(Note: Not all here is my own research, some stem from a lucid dreamer circle I have talks with and some stem from HESA (high efficiency skill acquisition) work. I am mainly converting ideas into LD use!)
Most LD methods seem very “brute force” to me. I have chosen another route, and am now studying the possibilities it provides. The short version is to continuously prime the brain with “soft” LD prep, i.e. not trying to lucid dream, but trying to plant the idea of lucid dreaming in your brain, to nurture a stronger connection between the waking conscious and the dreaming subconscious before making use of it. I call it a “dream bridge”, a way for you to access the dreams better as you progress. The bridge can be deliberately improved over time, leading to more powerful and complex lucid dreaming.
The bridge has two foundations, one in the waking conscious and one in the dreaming subconscious. The point is not to power-jump from one to the other through tricks, but to strengthen both sides until they meet in the middle and you can just “walk” across. I am working on methods for strengthening the sides, but for now, I am experimenting with the two following methods:
Waking conscious side: The point is to make your waking conscious (I need better words for these things) aware of and open up to the existence of the dreaming subconcious. The waking side is rooted in logic and deliberate thought, while the dreaming side is rooted in impulses, emotions, an chaos. This means having to open up your waking side to the existence of the chaos, and making it accept it as something non-threatening. Many “normal” LD methods can help, like reality testing your surroundings, by touch especially, but accepting the dreaming side as a real part of your mind by talking to it is actually very effective! The easiest way to do that is to create a physical bond that is always on you, almost like a phone line to your subconscious. A simple colored string loosely hung around your wrist can suffice, letting you touch it whenever you wish to tell the dreaming side something, a bit like the communication badges you see on sci fi shows like Star Trek or Babylon 5. Things to tell the dreaming side include new things seen or learned, even heard or felt, feeding it sensations deliberately, as opposed to just having it be a silent passenger. Emotional thoughts are also and option, almost like explaining your mood and thoughts to your deeper levels of mind.
Dreaming subconscious side: Working with the dreaming side is more a matter of drawing it out and giving it both a way to express itself and a structure to fit into without having to think about it. As said, it is raw emotional chaos of thought, often with little or brief form. Associative writing is an option, but the act of writing is very structured and may trip the dreaming mind. An alternative is associative speaking. For those unaware, associative writing means having a writing pad and getting a word to start from, a “primer”, and then just writing what comes to mind, and then what comes to mind from what you wrote, and so on. Associative speaking is much the same, but you speak into a recording device. The complete randomness of speech, sometimes called “stream of consciousness”, lets the dreaming side’s chaos act freely, drawing it out and removing its many shackles during waking hours.
I am still working on more powerful methods, but I have found that lucid dreaming SKYROCKETS in both amount and detail as the dream bridge is strengthened. It is my personal belief that the two sides can be almost fully connected, but the real world’s need for structure prohobots us from doing so. Sadly, people with very open dream bridges may just be the ones that lose grip on reality and start “dreaming”, i.e. hallucinating, during waking life. Carefully constructing a dream bridge, knowingly and willingly, should not have the same risk of losing your grip on what comes across it.
Let me know if this made much sense. If there is a show of interest, I will keep posting my findings and experiments here. Also note that I hope to do some research interviews with as many people as possible in the near future, to estimate what is broadly usable by people and what is more narrow use for a few!