Imagine waking up and somehow ‘knowing’ that your dream will come true. Unfortunately, you have no idea where the event will take place because you suddenly realize that you have no clue where your dream took place. If you knew where the dream took place, you’d have a better idea for where the event might take place in real life.

This will be a short essay to outline how dreamers can get the all-important time and location data from their dreams without having to become lucid.

One of our last Project August dreams was brought to us by ‘Astral Unravel,’ and he accomplished a subtly advanced technique to figure out where the dream was taking place.

Here’s a snippet from the dream:

…Then the camera turned from the tower and ran away down the street. I followed the camera, now fully immersed in the action. There was chaos in the streets, people running and cars crashing. There were light rail trains derailing and braking hard when people ran out in front of them. I asked myself why people were acting so reckless. I realized that based on the style of the white trains, it looked like a European city. I thought that it was maybe Germany.

I finally asked the man if this was Germany. He said yes. I asked if it was Berlin and he said yes. I thought the city looked a lot like Munich, especially with the burning lookout tower, and I asked if it wasn’t Munich. He said no, it was Berlin.

Notice that ‘Astral Unravel’ simply asks the dream character where they are located. Notice also that he wants specifics and doesn’t just stop at “Germany.” It’s as simple as that—just ask someone in your dream! How hard can that be?

Most dream experts would probably guess that this dreamer was lucid. Lucid simply means that the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming, and thus they display a higher level of awareness in the dream, even to the point of manipulating certain dream material or knowing to ask people certain things. They become much more conscious in the dream experience.

Unless you are lucid in the dream, the chances of you knowing to ask for time and location data is rather slim. The reason: because most of us don’t go around everyday asking people, “Where are we?”

So is there a way to remember or know to ask this question in the heat of the dream event without being lucid? Yes…and that’s the exciting part!

How to do this without lucidity

Based on experience, it can take a LOT of work to become lucid in dreams. It can take a lot of sleepless nights, and even a lot of daytime practice.

So instead of lucidity, one can rely on habits. We tend to display the same type of habits in our dreams that we have in waking life. Yes, we do things in dreams that we normally don’t do in waking life, but for the most part, our deeply subconscious habits tend to follow us in dreamland.

Therefore, all we have to do is develop a habit to question the location and time. It’s that simple.

In your waking routine, consciously ask yourself what country, city, and even street you are located. You need to do this several times a day. Imagine being at work and a reminder pops up on the screen and it says, “Where am I?” You also have sticky notes in a couple common places around the house that say, “What date is it? What time is it?”

Pretty soon, you’ll find yourself asking what country it is wherever you go (even though you obviously know what country you are in). Here are a few tips for making a habit stick:

1. Perfect practice makes perfect. If you don’t practice correctly, your habit will be imperfect. Make sure you’re asking the exact questions in real life that you want to ask in your dreams.

2. Use the reminders to get you started, but after a few days, start reducing your dependence. The less reliance on reminders means the habit is stronger. The stronger the habit, the more reliably it transfers to dreamland.

3. If you’re going to put the effort into location data (country, state, city), might as well also include time, day, year, exact names, etc.

4. If you’re not afraid of looking like a nutcase, you can actually take this to your social setting, constantly asking people out loud the location and date. Eventually, however, they will call the local psychologist, so it’s best to refrain from this technique. Simply asking the question in your head numerous times a day will hopefully make you at least mentally ask the same questions in the dream.

Keep at it for several days then viola…every morning you will wake up knowing the exact location, date, and time of where your dream took place, and thus building possible headlines will be a breeze.

Happy dreaming!