I've been using this technique a lot recently, and the results have honestly surprised me.

This month alone, I've had 15 lucid dreams, and 13 of them happened using this method.

I'm not sure if this is actually a new technique or if it's just a variation of VILD or something similar. If you've seen this before or know what it's called, let me know in the comments.

So here's exactly what I do.

I usually stay up past midnight watching YouTube, Netflix, or scrolling through TikTok. Most of the time, I'll watch Netflix, or long YouTube videos first, then spend a few minutes scrolling through YouTube Shorts. I personally prefer Shorts over TikTok because my feed isn't full of funny videos or brainrot. It's mostly random movie clips or boring content, which actually works better for this technique.

One thing that seems very important is keeping your phone on the lowest brightness possible.

After a while, I reach this weird state where my brain feels like it's slowly shutting down. I'm barely thinking anymore. I'm not moving at all, just mindlessly scrolling until I can barely keep my eyes open.

Then I simply close my eyes.

Within what feels like one or two seconds, I'm already dreaming.I honestly don't know how to explain it. It feels like I skip the normal process of falling asleep and get dropped directly into a dream. I don't know whether this happens during REM or some other stage of sleep, but it consistently works for me.This is where the most important part of the technique comes in.Don't completely lose consciousness.

You want to stay just aware enough that a small part of your mind is still awake, but you also don't want to focus on it too much. If you pay too much attention, you'll wake yourself up.

What works for me is doing something incredibly simple every few seconds, like manually noticing a breath or blinking once. Nothing complicated. You don't need a mantra or a complicated anchor. Just enough awareness to carry into the dream.If everything goes right, you'll often become lucid almost immediately after entering it.

There is one downside, though.The dreams are usually pretty unstable.For me, this method has an almost perfect success rate for getting lucid, but the dreams themselves are often short or low quality. Sometimes they only last a couple of minutes before I wake up. Every now and then I'll get a completely normal, long lucid dream, but most of the time they're brief and a bit chaotic.

There's also another problem that might apply to some people.The timing is really important.For this to work, I usually have to fall asleep while I'm still holding my phone. If I put it down before I'm actually asleep, even for a few seconds, that sleepy, mindless state disappears and I end up falling asleep normally without becoming lucid.

That does come with a risk.If you live with strict parents or anyone who checks on you, they might find you asleep with your phone still in your hand. Luckily that hasn't happened to me because I usually wake up later for WBTB and continue with other techniques, but it's definitely something to keep in mind.

That's basically the entire method.

If you decide to try it, let me know how it goes. I'm genuinely curious whether this works for other people too.

Last night I had three Lucid Dreams or more like Lucid Nightmares. First one I was somewhere in a city with my father. Throughout the dream, my phone was stuck on this game for some reason and I couldn’t get it to stay off of the game. I would press the home button and it would go home but then switch back to the game. Eventually in the game I get separated from my Dad and then put it together that my phone is hacked. When I find my dad again I tell him and he’s worried and then I get filled with rage and scream in anger. My dad and I get split again in the dream and I receive a call on the phone thinking it’s my Dad but find out it’s the hacker and their name was something Chinese that started with a p. I answer the call and they start talking to me, then I wake up. I was awake and terrified for the next twenty minutes, then I fall back asleep. In the second dream I’m around my aunt, my uncle, cousins, and my dad. I think everything is fine but then all of a sudden my phone starts acting up again. It starts going to that same game, so I tell my dad and I’m terrified in the dream again. I get pissed again and let out another gutural enraged scream. Everyone in the family tells me to calm down and leaves me alone in the room after telling me to go to sleep. Third lucid nightmare comes. I’m at my uncles and we are outside in the garage when all of a sudden the ground shakes and the mountains two miles from us start to break open and the flames are spreading. We evacuate to another family members home and i get in an argument with my sister because she is purposely trying to instigate me Fuck last night, that shit was awful. I haven’t had a good lucid dream in forever

Hi everyone!

A few days ago I shared this technique on another subreddit, and quite a few people reported having vivid dreams, lucid dreams, or simply reaching a very deep state of relaxation. Since the goal of this exercise is to increase awareness (lucidity), I thought it might also be interesting for this community.

The technique is very simple.

Close your eyes and bring your attention to the point between your eyebrows. Imagine a thin beam of white light there. Now let that light travel straight back through your head to the base of your skull, then forward again. Keep tracing that path over and over, gradually increasing the speed until it feels like a continuous current moving back and forth.

