Basically, stay away from all the totally clickbait LD YouTubers and Reddit kids who are too hyped to care enough to learn what they are talking about. There are two guys I know who aren’t a scam, and I recommend this one[1]. He is clickbaiting with thumbnails and titles too (tbh to survive in YouTube you need that) but at least he doesn’t lie in the video. Tho at this point he exhausted every possible video that can be done about LDing so he is mostly reuploading old content.
On his website there’s a FAQ, Basics and a list of techniques[2].
The real gem was the lucid dream forum[3] which was closed this year. You’d find people who are veterans at things you’ve never imagined was even possible. People doing Tibetan sleep yoga (remaining conscious throughout the entire night sleep) and dream yoga (meditating in dreams), LSD-style experiences without LSD (seeing in 4 dimensions), people who have advanced their degree of control to basically playing Minecraft in creative mode, floating in void or going to space or mars in dreams, dream achievement contests (do X in your dream), theories about sleep and dreaming derived from anecdata which seemed to be one step ahead of today’s science, even a guy claiming he is doing ADA (All-Day Awareness, an impossibly hard technique). One notable thing I learned was that the LD veterans were of the opinion (from their own experiences) that so-called “dream logic” is a myth. They believed that simply the part of the brain responsible of memory remains asleep during REM sleep, and this lack/unreliability of long/short term memory leads to a broken reality, not any inability of your brain to reason. This rings true to me from my own experience as well.
I know all I recommended was a single guy’s website, forum and channel, but to be honest this topic is so niche that he’s the only guy I know who is earning his living through LD without clickbaiting people and thus have an incentive to take it seriously.
Technique-wise I can explain one which works well for many people:
1. Have a consistent sleep. Go to sleep early.
2. Wake up 4.5 or 6 hours after you sleep. You need to wake up at the start of the REM. Maybe use an Apple Watch or something.
3. Wake up yourself enough (walk around, drink water) to commit to the thing you’re gonna do next.
4. Go back to bed. You are going to sleep now, so tell yourself you are going to now sleep. Do everything normally, get into your normal sleep position etc. Then, once you are completely ready to sleep, continue with the process of entering sleep, except a single thing. I say except a single thing, this is crucial, because your body and brain needs to believe that it’s gonna sleep now like it does every single night before you sleep. Everything is the same. Your body is in the same process of relaxing, your mind is in the same process of maybe wandering in pre-sleep thoughts, if that’s how you sleep. The thing is: focus on your breath. Focus on its sound or the sensation of it in your nostrils. Pretty soon you’ll start experiencing hypnagogia. I usually get a feeling like I’m spinning in a washing machine, but different people get different things. Maybe a sound or visions. Focus on whatever is the symptom. The more you focus, the more it will intensify. After a short while the dream starts. You may have vision or not in the beginning. For many it starts in your bed and you may think you woke up. Use some reality checks like counting your fingers (5 or 6?) or opening the light (does it work?). If you believe they’ll show whether you are in a dream they’ll work.
You choose when to lucid dream, at least with WILD class of techniques. I don’t have any sources for this but from my own experience, I believe while LDing you don’t the full amount of rest you’d otherwise get. I believe this is why we by default don’t LD.
I’ve not seen any consistent LDer (like once every night) complaining about it.
On his website there’s a FAQ, Basics and a list of techniques[2].
The real gem was the lucid dream forum[3] which was closed this year. You’d find people who are veterans at things you’ve never imagined was even possible. People doing Tibetan sleep yoga (remaining conscious throughout the entire night sleep) and dream yoga (meditating in dreams), LSD-style experiences without LSD (seeing in 4 dimensions), people who have advanced their degree of control to basically playing Minecraft in creative mode, floating in void or going to space or mars in dreams, dream achievement contests (do X in your dream), theories about sleep and dreaming derived from anecdata which seemed to be one step ahead of today’s science, even a guy claiming he is doing ADA (All-Day Awareness, an impossibly hard technique). One notable thing I learned was that the LD veterans were of the opinion (from their own experiences) that so-called “dream logic” is a myth. They believed that simply the part of the brain responsible of memory remains asleep during REM sleep, and this lack/unreliability of long/short term memory leads to a broken reality, not any inability of your brain to reason. This rings true to me from my own experience as well.
I know all I recommended was a single guy’s website, forum and channel, but to be honest this topic is so niche that he’s the only guy I know who is earning his living through LD without clickbaiting people and thus have an incentive to take it seriously.
Technique-wise I can explain one which works well for many people: 1. Have a consistent sleep. Go to sleep early.
2. Wake up 4.5 or 6 hours after you sleep. You need to wake up at the start of the REM. Maybe use an Apple Watch or something.
3. Wake up yourself enough (walk around, drink water) to commit to the thing you’re gonna do next.
4. Go back to bed. You are going to sleep now, so tell yourself you are going to now sleep. Do everything normally, get into your normal sleep position etc. Then, once you are completely ready to sleep, continue with the process of entering sleep, except a single thing. I say except a single thing, this is crucial, because your body and brain needs to believe that it’s gonna sleep now like it does every single night before you sleep. Everything is the same. Your body is in the same process of relaxing, your mind is in the same process of maybe wandering in pre-sleep thoughts, if that’s how you sleep. The thing is: focus on your breath. Focus on its sound or the sensation of it in your nostrils. Pretty soon you’ll start experiencing hypnagogia. I usually get a feeling like I’m spinning in a washing machine, but different people get different things. Maybe a sound or visions. Focus on whatever is the symptom. The more you focus, the more it will intensify. After a short while the dream starts. You may have vision or not in the beginning. For many it starts in your bed and you may think you woke up. Use some reality checks like counting your fingers (5 or 6?) or opening the light (does it work?). If you believe they’ll show whether you are in a dream they’ll work.
1: https://youtu.be/fqWikLRVby8?si=J0E2BpxO4ff4mam4
2: https://www.thelucidguide.com/lucid-dream-resources
3: https://www.thelucidguide.com/forum