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Learn how to control your dreams with these 6 powerful lucid dreaming techniques for beginners:
Cycle Adjustment Technique (CAT)
Visual Incubated Lucid Dream (VILD)
Hypnosis Induced Lucid Dreaming (HILD)
Hypnagogic Imagery Technique
CANWILD
Dream Chaining
Before we start with the guides, you’re probably wondering – What’s the best lucid dreaming technique?
Despite what many people say, there is no single “best” lucid dreaming technique.
The best method will always be the one that works well for YOU. And you can find out which one is that, by having fun and experimenting!
Additionally, this article is for beginners, but also for more experienced lucid dreamers.
It is for people who are trying lucid dreaming for the first time or if you just want to add something new to your repertoire.
These 6 lucid dreaming techniques for beginners are guaranteed to get your mind ready from tonight, for learning how to lucid dream!
Keep reading to discover a guide for each of the 6 lucid dreaming techniques, including essential final tips in the end.
6 powerful lucid dreaming techniques for beginners
1. Cycle Adjustment Technique (CAT)
The Cycle Adjustment Technique (CAT), created by the lucid dreaming teacher Daniel Love, can be very effective for beginners and allow you to have up to 3-4 lucid dream sessions per week.
The method is not difficult to follow, although it requires some discipline on your part since you have to intentionally get up earlier than usual.
Step-by-step guide for the lucid dreaming technique:
1) Go to bed at your normal time each night.
2) Set your alarm clock 90 minutes before your normal wake up time.
3) Do this every day for one week in order to reset your body clock before you try to lucid dream.
4) After the first week, start alternating each day between your normal wake up time and 90 minutes before your normal wake up time.
For example, if you normally wake up at 7:30 then you would wake up at 7:30 one day, and 6:00 the next. Continue to cycle between the two.
5) After the first week, your body will have gotten used to being stimulated and waking up at 6:00.
So, on the days that you’re not waking up until 7:30, you’ll find yourself getting an extra “kick” at 6:00.
This will enhance your awareness while priming yourself for lucid dreaming.
TIP:
Incorporating other methods such as the WILD technique or even binaural beats can be really effective.
2. Visual Incubated Lucid Dream (VILD)
Master this lucid dreaming technique you’ll be able to incubate lucid dreams at will.
In short, it’s a lucid dream that you “practice” before going to sleep.
By mentally repeating a dream many times during the day and right up until you go to sleep, you’ll be setting the scene for what’s to come when you dream for real.
Also, by getting familiarized with your dream scene, you’re less likely to find yourself waking up when you’re lucid dreaming.
One of the essential keys is to carry out a reality check each time you perform your lucid dream rehearsal.
If you are not sure what a reality check is, it is a simple action that will test whether you are awake or dreaming. (For more details – take a look at this article.)
Here are the precise steps to follow for the VILD technique:
1) Start carrying out 20 reality checks per day and keep your dream journal up to date
- A few days of ensuring you have the basics covered will ensure that you are ready ffor the VILD technique
2) Design a dream scene for yourself and plant a reality check into the scene
- For example, if your dream scene is in a forest, maybe a dear walks by, turns to you and says, “you’re dreaming right now.”
3) Visualize yourself spending time in your dream scene just before you go to sleep (when you’re already in bed)
- Make sure you’re relaxed and evoke all the senses as you rehearse your dream.
Immerse yourself in it and perform a reality check.
4) Go to sleep
- When you begin to have your desired dream, perform your reality check, and you should enter the realm of a lucid dreaming state.
5) To stabilize the dream even further, try spinning around a couple of times
TIP:
The more you get used to doing reality checks, the more your chance of doing a reality check increases.
3. Hypnosis Induced Lucid Dreaming (HILD)
Hypnosis is an eternally powerful tool that has helped millions of people overcome fears, quit addictions, and achieve personal goals like weight loss.
Can we use hypnosis to help us lucid dream? Yes, of course!
Here’s how…
First off, you need to think of an affirmation.
To do this, decide on what dream you would like to have.
For example, if you want to be in a tropical paradise, then visualize this, while saying to yourself “I’m now entering a lucid dream at my tropical paradise.”
Now, it’s good to run through the steps below before you go to sleep at night.
Ideally, to achieve a lucid dream, you should aim for it to be one or two hours before your normal waking up time.
So, if you normally wake up at 8:00, wake up around 6:00 and try it out.
Here are the actual steps for this powerful lucid dreaming technique:
⦁ Get comfortable. It’s usually best to be lying on your back.
⦁ As you breathe in, start to tense the muscles of your body slightly.
⦁ On the out-breath, let the muscles relax.
⦁ Continue to do this for a few minutes, and allow your muscles to become more and more relaxed each time you breathe out.
⦁ Allow yourself to enter a trance state. If it helps, count down from 10 to 1, and as you say to yourself each number, allow your level of relaxation to double.
⦁ Once you’re in a trance state of purely focused relaxation, repeat your affirmation over and over again in your mind.
⦁ By practicing this technique over and over again you should find yourself entering your desired dream before it becomes lucid.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
For this method, it is important to have good visualization skills.
You need to be able to visualize your desired dream location, so pick one that you know good.
A quick tip here:
Pick and watch a few of the 25 best movies about dreaming, that are going to be a great help in stimulating your imagination and dream world!
4. Hypnagogic Imagery Technique
The hypnagogic is an effective lucid dreaming technique that has similar properties to the WILD technique.
It works by making you stay aware throughout the transition as you go from being awake to falling asleep.
Try it during your peak REM state, around one or two hours before your normal wake-up time.
