Hah! We were doing this on lucid dreaming forums back in the 2000s, it was called "reality checking" or "RCs". Basically you want to build the habit of noticing anything even slightly "off" and remembering to do a RC when you do that. Eventually you would make enough of a habit of this that you would do it in a dream, and you would "go lucid". Worked very well for me.
The dream journaling bit is important too, you often forget your dreams waking up and there's no sense in having a lucid dream if you don't remember it. Dream journaling helps you build "dream recall".
(As a side note, repurposing the concept of reality checking helped me greatly when I was experimenting with substances and it went very badly.)
Interesting to see this approach validated in a formal study. There are a whole host of other induction techniques that were discussed as well: "WILD", "MILD", and a lot of other acronyms ending in "-ILD". Stephen LaBerge may have even studied them in the 1990s.
He apparently started in the early 1980s (if not sooner), since his first book on the subject was published in 1985. Here's a blurb from his 1989 book:
"Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming goes far beyond the confines of pop dream psychology, establishing a scientifically researched framework for using lucid dreaming. Based on Dr. Stephen LaBerge’s extensive laboratory work at Stanford University mapping mind/body relationships during the dream state, as well as the teachings of Tibetan dream yogis and the work of other scientists, including German psychologist Paul Tholey…" https://www.amazon.com/dp/034537410X
I've heard having lucid dreams is also associated with a higher probability of having sleep paralysis. Stopped thinking about training right there.
I don't remember my dreams often and when I do they're very weird—I never see my own arms and legs and feel like a camera—and even if the weirdest things happen I never realize it's a dream until I wake up.
SP was often discussed in lucid dreaming forums. It's unpleasant but not really dangerous. I've induced it a handful of times; it's a state between wakefulness and sleep and the value of inducing it is that you can just roll out of bed into a dream version of your room.
While unpleasant, confronting the feeling of overwhelming terror, complete paralysis, and audio, visual, and somatosensory hallucinations, ultimately helped me become more comfortable with my fear of dying. Sometimes unpleasant situations can serve as fertile environments for personal growth.
recognizing dream signs is at least 30 years old as a technique
Indeed, the VR training seems to give people the opportunity to see dream signs in waking life and practice making reality checks.
Great alternative to psychedelics if you are looking for visionary experiences without the risk of psychosis/hospitalization. Dreams end the moment you wake up. You will never know for sure when a particular drug trip will wear off.
Psychedelics have pretty predictable half-lives, and the lab-made ones also have predictable dosages. How long it'll feel like is a different question...
Is this even a good idea? I've had lucid dreams (not by intention) a few times but mostly I thought dreaming was a GC process for your brain, so trying to constrain or control it could interfere with its function.
It's not a great idea for this reason, but nobody's found evidence of negative effects either. Getting too little sleep is certainly much worse.