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Because I started trying to lucid dream late in life it took prodigious effort to achieve the relatively few LD’s I have so far managed…and I’m struggling to get back on it. Although I haven’t got Alzheimers there’s a definite deterioration in my lower mental functions.

But still I’m trying. Why?

Because LD’ing triggered an interest (directly and indirectly) in Buddhism, meditation, NDE (Near Death Experience) and reincarnation.

Why?

Because I’m increasingly convinced there’s a form of afterlife. Not the religious meeting with a (male?) God and somehow ascending to heaven…although there’s a whole raft of professing religious people who wouldn’t have a chance in hell of getting there.

I think the Buddhists may be nearer to the answer. Why?

Because of DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine)…an amazingly potent pyschedelic apparently.


Britain’s NHS and Imperial College London found a link between DMT and NDE.

One link I’ve found between LD, NDE and the Buddhist Book of the Dead, us lucid dreamers know only too well.

Forgetting the dream or not realising we are dreaming. DMT users say the same thing. Dead practicing Buddhists have to be read to after death else they don’t notice the all important dawning of the radiant light that occurs and gives them the chance to achieve Nivarna.

Why?

Like us there needs to be increased awareness in sleep, trip or death…or the chance is missed.

It’s all linked folks

PS What do American Indians call death? Dream time.

It’s been a while...and nothing much has happened. I’ve had 2 years of angst with moving home and breathing issues and currently the dreams have gone.

But I met a guy today, a handyman of mixed race and we got talking and he’s got me motivated again. He’s basically interested in LD, meditation etc but he’s young and a family man and that will hold him back a bit. (oldies like me have all the time that nature has left us)

So I’ll hopefully pick up the threads again. I know some neurons are still on standby because a few muttered mantras still get a slight response.
I’m supposed to be book writing again but I’m time-wasting on Minecraft at the moment so I need to balance between LD, writing, games and life itself...we’ll have to see what happens won't we...

From writing a story where I dragged in a loose connection to lucid dreaming (about which I then knew zilch) to spending, considering my age, a lot of energy learning about (and self- conditioning for) lucid dreams, I finally achieved my first one in September 2013.

Looking through the childlike scrawl of my journals it's clear that my dreams in the first 2 years were longer, more substantial, and far more vivid (and I was often close to more potential LD's than the dozen or so I've actually achieved.) I can see from my entries that I monitored my eating habits, the moon cycles, approximate times, and any other data I thought might be useful.

Nowadays, dream recall is thin, the dreams are weird and lacking punch and Ld's are even rarer than in the early times. So, have I got too old to dream? (if you'll pardon the musical pun) Personally, I don't think so.

My brain is generally good. I have problems recalling names on quizzes (but I've always been like that to a certain degree) But I'm still red hot on general knowledge (except sport, don't ask me about sport) I definitely eat the right things, plenty of fruit, chick peas, shellfish, loads of the right veg, etc etc. Supplements like melatonin, choline, B6 have never worked for me. I've taken choline before retiring, then topped-up with a melatonin tab before WBTB and slept for 8 hours plus and still not even got close to an LD.

I think I could get back to the old days if I worked as hard at it as I did before but I don't want that. I've done it, bought the t shirt, dreamed the dream, wakened in the dream, fell out of the dream, failed to get back into the dream and now I have other priorities. I've branched out into so many side issues and interests, McKenna, Adyashanti, Sam Harris, DMT, psilocybes, meditation, awareness, the brain (and I know that's going to be the tip of the iceberg in years to come.)

I will never abandon all attempts at LD. I'm always looking for shortcuts. I instinctively know that they exist. There's probably a magic combination of set, setting, and helpers. Maybe it's VR. Maybe it's VR plus helpers (I've always felt that intensive game-playing has somehow altered my perception)

Further confirmation last night that you can dream about LD issues without necessarily LDing. I had a dream where I was packing away a bedroll on a campsite and the bedroll disappeared. I explained to my wife that things disappearing was one of my strongest dream signs.

