The ability to conquer dreams is something that humans have been exploring throughout history. Dreams aren’t just an abstract series of thoughts, images and sensations that occur in a person’s mind while sleeping, they are also a portal to the subconscious.
Larry Page invented Google thanks to a dream he had as a 22-year-old in which he somehow managed to download the entire Web and just keep the links. Page is one of the biggest advocates of lucid dreaming, a type of dream in which the dreamer becomes aware that they are dreaming. Page was once quoted saying “when a really great dream shows up, grab it”.
There are several ways to unlock the true potential of lucid dreaming, but thanks to technology, it is becoming increasingly easy to do so. Lucid is one such app available on Google Play that lets you journal your dreams with a simple yet elegant design. This is very important, as jotting a dream down requires you to do so with as little hindrance as possible, simply because it’s very easy to forget them.
Right off the bat, the interface of Lucid is very easy on the eye — it uses a dark palette of grey and blue that isn’t unpleasant to look at, considering you’d be using it mostly after waking up.
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When you first open Lucid, you’re asked to choose the purpose of using the app so that it can be tailored better to your use. The interface is divided into 5 different screens. The ‘Guide’ tab is the best way to get used to the app and make the most out of it. It prompts you to remember what you dreamt last night, set a journal reminder and even presents you with some assisted sleeping techniques in which you can listen to a story to help with lucid dreaming.
Lucid also lets you build a habit of checking whether you are actually asleep or awake by conditioning you to reality checks. The app says one of the most popular ways to do this is by counting your fingers, as the world doesn’t behave the same in dreams and you may have fewer or more fingers while dreaming. It helps you build this habit by reminding you to count your fingers every 2 hours a day so that you are well prepared to do the same in your dreams.
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It also helps you with assisted meditation techniques and the free version features renowned psychophysiologist Dr Stephen LaBerge’s method for falling asleep.
Then you have the ‘Course’ tab where you can better understand lucid dreaming and how you can utilise it better in your life. The first few courses are free, the rest are paid.
The ‘Dreams’ tab allows you to quickly register the dream that you just had, along with a bunch of questions that help you keep a tab of when you really had a lucid dream. You can decide to type it out or simply create a voice recording which happens to be a much faster way of logging things down.
All your data is also neatly accessible in a graphical form in the ‘Profile’ tab. Here you can track things like the total number of dreams.
There’s also an ‘Explore’ tab that provides you with even more resources that are beyond the app, such as vibrant Discord and Reddit communities, some YouTube tutorials on Lucid dreaming as well as some articles and inspirations for dreams.
As far as pricing goes, annual subscription starts at USD 100 which comes as an in-app purchase. You can still use a lot of features without having to spend much.