Lucid Dreams: 8 Ways To Control What You See While You’re Sleeping

The word lucid means clear, but lucid dreaming can mean a lot more than just having a vivid dream.

Psychology Today explains that lucid dreaming is a dream where you are aware that you are dreaming.

Lucid dreaming opens up the opportunity to do something incredible — control your dreams while you're sleeping.

It's not something that comes naturally for everyone. But there are steps you can take to make yourself one of the lucky people who can be the narrator of their own dreams.

Keeping a dream journal is a great way to remember and reflect on your dreams and their meanings regardless of whether you're trying to learn how to control them.

With that said, it is a great first step towards being aware of yourself in your dream state.

According to How To Lucid, your dream journal will serve as a blueprint for future dreams, and your ability to recall and understand them.

Keep a notebook next to your bed where you can record your dreams first thing in the morning or whenever you wake up from one.

After learning more about your dreams and being able to remember them, you may begin to notice patterns.

Are certain people popping up in your dreams? Does it always involve water? Is there always a snake in your dream? Are you constantly feeling happy or anxious?

These are all important patterns to identify, that will help you begin to develop an understanding of when you are, and aren't dreaming.

Learning how to control your dreams starts when you're awake.

If you begin consciously noticing the world around you in more detail, it will carry over into your subconscious and help you recognize when you are dreaming.

When you gain familiarity with your dream symbols and think you're beginning to recognize a dream from reality, you can start getting a little more creative.

According to Omni Magazine, picking a target dream is a good first step towards gaining complete control.

It's best to get as specific as possible. Pick a person, place and visualize yourself there before you fall asleep.

During a dream, the ability to know whether it's dream or reality is what makes a dream lucid.

If you're dreaming, and met your target dream, ask yourself "Am I dreaming?"

If the answer is yes, and it probably is, then you have overcome the biggest hurdle to lucid dreaming.

You can also repeat this exercise throughout the day to help reinforce the differences between dream and reality.

If you're in your dream, and have answered your, "Am I dreaming?" question, perform a reality check.

One great way to do this is by looking at something like a clock or a book in your dream, then looking away and back again after a few seconds.

If the numbers, or the text changes, then you are dreaming and you were just able to control an activity within that dream.

This kind of reality check can work with any object that feels weird or shape shifts within a dream.

Now let the real fun begin! When you begin gaining control of your actions in your dream, you can try all kinds of fun activities.

For instance, walking through an object. In reality, a tree is a solid object, but there are no laws of physics in dreams.

If you're dreaming, try walking through a tree and seeing what happens! Because it's not really there, you will walk right through it.

Neither Rome, nor your wildest fantasy lucid dreams, were built in a day.

Lucid dreaming takes practice, and you're going to want to build up to bigger activities as you get more comfortable with your new ability.

When you gain full control of your dreams, the world and the whole universe is your oyster!

You can meet anyone you want, go anywhere you want, breathe underwater, fly or do anything beyond your wildest dreams!

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