Help with getting my first lucid dream

So the first thing I want to say is that in dreams, if something was peculiar, for example having an extra finger on my right/left hand, my dream brain would disregard that due to the simple fact that it’s a dream (I only realize it’s a dream after it’s done) and they’re meant to be wacky. Or if I see a digital/analog clock zooming past the minutes, the same thing will happen. My dream brain simply knows things are out of reality, but I cannot change it. I still don’t know it’s a dream when these things happen, in the dreams I am just surprised with no change at all. Now for the second part of my question, my dreams feel very fake and short, if I am ever to enter a lucid dream, will this state of mind in the dream change from fake and short to genuine and lengthy? Also, I haven’t gotten a dream in a while, which could be a problem…

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keep working on changing your mindset! keep doing the reality checks and really really mean it when you are doing it. Think for a few minutes.

Also write your dreams in a dream journal and work on dream recall and start noticing dreamsigns. For example some of mine are the college I went to or cults, etc. So in the dream you see the dream sign, you might intuitively say, this is a dream. Paying attention and writing down your dreams might make your dreams more vivid or remember how vivid they are and get more out of them!

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Welcome to the forums, @strudel

Sounds like a German name? ;p

I had a lot of words today, so here’s the tl;dr: awareness, mindfulness and dream journaling


What Rebecca posted is good general LD hygiene. In addition I would like to give you some suggestions based on your specific case.

For most people this is actually normal. Otherwise we all would be natural lucid dreamers. In order to make it click in your brain, there are some exercises that you can do. Fortunately they are all done in waking life, that’s the good thing about it. The goal is to increase your awareness.

Awareness for:

  • Your surrounding (Where am I? What is this or that?)
  • The time and place you are in (How did I get here? What am I doing?)
  • Yourself (What am I feeling right now? What am I thinking right now?)
  • Reality (Is this real or a dream?)

I suggest vaguely this order. After you pondered on these questions you do a fully sincere reality check to confirm your findings. Insert this practice into your every day. It’s more important to do it right than to do it often. Only doing it once a day but sinking deep into contemplation will raise your general awareness more than if you ritualized the process and do it 10 times a day.

If you think you get this down but the dream still doesn’t let you take control even though you already identified it as such, then I recommend adding one more step to the process outline above: Do a thought experiment what you will do if it’s a dream. Imagine how you are going to fly, or summon a person or transform into your favorite creature. Make a plan and manifest an intent to do your number one goal immediately upon realizing it’s a dream. I recommend sticking to a single thing first. The intent will be stronger this way.


Experiences vary. For most people the moment of realization comes with a surge in detail and increased perception. For some it’s mostly the same. As for the length, this depends on when you get your LD: a) which phase of sleep in the night and b) how late into the dream. This is hard to influence. Also many report that the experience is so overwhelming that sheer excitement causes premature awakening. I wouldn’t worry about that though. Even if it happens to you, it will get better as you have more and more LDs. And after you had one, you’ll definitely want more and more :tongue:

But for this question my main piece of advise must also be to work on your awareness and additionally on your mindfulness. Most people nowadays walk around life completely oblivious to the world. Sadly I do that, too, so I know what I’m talking about. For example: Right now I’m writing this message while I’m walking on a street to go to work. I’m not paying any attention to what’s going on in reality. This will reflect in your dreams, because they are dominantly formed from your waking life experiences. If you don’t have any experiences to draw from, your dreams are going to be sterile and boring.

But for the sake of helping others by writing a post, I’ll make an exception :smiley: What you should do instead though is to take in your surrounding and try to absorb every detail your senses can get a hold of. You will start to notice that there is much more to discover in plain sight than you were aware of. Even if it’s just a scratch on your coffee mug that you never noticed before even though it has always been there. You can include this practice into the awareness training I explained above.

The most important trick though is a super simple one: Don’t look at your phone all the time. I don’t know your habits but if you frequently check your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, read random stuff on Reddit, watch random videos on YouTube and react to every messenger app notification immediately, then I recommend you to check what this is really giving your life. You’ll find it’s not much and consciously can start spending more time, energy and especially awareness in the here and now. It will benefit your dreams as well.


Well this is a simple matter, fortunately. Just keep a dream journal and look forward to sleep every night and the dreams will come rushing back to hug you in no time. We also have a DJ section on the forum where you are invited to post any dream you wish to share or discuss with us :wink: Sounds like shameless advertising but unintuitively enough, dreaming can be a collaborative community effort.

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DUDE!!! Thank you so much for this reply! I feel like these tips will significantly better dream world and really help me build up on my motivation to lucid dream.

this makes a lot of sense considering I haven’t done much important stuff since the quarantine began for me… :sweat_smile: I did notice a huge dream shortage after I started staying inside more often.

I have also significantly increased time on my phone (not something I’m proud of :joy:) but thanks! I’ll for disconnect from my phone for a while.

Have a great rest of your night/day, and thank you for all this wonderful advice! :smiley:

Thanks!! :smile:

2/9/21, the dream I had last night: It was very short and a subtle dream, I am lucky I didn’t forget it. It was pretty much just my dad saying I’m not getting a Bible, I’m getting a lot of religious relating dreams lately.

Well now that’s a start. I see you also started to post your dreams and progress here on the forums. I wish that it will benefit you by amplifying your progress :cheer:

If you know what your common contemporary dream themes are then you can use this knowledge also for recall. As you try to recall your dreams from the night, scan your brain for signs of anything related to that theme, in your case for example a holy book, conducting prayer or attending the mess. You may get sudden memory bits flashing into your consciousness which you can scrutinize further and develop into an elaborate dream memory. Either way, good luck!

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Thanks! Before I went to sleep last night I tried telling myself “I will see my hands in my dream tonight and I will realize that I am dreaming.” I also helped this by picturing myself using my hand to pick up a Bible.

Hey!

I wouldn’t worry about having fake/short or random dreams. Because when you think about it, what is a dream? There’s many possible explanations to that, but I think most people can agree that sleeping is something we do to recharge and repair. Most of the recharging is probably done during the deep sleep, but I’m sure some of it is also happening during REM sleep. My point with all this is that you’re not fully conscious when you dream, nor are you supposed to be (this is most appereant during deep sleep where your consciousness is pretty much turned off). You’re also not “all there” during REM sleep, this is also true for lucid dreaming to some extent. While a lucid dream can indeed give you 100% awareness of that you are dreaming it also tends to be a very draining thing that needs a lot of focus to maintain (if you stop focusing it tends to slip away). I believe dreams are jumbled thoughts that the partial consciousness you still have during REM sleep is trying to make sense out of (since you don’t realize it’s a dream). Dreams where you have a lot of focus and clarity are often nightmares - these also tend to be draining (not really optimal sleep probably).

My point is; having short or dull dreams is normal, mostly you only recall the spectacular ones. Most of my lucid dreams stick out so much that I remember them pretty much permanently. Most of my normal dreams are rather dull and disappear on awakening. Short/dull normal dreams won´t be telling of how your lucid dreams turn out as lucid dreams is just the act of being and staying aware during your dream (it also varies how aware you actually are in the dream, which makes sense). I found checking my hands to be the best way to obtain lucid dreams (I don’t really try anymore, they just pop up randomly somtimes), another tip is to try doing it during a daytime nap since dream recall tends to be better - at least for me.

Turned out to quite a rant there, hope you got something out of it! :joy:

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Thx for the explanation! :smile:

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