Are you looking to find the easiest way on how to start lucid dreaming?
Bingo! You just found it.
One of the greatest benefits of lucid dreaming is the fact that it is like any other skill – if you want to have a lucid dream, you will. It takes only practice, patience and consistency!
Furthermore, it is important to practice the right lucid dreaming steps.
It may turn out that you cannot lucid dream simply because you are practicing the WRONG things, or you are underestimating some of the FUNDAMENTAL steps of lucid dreaming.
This is why this article is to make your life easier and to show you the right and easy way to start with lucid dreaming.
In this article, we will go through a few easy steps, containing basics that you should follow in order to have your first lucid dream within a week.
Furthermore, we will include some essential lucid dreaming tips!
And just to mention that this guide to lucid dreaming is ideal for beginners.
It is important to say that this might work the 3rd day for someone, but for others, it may take 10-15 or even 20 days.
The ”1-week” thing is just as a reference because it SHOULD work for that period!
Plus, building a habit of doing these ”steps” is what are we are aiming for.
In order to learn how to induce lucid dreams, you need to establish a routine some of the lucid dreaming essentials.
Just have in mind that:
if it doesn’t work within this first week – don’t get discouraged and definitely don’t give up, but simply continue to follow the steps.
So now, let’s briefly introduce the essential basics for beginners and your daily lucid dreaming guide:
Step 1: Reality Checks
Step 2: Dream Recall
Step 3: Nighttime habits
Step 4: Take Oneirogens (dream herbs)
Step 5: Find the most suitable technique for you!
Step 6: STICK TO YOUR ROUTINE
Let’s take a closer look at each step!
Daily Lucid Dreaming Practice Guide (Basics For Beginners)
Step 1: Reality Checks
This one is very important, especially if your goal is to have a Dream Initiated Lucid Dream (also known as DILD).
DILD is when you are dreaming and then you spontaneously realize that you’re dreaming. This will automatically make you lucid!
A reality check is the KEY tip to experience such a lucid dream!
If you don’t know what a reality check is:
a simple lucid dreaming exercise, which you use to TEST your reality.
It is the attempt of trying an impossible action, such as pushing your finger through your palm.
The reality check will prove whether you’re awake or dreaming.
So, what you should do is:
– Randomly perform on a daily basis at least 10 reality checks (the more the better).
This will improve your self-awareness, and what is more – you will start to spontaneously perform reality checks in your dream!
When you are awake, it is simply a way of creating a habit.
However, when you’re asleep – BOOM! This simple trick will trigger lucidity!
For more information, find out:
– some of the best reality checks
– a proof that will motivate you to start performing them right away!
Step 2: Dream Recall
That’s a simple one. Write down your dreams in a dream journal, each morning.
This is another important aspect of becoming lucid.
By writing down your dreams in a dream journal you will achieve 2 things, that will significantly increase the chances of having a lucid dream:
1) You will improve your dream recall.
Within a few days or weeks, you will see a huge difference and you will be able to recall more details than before.
Your dreams will be more vivid and they will look more ”alive”.
2) You will develop an idea of your dream signs.
Dream symbols are crucial for becoming conscious!
You can recognize that you are in a dream exactly with the help of your dream symbols/signs!
Try to remind yourself regularly, that you WANT to remember your dreams.
Plant this idea in your head, and don’t forget it.
Otherwise, you can always improve your dream recall by following our STEP BY STEP guide with 10 easy steps, that you can start doing right now!
Step 3: Nighttime habits
Another crucial step, that can literally stop you of becoming lucid. Follow these easy lucid dreaming tips:
Lucid dreaming tip 1: Get rid of artificial lights
Did you know that sleeping on artificial lights causes the suppression of melatonin?
Yet, the truth is that melatonin is super important for our sleep!
It is a hormone, produced in the brain’s pineal gland. It sets the body’s circadian rhythm, that helps control when you fall asleep and wake up.
Furthermore, quality sleep means quality dreams.
Having issues with your sleeping, or being sleep deprived might be the reason why you cannot have a lucid dream.