So, on the LD front things can only get better. If they do I'll likely tell you about it here. There may be quite a gap...there may not. If there's a very long gap it may well be that I've died, although you'll never know if I have...unless I find a way...

As per usual nowadays, this all happened at the top of the morning. It cannot be because I only then manage to accrue enough melatonin, because I've taken supplementary melatonin at various points of the night before and merely slept dreamless sleeps.

I'm in a very large office building (DS) and I hear someone talking about office decorations (Christmas?) But I can only see a very large and brightly coloured plastic dildo, on a wall inside one section. (what??!!) I suddenly realise that I'm wearing pyjamas (and my sleeping mask) and think "I'm asleep!"

I move outside the section that I'm in and immediately feel that I'm waking up This time I start to spin but to no avail (usual story lately). I lay there, musing about what had happened, then realise that I'm at my desk explaining to my (DC) fellow employees that I've just had an lucid dream. The penny drops...I'm back asleep...and then I wake up again.

It happens once more, but this time I'm telling my wife (who's asleep in our other bedroom)...and then I'm awake again. If they were all false awakenings, then the plot definitely thickens. Can I really dream that complicated scenario? If it had happened tomorrow I would have pondered on the fact that it is April fools Day and the brain apparently has independently-functioning sections (and maybe there's a joker in the pack)

Aside from that little farce, things have been quiet, with just one recent "sweet spot" in my mediation/sleeping routine. I managed to conjure up a "video" (I can never make out any clear content...maybe it's always just a typical dreamlike jumble.) It was playing very fast and I tried to instruct my brain to slow it down.

Whenever I manage to create the basic "square shape" I merely have to think "a red square" and it instantly in-fills in red. But I could not get the "video" to slow down. Maybe there are 2 separate brain departments "video" and "wire-frame shapes" and the latter one is run by a few simple-minded neurons. Maybe the "video" dept has a bunch of techie-neurons who are far too busy to listen to a noob like me. Just a thought (if you could call it that)

I'm not claiming this as a lucid (I think it would be bad form to do so) Frustrating, but never boring for long, is how I view my current dream/brain/meditation/falling asleep research. IMO we really have to show the brain respect, because there's no guarantee that we are in complete control of it. (if at all)

As I've already said, it's been a disappointing Winter...cold and pretty uninspiring on the dream front, with fairly poor dream-recall, only 2 short lucids and generally drab dreams (some almost unfathomable.)

But on other fronts, it's been interesting. My discovery that I can sometimes meditate/fall asleep and conjure up images and schemas. But, even that comes and goes. I recently watched a Youtube vid of a guy called Koi Fresco (something fishy about him) and he recites "I'm awake" twice every hour.

I've often done the mantra thing, but with me, it's always been "I'm dreaming...it's a dream." So, I decided to try his method. For 4 days I diligently worked though that mantra at least 3 times every hour, aware of every bodily sensation and my surroundings. Nothing so far....zilch.

But, other things crop up. I've noticed an improvement in dream recall if I WBTB after watching one of David Eagleman's brain documentaries (it gets me thinking about the function of the brain maybe). But, more interestingly, on 2 occasions (one was just now) I've laid down for a while and maybe, when I start to drift, a vivid image starts to form.

It's always green (that's my preferred location, a meadow or a wood) I get the "rush" and my heart rate speeds up (I can control that...always been able to) but I find breathing difficult and I have to breath deeply and that's distracting. But again I managed to hold the image for quite a while before it gradually died away.

Of course, I need such an experience after a few hours sleep and a WBTB (so we're all told) and I'm alert and thinking so I had to get up and write this to get it out of my system. Then I'm back to bed (with maybe some melatonin...if it only helps me off to sleep that's something.)

Still trying.

Only 3 recorded dreams since last time + 1 when I fell for the old “I'll remember a tag and write it later” trick. (I didn't remember it...doh!) But, I have bigger fish to fry at the moment.

I'm caught up in this “meditation/falling asleep and finding the sweet spot” experiment of mine. I drift and wisps of thought go through my mind and that's when I usually try my luck. I don't know where I'm going with this, but I think that it must be progress in something, simply because I'm doing (and seeing) things that I've not done before.

