I spent some time in college thinking about/wanting to lucid dream. The techniques that I came to use were using a digital watch that I looked at frequently, and making a habit of turning on and off lights.
The idea is that in a dream, looking at a watch won't reveal a time; and turning off a light switch won't turn off the light. So you train yourself to do these things habitually with the idea that eventually you will do it in your dream, and have the knowledge that when something funny happens, you will know you are dreaming.
I was also advised to have in mind the things I wanted to do when I became lucid. I wanted to fly. So with that in mind, I got a cheap digital watch and started flickign on and off light switches.
It was a couple weeks later when I had my first lucid dream; I looked at my watch while at some type of fair; and noticed it was weird looking; which gave me this sort of poof aha moment where I realized I was in a dream. Then I remembered I wanted to fly, so I made myself "fly" which this particular time ended up being me going straight up like I was on a very fast space elevator.
I had my second, much nicer only a couple nights later.
Since then I stopped putting any effort into it, but I have been a lucid dreamer pretty often ever since.
Very few of my dreams do I conciously take control, but the vast majority of them I am what I have come to call/think of as 'semi-lucid'. That is, part of the story line of the dream is that I am dreaming, it's essentially built into the plot, but I am still just a passive observer.
The most common exception to this is when I want to wake up from a dream because I have gotten myself into a shotty situation, so I will climb to the top of a building and jump off or do something else drastic to wake myself up.
Recently, I have had more and more double-layer dreams, or inception-esque dreams. Where I wake up from a dream, always semi-lucid, usually by my own will as I described above; only to go about being in another dream still.
Usually when truly wake from these I feel similar to how I do after coming out of a long meditation session. Uber uber focused; like my brain is on super drive and reality is crystal clear.
Anyway, I recommend learning to lucid dream to everyone. Especially with apps as it probably makes it even easier for the right people; but I had plenty of luck like I said by just checking my wrist watch.
The only true benefit other than the 'fun' factor is that I basically never have nightmares; as anything that is scary/bad is always met with a sense of lightness or calm, since my dream character knows he is dreaming.
I used to have nightmares. I had died from falling, been injected with deadly painful poison, been shot up by various kinds of projectiles, or simply kept running. I built up a certain confidence in my waking life and my dream life where, rather than run from or be taken out by the enemy, I eagerly hunted them instead when they manifested. I tackle problems head-on and face danger boldly. In the dreamworld, in spite of the initial spark of fear, it is enough that I suddenly start doing the extraordinary, be it shrugging off bullets and lasers, becoming immune to poison, or sending out waves of power to overcome my foes. I once stopped an elevator from crashing on the ground while I was in it (that situation required a replay because something in me did not like how it ended when I started to escape to the waking world). After the first time I turned a situation around, it became easier. In a way, you could compare my attitude/behavior change to the light switch and watch check; it just became a part of my psyche to defy the darkness. I do not bother to actively control the dream, though: I just respond in kind to the events and take as much control as I need in order to succeed. Once success is met, the dream usually changes, and I am adrift again. "Well, we didn't get him this time..."
I've only had one or two fully lucid dreams. In one I realised I was dreaming, I could not get myself to wake up. I was then convinced I should kill myself to wake up, but could not fully determine if I was sleeping or not, so why take the risk?
Unfortunately, clocks and text seem to work in my dreams. Another reality check is covering your mouth and nose and trying to breathe. Supposedly, this is a good test as in a dream you'll keep breathing. Plus, it's unobtrusive, unlike turning lights on and off at offices and other people's houses.
For me, the best unobtrusive reality-check, by far, has been checking gravity. Just by quickly changing my weight in a chair or rolling up a bit on the balls of my feet, I can see if my weight is there or I start to float a bit.
Checking global light level control (light switches) is, like you say, not unobtrusive. But I've tested, with moderate success, using more subtle lighting features. Window blinds, for example, typically have far more subtle shades of light and shadowing than gets rendered in my dream worlds. Paying a few seconds of focused attention to a window or lamp shade doesn't stand out in most social situations.
