Neuroscientists reveal method to train people to have lucid dreams

dmvjs

recognizing dream signs is at least 30 years old as a technique

Pooge

I've heard having lucid dreams is also associated with a higher probability of having sleep paralysis. Stopped thinking about training right there. I don't remember my dreams often and when I do they're very weird—I never see my own arms and legs and feel like a camera—and even if the weirdest things happen I never realize it's a dream until I wake up.

ashleyn

Hah! We were doing this on lucid dreaming forums back in the 2000s, it was called "reality checking" or "RCs". Basically you want to build the habit of noticing anything even slightly "off" and remembering to do a RC when you do that. Eventually you would make enough of a habit of this that you would do it in a dream, and you would "go lucid". Worked very well for me. The dream journaling bit is important too, you often forget your dreams waking up and there's no sense in having a lucid dream if you don't remember it. Dream journaling helps you build "dream recall". (As a side note, repurposing the concept of reality checking helped me greatly when I was experimenting with substances and it went very badly.) Interesting to see this approach validated in a formal study. There are a whole host of other induction techniques that were discussed as well: "WILD", "MILD", and a lot of other acronyms ending in "-ILD". Stephen LaBerge may have even studied them in the 1990s.

Ccecil

Just try turning on/off lights...or so I have been told. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxGh-rFLF7A

sonorous_sub

Great alternative to psychedelics if you are looking for visionary experiences without the risk of psychosis/hospitalization. Dreams end the moment you wake up. You will never know for sure when a particular drug trip will wear off.

throwaway81523

Is this even a good idea? I've had lucid dreams (not by intention) a few times but mostly I thought dreaming was a GC process for your brain, so trying to constrain or control it could interfere with its function.