Two days ago I hit the sweet spot and thought one of my usual prompts (It was “box” – sometimes it's “house”) I expected a schema of a house but my brain seems to have decided to interpret it as my bedroom...well, it was in essence, but the orientation was wrong and it was bigger and I seemed to be looking down on it.

Fortunately, I'm well-conditioned to keep my eyes shut when I wake/hit near-sleep. I could hear my music, and felt the pressure of one foot on the other, so I was basically awake. On my little bedroom table were 3 knitted Father Christmases (what?? you may ask yourself) My departed mother knitted those as table decorations and they've been packed away for weeks. (but my sentimental minions apparently decided to add them to this little vignette.) Like my LD's it probably upped my heart rate a tad and it faded after aprox 30 seconds. That was the only result of aprox 40 minutes of M/FA

Today, I must have hit the sweet spot after about 10 minutes. I remember a wisp of thought (something about “Ron and a spaceship”) and I thought “house” Up came a screen (for want of a better word) with what looked vaguely like “The Martian.” It's a film I've seen and liked, but where's the house? And who's Ron?

The next bit is somewhat hard to explain. It looked like the images were HD but they weren't very clear?! Maybe a man in a spacesuit, maybe a robot, maybe it was just vivid and I thought it was HD. It wasn't a video, just still images that moved from place to place, maybe against a desert background. No big deal then. But, I was able to retain this image for nearly 5 minutes...and that's a first. Considering, a few weeks ago I got zilch I claim it to be a move in the right direction...so far.

Winter in the Uk now means wet and windy, and I hate that, so I'm not going out much. So it's maybe no surprise that I'm not getting LD's at the moment (although I'm still remembering, and logging a reasonable amount of dreams)

I'm now in a regular routine of 40minutes+ of meditation/nearly falling asleep. I'm not as bad as the lad in the first video link but you get the idea So it's bad for meditation but better for my dream research.

It means I can get the brain to show me how it works. There's a brilliant BBC documentary series, “The Brain” with David Eagleman, and he demonstrates how our brain usually controls us, and tells us what to see and do. (The second video link shows proof of that) I believe that kind of knowledge about the brain is important for dream research. He mentions schemas (templates) that the brain uses to “free up” neurons for other essential work.

So, when we pass a house, the brain pulls a schema from its template rack and merely adds details to it. Well, when I reach the hypnagogic stage I can get my brain to actually show a few schemas by thinking things like “show me a house” and I got the outline of a house. The schemas are tastefully presented in white outline and surrounded by a white border. I'm not saying that's necessarily how the brain stores them, but that's how it shows me.

So far I've got geometric shapes, a house (and when I asked for “a house” recently I got the outline of a key!) Fascinating stuff. Of course, the question is, can I use that to advance my LD ambitions? Knowing how the brain works could be the way in. Anyone who lives in a foreign country and doesn't learn the language is a fool. Presumably a DILD is just a person “creating a dream image” and the brain responds by popping up a schema , then embellishing it (i.e. a dream forming)

So, my “house” schema maybe needs to be pushed, so it becomes second-nature for my brain to create it on demand. Then the Polish building neurons turn up and give it a nice frontage, plant a few bushes and away we go into dreamland. It's a thought.

Brain trivia
Apparently the unconscious is the big brother and the conscious is the runt. Who knew that? He likens the conscious, to a CEO of a large corporation, who steps in when there's a crisis. The trick for us is to get our CEO to make LD'ing one of its priorities.

The brain's insistence on showing its pre-determined schema's (despite them sometimes being illogical) presumably explains why we are tricked by magicians. Well, not any more matey! You just have to shout “it's a bloody schema” and some big guy will probably throw you out...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njMP4c3SJJA


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtzzS9TtKes

Three weeks ago I had a 2 lucid dreams within 3 days...I'm finally on a roll thought I...well that didn't happen. I've had half a dozen half-hearted dreams worth recording since then, but last nights was at least fairly vivid and memorable, so I decided to WBTB late at 8am with a 1.9g melatonin tab.