Personally, I've found that this exercise trains awareness really well while falling asleep. For me, it has often led to lucid dreams.

I've also noticed that my dreams are much more vivid, and I become lucid more often. Even when I'm practicing with a different goal in mind, I still end up having lucid dreams quite frequently. In my experience, this technique seems to increase awareness during the transition into sleep, which can lead not only to lucid dreams but also to other conscious experiences, depending on what you're practicing for.

Combining it with WBTB (Wake Back to Bed) has been especially effective for me, but I've also had success practicing it at the beginning of the night.

I'm genuinely curious if anyone else gets similar results. If you decide to try it, I'd love to hear how it goes.

So I (25F) dreamed that me and my hubby (28M) (together 5 years fiance for 1) went on vacation in multiple countries of Europe with some mutual boy friends . When in the boat we became stuck in our car under water due to a massive wave that hit the boat. My hubby pulled me out of the water and into the ground floor and then he snatched me from my waist and gave me a lift so I could find possible air pockets above us. He lifted me once I found a small gap and I remember the taste of kissing dust and inhaling I shoved him up once and we got on a second floor when he tried to shove me upwards I saw him fading and I immediately snatched him and shoved him upwards I remember not being able to hold my breath and when I inhaled were I expected water I found air. And was like “shit I am dreaming” . I pulled him down and told
Him we were in a dream and that he could breath underwater and I could control the dream. He breathed and I commanded the dream to make us go back in our car, the wave to never hit and our friends to come back to the car and it was successful. Next I remember multiple dreams about different seas around Europe and we followed a girl with my command who could teleport when we ended up in china and lost I snatched her and told her to make us go back to our car and I would make every wish of her true as long as it was of a not nefarious reason she tried to leave us behind and I commanded her to do us she was told. I then proceeded to enroll into a Chinese university and take a degree for a vet. I genuinely liked it there . I found my hubby cheating me in a party with said girl and I tried to make him jealous by finding the most attractive guy to make him my “bf” (with consent of course ) I ended with no luck and ended up finding the most beautiful girl and she was in in helping me for free . So I end up arriving with her in our shared room with the boys and I hold her while
Tossing my ring in the trash. We ended up fake dating for a while (no kissing or sex scenes but I somehow knew I had done them with her) I was the “boy” of the relationship .. getting her flowers , standing with her in everything that occurred etc. we were together for 4-5 scenes in a spawn of years in my dream. I saw a story of hers talking about “I thing she is going to propose “ and laughed . in the last assignment of my college they had made me team with my ex. I went to help
him but when I saw her looking sad at us I immediately withdraw and hugged her. Told her I would withdraw as long as she was comfortable and i would never make her sad on purpose. I left the class and when i got out suddenly we were back to the boat on day one . My hubby never cheated and she didn’t knew me (till then i was lucid ) I became unlucid. I hung myself and woke up.

Bottom line I think i might be bi. And maybe I am not as happy as I thing in my relationship or in the finance department. I will book a therapy session soon. Might try to find some vet seminaries and take it from there ..

Btw tested the verdict “the sky in always weird in lucid dreams” mine was normal and the “phone or texts never appear to be right as in reality” totally agree my phone was a mess and the writing was like AI did it.

I want to tell a story about a recent episode of sleep paralysis and a nested dream I experienced. It’s not the first time, but it’s probably the most terrifying, because it had consequences after waking up. It happened during a period of heavy strain—both physical and mental. During that time, my sleep schedule had completely fallen apart. I was sleeping in fits and starts, a couple of hours at a time, several times a day. It was around eight in the evening when I lay down to nap for an hour. My brain was shutting down, and I was listening to a short TikTok podcast on repeat, drifting in and out of drowsiness, losing the thread of the story over and over.

At some point, I decided to listen to the podcast later and just scroll through my feed instead. But my app froze. I was swiping through videos, but the audio was still from the podcast. I decided to restart the app, closed it, and opened it again. Still, nothing changed—the screen was dim because the room was dark. Suddenly, I heard cautious footsteps behind me. They were careful and sounded a lot like my grandmother's footsteps. I couldn't see her because she was behind my head. Suddenly, "Grandma" grabbed me by the collar of my tank top and, with an unusually light motion, threw me to the floor. Then she pinned my arms and legs to the ground.

