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Many people who practice lucid dreaming often have frightening thoughts like “What if I can’t wake up?” or “What if I can’t return to the real world?”
These concerns naturally lead to common questions: how to exit a lucid dream, how to get out of a lucid dream, and how do you wake up from a lucid dream safely and reliably.
To protect themselves from the fear of “getting lost in a lucid dream,” many beginners avoid believing in the esoteric tales found on the internet and instead seek practical answers to how do you wake up from a lucid dream. On the other hand, those who practice lucid dreaming regularly and feel confident no longer worry much about waking up.
Why?
In Michael Raduga’s instructional video series, Lucid Dreams: Quick Start, he explains that special techniques for waking up are usually unnecessary. Typically, simply thinking about your body is enough to return to reality.
However, for beginners, this reassurance may not be enough. It’s one thing to talk about it, but it’s another thing entirely to actually do it while in a lucid dream.
In a regular dream, we don’t realize we’re dreaming. But once you become aware that you’re asleep and “lucid,” everything around you begins to feel incredibly real and tangible. The realization that you can change your hyper-realistic surroundings with just a thought can trigger a genuine feeling of euphoria, creating a desire to stay in the dream longer. But alongside that comes the fear of not knowing how to get out of a lucid dream and the concern that waking up might only lead to another, slightly more realistic but still unreal, dream.
Sometimes these fears get so intense that a person may even start wondering how to get rid of lucid dreams altogether — especially if they’re experiencing them frequently or uncomfortably.
In such cases, reassurances that sleep is a natural physiological process that always ends with waking up may not bring much comfort.
How to Wake Up from a Lucid Dream
Remember Your Body
One tip offered by Michael Raduga in Lucid Dreams: Quick Start is to remember your body, as this often leads to waking up. But what if thinking about your body doesn’t bring you back to reality? In that case, you can try “getting to know” your body better—feel your body, pinch your skin, or touch your face. Usually, you will wake up. If you don’t, this indicates a strong will and control over the dream state. In that case, simply willing yourself to wake up will dissolve the dream.
Find Oddities and Inconsistencies in the Dream
One suggestion commonly found online is to look for oddities in the dream. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work because our brain, when immersed in the dream world, tends to accept inconsistencies as perfectly normal. In fact, focusing on dream details can sometimes help you maintain lucidity longer. Nevertheless, if your brain starts to register discrepancies with reality, this is a good opportunity to command yourself to wake up.
Additional Techniques for Exiting a Lucid Dream
Look at Your Phone
This is one of the simplest techniques for practitioners. A mobile phone is such a familiar item that it’s easy to imagine. In a dream, however, the phone will soon start to distort and change. This will signal to your consciousness that you’re dreaming, offering you the choice to either continue dreaming or wake up.
Create an “Exit Door”
Those who are skilled at managing their lucid dreams can easily create an “exit point” in the dream, usually imagined as a door leading back to the real world. When you want to leave a dream, simply imagine a door and walk through it, and you will wake up. It’s one of the most creative ways for those asking how to get out of a lucid dream intentionally and calmly.
Some of these methods might not always feel appropriate, but there are other techniques that work almost every time.
Effective Physical Cues
Falling
One effective method is accidental falling. It’s rare for someone to remember the continuation of a dream after a fall — usually, people recall suddenly waking up in the middle of the night after falling. This is due to the brain’s subconscious mechanisms. If you experience falling in a dream, such as into an abyss, you’ll wake up immediately. However, don’t confuse this with intentional jumping!
Flying
In contrast to falling, trying to fly in a dream can either (usually) wake you up or (sometimes) serve as a reality check. If you’re unsure whether you’re awake, attempting to fly will either wake you up or confirm that you’re still dreaming.
Talking, Shouting, or Counting
Another method is to talk loudly or shout. Anyone who has ever tried talking or shouting in a dream may recall how they started the conversation in a dream but finished it in reality, often by talking to their pillow! If shouting doesn’t work or if your words won’t come out, you can start counting out loud. Usually, you won’t reach ten before waking up.
Deep Breathing
If you’re feeling anxious or scared in a dream, your breathing will become rapid. Most often, this will cause you to wake up. If you don’t wake up immediately, consciously focusing on your breathing will help.
Final Thoughts
If you’re searching for how to wake up from a lucid dream, you’re quite lucky because, in practice, it’s often harder to enter a lucid dream than to end one. People wake up every day, despite all their fears about getting stuck. For those who struggle more regularly, understanding how to get out of a lucid dream or even how to get rid of lucid dreams entirely might require adjusting sleep habits or reducing stress.
Either way, remember: lucid dreaming is a skill, and just like any other skill, the more you understand it, the more confident and in control you’ll feel.
Lucid Dreaming and Out-of-Body Experience Books
FAQ
Recommended reading
What not to do in a lucid dream
Consequences of lucid dreaming
