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OVERVIEW / INTRODUCTION
This thread was requested by numerous members, including staff, due to a conversation had in the shoutbox. I explained that I have studied lucid dreaming and achieved it regularly, so they wanted me to explain my studies and efforts. Although I do not practice these techniques any longer, I assure you that they do indeed work quite well provided you take the time to understand the subject and practice.

Before ALL of this: A DISCLAIMER I have to say that I really fucked up when I posted this first, because I didn't mention this at all.

Before you can do any of this, it is VERY important that you get yourself on a very healthy and regular sleep schedule. Your brain needs time to process each day's events, and sort through all the ungodly amount of information that you have seen. You actually don't start dreaming until WELL into your sleeping cycle, when you get to R.E.M stages of sleep. So I cannot stress enough the importance of having a good sleeping schedule.

THAT MEANS: You can't fucking stay up all night playing cod, sleep for 3 hours and expect to be able to have lucid dreams. Sorry.

IN ADDITION: It can be risky when doing this if you are the type of person who is very easily scared or feeble minded. No offense to those of you who are, but sometimes you can end up putting yourself in a position where you can see VERY strange things, and since you're in a dream and in a somewhat state of self-awareness, it can seem VERY real and WILL scare the fucking shit out of you. PM me sometime if you want the horror stories.

But I assure you that is a very small possibility that any of that will happen. But, after all, there is no reward without risk.



So first off, what is lucid dreaming? The term "lucid" basically means "in control" or "clear". The idea is that when you become lucid in a dream, you become aware that you are awake and clearly realize that you are asleep and in fact, dreaming. It's important to remember that while the common definition of lucid dreaming is "dream control", the control aspect of it all comes into play later on and after much patience and practice.

Let's talk about what dreams are for a second. I described them as this: Picture your waking life's brain and memories as a video editing room. A lot of the time, small things and scenes of life are disregarded as unimportant and "left on the cutting room floor". Your dreams are simply the result of these unused clips of memories or scenes randomly placed into a beginning, middle and end. At times our dreams seem completely ridiculous and void of any possible point. That's because they are simply unused imagery being formed into a short film in your head, that you actually see in first person.

Here's a good link explaining dreams: You must login or register to view this content.

The question that relates to lucid dreaming is how and why we see our dreams at all. I'm no expert on that subject but I think it's because dreams occur in a place of our brain that is related to our actual sight. Signals get diverted from our eyes to our memory banks, which results in us actually seeing our dreams being played out in front of us.

Now let's move on to some things you can do to obtain lucid dreaming. The best thing you can do, is just go on google and start reading all sorts of material about lucid dreams. Immerse yourself in the subject. If you truly want to be able to fly around the sky, live out your deepest secret fantasies, have a conversation with Richard Nixon, all things lucid dreaming, then you will want to study the subject very thoroughly. This is important because in addition to getting you well versed on the subject, it lets your brain know that you are interested in this. This will allow your brain to be more susceptible to working with the other techniques involved in achieving dream control. This website, that was linked by someone in the shoutbox, actually holds some good information on techniques you can try.

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But you can't just stop there. There is a plethora of information available on the subject and you will benefit greatly from it. All you have to do is google "lucid dream" and tons of stuff will come up. The reason I don't link the stuff myself is because it's important for you to actively pursue the information yourself.

My personal techniques. I've tried everything on that page with success in some and failures in others. The ones that work the best are the ones that utilize the ability of your brain to remember habits that may or may not pop up in your dreams. This is where remembering your dreams in the form of a dream journal comes into play. You may not know it, but you have common re-occurrences between all of your dreams. Knowing these re-occurrences are important because recognizing them gives you a better chance at realizing that you're currently dreaming. So the best thing you can do aside from learning everything there is to know about lucid dreaming, is to keep a dream journal. It might be stupid at first, and people might think you're weird. But fuck them. This is your desire, do it.

On keeping a dream journal. You want to be as detailed about your dreams as you can. This way, every nuance is detailed and can easily be recognized if it happens again. It is very important that when you wake up from a dream, that you don't grab your journal first and start writing. It is extremely important to just stay still and focus very hard on the dream. Remember everything about it, start to finish, until you can replay it over and over in every detail in your head. THEN write it down. This is important because even a simple act such as turning over, sitting up, scratching your eyes, yawning, etc.. can cause synapses to fire in your brain. That energy will draw from the energy needed to remember the dream, resulting in details or even the whole dream forgotten. REMEMBER THAT.

