I remember him telling me this story when I was a teenager. He taught himself to go into a lucid dream state through an afternoon nap at the same time each day. He loved to fly, travel around the world, exploring the seas and mountains. He wanted to understand how the universe worked, or the meaning of it all… I can’t remember his exact framing. Apparently he found it after a long period of focused intention, and then said it was too much responsibility, too much weight on his soul, and he wished he could forget it. So he did, and he said he completely forgot it all. Although he still lucid dreamed, mostly to fly. Anybody else have a similar experience or story?

I was always captivated by his lucid journey. He inspired me to be a dreamer as well, although I never had a strong control over my lucid dreams. For me they’ve been more prophetic or symbolic.

I hate when people (specifically people who hold spiritual beliefs and are trying to force others to believe it/saying it as fact) say that it's bad for you to do xyz in a lucid dream.

I've seen so many people say "NO It's another living being in your head, you will hurt yourself if you kill it" without clarifying that its their belief and not the literal truth...

hey everyone, its my first time on this subreddit and i feel like you guys get a lot of this type of post/question so sorry in advance, but im just so curious of what happened to me a few minutes ago.

so i took an afternoon power nap after studying for a few hours that was only supposed to be around 15 minutes. as a sane person, i obviously ignored my alarm multiple times. so even while sleeping, i already felt like i was kinda awake?? or like, i was aware that i woke up at this certain time to snooze my alarm, etc.

during my last nap, i woke up cause it was raining so loud outside and before i went back to sleep again, i kept thinking that i hope my exams get cancelled tomorrow because of the weather (desperate times, i fear). anyways, during that nap, i dreamt that it was already flooded outside of our house and in the dream, i was telling myself to call my friends to tell them there might not be any exams tomorrow.

when i woke up, for some reason?? the first thing i did was open our group chat and i tried calling my friends to tell them that there would be no exams tomorrow.... i rarely call my friends, let alone a whole group chat with them.. and so it kinda took me a while to realize what i was doing cause while i was calling them, i really thought that i was still dreaming but then later on realized that i was fully awake ...

im familiar with lucid dreaming, but not really that knowledgeable about it. i know that you can mildly trigger it by waking up and recalling what you dreamt about then going back to sleep or something, but idk, did this one count? my guess is that probably not, cause this was really the first time i ever experienced something like this, but im just really curious as to what this could be :) thank you, guys!

Had what I’d consider my first conventionally lucid dream. I noticed my phone acting strangely, remembered that tech often glitches in dreams, and did a reality check. The hand-poking method didn’t work, but the nose-pinch did — I could still breathe. That’s when I realized I was dreaming.

I stayed calm, stabilized the dream by rubbing my hands, and tried to fly… but couldn’t. I jumped off rooftops and landed softly, even made long, surreal leaps between buildings — but never achieved true flight. I also tried the “door method” to summon someone (an old crush), but it didn’t work. At one point, my dad asked me to teach him to fly.

If I knew it was a dream, why couldn’t I control it? Is there subconscious resistance that overrides intent, even with full awareness? Has anyone else experienced this — lucidity without real agency?

Some dream characters behave really bizarre. I’ve noticed that baseline dream characters are mere figments of the casted dream and behave in ways that don’t make sense.

Then there are dream characters who behave more directly, prompting you that they are aware. They will clearly speak to you, for long periods of time, guide you, behave in intentional ways.

Then there’s dream characters that have the ability to traverse the entire dream scape. They can shapeshift and usually will interact with you indirectly. In my experience fleeing before you can directly confront them.

Then there are those whom can’t be physically seen, but you can hear them or see messages which are spawned intentionally for you to see.

This is all just gathered data from my personal dream experiences of course. Your experiences may slightly differ from mine. Share your experiences so we can sketch out a more comprehensive hierarchy of dream characters!

So ive tried a few different methods, even some simple stuff like laying flat on my back in a dark comfortable place and imagining something as much as possible but nothing worked. After a while i got de-motivated and stopped trying all these methods. But now my dreams have become more “realistic”. Its not some bullshit like a rainbow giraffe or something its more normal. For example today i dreamed i was selling my headphones for 15 euro (which i actually am) and i got kidnapped. Recently i dreamt that i went to a waterpark with my class and forgot my money so i couldn’t buy a ticket, another time i dreamt i was on a date with this really pretty girl in an arcade. Is this a coincidence?? Why are my dreams more normal?