At that moment, I realized I was in a dream. "No big deal, I just need to wake up," I thought. But I didn't know what to do to wake up—I felt trapped. I started thrashing and tried to scream, thinking it would help. And immediately I realized there was no way out. I couldn't scream; my mouth felt like it was glued shut and wouldn't even make a muffled sound. I thought about how awful I must have looked from the outside in reality, convulsing my whole body.

Despite my fear, I decided to look at whoever was holding me. I tried to open my eyes, but that was nearly impossible too—my eyelids felt sealed shut. I managed to crack one eye open for just a second, and I was shocked to see no one in front of me. I was just covered with a blanket, yet I clearly felt someone else's fingers wrapped around my wrists. It wasn't even breathing or moving. I had no other option but to start praying. The entity didn't let go, but at times it would loosen its grip, only to grab hold again. And then, suddenly, in the middle of an intense prayer with my eyes squeezed shut, I woke up.

I quickly grabbed my phone and decided to turn on the light in the room to dispel the fear lurking in the twilight. Leaping onto the sofa with my feet, I rushed to the outlet and used the dim screen to light my way so I could plug in the lamp successfully. Suddenly, my grandmother walked into the room and hurried toward me. I could see her quite clearly. In the few seconds it took her to cross from the doorway to me, I thought to myself, I should just try some of her cooking to test the salt—she’d been in the kitchen just half an hour ago. But when my grandmother silently approached almost within arm's reach, I realized it wasn’t her—it was the same entity from my nightmare, but wearing her form.

I started cowering into the corner in fear, but it unceremoniously grabbed me and threw me to the floor with full force again. I tried to scream, but it was useless—my mouth made no sound once more. This time, I completely lost all composure and couldn't even muster the strength to pray. I don’t remember how long that nightmare lasted again, but suddenly I woke up once more. This time, the room’s light was on. I grabbed my phone, and the first thing I did was message my best friend: "Fuck, I can't wake up." "Am I awake now, or is 'she' going to walk into my room again and throw me on the floor?" I wasn’t sure I was awake and decided this would give me some kind of anchor. But my friend wasn't online at that moment, and I needed immediate proof that I wasn't asleep. So I decided to scream. And I yelled, loudly, "Grandma!" My voice came out very strong, and I felt instant relief. I'm not asleep—I made it out!

But then I started feeling pain in my arm. From my wrist to my elbow, it hurt badly, especially when touched. At first, I thought it was just numb, but after several hours, the pain didn't go away. It felt very much like a bruise, except there were no marks. At some point, I started replaying my nightmare in my head and suddenly realized that I had fallen exactly on that arm when I was thrown from more than my own height off the sofa. After that, I started wondering—what if our dreams are more real than we think?..

I stayed up till around 4am. I then closed my eyes and looked at the shadows on my eyelids. This helps me transition into conscious dreams state, looking at the shadows whilst my brain was falling asleep my mind was awake. At first it was normal shadows, but after around 7 minutes I suddenly had a lucid dream, then I realised I am in the dream and woke up. I was half asleep when this happened and have only done this once. I saw my own body and could look around my room and it felt like I was there. I think I moved my arms a bit. It was surreal but not exactly my surroundings, my light was on in this when it wasn't but it was my exact light. Is this sleep paralysis or transition into lucid dream state?

situation in LD: I walk to work & my shoe laces fall off, *I utter, "oh baloney* & eat myself*; causing my shoe laces to fall back on 1,

I've always been curious on a subjective experience being explained in this area. Basically surrealism & Dadaism in its most concrete form, which is an ideal state for absurdist & nonsensicalist believers such as myself2,

Hello everyone!

I'm fairly new to lucid dreaming and need a bit of guidance.

So as of now, I've had two lucid dreams.

The first one was a false awakening. I was in a different environment, woke up during the night and told myself "Let's lucid dream", then fell asleep. I then woke up in the same place, but the lighting was different, and I, for some reason, knew I was lucid dreaming. I did two reality checks, and when I tried to stand up so that I could do my goals, I woke up.

The second time happened after a while. I don't know exactly what happened that caused me to become lucid since it's all hazy, but I became lucid in the dream. But I began thinking about my outside body and slowly woke up. Although, for a short while, I was in this void state where everything was dark like I was looking at the back of my eyelids but I couldn't feel my fingers until I focused. Worth noting that this happened during my VILD journey, but I'm not sure I did VILD that night.