Now the way I did it, after I studied and studied and kept dream journals, was by using dream signs. These are things that you recognize in your dreams that give you a slight hint that you're dreaming. Once you think about it and say to yourself "I might be dreaming", it's time to slow down and relax. The biggest mistake you can make is to just immediately get over-excited, because you WILL wake yourself up and be pissed off. I did that countless times. I think the best way is to figure out that you're dreaming, and then for the first few lucid dreams, let the dream play out while being aware. You can do simple tests like looking at your hands, looking at text or clocks, looking at mirrors (although what you see might scare you), etc. Anything that you know to be normal, will seem wrong or out of the ordinary in your dreams. This is a sure indication that you are lucid and fully aware that you're dreaming.

Remember that above everything else, this takes A LOT of practice and A LOT of patience. You aren't going to try one of these techniques tonight and have a lucid dream. If you get lucky and you do, awesome. Just remember not to get too excited and accidentally wake yourself up. But if you are persistent in your efforts and you truly want this, you can achieve dream control.

Understanding and Techniques

So let's dive a little deeper now that most of you have read the overview and have heightened your interest in lucid dreaming.

Many people have asked me a lot of questions and seem to still have a little trouble understanding the concept behind lucid dreaming. So let me try to put this into perspective a little better. The whole idea of this, is to make it so your sub-conscious can realize that you're dreaming, while in a dream. Since you have no control over your dreams while NOT lucid, you have to train your brain to look for signs that make it click and make you ask yourself "am I dreaming?", and then realize "Hey, I am dreaming! =D". So it's all about training your sub-conscious to be able to pick up on little nuances that stand out in dreams, dream signs, or "lucid triggers".

Now on to the tutorials:

Meditate and State intent to become lucid to yourself:
This is a probably the most common, most practiced and easiest method to try to make yourself become lucid. It requires you to be able to relax yourself and think clearly.

Lie in a comfortable position, before you're heading to sleep. Breathing exercises can help with calming yourself.

As you get into a calm state, FIRMLY repeat either out loud or in your mind "I will lucid dream tonight", or any other combination that works for you. Repeat that and anything else like; "I will look at a clock, and that will trigger my lucidity".

Do this as long as you can possibly do it. The more you do it, the higher chance it is being lodged into your sub-conscious, and it will happen. You basically do it until you fall asleep, and then hope you become lucid in your dreams.

The Ball or Object:
This one is very simple and, after some further reading, is surprisingly more effective than I thought.

Find an object that's easy to hold. Has to be something that you hold onto, not that can attach to your hand.

While laying down to go to sleep, look at the object or ball, and recite your intention to have a lucid dream. Do this until you fall asleep. Don't worry if the object falls out of your hand when you fall asleep. As long as you registered it in your mind enough, it should show up in your dreams.

If you did it right, at some point in the night, you should have a dream where you have that object in your hand, and that will be your lucidity trigger.

Now some say the best thing to do once you have seen the object and start to become lucid, is to try to change the object into something that will make you even more lucid. I have doubts about this but I understand the logic. I would just be cautious about getting over excited.

Reality Checks:

You should be doing this anyways. This is how you program self awareness into your sub-conscious in dreams. But, the more self aware you are in waking life, the more self aware you'll be in dreams. Common sense. Reality checks are things you do that force your conscious and sub-conscious to assess the reality of the situation you're in, what you're looking at, or who you're talking to. Everything you do in waking life, if done enough, you'll do in dreams if your intent is to see them in dreams. So do these reality checks while thinking about lucid dreams.

1. Look at your hands. A LOT. Look at them so much that you're sick of it. All while saying to yourself "I will look at my hands in my dreams".
The trigger: When you look at your hands in your dreams, they'll usually have like 8 fingers each, and you can do weird things to them. So that will usually make you realize "ok this has to be a dream."

2. Ask yourself if you're dreaming. Seriously. Just ask. If you do this enough, suddenly one night you'll find yourself dreaming along, not really caring, and then boom you stop and go "Am I dreaming?!" And yeah, this does work. But remember, ask yourself while thinking about asking in a dream.

3. TEXT. Billboards, Books, Magazines, etc. Anything with text. Look at it (in waking life) and think really hard about "is this real? am I dreaming? Can I read that text?" All while thinking about lucid dreams.
The trigger: Text in dreams is usually so weird and jumbled that it's impossible to understand. This will usually stand out as weird to you in your dream, and trigger your lucidity.