I've experimented taking a tab at various times of the night, always with same result...I always sleep like a baby (dreamlessly) and today was no exception...I woke greatly refreshed at 10.30...nothing. Given that melatonin is supposed to help dreaming it just never works for me...and I suspect that 2 tabs, would probably put me out till supper-time. Maybe a shortage of melatonin is not my problem. Shortage of memory? Maybe, but I've never been Mr Memory-Man so maybe not...

I've been brain-training again to wake immediately after a dream and, early on Sunday I had a result I've had a few times before ...I woke (without a remembered dream) feeling a bit ill and with a slight feeling of dread. That's another mystery because I get up and minutes later I feel as right as rain. Trickery? Who knows?

As I've said so many times, I'll take what I can get until I get absolutely nothing...and then I'll probably still be trying.

In my last post I was really boosted by a lucid and on a high...back at last. For the next few days I really worked at awareness and every hour I recited "I'm dreaming" and looked around feigning awakening in a dream and doing RC's The trigger was finally working. Result? Nothing...even my dream recall has been flat.

For a few days I began to despair again but I'm back on track again. I'm fairly certain I'm still alert enough to do this...it's just a matter of finding the right combination that finally truly works for me. Apparently neurons need time to organise...that might be a factor. I've felt tired lately...maybe I'm applying too much pressure. Maybe I need a psylocibin kick...carefully though

I know I'm branching out into so many avenues of enquiry and that probably doesn't help...but that's me. I will never truly give up...Ed - kick some neuron ass there's a good brain

Just called in...as I intend to now and then...if I'm still around...72 next birthday.

I'm still ticking over on the dream front with a steady stream of remembered dreams. They are generally pretty mundane (I've stopped verbally abusing ED...he can only do what he can do poor luv) I had a dream about a military plane crashing (and one did 2 months later at Shoreham in Sussex...but I have to put that down to co-incidence)

I've recorded 104 dreams since my last posting on 22nd April so that's 167 days (aprox 1 every 2 days but there have been barren patches and I've done hardly any conditioning. A few of them seemed to hover on the edge of lucidity. One was clearly lucid and I also had what I think was genuinely lucid last night (but woke up this morning to note that I didn't record it even though I woke up)...or did I? But I can still remember my satisfaction at being lucid and looking carefully around (for a change) although I didn't RC damn it! Maybe browsing Dream Views yesterday pushed me towards lucidity...who knows?

It will stay like this for a while yet...I have other things to do and probably need another op (my breathing is not good and affecting my sleep and my attempts at meditation.) As is my character, I'm branching off in all directions...doing maintenance on the house, exploring Buddhism (I'm Zen me) reading up on shrooms and DMT (I'd love to take a trip) exploring diets for dreaming, interested in Adyashanti and Sam Harris, etc bloody etc...so much to do so little time.

I'm (slowly) reading an old copy of “A user's guide to the brain,” by John Ratey and it's fascinating enough to keep me going back to it. We've got 3 brains (suck on that Steve Martin!) atop each other...reptilian (for basic stuff) Paleomamalian (for finer stuff) and Cortex (for the artier-fartier detail)...in a few millenniums we'll probably all look like the elephant man head-wise.

So maybe I need 3 names for ED...Ed, Fred and Super-Ted. Ratey says the brain has great plasticity...my certainly behaves like it's plastic sometimes...sorry Ed..Fred and Super Ted...

I instinctively feel that reading up on the brain will add to my voyage of discovery re LD. I've perceived (and put on record here) that areas of my brain seem to behave independently of each other and Ratey says the brain is “more like an eco-system than a machine and many of its systems are in constant competition with one another all of our lives in a process than the Nobel Laureate Gerald Edelman has called neural-Darwinism”...hmm.

So...ever onward. Eventually (but later than planned) will come a major change of scenery (home-wise) and a more-settled environment and probably a more successful op.

I'll be back! (occasionally)

regards Luke, Ed, Fred and Super-Ted

Throughout (what I percieved to be) a long winter, and despite pressing domestic problems, I still managed reasonable amount of dream-recall. Now that the weather's improving and despite more time spent on preparation I'm getting virtually nothing...and the few fragmants I'm snatching are sooooo boring.

