How to Lucid Dream: For Dummies

If there’s one thing I can talk about all day, it’s lucid dreaming.

A couple of years ago, back when I was in high school, I first experienced lucid dreaming. I was clueless of course. What the hell is happening? Why does this feel so real and surreal at the same time? Also, where is my body?! The first thing I did – as I recall it – was to ride a broom stick and pretend I’m a witch straight out of Hogwarts, and then I remember riding a red sports car and running over people in the streets (too much GTA, I know.) It was extremely fun, so much fun that the excitement woke me up!

Just a little bit of background in case you’re wondering: Lucid Dreaming is similar to the dreams you have at nights, only you are in full control. Have you seen the movie Inception? Yeah, exactly. You are able to design a full landscape from scratch. You can do things you can’t do in real life. You can meet people you have been dying to meet. The possibilities are literally endless, as long as you know how to control it.

People experience lucid dreaming differently. Some even confuse it with OBE, or Out of Body Experience a.k.a. Astral Projection, which, by the way, is very dangerous in the paranormal aspect. Remember the movie Insidious? Yeah, don’t leave your body! Kidding aside, lucid dreaming is perfectly safe, as long as you keep your sanity.

In this blog, I’m going to share with you how I induce lucid dreaming. It doesn’t just come to you whenever you want. Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn’t. But I’m going to teach you how to at least attempt to have one, and not wake up from excitement! The first step to lucid dreaming is being able to tell you’re dreaming.

1. Keep a dream journal.

If you have been researching about lucid dreaming for a while now, they always tell you to keep a dream journal. Keep a simple notebook beside your bed, it doesn’t have to be fancy. Just a bunch of papers and a pen, and keep them within your arms’ reach. When you wake up during the night, or in the morning, don’t do anything. Stop, and try to recall every little detail of the dream you just had. Study shows that we forget 95% of the dream we just had just a few seconds after waking up, so writing it down as soon as possible is essential.

TIP: Try to write in the present tense. This way, when you read back your entries, it’s going to make you feel like you’ve been brought back to your dreamscape, watching everything happening.

I did this after I experienced lucid dreaming a few times, and what it does is it strengthens your mind and helps you become more aware of the patterns in your dreams. It can help you tell whether something’s a dream or not, which brings us to the second tip…

2. Do reality checks during the day.

It may sound crazy and insane af, but slyly perform a little reality check within the day. If you do it often enough, you’ll find yourself doing reality checks within your dream and finding out it isn’t real!

Here are a few reality checks that might work for you:

• Try to look at a signage or a wall clock. If it’s not showing the words or numbers properly, or it looks warped, or you can’t even see them, you’re dreaming.
• Look at your hands and feet. If you can’t see them, or you either have an extra or a missing finger, you’re dreaming.
• Test the gravity. If the gravity feels weird, or things that aren’t supposed to be floating are floating, you’re dreaming.
• Think of flying. In a lucid dream, the mere thought of flying will make you fly.

Another sign that you’re lucid dreaming is you generally feel weird. It will feel like something is off, and your body will feel this sensation that I can’t even explain.

3. When you realise you’re dreaming, keep calm.

I know it’s gonna excite you in every way possible, but the key to staying in your dreamscape is to remain calm. This might take a few tries, because personally, it took me probably a year to learn how to calm down!

(Quick story: I had a lucid dream once in high school when I had a huge crush on Narnia actor Skandar Keynes (Edmund Pevensie), so I decided to see him. The second he appeared in front of me, I woke up!)

It’s going to be hard to keep your cool especially with the amazement over what your mind is capable of, but once you’ve done this for a few times you will learn how to take it slowly.

4. Trick your body into thinking you’re asleep!

Take a nap in the afternoon. When bedtime at night comes, you probably still have some energy left and you won’t feel sleepy just yet, but lie down in bed and stay still. Be in your most relaxed position, and make sure to breathe normally. Close your eyes, and resist the urge to move even a single flinch.

You know how there are times you can’t sleep at night and you feel the urge to switch sides? It’s your brain making sure that you aren’t asleep yet. Trick your brain into thinking you’re asleep by not moving at all. It will be hard, you will feel tingles all over your body, signals that push you to move, but try to keep still. Eventually, you will find yourself feeling different, and you will enter your dreamscape.

NOTE: There will be times that you will have Sleep Paralysis, but it’s perfectly normal. Our brain paralyses our bodies every night, in case we have violent dreams, so we don’t do it in real life. In a Sleep Paralysis, you remain conscious, and your brain is awake while your body is paralyzed. Don’t panic. No one dies from it. Just get through with it, and keep calm.

I experience sleep paralysis often, and it’s usually a sign that I will be able to lucid dream that night, as long as I get through it without panicking. Sleep paralysis is a whole different topic, but I will make sure to talk about it in my next few blogs.

5. Learn from every lucid dreaming experience.

Like all other scientific experiments, lucid dreaming is a trial and error kind of deal. Nobody does it properly or smoothly the first time. Don’t get frustrated! You will fail, definitely, there’s no doubt in that. You will get scared. You will disappoint yourself. You will probably give up, but don’t. Just keep doing the tips above, and you will be able to comfortably control your dreams in no time.

Lucid dreaming is a really fun way to escape reality, and create your own little one. You become a god of your own mind, capable of controlling every bit of detail, creating things you can’t even imagine. However, never ever lose yourself into lucid dreaming. Always keep a tight grip in reality, because I can almost swear that when I learned how to do it every night, I hated my waking life. Keep it moderate, and enjoy your day as much as you do your night!

Have fun! x

Do you have any lucid dreaming experience that you wanna share? Leave a comment below!