When we dream, it doesn’t usually take much to fool us. In fact, most of us spend our entire sleeping lives being tricked by absolutely cartoonish nonsense. When you think about it that way, it’s strange how rare it is for people to actually notice that they’re dreaming.
Lucid dreams are the dreams in which we become aware of the fact that we’re dreaming and can actually exert a level of control over the narratives as they’re playing out. Though not common, it’s likely that most of us will experience at least one of these dreams within our lives. Far fewer, though, are those who can hone the skill enough to have lucid dreams frequently, or even on command.
While there are many methods for learning to lucid dream, these processes are rarely consolidated into simple lists of steps. Because dreaming is an experience that varies wildly from person to person, it makes sense that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution here. With the proliferation of tools available, though, it’s perhaps a better time to learn than ever before.
Not long ago, lucid dreams were largely considered to be a myth. Many assumed that to be asleep simply required that we disengage ourselves from our conscious awareness.
It wasn’t until the 1970s that two men, Keith Hearne, Ph.D., and Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D, managed to scientifically verify the existence of lucid dreaming.
Their initial studies saw a brief renaissance of those wishing to gain awareness within their dreams, but by and large, that interest had dwindled by the 90s. Many today don’t know what lucid dreaming is at all. The lack of interest in the subject, though, has hardly curbed the innovation surrounding it. There are hundreds of books written on the subject and likely tens of thousands of YouTube videos posted on it.
From comprehensive tutorials to guided meditations to various mixings of the internet’s most ethereal-sounding binaural beats, there is no shortage of people offering their aid. There are devices that can help to trigger the lucid state, there are supplements that can be taken, and there are podcasts that can be listened to.
As someone who’s been exploring lucid dreaming pretty deeply this past year, I’ve combed through quite a lot of it. And while I’m certainly no expert on the subject, I think I have enough experience with lucid dreaming that my words here may be of some value.
I attribute my ability to lucid dream to two key factors. One is journaling. If you’ve ever researched lucid dreaming before, you’ve probably already gotten this advice.
Admittedly, the journaling of dreams can be quite an obstacle to overcome for many. Dream journaling doesn’t need to be as arduous as many assume, though. Journaling can be as simple as describing the dreams we’ve just had into a voice memo recorder on our phone or using the dictation feature within a notepad app. It doesn’t need to require a paper, pencil, or light, and it doesn’t need to require fully waking, either.
In order to lucid dream, it’s important that we first remember the dreams that we do have, and developing our retention muscle is the way of doing that. Otherwise, we might have lucid dreams each night and simply forget them upon waking. If we can’t remember our dreams, how will we know if we gain awareness inside of them? It might sound hard to believe, but even lucid dreams can be easily forgotten if we don’t develop the retention muscle.
Just as we gradually increase our weights and repetitions as we continue along in gym regimens, with dream retention, these humble beginnings are normal and to be expected. We’re not failures in lucid dreaming just because we can’t record much more than a bullet point or two worth of detail each night when we begin this process. And if even conjuring a mere detail is more than we can manage, just honing in on emotions we’re feeling or thinking over the people, places, and things in our lives can sometimes be enough to spur the dream back to life as we lie in bed in that drowsy state.
When I first began to journal my dreams, they came through in sparse little blip-its. Many nights I had nothing at all to record. But just as bodybuilders have to begin somewhere, over the course of a few years, I went from fragments of detail to full sentences to paragraphs. Now many mornings that I wake up, it’s with fifteen minutes worth of detail to report. It can take up entire pages with all that I have to say about the beautiful places I go each night and the verbatim conversations that I have in each of them.
Even when I’m not able to gain lucidity within my dreams, to have such a profound retention for these experiences I’d already be having anyway is something I’m deeply thankful for. It’s one of the most rewarding parts of the whole process. It feels like reconnecting with something that’s laid dormant within me; exploring it only feels natural.
To be able to recall these places we travel to each night should feel as standard as an alcohol-free slumber. To wake up without detailed memory of these internal adventures is to blackout entire years worth of events. That most of us live our lives oblivious to how we spend our nights is simply confounding. It’s far stranger than it would be if we could all just… recall.
Our inattention to dreams is an amnesia of cosmic proportions, and to most of us, it’s just how we spend our lives. That we forget these ephemeral creations of ours the moment we awake is practically a given. That entire art museums worth of ineffable artistry burn to ashes silently as we make our morning coffees, though, is one of the great tragedies of modern life. Cultures of the past put far more stock into these fleeting visions.
The second factor for me in gaining lucidity within my dreams is meditation. According to many lucid dreamers, frequently questioning whether we’re dreaming is an important factor in gaining awareness as we sleep. “Reality checks,” they’re often called. For me, though, this is a step I’ve rarely committed to. This type of thinking is something I’ve found to be inherent to the meditation process.
Shortly after I began seriously committing to my meditation routine, I began to have lucid dreams. By spending time each day moving between states of mind, I grew better at recognizing my shifts in thinking. By spending time discarding and labeling thoughts, I became more observant of the irregularities that I experience within my dreams.
Eventually, I began to feel as though more of my waking attention and reasoning pervaded who I was while dreaming. I felt more discerning and more attuned to the oddities of my dream world. I began having lucid dreams with regularity.
Lucid dreaming isn’t always something we can learn overnight. For some, the intention can go a long way in achieving these dreams. But without the ability to recall the dreams we have each night and to think critically about our altered mind states, our dream lives are unlikely to be very rich. Through simple daily efforts, though, you can learn not only to remember your dreams in vivid detail but to take control of them.