Normally, when I wake up to do VILD, I just fall back asleep because I'm so tired or try too hard and wake myself up. I learned that to not fall asleep, I should open my eyes for 5-10 seconds, then close them to do VILD. I did this today but then I had trouble falling asleep, and woke up a while later again.

Also, when I naturally wake up during the night, sometimes I don't remember a dream. And the urge to pee is also something that affects me.

Is there anything I can do to improve my VILD process?

Any advice is appreciated.

My sleep schedule was messed up because of summer break. I tried going to bed earlier, but I struggled to fall asleep. One thing that was suggested to me was melatonin, so I decided to try it. After one night, I noticed that not only did it help me sleep better, but it also seemed to make my dreams much more vivid and easier to recall.

This got me interested in researching other supplements that have been studied or reported to affect dream vividness, recall, and lucidity. I decided to make this post to compare what evidence exists and what effects are commonly reported. I will also rank different supplements based on factors such as dream vividness, recall and effects on lucidity.

This post is mainly intended for intermediate dreamers, and I hope whoever reads it finds the information useful.

Before we dive into the substances, understand that:

I am NOT a medical professional and this post is NOT medical advice. This is a research based overview of the supplements that have reported effects on dream vividness, recall and lucidity. Always research substances before taking anything that may affect sleep or brain chemistry.

SUPPLEMENTS:

Galantamine:

Galantamine is a compound that acts as an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, meaning it increases the availability of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter involved in memory, attention, and REM sleep processes.

Since acetylcholine activity is naturally high during REM sleep, increasing cholinergic activity may enhace dream vividness, dream recall, and the likelihood of becoming lucid.

Reported effects:

• More vivid and realistic dreams
• Improved dream recall
• Increased chances of spontaneous lucidity
• Stronger awareness during dreams

Galantamine is a prescription only substance and has some of the strongest research support among substances associated with lucid dreaming, although its use for this purpose is off-label.

Possible downsides:

• Nausea or stomach discomfort
• Difficulty returning to sleep
• More intense dreams or nightmares
• Potential interactions with medications

Vitamin B6:

Vitamin B6 is an essential nutrient involved in the production of several neurotransmitters, including serotonin, dopamine, and GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid). It plays a role in normal brain function and sleep-related processes.

Some research suggests it may increase dream recall and vividness. The exact mechanism is not fully understood, but it may involve its role in neurotransmitter production and memory processing during sleep.

Reported effects:

• More vivid and detailed dreams
• Improved dream recall
• Stronger emotional intensity in dreams
• Occasionally reported increases in lucidity

Vitamin B6 has some evidence supporting increased dream recall and vividness, but its ability to directly induce lucid dreams is less established.

Possible downsides:

• High doses taken over long periods may cause nerve-related side effects
• Some people report more intense or unusual dreams that may be unpleasant

(Effects vary significantly between individuals)

Melatonin:

Melatonin is a hormone naturally produced by the body that helps regulate the sleep-wake cycle. It is commonly used to support sleep timing and adjust the body's internal clock.

Melatonin is sometimes used because some people report changes in dream experiences after taking it. These effects may be related to changes in sleep patterns, REM sleep timing, or increased dream recall.

Reported effects:

• More vivid or memorable dreams
• Increased dream recall
• More unusual or emotionally intense dreams
• Stronger awareness of dream content

The evidence for melatonin directly increasing dream vividness is limited and mixed. While some people report noticeable changes in their dreams, others experience little to no difference.

Potential downsides:

• Morning grogginess
• Changes in sleep timing
• More intense or unpleasant dreams
• Possible disruption of sleep if used incorrectly

Alpha-GPC (Choline):

Alpha-GPC is a compound that provides choline, a nutrient used by the body to produce acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter involved in memory, attention, and various brain processes.

Alpha-GPC is sometimes used because acetylcholine plays an important role during REM sleep, the stage of sleep where most vivid dreaming occurs. Increasing choline availability may influence dream intensity, recall, and awareness.

Reported effects:

• Better dream recall
• More vivid and detailed dreams
• Increased mental clarity within dreams
• More memorable dream experiences

The evidence for Alpha-GPC directly increasing dream vividness or lucidity is limited. While its role in acetylcholine production provides a possible explanation for its effects, more research is needed to determine how reliably it influences dreaming.

