What is Lucid Dreaming?
Lucid Dreaming is a phenomenon where you become fully conscious during a dream and control your dream world. It’s delightful, and anyone can do it.
Learning to lucid dream is simple, but takes dedication. Below is the “dream routine” to adopt whenever you want to start regularly lucid dreaming.
Start a Dream Journal
Every morning when you wake up, immediately write down all of the dreams you can remember. Use as much detail as possible. Keeping your journal and pen next to your bed is a good way to trigger this habit.
Visualize Successful Dreaming
Every night before you go to bed, visualize that first thing in the morning, you will vividly recall your dreams and will write them down in your dream journal.
Perform "Reality Checks"
Throughout the day, periodically ask yourself, “Am I dreaming?” As you do this, look around you and see if anything you are experiencing is strange or impossible. Things in dreams tend not to make sense when viewed rationally, so you should quickly be able to tell if you are in a dream.
Tip: An easy way to remember to ask this question is to draw a dot on the back of your hand with a marker. Every time you notice the dot, ask yourself "Am I dreaming?"
Repeat and Be Patient
Repeat this process consistently. It often takes 15-30 days of following this routine to have lucid dreams start reliably occurring.
Additionally, it is common to wake up soon after initiating a lucid dream. This is because you'll likely experience a jolt of excitement when you realize you're lucid dreaming, and may wake yourself up. If this happens, just breathe heavy and calmly go back to sleep and try to resume dreaming.
Ensure Quality Sleep
In addition to following the other steps in this dream routine, it is important to ensure you are getting restorative sleep. We highly recommend taking our free Master Your Sleep course which will teach you how to get consistent, quality sleep.
Conclusion
Learning to lucid dream takes a lot of work, but it’s worth it. While lucid dreaming, you can take control of your dreams and experience what it is like to fly, go on fantastical adventures, or anything else you can imagine. Perhaps most importantly, you'll learn to unlock the true capabilities of your own mind.
