The ability to have a lucid dream (awareness that you are dreaming) is something that anybody can do. Some pick it up easier than others, but with enough practice even the most stubborn mind achieve this ability.
The Question:
Being able to induce a lucid dream is really just a matter of training your mind to realize when you are dreaming and when you are awake. You practice by asking yourself this question throughout the day:
"Am I dreaming?"
I know, not much to it. However, many people just assume they are awake when they are awake. When someone asks them how they know they aren't dreaming, they respond "I just know".
Well, it's this "I just know" attitude which is what keeps them from having lucid dreams. The reason is that they are too confident about their surroundings and that confidence carries over into when they fall asleep. So when they are dreaming, they look around and except everything as "real", when it is actually a dream. The craziest things could happen in their dream, like meeting an alien, and they will continue to think it's real.
The first thing you need to do is to start questioning your environment. While you are at work or home and you are awake, ask yourself "Am I Dreaming?" and don't just say "Nope". Really look around your environment and think about it.
One way to tell if you are dreaming or not is to look at some detail of an object, then look away, then look back again. If the detail of that object has changed in some way, then chances are you are dreaming.
The Dot:
Now all you have to do is remember throughout the day to ask yourself if you are dreaming. One popular method is to draw a tiny dot on the palm of your hand. Whenever you see this dot, then that is your cue to ask yourself "Am I Dreaming" and look around the room, exploring the possibility that you might actually be dreaming.
If you ask yourself enough times in real life whether you are dreaming or not, then what will happen is that you will eventually ask yourself if you are dreaming while you are asleep. You will then realize (in your dream) that you ARE dreaming and that's when the dream becomes lucid.
So that's the most common technique in a nutshell. There are other methods, such as wearing a special electronic visor on your head that sends light flashes to your eyes, but these are costly. The method in this article is much cheaper.
Good luck, keep at it, and try to be patient. It might take up to 2 weeks to a month before you are able to train your mind to become lucid while dreaming.
