Well, this is a question that almost everyone wanting to lucid dream wants to know. What’s the easiest way to lucid dream?
It depends on what you consider easy, firstly, but there are actually a few concepts, ideas and techniques that make lucid dreaming so much easier, which we’ll go over in this article.
Before you start
Before you get started lucid dreaming, just remember that you’re changing a habit about yourself that you’ve likely not used before. This habit is self awareness, and it can help you with not just lucid dreaming but also all areas of your life.
By improving your self awareness in general, throughout the day, you’ll find it much easier to lucid dream. This is the golden rule or the key which will make lucid dreaming feel easier for you. Here’s how to make lucid dreaming DIFFICULT to learn:
Practice ONLY trying to have a lucid dream.
People who practice only trying to have lucid dreams will find it really difficult, because they’re trying to fix one tiny part of the bigger picture.
The reason we don’t all naturally lucid dream every night, is because most of us aren’t self aware and don’t really pay attention to what they’re doing during the day.
By focusing on improving that and raising your level of self awareness, you’ll be much more able to lucid dream, and it won’t feel like a challenge. I was amazed at how much of a difference meditation made for example, in lucid dreaming practice.
It was like night and day.
Before I started meditating regularly, lucid dreaming was a challenge. It was hard to reliably induce a lucid dream and even when I did, it always felt like it was a short term, lucky type of thing. I didn’t feel in control, and I didn’t feel like I could reliably induce lucid dreams in the future.
I just felt like I was struggling and just ‘getting by’.
But when I started regularly meditating, the whole game changed. It became easy, and once I BECAME lucid it was so much easier to stay lucid and to stay in the dream.
I think this is due to several factors, but mainly due to focus. By meditating, you focus and channel your attention on just one thing, whether it’s breathe or your body. This focused attention builds up your willpower, attention and self awareness.
And it makes lucid dreaming 10X easier, just by doing that every morning.
You don’t even need to meditate very much, ten minutes a day will do. You do however need to meditate regularly. In order to get the best benefits, I’d suggest meditating every single morning, and just adding it to your morning routine.
So that’s just what I wanted to mention before going into the easiest lucid dreaming techniques. This article is not just a list of the easiest techniques, but also a list of lucid dreaming tips to make it easier and more understandable.
The easiest lucid dreaming techniques and tips
I should mention that these aren’t in order, and you might have already tried one or two. Just pick out the ones that seem to make the most sense for you.
1: Start with the most effective technique
To get started, instead of trying each lucid dreaming technique and hoping they’ll work for you, use the most effective technique.
I created the most effective technique which combines the most reliable aspects of ALL the major induction techniques, and makes them all slightly more effective. It’s one thing you need to learn, in 7 steps.
The technique is called the 90ILD technique and if you learn just one thing, make it that. It combines the effective aspects from the following induction techniques:
- WBTB (Wake back to bed)
- WILD (Wake induced lucid dream)
- MILD (Mnemonic induced lucid dream)
- DILD (Dream induced lucid dream)
- FILD (Finger induced lucid dream)
- SSILD (Senses induced lucid dream)
- CAT (Cycle adjustment technique)
And makes them all more effective, because they all work together.
It combines all of those with a regular sleep cycle interruption that happens every 90 minutes. If you’ve never had a lucid dream, or if you can’t remember any dreams, this technique will make it happen in one night.
Not only will you remember at least 4-5 vivid, intense dreams, but you’ll also have 1-2 lucid dreams the same night. You’ll be tired the day after, but you’ll get RESULTS and you’ll fill up your dream journal.
And that’s often all the motivation a beginner needs. Once you’ve tasted lucidity, you’ll be craving more and more. You’ll want to come back and try and practice until you’re an expert (If you can even become such a thing).
So try and focus only on learning this technique, the 90ILD or 90 induced lucid dream. You could also call it the 90 minute induced lucid dream, but that didn’t have the same ring to it.
2: Make sure your basics are there
The easiest way to lucid dream is to just get the basic things in place. You wouldn’t expect to learn how to climb a mountain before you could walk, so don’t expect to lucid dream without learning and practicing the basics.
