Some people asked because of my TONGUE IN CHEEK POST about it the other night, well!!! all it is, is being consciously aware that you’re dreaming. You can kinda train your brain to do it and it’s fukken awesome ok! I learned from a bunch of books I got out from the library one summer back in high school and I have kept up all the habits since then until shit got weird but we don’t talk about that
sometimes you get to a point where you can control your dream and force yourself to dream about a certain thing . either way it’s really damn neat to just have conscious awareness while you’re asleep and if nothing else, it’s something fun to do that doesn’t cost anything.
I got into it a few years before Inception came out, if you can believe it. So when that movie came out talking about the same ideas my mind was blown
This is your ability to actually remember your dreams. Because imagine, even if you end up having a lucid dream, what’s the point if you completely forget it as soon as you’re awake? Some people think they don’t dream anymore but it isn’t true, everyone dreams. Some people just don’t remember.
So Write down all your dreams, anything that you can remember as soon as you wake up.
I just text it to myself first thing in the morning and usually they’re super disjointed and barely readable but it’s just enough to have me remember them again. even if you can only remember little snippets, the more you do this the better you can get at remembering.
Dream cues are these little things that make you realize you’re asleep because they differ between reality and your dreams. They’re kind of like triggers that will make you realize you’re dreaming. The idea is to check in on these cues even when you’re awake, so that when it becomes a habit in real life, it will become a habit when you’re asleep.
It’s also a good way to check if you’re actually awake because sometimes dreams are super realistic. I’ve had a lot of dreams where I woke up in my bed, then did the reality check only to figure out I was dreaming.
Different people have different ones but there’s some common ones:
-mirrors: In real life you look like yourself. in a dream you’ll look like a really distorted version of yourself or like a completely different person. I don’t recommend this one because what you see in the mirror might freak you out into just waking up lol
-counting your fingers and seeing more or less than the amount of fingers you have
-electronics that don’t work
-text that changes when you read it, look away and then read it again
-dim lights [i hate light dimmers for this reason eugh]
My personal ones are the and fingers and the changing text! So in real life, I count my fingers, and read some text, look away and read it again to see if it changes.
If I have more than 5 fingers, I realize I’m asleep and that’s where the lucid part starts.
Personally for me, all of these have served as dream cues, but these two are the ones that i literally check on. Another big one for me is if my teeth are loose, it’s an automatic cue for knowing I’m asleep.
So you made a habit out of checking in on your dream cues and writing down your dreams. Now how do you actually do this thing….
There are some REALLY SPECIFIC METHODS To inducing a lucid dream . Some people practice one method that brings you from wakefulness directly into a dream, with NO LOSS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. I find this a little rarer but it’s definitely happened to me
Others have the method where you fall asleep as usual, end up in a dream, and then your consciousness wakes up while you’re in the dream. This is more common I think.
my sleep science might be off but this is it as I’ve understood it.
so the general method is to go to bed super early. like 9pm. And set your alarm for Stupid O Clock. I am talking some ungodly hour that you will never be up, like 4:30.
Reason being: You will literally never go to sleep and immedeitly start dreaming. You have to have been asleep for a few hours, having gotten a few sleep cycles in. The longer you sleep, the deeper your sleep cycles run and the more restful sleep you’ll have as the night goes on. It’s only in the later sleep cycles that you start to dream.
This is the reason you’re groggy in the morning [you were just in the middle of your deepest sleep cycle] but not groggy at all if you wake up at like 12
So the goal is to wake up right before you’re gonna go into a deep sleep cycle.
Stay awake for a few minutes, go to the bathroom or something, read some stuff on lucid dreaming on your phone… You want to wake up your brain so that your mind is conscious and running even though you’re dead tired.
Now you can go back to sleep, and the conditions are pretty much met for having a lucid dream.
SO GENERALLY NOW, it’s really likely that you’re gonna have a regular dream.
But if you’ve been making a habit out of doing your dream cues/reality checks while you’re awake, at some point you’re gonna do it while you’re asleep.
stuff from the waking world carries over into dreamtown. it’s the same reason you’ll have super realistic dreams about your job or people you know.
IT’S ACTUALLY SUPER COOL When you do your dream-cues and you see different results from real life. Like I’ll count my fingers and realize there’s 6 of them and be like Ohhh shit! I’m asleep! Time to go wild.
Usually I just fly around like a motherfucker but it’s so cool to be your exact same self who is able to think about your family/friends/homework/life/memes except you’re flying
OK SO NOW THAT YOU’RE AWAKE while dreaming, you can try controlling your dream. This is a bit harder to explain but in my opinion it’s as easy as focusing/dwelling on what you want to do..kind of like repeating a mantra mentally.
Like lets say you’re dreaming and you come across a house. As you’re walking towards it, tell yourself “Captain Kirk is in this house and we’re gonna have the time of our damn life.” TELL YOURSELF WITH CONVICTION! BELIEVE IT! CAPTAIN KIRK IS IN THE HOUSE! OVER AND OVER!
also try practising controlling on little things first. Like point to the sky and say “brighter” or “more purple” or “bluer” or think “I want it to be night time instead" and it SHOULD change.
There’s 2 tricks I know of that will keep you in a dream for longer when you feel like you’re about to wake up and you don’t want to.
One is spinning: If you feel yourself waking up, try spinning around on the spot till you’re dizzy. Things will blur around you and then they will clear up and get super sharp! Especially spinning while crouching. I have no idea why this works, but it does and others have said the same thing.
The other is, when you feel like things are getting blurry, focus on ONE spot in the dream. I usually crouch and like, stare at the details and texture of the road really really close up. For some reason, pinpointing your focus on one little thing will refocus the dream.
Honestly the more you read about lucid dreaming, the more likely you are to have one for yourself..Even by reading this you’re more likely to have one. It’s weird, but it works. When I would regularly read books on the topic they’d say the same thing and it was true. It’s kind of like, the fact that you’re aware that it can happen makes it likely to happen..
SO YEAH, before you go to sleep or when you wake up at 4 in the morning, google it, see what others have to say. Get your brain in gear for it. there’s lots of posts online that will probably talk about the same stuff that I have here but this is my legit personal experience with it and stuff over the years.
DO YOUR DREAM CUES/REALITY CHECKS
SET YOUR ALARM FOR A REALLY DUMB TIME!!
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