Can you only have a lucid dream only if you were dreaming in the first place? I only infrequently dream - like once a month. When I do dream it's usually something really boring, like watching the water bucket (with a beach ball inside) in a well going up and down - and if I do realise I'm in a dream, I immediately wake, but paralysed for like half a minute... no chance to do any lucid dreaming. :(
I am feeling a lot of envy reading about everyone's experiences in lucid dreaming. :(
You dream every night (several times, actually) in REM, you just only remember it once a month. If you journal the times that you do remember your dreams, it could help you remember more. You can also still use the various tricks to "check" if you're dreaming and achieve lucidity in a dream that would have otherwise been forgotten
I'm the same, without having to do anything. Normally, if I don't like where things are going, I jump back in time and do them differently.
But there is another kind of nightmare - those where the things I can find in my mind are.. let's say.. not what I normally perceive myself to be. And I can't say 'It's just a dream', because I'm at least partly concious imagining it, which means it's a part of me.. and you can't wake up from this kind of fact.
This mirrors my typical experience with lucid dreaming, it's more exciting to relax whatever control I have and be entertained (or disturbed). A lot of lucid dreamers report flying, that's so boring compared to the rest! Time control of the situation I'm imagining and experimenting with multiple paths concurrently ranks higher on the fun list than flying for me.
Don't be too disturbed by the weird imaginings. If they're particularly weird you could probably write a modestly successful Bizarro genre story. (In my favorites is http://www.amazon.com/Ass-Goblins-Auschwitz-Cameron-Pierce/d... which may be banned in Germany.)
A quote: "We don't have thoughts, we are thoughts. Thoughts are not responsible for the machinery that happens to think them." --John K Clark.
About the banning, I reckon it would be ok, although considered extremely bad taste. I can't imagine a publisher taking the risk. However, it's forbidden to use the swastika at all, in any context (1), so the image on the title page would have to be changed. The book is also not shown in the German Amazon search. (Yes, I'm German.) Sounds very interesting though!
(1)(there have been left groups with emblems with a crossed-out swastika having problems in court for this)
The idea is that in a dream, looking at a watch won't reveal a time; and turning off a light switch won't turn off the light. So you train yourself to do these things habitually with the idea that eventually you will do it in your dream, and have the knowledge that when something funny happens, you will know you are dreaming.
I was also advised to have in mind the things I wanted to do when I became lucid. I wanted to fly. So with that in mind, I got a cheap digital watch and started flickign on and off light switches.
It was a couple weeks later when I had my first lucid dream; I looked at my watch while at some type of fair; and noticed it was weird looking; which gave me this sort of poof aha moment where I realized I was in a dream. Then I remembered I wanted to fly, so I made myself "fly" which this particular time ended up being me going straight up like I was on a very fast space elevator.
I had my second, much nicer only a couple nights later.
Since then I stopped putting any effort into it, but I have been a lucid dreamer pretty often ever since.
Very few of my dreams do I conciously take control, but the vast majority of them I am what I have come to call/think of as 'semi-lucid'. That is, part of the story line of the dream is that I am dreaming, it's essentially built into the plot, but I am still just a passive observer.
The most common exception to this is when I want to wake up from a dream because I have gotten myself into a shotty situation, so I will climb to the top of a building and jump off or do something else drastic to wake myself up.
Recently, I have had more and more double-layer dreams, or inception-esque dreams. Where I wake up from a dream, always semi-lucid, usually by my own will as I described above; only to go about being in another dream still.
Usually when truly wake from these I feel similar to how I do after coming out of a long meditation session. Uber uber focused; like my brain is on super drive and reality is crystal clear.
Anyway, I recommend learning to lucid dream to everyone. Especially with apps as it probably makes it even easier for the right people; but I had plenty of luck like I said by just checking my wrist watch.
The only true benefit other than the 'fun' factor is that I basically never have nightmares; as anything that is scary/bad is always met with a sense of lightness or calm, since my dream character knows he is dreaming.