side notes

I've had 2 DILDs the past two days from no particular technique. The only thing I did different was sleep in intervals after the first WBTB.

Wake @ 5:30 A.M
Sleep at 6:00 A.M
Wake at 8:00 A.M, snooze-button and immediately return to sleep
Wake at 8:30 A.M, snooze-button and immediately return to sleep
Wake at 9:00 A.M and begin day.

This isn't the first time this has happened to me, it's just that this sleep pattern isn't particularly convenient when on most days you have work start at 7:00 A.M. The important thing here is to more-than-once interrupt REM sleep. The amount of time between wakings is entirely up to one's comfort and how much time you have to waste.

Had a short lucid dream of me walking out of my home and into my backyard. The entry into the dream felt so much like what people describe Astral Projection is so I used this lucid dream to investigate. My conclusion after just 1 trial (lol) is that no, you do not "leave your body". I walked passed my mother in the dream and even though she was in the kitchen during my nap, she had different clothes on. Most telling of all, when I got to the backyard, some key items were missing that should have been there. The dream ended as soon I tried to exit the backyard and summon a dream character.

The method I used was SSILD after a WBTB. I still maintain that timing is more important than technique. However, a tip to remember with SSILD is that the goal is to be relaxed and aware; much like meditation. During each of the "cycles" as CosmicIron would put it, be aware of as much as you can. Even if you see/feel/hear nothing, just be aware of that fact. Nothing spectacular is supposed to happen during the technique so-to-speak.

So I've probably had a lucid dream everyday since my last journal entry. This almost confirms my hypothesis that technique is not as important as timing. I did some google-sleuthing and there seems to be already research supporting my guess: Source.

Had a lucid dream using some of my common powers of shapeshifting, going invisible and moving through solid objects; in this instance a tall fence.

Had a lucid dream where I melted out of my body and started the dream in my room. I didn't have a shirt or trousers on so I opted to put those on first. I felt like I was wasting time so I just went along in the dream, conjuring clothes on my body. I don't remember anything else outside of that. I think I may have reached a new epiphany in lucid induction: technique isn't as important as timing; specifically how long WBTB is and when you decide to take a morning nap. Still testing things.

Just meditate and let the dream happen to me. Just be aware. No need to control anything.

After about a long dry spell, I had a lucid dream this morning AND I found my dream character. We embraced because I just couldn't believe it actually worked after so long a dry spell. I used MILD. The key to it that there needs to be a strong link between the mnemonic and the thing I want to remember. In this case, I noticed that school is recurring setting in my dreams. Thus, I spent a good portion of yesterday creating a very strong link between school and my intention to find my dream character. It's not the mantra or visualization that causes a lucid dream. It's the prospective memory and the link between the intention and the mnemonic. Visualization + mantra is only to strengthen that link such that it will even work while in unconscious REM sleep.

I've have had at least 2 lucid dreams in the past two days. I think I may have figured out what is causing me to have lucid dreams. It was never the specific technique or the meditation. It was the fact that I was staying awake for 90 minutes then falling back to sleep with the intention to lucid dream. 90 minutes is not a magic number. It's about fully waking up - when the mind/body least wants to - and stretching the rubber band of sleep deprivation. Then we release that tension by lying down and quickly falling asleep with no other thought than to recognize the next time we dream. Some experts would describe this as REM rebound. One must figure out how their mind/body relate to sleep deprivation and REM sleep during the WBTB period.



For my next dream goal, I am going to get a dream character to tell me their name.

The only lucid dreams I've had have been me leaving my bed and going outside for 30 seconds then losing lucidity and not remembering the rest of the dream. The majority of my non-lucid dreams have been me at my old elementary school in various scenarios. The major question I'm asking these days is: why?

Why dream about an elementary school I haven't attended in a long time vs. the number 1 thing I'm trying to incubate. Better question: How do I have a person, place, thing or idea from waking life appear in my dream at night?

My educated guess about the cause of dream content is problem-solving. From this, I've developed a model to hopefully yield positive results in dream incubation.

1. I will think of a goal in the form a person, place, or thing.
2. I will break this goal into three parts: the desired outcome, the problem(s), the possible solutions.
3. Before bed every night, I'm going to fully focus and fantasize the solutions to the problem that are preventing me from reaching my desired outcome. The ultimate goal is that my subconsciousness will take over the problem-solving element during sleep leading to a dream about the topic.

To put this into practice, let's say I'm looking for Naomi Grey, a dream character from many dreams ago. I want to find her(desired outcome) but I don't know where she is (problem #1), what she necessarily looks like(problem #2) and she could be in one of several dozen places(problem #3). So before bed, I'm going to think hard and meditate on where Naomi could possibly be(solution #1) and how I would find her (solution #2). The key here is that my solutions should inconclusive, none of them should actually answer the problem - just creatively keep my mind busy until I fall asleep. The focus should be on the problem rather than the desired outcome.

