What if I made a habit of checking the "is this a dream/am I dreaming" telltales? So often it becomes second nature. That way I might do them more frequently in my sleep.
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in reply to @EarthShaker's post:
This is probably the most reliable way to start lucid dreaming on a regular basis, particularly if you're looking to do so in a hurry. However, the catch is giving yourself cues telling you when to check. The recommendation I came across when looking into this is to (a) keep a dream diary for a period of time, documenting the people, objects, and events in a fair amount of detail, (b) identify those cues that appeared regularly in both sleeping and waking life, and then (c) make a habit of checking when those specific cues were encountered. This strikes a reasonable balance between checking all the time (which could become intrusive) and only checking occasionally. Start to finish, it's not out of the question that someone could go from having never had a lucid dream to doing so regularly in only a few months.
As an aside, the most reliable telltales for me have involved looking squarely at something, looking away, and looking back. In the case of both clocks and written text, what you read will always, without exception, be different the second time you look during a dream. This can make checking for a telltale while you're awake as simple as looking at your watch twice.
i used to obsessively count my fingers, like, ALL the time.
it reached a point where my throat was constantly sore from incessantly subvocalizing the counts, and it was driving me an itty bit crazy, so i've spent several years unlearning this habit, even though it did land me a few lucid dreams (...+ the few times i'd look at my deformed dream hand with an uncountable number of fingers, think ”oh, that's funny“, and carrying on with my non-lucid dreammmm).
found your comment from looking up #lucid dreaming, since just now i looked at my fingers and had to close my eyes to stop myself from counting them, even though i haven't done this in like at least half a decade.
i like that you explicitly sought for a balance, because this wasn't something that was on my mind when i was first getting into lucid dreaming.
i'd like to get back into lucid dreaming but without the obsession, so i'll definitely now keep alert for possible good cues for my own dreams!
Yeah, that's an important counterpoint. I feel like there's a lot of "gee whiz brain hacks!" energy floating around the Internet that doesn't respect how dark and powerful these activities can be. Meditation gets a similar treatment: There's a reason that so many mystical traditions emphasize guided meditation, under the supervision of a more experienced meditator. Deep meditation by oneself can be risky! Sure, it can also be profound and helpful, but the self-help/self-improvement industry has very little interest in understanding or educating their customers about those risks.
Probably the most interesting side effect of the whole exercise for me was that, as a result of both keeping a dream journal and trying to pay attention to details during my dreams, my dreams became a lot more vivid (and also generally more narrative in flavor), an effect that persisted for several years after the conclusion of my lucid dreaming project. This ultimately felt like a good compromise, because I didn't really need to change my behavior during daylight hours; I just needed to fall asleep with the expectation that I would have vivid dreams.
i really like that last bit!!!
these past couple of years have been when i've REALLY focussed on working with my brain rather than trying to force myself into neurotypical standards (or, more importantly, to the ”“”optimal“”“ way of doing things, which my brain seems to automatically work out — and it won't be until nearly three decades when i realize that ”“”optimal“”“ just doesn't work on meee), and this would definitely apply to how i'll probably approach dreams, too.
a sort of path of least resistance...
a nudge. an intention.
those sorts of things??
and maybe they'll bloom into something that i'd like.
and if not, then nbd.
........and yeah, i never thought about how hard lucid dreaming was capitalized on back when i was getting into it.
the excessive marketing gimmicks that would turn me off now just... didn't seem to bother me at the time.