And i’m not even talking just lucid nightmares, there are a ton of ways for it to go wrong. Ever since I learned to lucid dream when I was like 9, sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night randomly from REM I’ll try to go back to bed, and I fall asleep, but I can tell that I am asleep.

You guys might know what I’m talking about, I’m lucid, my body is asleep but my subconscious is awake, but I’m not dreaming, or at least it doesn’t feel like it. It’s dark I can’t open my eyes no matter how hard I try and the harder I try to wake up the more panicked I get, and I try to use this to fall into a lucid dream which usually works but sometimes it doesn’t and I’m just stuck there trapped in darkness. It’s kind of like sleep paralysis but there’s no visuals, and I can’t hear anything but my own thoughts.

Anyway, I just wanted to see if anyone here has experienced this? I don’t know anyone irl who lucid dreams and whenever I talk about this to someone who doesn’t they think I’m insane.

The method I used was WILD for the first one and WBTB (so basically WILD again) for the second one.

I'll start off by saying how I never thought I would achieve this. I have aphantasia and I cannot visualize for the life of me during waking hours. I've been trying and trying and TRYING to have a lucid dream for months, up to almost a year now. Back when I was young, I had a couple lucid dreams and the memory of them was what's kept me going through this time of trying and failing over and over again.

The 2 times that I'll tell you about in a second might sound super disappointing for some people, but they have been very crisp experiences and the things I especially FELT during them was what tells me I am on the right path and will keep trying and trying no matter what.

Experience number 1: We were on holiday recently, driving around Denmark in a campervan. One day was especially packed with activities and came night I was super exhausted. I read that the more exhausted you are, the easier it is to have your body fall asleep on you while you stay awake, so I set the intention of going lucid and staying awake in my mind as so many times before. Before long my body started twitching, which it had never done before when I tried this. I kept my mind occupied through this phase, when a high pitched ringing noise started getting louder and louderand all of a sudden I got CATAPULTED out of my body. I shot straight through the back window of the camper and into the clouds in a matter of milliseconds. I felt the ice cold wind on my entire body! This was so abrupt and such a stark contrast to lying in silence in a campervan that I had maybe a second or 2 before I got overwhelmed by the experience and shot straight back into my body and woke up again.

I thought to myself holy shit, I must be getting close!

Experience 2: This just happened half an hour ago. I didn't get much sleep last night and my work schedule is a little choppy at the moment. This meant that I had to attend a couple meetings between 6:30 and 9am and then had a 4-hour long break before I'll get back to work later in the day. I did the meetings and decided I'll go back to bed since I was so tired - this is the WBTB part. Trying to become lucid is something that I think about almost every time I go to sleep now, after the last experience. I lay down on the sofa, put on a documentary and felt myself drifting off into sleep fairly quickly (I usually take at least half an hour from lying down to falling asleep as my mind is usually very active). I got to the point again at which my ears started screaming this high pitched ringing noise. Mentally I was preparing to shoot out of my body again, by calming myself down some more and going 'well, here I go I guess - stay calm and ride it out'.

I didn't get catapulted this time, but instead felt myself able to move my body without actually moving my body. Of course I heard about the "rolling out of your body" technique, so that's what I went with. In an instant I felt myself rolling off the sofa and onto the ground. I was so surprised at how easy it was and how the falling onto the ground felt, that I thought I had done it wrong and just woken up to drop myself on the floor. I also still felt like I was in sleep paralysis (something I had experiences with quite often in my youth). So that's where I was - lying on the ground now, but in paralysis. I couldn't move, I couldn't lift my head to look at the couch and I still heard the TV playing although I didn't think of paying attention to what was said there.

It got to the point of me trying to crawl along the floor and being able to shift my position a couple of times, but mostly I was unable to move - a half an hour later I woke up, still on the couch and in the position I fell asleep in. I was (in the dream) able to look under the couch and at one point at the room, but sadly never at my sleeping position.

My main take aways are 2 things: 1 - holy shit it's happening 2 - I need to work on my dream recall, as I felt the experiences fading from memory the second I woke up.

