Thread: Possibly the key to lucid dreaming?

I'll just go ahead and throw my opinion into the mix here.

I've been lucid dreaming for many years now and I've tried out several techniques and methods to improve the amount of lucid dreams I have. The "technique" described in this thread is more or less the method which I've been using for a while now.

The first years of getting into lucid dreaming I basically followed the methods that other users had described as some kind of "ultimate law". If I deviated from the plan laid out by other users by a tiny fraction the attempt would be a sure fail. Sure, I got a few lucid dreams by following the methods like a mindless zombie, but they were scattered and few compared to today.

After a while (and after forgetting about lucid dreaming a few times) something finally clicked. I finally realized that during the course of many years I've been mindlessly following the techniques and findings of others, completely disregarding myself and my own ideas to lucid dream better.

Lucid dreaming and dreaming in general isn't an exact science. You can't just mindlessly use other peoples techniques and expect them to work as well as they do for them. You'll need to figure out something that works perfectly for you and you alone. Not something that works for someone else.

So after a while I began to meditate, try to find something that worked for me, not something that worked for everyone else. After a while I created a method that's almost the same as this one. At first I was a bit skeptical, surely something this easy wasn't going to cut it. But I knew that I needed to throw that kind of skepticism out of the window if I would want to try this method out for real.

The first few days didn't give me any lucid dreams, but I didn't think about that and continued to use my newly found method. After those first few days I had my first lucid dream (with this method) which made my motivation skyrocket. After that day my lucid dreams began to increase in frequency until a point when it stopped increasing. It stopped when I had the ability to lucid dream every single night (at the time I'm writing this I've had lucid dreams daily for 1.5 weeks).

"I've been dreaming for years and I've finally managed to have a few lucid dreams a week and now something this easy comes out and downright throws my efforts into the drain… this can't work in practice!", that is what I expect many seasoned lucid dreamers would think when they see a method like this. It feels like the method comes out of fairyland where everything is great and anyone can become natural lucid dreamers.

Well for me it was like that. This was my fairytale lucid dreaming method. I'm absolutely not a natural lucid dreamer. I'm someone who've had a few scattered lucid dreams in my childhood and after that struggled to make myself have more lucid dreams.

When you think about it, this is probably also how most "natural lucid dreamers" get their constant lucid dreams from. Why would they doubt themselves to have lucid dreams if they always have them? Often they become naturals in an early age, they have a lucid dream and think "Hey that was cool, let's do that every night!", because they don't know that you're "supposed" to struggle with lucid dreaming and because of that they simply don't. They want lucid dreams and lucid dreams is what they get, because why wouldn't they get lucid dreams if they know that it's possible to get lucid dreams? They are completely sure that they are going to get their lucid dreams because why wouldn't they?

I'll also go ahead and give some general pointers to new users that are just starting out with lucid dreaming so they don't fall into the same pitfalls as I did:

• Don't treat failures of others as your failures. If a technique doesn't work for them that doesn't mean that the technique doesn't work for you. Clearly this is something that would be self explanitory, but the ones that fail are often the ones that are loudest in the thread. They also often present valid points that may discourage you to try the technique out.
  
  
• You use the technique to lucid dream, the technique aren't supposed to use you. Don't just mindlessly use the techniques other people have given to you, find ways to improve the techniques to better work for YOU.
  
  
• More knowledge about lucid dreaming isn't always good. Basic knowledge is good, but other than that you should be careful about what you read on the forums. I've created many mental blocks for things that other people have said is hard that isn't hard at all if you just do it without thinking so much about it (logic can often be an enemy in lucid dreams, use logic as little as possible if you want to do things easily). So roam around lucid dreaming forums with cauntion, you don't want to make things harder for you.
  
  
• Don't pressure yourself. A failed lucid dream isn't the end of the world, stop treating it like it is. Pressure was one of my biggest enemies in the earlier years and it's something that you want to get rid off as soon as possible. Take the failed lucid as something to learn from. Why did you fail that night and how could you improve yourself?

Also, don't take my word for it. Figure out what method works best for you (or create your own method), but I think that with time anyone would be able to use this method to have constant (or semi constant) lucid dreams every night.

I'm sorry for the giant wall of text, I usually don't creep out of my lurker nest. But when come out I create walls of text

(Tl;dr for people in a hurry: A method which is basically the same as this one made me have lucid dreams every night and I recommend this method to anyone who wants to lucid dream frequently.)