When we say the basics, we mean make sure you’ve learned and are practicing the following (The links go to articles and tutorials I’ve written for you on those topics):
- Writing your dreams down: Keeping a dream journal is of course essential for lucid dreaming, and without this, you’ll really struggle. Make it easier for yourself and write your dreams down
- Meditating every morning: Meditation as I explained, makes everything else easier. It doesn’t have to be complicated, and there’s a really easy way of doing it
- Doing reality checks: Testing your reality is a very powerful way to have natural lucid dreams, but you’d be surprised how many people try and lucid dream without ever doing reality checks. These are essential for beginners, so learn the right way of doing them!
- Eating and sleeping right: I don’t have an article for this but make sure you’re sleeping for at least 8 hours a night, eating plant based and healthy foods, taking a multivitamin and so on. This will have a knock on effect on how easy you’ll find lucid dreaming.
3: Use your body!
Work with your body. What this means is your body is designed to wake up when the sun rises, and go to sleep or start feeling tired when the sun goes down. Don’t fight against your body, instead practice going to bed early if you have to, to follow the sun.
When I started doing this, my friends thought I was a bit weird, and yes it might mean you miss out on some social events during the night, but you’ll feel so much better for it. I know it’s a bit of an annoying one, but just give it a try if you’ve never done this before. Try going to sleep when it gets dark.
Also waking up when it gets light (sunrise) is a powerful morning routine and habit that could change your life. It’s said that some of the most successful and happy people in the world all seem to get up super early, at about sunrise or just before.
Eating is another one, by eating the right foods you’ll make everything else you do easier. By giving your body and mind all they need to function properly, you make everything else you do become much, much easier.
A good way of getting all the nutrients and vitamins you need is to take a multivitamin, eat a plant based diet where you can, and eat a variety of fresh fruits. This sounds like a cracked record now, and I’m sure deep down you know that’s the healthiest way to eat, but junk food always calls to you, right?
It’s hard to eat healthy at first, but if you remind yourself that you’re doing it because you love yourself and feeling good more than you love junk food, you’ll stay on track. I found it hard at the start, but then after a few weeks I got used to it, and now eating healthy is just a part of my life.
4: Get your mindset right
Your mindset and attitude dictate literally your entire life.
Not just for lucid dreaming, but everything.
Your thoughts run your life, so be careful what you think. If you’re always telling yourself things like ‘lucid dreaming is difficult’ or ‘I can’t lucid dream’ then you’ll MAKE that true for yourself.
You literally create your entire world and everything around you that you call reality, from your thoughts. So choose to think better feeling thoughts. Feel and think better, and start today. Just start getting your lucid dreaming mindset right by telling yourself things like:
- I can lucid dream
- I find lucid dreaming easy
- I can control my dreams
- I find it easy to remember my dreams
- I always lucid dream
- I always remember my dreams
And so on. Tell yourself the things you want to be true about yourself, as if they were ALREADY true. This is known as affirmations, mantras, it has lots of names. But what you’re really doing is programming your subconscious mind to believe something about yourself.
Your mind will then act in subtle, tiny ways to MAKE that belief true.
Your mind doesn’t want to hold thoughts that are untrue or different to the reality you’re experiencing. So your beliefs will become your reality.
If you tell yourself things like ‘I’m always late’ you’ll ACTUALLY act in small ways that you don’t even notice, to MAKE yourself late, so that the belief becomes or remains true.
It’s fascinating how the brain works in this way, but also dangerous if you’re not aware that it’s doing this. So be careful what you say about YOURSELF because you’re listening. By the way, this applies just as much to waking life as it does lucid dreaming.
In fact one of the things I love about lucid dreaming is how many of the things I teach about dream control apply to real life. Things like:
What you expect to happen will become reality because your subconscious mind will do everything it can to MAKE it happen
If you believe you can do something, you’ll be able to do it eventually
What you focus on, you get MORE of (this explains why people who have lots of nightmares often THINK about those nightmares often, thus producing more nightmares)
You’re powerful beyond your wildest imagination, and if you choose to, you can unlock this limitless power and potential
5: Hack your mind and body
There are several ways you can ‘hack’ your mind and body to make lucid dreaming easier. Not only that, but you can make things like falling asleep, remembering your dreams, feeling good and controlling the dream easier too.
