A lucid dream is a dream where you become somewhat awake in your sleep and you realize it is not real. Once you realize that you are dreaming, it is exactly like the movie, The Matrix. You know its not real, so you can change the rules and do anything you want. One of the first things you will probably want to do is jump off a tall building and fly. That is also the best thing for a beginner to do because it helps you realize just how much control you have over the dream world.
Theres many ways to do it, but the simplest way is to constantly check to make sure your awake through out the day, and stay conscious as you fall asleep. The easiest way to do that is to slightly stimulate your mind before and during the time where you fall asleep, and have something to tie you to reality. You want to have some music playing, or a light flashing or something you can pick up on in your sleep. Wait till you are very tired, and about to fall asleep, and play a mental game like sudoku or something until you cant stay awake anymore. This will keep your mind going. Then once you shut your eyes, keep thinking about the music or flashing light or what ever you have. While you do this, you need to start creating a 3D world in your mind. Since you wont be using your eyes or ears, you will have to imagine everything, so use a place you know well, or make up your own scene.
You will almost always slowly forget that its made up, you will also sense the real stimuli, music of flashing light, and it wont fit in to the dream very well with out changing things. Just like on the movie, The Matrix, when you noticed something change or get déjàvu and stuff. This is where reality testing comes in. If you would normally check things out to make sure your awake in reality, you will do it in a dream as well. In reality you will just see that its real, in a dream things will start falling apart. Digital watches, iPods, Cellphones, and Computers will start acting crazy or unpredictable. Also written text will be unreadable or keep changing on you. Then if your lucky, you will realize its a dream and have full freedom.
There are a few problem though. This takes a while to train you brain to do this, and its not good for you. You brain will be working about two or three times harder to have its own reality with no sensory input to go on. Your brain is not designed to work like that, or that much. The first few times you will wake up and not be sure whats going on. Usually you will lose control of this. Since your partly asleep you will not be able to move, you will be delirious and see two different reality's, the real one and the one you made up. If this happens you will clearly remember everything as if it were real. You will probably be convinced you were attacked by aliens or a ghost for a while after that. Most of the time when you have a lucid dream and do not wake up, you will not remember it, and training your mind to remember dreams is much harder and would need a whole new article written on it.
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