Is my mind going? Certainly I can no longer duplicate the mind-blowing (but ultimately unsuccessful) rushes I used to get when I tried WILD attempts during the day. Yes, I know that isn't supposed to work anyway but, to me, it was a visible sign of something that was maybe potentially powerful just around the corner...and, as such, it was quite a morale-booster. (maybe I burnt the connections out)

I've just had a two week email-tussle with a gas utility company (where I copied in all local papers, the ombudsman and my local MP) and the quality and sarcastic wit of my responses tells me I've still got some of my higher mental-functions...and I won. So why doesn't that reflect in a reasonably memorable dream?

Sure, I've still got health problems...the nose job doesn't seem to have really worked...although this area is so notorious for its poor air quality it will ultimately take my move away to prove that fact one way or the other...and I'm still pressed for time re house improvements.

Is Ed (for the benefit of new readers, he's my brain...I lean towards the opinion that mind and brain are seperates) is Ed trying to protect me from possible bad side effects of LD attempts? It's noticeable that most wake-times are a bit away from the end of REM effects (and the ones that are nearer do tend to make me feel a bit wobbly)

To answer that I'd need to be strapped to a full monitoring-device to record heart, respiration, blood pressure and brain function and they don't sell them in the local chemist (and to install a machine like that in my room I'd probably have to remove the bed...catch 22) in one of my LD's, as the dream ended I swear that I felt my heart-rate speed up but it didn't feel life-threatening.

As I've said ad-nauseum, I'm not likely to ever completely walk away from dream recall or LD attempts... because it's now so intregal to my whole philosophy of life, so I'll plod on, wait for the move, keep trying to move towards greater awareness and let Ed muse on these comments. Send me a sign ED...a dream where the grim reaper (like the one in Monty Python's Meaning of Life) slowly curls his bony finger and points to my heart and maybe I'll listen...or maybe not...



https://youtu.be/4tIg2nK67LQ

2 days after nasal surgery (Septoplasty) I feel like my dose has been laid on an danvil an dammered over. Any dreams? Defidly not...fad chance of dad ad de momend...why am I writing like that? It's only my talking that's affected.

The good news is my son has managed to get me some Melatonin while in Spain...Britain being the complete Nanny State it is. When he told the pharmacist I wanted 5mg he was horrified "Far too much Senor" He would only allow 1.9 mg (I have high BP so that's really for the best...I'll start with half a tablet, taken occasionally and see how I go)

So, after I recover I'll hopefully have better breathing and a little help from our friends...to infinidy ad beyond!

Currently, my dreams are thin, distant and hard to grasp…is it all slipping away from me? Of course there are distractions at the moment…work I have to do, health problems, maybe I’m losing some brain power as well.

But, given some loss of name recall (I’ve always been like that anyway) my higher functions feel as sharp as ever… I think in depth, about many things, my writing is improving (albeit that’s also on hold right now) I have two more part-completed novels just waiting for me to resume and I have no feelings of writer’s block.

But, at present, I can’t afford to get bogged-down in that…or my love of xbox gaming …which I’m still convinced altered some of my brain function just before I started trying for lucidity in mid 2013 because I had some very vivid dreams (plus two mind-blowing hypnagogic visions)

So…not encouraging at the moment. But why would it be? Given that it requires a fair degree of nose-to-the-grindstone determination on my part (because that’s the only way it seems to work for me at my age.) I just can’t give that level right now.

Down-hearted? Nope…not really. Everything’s just a bit distant at the moment but only just slightly over the horizon and what else can I expect right now? The main thing is that I don’t intend to just walk away from LD…I’m just ticking-over right now. I’m still looking for shortcuts…I have moves afoot to get some melatonin soon…I’m trying to clean up the pineal gland by diet and avoiding water pollutants like fluoride…OK that may just be a red-herring but it’s worth a try.

It’s now 6 am and I’m back to bed. Perhaps the next dream will be closer…or maybe the one after that. Ed...can you hear me?

