How to Induce Lucid Dreaming TONIGHT

Lucid dreaming is not as complicated as you may think. It isn't an exaggeration that, if you follow tested methods, you could 'wake up' in your dreams tonight.

Lucid dreaming occurs when you dream a dream; you are aware that you're asleep. You wake up in the dream and thus can manipulate the world and events you experience in sleeping hours. By controlling some aspects of your dream sequences, you can have exciting, healing, and pleasurable experiences you never imagined. 

One study suggests that around 82% of people experience lucid dreaming at some point in their life, while 19-37% of people lucid dream regularly. So, the odds are in your favor.

What Triggers Lucid Dreaming?

How to get lucid dreams is as simple as knowing what triggers them. Consider that while you may or may not be someone who remembers your dreams, nearly everyone dreams on a nightly basis.

We will be looking at methods that create the best chance to have a lucid dream tonight. However, it's still valuable to understand habits and approaches that you can regularly implement to enhance the prospects, as well as giving you some baseline knowledge of what to expect with lucid dreaming.  

Number one on the list of lucidity-supporting practices involves dream interpretation. If you make it a point to journal your dreams every night, writing down any detail or impression you can remember, your connection to them will increase. The art of dream interpretation further enhances the relationship between your waking and sleeping consciousness, thus supporting your efforts to wake up within your dreams.

Are There Dangers in Lucid Dreaming?

You may also be wondering, is lucid dreaming safe?  The answer is yes. To understand what's going on, we can compare the lucid experience to astral projection. In an astral projection experience, there is an actual out-of-body aspect to the experience wherein the astral layer of your energetic body can roam the astral planes while remaining attached to your physical body.  

In astral projection, you may be able to witness events that have occurred, are occurring or will happen in real waking life. In lucid dreaming, you experience your mind and psyche.

Now let's explore how to get lucid dreams with some proven lucid dreaming techniques geared at using your senses and intention to hack your sleep cycles and natural modes of consciousness.

Follow These Steps to Lucid Dream TONIGHT

1) Study Lucid Dreaming:  You know how they say that arousal between partners starts between the ears, not between the legs? Likewise, Lucid dreaming begins between the ears before you get between the sheets. Try to spend your day thinking, journaling, reading, and imagining how it will look and feel. In short, fill your head with visions and ideas about the way you'd like your journey to go.

There are plenty of quality resources on the topic online, so dive in. Reading other people's accounts and what worked for them will stimulate your senses and boost your confidence. Try sitting down to meditate and imagining the lucid dream you'd like to have and follow up by journaling what you saw in your mind's eye.

2) Perform Reality Checks:  Not familiar with a reality check? No problem. Reality checks are a bit strange but straightforward enough to perform and highly effective at directing yourself to wake up in the dream later on tonight.

To do a reality check, try to push your pointer finger through your opposite palm. If your finger passes through, congratulations, you're in a dream. If you cannot push through, you are still in ordinary conscious reality. Either way, you are establishing a way to test your reality. If you complete this activity often enough, your dream-self will eventually do it, and when your finger passes through your hand, you have the opportunity to become lucid. 

3) Cut Off Before-Bed Screentime:  Make sure you set the alarm, a step we'll get to soon. After you've set your wake-up alarm, allow yourself plenty of time- at least one hour- before going to sleep with no screens or artificial light. By giving yourself a substantial window of screen-free time, you allow your natural sleep hormones to release into your body, prepping you for the deep sleep you'll need soon.  

4) Set Your Alarm:  At what time do you usually wake up or set your alarm? Whatever time that is, set your alarm to go off two hours earlier. If you typically wake up at 7 AM, set your alarm for 5 AM. Choose an alert that you know will wake you but won't startle you in the process. Alarms with sound tones that build gradually can be an excellent choice. Last, and most importantly, turn off the snooze feature. You'll want to wake up and then be left undisturbed. Now make sure you have your dream journal right beside your bed with a pen or pencil you know works. Please make sure these things are close enough to the bed that you don't have to get up to reach them. 

5) Keep Your Eyes Closed When You Awake:  This step may feel a bit unnatural, but it's the key to having a lucid dream on your first try. When your alarm wakes you up, try everything in your power to keep your eyes closed.  If they do open briefly, it won't spoil your chances, but it's best to keep them closed if you can. Now turn your alarm off.

As you lie with your body perfectly still, eyes closed, allow your mind to be alert and wide awake. You've awoken yourself from REM sleep, and now your brain will naturally work to get you back there as quickly as possible. What you're doing is self-initiating sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is a prevalent experience where your body is asleep and immobile while your mind is alert. If you've never felt this before, it can be a little unnerving, but it's perfectly safe.  

Allow your body to feel heavy and relaxed and continue to remain aware of the visions and images appearing within your mind's eye. Because you've been doing reality checks all day, you will hopefully remember to perform a reality check now. If self-inducing sleep paralysis isn't enough to initiate a lucid dream, your reality check should do the trick.

Relax and spiral deeper and deeper into the imagery until you become immersed. Once you become sufficiently evolved, you will most likely find that you can start to guide or even somewhat control your dream.  

As a closing suggestion, try not to get too excited or to try and control your dream too much; jarring energy like this could pull you right back into wakefulness, cutting the experience short. As soon as you wake up, make sure to write down every little detail you can remember. Rinse and repeat.