What is the quickest and easiest way to trigger a lucid dream?

Hi there-

I have a bit of experience with lucid dreaming using various techniques so I hope I can help. In my experience, the quickest and easiest way to trigger a LD with no prior experience is actually a WILD (Wake Initiated Lucid Dream) technique. I learned this technique from saltcube. com (to which i have no affiliation) and have used it personally with success.

Basically you go to sleep for about 5 or 6 hours, not a full nights sleep, and then wake yourself up. You stay awake for about an hour or so and then go back to bed with the intention of having a lucid dream. You may recognize this as the WBTB (Wake Back To Bed) technique. The variation, however, is that you go back to bed with a timer on that sounds at various times to wake you up. The idea is to hover on the edge of sleep, going to sleep and waking up, giving you many chances to fall into a dream and realize it's a dream. There is a software timer you can use at the saltcube website.

WHY does this work? By going to bed for awhile before your attempt, you are allowing your body to get the deep sleep it needs and prepare for longer REM periods (dreaming sleep). Waking up at this point, your body wants more REM, and by staying up for an hour you are causing a sort of REM back-up. Now when you go back to sleep, Dreams will come rapidly instead of taking ~90 minutes to arrive. Add in the timer, and you get multiple opportuniies in a single session to recognize the dream state.

Please visit the saltcube website for more details on this wonderful technique, and for more information on lucid dreaming, please visit my site @ http://www.squidoo.com/getlucid

Good Luck!