# Lucid Dreaming > Attaining Lucidity > Lucid Aids >  >  Build Your Own Lucid Dreaming Mask

## PatternJuggler

Build your own lucid dreaming mask 

I can&#39;t vouch for the effectiveness of the device or the accuracy of the instructions, but it&#39;s interesting none the less. I can say that the creator (username natetrue) is an absolute genius. It&#39;s not related to lucid dreaming, but check out the Time Fountain also by him.

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## BPolar

> Build your own lucid dreaming mask 
> 
> I can&#39;t vouch for the effectiveness of the device or the accuracy of the instructions, but it&#39;s interesting none the less. I can say that the creator (username natetrue) is an absolute genius. It&#39;s not related to lucid dreaming, but check out the Time Fountain also by him.
> [/b]





really cool music in the time fountain video&#33;

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## Pyrofan1

i don&#39;t see why it would work

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## The Mad Hatter

> i don&#39;t see why it would work
> [/b]



It flashes the lights X  hours into the sleep cycle, when REM is taking place, and dreaming too. The idea is that the lights flashing in RL filter in to the dream, and you notice that and become lucid. It&#39;s been tested, it works.

Also, I&#39;ve got one ordered, I&#39;ll let you guys know how well it works.

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## FluBB

> It flashes the lights X  hours into the sleep cycle, when REM is taking place, and dreaming too. The idea is that the lights flashing in RL filter in to the dream, and you notice that and become lucid. It&#39;s been tested, it works.
> 
> Also, I&#39;ve got one ordered, I&#39;ll let you guys know how well it works.
> [/b]



sweet i am excited to hear from you.... i hope you will get it by christmas?

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## Pyrofan1

> It flashes the lights X  hours into the sleep cycle, when REM is taking place, and dreaming too. The idea is that the lights flashing in RL filter in to the dream, and you notice that and become lucid. It&#39;s been tested, it works.
> 
> Also, I&#39;ve got one ordered, I&#39;ll let you guys know how well it works.
> [/b]



I mean i don&#39;t see any way of it detecting when you&#39;re dreaming

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## FluBB

> I mean i don&#39;t see any way of it detecting when you&#39;re dreaming
> [/b]



 its quite simple. we dream when our brain we have REM (rapid eye movement) you have many REM periods during that night that happen at certain intervals... you can look it up if you really want to know. but they can time a light to turn on so that when your in REM you can see signs in your dreams that are telling you that your dreaming.

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## Pyrofan1

> its quite simple. we dream when our brain we have REM (rapid eye movement) you have many REM periods during that night that happen at certain intervals... you can look it up if you really want to know. but they can time a light to turn on so that when your in REM you can see signs in your dreams that are telling you that your dreaming.
> [/b]



I mean that the mask doesn&#39;t look like it can detect when your dreaming

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## Likenight

PIC16F627 microcontroller is unneccessarily executive for the sake of this.





> ...or the programmed PIC chip (&#036;10) alone...[/b]



  ::evil::

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## The Mad Hatter

> I mean that the mask doesn&#39;t look like it can detect when your dreaming
> [/b]



It doesn&#39;t, it&#39;s a cheap version. It is set to go off during the sleep cycle later during the night when you&#39;re in REM. Almost everybody&#39;s sleep cycles follow this pattern, and while there are some variations, the later REM periods are so long it doesn&#39;t matter.

I also received the mask today. The guy even included two batteries, what a giver.

I lack a soldering iron at the moment though, and school is being nasty at the moment, so I won&#39;t be able to do anything with it until this weekend. I will get a soldering iron by then, hopefully.

I will certainly let you know how it goes.

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## Seeker

The theory is sound, but who could possibly sleep with that on their face?  It looks really uncomfortable and a little dangerous, lots of objects near your eyes.  I think I&#39;d recommend mounting the whole thing in either a sleep mask or a pair of goggles.

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## zoo york is cool

yeah id rather not.. just me but it looks unsafe. nice find though+

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## The Mad Hatter

I was going to get a sleeping mask, just for aesthetics if nothing else. Also, that foam stuff is really quite comfortable, so I don&#39;t think sleeping will be too much of a problem. The lights can be adjusted, I don&#39;t think its that dangerous personally, but then again I bought it so that&#39;s probably obvious. 

I arranged for my friend to borrow a soldering iron for me. I&#39;ll get it tomorrow, so I should be able to tell you how things go sometime this weekend.

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## The Mad Hatter

Bad News:

I was unable to acquire the soldering iron as I had thought, and so it looks like I&#39;ll have the thing soldered around the end of next week. Those damn soldering irons...

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## FluBB

amen to that.... you should just try to do it fast so i know if its worth it... because i would try all the techniques but a lot of the time i dont have the patience or time. a mask would make things easier.

