The best thing about lucid dreaming supplements is that you don’t really need them. Lucid dreaming is a fully natural process and even those who do not faithfully practice their techniques often report spontaneous lucid dreams. Yet those who take lucid dreaming supplements correctly do report a higher incidence of lucid dreams and perhaps higher quality as well. They also report a greater ability to remember their dreams and to stay in them. This page is designed to ensure that you are taking your chosen lucid dreaming supplement in the most optimal manner.
We hope that this section will make your decision to augment your chances with dream control aids worthwhile, and will give you specific advice that will assist you. The choice of a lucid dreaming supplement is only the first step; knowing exactly how to use the dram control aid most effectively is equally if not more important.
Often people spend too much time mulling over their choices as far as lucid dreaming supplements. This is not surprising given that some of these supplements are not cheap or are a little harder to obtain. But often spending excess time trying to decide on which lucid dreaming supplement to try is not necessary, and we can can help eliminate that excess time with our quick start guide to having lucid dreams using supplements. Our basic advice goes like this:
1. Assess where you are now. Have you had a few lucid dreams but need lucid dreaming supplements to push things to a higher level – more dreams or longer ones? Or are you truly starting out and have had no lucid dream experiences at all? Have you been using solid lucid dreaming techniques for a while or did you just start? Once you have done this assessment of your current status you can move to the next step which is…
2. Make a realistic goal of what you want next. Do you want to have more frequent lucid dream experiences, or are you just looking to have any experience to get things rolling? Are you satisfied that the lucid dreaming techniques you are using will pay off or are you still unsure if you are using the correct ones for you? Making that short-term goal will help guide you toward the best supplement to try first. Now you have your goal and it’s time to move on to the step…
3. Think about your reaction to supplements. Are you someone who often experiences a greater effect from a new supplement than others, or do you often take a new herbal remedy and it initially does very little? Do you sometimes have sensitivity to supplements that makes you prone to side effects when you take something new, or do you almost never have bad reactions?
As always we wish you the best of luck in your lucid dream journeys. and if after you get experience using these dream control supplements you have advice to pass along, we encourage you to do so in our comments section below.
Secrets and ideas for the use of many of the supplements listed on our website
We cover many different lucid dreaming supplements and our home page has the latest advice about how to use them. This page covers some tips and tricks in the use of various lucid dreaming supplements that you may not have thought of but may give your chances of having a lucid dream a boost. These methods may not work for everyone, but are worth trying if you are just starting out or are an experienced lucid dreamer who is stuck in a rut.
1. Try natural sources of B vitamins instead of supplements, and have them right before bed. Look for foods high in vitamin B6 in particular. Some people have found that eating actual food with these vitamins in it, rather than taking a supplement, works better.
2. For Galantamine and Calea Z in particular, try waking yourself up in the middle of the night and taking them if they do not work when you take them before bed. They are fast acting and may work well when taken before your REM periods will be coming on fast.
3. If you are taking a lucid dreaming supplement that can be broken up into smaller pieces, break it up and take it throughout the day. We suggest this not for any biological effect, but because this will get your mind focused on lucid dreaming which in itself is the goal of many lucid dreaming techniques.
4. While we generally do not advocate combining lucid dreaming supplements because then you do not really know what worked, it may be okay to combine the natural ones that have other benefits. In other words, taking a vitamin B supplement and choline may be fine. Even better, choosing foods high in these nutrients is an excellent option.
5. For Galantamine, choose the night you will take it very wisely. You can only take this lucid dreaming supplement twice a week at most (and some suggest only once), so make sure you choose a night where you can get a full night’s sleep and you will have time in the morning to stay in bed and reflect on and remember all of your dreams.
6. Use lucid dreaming supplements on nights where you have the best chance of having lucid dreams already, such as times where you have done a great job with your lucid dream techniques, or where you know you will sleep for the full night undisturbed.
7. Make sure you try both wake-induced (WILD) and dream-induced (DILD) techniques when using lucid dreaming supplements. One may work better than he other – in the case of wake-induced you may have to do them in the middle of the night by setting an alarm because with some supplements, like melatonin, you don’t want to take them during the day.
8. Do not limit yourself to what you read about here or elsewhere as far as what will work to promote more lucid dreams. Keep a journal of what you’ve had to eat each day and try to notice patterns in your subsequent lucid dreaming. Perhaps for you some other food or nutrient will help motivate your abilities.
9. Don’t give up too quickly, since some of these supplements may not work on the first or second try. Remember that lucid dreams can be hard to come by at first and there is no magic pill; as much as the supplements we cover do help a lot, they do not work all the time.
10. There may be different ways to actually take a given lucid dreaming supplement. In other words, it may come in a form that you can make tea from, or perhaps a liquid form of some other type. For some people differences in administration can make a difference in the effect.
These are just a few tricks and tips to using lucid dreaming supplements. We will be adding to this page as time goes on, and we welcome your own suggestions as well. Always remember that the key to lucid dreaming is to use solid techniques to induce the dreams, and that any of the supplements can only make your chances just a little greater. Without good techniques you may have longer and more vivid dreams, but they will not be lucid.
Here are some tips and tricks about lucid dreaming more generally
– Do not get frustrated if your lucid dreams do not last for long at the beginning – most people report that lucid dreams get longer with persistence and practice. If you have a lucid dreaming experience, even a short one, you have proven to yourself that you are capable of having the experience and this is great news!
– Start with wake-induced lucid dreaming (WILD) in order to experience success (whether through waking yourself up late at night, or entering dreams through a daytime nap), while at the same time doing dream or sleep induced techniques (DILD) which are harder but have the potential to lead to a greater variety and number of lucid dreams.
– Only use supplements after you already have lucid dreams, otherwise you run the risk of wondering whether you have to have them in order to have lucid dreams. Supplements should never become a necessity and should only be a tool to enhance the experience.
– As much as you are looking forward to the most exciting of lucid dreams, as you start out you may want to just try to control boring and benign dreams – this will help prevent you from waking up prematurely.
– Also, when starting out realize that your dream may start lucid, but then you may lose your lucidity, or waver in and out of lucidity, as the dream goes on – still a great success! In fact, sometimes we can learn a lot about ourselves by just observing what happens in our dreams from close up as opposed to taking an active role.
– Be sure to have a dream journal – whether its old fashioned pen and paper or technology such as an electronic recording device or tablet – because you don’t want to forget parts of your lucid dreams! (As you get better at remembering you will still run the risk of forgetting important details)