A solo lucid dreaming practice · journal, signs, MILD, WBTB, WILD
This morning
Write the dream down before anything else — before the phone, before standing up.
Even a fragment. Recall is a muscle and the journal is the gym.
Phase
Tonight
About this practice
One person, one browser, one notebook that lives in this file. The method here follows the
published research tradition of Stephen LaBerge — recall first, then dream signs and reality
checks, then MILD (mnemonic induction), then WBTB (wake-back-to-bed), then stabilization
once you're inside. All the writing is original. Everything you enter stays in this browser's
local storage on your machine; use Settings → Export to back it up. Work the phases in order —
each one assumes the habit built by the one before it.
Journal
New dream
Present tense keeps you inside the memory. Note people, places, feelings, anything odd.
0 — not lucid
MILDWBTBWILD
Dream signs
A dream sign is anything that shows up in your dreams more than it shows up in your life —
a person, a place, a kind of impossibility. The list below is mined from your own journal.
Tap a word to make it a target: targets feed your MILD
intention and your reality checks. The more you journal, the sharper this gets.
From your journal
Nothing yet — signs appear once a few dreams are recorded.
Added by hand
Current targets
No targets chosen yet.
Trainer
Reality checks
MILD
WBTB
Once lucid
WILD
A reality check only works if it's a real question, asked like you mean it. Done on
autopilot in the day, it'll run on autopilot in the dream too — and fail. Each time:
stop, look around, ask am I dreaming? and actually consider it. Then test:
Hands. Look at your hands, look away, look back. In dreams they warp — extra fingers, wrong shapes.
Text. Read something, look away, read it again. Dream text rewrites itself.
Nose. Pinch your nose shut and try to breathe through it. In a dream, you can.
Anchor checks to your targets: whenever you notice a target sign in waking
life, check. That habit is what carries into the dream.
Today: 0 checks
A handful of sincere checks beats fifty reflexive ones.
Prompt me while this page is open
A soft chime and a full-screen prompt. Works while the tab stays open.
MILD is prospective memory — the same faculty that reminds you to buy milk. You set an
intention as you fall asleep: next time I'm dreaming, I'll notice. Strongest right
after a WBTB wake, good at any lights-out. Run the four steps below in bed, screen dim.
1 · Recall
Bring back your most recent dream in as much detail as you can —
tonight's if you woke from one, otherwise the freshest one from the journal. Re-enter
it. Walk it through from inside.
2 · Find the sign
Find the moment in that dream you should have noticed — the
impossibility, the target sign, the thing that made no sense. Hold that exact moment.
3 · Set the intention
Repeat slowly, and mean it:
Say it until it feels less like words and more like a decision already made.
4 · See it going right
Replay the dream from step one — but this time you notice the sign,
you realize you're dreaming, and you feel the recognition land. Loop that scene as you
drift off. If the mind wanders, come back to the loop. Let sleep take you mid-rehearsal.
REM periods lengthen as the night goes on — the richest dreaming is in the final hours.
WBTB wakes you into that zone, gets the mind lightly alert, then sends you back in with
MILD loaded. This is the highest-leverage technique here, and the most disruptive; use it
when the next morning can absorb it.
Set your alarm for
–:–
At the alarm
Stay up 15–25 minutes. Longer and you're too awake; shorter and you sink straight back under.
Low light. No feeds, no email — nothing that pulls the mind into the day.
Read a few journal entries or your target signs. Point the mind at dreaming.
Back to bed, run MILD, fall asleep inside the rehearsal.
The first seconds of lucidity decide everything. Excitement wakes you; drifting loses the
thread. The move is calm engagement with the dream's detail — sensation anchors you in.
Rub your hands together. The friction is vivid and it holds the scene steady.
Say it out loud: "I'm dreaming." Naming the state stabilizes it.
Touch things. Ground, walls, fabric — texture deepens the dream.
If it fades, spin your dream body or drop to the ground and feel it. Motion re-engages the scene.
Don't sprint for the goal. Thirty seconds of stabilizing buys minutes of lucidity.
Dream goals
Decide before sleep what you'll do once lucid — a lucid dream with no plan
dissolves into wandering. One goal, kept simple.
WILD — wake-initiated lucid dreaming — is the other door. Instead of realizing you're
dreaming from inside a dream, you keep one thread of awareness alive while the body falls
asleep, and step straight into the dream as it forms. The passage runs through hypnagogia:
the colors, shapes, sounds, and drifting scenes at the edge of sleep. The whole skill is a
balance — too much attention and you wake, too little and you black out. Easiest after a
WBTB wake, lying still, when sleep pressure is already high.
1 · Settle
Lie on your back, comfortable and unmoving. Let the body go heavy and
stop steering the breath. Name the aim plainly: stay barely awake while the body sleeps.
2 · Relax down
Sweep attention slowly from scalp to feet, softening each part as you pass
it. At the feet, rest in the whole body at once. Ignore the urge to swallow or shift —
stillness is the signal that tells the body it's safe to sleep.
3 · Watch the field
Behind closed eyes, watch the dark like a screen. Specks, colors, and
shapes drift up — the hypnagogia. Watch them the way you'd watch clouds: interested but
hands-off. The instant you grab an image it breaks and you surface. Let them build on
their own.
4 · Hold a thread
Keep one thin line of awareness alive. A silent count works —
one, I'm dreaming… two, I'm dreaming… — or rest on the faint feel of the breath.
Enough to stay a witness, not enough to keep you awake.
5 · Step in
A scene thickens until it feels like a place, not a picture. Let yourself
be drawn in gently — don't lunge. The moment you're "somewhere," run a reality check:
pinch your nose, try to breathe. When it works, you're in. Stabilize before anything else.
Anchor cue
An optional soft chime every 25 seconds — a faint bell to hang a thread of
awareness on while you drift. It fades out on its own after fifteen minutes. Works while
this tab stays open.
Attempts
Log the nights you run this so it sits alongside your recall. If an attempt
lands you inside a dream, tag that dream WILD in the
journal.
Stats
Dreams per week — last 8 weeks
Silver — dreams recalled. Gold — lucid.
Settings
Your data
Everything lives in this browser's local storage. Export regularly — clearing
browser data clears the journal.
Stats
Danger
Am I dreaming?
Stop. Look at your hands. Read
something twice. Actually consider the question before you answer it.