After reading a couple of users dream journal’s, I really want to have a lucid dream. I’ve already read a few guides and some threads with tips but I’m a little confused on a few points…
What exactly happens at the start of a lucid dream? How do you get from in your bedroom to in a whole other world?! When you get the ‘knowing’ that you’re in a dream… what do you do? Get up and move around? Will you still just be in your room at this point?
I want to do the WBTB way because apparently it’s more successful than the others for beginners.
So if I go to bed at 12, and set my alarm for 6am, then I get up and read on the forum for like 40 minutes. What do I do when I go back to bed? Do I just fall asleep? How will that get me into a lucid dream?
I would really like a lucid dream where I explore another world, and fly, and meet DC, but this seems impossible
Why’s it so impossible? If you fall asleep normally without WILD and just use MILD, you’ll most likely gain lucidity once in a random dream, rather than one in your house. Nearly sounds like you read my recent WILD plus my ghost nightmare.
My DILDs usually aren’t at my house. Most of the time I become lucid in a random dream that has nothing to do with my home. Since you’re new, I won’t recommend WILD anyway. DEILD could be a possibility, but just because someone like me usually ends up in their surroundings when doing DEILD doesn’t mean you will. Most people will see HI when falling back asleep, and they’ll be able to watch the dream form, which is usually something random. For me, that’s not the case, but that doesn’t mean it will be so with you. From what I’ve seen, I feel like I’m somewhat of an exception with that.
WBTB is just the process of waking up and staying up for a little bit and then going back to sleep in your desired way. DEILD is usually done when you wake up but don’t move, then go back to sleep in a process similar to WILD, but quicker. However, longer WBTB like you’re describing (if you really want to stay up for 40 minutes… I’m usually up for less than 15; I don’t spend much time awake at all) would usually be combined with MILD before you go back to sleep. With that, you repeat a mantra a few times or set your intentions to be lucid or remember your dreams or such, and then fall asleep normally.
That personally is what I usually do; when I WBTB, if I don’t make a bathroom trip or something, I attempt WILD while setting my goals first, and if the WILD fails, the MILD before is still there to hopefully work. Then, if I wake up randomly in the night, I usually attempt DEILD. Again, as I said, I wouldn’t recommend WILD for a beginner. I’d suggest sticking with WBTB, MILD, and maybe DEILD.
It’s not the rule that you will become lucid in your room, you can become lucid everywhere… There are some dreams where we just know that we are lucid but most of them are lucid because of RC. When you realize that you are dreaming then you have the great moment of clarity. As a beginner there are chances that you will wake up after a few sec or min in your first LD, which is completely normal.
For that is very important to have a lucid goal, so when you become lucid you need to remember the goal, but usually you can just do whatever…
WBTB is a great technique, because doing WBTB you awake your mind but not your body, which is important, because it’s good to fall a sleep but with your mind active. You can combine WBTB with MILD, which is great for beginners, so you do what you usually do with WBTB tech, go back to bad and then reset your intentions, get your mind on your goals or repeat mantra few times and just sleep…
And one very IMPORTANT thing: every description about techniques you can read here are correct, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t do things different, for example I don’t stay up for WBTB tech for 40 min, I usually stay up around 5 - 10 min, and you should experiment with other techniques also, my point is that you should adjust technique to your own needs!
There are two “types” of lucid dreams: DILD, any dream where, while dreaming, you realize it’s a dream and become lucid, and WILD, where you let your body fall asleep while you keep your mind awake. In other words, if you have a DILD, you won’t be conscious at the beginning of the dream. But if you WILD, you’ll be in bed and after a while you’ll start losing awareness of your body and your imagination starts getting more vivid until you are… there! Probably not the best explanation But after some practice I’m sure you’ll get it
When you go back to sleep after WBTB (I also stay up for about 15 minutes.) you can just fall asleep again, but it helps if you combine it with another technique. You can repeat in your mind a few times something like “Next time I dream I will remember to recognize I’m dreaming”.
And don’t worry! It’s not impossible! Just relax and experiment, learn what works best for you and you’ll get there
Thanks so much for the replies, they really cleared up stuff for me!
What I meant by saying it seemed impossible was that I find it hard to imagine being in a dream and meeting DC xD Hopefully I’ll get good enough to be able to do that though
Next time I try it (I have school and exams tomorrow -.-) I will combine WBTB with MILD and see how it goes.
So does that mean, in a lucid dream, do you feel yourself doing things? For example, if you tried to fly, would you fly? Or would it just feel like how it would if you imagined yourself flying right at this moment?
If you had full awareness in a dream, and thought, would it feel like you walking around as you would right now, except your RC tells you you’re in a dream?
Sorry if that doesn’t make sense! I’ve never had a LD before except briefly, and then I woke up once I realized it was a dream (and I didn’t really have full awareness that I could change my surroundings or anything).
That’s the beauty of the dreams, as long as you in a dream it does feel like a reality, especially if the dream is very vivid, as in reality we have a body in a dream called dream body , and with that body we experience everything, just like in WL, but sometimes our feelings can be mixed or switched, although some feelings sometimes can be carried in WL for some time…
I see you want fly very much , that is my favorite thing to do, I recommend you to look a movie What Dreams May Come, some parts of the movie were so inspiring to me that I had a first LD after watching it, so maybe it helps you to get there!
yeah, definitely don’t stay up for 40 minutes. i pretty much haven’t heard anyone do that.
the way i do it, is when i wake up, i normally wake up from a dream. i stay up as long as it takes to write the dream down, then i go back to sleep. but try not to make yourself too aware, cause you might have trouble going back to sleep, like i do.
But after some practice I’m sure you’ll get it 
, and with that body we experience everything, just like in WL, but sometimes our feelings can be mixed or switched, although some feelings sometimes can be carried in WL for some time…