Introduction to Lucid Dreaming and Dream Control

Have you ever had a dream in which you had the realization that it was in fact a dream?

This is a lucid dream. What you might have not known is that when you know it's a dream, you can actually control the dream.

This is because when you have that awareness, your conscious mind kicks in, which is the part of your mind that allows you to control your actions while awake, so the same principle applies in the dream.

So clearly, there's potential to have a lot of fun in a lucid dream? Yes in fact, you can do or see anything you can possibly imagine, with any level of clarity. You could be flying like Superman with such extreme realism that it feels like you're actually flying in the real world. Or build an entire universe around you with your own laws. Or of course, anything in between or further that you can imagine.

Can we have a lucid dream on will?

Yes, although natural lucid dreams can occur (and there are many many people known as "natural lucid dreamers", who often have lucid dreams without any effort), there are many techniques you can learn to induce a lucid dream.

There are two main techniques, all other techniques branch from these in one way or another.

1) Dream Induced Lucid Dream (DILD)

This is where the dreamer becomes aware part-way through a dream. The main form of this technique usually involves regular use of "Reality Checks". These are just things we can do to test whether it is reality or a dream. However there are many other possible ways to do this technique. I'll extend on this further in another post.

2) Wake Induced Lucid Dream (WILD)

This is where the dreamer goes directly into a lucid dream from the waking state. This means no lapse in consciousness between the point of being awake and the point of being in a dream.

There are many complications to this technique, making it difficult to master for some, however when it is mastered, it is far most likely technique to allow regular or on-will lucid dreams.

An example complication is the fact that to go directly into a dream, you must enter that stage of sleep immediately, which means you can't do it when you'd normally go to sleep at night, unless you are a power-napper. You must awaken from the REM stage of sleep (from a dream), and fall back asleep within a certain amount of time, to re-enter that sleep cycle from where you left.

I'll extend on this in another post too.

This post is just to give you the general idea of lucid dreaming and how to do it. There will be many more in-depth posts to follow this, as well as my YouTube videos (on the YT account spaceman112wilson).

However, I very highly recommend to anyone that they have a look at dreamviews.com, as it is the biggest dreaming community in the world, with a focus on lucid dreaming. There's plenty of resources in their Wiki too, including their official "DV Tutorials". It's the place most lucid dreamers end up sooner or later, and it is filled with great people with lots of great advice to be found.