Everyone knows the best way to get better at something is learn how to beat it on a technical level.

When you play Hard/ Wake Up difficulty (probably other difficulties too, I didn't test them), the game may kill you in real life if you're in a dream if you die BEFORE finding the clue that tells you you're in a dream. This mechanic gets more strict as the game progresses, but for the first few dreams it doesn't seem to be active at all. There is RNG involved, the mechanic can activate as early as the second dream and as late as the fifth dream, but 3 is the safe average. There is also a minimum amount of dreams you must wake up from in Hard/ Wake Up before it's possible to win, which seems to be 14 dreams in my experience.

First, doing this is not a good idea unless you are trying to get the true endings in Wake Up! difficulty as you will miss out on some interesting easter eggs by doing this. You will want a piece of paper, or something you can use to count how many dreams you have been through.

When you start a new game, immediately shoot yourself for the first 3 dreams- If you're feeling lucky, try a 4th time. I don't know exactly how this mechanic works, but if you instantly shoot yourself at 4 or more dreams in you are probably going to die, dream or not. Now you should quickly run around the house and open containers, enter rooms, and inspect objects. You don't have to examine the items closely, you just need to explore. The more dreams you have been through, the more strict this will be so you will want to explore the house more and more until you have been through 10 dreams.

On your 11th dream, you must take the game more seriously: If you are playing the Wake Up difficulty, you can use the hidden secrets to quickly skip through 3 more dreams.

Dream 1 - 3: Shoot yourself instantly

Dream 4 - 10: Explore all rooms and open all containers before shooting yourself

Dream 11 - 14: Play normally

Dream 15+: W̵̡̧a̧k̛͠͞e͜͠ ̨͜Ú͜͝p̴̀͜!͡͝