So you're interested in lucid dreaming, great! Welcome to the start of your journey into entirely different worlds.

If you don't know what lucid dreaming is, first read the chapter What is Lucid Dreaming. That will give you a good introduction.

This guide will explain the basics of lucid dreaming, basic terminology, and how to get yourself started with the most basic of lucid dreaming techniques, "reality checks". From there it will guide you into what to try next in your lucid dreams, the basics of dream control, and what other lucid dreaming techniques to try. This guide is ordered in sequence of what information will be most relevant to you at your level of understanding after reading the previous chapter, but it can be read in any order you want.

Woah there, calm yourself down a bit. Lucid dreaming certainly is very appealing, and a great experience, but rushing to it won't work. There is no fastest way or quick easy way to reach a lucid dream, it takes time and persistence, and figuring out what works for you. (No matter how much some supplement sellers would like to convince you otherwise)

If you're not feeling comfortable in your own body, or are suffering from problems in your life, you may feel like you absolutely need to learn this. This however will work against you. Take a step back, figure out your life, talk to a therapist. Escaping into a lucid dream won't solve any problems for you, no matter how much it sounds like a panacea.

You need to approach lucid dreaming with patience. It's likely that it's going to take some time before you get into a lucid dream where you can actually do the things you want to do. Enjoy the journey. Enjoy the benefits you get from all the techniques that help you achieve lucid dreams. Enjoy the weird experiences you get that aren't lucid dreams but still something different, something unique.

Take your time, enjoy the small victories and benefits, and before you know it you're suddenly standing in your own personal world, able to do whatever you want.

To learn to lucid dream you need to work on two fronts, recall and lucidity. Both of these have well known techniques you can start out with.

A key thing to remember here is persistence. Learning to lucid dream takes time, not just a few days, but likely a few weeks, or in some cases months. It's important that you stay persistent, any technique is going to work eventually.

Starting out with recall, you may not be remembering any dreams at all. This is normal as you've not trained your mind yet that dreams are important to you and that you want to remember them.

Starting out, it's good to start keeping a Dream Journal. This is a technique almost every lucid dreamer uses to increase their recall.

Lucidity is the tricky part. A good place to start is the bread and butter of lucid dreaming, Reality Checks.

As well it's a good idea to practice MILD. This technique has shown to be very effective, especially for new people in comparison to other techniques.

You will also most likely want to make use of Wake up, Back to Bed to boost your lucidity. This technique significantly increases your chances of lucid dreaming on the night you do it.

These techniques are a good place to start. Remember that persistence is key here, don't fall into the trap of technique switching. Pick a technique (or two, if you can combine them) and stick with it every single day and night.

You may have heard about Wake-Initiated techniques as well. Wake-Initiated techniques have a tendency to be extremely hard to learn, unless you already have significant previous meditation experience. It is not advised to start there as a beginner.

So you've suddenly realized you're in a lucid dream, what next? You'll likely be very excited, the world around you may suddenly become a lot more vivid. Some however, then might wake up.

A common theory is that the excitement is what wakes you up, but this doesn't seem to line up with the experiences of regular lucid dreamers. Rather, it seems that this theory has come from that beginner lucid dreamers are all the more excited when they get their first lucid dream. Rather, it's just more likely to become lucid at the end of the dream, while you're already about to wake up. As a result when you're starting it's likely that this is where you realize it's a dream.

If this happens to you (it may not), don't worry about it! You just managed to get another step closer to your goals and whatever you're doing is working! Just keep going, eventually you'll get longer lucid dreams!

What also may happen is that you don't remember all (or any of) the things you wanted to do when lucid dreaming. This is normal as well, and it can really suck, but once again remember that this is still a success! You've managed to stick in the dream, that's great! Eventually you'll get more aware of what you're doing. What also will help is using incubation to set a goal of what you'll be doing in the lucid dream. More on that later in this guide.

Regardless of what happened, if you made it to this step you've done great! You've set the first steps into your lucid dreaming adventure. If you haven't yet, that's alright. Just keep trying!