pawlywog's guide to lucid dreaming

so you want to control your dreams eh? lucid dreaming is one of the most profound and wonderful experiences any person can have. being in total control of your dreams doing whatever your heart desires from the comfort of your bed in the wonderful world of your mind.

it sounds like fun, and maybe you have had one or two before. maybe your an avid lucid dreamer like i am (multiple times a month) but probably, you haven't had the experience yet but are interested in having one. well look no further friend, ol' pawlywog's got your back

first things first

get a composition notebook and keep it by your bed with a pen or pencil. as soon as and i mean AS SOON AS you wake up, crack her open and start writing everything you remember. it doesn't have to be a story (although it can be if you remember it well) go more for details. colors you vividly remember, something that struck you as odd or out of place, key elements of the dream be it people animals things you remember seeing or interacting with. get as much as you can as fast as you can. upon waking up 40 to 50% of the dream is lost and after 5 minutes of not thinking about it 90% or more is lost so do it quickly.

keep doing this, never ever stop. if you miss a day or two thats okay but never just abandon it if you are serious about lucid dreaming. i have a few old notebooks chock full of my dreams, i always look up key elements (http://www.dreammood...reamdictionary/) and write things i think are important and meaningful in the margins and what not.

eventually you will start noticing dream signs. mirrors, water, "pain", and my skin are huge dream signs for me. they look different, strange, obviously not "normal" and my mind alerts itself that i'm dreaming. also noticing things that really would never happen in the waking world are also good signs.

the first few times you notice these signs you may not always consciously come to the conclusion you are dreaming and sometimes if you do, you wake up instantly. don't let this discourage you, the more and more you start to recognize these things, the less and less likely it will be to wake up.

don't expect immediate results either. although its possible, its unlikely that you'll immediately start lucid dreaming. or you may have one and then won't have another for quite some time. keep up the dream journal and the determination and it will get better and easier.

some tips-

i set 2 alarms, one about an hour before i actually need to get up, normally speaking you should fall right back into REM sleep (dream sleep)

stay CALM! if/when you realize you a dreaming its really easy to in your mind be like "I'M FUCKING DREAMING OMG LUCID DREAAAAAAAAAM" and then bam your eyes open. its frustrating as HELL and don't think you won't experience it, i've been avidly lucid dreaming for a few months now and it still happens to me sometimes.

patience is a virtue! if this is something you're honestly interested in, you have your whole life to get it right. don't give up after a week or a month of nothing, you went years and years without having one, don't expect to nail it in a night.

having a regular sleep schedule is ideal but not always necessary and drugs be it bud alcohol or what have you do have effects on your sleeping/dreaming so keep that in mind


questions or comments can be posted or PM'ed to me, i'd be happy to help.

good vibes and sweet dreams everyone!

Edited by pawlywog, 20 July 2010 - 02:14 PM.

my brother was talking to me about this and I really wanna try it. :3 good guide bud!

someone asked me about it and suggested i make a guide

lucid dreaming is amazing man you just gotta want it

Nice guide, I love lucid dreaming. It's an amazing experience.

i had a pretty intense dream just this morning.

I was scuba diving in the amazon with a biiiig group of random people, we where exploring for a bit, and i realized all the "animals" i had seen underwater where nothing i have ever seen of this world, but i can remember it soooo vividly! Some of them looked kind of like lizards but just a bigger version, i remember watching this one "fish" that looked just like a little dragon, i remember it being sooooo wicked. For some reason the water was very visible but i remember one person saying, "watch out for crocodiles!"

We took a break later on and where sitting around the river, i remember staring at this guy standing near the water, i thought in my mind "what if a crocodile came out and grabbed him?" sure enough, right after thinking that, a crocodile comes out and rips him in half, it was right then that i KNEW i was dreaming...And that's when i woke up

Pretty crazy shit

Edited by MarleySubs, 20 July 2010 - 07:13 PM.

I have intense lucid dreams all the time.
No need for the notebook...my mind runs wild...
The freaks come out at night.

thats a step in the right direction man. thats a dream sign and you became consciously aware you were dreaming! waking up is to be expected the first couple of times, like i said i wake up sometimes too still. you never know tonight might be the night

im trying to achieve lucidity then move on to dream control mainly to overcome some fears, creative thinking, and of course have fun. no success yet although i feel im very close.