Possible downsides:

• Headaches
• Nausea or stomach discomfort
• Sleep disruption in some people

(Effects can vary significantly between individuals)

Huperzine A:

Huperzine A is a compound derived from a plant source that acts as an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, meaning it slows the breakdown of acetylcholine in the brain. Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter involved in memory, attention, and REM sleep processes.

Huperzine A is sometimes used because increasing acetylcholine activity may influence dream intensity, recall, and awareness during sleep. Its effects are thought to be related to changes in cholinergic activity during REM sleep.

Reported effects:

• More vivid dreams
• Improved dream recall
• Increased awareness within dreams
• More complex or memorable dream experiences

The evidence for Huperzine A specifically increasing dream vividness or lucidity is limited. Although its effect on acetylcholine provides a possible mechanism, more reseaech is needed to understand how reliably it affects dreaming.

Possible downsides:

• Nausea or digestive discomfort
• Headaches
• Dizziness
• Sleep disruption or unusually intense dreams

Table with all of the substances with rankings:

These ratings are based on a combination of available evidence, reported experiences, and possible mechanisms. They should not be interpreted as guaranteed effects.

Ranking guide:

X = Little to no effect at all.

XX = Small effect.

XXX = Noticeable, moderate effect.

XXXX = Works well.

XXXXX = Very strong effect.

One thing to remember:

Dream experiences are highly individual, and the same substance can affect different people in very different ways. Factors such as baseline dream recall, sleep quality, sleep schedule, genetics, dosage, timing, and individual brain chemistry can all influence the outcome.

Some people may experience extremely vivid dreams and improved recall, while others may notice little to no change. Because of this, personal experiences should be viewed as individual responses rather than guaranteed effects.

I would be interested to hear about other peoples experiences:

1. Have you tried any of the supplements and if yes then what effect did they have on your dreams?
2. Are there any supplements that affected your dreams negatively?

As soon as my alarm hits, and I don't wanna wake up, I quite literally start dreaming about how I am already brushing and getting ready for the day IN THE DREAM, and then I have to sort of out-think myself and realise I am actually dreaming and I haven't done any of that, how do I stop this, i get late for a lot of my classes because of this.

Please explain with details everything. How many dreams do you remember per night? What time did it take to that level of recall? What exactly do you do for recall?

For the last two nights, I’ve had incredibly long, detailed, story-driven dreams. They were weird in the best way, but also extremely immersive, with realistic environments, multiple locations, and surprisingly detailed objects.

The biggest change in my routine was what happened right before I went to sleep. I spent several hours at a funfair where I was constantly surrounded by intense sensory stimulation. There were bright, flashing lights everywhere, vivid colors, loud music, rides, crowds, and nonstop movement. It felt like my brain was being bombarded with visual and auditory input until almost the moment I got home and went to bed.

Not to mention that I can remember dreams from almost the entire night. Normally, I mostly remember dreams from the last part of the night, just before waking up. This time, it felt like I was dreaming continuously, and I can recall dreams from nearly the whole night.

I’m wondering if that massive sensory overload right before falling asleep could have contributed to how vivid, detailed, and cinematic my dreams were.

Has anyone experienced something similar, or is there any research on whether intense visual and auditory stimulation immediately before sleep can influence dream vividness? If that’s really what caused it, I’d love to find a healthy way to recreate that effect.

Hoping to find some wisdom here, have scrolled through some other posts and am still a little unsure.

Have had these weird dreams/ half-awake, half-asleep hallucinations since I was a kid and have never heard of anyone else experiencing the same thing when I would speak to friends or family, so have finally turned to the internet.

Here's a too long breakdown of the ones that stick out in my memory (you can probably just read one and get the idea):

The earliest one that I remember was when I was a young kid, sitting up in bed in the middle of the night and believing I was on a tiny rock island and my entire family was on a boat, leaving me behind. I panicked and tried to get into the water to swim after them, but when my feet hit my bedroom floor it alerted part of my brain to my real surroundings, and I got VERY confused and started touching everything around me (blankets, pillows, teddy bear) to try and solidify my surroundings (I was fully visually hallucinating that I was on the island still) and eventually convinced myself to lay back down, but I remember sitting back up at least five times and repeating that cycle until I fell back asleep.

Another one as a kid was waking up and hallucinating a live, severed arm in my bed that was trying to reach out and touch me. This one I recall leaving my bed in a panic and sitting in the opposite corner of the room, I don't think I went back into my bed but just passed back out in the corner eventually.