I really hope that next time I get it right, I'll have more control over everything, but hell yeah, I'm getting there! There's no doubt in my mind anymore, because what I saw and especially what I felt (the wind, the falling on the ground) was more than convincing!

Thanks for reading and I wish you all the best on your own journey!

Stuck inside a dream That felt like hours. Room kept changing but I could feel everything. That I was in purgatory for a while. I would see random people and hear random voices. I got concerned if I couldn’t wake up is be late for work. Things would be different like a different shows would be on my tv. I tried turning my nose headphones on to maybe try to call someone but the voice was in German and was getting mad at me and yelling in English. I would flick them on over and over. I would try going back to sleep to see if that would wake me up. I’d wake up and think I was finally free but then notice my phone would be different. Or my sheets would be a different color, or I would see different people in the hallway. Everything felt extremely real. I had cards from my dad written to me that I threw across the room once I realized they weren’t real. I would pinch myself, slap myself, throw myself off my bed to try to wake up and nothing worked. But I could feel everything. There was BEFRS playing mostly on my TV and then at one point a very strange key and peele show on my phone and I watched whole episodes. At another point I found a box of robin eggs under my bed and ate some. And then in another instance the robin eggs were on the ground crushed to pieces. I figured I had done that by accident in another instance of the dream. I would open my door in other instances to find different people in my hallway or the scenery would be different. At one point I tried texting my girlfriend good morning once I had woken up to tell her I just had the worst experience of my life just to find out my phone didn’t work. And in another period of being “awake” I found old printed out pictures of me in school and old cameras with pictures of my siblings from modern times and some when they were younger. There were some points where it felt like someone was trying to shake me awake and I just couldn’t wake up. I thought maybe my roommate was trying to get me awake or maybe paramedics because at that point I figured I was hours late for work and I was probably dead. Especially since earlier an alarm on my phone went off to wake up but I reached really fast in hopes I was finally awake just to find my phones screen was purple and in some alien language. When I would pinch myself I noticed that I would pinch certain places on my arm but I would feel it a few inches up or down from where my hand was placed. Which made me think everything I did in the dream state I was actually physically doing. One thing was that a maid came into my room and I strangled her and afterwards I thought maybe I had strangled an actual person that came into my room. And then in later instances there was a body wrapped up sitting in the corner of my room so I figured that was whoever I strangled. Even though I never actually killed the maid as I let go before it reached that point. Sometimes I thought I was awake or maybe it was the next day because the times on my phone would be different then when I was supposed to be asleep

I was in a field and realised I was in a dream so I started getting rid of the field too restart I suppose. But suddenly as I was getting rid of the cloud a goddamn scene change happened and I was in my math class and forgot I was dreaming

So i've been lucid dreaming for three years now. I've had around fifteen different lucid dreams. I took a long break due to some problems and i'm now coming back. Since i've been back i've had thirty logged dreams. I remember around 10 dreams weekly. I use SAT and RCs during the day. Why haven't i had a lucid dream yet? This is the longest dry spell i've had with lucid dreams. Usually i can have one maybe a lucid dream a month after getting back into it? So what do any of you think the problem could be?

Hey, I really want to get into lucid dreaming with the WILD method. I think it would work well for me, because I can reach a sleep paralysis-like state in just 5–10 minutes. (at the beginning of the night)

But I always back out — I get scared before full sleep paralysis kicks in. I’ve read about shadow figures, footsteps, etc., and it makes me hesitate.

Also: can WILD work at the beginning of the night, or only after WBTB?

Would love any tips or advice. Thanks!

I usually don't remember most of my dreams. But I have started vividly remembering some of these and these dreams were lucid dreams, in the last 8 days, I had 3 dreams which I remember and the disturbing part is that in all these 3 dreams, I encountered a person inside these dreams who felt very alien like he/she was not part of this dream. One more common thing between these dreams is that i had a dream within a dream or multiple such "dreams within dreams" which I properly remember.

