How to Lucid Dream: A Beginner’s Guide
Have you ever had a dream where things were so vivid, so real, that you awoke in a gasp or sight of disbelief? These dreams are usually ones you can remember the most details of. The really spooky part is when you can literally control what happens in your dreams.
This is what is called “lucid dreaming.” Lucid dreaming can also occur right from the moment you fall asleep. People who know how to lucid dream can do this consistently and often sleep better, among other benefits.
Anyone can lucid dream, though. It’s just a matter of practice and getting into a routine. There are a few techniques that you can try to trigger these lucid dreams. These are a few common tips.
Tying Dreams into Memory
Lucid dreaming relies on the ability to combine your consciousness with your subconscious brain. To begin this process of linking the two, you need to be able to recall your dreams.
Some people wake up and are able to remember a lot of their dream sequence. If you have problems recalling what you just dreamt, try keeping a journal. Make it habit of waking up and immediately grabbing a pen to write what you remember.
Even if you just have pieces, it’s a start and you’ll soon notice an increase in recollections.
Using a tape recorder is also effective for getting out as many details as possible. This negates the need to fully wake up and turn on the light. The more awake you are the faster you lose that sleep memory.
Ideal Sleeping Conditions
Learning how to lucid dream is difficult when you’re sleeping irregularly or outside the best times. This means sleeping for at least seven hours and waking up in the morning. If you wake up too late, you may not be able to remember your dream.
When the sun rises, it can trigger your body to start waking up, even if you are “asleep” for hours past sunrise. Start getting into the habit of waking up within an hour of sunrise. Set your alarm an hour earlier each week to ease into a good sleep habit.
You should start to see a dramatic increase in the ability to retain your dreams.
Change Things Up
For those of us who already have a good sleeping pattern, wake up in the morning, but still can’t recall much: don’t fret. Some of us have dream patterns that make it difficult to catch them and control their sequence.
For this solution, we need to be able to wake up at different intervals. It might sound a bit stressful, at first, but this is just to find your REM phases. REM, or Rapid Eye Movement, phases are the deepest of sleep.
This is when you’re experiencing dreams. Dreams last for about two hours, broken up into separate cycles. The first cycle is short, getting progressively longer each cycle. The key is to be able to wake up right when you’re still having the dream.
To do this, you’ll need to set alarms at random intervals to try and find your REM sleep pattern. For some people, they only remember dreams when they wake up 2-3 hours before they usually get up.
Training Your Brain to Lucid Dream
Now, once you are able to successfully document your dreams while they’re still fresh, you need to prepare your mind. If you want to actually control your dreams, realize you’re dreaming, you must train it.
Meditate
Meditation is a cornerstone of tapping into our subconscious mind. Meditation helps you practice mindfulness and focus. You should meditate for about 10-20 minutes every day. Don’t overthink what meditating should feel like, just do it.
Simple breathing exercises that make you focus on every inhale/exhale are all you need. Your brain may wander at first but just follow it. Eventually, meditating will comprise of floating around with no real aim or reason.
Not only will the quality of your dreams improve, but your overall mental health will, too. Meditation helps reduce stress, which can greatly interfere with the ability to sleep and dream. Try to meditate before you sleep or when you feel you need a break during the day.
Meditation is a great preventative and defensive measure against stress and busy minds.
Lucid Dreaming Music
Outside sounds often play a part in influencing how we dream. Oftentimes, these sounds enter our dreams and can even trigger a lucid dream. This isn’t a reliable way to lucid dream, however, as environmental sounds can also be ignored by the brain.
If you’re looking to use music as a way of conditioning yourself into lucid dreaming, there’s plenty of great resources. Lucid dreaming and meditation programs help to train the brain to relax and ease into a lucid state.
By tapping into isochronic tones, or sounds produced at certain frequencies, you can trigger subconscious mindfulness. This is best achieved with sleep aided headphones and a professional meditation mp3 track.
Mastering How to Lucid Dream
Don’t worry if you can’t get yourself to lucid dream in the first few weeks. It can take some time before you get into the habit. Once you do, it should be fairly easy to replicate.
The key is consistent sleep environment and preparation. Creating a sleep routine will help you eliminate any variables or disturbances holding you back. Lucid dreams are worth all the trouble, though.
Many artists who can lucid dream are able to source so much new inspiration and material from them. Lucid dreams can also increase retention of information, i.e. when you are studying for tests. Everything feels real, yet you control the boundaries of reality.
If you’re interested in trying lucid dreaming and still aren’t convinced you can do it, just read these customer testimonials!
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