Lucid dreaming truly is a marvelous and fascinating topic, so much so that it is difficult to see how anyone wouldn’t want to learn how to lucid dream once they hear about it. But as you may have suspected, it is not as easy a process as many books and Youtube videos claim. Some people are naturally blessed with a high degree of dream recall and the ability to have frequent lucid dreams, but for the rest of us these are skills that take time, dedication and knowledge to develop.
Here we will outline what it means to have lucid dreams (LDs), the process of learning to lucid dream, and the skills required to do so reliably.
In this article:
What Is Lucid Dreaming?
Lucid dreaming is when a person is conscious while they’re dreaming. This simply means that the dreamer is aware of the fact that they’re in a dream.
Lucid dreaming is often confused with dream control — which is the ability to take control of and actively shape your dreams. When most people hear about lucid dreaming they hear of flying, having sex with movie stars, having superpowers, etc. In actuality, these things are done consciously through dream control — and lucid dreaming is only the first major step to this.
The average person’s journey will involve learning to have your first lucid dreams by choice (as opposed to spontaneously) then moving on to try various techniques that will help you have lucid dreams more frequently, and finally learning some techniques that help you control the content of your dreams once lucid.
Can Everyone Lucid Dream?
This is a question that gets asked a lot when talking about lucid dreaming, and it seems important to get out of the way.
There are different types of lucid dreams, and different degrees of lucidity, but the short answer is yes. Anyone who can dream, remember their dreams, and is of sound mind should, in theory, have all the tools they need to have dreams that are lucid.
How to Master Lucid Dreaming
Most searches for the phrase “how to lucid dream” will steer you towards guided meditations or specific techniques used to initiate a lucid dream tonight. These can be extremely helpful, but for people who aren’t already avid dreamers, this is only a piece of the puzzle. It is important that you fulfill all of the general requirements first if you wish to get the most out of these techniques and start successfully having lucid dreams.
Here are the steps to learning to lucid dream at will:
- Develop dream recall (the ability to remember your dreams)
- Learn to conduct reality checks
- Find the best lucid dream initiation technique for you
- Learn to stabilize your dreams
And there you have it. If you have done all of these then you have successfully had a lucid dream. This is obviously easier said than done, but we believe that learning in this order will greatly increase your chances of lucid dreaming while reducing the time and energy needed to do so.
Let’s go over these steps in greater detail so that by the end of this article you have a good understanding of what you need to do to start lucid dreaming at will.
Lucid Dreaming Step 1: Develop Dream Recall
The most important step to achieving lucid dreams is the ability to remember your dreams.
This is known as dream recall. Without dream recall, you won’t even remember that you had lucid dreams, making the development of this skill 100% necessary to have lucid dreams at all.
The good news about dream recall is that it is typically as easy as caring about your dreams, thinking about them often, and writing what you can remember about your dreams down each morning when you wake up. The latter is known as Dream Journaling, where you write down everything you remember from last night’s dreams as soon as you wake up. If you’re interested, we go into much more detail on best dream journaling practices here.
Some of us will naturally have a high degree of dream recall, and if that is the case, then you are already good to go here. Keep in mind that the rule of thumb is that you need to remember at least one dream every single night before you start actively trying to have lucid dreams. For the rest of us, we recommend using a physical journal or a notes app on your phone to write down anything and everything you can remember about your dreams, immediately after waking up.
Before moving past this step, you should be able to recall enough about any given dream to remember at least some of the characters, settings, and events that took place within it.
Lucid Dreaming Step 2: Conduct Frequent Reality Checks
Once you have developed dream recall to the extent that you remember at least one dream from each night, you need to learn how to conduct reality checks.
Reality checks are any of a number of tests you can conduct to determine whether you’re in a dream or in waking reality.
Throughout the day, it usually seems entirely obvious to us that we are in fact awake. But in dreams this is often not the case. And since most people don’t question the fact that they are in reality while they’re awake, they also tend not to check within their dreams. This is why it is important to learn a reality check technique and make a habit of checking throughout the day, with the hope that you will start to remember to conduct reality checks while you’re dreaming as well.
A true lucid dreamer will conduct reality checks even when it appears painfully obvious that they are awake, in order to make a habit out of it. If you do this you will start to find that some of the time you’re actually in a dream when you least expect it.
Reality checks can take nearly any form, but the most common are turning on and off light switches (usually won’t work in dreams) or trying to see if you can pass your finger through your hand (which often happens while dreaming, and should never occur while awake).
It is important that you find the reality check that will work best for you, so we encourage you to check out our list of reality checks or you can start with the lights or finger-through-hand tests for now.