The solution is simple!
– Turn off all screens an hour before bed and sleep with a sleeping mask.
– Sleeping in complete darkness helps our body produce more natural melatonin.
Melatonin invariably causes more REM sleep.
More REM sleep gives you more chance to dream.
This is why a lot of people who started taking melatonin reported that they started to dream more.
Lucid dreaming tip 2: Meditate
Various studies showed that as someone can develop a higher degree of awareness during wakefulness, through meditation practice, it is also possible to get a higher degree of lucidity in dreams.
The fact is that meditators have been found to have very high levels of lucidity in sleep.
There seems to be a strong connection between lucidity in dreams and meditation practice.
So, a good idea would be to incorporate a meditation session before going to bed.
If it can significantly increase the chance of becoming lucid, why not give it a try!
Find our easy guide with a breathing technique for beginners!
Furthermore, if you have troubles with sleep, the next step might help you too.
Step 4: Take Oneirogens (dream herbs)
This is not ”a must”, but it is recommendable since it is going to give you a huge boost!
Plus, if you are sleep deprived, it might help you to relax and improve your sleep.
Oneirogens comes from from the Greek ”oneiros” meaning “dream” and ”gen” meaning “creating”.
These dream psychedelics can create richer lucid dream experience because they produce and also enhance dream-like states of consciousness!
The best part is that these herbs and roots have been used for thousands of years from ancient times, for predictive insight through dreams, out-of-body experiences, and waking up during dream states!
Some lucid dreaming herbs that you can consider are:
– Calea Zacatechichi – ”the dream herb” – increases dream clarity and vividness
– Mugwort – improve your dream recall, makes your dreams more vivid, induce more colors
– Ginkgo Biloba – memory enhancer *improves dream recall* and brain boost
– Passionflower – improves sleep quality, effective insomnia treatment
– Peppermint – muscle relaxant, aids for peaceful sleep and supports dream vividness
The good thing is that after all – it’s a herb and nothing bad can really happen.
You can simply enjoy the advantage of the relaxation features and also the good ”side effects” (such as increased vivid dreaming) that some herbs might bring you.
For more information and more herb ideas, check THIS article!
Step 5: Find the most suitable technique for you
Different techniques require different approaches.
There are 2 METHODS that you can use in order to get into a lucid dream:
1) A dream-initiated lucid dream where you are dreaming normally, then it hits you, “Oh, I’m dreaming.”
– simply put, it is a dream in which you realize that you’re dreaming.
As I mentioned earlier, the key here is reality checking!
However, there are much more ways to induce that type of dreams!
Some of them include:
ADA or All Day Awareness
you need to be AWARE throughout your whole day.
Try to notice and pay attention to the smallest details in life, that most people simply ignore or take for granted.
(you can do it through ”The 5 minutes full awareness technique” or ”The 10 minute back technique”)
Self-Hypnosis
It is a deeply relaxing state, a powerful DILD method.
It feels like ”programming” your mind that you will have a lucid dream. It is completely safe and relatively simple!
FInd a step-by-step to it HERE.
Meditation
It helps you to sharpen your focus, improves your visualization skills and enhances your self-awareness.
By meditating JUST 10 minutes a day, you highly increase the chance of having a dream initiated lucid dreams!
In fact, it has been scientifically proven that those who meditate, find it much easier to trigger DILDs. Find an easy meditation guide HERE. 🙂
If you want to find details for all of these techniques PLUS more, click right HERE.
2) Wake-initiated lucid dreaming, where you jump right into a dreaming state from a waking state.
– it is a more direct technique, approved by a lot of lucid dream researchers.
It is the state between wakefulness and sleep, where you start getting extremely vivid dream imagery while still being conscious!
The essential aspect of this method is that:
you should keep your mind awake while the body falls asleep.
WILD is very favorable from a lot of people because of its success rate.
The Mind Awake / Body Asleep technique will let you enter a lucid dream – directly from a waking state!