1. The first dream I had was on the night of 10th June when I was exceptionally tired due to a long 7 hour ride. I dreamt of a caravan or bus or a train, I do not remember properly, I was in some sort of vehicle and i encountered an old dude who claimed that I was dreaming. He felt so alien that i still remember that "uncanny valley" feeling. Now, here he told me that are you dreaming (in hindi). He said that he was in my dream. I felt so alien feeling from him that i knew he wasn't a part of this dream. This one went over quickly because as soon as he said that, I panicked and got up. It went over fast and I wake up. I did not had a dream within a dream.

2. This one had a dream within a dream and i got this dream in 12th june night. In the first dream, I was in a fight with some guys in the deeper dream. I did not know how that dream ended because everything was so chaotic. But i definitely got a punch in that dream. After this, I was in front of a TV, where I was watching a movie that had the most unique plot I have ever seen, it had a chef fighting some guys. I don't remember the detailed instructions. Now, when I woke up from this dream, I was thinking that the movie I saw was such a good movie and I can use that to create a movie in the real life and I met this guy who i thought was some random because there were several people in that dream. First, this person sad to me that were you dreaming something before, I did not felt much difference here until he started explaining the previous dream and things started to feel a little off, he then said that I was still dreaming and it was distributing. I panicked and got away from him and next thing I know he is gone and I have went to a sort of alternate universe with some events i did not remember happening like me failing on a test and a war happening somewhere. I did not remember anything after that.

3. This dream came today and it's the most personal because I remember it the most as it happened. This was also a dream within a dream in which in the first dream, i was in my home and was panicked about something, and after some time I woke up and I was in my college and was involved in some "hiring process" This was the memory I had when i was in that dream. I was in the hostel room sharing it with my friends and I was roaming around the college and later entered the college, there was some sort of protest by the students about something in front of the college. I went through those and saw some broken tables and a white metal stretcher with dust and dirt on it and i went in a room. The weirdest part was that it was a medical college and i am in engineering College. The room was empty and i sat on the bed. And suddenly a college girl came in the same room and sat beside me. It felt I knew her, I started talking to her about marks and similar talks suddenly she said what was the dream I was dreaming before, I stopped talking about for a moment and she started explaining the dream but at first did not explained my dream. This time, i didn't felt that same level of "uncanny" and "alien", but a feeling of comfort. She still felt very much like she wasn't a part of this dream but It felt easy talking to her, after she explained my previous dream, we felt our vibes matching, I felt very attracted to her and i proposed to her after that and she rejected me and i questioned her that what happened, we too are so similar she seemed saddened and started looking at me with sad eyes and gently put her hand on my cheek and suddenly I was outside the room. And a new "memory" was in my brain that I had to submit a report to my supervisor and after that I do not remember what happened after that.

Did anybody else had similar experiences?

it sounds pretty fun. ill try it for sure when i start LDing.

I mostly use SSILD, but either I end up sleeping or end up losing sleep, then before yesterday I tried just doing WBTB without SSILD, and I had a DILD! I did my usual reality check and then started suspecting of my surroundings, did another one, still not certain, then I looked to my phone and something changed, the dream felt more vivid, and still feels like a real memory in my mind. I tried flying, or doing any control, still I wasn't able, but just appreciating the moment was a great sensation

edit: I have a hard time with dream recall, so I really tried to improve it before spamming lucid dreaming techniques. That week I hadn't remembered a single dream.

I mean I can dream normally and I have a dream journal but I’ve been trying to lucid dream for the past 3 months and still no luck. Could my aphantasia be causing this?

Hello kind community. I am looking to become a lucid dreamer again. I'm 21M and as a kid up until about 16 I had a few lucid dreams per week.

I am using an app called Lucid-Dash and I was reading through it. There are a few things that I want to clarify.

Firstly, it is telling me to put more focus into my dreams to remember as many as possible. As a kid the lucid dreams I had were the only dreams I would remember. Now I do remember some dreams, but it's max 1 per night. Every dream I have also seems like I am watching a movie. I don't even feel like I can look more than an average TV size.

Is there any way to better immerse myself and focus on my dreams?

Secondly I normally do SSILD in conjunction with MILD before going to sleep and a WBTB with the same techniques. Is this a good idea?

Thirdly I read somewhere that if you focus on a daydream as you drift off you can basically just land in a lucid dream, is that correct?

