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Comment by senthil_rajasek | Hacker News Reader

Despite the title "Choose What to Dream Tonight", "Just 10% to 20% of people are regular lucid dreamers".

Lucid dream, "is when a person is aware that a dream is happening and can sometimes influence events within it."

But you "could" lucid dream if you try,

a) setting an intention b) writing it down and repeating a mantra before you sleep c) If you catch yourself lucid dreaming then remind yourself what you wanted to do in your dream and d) after you wake up, write down your dream.

Seems like a fun experiment but there is no suggestion of any significant health or other benefits.

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I actually believe there is a benefit, at least there was in my life. I was trying different herbal supplements that were supposed to improve your sleep quality, and hit on a mixture of ashwaganda, green tea extract, and magnesium that let me lucid dream almost nightly.

I found that, because my dreams were so much fun, I looked forward to sleep, slept longer, and had a better overall quality of sleep. I'm not sure how much was the "behind the scenes" work of the supplements, versus the fact that I was genuinely having a good time in my dreams.

Either way, I was better rested when that was happening, and essentially living two lives. It was super cool.

Sounds great. So why is all this in past tense?

I'd imagine doing this for a short while is fun but long term it's probably best to let your body handle things.

Like all things, moderation is key. I am very cautious with anything for sleep now, other than natural methods such as controlling activity, caffeine, and light before bed.

It is too easy to become dependent on anything when it comes to sleep patterns. The problem with being dependent on anything for sleep is what happens when you run out.

I had to stop lucid dreaming because practicing started giving me sleep paralysis.

When I was a teenager, I used to have plenty of lucid dreams. Also I had some sleep paralysis events. I remember once "waking up" on my bed, looking around, unable to move. I recall that my window blind looked a bit odd with all the holes forming an "X", at some point I decided to go to sleep. After that I woke up and I was back to my regular bedroom. I would love to have experiences like that, particularly I would love to experience OOBE, but looks really hard to get that. Maybe I can try this way.

Go check out r/astralprojecton it has a lot of info on how to have an OBE. I've been trying for a couple of months now and had one for sure and a couple of close ones.

Yes, thank you. I've been trying, read a couple of book (one with esoteric nonsenses) there is another book more promising, called "The phase" with exercises, but for the moment didn't work for me.

I’ve rarely had sleep paralysis but I had it a few times this year when I was taking bobinsana for a week. I’d come in and out of layers of dreams, like you’re describing. I was here: https://www.epicenterayahuasca.com/

Don't waste your time with a mantra, easiest way of lucid dreaming is the nose method.

In your waking reality, make the habit of shutting your nose close (pinch with fingers) and trying to breathe every 10 minutes. Thing is while dreaming if you shut your nose and try to breathe you'll notice that it works. If you make it a habit in your waking reality then it'll also carry over to your dreams where you'll notice that you can actually breathe with your nose shut and instantly be awakened into a lucid dream.

What do you dream about?

Seems like a lot of work when I could just play tetris for 2 hours before going to bed and control my dreams that way...

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