onemoretime

Originally Posted by onemoretime

Date: can't recall, within the past two or three years [meaning 2004-2006].

Induction Method: DILD. I was out in a sleeping bag on Low Plaza. Sun setting, stars out, clouds out. I see a gigantic cloud baby, turning over in it's sleep. I'm stunned, and realize I'm dreaming.

Stabilization Tech: Didn't use any.

Dream Intent: Before I was trying for lucid dreams. Just took the dream as it came.

Dream Control: Interacted with dream characters, didn't try too hard to control them. Majority of the dream spent in flight, exploring fairly low to the ground, among structures.

Dream End: Can't recall.

Rating:
Stability: 3
Length: 4
Control: 3
Content: 3.5

Incidentally, several years after this post I would find a flickr photo that illustrated the dream perfectly.

Originally Posted by onemoretime

Date: 3/28/06 ~0700

Induction Method: DILD. My alarm clock was going off in real life, but I hadn't woken up yet. Instead, I had a false awakening, and turning off my dream alarm clocks wasn't affecting the sound of the alarm clock. Searching for the still ringing alarm clock made me recall a previous dream (non-lucid) in which I heard the alarm clock ringing in real life but didn't acknowledge it. I performed my favorite reality check, plugging the nose and breathing. But it didn't work. Confused, momentarily, I can't really recall what I did until I RCed again, this time checking out my hands. One of them appeared to have four fingers, so I went lucid.

Stabilization Tech: At one point walls started stretching/melting. Tried to stabilize with thumb rubbing. Failed! Immediately tried palm rubbing, everything snapped back really quickly, so I think I'll use that one preferentially from now on.

Dream Intent: I first tried to fly, and then went on to try to have my subconscious call up specific dream characters.

Dream Control: I attempted to fly through a close opaqued window, but it merely turned membranous and repelled me. After that decided to summon dream characters, but none of them were of interest to me, not fitting the requirements of what I was looking for. I should have been more specific or forceful. But I didn't want to control too much of the creation. So no go.

Dream End: Throughout dream ringing of my alarm clock was going on, I couldn't shut it off. So just ignored it, or suffered through it. But at one point my second alarm clock kicked in, and I woke up immediately. Not 100% awake, but not tired either.

Rating:
Stability: 4
Length: 3
Control: 2
Content: 2

Originally Posted by onemoretime

Date: 3/26

Induction Method: DILD. However, I can't recall exactly what triggered the lucidity! Which bothers me. I began in a normal dream, and was in the same setting of that dream when I recall the lucid memories. At one point during the dream I remember looking into a mirror, and seeing a carnival mirror like reflection, heavily distorted body, but this was in the middle of the dream.

Stabilization Tech: Used the thumb stroking once to bring everything into focus, but then I guess I neglected further stabilizations.

Dream Intent: I want to have a stable list of characters who will appear repeatedly in my dreams, just to maintain some continuity in my dreams. So I was trying to pull characters out of my subconscious. Holding auditions, sort of.

Dream Control: I only got up to two different characters, I did this by willing someone to appear in the adjoining room to the one I was in, and then walking into and seeing who it was. Then walking back to the original room, willing someone different, and walking back in.

Dream End: For some reason I stopped doing that and started exploring, and I think that was when lucidity drifted away from my control, and I segued into normal dreams.

Rating:
Stability: 2
Length: 1
Control: 2
Content:2

Originally posted 03-26-2006 02:00 PM:

Originally Posted by onemoretime

Date: 3/25

Induction Method: DILD. In a dream I was about to take a test, but I realized I wasn't prepared for it. Now in real life I really was supposed to have that test, but the weekend wasn't over so I still had time to prepare for it. So I recalled that, and it didn't make any sense to be taking the test now, so I realized I was dreaming. I performed a reality check, the breathing through pinched nose. No nose, clear breath, went lucid.

Stabilization techs: About 3 times during the dream I rubbed the top of my left hand with my right thumb. Each time felt the friction on my hand, and subsequently the dream around me became much clearer. It was as everything snapped into focus. I did this even when I didn't feel like I was losing much control, and it still snapped clearly.

Dream Intent: A short exploration and then flight.

Dream Control: Didn't try to control anyone, spent most of my time in flight, swooping and soaring in the open sky. Flew through a closed window at one point.

Dream End: I was flying through a multicolored starburst field, and decided to fly outwards into deep, dark space. And as it got darker and darker I guess the dream faded and I awoke in the darkness of my room, 100% awake. In the last flying part of my dream I hadn't thought to do any stabilization techniques.

Rating:
Stability - 4
Length - 3
Control - 4
Content - 4

An additional note, this was one of the most awesome dreams that I've ever had.

