Quick Tips: The Path of Least Disruption

A guide to consistent lucid dreaming.

Cultivating a fruitful dream practice is all about consistency. It means showing up to practice every day and putting those practices into place at key moments. Of course, not every day will be a "game day." Your daily practice is what prepares you for when game day arrives. To me, there are two types of game days.

1. Dream Game Day: When you have focused motivation to achieve specific dreaming goals and intentions for the night.

2. Life Game Day: When you have a specific life event (planned or unexpected) in which having clarity of thought and "lucid living" is critical to success.
   

Many new dreamers share the idea that cultivating a consistent dreaming practice is a disruptive way of life - that's it's time-consuming, a lot of work, it's too much to think about, or it's just too hard. This is because new dreamers tend to believe every night is game night. It's all or nothing. Of course, it's much more complex and nuanced.

When you are just starting out, it will seem hard. You're stretching a muscle for the first time. It does take effort, experimentation, and work to get into a rhythm. To learn what works through trial and error. People focus more on the near-sighted goal of having a lucid dream as fast as possible. However, the more important goal is finding your unique rhythm. This means finding the set of things (a recipe, if you will) that work best for your lifestyle.

My recipe is fine-tuned, battle-tested, and hand-crafted to suit my needs and to fit seamlessly into my life. I call this approach the "path of least disruption." If anything you are doing is not sustainable long term, or completely disruptive, stop doing it. Find a different way. These practices must fit neatly into your everyday life. That's the only way it becomes consistent and leads to the ultimate goal of regular lucidity both in dreams and in your life. Find quiet balance in your practice every day, and amp it up on game day (or night).

You will need to find your own individual recipe, and that is where your focus needs to be. Once your recipe is in place, it will become much easier for you over time. It will simply be a part of your life. Here are my top five tips to find your recipe on the "path of least disruption."

1. Create a dream journal that you'll actually keep up with. If you don't like to write freehand, don't do it. If you can't be bothered to write full dream narratives right when you wake, write some keywords and transcribe them later. Try out different methods and adjust until you love doing it.

2. Make a habit of reality checking during the day, but not so much that it becomes rote or mindless. Be present and aware when you ask yourself if you are dreaming. I like to do a reality check every time something is "Out of..." - Out of place, out of character, out of sync, out of this world, etc. If you're doing it too frequently, you'll eventually give up on it.

3. Limit your sleep disruption and prioritize great healthy sleep. Practicing wake back to bed every night, may not be the best for you, especially if you don't have enough time and space to get more than 8 hours of sleep with your dream practice. Your time awake in the middle of the night should be additive to your regular sleep. Experiment with the methods and approaches until you discover your best mix.

4. Prioritize your specific dream goals and intentions into "game nights." Avoid jamming all your goals into every night. Focus on daily good sleep and dream practice and then focus a few nights a month (or a week-long stretch) on your specific goals.

5. Take breaks! Just like any sport or skill, take a break to rest and just sleep. Pack up your gear for the night. Meditate and let go of your practice.
   

Ultimately, a lucid dreaming practice prepares you for the most challenging and rewarding of "Life Game Days" while providing healing, growth, spirituality, and creativity to all of your "Dream Game Days." Spend every day developing small, balanced practices and you will get closer to being prepared for these events. Focus on the long haul with daily practice. Find your recipe, develop a path of least disruption, and just keep it up, like brushing your teeth. The benefits and greatest rewards will come to you naturally in time.

Wishing you the very best on your unique dreaming journey.

zzxo,
Allison✨

Quick Tips for Improving Dream Recall

Image by Kevin Laminto

Remembering your dreams is easier than you think!

I always love going back to the basics, and Dream Recall is the absolute foundation of any dream practice (lucid or otherwise). It's easier than you think!

Anytime you wake up throughout the night, remain still in your bed and quietly think about what you may have been dreaming about. Many of us have little fragments swirling in our minds that can be "reeled" in.⁠ ⁠ I like to think of this process like fishing. I might remember that I was dreaming of something specific like a horse or a person - that's my hook. I also might simply know that I was dreaming, which can be a hook in and of itself.⁠
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From there, I cycle through random questions like:⁠

• Was I talking to someone?⁠

• Was I eating? ⁠

• What was I running from?⁠

• Was there an apple?

• A cat? A train?⁠

• Was it Night? Day? ⁠

• Was I scared? Was I happy? Mad?⁠

• What was I doing?

• Who was there?⁠ ⁠
  

If I feel stuck, I go to my recurring and universal themes like:⁠

• Was I in school?

• Taking a test?⁠

• Was I unable to control a car?⁠

• Was I late? Or lost?⁠ ⁠
  

And sometimes I'll just rapid fire random words, emotions, and themes that come to my head until I feel something resonate like: Red, blue, cat, cow, water, forest, childhood, winter, sad, cookie, books, trains, parents, work, house, raining, walking, crying, joyful, future, cosmos, library, etc.