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## The Mad Hatter

Sigh... This thing is freaking hard to get working... I&#39;ll let you know...

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## FluBB

hmm well im sure it couldnt be easy, it looked pretty complicated, especially since i am horrid at working with my hands.

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## The Mad Hatter

Aha, fixed it, made the rest of it, and I&#39;m going to try it tonight. Stay tuned.

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## Chazzer3

Looking forward to a result&#33;

Charlie -

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## The Mad Hatter

I took the mask off sometime during the night. I don&#39;t remember doing it, but I woke up with it on my bed stand. I&#39;m actually about to take a nap right now, so maybe in a few hours.

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## blackberry829

o_O

I&#39;ve done a few things like that, only I turned off my alarm clock in the middle of the night. (it made it really frustrating, because I was trying to WILD, and I woke up, turned off the alarm clock, and went back to sleep, and I DIDN&#39;T REMEMBER DOING IT AT ALL, and it wasn&#39;t the first time, either)

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## The Mad Hatter

Haha, I&#39;ve done worse than that, I&#39;ve had entire conversations with my mom during the night, without remembering any of it. I even got up and turned my heater off. Of course, I also used to sleepwalk. 

Didn&#39;t fall asleep during the nap, plus I&#39;m not sure of the controls enough yet. I&#39;ll be sure to get it tonight, come hell or high water&#33;

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## FluBB

alright sweet.. im excited for you.

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## The Mad Hatter

Woke up last night, my head hurt where the strap was, adjusted the mask. Woke up again later with the mask in the same place. Took it off. I&#39;m going to have to get around these problems somehow.

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## FluBB

hmmm so far im not too impressed.......

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## The Mad Hatter

Understandably so. But thus far the mask hasn&#39;t even really had a chance to do its stuff.

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## The Mad Hatter

Score one for the Mask&#33;

I had about a ten minute LD at the very end of my sleep cycle. Realized I was dreaming when the dream went blink blink, like white/dream/white/dream. About as obvious as it could be. I had about a ten minute dream overall, with probably about 5 minutes of it lucid. And I was really lucid. The most I have ever been anyways, still not 100% conscious. The thing is, this could be a placebo, becuase when I woke up, the mask was on the side of the bed. I could have taken it off during the dream, or yeah, placebo&#39;d. Either way, I am happy and counting this as a victory for the mask.

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## blackberry829

Hahahahaha. That&#39;s pretty awesome. Congratulations on the lucid dream&#33; : D

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## FluBB

hmm yeah well either way good job, and let us know if you ever have one for sure... like when your mask is on.. haah

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## Jordan

I just built one of these yesterday and tried it out last night.  I had a short lucid dream during the last REM, which is not unusual for me and actually occured with the mask off.

However, with the mask on I did have a series of very vivid, long dreams, some of them quite strange.  And my recall is astounding today.  I remember at least five different dreams distinctly; usually I recall only two or three.

I am confident that with further experiments and a bit of training this device will pay off.  I am planning on combining it with a sound playing program I coded that waits for a duration of time and then plays a sound file of my watch beeping (the hourly alarm I use to remind myself to do reality checks while awake) and my voice saying dream-suggestive things.  I&#39;ll let you know the results.

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## FluBB

how hard is it to make it? i am not very good with my hands but something like this might be worth trying out.

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## sand_worm

Is anyone still interested in this? I have just built one and am currently testing it. Attached are the pics of my handiwork. Don't mock the burnt wires and board  :smiley:  It was my first soldering project! Eventually, I emerged victorious.

As mentioned before, the thing blinks 2x6 times, then waits for 5 hours, intending to blink while you're in REM. Unfortunately, my cat started yowling literally 4:59 into my sleep cycle. MEEEEYOOOOUURRRRLLL! I sat up, and *blink, blink*. Not only did the damnable creature wake me up just before the mask was set to lucidify me, it also dumped the memory of the dream I had been having. 

Oh man, was I steamed. No problem, I thought, it'll blink once an hour until I wake up. I have two more opportunities. WRONG. Some clown on a jackhammer started up right outside my window about half an hour later, effectively ending my sleep cycle for good. 

Now I'm no better than the walking dead, but I will try again tonight and keep you posted.

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## EVIL JOE

Nice work, sand_worm.


I don't have time or the equipment to make one like that, so I was wondering if just a blinking light would work. I could just go to sleep with a blinking light close to my eye and hopefully notice it when I go into REM. What do you guys think?

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## Lord Toaster

And you find it fine to get to sleep with it on your face? I would have thought that the LEDs would dig into your eyelids.

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## sand_worm

Actually it's no problem for sleeping with it on my face. I am used to using the sleeping mask anyway, and you can't even feel the LEDs, because they're not quite touching your eyelids.