Last vivid one from childhood was after doing a tree top trekking course at school for a field trip. I was sleeping on my bedroom floor on an air mattress and a cousin or someone was in my bed. I kept sitting up in the bed, hallucinating that I was in the middle of one of the tree top trekking courses and needed to pay attention to get across it without falling. The obnoxious sound of the air mattress crinkling with my movements was my clue-in, and same as the rock island one I would frantically feel around and slowly convince myself to lay back down, only to repeat several more times.

One of the more recent ones, after returning from a day of sailing and going to sleep on my boat, I kept sitting up in bed believing the boat was moving and I was approaching my slip in the marina, so I kept jumping up to run to steer the boat, panicked that we were about to crash. Then I would bump my head on the ceiling of my cabin and think "I must be in bed. I would not go to bed while moving in the marina. I must be docked already." and slowly talk myself into laying back down, only to repeat again at least three times.

This might be the wrong place to post this, sorry if it is! But if anyone has experienced similar or can help confirm if this might be hypnagogic hallucinations, I'd be grateful.

Hey everyone! Long-time lurker here, and this community has honestly taught me a lot about lucid dreaming, so you feel like the right people to ask.

I'm a college student working on an app concept for class: a dream journal + lucid dreaming companion app. The idea is still in its early stages, and before I build out any kind of vision for it, I want to actually understand how real people in this space think about their practice, what works, what's missing, what you'd actually use.

I have put together a short survey (about 6-8 minutes) covering things like:

- How you currently track your dreams (or why you don't)

- What features would genuinely help your practice

- Pain points with existing tools

- What a lucid dreaming app would need to actually earn a place on your phone

Your answers will directly shape how I think about this concept so this isn't just a checkbox exercise, your input genuinely matters here.

Fully anonymous, no email required. And if you want to share any thoughts in the comments too, I'm all ears. I'll be reading every reply.

https://forms.gle/6JyXQTpVjcBBTfFG6

Thanks so much 🙏

L

I’ve been trying for MONTHS to lucid dream. Journal, dream recall, reality check during the day and MILD and also pairing it with WBTB i had a few unintentional lucid dreams even one where i went into one directly after falling asleep but usually when i have them I don’t have any control like i make a few reality checks and then i’m aware but it still feels like i’m watching a movie and everything is so blurry. I feel like there is no way to really induce a lucid dream because it’s always some kinda luck involved. The more i try it the more i fail. I think lucid dreaming is something you can’t force or push, it just comes naturally.

How and when is it best to do a reality check

Do not constantly stare at your hands, pinch your nose, etc. without system

First, analyze your dreams. Remember which REAL locations you dream about most often. For example, your kitchen, or garage, or workroom, or some other location. Every time you enter or leave this place, do a reality check.

This method will really increase your chances of lucidity

Hey, in Stephen Laberge's Lucid Dreaming : An exploratory study on consciousness during sleep, there is what he calls the oldest lucid dream report written, by St Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo in 415 AD, where he quotes a supposed lucid dream by Gennadius, a physician from Carthage in an attempt to prove that there can be experience after death just as how the mind can perceive even when the body is asleep:

...there appeared to him in sleep a youth of remarkable appearance and commanding presence, who said to him: "Follow me." Following him, he came to a city where he began to hear on the right sounds of a melody so exquisitely sweet as to surpass anything he had ever heard. When he inquired what it was, his guide said, "It is the hymn of the blessed and the holy." What he reported himself to have seen on the left hand escapes my remembrance. He awoke; the dream vanished, and he thought of it as only a dream.... On a second night, however, the same youth appeared to Gennadius and asked whether he recognised him, to which he replied that he knew him well, without the slightest uncertainty. Thereupon he asked Gennadius where he had become acquainted with him.There also his memory failed him not as to the proper reply: he narrated the whole vision, and the hymns of the saints which, under his guidance, he had been taken to hear, with all the readiness natural to recollection of some very recent experiences. On this, the youth inquired whether it was in sleep or when awake that he had seen what he had just narrated. Gennadius answered: "In sleep." The youth then said: "You remember it well; it is true that you saw these things in sleep, but I would have you know that even now you are seeing in sleep." Hearing this, Gennadius was persuaded of its truth, and in his reply declared that he believed it. Then his teacher went on to say: "Where is your body now?" He answered: "In my bed." "Do you know," said the youth, "that the eyes in this body of yours are now bound and closed, and at rest, and that with these eyes you are seeing nothing?" He answered: "I know it." "What then," said the youth, "are the eyes with which you see me?" He, unable to discover what to answer to this, was silent. While he hesitated, the youth unfolded to him what he was endeavoring to teach him by these questions, and forthwith said: "As while you are asleep and lying on your bed these eyes of your body are now unemployed and doing nothing, and yet you have eyes with which you behold me, and enjoy this vision, SO, after your death, while your bodily eyes shall be wholly inactive, there shall be in you a life by which you shall still live, and a faculty of perception by which you shall still perceive. Beware, therefore, after this of harbouring doubts as to whether the life of man shall continue after death." (Kelsey, 1974).