The main ways are through binaural beats and supplements. Let’s explore them:
Using binaural beats
Binaural beats are a special type of sound wave that can influence and manipulate your brainwave states and guide you into different states of mind.
You can use them for all sorts of things, but specifically you can put yourself into the state which makes lucid dreams easier.
This state is typically Theta waves and Beta.
You can listen to binaural beats which make reaching these states easier. I’d suggest reading about binaural beats in the following articles:
- What are binaural beats and how do they work: An explanation of how binaural beats work and why they work on the brain
- How to use binaural beats: The most effective way to listen to binaural beats to get the most benefits
- What are the best binaural beats: The list of the best and most effective binaural beats you can buy online and where to get them
I’d suggest just getting a few packages and tracks, and trying them out. You can find lots of information about them on the site, and there are lots to choose from. I don’t want to give you so many options here that it’s overwhelming but here are the best binaural beats I know of:
- Binaural Beats Meditation (or read our review of them)
- Ennora (Or read our review)
- Iawake Technologies
- Unexplainable store (read our review of them here)
- Holosync (Or read our review!)
- HemiSync binaural beats
Using supplements
Supplements can be used to do almost anything these days, but specifically, they can make lucid dreaming easier. The easiest way to get started with this is to take something like a multivitamin to make sure you’re getting all the nutrients and vitamins you need.
I always advise taking a multivitamin before thinking about taking something like a lucid dreaming supplement or a nootropic. I think it’s the safest way as you make sure you’re getting the basics you need and you’re not deficient in anything.
Then once you’re already doing that, think about experimenting with the following supplements:
- Calea Zacatechichi (The Dream herb, you could read my more detailed post about Calea Z as well. )
- Vitamin B6 (Dream memory supplement)
- Galantamine (The lucid inducer?)
- LucidEsc: A custom lucid supplement with many of these other supplements and ingredients in it anyway, check out my review of LucidEsc as well!
- DHAE
- Melatonin: More vivid and bizarre dreams. A natural hormone/sleep aid
- Mugwort: A natural lucid dreaming supplement but NOT for people who are pregnant!
- Choline bitartrate: Increased dream recall, cognitive function, dreams more likely to be lucid
- DreamLeaf: A powerful blend of everything that can help you lucid dream (I also have a review of DreamLeaf explaining much more about how it works)
- Claridream PRO: A dream recall and vividness supplement
- Ginkgo Biloba
- Mugwort
- Valerian root extract
- Peppermint: A relaxant that can help you fall asleep faster
- DMAE
- 5-HTP: Could be said to be the original lucid dreaming supplement!
- Huperzine A: A natural lucid dreaming supplement, and a popular ingredient in lucid pill blends
- Calea Zacatechichi: The dream herb (but it tastes horrible)
- Alpha GPC: A memory compound
- Mucuna Pruriens: A lucid compound from a remote part of the world
- Yohimbine
Ways to make lucid dreaming even easier
There are several ways and tips you can use to make lucid dreaming even easier than usual. These things are not very commonly used for some strange reason, but from my experience these things make the whole process much much easier.
Avoid false awakening loops
False awakening loops happen when you’re not sure if you’ve woken up or not in the morning. I know what you’re thinking ‘I’m sure I know when I’ve woken up’.
If you’ve never experienced a false awakening then you can probably skip this one, you’re a lucky person! But for those of you who have, you’ll know how annoying it is. It feels like you’re unsure what’s real or not, and you have no idea whether you’ve actually woken up or you’re still dreaming.
Dreaming about waking up is one of the most common nightmares, because it can turn a normal morning into a dream you can’t escape. Also it can feel like you’re not in control or your reality. These things can be avoided very easily though.
One of the most effective hacks or tips I give my students is to do a reality check as soon as they wake up. By doing a reality check first thing, as soon as you wake up, you’ll make sure you never have a false awakening again.
Or at least, when you do it will instead be a standard lucid dream. You’ll be in control, and you’ll know for sure that you’re dreaming and in control. Without this, you’ll probably experience a false awakening at some point in the future if you haven’t already, and it won’t be very fun for you.