Step 1: Lay down comfortably (preferably) on your back and RELAX
Step 2: Observe your hypnagogic state
Step 3: Create a dream scene
Step 4: Mind Awake / Body Asleep
Step 5: Stabilize your lucid dream
… That’s it! After the 4th step, you should be having your lucid dream.
Overall, choose a technique that you think it is going to be most suitable for you.
Due to the fact that everyone is different, a given technique might not work for you.
But that doesn’t mean that you should give up!
If in 2-3 weeks a technique shows zero success rate, simply try a different one.
Step 6: STICK TO YOUR ROUTINE
A huge mistake, that we often do is to give up too quickly because we expect IMMEDIATE results.
Let me tell you a secret – most likely, lucid dreaming won’t happen after the 1st try or by itself.
(even though there are cases and a lot of people can experience it spontaneously!).
Imagine lucid dreaming as it was working out – you WON’T get fit after going to the gym once.
You need to make your routine, to choose the exercises and the areas that you want to work on the most.
Perhaps, you would also need to change some of your own habits, like drinking, sleeping until late, etc.
Simply said, all you need to do is to stick to your new routine.
An example of it should be:
- You wake up and immediately write down in your dream journal
- Perform reality checks throughout your day
- Drink your dream herbal tea 1-2 times per day
- Perform the technique that you choose
- Meditate before going to bed and turn of ALL the lights / use a sleeping mask
- Plant this idea of having a lucid dream in your head, and don’t forget about it!
Final Tips
Lucid Dreaming can be very intense, vague, tedious, and the thing is that the experience is different for everyone!
The point is that it is not difficult, but you need to be persistent.
A lot of people are succeeding when they follow the outlined steps on this page, so if you want to be one of them, just stick to them for a while.
A few final tips to consider are:
1. Don’t force it
Imagine that you are going to bed, you try to fall asleep but you cannot. You SHOULDN’T force it!
It is only going to get worse.
It is the same with lucid dreaming. If you become obsessed and you literally force it – you won’t have a lot of success.
Exactly like going to bed, you will fall asleep when you are READY!
In the same manner, you should let it happen, kinda naturally.
2. Don’t expect results ASAP
If you are lucky, you will be one of those who can read regarding lucid dreaming and have one on the first night you try.
But unfortunately, this is not a common situation for a lot of people.
For some, you have to practice, be patient, and learn the ways to do it right from the very beginning.
For most of us, it takes a serious commitment to learn how to lucid dream.
Trying to lucid dream for 3 nights only to quit after that won’t do the trick.
Yes, it can be frustrating to put in a lot of effort into something without getting out of it.
However, all the effort you have put it is planting an idea into your brain.
You will experience conscious dreaming after you are focused on the idea of having a lucid dream, even on the unconscious level.
3. Your attitude
Your attitude plays an important part.
If you are failing to commit because you expect results ASAP, then you start building negative attitude.
You may feel that ”nothing really works”, but it is important to remember that you cannot expect miracles.
Most likely, it won’t happen after you one meditation session, or after a few times of writing in your dream journal or doing reality checks from time to time.
The right approach is to believe in yourself and the fact that you CAN learn to control your dreams.
Be open, try and learn new things, experiment!
Just know, that with the right amount of motivation and commitment, you will be able to lucid dream!
Thx for the advice!
This is all really good advice, except for the lax attitude about herbs. When you say “after all it’s a herb and nothing bad can happen” you are making an extremely dangerous assumption. Lots of people assume that because herbs are natural they cannot hurt you. This is a myth. Lot of things are natural, poison ivy is natural. Just because something is an herb does not mean it can’t harm you if you use it improperly. I’m not discouraging the usage of herbs I’m just saying that you should do your research before taking them and be safe.
Hi Dylan. Thank you for noticing that. You are completely right, if they are not used in moderation, it can turn out bad. So I always recommend proper research before trying any of the herbs. I’ll make sure to change this sentence.
I’m practicing from last 2 weeks
No lucid dreams occurred 🙁
Hey there. What exactly do you practice? How do you do it?