participant in your dreams? What if you could take control of your dream instead of being controlled by it? Someone who has managed to become a lucid dreamer can do all of this – they are not bound by anything except for their imagination.

This sounds great, but how can you become a lucid dreamer? There are two ways to reach this state – one is by having a DLID, or dream initiated lucid dream. These are instances where the dreamer has taught themselves to recognize that they are having a dream and start to assert control over the direction of their dream.

The second way is having a wake-initiated lucid dream (WILD); where the dreamer goes from being awake, to being asleep with no change in consciousness. In other words, the dreamer enters their dream as if it were a door, rather than just “waking up” in a dream.

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

Dream Recall

One of the best ways to begin learning to become a lucid dreamer is by practicing dream recall. This is simply the ability to remember your dreams. When you remember your dreams and learn more about the commonalities which can be observed in your dreams, it is easier to recognize a dream and start to take control over the direction of it.

The way to practise dream recall is by keeping a dream journal. The dream journal is meant as a tool to write down anything you can remember about your dream, in order to recall it for the future. This should be done right after waking up; otherwise dreams will become harder to remember.

Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD)

This is a technique that was developed by Dr. Stephen LaBerge, one of the lead scientists studying lucid dreaming. The intent here is to simply tell yourself that you will remember something, like an object for example and then in the dream, when you see this object you will realize it is a dream.

Wake-Back-to-Bed (WBTB)

This simple process has you taking no action except to set an alarm that will waken you in less time than you normally sleep. For most of us about five or six hours will do it. After the alarm awakens you do not try to fall back to sleep. For about an hour you should read, watch TV or concentrate on lucid dreaming then go back to sleep.

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.

Cycle Adjustment Technique

This was created by Daniel Love, and what it is, is setting your alarm to wake you up an hour and a half before your normal time. Once you’ve adjusted to waking up early, alternate your alarm to wake you up normally and early. During times you are to wake up normally, you’re body will already be ready to wake up early, and therefore, you will be likely to be awake in your dream.

Wake-initiation of Lucid Dreams (WILD)

This technique involves maintaining mental alertness even as your body shuts down for sleep. Think of it as if you are in a movies theater, with the film soon to begin; your closed eyelids are like the black screen just before the movie starts.

A number of ways to stay aware are counting, imagine climbing or descending stairs, chant, control your breathing, count your breaths, and concentrate on relaxing the body from their toes to head. (This all falls under the term ‘self hypnosis’.) It is best to do this when you are not tired, like in the afternoon.

Technology has moved on in recent years, and there are various devices like dreaming masks and other scientific appliances which contain such things as strobe lights to induce lucid dreams.

Definitely the easiest and most reliable way of inducing a lucid dream however is by listening to binaural beats sound frequencies via headphones.

The purpose is to synchronize both sides of the brain to create the REM frequency that is required for lucid dreaming.

Put all or many of these techniques together and you are ready to begin your journey into the wonderful world of lucid dreaming. It is a simple process that anyone can do.