4. CLOCKS. This one could be included with the text one, but I wanted to look like I posted a lot of material, so f off. It's very simple, just keep looking at clocks. And while you look at them, recite the whole lucid dreaming intent. Tell yourself to look at clocks while dreaming. Tell yourself it will trigger you to become lucid.
The trigger: Much like text, clocks will be weird and not make sense. They'll be one time when you look, and when you look again it'll be hours later. Other times when you look, they'll be numbers you've never even seen before.

5. Places or People. While awake, take a few moments from time to time to stop and focus on your surroundings while asking yourself "have I been here before? Is this place real? Does it exist?". You'll probably be in a place that you know exists or that you've been. But the idea is to get your sub-conscious used to asking these questions regularly. Again, and I can't stress this enough, tell yourself in the back of your mind while doing this that you want to ask these questions while dreaming. Repeat the same thing for people you're looking at or talking to in waking life.
The trigger: In you dreams, you are often in strange places or see people you've never met. If you've trained your sub-conscious to regularly assess who or what or where is going on, they might trigger you to become lucid.

Also, when I say "say to yourself", that doesn't mean you have to say it out loud. You can say this stuff in your mind, as long as you are thinking hard and clear about it, while also thinking about lucid dreaming. Remember, it's all about training your sub-conscious to get used to asking or doing these things.

SECTION HERE OMITTED ~ There was a section here that I took out because of broken links. It provided links to some techniques that you can try. They were as follows:

W.I.L.D. M.I.L.D. and W.B.T.B.

Just google any one of those with the word lucid after it, and there is WAY more information on them than I can put in here. This is why I decided to just have you go do the work instead of me. If I were to discuss these things, this thread would be as long as longcat. Now let's move on.

My Personal Technique:
Here's what I did when I was starting out:
First, I started keeping a dream journal. I did this so that I could notice common things or places or people that I would see in my dreams.

For me, my common things were my house, my pets.. So what I did in waking life was to train myself to take an extra skeptical look at those things that are common in my dreams.

What this does is train your mind to take a second skeptical look at those things in your dreams. When you do, and you notice something off about it (because it usually is in your dreams), you realize you're dreaming and lucid.

Throughout my daily waking life, I would constantly say to myself in my head "am I dreaming?, is this a dream? is that right? what's wrong with that?" etc..

Once I became lucid in my dreams for the first few times, I would get way too excited and wake up. But after a while, I trained myself to just take a second and look around. Rub my hands, tell myself I'm lucid and dreaming. All things to just let me know I'm ok, I'm dreaming and I'm in control.

Then, I would start to test my abilities. The first time I had full control, I was in my friend Grant's bathroom for some reason. I did the mirror test, and saw my face was blurry. Then I looked at the light switch, and I told myself to turn it on with my hand. I did, then I turned it off. Then I told myself to turn the light on with my mind, and it turned on. From there I walked out of his bathroom and outside, and then I jumped and noticed it felt a lot like I was floating in water. So I decided to start swimming. It was an amazing feeling, swimming through the air in the middle of the street. After a while I lost control and woke up though.

Take these as tips on what to do though, they do work.

Advanced Techniques:

Sleep Traveling:
*Note* This technique is kind of for seasoned lucidinauts. This method makes you fall right into a lucid dream, rather than other techniques which happen after many hours of sleep or many dreams. So don't be surprised if this one doesn't work or is too hard to do.

Another method is "sleep traveling". This is where you lay down to go to sleep, after maybe looking at your hands and telling yourself that you're going to be lucid and remember your dreams, and you visualize yourself walking to a pre-determined destination. The destination is a place that when you get there, you will be asleep, in a dream and lucid. The trick to this is remembering EVERY little detail about the journey. This may be hard for some because it does require a great deal of mental focus. But you're laying there trying to sleep anyways, so just try it.

Sleep Paralysis and "Old Hag"

Now I know a lot of you are having some concerns about some of the "scary" aspects of lucid dreaming. I'm not going to tell you what to be scared of and what not to be scared of. I will only tell you that anything you experience in a lucid dream is simply a dream and can't harm you in any way. Same thing goes for Sleep Paralysis (SP) and Old Hag Syndrome (OHS).

