My name is Jason. Lucid dreams were for a long time just something I assumed I just didn’t do. I have been practicing meditation for 30+ years, but not very seriously (not my core practice). I was studying dreamwork on a psychotherapy course and the subject of lucid dreams came up and I suddenly realised a dream I’d had about 3 weeks before was lucid, or to be precise pre-lucid (simply that I became aware in the dream that I was dreaming). Since then I have been wanting to replicate the experience intentionally, but have not succeeded so far. I have tried several techniques, herbs/supplements, external prompts, hypnosis etc. I am determined to have my second lucid dream and establish a regular practice. What are the best ways to have my second lucid dream?
Hi there!
I find having the intention (said in my mind or aloud) that I wish to have a lucid dream tonight helps me achieve more lucidity in dreams.
Have your read Andrew Holecek’s Dream Yoga and Dreams of Light books? They are excellent with various practices to help achieve lucidity. I’ve experimented with several and found them helpful. But I still believe it all boils down to prepping your mind with intention in having them and this helps. My fingers are crossed you get to experience another one soon!
Hey Jason!
The path toward lucidity must be a personal one so anything that I or others offer will only be a menu of sorts. One thing that I have found, though is that it is a good idea to find a methodology that you are comfortable with and stick with it for a while to allow it to take hold rather than jump around from technique to technique.
When I was first grinding hard on achieving repeatable lucidity I found that the more sensory based protocols of SSILD (Senses Initiated Lucid Dreaming) worked best for me. That stood me in good stead as I made the subtle transition from lucid dreaming to dream yoga as dream yoga is often considered to be subsumed under the Yoga of Illusory Body.
Here is the official SSILD tutorial. The WBTB (Wake and Back to Bed) part of the protocol is, for me, crucial to its success.
Hi Jason,
Congratulations on having you’re first lucid dream!
I am a beginner as well. My advise would be not to focus to hard on the result of having a second lucid dream. Try different techniques, read books about lucid dreaming listen to podcast to raise you’re interest and to keep the inspiration high. Enjoy the process and practise patience.
For me the WBTB technique combined with meditation and MILD work quite often. However last week I tried the WBTB technique 4 times in a row without a lucid dream. The next evening I was tired and said to my self tonight I’ll just sleep and not practise lucid dreaming, that night I had a wonderfull lucid dream :-).
Good luck!
One other important point that may help…it is very important to work on this during the day as well as during the night.
Work on seeing all things as dream like in nature during the day. Some say to ask yourself as often as possible if this is a dream. I go all the way and tell myself that…“this is a dream”.
Lama Je Tsongkhapa has this to say in his discussion of dream yoga:
In this way during the daytime one generates strong instincts through
application of resolution. These must be aroused during the dream state and
used to induce a clear awareness in dreams. To accomplish this, one must
practice during the daytime
Thanks guys, lots of good ideas. One thing that trips me up I think is that whenever I make a strong intention to lucid dream, my mind becomes overstimulated and I tend to find it difficult to get to sleep. I know Andrew has said that good hygiene is important, but I’m not a great sleeper anyway, and when the intention is strong to lucid dream it goes out the window.
For a classic perspective on dream yoga check out pages 182 to 188 of this manuscript. This approach is not for everyone but it has been my general path for a couple of years. I offer this up because he addresses sleep problems as they pertain to the ability to dream well on page 186.
@quakeyjase Besides all the excellent and potent advices already given, remember that it is essential to … R E L A X.
You need to let the lucid dream come to you.
It’s not an energy like a hunter being on the look-out for prey to appear at the edge of the forest. This will only keep you alert and awake.
More like a peacefully, awake meditator sitting on a meadow, focused alertly and relaxed on his/her focus of meditation. And then, all of a sudden a butterfly (the dream) appears in the periphery. You give it your attention but not lose yourself completely in the display.
Have fun!
This thread has made me realize that another very important thing to address in our quest for lucidity in the dream is the question of…why?
Why are we driven like this to be consciously aware in our dreams? I think this is a very personal question.
The easy answer for me is “because we suffer,” but maybe that’s only me?
Ture, Barry, but that is too easy of an answer for me.