Update for last night: If I could just quit getting woken up from external sources, this thing would work great. For the second time in a row, I have noticed one weird behavior though: Sometime during the night, my brain flips out, and I keep thinking I have to turn on the mask, or reconnect some wire, or the solder didn't hold so the wires are all sticking off. Of course this is nonsense, and the mask goes off shortly after, but both nights I've noticed my mind going through this loop. Last night I used it as a reality check, and was able to get lucidity, but my dream was foggy, as if it hadn't developed into a full dream yet. I did notice the flashing later in the early morning as well, but with my girlfriend getting up and going in and out of the bedroom I wasn't dreaming anyway. 

I still have faith in the device though, my sleep schedule has just been unfairly interrupted the last couple of days.  :Sad: 

More updates as I have them! Any questions, I'm watching this thread.

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## sand_worm

*Evil Joe:*  Personally, I don't think I'd be able to sleep with a constantly blinking light, even with the resistors making these LEDs far below their normal brightness, it's quite bright against my eyelid when my eyes are adjusted to the dark. 

It's worth a shot if you can stand it, but if you come back with twitching eyelids and a hunger for human brains, don't say I didn't warn you  :smiley:

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## Hazel

Sounds sort of like the Dream Light. Stephen LaBerge created one after a lot of research, and a lot of people have tried it and have gotten lucid dreams from it.

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## slayer

Well if I was rich and lived alone I would try to buy one. A 10 minutes LD would be great for me! Although I would probably take those 10 minutes trying to find my DG while I should be talking to DCs and interacting more with my dream.

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## EVIL JOE

> *Evil Joe:*  Personally, I don't think I'd be able to sleep with a constantly blinking light, even with the resistors making these LEDs far below their normal brightness, it's quite bright against my eyelid when my eyes are adjusted to the dark. 
> 
> It's worth a shot if you can stand it, but if you come back with twitching eyelids and a hunger for human brains, don't say I didn't warn you



Lol.

Well as soon as I find something around the house with a constantly blinking light, I'll try it out. Maybe I'll just put whatever it is next to my bed, so if I'm facing it, I should be able to see the light.

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## tiddlywink101

Looks like too much trouble to get working

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## MrBungle

not sure if its been posted before but I have the instructions to make the mask at this site: http://www.lucid-dreams.co.uk/toolkit.htm

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## tiddlywink101

Yes you did post it

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## Citizen

It seems like the induction methods work just as well... I mean has _anybody_ got the darn thing to work?

Also kinda seems like training wheels for me... I personally DID use training wheels to learn to ride a bike lol but now i'm just trying to WILD my way straight into a lucid so... if the mask works, though, then cool!

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## lvlln

I've wondered if it might be possible to build one using a USB-powered lamp.  But doing some googling, I can't seem to find any information on software that can control USB-powered lights.  It does seem relatively easy to make one using soldering and powering it through a miniplug, but I've never done anything even remotely like that in my life, and I would have no idea how to start or to make it work.  Do places like RadioShack have any service that does work for you, like how Home Depot can do cutting and stuff for you?

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## sand_worm

The mask I built works like it's supposed to, but it's still too bright, even with reasonably strong resistors keeping the LEDs nice and dim. I'm going to try to dim it down even further so it doesn't wake me up. I'm an uber-light sleeper though, so it might be better for others.

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## dfx

The wires are an absolue bitch to solder!

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## xentagz

I ordered the pre build mask (iam not technical)
I will keep you guys posted on my findings.
 ::banana::

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## dodobird

> I've wondered if it might be possible to build one using a USB-powered lamp. But doing some googling, I can't seem to find any information on software that can control USB-powered lights. It does seem relatively easy to make one using soldering and powering it through a miniplug, but I've never done anything even remotely like that in my life, and I would have no idea how to start or to make it work. Do places like RadioShack have any service that does work for you, like how Home Depot can do cutting and stuff for you?



Brilliant idea to use a USB light! 
I don't know if it's possible to control it with software, but if it _is_ possible, then I can certainly write the software.
After we have the software, all that is needed is to mount the USB light right above your head. The software will flash it using the same principles as the DIY dream mask.

I will try to find out if it's possible to turn USB lights on and off by software.

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## dodobird

Damn, it seems that it's impossible to turn off a USB light by software  :Sad:

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## moe007

> Damn, it seems that it's impossible to turn off a USB light by software



Why is that, there has to be someway. You can write a software that disables the driver for the usb port, therefore disconnecting power. Then re-enable it repeatedly at a set time. It will give the flashing effects.

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## dodobird

> Why is that, there has to be someway. You can write a software that disables the driver for the usb port, therefore disconnecting power. Then re-enable it repeatedly at a set time. It will give the flashing effects.