What is Sleep Paralysis?
Sleep Paralysis happens to you EVERY NIGHT. It is a defense or protective mechanism that your body goes into when you get into REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is the deepest form of sleep you can be in next to a coma. It is a very normal thing and it happens because your brain tells your body to stay still while you dream. Otherwise, you would act out your dreams in real life while asleep. If you do that, and you're sleeping with someone, and you're dreaming of being in a fight; the person you're sleeping with is going to get beat up. So don't look at SP as something to be worried about when trying to do lucid dreaming.

Symptoms Include:

Being fully or partially paralyzed

Hearing strange noises

Seeing strange things

A "crushing or choking" feeling

SP related to Lucid Dreaming:
When you're first starting out with lucid dreaming, your mind isn't used to the concept. So what happens is that sometimes you can wake up while in SP. If you're in a dream while this happens, the dream can continue as you're awake in your mind, but your body is still asleep. This is why people report seeing and hearing things when they wake up in SP. It is simply your mind continuing the dream. A "Waking Dream". Now this can be scary, because you are even more aware than just being lucid in your dream. You're fully awake, but dreaming, and looking into reality. Like I said, I'm not going to tell you what to or not to be scared of, but if you understand what's happening, you'll be able to make sense of the situation and calmly handle it.

A little further..:
Since you're awake but still dreaming and paralyzed, many people mistakenly identify this as being visited by paranormal beings. Think about this with common sense and logic. You're dreaming. But you're awake. You can't move and you think there's something there. Sound like an alien visit or ghost story you've heard before?

Old Hag
This is the scary part. But this is important to know. Along with all the accounts of sleep paralysis, come accounts of strange beings seen or "perceived" to be near a person while experiencing it. The word perceived is important. Nine times out of ten, NOTHING is ever really seen, and is in fact only perceived to have been there. The "Old Hag" experience is where you wake up in SP, and have the over-whelming feeling that there is something there with you. Usually, since the mind is scared because it can't make sense of what's going on, the initial relation is evil or menacing. Of course. Because our minds always like to jump straight to "oh shit, we're in danger and I'm scared". This is simply your mind trying to protect you.

I should mention this; the reason they call it old "hag" is because of some old english translation from the word "mare", part of "nightmare". Get it?

How do you get out of it?:
It's actually quite simple. First off, it's important to remember that this all happens for a VERY short period of time. Anywhere from a few seconds to a couple minutes. Of course, time is an illusion when you're sleeping, but in reality it's over before you know it. Now here's what you can do to get out of it:

THINK. Remember what is going on. Know the reasons and causation for SP and Old Hag. Keep a level head.

Think about moving your body parts, shaking your head, waving your arms, or just getting up altogether.

Actually try to move your body, toes, fingers, blink your eyes, etc. ONCE YOU MOVE, THE EXPERIENCE IS OVER. That is your motivation.

You can also just close your eyes and ride it out, or even try to fall back to sleep and then become lucid again. In fact, if you woke up into SP and you weren't lucid, that's the BEST time to try to fall back into a dream and become lucid by following the WILD technique.

Summation:
Consider this: SP is a normal occurrence. The Old Hag experience is just your mind playing tricks on you. And it happens very rarely. Being lucid in a dream, is absolutely amazing and can happen VERY often with persistent efforts. You weigh the pros and cons.

Foods

This is a pretty widespread subject in lucid dreaming. The idea that some foods can enhance the vividness of your dreams and heighten the possibility of becoming lucid within them. While it is unclear as to why, it is believed to part of a placebo effect that causes your brain to become more able and ready to become lucid in dreams. The list is pretty extensive!

This is one area of lucid dreaming that I am NOT well versed in, because when I was studying it, it was before this stuff was popular. But these are the foods, drinks and supplements I got the most hits on when googling information:

They are supposed to be eaten prior to sleeping. Like 2-4 hours before I'm guessing, since you'd probably want to give anything you ate or introduced to your system time to digest and be absorbed. It's a fairly simple concept really.

Apple Juice
Milk
Vitamin B-6
Melotonin
Bananas
Cheese
Fish
Dark Chocolate
and Garlic

I mentioned the "placebo effect". If you are unfamiliar with this term, I suggest you google it. But basically it means, that if you believe something will work, it ends up working. So if you eat a certain type of food and fully believe it will help you achieve lucidity in your dreams, chances are that it might work because your mind is psyching itself out to work. This could also work for any other number or things from objects, positions, phrases or even lights or types of blankets.