In what way will our increased level of dream lucidity make that happen? I thought about this a lot last night while pondering a dream during a WBTB. At this point in my life I’m pretty good with my understanding of conventional reality. Now, conscious dreaming is helping me to better understand ultimate truth and reality.
For me the dream state is a powerful tool. In it we can learn who we truly are as a person and even as a people.
Perhaps we can even learn better how to change…both.
I’m aware of chakras and so forth, but I’m not a Buddhist and this stuff isn’t really part of my belief system, and consequently not very real for me.
I’m not a Buddhist either. But I have found that these dream yoga protocols really work.
Since I transitioned from the purely Western approach to lucid dreaming (MILD, WILD, SSILD, etc.) and began to sincerely practice this chakra/vase breathing approach my dream lucidity has become steady, vivid and very rewarding.
I must admit that I don’t have a belief system. I go, instead, with sensory experiences…some of which are admittedly transrational in nature. 
It’s very real for me. 
Chakras, channels and prana are very subtle but can be clearly experienced when one directs one‘s attention on them. Belief plays here no role.
This came up in tonight’s hypnopompic phase:
In order to understand the nature of reification and transcend the habit of reifying.
Reification defines and limits us.
Hmmmmm…Tsongkhapa comes back to this aspect of conventional reality time and time again in his “Book of Three Inspirations” as he presents the relationship between form and emptiness as being the same as that between conventional and ultimate reality. To truly understand this nondual relationship we must learn to live and function in both realities…the waking state and the dream state…as they are reciprocal in nature.
Although all things lack even the smallest speck of true existence, nonetheless
conventionally the laws of causes and conditions operate through them, and
conventionally all the phenomena in samsara and nirvana seem to exist, arising
in the same manner as do illusions, dreams and a reflected image.
In the dark before dawn this morning I have pondered…again…how my dreams feel as real as my waking experiences, even as I recognize them as being illusory in nature. The principle of reciprocity then tells me that my waking state images must also be illusory in nature.
For me this is the true value of lucid dreaming/dream yoga. 
E ma ho! Tsongkapha, chenno!
Wisdom words of a realized master.
Allow me to highlight one aspect:
Tsongkapha mentions specifically the word „conventionally“.
What does it mean? Does it not mean, that to live conventionally and to perceive the world conventionally, is to reify?
Yes, if one reifies the „awful job“ or the „despicable neighbor“ then they exist, but only conventionally, not ultimately.
So I understand Tsongkapha: ultimately the „despicable neighbor“ does not exist, but at the same time, if one reifies him/her, the neighbor exists conventionally (by reification).
I believe that it does mean that.
I would clarify that by pointing out that the “despicable neighbor” does not exist as such in the ultimate sense because he has no inherent true self nature. In that perspective he is empty…even though he still exists. We need to take care that we don’t drift from the middle way and into a nihilistic perspective right? He only becomes the “despicable neighbor” when he is reified (or conditioned) as such in the conventional sense.
For me, the important takeaway is that both conventional (form) and ultimate (empty) perspectives are required if we are to remain in the middle way. In his book “Emptiness”, Guy Armstrong says that, “Ultimate truth cannot be pointed to without using conventional language.” He goes on to quote Nagarjuna:
The Dharma taught by the Buddha relies on two truths:
The conventional truths of the world and the ultimate truth.
Those who do not understand how they differ
Do not understand the profound teaching of the Buddha.
Without using conventional truth, the ultimate truth cannot be disclosed
I apologize to you @quakeyjase for hijacking your thread like this, but these kinds of discussions come up a lot when we start to dive deeper into the world of dream yoga. Remember that dream yoga was being taught by these lamas that we are quoting a couple of thousand years ago and it is from dream yoga protocols that the techniques of lucid dreaming were formulated.
I moved the side-bar here:
Re: hijacking the thread, no problem at all. It’s all good. But if I don’t experience an awareness of chakras and there is no repeatable lab experiment I can do to measure them, then they do kind of have to be part of a belief system as far as I’m concerned. I have every respect for dream yoga lamas, but belief systems don’t automatically become true just because they are a couple of thousand years old.