Here’s how (Step-by-Step Guide):
⦁ When you go to sleep, allow yourself to be still and relax.
⦁ After you close your eyes, you’ll probably notice after some time that visual images start to appear.
Just allow them to come and go and don’t try to focus intently or follow any of them. Just think of yourself as a relaxed observer.
⦁ You’ll then start to notice that the shapes and colors become more and more complex. Eventually, they’ll start to resemble a dream scene.
⦁ Allow yourself to be drawn into the dream scene. Try to remain aware of what’s going on, while staying relaxed and passive enough to ensure you don’t wake yourself up
⦁ As you drift off to sleep, you’ll become fully immersed in the dream as it starts to become lucid.
5. CANWILD
For the Custom Alarm Noise Wake Initiated Lucid Dream (or CANWILD for short) technique to work, you have to trick your body!
You should make it thinking that your conscious mind hasn’t woken up yet.
This will allow your body to re-enter a state of sleep paralysis, coupled with a vivid dream state.
Step-by-Step Guide:
⦁ Use a specific alarm or download an app (such as the “Alarm Xtreme Free”) where the alarm sound stops automatically without needing you to hit the off button.
⦁ Set the alarm for 2 hours before you usually wake-up, when you know you’ll be entering REM sleep.
⦁ This could take a little practice, but when your alarm sounds, acknowledge it without moving your body at all.
⦁ Since your body should remain in a state of sleep paralysis, drifting off into a lucid dream should be relatively seamless from here.
Notes:
While this works similar to the WILD technique, by training your body to stay still, you’re already half-way to a lucid dream state.
With some apps, you can even customize the settings, so the alarm repeats every 20 – 30 minutes, allowing you to have several different unique lucid dreams.
6. Dream Chaining
This is an extension of the WILD technique that allows you to have multiple lucid dreams.
The best way to view this technique is to think of each wakening being like taking a break from dreaming before letting yourself go back into your next dream, that is supposed to be lucid.
The goal is to experience sleep paralysis and let it aid you into a lucid dream after a lucid dream.
Here are the steps to take:
⦁ Set the alarm for 2 hours before you normally wake-up, when you know you’ll be entering REM sleep.
⦁ When your alarm clock sounds, do nothing and allow yourself to remain still.
⦁ Now, you want to convert sleep paralysis into a dream. This can be achieved by one of the following methods:
Visualize yourself in your dream scene. Make sure you try to use all five senses to really “experience” your surroundings. Once immersed in your dream scene, hop right into it and begin lucid dreaming.
Simply be patient and let sleep paralysis “wear off”. After a brief moment when the sensation of sleep paralysis has died down, you’ll find that you’ve entered a dream. This is the perfect time to perform a reality check.
Note:
Focus on the feelings and sensations of sleep paralysis. For example, if you feel like you’re drifting, then go along with this and let this propel you forward into a dream.
Lucid dreaming tips
To increase the success rate of these powerful lucid dreaming techniques, follow these tips for some additional help:
1) Keep your dream journal and update it every day
Write down the techniques you’re trying and how effective they are for you.
2) Get rid of the clutter
It’s hard to focus your attention on lucid dreaming when you have a lot of stresses in life, pulling you in all directions.
For example, if you have a big deadline tomorrow, then it’s far better to focus on meeting the deadline. Once you finish the necessary task, you can try one of the lucid dreaming methods.
It will be much more effective when you’re in a relaxed mindset.
3) Don’t give up on a technique before you’ve really tried it out
If you attempt to use one of the above methods tonight and you don’t lucid dream then don’t immediately discard it.
Instead, ask yourself if there is anything you could have done better to improve your chances of lucid dreaming. Then, try again. And again. (… and perhaps once more)
4) Get creative and find what works for you
The methods above have been laid out with steps that you can follow.
If you’re new to lucid dreaming then it may help to follow the steps as closely as you can to maximize your chances of lucid dreaming tonight.
If you’re already a lucid dreamer then get more creative.
Try combining methods, playing around with the sequences and even coming up with your own techniques.
5) Read lucid dream books or watch inspirational dream movies
Books and movies on the subject will give you a massive boost of motivation and inspiration!
For example, you can find an awesome trick or method that you can combine with some of the techniques in this article.
Or you might watch a crazy good movie, that will inspire you to recreate the setting of the film inside your dream.
You can even get inspired and create your dream world or a reality check, from movies, such as Inception.
Awesome tip:
What is more, you can also LISTEN to free lucid dreaming audiobooks! Find great (free) books about dreams here!
6) Observe some dream supplements and vitamins
Did you know that some specific vitamins and supplements can affect your dreams?
Check our article for more details for the 15 natural and most potent lucid dreaming supplements.
7) Understand sleep paralysis
Sleep paralysis is a state, that paralyzes your body temporarily, while your brain is consciously awake.
It often happens to plenty of individuals, and frequently, a lot of people are freaking out of the idea of sleep paralysis.
But the truth is that it is nothing to be afraid of, especially if you know what it is and why does it happen.
Find out 33 facts about sleep paralysis, plus how you can take advantage of it and how to transform it into a lucid dream!
Conclusion
While the lucid dreaming techniques above can help you start learning how to lucid dream from tonight, it always helps to practice the basics, such as:
- keeping a dream journal
- reality checking
- having a regular sleeping schedule
Enhancing your level of “awareness” over time will make you a much more skillful lucid dreamer and allow you to have much deeper experiences.
And, as with any lucid dreaming technique, it’s important that you don’t try too hard.
Focusing very intently is usually a trigger that gets you waking up. Not what we want!
Instead, allow the process of dreaming to happen naturally as you start to learn to guide it.
