Techniques for "waking up in a dream"

[Bluebird]

From the recent thread "Beginner Astral Projector"

However, after a couple years, I stopped making "conscious" attempts to have OBEs and started opting more for gaining conscious awareness in dreams. It took a while and it was hard, but once I taught myself to "wake up" into a dream, the whole control issue kind of disappeared.

Like I've said before, I've had three LD's now and they were all very short. The last one I was making more of an effort to look at things and stay aware. But getting lucid or waking up is still random at best.

I'm sure it was probably a long slow process of many techniques but is there any particular thing you did that was more effective in "waking you up"?

[Xanth]

It's all about becoming mindful. 

http://www.unlimitedboundaries.ca/2012/02/13/how-to-increase-your-chances-of-having-lucid-awareness-experiences-lucid-dreams/

I list several ways you can increase your chances of having a projection in the above article.

[ThaomasOfGrey]

The techniques for becoming lucid during a dream are tough. You are mostly depending on a subconscious change in behaviour driven by intent. You can plan your approach to becoming lucid thoroughly but it will mostly go out the window in a real situation until you have had a good amount of exposure.

I think the triggers for lucid dreaming in my case are not always related to mental state, but rather, physical state. For example if you know ahead of time that the night is going to be too hot for a blanket and you wear it anyway you may wake up sweating, but prior to this your consciousness will probably start to become aware during a dream. The same thing occurs with needing to go to the bathroom early morning. Conversely a solid night's sleep seems to often carry me right through without becoming lucid - or maybe it is just harder to remember.

Try to drill the idea of dream testing into your mind so you can use a physical queue to confirm whether you are dreaming, even if it takes many attempts to remember to do it. Once you do become lucid you need to refrain from doing anything until you understand how to interact with the environment without losing lucidity or struggling and waking yourself up. One handy mechanism for this is to practice only demanding out loud what you want to happen instead of trying to engage physically like we would in this reality.

[Lumaza]

  These are all great suggestions. To add one more to them I would say to make sure that you "specify" the DTs (Dream Triggers) while you are logging your Dreams into your journal.

I always log what I recall from my Dream(s). Then at the bottom of the entry I list all the DTs that were found within it or them. This really helps you to be fully aware of them the next time you find them in a Dream.

But here's the thing though, this is where "balance" has to come into play otherwise you ill get too excited and the adventure will end then and there. You have to learn how "passively observe" you are in a Dream, but not that realization completely take over. It's very hard to do at first, but just like everything else in this practice in general, it gets easier as well.

[Bluebird]

@Xanth
I went to that page and realized I had read that before and tried some of those methods. Reading it again reminded me to try and be more persistent and CONsistent with the practices. Asking people on this forum questions and participating in the conversations definitely helps to keep me focused on getting better at AP.

@ThaomasOfGrey
I'm going to try and demanding things out loud. I don't think it ever really occurred to me that I could actually say anything "loud" in a dream.

@Lumaza
Yes I definitely got too excited in each LD but the last one I managed to be a little less so. So far the events that initiated each LD seemed very random and unimportant, like looking at the side walk or looking at a wall. But I will log them.

I want to thank the veterans around here for answering the same questions over and over again. Even if you feel your specific answer didn't get through, you're still contributing a nurturing energy that has a long term effect on beginners like me.

[Gruff]

My advice comes from experience not from studying other people's techniques.
Theres three possibilities when i lucid dream. 1) i reach a state of awareness in my dream and then lose myself again back into the dream forgetting it ever happened 2) i remember the lucid dream because i didnt remain calm and woke myself up 3) i had a lucid dream and conciously made sn effort to remember it in the morning.

My first step to having a lucid dream was to strengthen my ability to remember my dreams. I'm sure many lucid dreams have been forgotten.

Not sure if this helps. Basically I believe any lucid dream is one where I conciously realise I'm dreaming weather I choose to take control of it or just let it happen and observe. If I become too relaxed there is danger I will lose my lucidness and i try too hard to wrest control there is danger that I will awaken.

[Gruff]

I never really answered your question. I tell myself over and over as I am going to sleep that I am dreaming. That's it. When I do this I seem to be more likely to realise I am dreaming.