Intro

Message from authors (Elemental/Liamchoux):

If you have come from YouTube / TikTok or any other social media, please be aware that most of these platforms are full of misinfo (yes, including Explore Lucid Dreaming), and a lot of what is listed here will go against what they say.

What is lucid dreaming?

Lucid dreaming is defined by the ability to know you are dreaming within a dream. It may come with control over the dreams characters, locations, and objects. One may do whatever they want inside a lucid dream using Dream Control, this ability will be presented later on in this handbook. Lucid dreams can be initiated through various techniques.

What types of lucid dreams are there?

There are 2 ways of initiating lucid dreams. We call these DILD and WILD. Techniques are all based on these categories.

More info about techniques later on.

DILD stands for Dream Initiated Lucid Dream. DILDs are usually initiated by a sudden burst of awareness. It can happen at pretty much any point in the dream. DILDs can often be initiated from a dream sign.
Dream Signs are anything in the dream that is unusual, abnormal, or out of place. For example a flying pig, but thats probably quite rare to encounter. More common dream signs you will encounter could be like this:
- Being in a place you dont recognise.
- Not being able to remember how you got somewhere.
- __Being with someone who you are not usually with.
- Doing something that seems unfamiliar to you.
WILD stands for Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming. This is where you consciously fall asleep, yeah that sounds ridiculous. When you keep your consciousness while falling asleep, you can actually watch yourself enter a dream (and therefore know you are dreaming). WILDs are very often induced through WILD anchors. An anchor is something that will interact with your senses as you drift off to sleep. You should remain passively aware of the anchor as you enter a dream. Passive awareness is simply knowing something is there. You do not have to focus on it, simply know that you are sensing it.

A common misconception about WILD is that it requires sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is a medical condition, practicing lucid dreaming will NOT increase your chance of experiencing it. People will very often mistake sleep paralysis for hypnagogia, which is a stage in the sleep cycle where you may experience slight hallucinations.

What are the fundamentals of lucid dreaming?

Dream Recall is probably the most important skill to consider when starting lucid dreaming. Most people have 4-6 REM dreams a night, but dont remember them because they dont really pay attention to their dreams. Getting a dream journal on your phone or on paper and writing a lot of details of the dream is a very efficient way to improve dream recall. Details may include emotions, places, colors, architecture, people, actions, the general plot of the dream, you can really write a lot of detail if you recall the dream efficiently, the more detail you write, the easier recalling more detail is going to get, and your recall will become more vivid and realistic. Dream Delving may also be a great way to recall your dreams. Dream delving is a way of recalling more parts of dreams after waking up. To delve, when you wake up, try to stay still, and try not to get distracted. Think back to what you were just dreaming about: What were you doing? What emotions did you feel? Work your way backwards asking yourself these questions, as far as you can remember. Once you have as much as possible, write down all the details about your dream in your dream journal!
Consistency is a skill of really high importance if you want to increase your lucid dreaming frequency. Being consistent with your practice in general will speed up your progress immensely. Doing the techniques correctly and frequently will also reap more rewards than only doing them once a week and without really thinking about it.
Criticality is being able to seriously consider things that you experience, and not just go along with them blindly. Usually in dreams, you do not notice that it is a dream until you wake up, you accept that the dream is your reality while you are experiencing it. Being critical will help to change this as you will be able to consider your surroundings in both waking life and dreaming life, and notice when things are out of place.

How do you control lucid dreams?

Dream control is a skill separate from lucid dreaming, it allows the dreamer to shape and modify the environment and objects around them, Schemata are an essential part of dream control. You may do truly anything you would like inside of a lucid dream

Now, you may hear the word schema being tossed around, and you may not know what exactly it means. But simply, Schemata is just a fancy word for associations. If you see a car, you may think of wheels, windows, roads. These connections are your schemata. When you are in a dream, there is no physical restraint on how reality is, things will be built based on your schema. If you start associating lucidity with the ability to do anything you want, control may become easier.

What do all thes damn acronyms mean?

Technique names are generally one or two letters with ILD at the end. Although, some techniques may differ. ILD stands for Induced/Initiated Lucid Dream.

(A guide with the acronyms will be available soon)

Common Techniques & History

MILD, Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreaming is the most popular technique. It is a technique that helps remembering to realize you are dreaming. The original MILD guide created by lucid dreaming researcher Stephen LaBerge can be read in the book Exploring The World of Lucid Dreaming. (We will go more in detail about this book and it’s contents later).
Generally, with this book LaBerge advised to use his techniques such as MILD and adapt upon them, making small changes to get the best results possible. If you have a good enough understanding of how said techniques work, feel completely free to change certain aspects to make it work for you.

Skyfalls MILD guide Is one of these Variants adapted to generally help people with some loose ends of the original.