71 dreams recorded in 111 days and just 2 lucids…that’s my record since I backed away last August…that doesn’t sound impressive but I’ve done very little dream-work since then. The things that really work for me are lots of walking, whilst contemplating the Universe and running through the mantras, dream signs etc (viewed from a distance I maybe look like someone on day-release from an institution.)

But I have a workload and some deadlines and health probs and it will stay that way till later this year…so I not going out much this winter. But I am thinking (always too much thinking…not really good for awareness is it?) It’s my way to explore all possibilities.

How to maximise awareness…are there shortcuts? Still using pre-recorded mantras etc. For later use, I’m amassing paperwork on Buddhism, meditation, the mind, melatonin, DMT, “shrooms”…that’s another co-incidence…as well a using “lucidity” in my first book I used the word “shrooms”…I’m 99.9999% sure I hadn’t researched either yet they’re in the book and now I’m really interested in both.

B6, choline etc doesn’t seem to work for me…maybe beetroot tabs help but even that’s not certain…red wine imparts a certain “richness to my dreams (happy days!) My lucid events still only occur at the top of the morning (after 7+ hours of sleep ) and I take that as a sign that it’s maybe poor melatonin accumulation during the night?

I take comfort from the fact that I seem to have got over excessive excitement when I hit lucidity and I’ve finally put my self-doubts to bed by doing three successive reality checks during my last lucid event (plus I stabilized a wall, after my hand went through it, just by willing it to feel solid.)

But I’m still off, over the hills and far away, after the preliminaries (I must look at everything, taking my time to explore the absurdities of dreams…) I got over-confident and took to the sky for a short wiz-round which maybe brought my dream to a premature end...that’s me, I have the will but I currently lack the stamina…I actually felt my heart speed up as I was coming out of it…is that a normal side-effect of the end of REM?

Maybe my dream efforts will kill me but I can’t think of a nicer way to go (well…I can but that’s not for delicate ears like yours…)

…and that’s very appropriate as it turns out. Despite some reservations about this site it’s never out of my mind and I always feel drawn back to it.

This is not a good time for me and lucidity. We’re due to move some time this year, I’m working at getting our property to its best state for maximum equity and I’ve still got health problems.

It’s difficult to become LD with breathing problems, headaches and the other distractions so I’m merely ticking over at present. I do hardly any preparation, no long walks and precious little awareness. I’ve only had 2 LDs since I left but that’s OK because I’m still ticking over with dream recall…I’m not going forward but I’m in a holding pattern.

…and that should change this year. Hopefully a new coastal home, an operation due shortly and no more work, work, work. But I have ambitions beyond lucidity now…my dream interest led to melatonin and that led to the pineal gland, DMT, Rick Strassman and reincarnation.

It all chimes so much with me. I’ve always been looking for answers…the main dream signs for me are looking, seeking, where am I ? what am I doing? Religions aren’t for me…I find them too tribal, too caught up in dogma and ceremony. But Buddhism has always intrigued me.

Most of Strassman’s theories are still unproven but there’s enough in it to draw me in that direction. My own dream experiences tell me that, beyond the “adventure” side of dreaming, awareness is everything. Without that (unless you’re one of the few lucky SOBs with natural chemical advantages) we aren’t really going that far.

Without awareness, we could be riding an elephant down a High Street full of pixies and aliens and be blissfully unaware of the insanity of all that until we wake up.

We live in a mad World and it’s getting madder by the minute…and it might also be a dream anyway…better structured of course, tighter plot, more sophisticated CGI…but perhaps a dream nonetheless.

I have pressing reasons to up my awareness big-time because, if the Buddhists are right and we do reincarnate…and their offer of a way out is valid, then I want out…and, at 70, time isn’t on my side.

Big changes afoot now …then nose to the grindstone later this year…back on the dream track, bags of meditation, long coastal walks…maybe even join a local Buddhist group. No shaven head or robes for me though…orange doesn’t go with my eyes.

Till then I’ll log a batch of dreams occasionally and I’ll see what develops. Ever onward.