Reality Checks

There are various techniques to induce lucid dreams. The technique used by Lucille is based upon reality checks. A superficial explanation of this technique is that when you repeatedly ask yourself during the day whether you are dreaming, you will continue questioning yourself during the night as well. A better way to understand reality checks is that it raises your awareness of what you're doing and where you are, at any moment of the day. While most of the questions Lucille asks, focus at situations that set dreams apart from the reality of our physical world, the more general idea is to adopt a reflective attitude, continuesly questioning the basis of all your attitudes, assumptions, and choices.

To give a rough indication of how often reality checks should be done during a day, think in the order of about 10 times a day. Ideally, do the first one after waking up, and the last one before going to sleep. A happy few will see their first results within days, but be prepared to continue the exercises for a month. Some have pointed out - probably correctly - that it is not unreasonable to discover that it takes even longer.

Intent

The results of reality checks will depend on the intent and concentration you do them with. If you don't concentrate on doing reality checks, but simply go through the motions like it is just another daily routine, you miss the whole point of the exercise.

Be creative. While doing a reality check, try to come up with new questions about the nature of reality versus the nature of dreams. Reflect, think about it. Lucille can be customized with new questions, make use of that feature. Again, it is not so much what you do, but the intent beyond it. Intent - as needed for getting lucid dreams - is a difficult thing to explain. It is about wanting something, without forcing it. It is about concentration, yet in a light effortless way. It should come from within.

Supplementary exercises

When going asleep, try to remain aware of what happens in your body, and in your head, while falling asleep. Also, focus on remembering what happened just a moment ago. The ultimate goal is to one day fall directly into a lucid dream, but it will also help to get a lucid dream at any other time.

In the morning, while waking up, pay attention to the whole process of waking up. Exactly at which moment do you become conscious again? What is going on in your body? Don't be alarmed when you discover that your body is paralyzed, this is a necessary safety because you don't want your body to do everything you do while you're dreaming. Naturally, also try to remember what you dreamt. It should go without saying that training dream recall is absolutely fundamental to getting lucid dreams. In fact, you may already be having lucid dreams without knowing it. In this respect lucid dreams are just like regular dreams: both types of dreams are easily forgotten.

Speaking of dream recall, pay attention to brief moments of lucidity in dreams. Don't think that only fully featured start to finish lucid dreams count, pay attention to any brief moment of lucidity, and try to work out what it is that triggers such lucid moments, and what it is that makes you loose lucidity again. You can probably translate them to your own lucidity questions. If so, add them to Lucille.

Some situations in your dreams may occur regularly. If similar situations occur regularly in your daytime life, then this is an excellent moment to do your reality checks. For example, you could be driving in a car both during the day and during the night. Reflect on the differences, how do you know when you're in a dream and when not.

Other suggestions

Here are a few more suggestions, mentioned by other lucid dreamers. Some people belief that lucid dreams depend on a specific stage of sleep, the one that becomes plenty available after a long night of sleep. That's why they recommend getting plenty of sleep. Alternatively, it is also recommended to try a nap during the day, which also seems to bring plenty of the needed stage of sleep.

Sometimes, not getting enough sleep will help. Or, interrupting your sleep by going out of bed for some time. Now, this seems in contradiction with the advise given in the previous paragraph, so I guess you will need to use your own judgment.

Use self-suggestion before going to sleep. Tell yourself that you will get a lucid dream.

Take up regular meditation. Actually, the whole discipline of doing reality checks is a form of meditation, so more meditation may become a bit of an overkill. Yet, if you're into it anyway, it won't hurt.

Resources

Many books have been written on lucid dreaming. My favorite is The Tibetan Yogas Of Dream And Sleep by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. What I like about it is that it places lucid dreaming in a long tradition, even though it is a part of a completely different culture than most of the people using Lucille are accustomed to. The book promotes an approach towards lucid dreaming that feels well grounded. Without the benefit of a long tradition, yet closer to home for most Lucille users would be Stop Sleeping Through Your Dreams by Charles McPhee. It's a completely different book, placing lucid dreaming in a wider context of Western sleep and dream research. Both books are rather technical, the second even more than the first. There's also the beautiful The Lucid Dreamer by Malcolm Godwin. It has plenty of substance, yet is also fun to browse through because of the many full color pictures.

The internet offers plenty of websites dedicated to lucid dreaming. For an overview I'm simply going to refer to my personal homepage Healing Dreams, and recommend you take a look at the advanced section of the annotated links.