tips for lucid dreaming from an accidental lucid dreamer
Many years ago, I unintentionally started lucid dreaming. I wasn’t trying to lucid dream but I inadvertently developed a few habits that pushed me into it. It seems like a lot of people are curious about lucid dreaming, so I thought I would share my tips and experience.
Document your dreams
Talk to someone about your dreams or keep a dream journal. It helps to do so after waking up when the dream is fresh.
Be present and notice your surroundings
It’s hard to be present in your unconscious if you struggle with presence in your conscious life. Take time to notice your environment throughout the day, especially in those routine, mundane moments. After waking up. Hanging at home. On the commute to the office. If you often have dreams about a particular place or a particular person, pay extra attention to that experience.
Pay attention to little details and how you feel in your body in that moment. Even if you don’t lucid dream, practicing presence at least cultivates peace.
Develop habitual movements
Practice until it’s second nature. I would often check an analog clock, count numbers on my hands or look at my hands in general.If you integrate these habitual moments of awareness into your conscious life you might start doing this in moments of awareness in your dream. These moments can help grow that feeling of awareness in the dream.
Think about lucid dreaming
The first rule of lucid dreaming is thinking about lucid dreaming. Or something like that. Just thinking about doing it helps promote awareness of itself.
On a darker note, lucid dreaming can be dangerous.
People often ask me about lucid dreaming. My personal experience with it was terrifying and one I never want to experience again. I think everyone’s experience and relationship with lucid dreaming is different, however. But here is mine.
My experience with lucid dreaming left me untethered from reality.
I started lucid dreaming when I was going through grief. I didn’t want to lucid dream and I also didn’t know how to stop. Eventually, I started feeling really untethered from reality and fell into psychosis.
In my dream, I would often “wake up” in my bedroom and go about my normal morning routine. At some point, I would realize that something was off - I struggled to button up a shirt or found it hard to read the clock or some text. This in itself would induce anxiety and I would start spiraling from the discomfort of feeling different in my body. Interestingly, when it came to motor control - gross motor movements like walking was easy. Fine motor movements, especially using the hands, was really difficult.
I mainly struggled with control.
And I don’t mean I struggled to have full control and agency over my body and was passively observing the dream. I felt very aware and “awake” in the dream. At times, I could fly or transport scenes if I really to. The problem is that I almost never did. Instead, I struggled with intense, obsessive, and compulsive desires to do a specific task. For example, packing and unpacking a suitcase. I would do this hundreds of times in a single dream.
Over time, I really struggled with dissociation from reality. Lucid dreaming affected my ability to function in day-to-day life and I became reclusive in my relationships. I didn’t know how to describe what I was going through and couldn't dissociate who was real or in the dream world.
Honestly, I don’t have a lot of real memories from that time period and I’m not sure how or when I stopped lucid dreaming and started getting a better grasp on reality.
Even now, I still have vivid, fantastical dreams and I actively avoid some of the tips above to prevent lucid dreaming. Regardless, maybe these tips or my story will be helpful to someone out there…