Staying in a lucid dream

Most first lucid dreams end almost immediately, and the pattern is always the same: you realise, you get excited, you wake up.

The first ten seconds

Stay calm. That is the whole technique and it is harder than it sounds. Excitement raises arousal, and arousal ends the dream.

Then stabilise:

• Rub your hands together. Generating tactile sensation is the most widely recommended stabiliser and the one most practitioners find works.
• Touch things. Walls, ground, objects. Engage senses that are already running.
• Look at detail, or at the ground. Broad vague scenes destabilise; detail anchors.
• Narrate out loud. "I am dreaming. I am in a street. The wall is cold."
• Spin. Widely recommended, though reports on it are mixed.

When the dream starts to fade

Greying out, losing colour, the scene thinning. Do not panic. Go back to sensation. Rub your hands, touch a surface, look at something close and detailed.

If you wake

Stay still with your eyes closed. It is often possible to re-enter, and false awakenings are common at this point, so do a reality check before concluding you are awake.