I think many of us nerds are intrigued by the concept of lucid dreaming but haven't actually explored the space. I skimmed a book on the subject in the mid 80's, but only tried the techniques a couple of times. Oddly, I still remember a couple of my lucid dreams.
1. Doing a reality check habitually in real life. Eventually you'll start doing it in dreams and have it fail. This _usually_ kicks you into lucid territory
2. Estimating when you're going to be in a REM state and setting a timer to wake yourself up. Then, after gaining consciousness fully, trying to make your body go to sleep while your mind is awake
Can you spot why I stopped doing it after a period of time? It end up feeling like a lot of work every day just for a chance (a low one in my and most people's cases) of having a lucid dream. Sleeping was no longer a passive, let's-relax type of activity. I just wanted to reclaim that period of time in a way.
I think my biggest takeaway from my lucid dreams was just the feeling of being in one. It's hard to describe, but the rush that comes along with the realization you can do anything you want is quite exhilarating.
The basic technique is just to meditate to sleep by counting your breaths, while not moving at all. It is really hard to pull off until you get used to it, but with some dedication you can get decent success. If you do it right, your body enters sleep paralysis while your brain is still awake, and you get dropped into a dream.
I'd also recommend lying on your back when attempting to lucid dream, it always made it much more likely to occur for me, along with sleep paralysis. There is some unexplored physiological reason for this, but it's real and many sleep experts have found the same results.
I would also recommend not getting caught up in losing track of the count, simply starting over from 0 the moment you realize that you lost your place.
I have severe chronic insomnia, ADHD, tourettic OCD and a predisposition for body-focused repetitive behaviors so if I can meditate myself to sleep, I'm pretty sure anyone can with some practice. The reason why I can't do it every night and "beat" insomnia is two-fold:
One, because it paradoxically aggravates sleep avoidance for me. It's an excruciating experience spending 30-60 minutes lying completely still while alarm bells are going off in my head, paired with intense urges commanding me to scratch an itch or adjust a limb, and it's anything but meditative until the very moment sleep paralysis kicks in and my body goes numb.
Two, it usually puts me into sleep paralysis which is just rolling the dice for a metric ton of adrenaline to get released during a paralysis hallucination. I've had sleep paralysis encounters keep me up for the next few days, shit gives me the creeps.
I remember a friend of mine saying how he went manic and hadn't slept for days after trying some stuff he read in a book about 'dream yoga'. Always honestly left the impression that you can fuck this up just like you can pulling a muscle in your leg, except this is your mind you're talking about
The "getting sucked into the sky" dreams are always incredibly exhilarating. Had some like that.
I had an extraordinarily rare moment a few years ago wherein I actually had one single 8-hour interrupted sleep session. For the entire 8 hours, I was sucked in a single, continuous lucid dream that took place over a full day of school. I was completely convinced that I'd died or was dying in my sleep and was experiencing an extended DMT-fueled hallucination.
I was literally running my hand across surfaces and studying reflections in the CRT monitors trying to find imperfections or proof that it was just a normal dream. But everything was hyperrealistic and vivid and continuous. The dream even started out with me waking up, getting ready, getting on the bus and arriving to school. Even the clocks were behaving.
During the dream, between classes, there was a hole in floor of the main hallway which just got bigger and bigger each time I saw it. And each time, there was a larger crowd of people surrounding it. Eventually, I saw someone jump in. Towards the end of the day, there was a full-blown hole cult worshiping and praying to the hole, wearing religious garb, making offerings, etc. It took a few weeks to recover from that dream.
For example, I once had a dream that I smoked DMT and had a full-blown psychedelic experience during my dream. I then woke up and felt "high", in some kind of altered state, for over 12 hours. Under the right circumstances or simulated environment, the brain seems able to induce a variety of sudden or gradual psychological and neurological changes.
Imagine someone without control of their limbs being able to benefit from practicing tai chi or yoga in their sleep. Obviously, feedback from an instructor is important, but imagine a distant future where we are able to record and decode our dreams and allow instructors to review footage.
[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/ai-re-creates-what-p...
1. Trying to put your index finger through the other palm. In a dream this works, it just goes through;
2. Press your nose closed and continue breathing normally. In a dream this works.
I stopped for a similar reason as the other poster. It really interfered with my ability to get the much needed rest while sleeping. It doesn’t come free (but is awesome when it works)
Every now and then, say every hour, or whenever you think of it, look around you. Try to check if what you see is real. Are things floating around and is gravity not working as expected? When you look over your shoulder and back, did the room change color, and did the table just turn into a tree? Try to touch something with your hand. Do you not feel any resistance when your hand drops through the couch? If so, you are probably dreaming.
When I’m awake, I immediately answer “no,” but when I’m asleep, I’m not sure. That’s enough to know that I’m not awake.
At the time, at least, the recommended starting point was dream journaling–writing down everything you can remember as soon as you wake up. Practicing that even for a few days has the effect of helping you retain quite a bit more detail from your dreams. It wasn't so much that I had unpleasant dreams as it was that remembering them made the night seem somehow less restful, as though I needed the relatively blank gap of sleep in the filmstrip of my memory to be able to wake up with a clear head.