A lucid dream is a dream in which you become aware that you are dreaming. The majority of people first have lucid dreams accidentally at a young age.

After you gain lucidity, you then have the ability to manipulate your dreams in any way you wish. When you lucid dream unintentionally though, you typically find yourself jolted awake as soon as you become lucid. This is due to a lack of preparation and discipline.

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Many people who realize they are dreaming for the first time have difficulty maintaining the dream or creating new items or concepts within the dream. These issues can be easily solved using different methods to prepare yourself beforehand.

Preparing Yourself For A Lucid Dream

In order to be able to lucid dream on command, you need to work on your own spiritual state as well as your memory. Any experience with altered states of consciousness such as meditation, hypnosis, isolation tanks, and the like help with lucid dreaming because they are similar to the dream state.

The goal is to get yourself to be able to recognize when you are in a dream state while you are still in it. Keeping a log or journal of your dreams as soon as you wake up each day improves your memory of the dream state and will allow you to more easily become aware of it the next time you fall asleep.

The best technique I’ve found for becoming aware in a dream is becoming more aware in my waking life. What I mean by this is that I perform “reality checks” when I am awake. A reality check is where you perform actions throughout the day to determine whether you are awake or dreaming.

When I walk into a room, I flip the light switch and notice how it turns on. When I see a book, I open it up and read the words to make sure there are actual sentences. Why do I do this? I do it because I’ve noticed that in my dreams, if the lights are on, I am not able to turn them off or vice versa by flipping a switch.

When I find a book, I may see words but they often lack meaning or their meaning changes upon a second look.

Once I have myself in the habit of doing these reality checks while awake, they translate into my dreaming state. This means that when I start dreaming, I will do the reality checks out of habit and then realize, “whoa, this time I’m not awake!”

Check the time throughout the day, look in the mirror, jump up and down, and notice your waking moments – this is a very basic way to become more self-aware and, in turn, gain control of your dreams without a problem.

Inducing Lucidity By Other Means

Some people use herbal teas and supplements to allow themselves to lucid dream on command. One such herbal tea is that which is made from the Mexican herb Calea zacatechichi.

The leaves of the plant are steeped in hot water and then drank before bed time to increase the frequency of vivid dreams.

The supplement melatonin, which is found in most health food stores, does the same thing in its users and can be used at the microgram level so you do not have to consume a bunch of pills in order to reap its benefits.

Keeping The Lucid Dreaming Going

This takes a lot of practice, and don’t expect it to come to you right away. It takes patience and a certain calmness to maintain a lucid dream. The more often you induce lucid dreams, the better you will become at not getting too excited and waking up from them.

This is a very common mistake for beginners. Another common mistake is the overwhelming urge to bring to lif everything you’ve ever desired. Sometimes when lucid dreaming, you think, “I want a luxurious car to appear!” and nothing happens.

My best advice for getting what you want in a lucid dream: 1) Keep yourself in a calm state. 2) Walk past an object in your dream. Glance just barely at it. Once you’ve passed it, think to yourself, “hey wait, was that a (insert object you want)?” Slowly turn around, and there it is! This is the technique that has worked best for me.

I’ve literally acknowledged that the original object is not the one that I want to be there but I still question aloud whether it is, and then bam, I turn around and it’s there. Remember, it’s YOUR dream. You make the rules! Feel free to experiment, and you’re bound to find what works for you.

Kelsey Hayhow