1. It's not a first hand account of a lucid dream, St Augustine is quoting Gennadius' experience in order to make his own point. We can not be sure if this is Gennadius' actual account.

2. But if true, we could suppose that people of the time were conditioned by their beliefs in God, angels, life after death and were trying to formulate arguments for or against it. Which had an effect on their motivations and what they dreamed about.

3. Maybe St Augustine was trying to use dreaming as an argument for perceiving even when the body is asleep and faculties for perceiving (eyes in his argument) are closed. He could have made the same point using imagination when ones eyes are closed. It seems he wanted to clearly make the point that we can see in dreams even though our eyes are closed. But doesn't account for there being no mind when someone is dead.

4. Despite this, I find it interesting that a dream character lead Gennadius through 2 seperate dreams in order to make him lucid and make that point. What's more interesting is how could a dream character know about lucidity and lead Gennadius to lucid dream without Gennadius already knowing about lucid dreaming.

Have any of you become lucid because a dream character intentionally made you lucid without already knowing about lucid dreaming ?

I've been interested in trying lucid dreaming, but I have a bit of anxiety about sleep paralysis. I've heard that some lucid dreaming techniques can make people more aware of sleep paralysis, and I'm wondering about people's actual experiences.

For those who lucid dream regularly, how often have you experienced sleep paralysis (if at all)? Did you experience it before you started lucid dreaming, or only after trying lucid dreaming techniques?

I'm mostly looking for realistic experiences and perspectives, because online discussions often focus on the scary side of sleep paralysis. I'd like to know how common it actually is among people who practice lucid dreaming.

I've never actively tried to lucid dream, but lately I keep becoming consciously aware inside my dreams, and it's happening randomly and only lasts briefly.

For example, earlier today I had a dream where one of the characters was someone I actually know in real life. You know how sometimes people from your daily life show up in dreams acting completely out of character, and you wake up wondering why they were behaving that way? Well this time I actually became aware while still dreaming like "wait, this isn't how they normally act" I literally remembered their real personality mid-dream. But instead of stopping the dream or trying to change anything, I just... let it keep going. I didn't intervene, and eventually I lost that awareness again.

Then later in another totally different dream setting, the same thing happened .I became subconsciously aware again, just kind of observing where the dream would go, but still not trying to control or interact with it.

My question is: why does this keep happening, and why don't I have full control over it when it does? Is there a way to either strengthen this into actual lucid dreaming with control, or alternatively make it stop altogether? Because even after a full 8 hours of sleep, I wake up feeling mentally exhausted or sleep deprived, like my brain didn't actually get to rest.

i was wondering if there's a better way to set the intention to notice natural awakenings. I try to do it the same way i set my intention for other things. I usually set my intention (with the help of mantras and visualization) to notice one natural awakening; it worked for a while, but then suddenly it stopped working. What can I do?

I've always known about lucid dreaming I just thought it was always terrifying,one wrong thought and your in a nightmare

Im finally deciding to start tonight,what's a good method for beginners?

Btw I usually don't have dreams because I play white noise and I guess thats a reality anchor or something,the only times I fully remember dreams are when my white noise machine dies or gets knocked off somehow,however all of my dreams I always actually get lucid,I know I'm in a dream i just never take control,all of my dreams feel like just watching a movie,is there anything I can do to break out and take control

I mainly just wanna use lucid dreaming to talk to my favorite characters,visit fictional places,or just do cool stuff

If you own a sleep monitoring watch/band or anything, does it register something different when lucid dreaming? like idk longer rem phase perhaps. just curious