Ask HN: Tips, Tricks and Thoughts on Lucid Dreaming? - jelliclesfarm
======
ksaj
Lay on your back and pay attention to _something_. I have had lucid dreams
since I was a kid, although it took until adulthood before I discovered what
it is. Since it used to scare the bejeebus out of me, I learned rolling onto
my side allowed me to fall asleep without the creepy death-like thing.

Weirdly it only ever scared me early in the night. In the morning, if I wake
up but then fall asleep, I get lucid dreams again, but they are far more
entertaining and lack the dark scary thing.

One thing I noticed, and it makes me aware I'm in a lucid dream, is that even
though everything feels real, there are a LOT of glitches. For example, once I
was playing guitar and it was glorious hero-level axemanship. But at the same
time, I realized it was in slo-mo and completely non-technical. When I woke
up, I realized what I was dreaming was really crappy guitar playing, but at
the time, I might have shamed Yngwie, lol. For all intents and purposes, it
really was happening, and other than the wonkiness, I had full "normal"
control - a thought process that is barely distinguishable from being awake
and actually experiencing it all.

When you _do_ realize you are lucid dreaming, try not to over-react or you
will wake up. When you're having a good lucid dream, and excite yourself
awake, it's quite a bummer. As soon as you get that far, you can "rewind" your
dream and replay any part differently, or just do whatever you want - there
are no physical laws.

Everyone is different, but that's my observations.

------
Japhy_Ryder
Buy, read, and enjoy "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" by Stephen
LaBerge, PhD. It's the key text on this topic. A few years back I used the
book with great success but I've fallen out of the "LD" world unfortunately.

Keep a dream journal. That's the first step.

