Drugs Don't Help You to Have Lucid Dreams

You can’t pop a pill and then immediately start lucid dreaming.  Trust me on this one.  There are no short cuts to learning how to lucid dream or for remembering your dreams.  If I knew what the chemical formula was for inducing complex lucid dreams or for making you remember your dreams, I would be filthy rich.

Lucid dreaming is like any other skill.  It takes practice, practice and more practice.  There is no other way.

Alcohol and legal drugs like decongestants may help you get drowsy (or unconscious) but will not help you dream.  These drugs tend to interfere with the normal dream cycle.  People need to get into REM sleep before they can dream.  On an average night, the average person goes into four REM cycles that last about 20 minutes long.  The most dreams are produced in the last few hours of sleep.

Some people report that they dream outside of the REM stage of sleep, but that’s debatable.  What isn’t debatable is that when under the influence of these drugs, you often forget your dreams.  This can give you the false impression that you do not dream at all. 

There are drugs marketed to promote dreaming, including N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) but these are often psychedelic drugs that cause hallucinations more than actual dreams.  These are not safe substances to be messing about with.

Remembering your dreams is crucial to lucid dreaming.  If you can’t remember your dreams, then there’s not much point trying to learn how to “wake up” in your dreams.  It’s hard enough to remember your dreams.  They’re more fleeting than mayflies.  You don’t have to make it any harder on yourself by taking these drugs when you absolutely do not have to.

Image of purple pills (Nexium) By Shorelander for Wikimedia Commons.