Lucid Dreaming Step 3: Finding a LD Technique that Suits You
Now that you can remember your dreams and are making a habit out of conducting reality checks, you can finally start with lucid dream initiation techniques. Actually, you already have a method of initiating lucid dreams at this point simply by conducting reality checks.
Making a habit of reality checking will open the door to what is known as Dream Induced Lucid Dreaming (DILD) — a technique in which you become lucid while in a dream by testing reality and realizing the dream world doesn’t have the same physical laws as the waking world.
If you want to stop at simply remembering your dreams and making a habit of reality checks, it is likely that you will have a lucid dream within a few weeks to months of doing so. However, learning another lucid dream induction technique will raise your chances of having an LD sooner, and give you more control over when you’ll have them in the future.
We won’t go over every individual method here, but you can find our list of lucid dream induction techniques here.
What’s important to know for now about lucid dream induction techniques is that there’s three main categories: wake initiated, dream initiated, and aid techniques:
Wake-Initiated Lucid Dream (WILD) techniques are methods to induce lucid dreaming directly from the waking state.
Dream-Initiated Lucid Dream (DILD) techniques are methods to induce lucidity in dreams that happen within the dream itself.
Aid techniques are ones which compliment a technique from one of the above categories.
Many people who learn about lucid dreaming will be tempted to try wake initiated at first, usually because it seems more gratifying to enter directly from waking to lucid dreaming — but we recommend that you don’t start with wake initiated methods until you’ve already had your first few successful lucid dreams.
Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming (WILD) methods tend to be much more difficult to use, as they can mess with your sleep quality, and dreams are shortest when you first fall asleep. Many influencers and youtube meditation videos claim that they can get you to lucid dream for the first time by using wake initiated methods, but we stand firmly by our recommendation of using dream initiated techniques, at least when you are starting out.
We recommend dream journaling and reality checks when you’re getting started, which will usually lead to Dream Initiated Lucid Dreaming (DILD). In this manner, DILD is essentially just checking ‘reality’ to see whether or not what you thought was real is actually a dream. In time you may notice recurring dream signs that will more easily alert you to the fact that you’re dreaming.
Note: It is possible to use WILD techniques right off the bat, but it can lead to unnecessary strain and poorer sleep quality and we believe that this puts many people off from continuing their lucid dreaming journey.
If you’ve followed along with these steps so far, you can easily use the reality check based DILD technique to start with or you can read our list of lucid dream induction techniques and pick another method that you prefer to try.
Lucid Dreaming Step 4: Learn to Stabilize Your Lucid Dreams
When you first become lucid, the most common thing to happen is that the excitement of realizing that you’re in a fantasy world wakes you up. If learning to recognize that you’re dreaming is the first major hurdle to having lucid dreams, learning to keep them stable enough to actually enjoy them is the next.
Dreams are fantastical constructs that exist solely within our minds, which means that when we lose focus or “grounding” in our dreams, it can make them blurry, confusing, or wake us up entirely. This is where dream stabilization comes in. Dream stabilization is any technique that you use to re-stabilize or anchor a dream that is fading.
Stabilization can be a tricky subject, especially for those first few lucid dreams where the excitement can be pretty difficult to keep under wraps (and rightfully so). The nature of in-dream techniques means that they can be hard to determine what does and doesn’t work from a scientific perspective, so keep in mind that what works for someone else may not work for you. And like most aspects of lucid dreaming, trying new things and getting a feel for what works for you will be very valuable in the long run.
Despite how difficult coming to a consensus is for in-dream techniques, there are a few methods that are generally seen as tried and true within the lucid dreamer community:
Spinning stabilization – When you notice that a dream is fading, try spinning around 3 times in the dream. Your brain should help to recreate the fading scene or a new scene once you slow down and stop spinning.
Hand stabilization – When you feel a dream slipping, try either rubbing your hands together or just inspecting them closely and pay attention to the level of detail they have.
Demand stability – Within the dream, audibly call out your intention. You can just yell out something like “become stable” or you can try to demand more specifically what you want, like “I am dreaming of a beautiful river!”
There are many other stabilization techniques out there to try, but these three stand out as the most talked about with the highest success rate. Here’s an additional list of ideas to try if these dream stabilization techniques aren’t working out for you.
Get out there and start dreaming!
And that’s it! With these four steps we’ve listed you are already on your way to having your first lucid dream. Just remember that it is a skill where patience and a calm demeanor are rewarded over time!
If you want to learn each step more thoroughly, please see our Roadmap to Lucid Dreaming outline.