How old are you? How long have you been doing this?
I'd love to have them multipple times a month man, I've only ever had one, the first time I ever tried I really should get a dream note book

i'm 19. i had my first complete lucid experience (controlling every single aspect of the dream) when i was 7 or 8 but it was just one or two but i've been avidly achieving lucidity for almost a year now maybe a few months shy.

it took me awhile to get where i am but i hope this honed skill never goes away

any questions, comments or experiences feel free to post guys and gals!

man ive had a few dreams where i can breathe underwater,,, crazy shit man because i know in the dream that ill drown but then i dont... crazy.

so i dont get it, what do i actually have to do everynight before i starT? my stepmom said something about the clock/radio next to my bed. do i just set the 1HR before clock and lucid dream? because when i fall asleep for 30 sec- couple mins i bealieve really dumb things, for example - my mom woke me up, i fell back asleep, she comes in not long after that and i wake up and say " why are you videotaping me?" it sounded reasonable to say, but in reality it made no sense.

thanks

i do that too sometimes. being like 3/4ths asleep and someone says something to you

"i thought i could eat the tire"

you say some pretty stupid shit haha i think its hilarious

what i meant by 2 alarms was say if you NEED to be up at 10, set one for 9 and for 10. wake up at 9 flip your alarm off and go back to sleep. normally speaking, you should go back into REM (rapid eye movement or dream sleep.)

what you do before bed isn't quite as important as what you do when you wake up. keep up with the dream journal. that is the biggest help in all of this. remembering your dream is whats important because if you achieve lucidity and don't remember it then whats the point?

a HUGE dream sign has been my leg for me recently. in the waking hours i'm in a full leg cast and in my dreams i don't have it and thats been putting me into lucidity a lot recently.

I started a dream journal, my sleeping pattern has been fucked recently so it was a little weird, had a dream wrote it down went back to sleep, but it took ages to sleep again (this is at like 5 in the morning) I think this is because of my sleeping pattern, had another dream but it was hazy as hell and didn't really make any sense at all. Wrote down abit about it, then I think I had a dream before I finally got up but I was too tired to care to write it down

how many dreams do you usually have a night?

i think the average is like 5 to 7 but i don't remember 5 to 7 by any means.

i remember lucid dreams and the last dream i have before i wake up usually but sometimes i'll wake up and won't write anything down and then i forget it like 10 minutes later.

you gotta be really strict with your journal if you want to see results later on. i try never to miss a day but sometimes it just happens you know?

its in my OP but i'll just clarify. you don't need to write the story just key details you remember.

okay so then I'll end up noticing some sort of pattern?

This sounds really cool and interesting. Im gonna start writing down my memories of my dreams. I only did that once. But is a lucid dream like one of those dreams where like you tell yourself "its ok, im just dreaming" or is it like when you wake up and your all "woah its only 5pm. I could've sworn i woke up and ate dinner". Those have happened to me a couple of times.

okay so then I'll end up noticing some sort of pattern?

then you'll start noticing things that can't/shouldn't happen in the real world.

This sounds really cool and interesting. Im gonna start writing down my memories of my dreams. I only did that once. But is a lucid dream like one of those dreams where like you tell yourself "its ok, im just dreaming" or is it like when you wake up and your all "woah its only 5pm. I could've sworn i woke up and ate dinner". Those have happened to me a couple of times.

a lucid dream is where you are consciously aware you are dreaming. you're in your head, looking through your eyes, but you know that you're actually asleep in your bed.

i've had a couple of instances where i woke up and wasn't sure if i had been asleep or awake that entire time. its weird when you get out of bed, do something and then get back in bed whether it be while you are dreaming or actually doing it. when you snap out of it its like what the fuck did that just happen?

^^^ ok i see now, thanks. I'm definetly going to start doing this. And yeah when i came home from the hospital one time, i fell asleep after taking these pain meds and i had vivid dreams that i woke up then went back to sleep haha

Since I saw inception I've wanted to try this lol. Problem is I hardley ever have dreams I remember anymore.

I've had about 3 lucid dreams in my life. They were all WILDs too.

The stage of going from being conciouss into your sleeping mode can be scary sometimes. Its scared the shit out of me the first time so I tried getting up out of bed and I was in sleep paralysis.

I later learned thats it was completely normal but at the time I freaked and thought I died or something...lol:rolleyes:

But I just woke up after about 6 hours of sleep and took some vitamin b6. So hopefully I'll fall back asleep and have some success. I've been trying these past few months to go lucid again but I usually just end up with extremely vivid dreams that make no sense but seem so real.

Edited by DUB'd-MouSSE, 11 August 2010 - 01:20 PM.