I wish that would be possible, but all the people I found on the net that tried to tackle this problem, believe that the
USB is directly wired to the power supply of the computer, so the OS has no control over it.

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## Robot_Butler

This USB lamp seems a bit overengineered. You can buy a light timer for around $3.  If you can't find one with the precision you need, just string two of them together with a 1 second offset.  I remember doing something similar for a haloween party or something.

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## jerheimer

i know this is an old thread, but i just bought a kit to build and was wondering how long it took u guys to recieve in the mail.

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## guitarboy

seems like a total waste of money if you ask me. 200 dollars just to realize your dreaming?

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## jerheimer

nah man its only 30 bucks, and im willing to try anything at this point...

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## imj

It will work but you should also condition your mind to do RCs when you see the light go off otherwise you will just know it's the light going off and continue dreaming.

IMJ

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## jerheimer

yes yes i know that... it's going to work great, but all i want to know is how long does the shipping take from the people that have actually bought the kit. it seems that the people that know this have been inactive from this site for awhile. grrr...

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## Cacophony

*Ack - thanks for sharing this!

This sounds a lot like stephen laberges 'nova dreamer.'

Man, I want one. I wish I didn't have to pay rent. Perhaps next month. Hm. Who wants to assemble it for me?*

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## jerheimer

yeah i tried to assemble mine the other day and failed miserably lol. so now im looking at another way to find a damn mask...

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## TeaSea

Continuing in the 'USB Lamp' idea, couldn't you get one of those plug in mains timers, then use a standard lamp in that?  Normally, you get mechanical ones, which only have increments of a minute (each being on or off), but surely there must be premium versions, like digital or something?   Just throwing some more ideas out there, because I really like this thread.

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## Kroy

Regarding the USB idea: You don't turn the power on and off to the port. You use the port to supply a constant 5V to the LEDs and use the data line to toggle the driver chip or transistor supplying ground for the LEDs on and off. Very simple hardwarewise.

Also, soldering is a skill. Unless you get some instruction on technique, you will probably fail.

I'd like to see info on the kit, but the link provided doesn't seem to work anymore.

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## legit

two ideas: 

1)use a microcontroller to turn a bright light on and off at your beside all night
2)create a simple program to flash your screen with bright colors and put the monitor (if its a laptop, or if you have a long wire) at your bedside

still, I don't see why you want to use a computer, the mask itself isn't that hard to assemble if you have even very little technical skill (aside from the soldering)

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## zillac

> two ideas: 
> 
> 1)use a microcontroller to turn a bright light on and off at your beside all night
> 2)create a simple program to flash your screen with bright colors and put the monitor (if its a laptop, or if you have a long wire) at your bedside
> 
> still, I don't see why you want to use a computer, the mask itself isn't that hard to assemble if you have even very little technical skill (aside from the soldering)



because wearing a mask is uncomfortable, and a bed-side light (or computer) can be a good alternative, if this method would work.

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## calysson

> because wearing a mask is uncomfortable, and a bed-side light (or computer) can be a good alternative, if this method would work.



I wish I still had my Nintendo DS, I might have been able to program some flasher software in to it so the DS act's like a stroboscope.

I am really thinking about buying the mask but I'd like to hear from more people who bought it and there experience.
So far, I am not convinced by the posts.

Btw, I google'd Lucid Aid's and came to this forum.
And me loves it. I'll stay here  :smiley:

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## barnes

I built the mask a good while ago, never used it, and broke it in the long run, but just never got t repairing it. I might attempt my own version over USB using a Arduino microcontroller (to dispell the USB discussion up there, an extrernal controller will resolve the issue.) I am able to controlle the brightness of the LEDs in the program, even program it to increase in brightness, then dim, and cycle rather then flashes...more of a light house effect if you will. I'll let everyone know how it goes if I carry though with it!

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## The Mad Hatter

Wow, this thread is old.

In case anybody is still interested in this concept, I bought, used, and blogged about my experiences with the lucid dreaming mask a while back after it came out. They were...less than satisfactory. Because of this, I set about to making a simple digital timer that you wear on your arm that vibrates at set time intervals. I'm testing it tonight. If you're interested in following along, check out:

http://dailydeluge.com/2009/02/02/a-simple-test/

-Hatter

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## DreamQueen

Sounds interesting. I look forward to hearing how it goes. I suspect if I used it I'd just wake up though coz I'm a pretty light sleeper. Plus, millions of years of evolution has naturally selected brains that wake up when something touches them over brains that don't!

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## Modjulator

I actually saw a movie in my Psychology class where they had one of these masks, and were demonstrating how they could make people have lucid dreams. It looked very interesting, enough so that I would be interested in looking into one. Anyways, interesting concept.


-Modj

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