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 also need to think about exactly why you want to become a lucid dreamer. What are the benefits of lucid dreaming? To help us find the benefits, let us first look at ‘normal’ sleep.

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?

This kind of sleep allows us to get the rest we need to go about our activities the following day. Have you ever wondered, though, what it would be like if you could actually take control of your dreams and dictate their events?

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.

So if you want to become a lucid dreamer how do you do it? There are actually two ways. The first way is having a dream-initiated lucid dream (DILD), which is where the dreamer is in a dream and then realizes that they are, restoring their sense of consciousness within the dream.

The next way is called wake initiated lucid dream (WILD); in this process, you go from wake to sleep stage with no loss of consciousness. To put it more simply you walk through the door from here to your dreams instead of just happening upon them

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

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.

The best way to remember your dreams is of course to write them down. Keep a pen and pad by the bed and immediately upon waking from a dream write it down. The reason you want to write it immediately upon waking is so you do not forget any part of the dream. Dreams tend to fade from our conscious mind rather quickly.

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

Developed by Daniel Love, in this technique you first acclimate yourself to waking 90 minutes earlier than usual. Then alternate waking early with waking at your usual time. When you wake up at the later (regular) time, your body will begin to stir 90 minutes earlier, giving you a much better chance at achieving a state of lucid dreaming, at least during this 90 minutes.

Wake-initiation of Lucid Dreams (WILD)

This method was described before. If you would like to achieve a lucid dream this way, all you have to do is to keep your mind awake while you body falls asleep. This is perhaps the most interesting way of entering a lucid dream. It is as if you are getting ready to watch a movie. You are in the real world, you sit on your couch, you turn on the TV and press play (starting to sleep), the screen is black (in the same way as when your eyes are closed), and all you have to do is wait for the movie to actually start.

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.

Like many other areas of our life, technology has made its mark. Today you can find several electronic devices that can aid you in inducing lucid dreams. There are masks that can detect when you enter REM sleep then use a vibration, sound or small lights to induce lucidity.

Possibly the best method of all is to play binaural sound frequencies on headphones.

These work by synchronizing the two hemispheres of the brain and have the effect of almost instantaneously changing your brainwaves to the REM frequency needed for a lucid dream to occur.

Combined with the self hypnosis sessions and affirmations to prepare your subconscious mind beforehand, becoming a lucid dreamer is something that everyone can now experience!