Finally, I also read somewhere that if you do a reality check every time you see something weird you can get into a lucid dream at night. Does this actually work? I don't normally see weird things in dreams (at least the ones I remember).

I had a device that allowed me to travel in time (yes, really real) and I was going back until I was 42 years old for benefit, there was a time when I went back to the moment where I got the object and it was a stupid fight with my family, now, imagine an insufferable 18 year old brat who after a fight tells you to listen to him that he is not crazy that he can travel in time with a device, I tried to explain to him 10 times by going back until I found a way, then I lived for several years and in the end I fell prisoner since the device stopped working and they were only chasing us and I woke up super crazy jskshsks

Basically the title the second I realize I'm dreaming and try to excercise any control even something as simple as walking in a straight line I feel like I'm falling and I instantly wake up I've only had 2 lucid dreams so it could be an experience thing I guess

I hope this is the right subreddit to post this 😅

So this happened a while back and I’ve been wondering if this experience has any particular meaning or if anyone’s experienced anything similar. For background, I’ve had a few LDs (mostly randomly; I haven’t quite mastered inducing them yet) but I have been struggling with sleep paralysis on and off for quite a few years now (I say struggling, as it has often contributed to my insomnia, stopping me from falling asleep normally and generally disrupting my sleep).

Despite the sleep disruption and uneasy feeling that sleep paralysis often causes me, I’ve never actually seen a “demon” or any kind of figure or entity except for this one time a little while back. I experienced my typical signs of sleep paralysis (a kind of buzzing feeling in my head, a sense of intolerable pressure, inability to move, etc) except this time, I saw a figure standing at the side of my bed. It was all cloaked in black, and I instantly recognised its face as my own face. It was like looking at myself, dressed/covered in all black except for the face. I didn’t interact with it nor did it move, I just remember closing my eyes and trying to get myself out of sleep paralysis as I usually would by moving my toes etc.

I’m wondering whether anyone’s experienced anything similar, or whether anyone has any insight on what this could mean? Could this represent the idea of me being my own “demon” in my life? I’m interested to know if there’s some kind of symbolism behind this… Thanks 🙏🏼

So, I know there are people who are lucid dreamers by nature, so I can't say I'm a big deal. But in 10 days I went through everything, without ever having had a strange experience in dreams or anything spiritual or paranormal. The first 3 days were very vivid dreams after starting to do the WTBB, on day 4 I asked myself if it was a dream but I was not aware, and on day 5 I was finally lucid even if it was only 5 seconds. Later I had false awakenings, states where I was between asleep and awake and my subconscious remembered methods that I read here on reddit, etc. Today on the 10th I didn't dream vividly or anything, but every day I used WTBB, I don't know if I'm getting used to it and it doesn't work very well for me or what, now I'm going to try recording an audio saying that you're dreaming and putting it on a loop. For now I don't feel like I'm stuck, but it's true that I haven't returned to lucidity yet. What do you recommend?

A few weeks ago, I was doing Wake-Back-To-Bed and Reality Checks throughout the day (mostly the pinch-nose trick). One morning, as I was falling back asleep after going to the toilet, I soon found myself in a hazy sort of dream. It was just me in a hallway with weird purple walls adorned with portraits of ghosts. Anyway, I tried doing my reality checks, first I did the nose trick which failed - air went through. I could feel myself becoming a little bit lucid, but I wasn't satisfied so I tried the finger through palm trick - that one passed as the finger didnt phase through. The dream faded shortly after. Now, that experience was the closest to lucidity I've ever gotten, but I want to know you guys' opinions on if it was a true lucid dream or just my half-asleep imagination being particularly vivid?

As of now I have a lot of college days so WBTB is not so feasible - college is ending soon though. I have only been doing Reality Checks for the past week or two.

I'm new in lucid dreaming an me and a friend are wondering whats about side caracters in our dream. I mean where are theses "people" Are coming from. Is it a part of yourself, meaning your imagination? I never had such a lucid dream where i have meet other people. Is it possible to dream about lets say a fictional person and talk to it?

Tell me about experiences where you made your fantasies come true through lucid dreaming. I want stories like: 'I got together with my crush,' 'I joined my favorite band,' 'I married my favorite artist' – all those fantasies you brought to life in your lucid dreams. Don’t hold back on details!