SSILD, SenseS Initiated Lucid Dream is also a very popular technique, that was popularized on a chinese forum and brought over by cosmic.iron on the lucid dreaming forum LD4all It consists in a cycle that uses senses to work. This is the first example of a Hybrid technique. It falls into both WILD and DILD categories as it can induce lucid dreams in both of those categories. Here is the link to the SSILD technique

Click here to view the SSILD technique

About WILD and WILD anchors

WILD, A term popularized by lucid dreaming researcher Stephen LaBerge to describe getting lucid through wakefulness. While being a category of dreams, it is also a technique. All of the WILD techniques we teach are only anchors of WILD. For example counting, some people call it CILD While it is only a WILD anchor. There also has been a lot of hype around FILD while it is also just a pretty bad and messy WILD anchor for beginners.

It is strongly encouraged that you do WILD during WBTB, as you will be more sleepy and will find it easier to carry out. Information on WBTB is covered in the next section.

Here is one of our most trusted WILD quides

What are Wake Back to Beds?

Wake Back To Beds (WBTB) for short are a very useful tool for lucid dreaming. They consist of waking up in the middle of the night using an alarm Or intention and performing a lucid dreaming induction technique. Only to go back to sleep again, WBTBs provide very big benefits with little to no downsides Most techniques (MILD, SSILD, WILD… Etc) are designed to take place during wake back to bed, especially SSILD and WILD. Another benefit of Wake back to beds is that waking up in the middle of the night gets you closer to R.E.M sleep cycles, a sleep phase that favors dreaming and dream recall. And also gives you a second chance to practice techniques when the effectiveness of the techniques you used earlier wore off.

Regarding Misinformation

In recent years, there have been a lot of misconceptions and misinformation regarding lucid dreaming. So much so that its more common than the actual correct stuff. Even reaching seemingly trustworthy sites such as WebMD, Sleep Foundation, and more.

Most of us on the Discord Servers such as Dream Cafe recognize this misinformation as well as certain Youtube Channels and Sites. (However it reaches just about every platform, including Youtube, TikTok and Discord), For a much easier and better experience learning this skill, here are the corrected versions of common misinformation.

Lucid Dreaming does not happen overnight. It is a skill that requires a lot of practice and dedication, furthermore, you will probably not see success in the first night of attempts.
Nothing can impact your lucid dreaming experience from inside the Dream. Misinformation about mirrors and closing your eyes making you wake up is simply false.
Lucid Dreaming is not bad for your physical health. It can not hurt you in any way.
Lucid Dreams do not need stabilizing. They will only be unstable if you expect them to be in the first place, removing the belief in stabilization techniques will remove the entire problem.

There are many more that we could go in detail for, however the list would go on too long.

What are presistent Realms?

Persistent Realms (PR) are Lucid Dream Realms that people come back to frequently. What we mean is that many times, people will Create scenarios in lucid dreams, and bring those scenarios back to the next lucid dream. Usually this creates a sort-of Story that takes place in these Lucid dream worlds. People set up PRs for fantasy worlds, Sci-Fi, etc. Mostly based on pre-existing media such as a film or Video Game. This can be a great source of entertainment to people who can consistently lucid dream, and it’s a good encouragement!

Reality checks and how to use them

Reality Checks(RCs) are mental or physical actions we perform to confirm whether we are in a dream or not, just to make sure you don’t accidentally jump off our balcony in real life! There are many different RCs, both mental and physical.

Mental ones consist of such(but not only):

Thinking about where you are, have you always been here, how did you get here, what did you do before etc.
Thinking about your current situation and whether it makes sense Does my teacher always have horns?, Why am I looking for spaghetti in the sky?, Ive graduated school already, what am I doing here? etc.

Now for the physical RCs:

Looking at your hands for any abnormalities such as more/less fingers, glowing parts, longer/shorter and/or connected fingers etc.
Putting your finger through your palm(or trying to). Obviously if it goes through then you are dreaming.
Plug your nose and try to breathe! Once again if you succeed you are in fact dreaming!

Something to note, you probably wont get lucid from reality checks alone. You arent going to consider doing a reality check unless you think you may be dreaming, this is what the techniques are for. The techniques make you question your reality, and the reality checks confirm your state.

Lucid dreaming tips and advice

Keep a consistent sleep schedule, 8 hours of sleep is the best.
Keep a dream journal, write as much information as you can in it, and also do some dream delving!
Random reality checks are overrated. It is better to use them in moments of doubt or when waking up to avoid False Awakenings. Remember that if you ever doubt you are dreaming you probably are, maybe means yes!
Use wake back to bed. They are a very reliable way to get many more lucid dreams.
Read your dream journal. Every day! (at least 10-15 dreams) and point out dream signs, it also helps with recall. Also set an intention to remember your dreams in the morning. Do this before going to bed each night.
Read lucid dreaming related content before bed, it can help a lot.
Living a fulfilling life really helps for lucid dreaming inspiration and motivation, dont do it for escapism.
Dont set the bar too high and keep hope and a good mood. No, being negative all the time isnt going to help you.
Use your dreams to help you in the future. Look for things that often appear in your dreams and intend to recognise them next time.
Be critical of your surroundings. This one in particular really helps. If you dont think about being in a dream during the day, you probably will not during a dream.

SPECIAL THANKS TO ELEMENTAL AND LIAMCHOUX FOR THIS GUIDE

You can find the original guide here

Other Credits

Image was taken by Aaron Burden

The image can be found here