Ok I have read some stuff on here which seems wrong to me but I DO understand you giving things a try as you want to lucid dream, and maybe those techniques may works for you. Howether, I had lucid dreamed quite a few times in my life so far, but only as part of my sleep problem which is sleep paralysis. Now this you may of had before. It's common. It's when your body is asleep yet your mind is conscious. This problems runs in my family so I guess it's genetic. Anyway, when you first encounter a sleep paralysis event you simpy wake up and think 'that was weird'. Howether, if you experience sleep paralysis frequently you become aware of sleep paralysis and can control it. This is important and IS fucked up. With experience you know that you are lying asleep yet your brain is fully conscious, just as it is now. So what do you do when you can't move and now you're paralyzed? Sounds shit. It is, but again with experience you even get to control that, which leads to the lucid dreams. But a typical sleep paralysis for me is feeling like your arms are shaking and eyes are flickering, as you struggle to wake - forcing yourself to be awake - and it's a real struggle. I gained experience when at one short stage I had sleep paralysis daily, so I actually got used to being in that state and thinking 'FFS not again'. I didn't even know what a lucid dream was back then. But one day instead of fighting the paraysis I relaxed and thought 'fuck it' andn sanng a song to myself from a band I liked, waiting to wake up for real, kind of bored. Suddenly, I was in a gig watching the band and it was fucking amazing. It sounded so good. Lucid dream emotions are always higher than usual (maybe your brain is releasing more feel good natural drugs, I don't know). Anyway this 'gig' lasted for some time before I woke up and wanted to go back, so I closed my eyes but it never really happened (rarely you go back in the same dream). Another time, and this isn't bullshit, I imagined fapping and in a lucid dream I came hard. Real fucking hard. I came for ages and it was also a fucking amazing feeling. (Now for some reason the thought has never occured to me to imagine sex or fapping again to lucid dream). Anyway! Those are the good bits about sleep paralysis/lucid dreams but there have been far worse and sometimes, even though you know your asleep, the lucid dream just won't happen. So you just lay there with one hell of a mind fuck in many ways..... But the key to lucid dreaming for me is a) becoming conscious in a dream state b) not panicking and gaining control (which can easily and usually dies slip) c)starting the lucid dream. Now getting a) and b) are hard enough, but are possible, where as c) seems harder to acheive yet has been acheived. So HOW TO sleep paralysis? After asking family members about their experiences I actually worked out the trigger. The trigger is sunlight. And the reason I had it a lot, more than my siblings, is because I'm a jobless loser who sleeps in late until them who have jobs and live etc. So as my body was preparing to wake, the sun would already be in my face. Now I also used to drink a lot more booze in them days and had sleep paralysis more (may be a link)? Worth experimenting. So as the sunlight hits my eyes I'm guessing that it stimulates some part of the brain, hence being conscious. As you know sunlight doesn't usually wake people up, and I wasn't considered 'awake'. But my brain was.?!? I'm guessing my brain was sensetive for some reason. Maybe the alcohol but I'm guessing genetics and the circumstances of being a slob. So if you want to lucid dream via sleep paralysis I suggest you leave the curtains open, get a little bit drunk maybe, and sleep in late. Hopefully it will work. I say hopefully but it can be a horrible experience. Not nightmareish, just physically uncomfortable. A typical sleep paralysis for me feels like I'm shaking my arms and my eyes are flickering as I try and wake, which is unpleasant.... sometimes after this you get up and start getting dressed thinking 'that sucked' etc, until you realise... you're not getting dressed but your still asleep. Wtf! I now sleep with the curtains firmly shut as I don't want the experience anymore! But if you want to sleep paraysis and hopefully Lucid dream, I suggest you relax if you do acheive sleep paralysis, and think of something you like.... After all my sleep experiences I now know why a lot of people get visited by demons etc at night in bed... it's just being semi- conscious scared person.