Originally posted 03-26-2006 01:49 PM:

Originally Posted by onemoretime

Date: 3-18 (approx)

Induction Method: WILD. Woke up from a dream during cycle break, decided to go lucid. Remembered the last l'd experienced, so I imagined myself meditating, and gradually that same pressure/tinnitus/light feeling. Entered dream in the same zazen position, but on a packed beach.

Stabilization techs: Didn't think to try any.

Dream Intent: Exploration.

Dream Control: Wandered around where I felt. Minimal interaction with dream characters, though found it was easier to get what I wanted out of each dream situation if I let them appear naturally, rather than forcing outright change.

Dream End: At some point I lost lucidity and the dream became a normal dream. I guess I got lazy as I was walking around.

Rating:
Stability - 3
Length - 3
Control - 3
Content - 2

Originally posted 03-26-2006 12:46 PM:

Originally Posted by onemoretime

Date: 3/13 (approx)

Induction Method: DILD. I was in a bus, meditating in the sunlight, when I started to feel very strange. I gradually realized it was the same pressure/tinnitus/white light as the last lucid dream I had, and when the light cleared I was on a different bus. Immediately I did a reality check, holding my nose and trying to breathe, but I didn't have a nose! Lucidity ensued.

Stabilization Techs: Didn't try any.

Dream Intent: Changing dream characters.

Dream Control: Was more subtle in my approach to changing characters into others. I had them disappear from my line of sight and then come back as someone else, I managed successfully.

Dream End: Overload perhaps, closed eyes and woke up in the same position, but awake. 100% awake once again.

Rating:
Stability: -- (too short to judge)
Length: 1
Control: 3
Content: 3

Originally posted 03-26-2006 12:36 PM:

Originally Posted by onemoretime

Date: 3/6/06

Induction Method: I woke up in the middle of the night, around 2:30, in one of the normal sleep cycle breaks, very tenuous awakening, I still felt sleep paralyzed, but I noticed the city lights through my blinds and the dark shape of the flag hanging on my wall, so I realized I was awake. I decided to try WILD, I thought of some imagery that could translate into my dream, and I decided on an alien abduction, a la an alien beam floating me out through the window or something. So I concentrate on that, and then I start to feel the pressure rising and hear the ringing/buzzing in my ears. Then everything starts to get whiter and whiter, until there's nothing in my field of vision but the whiteness. Then it suddenly disappears, and I'm lying on the ground, in the same position I was, in the dark. No aliens or anything, I will the lights to come on, they do, and I'm lying in front of a brick wall.

Stabilization Techs: Didn't try any, it just didn't occur to me to.

Dream Intent: Control of dream characters.

Dream Control: I successfully turned one dream character into someone else, in front of my eyes, it was difficult. Psychologically manipulated other dream characters using dream logic I knew was false.

Dream End: Things started going dark and transition right into a very wide awake state in my bed, 100% awake in fact.

Rating:
Stability - 4
Length -3
Control - 3
Content -3

Originally posted 03-26-2006 12:19 PM:

Originally Posted by onemoretime

I like to keep a paper journal of my dreams, and I'd hate having to type everything over, so there won't be any dream content in this journal. Rather I'll use this to keep track of my lucid dreaming skills and progress. I'll record the induction methods used, stabilization techniques, ld specific phenomena within dreams, etc.

As for background, I've known about lucid dreaming for a while, since at least middle school, and I've had several that I can recall since that period (actually now that I think about it I can't recall them very well at all! Yet I'm certain I had them), but only now, in the past month of my last year at college, have I really become serious about training myself to lucid dream. In the past four weeks I've kept a steady dream journal, I've been consistently reality checking, and I've had 5 so far. My ideal would be an ld for every REM period, but my realistic goal is one a day, with a good success rate for wake to sleep inductions of lucid dreams, as well as never missing my most obvious dreamsigns.

Format

Date - date of dream occurence + approximate time.

Induction Method - How lucidity came about.

Stabilization Techs - How I stabilized the dreams and maintained lucidity.

Dream Intent - What intent I might have had before the dream or intent which developed during the dream.

Dream Control - How I interacted with the dream and any other interesting features of the dream.

Rating - on a 1 to 5 scale.

Stability -
(1) Highly unstable, prone to becoming a normal dream
(5) Tightly controlled with great clarity (with or without techs)

Length -
(1) Very Short
(5) Extended perception of time

Control -
(1) Dream very difficult to interact with
(5) I get everything I want

Content -
(1) Nothing all that interesting happens
(5) Something that I'll have trouble forgetting

I suppose if anything else comes to mind I'll add that as a category, or if I have an extremely powerful experience I'll add a 6 to the ratings.

3/31/06: I'm going to start keeping track of normal dreams on this as well, no content as before, but will record dreamsigns, missed opportunities in red.