There is a common warning among everything I read and that was to stay away from eating foods high in sugar. I don't fully understand why, but I think it's because it can get you too hyper when trying to sleep. Makes sense to me. I would try out a couple of combinations of these foods to see what works best for you. Melotonin will definitely work as that is a natural sleep aid. However, how it will work in aiding you to become lucid or have more vivid dreams, may vary from user to user.

Links

Here are some links for further reading. Remember, IMMERSE yourself in the subject. The more reading you do, the more you think about it, the longer you study it, the better chance you have of it being deep in your sub-conscious and achieving lucidity. Good luck to everyone and thank you for checking out the thread.

I APOLOGIZE IF ANY OF THESE LINKS ARE BROKEN.

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You must login or register to view this content. <- about Sleep Paralysis

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More to come as I find them. Search for yourself as well.


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im a very heavy weed smoker, ive been smoking nearly everyday for the past 4 years (maybe im screwed in the head), i first tried it 7 years ago & in my opinion going to sleep high from weed definitely helps put you into the lucid state, after all ive had lucid dreams without the intention or the goal, its like you're drowsy & extremely relaxed and at the point you realise you're inside a dream you kinda just go with it or maybe you're inside a very deep dream which is harder to wake from by simply realising you're in a dream, i dont know...

as for my bad experience, i dont know what to believe, ive spoken to many people about it in detail, some say im crazy, some say it was a some evil demonic spirit messing with me, and one guy said it could be creature from a different dimension in my room, my mum said it was just a meaningless nightmare & i was sleep screaming, but i was awake before i started freaking out, it was so real i was looking at it with my eyes, i was saying to myself the whole time "this is not a dream" over & over, i also remember telling myself "what just happened actually happened this is not a dream, it happened, i must remember this tomorrow because it happened"

im not the kinda guy who gets scared easily, i watch alot of scary movies alone, i walk through the most dangerous parts of london in the middle off the night alone, i regularly go through a pitch black forest pathway at 3am to buy weed, im not scared of the dark, im just scared to look at a certain corner in my room in the dark, so basically, its just my room...

i dont know what to believe, one thing is for certain, i need to move on & forget about it, the last few moths my life has been very messy, i actually think im going crazy(other stuff has happened), it must be the lack of sleep, ive got a new job, i start tomorrow morning at 9am, im going to try & sleep tonight but i doubt i will be able to do it, if anything ill stay awake all night then go to work, i need this job...

as for lucid dreams, they're definitely a thing of beauty, especially when you are in control !!!

I can tell this is a nice ****ing thread, will read later. :y:.

I hadn't realized that there were people that have never experienced a lucid dream, before. I suppose once you get used to it, you just assume it's a common occurrence.

Great explanation! And I can appreciate the fact that you included details about sleep paralysis as well.

Alright so this seems to be quiet effective for me but I don't know how effective it could be for you guys .. but anyways as I layed in bed I played a movie and watched it to get me to sleep but I also used Knuck Ball/object technique remarkably I had a lucid dream and the movie was off and the TV was on a searching for signal screen (snowy screen), now I just thought "Ok that's a little odd but probably just my mind" So I tried it again and once again I got a snowy screen. This time I thought that's a pattern. So basically what I'm getting at is maybe movies or music could act as a lucidity trigger, I could be wrong but hey ya never know.

i read through the new sections and i finally understand everything, i was having a nightmare i realised it was not real & it was a dream but i decided to insta GFTO, i awoke weak, unable to move my body, drenched in cold sweat, looking at something i cant really describe that looked very real and vivid, this is why i freaked out, i started screaming, at first my voice was almost non existent, it became really loud, then it turned into a loud echo which i could hear in the nights silence, for the record it wasnt a girly scream, it was a very manly scream, kinda like i was powering up, it worked though ,snapped myself out of that sleep paralysis...

I believe I have naturally had dreams like this but Only ever a couple times.
This is a really Interesting and great subject which I really want to get into and give a go.
Thanks for posting this, usually I'm not into this sort of stuff but it's got me interested :y:

Do not worry if stuck in a dream, let yourself go and when the vibrations start to increase you try to get out of bed! You'll ride like never before.

That's pretty interesting that both times you saw a static screen. I wonder if you get that to happen again, you can make it change the channel with your mind. Or better yet, try changing the channel with your hands first, and see if the object is in your hand.

Too much effort. Rather play a video game like GTA, has the same results and is much quicker.