Becoming an Advanced Lucid Dreamer

What do you think that it takes to become an advanced lucid dreamer?

Broadly, I’d define a lucid dreaming beginner as someone who has had less than 100 intentionally-induced lucid dreams, and is still testing which techniques work for them. They have trouble staying in the dream or staying lucid or troubleshooting problems in the dream. Their success rate is about, or less than, 50%.

I’d define an intermediate lucid dreamer as someone who has had less than 1,000 lucid dreams, knows which techniques work well for them, but whose success rate is still about 75%. They can usually stay in the dream, stay lucid, and can creatively solve problems within dreams.

But what’s an advanced lucid dreamer, and how do you become one?

Well, practice and experience are certainly prerequisites.

At times, I think, I’ve had really romantic notions of what LDing could be like eventually. Even advanced LDers, I’m sure, miss dreamsigns, lose lucidity, and get sidetracked. Even so, I think that an advanced LDer would have a ~90% success rate and has honed a variety of skills, like dream incubation, reentry, and in-dream techniques like changing the dream scene.

I’d personally rate myself as an intermediate LDer, and looking back (and forward) this is what I think it will take to improve my game:

(1) making more induction attempts—you can’t succeed more if you don’t try more

(2) commit consistently to meditation

(3) develop and use a lucidity protocol—a simple series of things to do immediately upon becoming lucid in order to increase lucidity, stabalize the dream, and remember what you wanted to do

(4) practice dream incubation

(5) learn to listen well to what your dreams are saying

I’m currently in a dry spell. I haven’t experienced a lucid dream in weeks. I have been a lucid dreamer for about fifteen years and there have been times where I would consider myself an advanced lucid dreamer by your standards. I’m not sure why I’m in this current dry spell but lucid dreaming ( at least for me ) sometimes waxes and wanes no matter how many techniques I use. I think we are all at our own personal level at different times in our lives.

I’ve had lots of “dry spells.” To me, what a dry spell really is, though, is that I’ve lost enthusiasm. And sometimes I’ve been scared off by lucid nightmares.

Keeping up one’s enthusiasm for dreaming can be difficult. I don’t have a lot of answers around this issue, except I know that it’s helped me to have a dream group. My dream group and I set common goals and motivate each other.

I also think purpose is a biggie, but your goals must be authentic.

I don’t think it should be the amount of lucid dreams you have. Instead, it should be your success rate. Some people are just naturally good.

I consider myself an intermediate lucid dreamer. I became one when I figured out what works bes for me.

Yeah, the enthusiasm bit is really weird. What’s this dream group you speak of, and how does one join it?

Well I do somehow agree with Kache_. It’s very hard to determine what an advanced lucid dreamer is. If you take amount of lucid dreams that one induced then yes more is better but I wouldn’t take that as a measure.

Also I think it’s very important for what you use lucid dreaming. Some might use it as pure fun and entertainment and some will use it for spiritual growth or something similar.

So if someone wants to meet his DG or SG and he succeeds in 5 lucid dreams he might say that he is pretty good lucid dreamer. Quantity is not important as quality although to be good at lucid dreaming you need to have as much lucid dreams as possible even though sometimes even those that have many lucid dreams their control is not on the level you would expect!

Do you think meditation helps a lot (how about for WILD)? How much should i practice it? Any good articles on the forum?

Thanks :grin:

P.S. i think i’m half way through the beginner-phase, but my success rate is pretty low :cry: (I’m STILL trying to get back to it, i didn’t remember it being that hard at the beginning…)

Well, I think meditation assists LD induction insofar as it hones your concentration. Meditation is intimidating to many people, but at its most basic, it’s just learning how to concentrate longer and with less interruption.

@Kache_: My dream group is made up of me and three friends in Salt Lake City. One of us is taking a break right now, so it’s just three of us. Currently, we’re trying to “Dreamhunt.” That is, find dreams that will help other members of the group with a specific problem.

That’s nice :o

Well my goal as a lucid dreamer is to completely master it. It may be impossible, but I’ll try.

@db_FTS: I think quality is more important than quantity. However, having lots of LDs is necessary to hone your lucid skills. You can’t practice what you have no chance to practice.

Uping your success rate, however you do it, is probably most important in improving. But to up your rate, you must try and try and try.

On the other hand, I’ve noticed a pattern in which a series of intense LDs is almost always followed by fewer or no LDs. It doesn’t seem to matter whether these are lucid nightmares, or intensely positive LDs. (Or maybe this is just me.)

I don’t think it’s just me, though. Dry spells or the need for breaks seem really common, as if everyone needs to pace themselves, or at last change strategies, in lucid dreamwork.

Quality always comes before quantity, yes, that was my intention to state but I guessed that was clear… :confused: I was just saying that with higher quantity of lucid dreams your chances to do something are higher…

You were clear. I think my tone might have been more quarrelsome than I intended.

Seeking high quality LDs is definitely important, and I thank you for steering the thread in that direction.

The question now is: What’s a quality LD?

No worries, we’ll call it language differences! :grin:

I guess that what quality dream is depends on the person that dreams because as dreams are very personal the same way is the experience itself…

For me personally quality dream is when I’m lucid enough to be aware of the dream itself and the waking world simultaneously. Of course the vividness needs to be on high level which is usually there when you are lucid enough. I guess it all comes to the level of lucidity.

But sometimes that all is not important if the experience itself is meaningful no matter if you weren’t lucid and if you dream is somewhat blurry. Sometimes the feeling from the dream or the small aspect of the dream can be a meaningful experience.

Like I said, in my experience it varies from to many variables…

Really? How aware of the waking world do you mean? I’ve had LDs where I’ve been aware that a noise in the dream actually originated in the waking world. Also, I’ve been aware enough that I was able to identify a brushing sensation on my legs (in the dream) as my cat in the waking world.

I like the experience of “visionary type” dreams. By “visionary type” I mean the sort of dream that you have from a waking state, with awareness of your body in the bed, and in which the imagery appears as if on a screen behind your closed eyelids. Usually when I get behind-the-eyelids imagery it’s chaotic, but sometimes it’s just as sensible as an ordinary dream—albeit, one that I’m watching through a mental window. (I haven’t had many of these types of dreams, but I would like to have more.)

By and large, though, I guess that I prefer to enter my dreams, to be in them fully in three dimensions. I’m fascinated with extraordinarily vivid dreams—the kind that are almost indistinguishable from waking reality.

I do think as you become more practiced at LDing that dreams fool you less. I still have amazingly real-feeling dreams, but even in the midst of great vividity, I can usually tell the difference from, say, water in a dream and water in the waking world. There’s an “electric” quality to dream water that gives it away as virtual.

Well I did have lucid dreams where I could feel my waking life body but what I meant is mental awareness of waking life. When you are in a dream and you are so much aware that you cannot be preoccupied only by the dream itself that you cannot think about anything else but the dream situation that you are in.

For example I had a LD where I was flying through my street, 2 meters above the street and the dream was vivid and real life alike as much as it can get. When I was flying I was aware that this is a dream but then again I was comparing it to the waking life street. Everything, street itself, the trees, the houses, the backyards, cracks on the houses - everything.

That dream was first of that kind of awareness because I was usually just aware of the dream but not my existence in physical reality. Because I was just aware enough to accept only the dream world. I don’t know, those dreams are fascinating to me, I guess everybody experiences lucidity differently but we can all agree that vivid and real life like dreams are what we want at the end of the night, right?

Just to brag, I had an amazing lucid dream this morning it was WILD(of course) and it was just amazing. :content: