From age 18 to 20 I was really into lucid dreaming and, I guess, reached some meaningful results. I had more than 350 lucid dreams, and around 20–40 of them could be called “super-lucid” to different degrees. Altogether I recorded more than 3,000 dreams of various quality in my journals. But then adult life, career, and everything else took over, and I let the practice go.
Now that my life has become more stable and calm, I thought: why not return to this hobby? It should be simple - I already have such a huge background of dream memory.
I don’t even need to look into my old journals; I remember a huge number of those dreams by heart. But it turned out they don’t give me any real effect anymore.
When I recall them now, it feels like I’m imagining someone else’s stories, not mine. The dreams I’m writing down again this week - 2-3 per night - feel like my stories, my world. But the old ones lost that feeling.
So I’ve basically become a beginner again, with only one advantage: I know the practices that worked for me, and I understand that patience and discipline are really all you need to get results - and the results will come.
Below is the setup of habits that gave me stable progress just a month into practice. I’m writing this to remind myself, and maybe discuss some details with other forum members.
1. A journal is good, but two journals are better.
I keep one journal under my pillow so I can jot down quick notes during the night without trying to hold memories until morning. Usually it’s barely readable scribbles - just a few lines about the location and scenario. That’s enough to sit down later that same day and pull the full dream from memory into a clean, detailed entry in the main journal.
2. Location matters more than storyline.
Once you get close to even 50 recorded dreams - let alone 100 - you realize they fall into groups based on one question: “Where?”
Then you notice that locations repeat, while the scenarios and “decorations” change, like movie sets.
Back then I tried to define them by objects and architecture, even tried to connect everything together - basically mapping pieces of dreams into one large world. I had a huge A1 sheet map; by mentally “walking” through it I could easily recall dreams. It was incredibly effective, even better than journals. It was like a reversed journal: instead of reading stories to remember visuals, you look at visuals and remember the stories.
But environments and architecture change over time, and a rigid map eventually collapses. You start forcing things, and eventually have to redraw the whole map. Some dreams you just know belong in a certain place, but you can’t attach them neatly to a fixed map.
Locations are more like principles - little micro-worlds with their own feelings and rules. This time I’m thinking of using a more flexible approach, not a strict map.
3. Don’t expect to lucid dream all night.
Your body is tired, your brain is tired, everything needs rest. Going to bed after a workday and trying to “enter the dream” right away is possible, but the results (at least for me) were pretty bad.
Sleep becomes shallow, you spend the whole night waiting for “the moment,” and end up exhausted with a few messy fragments of low-quality dreams.
I need 8 hours of sleep total, and for the first 5 hours I give myself the task to simply rest. I even intentionally set the mindset not to remember dreams (sounds absurd, I know). I take magnesium with tryptophan to deepen sleep and let the body restore itself.
Then I have 3 hours left. I wake up with an alarm, use the bathroom so nothing distracts me, switch the mindset back - now I’m dreaming - review my reality checks, actually do them while awake, and go back to sleep.
Three hours equals two full sleep cycles for a rested body and refreshed brain. That means at least two good-quality dreams that don’t fall apart and are easy to remember and write down. I can try WILD, or catch myself during phase shifts - it all works much better this way.
4. Get up when the alarm rings.
The alarm will either cut off a dream or kill the chance of another one. It’s especially painful when it interrupts a lucid dream. The temptation to stop it and fall back asleep is huge. It helps when you have work - but when you’re a freelancer or an entrepreneur like me, that temptation is even bigger.
Even though I’ve stepped on this rake many times, I still sometimes fall back asleep hoping to return to the dream. It almost never works. Worse - you break your sleep schedule, sleep longer than needed, lose daytime hours, and make your sleep the next night worse.
Discipline is crucial here.
5. Don’t sleep more than you need.
Sure, if you sleep 10 instead of 8 hours, you can get more dream content and fill your journal faster. I did this for a while.
But it’s unhealthy - both physically and mentally. Your waking time becomes scattered, the day feels shorter, and the dreams themselves become choppy and less deep.
It’s quantity at the cost of quality - not just dream quality, but life quality. I’m not doing that again.
6. Wake up at the same time every day.
This is secondary for lucid dreaming but primary for health.
Workday, weekend, holiday - 6 AM means 6 AM. No “just 15 more minutes.”
This trains the brain to finish a cycle by around 5:50-5:55. No abrupt interruptions in the middle of REM, and your brain wakes up naturally, which makes recalling dreams much easier.
7. One type of reality check per day.
If you read about all the possible reality checks, you might think you should do all of them and success will be quick.
In reality, you’ll forget most of them, get irritated, and maybe drop the practice altogether.
It’s better to choose one check - and stick to it for the day.
Today I look at my hands every time I’m at a doorway.
Tomorrow I check whether I’m dreaming whenever I see a red car or pink sneakers.
Another day I check electronics to see if they work.
It’s easier to keep focus, and the training still works. Consistency is more important than quantity or intensity.
Honestly, even without any checks - just with regular journaling - several of my friends who thought they “never dream” had their first lucid dream in 2-3 months.
8. No plan = no results.
This applies to real life and dreams.
If I don’t know what I’m going to do once I become lucid, there’s almost no point. Rational thinking and decision-making inside a dream is extremely hard, especially early on.
So you must always know: “What will I do when I become lucid?”
It might sound absurd - like it’s not really “lucid” if you’re just following a plan. But try it first. In the beginning it’s incredibly hard. Only when this becomes easy - when you feel with your whole being when the dream is trying to pull you into its script and you can resist - then you can start making decisions directly inside the dream. Step by step.
You don’t lift 200 kg before you’ve learned to lift 40.
9. Know in advance that some nights will be “empty.”
This depends on many factors. Even during the most advanced period of my old practice, when I had a lucid dream almost every night, there were still nights with absolutely nothing - not even messy fragments.
At first these nights made me anxious. Over time, I just accepted them.
It happens, and it will keep happening.