Hey guys, I just found out about lucid dreaming and have decided to give it a go. I don’t really know how to get started though… But last night, before I went to bed, I was thinking of a beach the whole time to try to get myself there, and once I felt myself drifting off, I kept my eyes closed but I kept them focused. After a minute of this, my whole body started to tingle. But then I opened my eyes… Was I close to becoming lucid? If not, can someone help me become lucid?
You should start with recording your dreams with as much detail as possible.
Basically, lie still when you wake up in the morning and recall as many details from the dream as possible.
Let the memories come to you without putting too much stress on yourself, and you will remember things more easily.
Try to include different kinds of details - colours, sounds, emotional feelings etc;
then write it all down once you think you have recalled everything you can.
Keep doing this for a a few weeks.
You might not recall very much in the beginning, but you will eventually become better and better at it.
This is good for several reasons:
you will train your dream recall so you can more easily remember lucid dreams when you actually have them, and it will also make your dreams a greater part of your life, so that you might actually turn spontaneously lucid just because you pay much more attention to them.
I also recommend that you take a look at Stephen LaBerge’s book “Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming”, that book is awesome and gives loads of great advice, and is really ideal for beginners.
Well that’s the problem. I didn’t really hear or see anything, except for visioning the beach in my mind. When I started to tingle, after a few seconds my eyes opened on instinct. I didn’t want them to open, the just did.
this is the begining of sleep paralysis you should read the guide but i wouldnt recommend trying to WILD if you are just getting into lucid dreaming
Warning - people who have just gotten into lucid dreaming and try WILD as their first technique almost always get tired of lucid dreaming because they see no results, since WILD is a fairly difficult technique.
Don’t fall into that trap.
Before you seriously start practicing lucid dreaming you should develop your dream recall, otherwise you won’t even remember the lucid dreams that you might have in the meantime.
And once you feel that you have great dream recall, you can practice WBTB for another week - this basically means that you try to wake up during a REM period (the most ideal time is usually about 6 hours after you go to sleep; you can also see a chart here), then stay awake for a while and focus on whatever you wish to experience in your next lucid dream (flying, perhaps?) and then go to sleep again, and really look forward to that lucid dream experience that you might have in a few minutes.
This is essentially a combination of the techniques WBTB and MILD, and is easily one of the most reliable ways to get lucid dreams.
The theory behind this particular method is that you wake yourself up in the middle of a dream, so that you can go back to sleep and finish that dream stage a little later when you have been awake for a while - this will allow you to be much more aware when you fall back to sleep again.
Okay, so don’t try wild… Got it. How do I practice my sleep recall? A few days go i read that once you wake up, you try to remember your dream? But most of the time, I don’t remember anything whatsoever. Should I wait for a night when I actually remember a dream, and then work on my recall that nights and the nights following? Also, another thing, last night I thought about a beach again (I didn’t see your comments) but this time, all I remember is being strapped in a chair and shaking violently, and this was a few minutes after me getting the tingling feeling again. I only saw this for a few seconds, but then I went back to myself lying in bed thinking about a beach again. And when this shaking happened, it seemed real and I don’t remember how I got back to my bed when i thought of the beach again… This is confusing, but yea…
Try lying completely still whenever you wake up, and grab hold on any dream scene you can remember, no matter how fragmentary it is.
Then just relax and ask yourself what you were doing at that part of the dream, how you got there, what you felt etc - anything that pops up.
Try to recall as much as possible, and then write it all down.
It really doesn’t matter how fragmentary your memories are, if you remember anything at all then write it down, even if it’s just a vague feeling or unclear memory of a place.
And if you really don’t remember anything at all, write down that you couldn’t remember anything that night - this will teach your brain that you care about your dreams, and so you will be more likely to remember more the next night.
The reason why you don’t remember your dreams is most likely because you simply don’t take the time to memorize them - dreams are VERY easy to forget, you could even wake up in the middle of the night with crystal clear dream memories and still forget the whole dream when you fall asleep and wake up again later.
yeah keep a dream journal right next to your bed and just write down any details you can remember and it will get easier and easier
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Can I keep trying WILD before bed and then in the morning I will recall? Also, the past 2 nights when I tried WILD, I woke up around 2-3 am both nights and just instinctly went downstairs to sleep on my couch… Is this because of using WILD?
WILD should normally only be attempted in the middle of the day, because if you fall asleep during the day you will sleep much lighter, and elso enter a dream much faster and easier.
If you try WILD in the evening you will have to go through a number of deep sleep phases, NREM, which makes it much harder to sustain awareness since you first completely lose consciousness and then enter the dream.
But sure, in theory you can of course increase your chances to become lucid in a later dream if you remain as aware as possible when you fall asleep, just don’t expect an actual WILD at that time of the day.
If you want a good start to lucid dreaming then I recommend that you watch this video series by Tim Post - he is a very experienced lucid dreamer and is probably one of the most reliable lucid dreaming teachers on the Internet.
His teaching methods are also pretty innovative, he even simulates a dream scene in a forest and changes the light and sharpness settings on his video camera to demonstrate a “fading dream” and what you can do about it.
Thank you for your help. I’m a step closer to lucid dreaming! I can remember a dream every morning, well almost, because ill go to school (not having enough time to write my dream down) and when I get home I barely remember anything. And a lot of the time, ill try to think of my dream just after waking up, but It doesn’t come to me until later in the day and I see something that reminds me of my dream (like a friend). Last night I had a really weird, dream and I just got home and wrote everything down. It took 1 and a half pages! I was close to becoming lucid, but it was weird. I can tell the dream, but its long and you guys probably don’t wanna hear it lol. And also, here is my dream recall list:
*Day 1- I remembered my dream later in the day, actually 2, but when I got home I only remembered the first.
Day 2-nothing
Day 3-nothing
*Day 4- I remembered my dream, but later in the day.
**Day 5- I remembered my dream, but later in the day, I also tried WILD and while doing it I felt things running around me, in my bed and room, but I was too tired to open my eyes.
*Day 6- I remembered my dream as soon as I woke up, but forgot most of it when I got home.
***Day 7- Here is the weird dream, I almost went lucid (if you wanna hear it I can type up the dream) I remembered the whole thing clearly from the time of me getting up, and coming home from school. I tried I small bit of WILD ,but I forget if I stopped doing it after a little.
So here's my dream recall for the past week. Tell me how I'm doing :wink:
(Is my dream recall good or does it need more work? It’s getting better, and I don’t even do anything, before bed I just think, remember my dream for a second and that’s it).
You are doing good. In my opinion one should never stop doing on his DR. There will be days when you won’t remember anything or it might pop up later through the day as you already experienced it…
I would suggest if you have time and will to try Darxide’s EFT Lucid Dream Induction Technique. It helps me a lot and you are done with it in few minutes. I really saw changes in my DR.
Try it out for at least a week. Every night before sleep and you should see the results and feel free to post here how it goes…
Good luck! 
The past week has been hectic in school, so i haven’t been writing down my dream recall at all. But Friday I will try that technique you mentioned. There seems to be a lot to it, so I expect it to take at least 10 minutes. Thanks for the input and ill tell you how it goes saturday (if I remember to do it before bed tomorrow).