Fly around or make out with your crush: how to start lucid dreaming
We asked experts to share tips on how to take control of dreams once you realize you’re in it
Usually, we don’t have much say in what we dream about. Our brains churn up images, and we sit back and watch. But it’s possible to take control. You can turn the monster chasing you into a mouse, or fly through the sky like a bird. All it takes is realizing you’re in a dream, mid-dream – otherwise known as lucid dreaming.
Lots of people want to lucid dream. There are online communities devoted to sharing tips and tricks, like the subreddit r/LucidDreaming, which has about 98,000 weekly visitors. Recent discussion topics include “If flying is hard, try giving yourself a Green Lantern ring,” and “Has anyone gone to space in [a lucid dream]?”
“Most people engage in lucid dreaming because it’s fun,” says Dr Martin Dresler, head of the Sleep & Memory Lab at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior in the Netherlands. Dresler estimates that he has lucid dreams every couple of weeks. “Unfortunately not very long ones,” he says. “However, it’s typically long enough to start flying around.”
Below, experts explain how to start lucid dreaming, and my attempts to put their tips in practice.
What is lucid dreaming?
“Lucid dreaming is a phenomenon where we become aware that we are dreaming while we experience a dream,” says Dr Michael Varnum, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University who recently co-authored a paper about lucid dreaming with his nine-year-old daughter, Clara, who told him she wanted to learn more about her own lucid dreams.
Aware of the dream state but unconstrained by the physical limitations of the waking world, those in a lucid dream can fly, breathe underwater, perform superhuman feats of strength – or maybe just make out with their crush.
Can anyone have lucid dreams?
It’s unclear. “Only about half of the population reports ever having had a lucid dream,” says Dresler. It also appears to be easier for some than others. If people start training to have lucid dreams, some might be successful on the first night, while others struggle for months, he says. Some may never experience them.
Some studies suggest it’s more likely in people with certain personality traits. “We found that people who are higher in openness, extraversion, and people who tend to have more nightmares tend to have more lucid dreams,” Clara Varnum wrote in an email.
How do you train yourself to have lucid dreams?
So far, no one has discovered a technique that reliably induces lucid dreaming at will, says Dresler. But certain practices can make it more likely to occur. Most of them boil down to thinking about your dreams more – way more.
“Really get obsessed with your dreams,” says Dr Ken Paller, professor of psychology at Northwestern University. Developing your ability to remember dreams is particularly important, he says, because you could be having lucid dreams and not remembering. To improve your recall, Paller suggests keeping your eyes closed after you first wake up and spending some time trying to remember your last dream. Keeping a dream journal can also help: “Write down your dreams every day,” he says.
Paller recommends cultivating the intention to lucid dream. While you’re awake, think: “The next time I have a dream, I’m going to figure out it’s a dream,” he says.
How do you figure out a dream is a dream? Lucid dreamers report being tipped off by a variety of things. One r/LucidDreaming user said they realized they were dreaming because they had braces. “I thought to myself, ‘wait a second, I don’t have braces anymore, this must be a dream.’”
Research has shown that trying to work a light switch or read a book can be difficult or impossible in a dream so unsuccessfully attempting one of these activities might clue you in, says Michael Varnum.
For those interested in a more tangible technique, a combination of the Wake-Back-to-Bed (WBTB) and Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (Mild) techniques can be effective, says Dr Achilleas Pavlou, assistant professor of psychology and clinical communication skills at the University of Nicosia Medical School in Cyprus.
To prompt WBTB, set your alarm for 1-2 hours before you usually get up. Stay awake for 10-20 minutes, and then go back to bed. Next, use Mild as you’re falling back asleep, says Pavlou: “Vividly replay a dream scene and rehearse becoming lucid inside it while repeating a clear intention such as, ‘Next time I’m dreaming, I’ll notice I’m dreaming.’” Ideally, you would use the dream you were having right before WBTB, but if you can’t remember that, use a dream from another night.
While practice can help beginners improve, Pavlou suggests only practicing these techniques two to three times a week because it can be tiring. “The goal is lucidity without sacrificing sleep,” he says.
What are the benefits of lucid dreaming?
Apart from being fun, the benefits of lucid dreaming aren’t entirely clear. But research suggests it could help scientists develop a greater understanding of sleep and dreams.
Paller was the lead author of a 2021 paper from Northwestern University which found that individuals in the midst of a lucid dream could communicate with (awake) researchers. The dreamers were able to perceive questions asked to them by experimenters and provide simple answers by twitching their eyes or sniffing.
Since then, scientists have been using this method to ask a dreamer questions about what they are experiencing in their dream, says Paller.
This is promising because dream research had previously relied largely on retrospective reports: the dreamer’s waking memory of what they experience during their slumber. But memory is imperfect, especially when it comes to dreams, and these reports are “a lot weaker than if you get evidence of what’s happening at the time of the dream”, says Paller.
Some preliminary studies also suggest lucid dreaming could be used to help individuals who struggle with recurring nightmares by allowing them to exercise greater control over the content of their dreams. One 2019 study concluded that lucid dreaming “may be a feasible aid for treating patients with nightmares through minimizing their frequency, intensity, and psychological distress”. It added, however, that “the available literature is still scarce, and provides inconsistent results”.
Clara Varnum says she has used lucid dreams to help with nightmares. “I’ve had lucid dreams before and most of them were nightmares. So I’ve mostly tried to stop things from happening or to wake myself up,” she says. “But sometimes, I’ve accidentally said, ‘I’m dreaming’ and made a good dream end.”
Are there risks to lucid dreaming?
Experts say lucid dreaming is safe. But those who know they struggle with sleep disorders or parasomnia might want to consult a sleep specialist before trying it, says Michael Varnum.
Additionally, people “in a current psychotic episode, mania, or with severe dissociative symptoms should only experiment under clinical guidance, if at all”, says Pavlou.
What happened when I tried to train myself to lucid dream?
For two weeks, I set an intention every night before bed that I would lucid dream, like Paller recommended. I had several memorable dreams during that time. In one, I was trapped in the tower of a sinking castle while a fat, swimming raccoon tried to open the window and save me. In another, I worked on a submarine, and Academy Award-winning actress Cate Blanchett was killing and dismembering my colleagues. Neither of these preposterous situations made me suspect I was experiencing anything other than reality. But one thing did: I looked at my credit score on the computer and it was extremely low. “What the hell?” I thought. “My credit score is good!”
Then, I realized I was in a dream. At that point, I got up from the computer and flew around for a while. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would feel – I knew I was dreaming, after all.