I have had some mornings where I experience a long string of vivid, intense false awakenings and it feels like there’s just no escape. What’s worse is that they can also be nightmares.
Vary your reality checks
By varying the reality checks you do, you make it more likely they’ll work. I like to practice a different reality check every month, but for beginners I’d suggest varying them a bit more regularly.
Something like once every week or two will work well. You don’t want your brain to get too comfortable with any one reality check. What tends to happen with beginners, is they’ll practice one reality check for a while and find that they might have one or two lucid dreams with it..
But then as time goes on, they get into a little rut and find that that reality check that served them so well before doesn’t work any more. It’s like bodybuilding and weightlifting, if you do the same exercise for too long, your body adapts.
It’s more effective to constantly vary the exercise so your muscles can always respond in a new way, as if it was the first time again. This applies particularly to lucid dreaming and lucid dreaming techniques and methods.
One of the things I teach in the lucid bootcamp is to vary your reality checks and I actually explain a specific order that you should vary them in, day by day. I’ve created an ideal routine that varies the reality checks and makes them the most effective.
Motivate yourself often
Motivation is KING.
If you’re not motivated to do something, you’re not very likely to actually do it. It’s important to keep yourself motivated to lucid dream, in whatever way you can. Without this, you’re fighting a losing battle.
Imagine trying to climb a mountain, when you don’t WANT to climb the mountain.
What’s going to keep you pushing forward when you’re feeling beaten down, tired, hungry, and cold? Motivation and your WHY is very important. So think about the reasons you’re learning to lucid dream, and what’s important to you.
Here are some useful posts about finding your REASON to lucid dream, and learn lucid dreaming:
- Powerful reasons to lucid dream: the most interesting and convincing reasons you’d want to learn how to lucid dream
- What lucid dreaming feels like: By learning how lucid dreaming feels, you’ll likely be very motivated to learn it, because you’ll want to experience how awesome it is!
- Amazing things to do in dreams: A list of the best, most exciting and fun things to do in lucid dreams to give you inspiration and motivation to learn and practice it
By reading those things, you’ll be more likely to keep yourself motivated and inspired to keep going, keep practicing and learning the skills you need in order to lucid dream. Motivation is very important but here’s what’s even more important:
Commitment.
In order to achieve success, heres what you should do (again this doesn’t just apply to lucid dreaming).
- Realise what it is you want (set a goal)
- Get excited about that goal and motivated (get excited about the things you’ll be able to do in lucid dreams)
- Work out and learn what you NEED to practice in order to get that result (In the case of lucid dreaming, it’s reality checks, dream recall, meditation and practicing techniques)
- COMMIT to doing that thing or those things, every single day for 90 days
The last part is interesting, because it requires committing to a time frame. It’s easy to get motivated to learn lucid dreaming for the first week, and even the first month, but then what happens?
What will happen if you’ve been practicing for a month and nothing’s happened? Or you’ve got bored because you’ve not yet had a lucid dream? Well, you’re likely to give up and try something else.
So commit to practicing the things you know will help you achieve the result, and actually DO them every single day, for 90 days. This will make sure you’ll achieve the results even long after the motivation might have run out.
It’s easy to practice the things when you’re feeling motivated and hopeful, but what about when the motivation’s faded? If you don’t KEEP practicing the things, you’ll never have the lucid dream so you need a way of keeping yourself going even when you’re not motivated any more.
Take the lucid dreaming bootcamp
And finally, the last thing I’d suggest you do to make lucid dreaming easier is to take my lucid dreaming bootcamp.
The bootcamp is a step by step lucid dreaming course that tells you exactly what to practice every single day for 30 days. It’s very effective and can force you to lucid dream even if you’ve never had one before.
There are lots of reviews on the page at the bottom, and I’m really proud of the bootcamp and the great results my students have got. It’s helped thousands of people have their first lucid dreams!
And that’s the basic tips and tricks I can give you to make lucid dreaming easier. I would say this is the easiest way to lucid dream outside just super hard work and practicing the techniques every single night until you get it.
Good luck, and dream on!
