I'm able to lucid dream intentionally, even to the point that I can take a break, wake up to use the bathroom, and then return to the exact same point in the dream. It is a strange experience to be "conscious" inside a dream, and I have certainly had some interesting ones.
Contrary to what the article suggests, you can't really control the scenario you are in. It is more like being awake. You take conscious control of yourself and the brain makes the world react accordingly, but the actions of others are still beyond your ability to change.
But I also find it to be quite useful in a practical way. I've written some of my best music and developed some of my best business ideas or inventions during lucid dreams. The bonus being that I can remember everything after waking up, so retaining those ideas becomes much easier than it normally is. In fact, if I play or hear a guitar riff while inside a lucid dream, I'm able to pick up the guitar while awake and have retained noticeable "muscle memory" for the chords or progressions or runs, as if I've played them thousands of times.
Is this intentional lucid dreaming a skill you've developed or did it come naturally? I've heard you can increase the probability of having a lucid dream by keeping a dream journal, doing "dream checks" in everyday life, etc... but i've never heard of a surefire way to have them.
It's pretty cliché, but an abundance of cheese during the day has occasionally resulted in lucid experiences for me, or at least vivid dreams I remain strongly aware of the next day.
That aside, the most reliable and intense series of lucid dreams occurred in my teens while experimenting with psylocybin -- unlike the parent comment, sometimes also affecting the dream's setting or the behaviour of people in it.
My favourite (and probably the simplest) experience from that period was repeatedly exhaling steam on a frosty day, marvelling at how the steam and everything else I could sense was a figment of my mind, before waking up giggling and in a wonderful mood.
I'm not sure if I would classify it as a developed skill. The ability to go back into the same lucid dream is something that randomly happened once, and since then I've just been able to do it. I don't have any methodology or trick. I just have the intention before falling asleep, and then it happens.
Contrary to what the article suggests, you can't really control the scenario you are in. It is more like being awake. You take conscious control of yourself and the brain makes the world react accordingly, but the actions of others are still beyond your ability to change.
But I also find it to be quite useful in a practical way. I've written some of my best music and developed some of my best business ideas or inventions during lucid dreams. The bonus being that I can remember everything after waking up, so retaining those ideas becomes much easier than it normally is. In fact, if I play or hear a guitar riff while inside a lucid dream, I'm able to pick up the guitar while awake and have retained noticeable "muscle memory" for the chords or progressions or runs, as if I've played them thousands of times.