Keep a dream journal
A dream journal is a notebook where you record your dreams as soon as you wake up, right when they are at their most vivid. Doing this repeatedly will help you get better at remembering your dreams and increase your awareness of them while you are sleeping, which are the first two steps towards eventually controlling your dreams.
Check reality
In order to recognise when you are dreaming, you need to know when you are not. Looking at your hands, counting your fingers, feeling your temperature or reading something around you are all ways to check whether you are asleep or awake. Being able to realise when you are actually snoozing under the covers rather than grabbing a coffee at work will give you more control when it comes to lucid dreaming.
Set intentions before sleep
If you want to have more control over the dreams you experience, then setting intentions before you go to bed is incredibly important. Going to sleep thinking about a specific concept or idea will help your brain to focus on those same things while you are asleep, which can eventually lead you to lucid dreaming about the subject of your choosing.
Meditate
Meditation is a good habit for anyone to pick up but it is especially helpful for anyone whose goal it is to lucid dream. Meditation can help you become more mindful and aware of both yourself and the space around you while you are awake, and these same techniques can be used to ground and centre yourself while you are dreaming.
Maintain your sleep schedule
If you want to be able to lucid dream regularly, you’re going to have to make your sleep schedule a priority. Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day will help your brain to get into a routine, and expect to enter a dreaming state at the same time each night. In addition, you will have better luck lucid dreaming if you are better rested, as a lack of sleep can make controllable dreams more infrequent.
Avoid stimulants
Stimulant is the label given to any substance that makes you more alert and awake. This would include coffee and energy drinks as well as several illicit drugs. These substances can keep you from sleeping for longer and can affect the quality of the sleep you are having. As a result, they can also interfere with your dreams.
Affirmations
Affirmations are useful in day-to-life for boosting confidence and setting goals. However, in the community of lucid dreamers, these same repeated phrases are referred to as mnemonic inductions. Before bed, you say to yourself that you will remember your dreams and lucid dream successfully. Saying this out loud a few times just before sleep can help prepare your brain for lucid dreaming.
Visualisation
Visualisation is key to manifesting any kind of occurrence in your life and lucid dreaming is no exception. This technique involves imagining as clearly as possible what it will be like to have a lucid dream. This includes thinking about what all your senses will experience, from what you hope to see to what you think you might smell. This will help your brain to slip into lucid dreaming mode a lot more easily.
Wake-back-to-bed technique
If you are really committed to lucid dreaming, you need to know about the wake-back-to-bed technique. This process involves waking up a few hours before your regular alarm, spending up to half an hour awake and then going back to bed. In the time between waking and going back to sleep, you should focus on your goal of lucid dreaming. This technique has a high likelihood of getting results when implemented properly.
Be open to new experiences
There is a strong correlation between people who can lucid dream and people who are open to new experiences in their day-to-day life. This go-with-the-flow mindset can be cultivated by accepting newness in your life and not pushing back when things do not go your way. If you are able to practice openness in your waking life, this can translate to your dreams as well.