Usually, I'll "catch" the memory based on these questions and can reel in the entire dream narrative from there based on one tiny spark. I seem to be able to “feel” that I’m on the right path based on a single word. Soon more words resonate and then the whole thing trickles back. It's incredibly effective even when it feels like there was no dream there to begin with. You'll be amazed by how easy this becomes in time.⁠

And of course, write down whatever comes to you immediately. I like to scribble a few keywords on scrap paper all night and then review my papers in the morning to solidify the memory. After that I'll write the full narrative in my journal later in the day, when I have time. That way there's no rush to do it right when you get up.

You can also do this practice any time in the day! In the afternoon, quietly lay down and practice dream recall from last night, or several nights ago! There’s no reason to restrict this process to just last night. I have found that the more I do it, dreams of many years ago start to come to me. It’s a wild ride.

Give it a try!⁠

zzxo,
Allison✨

The Spreadsheet Dream Journal

The single most important thing you can do to start a dreaming journey is to write down all your dreams. Forget about getting lucid right away; start recording every single dream. Make it a daily practice. Experiment with different journaling approaches until you find something that you will stick to for the long run.

For me, that’s a massively detailed spreadsheet that captures 88 different stats as well as complete dream narratives. As someone obsessed with data, my dream journal had to be a useful tool for studying trends and patterns while generating insights at scale. I can quickly sort by theme, lucidity level, dream character, emotion, dream sign, and so much more. I can look at average times I have lucid dreams, how daytime moods might affect dream moods (and vice versa), how much sleep produces the most dreams - the possibilities are endless. I’ve learned so much about myself and my dream world this way.

It certainly takes a lot of time and dedication to “manage” dreams this way, but I attribute my high-level of recall and lucid consistency to this approach. I created the spreadsheet two years ago, and at the time of this entry have since recorded 2,157 total dreams with 360 lucid (17%). I absolutely love it. Ask for a stat, and I can deliver (probably).

I’m currently working on a smaller-scale version of this spreadsheet and other database solutions for dreamers to use. Stay tuned for that in the future! In the meantime, if this kind of thing is your jam, you can get started by creating a simple spreadsheet for yourself. Start tracking just a few things that interest you the most. Let me know how it goes!

xozz,
Allison

Patience, Time, and Expectations

Photo by Benjamin Voros

Dream Musings: Never Give Up!

Today I want to take a minute to talk about one of the most important things any of us must always remember: Never Give Up! One of the most golden of all the tools in our kit is patience.

My journey started as a kid but went into overdrive in the summer of 2018. While I had always been genuinely interested in dreaming, I had never really dedicated attention to creating the "practice" I had always wanted. I had spontaneous lucid dreams every now again, but never developed consistency in any meaningful way. Hell, at the time, my recall was also spotty at best.

At that time, I decided to challenge myself to 100 Days of deeply focused intent. At the end of 100 Days, I'd either keep going or I'd stop. (Spoiler Alert: I kept going).

So, I gave myself a curriculum of books to study, set myself up with a spreadsheet as my digital dream journal, put scrap paper for keywords by the bed, and off I went. 

As soon as I put out the intent to remember my dreams, my dream recall grew. When I read the books and applied what I learned, the quality of dreams grew. I remember more dreams. I attended workshops, I trained, I watched videos. And I continued to advance… slowly and steadily. There was no need for me to race me.

In those first 100 days, I achieved my first *natural lucid dream on night 99! (*It's worth noting I experimented with supplements early on and had some lucid dreams during that period. Now I only take supplements on "special occasions" or when I have a specific intention or goal that I am specifically trying to achieve).

99 Days! For some of you that will feel like a crazy long time. For some of you that will feel quite short. But my "count to my first" will be different than yours.

After that first intentional lucid dream on night 99, I had lucid dreams every 10-12 days. Then every 7 days. All with increasing levels of lucidity, quality, and time within a lucid dream.

Today, over two years later, I consistently have lucid dreams 3-5+ a week. This is all because of the ongoing application of the daytime and nighttime practices required to sustain a lucid dreaming practice. I have carefully created a method over the years that affords me optimal sleep quality (because you cannot skimp out on great sleep), and that minimally disrupts my waking life (this is huge).

It might go without saying, but I love it - and that's important. You have to love to keep it up.

That passion allows me to bring a truly dedicated focus. My dreaming practice gives me great joy. As a person who gets deeply obsessed with subjects, I also find it important to have balance:

• Some days I am more focused, other days I am not. 

• Sometimes I don't want to do dream practice, and I won't.

• Sometimes I have a long and meaningful bedtime ritual with multiple night awakenings. 

• Sometimes I just go to sleep. 

• Sometimes I have a list of goals I want to achieve...

• Often I don't.

• Sometimes I think it's all too much work! 

• And then hours go by because it's work that I love.

• I don't pressure myself with time or failure. 

• I do apply rigor because I like to apply rigor (I'm a data nerd)

• I never give up, but sometimes I think about it.

While at the same time, I frequently have hazy, murky, low-level lucid dreams, plenty of non-lucid dreams, and whole a lot of dreams that are simply, utterly mundane.

All of this to underscore that time, patience, and the most positive expectation framework that's right for you will go a long way... at least it did for me. There is no comparison to others, only to what you did yesterday. Let go of expectations—just one day at a time.

Anyway, I hope this helps anyone who feels as though they may be struggling... 

You're right on track.