Lucid dreaming, or dreaming while being aware that your are dreaming, is gaining popularity due to movies like "Waking Life" and "Vanilla Sky". Both these movies revolve around ideas about the conscious manipulation of dreams. Lucid dreaming has been used for centuries to gain greater clarity in life, learn new skills, and just for internal adventure and exploration. There is no evidence that lucid dreaming is anything but safe, but if you have any reservations about being able to "control your dreams", be sure to investigate further online and in the library, with books like "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge (a pioneering scientist in the field of dreams and lucid dreaming).
So, you want to fly over a town of your choice or make love to a rock star or be able to turn a nightmare into something positive and uplifting, these and much more can be done with lucid dreaming, but first a little work needs to be put into it. The first thing you can do is to keep a dream journal. Go out and buy a notebook to keep by your bed, along with a pen or pencil and a flashlight. The first hurdle to lucid dreaming is to recall more of your dreams overall, how are you going to know that you lucid dreamed if you can't remember it in the morning? The fastest and most productive way to do this is to write them down as soon as you wake up. Write as much of the dream as you can before it fades from memory, no matter how silly or stupid the dream seems upon waking, write as much of it as possible. Write down the sights, the sounds, the colors, the characters, the music, the plot, and anything else that you can remember. The waking mind is sometimes hard to convince to do this easy task, so set the intention before you go to bed to write down your dreams no matter what. Your goal should be to recall (and record) at least two to three dreams a night. If you are committed to having lucid dreams, often you will start having them in the first couple weeks.
Alright, so you are committed to writing down your dreams upon waking each night. Another thing you can get into the habit of is what is called "reality testing". Basically, as you go through normal waking life, periodically stop to ask yourself, "Am I dreaming?" Now, don't simply shrug off the question. Look around you and take in the objects and colors. Take in the smells and sounds and feelings. If you get really interested in dreaming and lucid dreaming, soon you will discover how much waking life is related to dreaming life, we use much of the same areas of the brain in each state of being. Also, do some tests, try flying (from the ground, don't go jumping off a building, obviously) or pushing your hand through a wall, try something that is impossible in real life that you seem to do a lot of in your dreams. In this way, you can condition yourself to ask the question ("Am I dreaming?") in your dreams as well, especially with scenarios that appear regularly in your dreams. Be careful, though, and be prepared to justify your answer, when dreaming your mind will search for a rationalization for you new found flying ability or your ability to breathe underwater.
The last "step" I will mention (though there are many others) has been the best in increasing my frequency of lucid dreams. This method is sometimes referred to as the "wake back to sleep" method, and this is how (even unintentionally) I've had most of my lucid dreams. The strategy is simple, set your alarm for a couple hours before you normally wake up. When you wake up, do something that you would have to get done anyway around your house, clean a room, pay some bills, surf the net for a little while. Do something other than falling back asleep right away. I usually stay up for thirty to forty-five minutes, but it will differ from person to person, so experiment with it and see what time period is best for you. After the time is up, go back to bed with the intention to lucid dream clearly in mind. Usually it is this period of returning to sleep which is the most fruitful dream cycle of the night, this has to do with more complicated REM cycles and so forth, but all you really need to know is that you will most likely have dreams upon returning to sleep, and the more dreams you have, the more chances of becoming lucid in them.
So, those are three practical things you can do to help you lucid dream more often. One of the best ways to get yourself motivated to want to have lucid dreams is to make fun, dreaming goals, a list of all the things you could do while dreaming, flying, living in a castle, meeting celebrities, etc. The more reasons you have, the more motivated you will be, and that above all will put your brain on course to have lucid dreams more regularly.
Good luck!