The paradigm shift is making Naomi into a mystery to be solved instead of a person I hope to see in my dream one day.

I was in elementary school again. My class was taking an exam. The exam had a weird perk where you had to submit the test within a composition notebook. I didn't have a notebook with me. So in the dream, I thought that maybe I would have one in my locker. I go to my locker and enter the combination that I somehow knew: 65 45 11.

Two significant things about that combination:

1) Master locks only go up to 39. There can be no 65 or 45 in a combination. Yet in the dream world, the lock had those numbers while still maintaining a normal sized dial.

2) That combination. I had written it down in my dream journal a while back. I had made it up. For it to just appear in my dream and be of use is very intriguing since I am in the business of trying to master dream incubation.

The locker opens and I have two composition notebooks inside, one blue; one black. I recognize these immediately yet I am not lucid at any point in the dream. The black one is my regular daily journal tracking my fitness and meditation practices. The blue journal is my physical dream journal in supplement to this on DV. I think to myself that I am not giving the teacher my blue journal because it has some embarrassing dreams in it, so I give her the black one.

That's all I remember.

Rant time.

Why is it that I dream about everything except the one thing I incubate to be dreamed about. My hypothesis is that my mind does NOT understand what a dream is exactly. It only understands real life and tries to replicate that. Perhaps why I can dream about Donald Trump with no incubation required mostly because I was reading articles about him the previous day. Yet, trying to summon a specific dream character after 2 hours of visualization exercises seems nigh impossible.

My second hypothesis is that I can and will ONLY dream about persons,places and things that I somehow have a waking-life interaction/attachment with. So elementary school mostly. But why elementary school? Why not middle school? Why not high school or more recently college?

If we dream about things we have a strong emotional attachment to, why not dream constantly about high school; a time of great emotional distress for me?

Had a short lucid dream this morning. It was via SSILD. I was jumping around this room housing three engines. They were more like 3 super fans or whatever. Crazy, I know. Dreams are going to do dream things. Woke up and tried to get back into the dream world. Reached sleep paralysis but I screwed myself by expecting some weird monster to attack me. A result of me reading Sleep Paralysis horror stories on this site. Since the dream world heavily relies on expectations, I felt something hug me. I turned my head to see this red creature thing hugging me. It resembled Him from Powerpuff Girls. That girly demon dude. Snapped me right awake again.

Important take away here is that once the WBTB ritual is completed and/or a quiet mindful state is achieved, it is imperative to FOCUS ON FALLING ASLEEP. That is how I got my lucid dream morning. I must absolutely keep this mind because I have a bad habit of wanting to lucid dream so bad in short time I have for a morning nap, that I try too hard to stay aware and thus stay awake. WRONG.

Do SSILD. Get into a quiet mindful state via meditation. RELAX AND FOCUS ON FALLING ASLEEP. Trust in the technique to do its job.

Here & Now worked again. The only hard part is calming down my mind to the point of stillness and awareness in the moment. Then, it is being patient with the pain of doing nothing, thinking nothing; not even about what I want to do in the lucid dream. Eventually, I feel the transition and know I am dream when I can freely move around as if I am on a rotisserie. The next hard part is then attempting to get visuals going which takes a bit of finesse and in-dream-visualization. I can feel my way around my room, however.


The next challenge is stabilizing the dream world because in all three attempts I have woken up, and immediately been pulled back into a non-lucid dream because I did not reset my mind into a quiet, clear, calm, present awareness. It honestly takes patience and discipline.

Had a lucid dream this morning. It was DILD but I lost lucidity somewhere down the line in the dream. Stabilization is a challenge that needs to be worked on but I am glad lucid dreams are happening frequently.

Just started HowToLucid.com 30-day bootcamp. Not shilling or anything, I just have been looking for a structured program to develop lucid-inducing habits. Success is a process, not an event.

Achieved a lucid dream via SSILD and an internal mantra of "I will have a lucid dream". Ended finding the dream character I was looking for in the description that I imagined/expected and hugged her tight. Didn't have the joy of completion that I would have liked but better than another failure.

After that, I don't remember what else that happened in the dream. On a side note, finding things to do in a dream is a bit difficult because there are so many things to do yet I only get one delicate opportunity every 24 hours to try and achieve that goal.

One was a DILD involving me using my super powers to shoot a tornado out of the sky. Yes, strange. Second was a WILD induced via the greatest method of all time, SSILD.

The second lucid dream was interesting, to say the least. The transition happened with me losing awareness of the outside world. I knew I was in transition when I could vividly imagine myself in motion - spinning with my arms out on the same axis as a rotisserie. The spinning began to materialize a dream, my backyard. I immediately attempted to find Naomi, the dream character, but when I was at the entrance of the park, the dream began to fade out and end. Was this the fourth time I have failed after being so close?

The Elusive Naomi.

On a side note, looking at the dates of my previous entries, I have had 5 lucid dreams in a 7 day period. Still more work to do on the path of mastery.

Had another lucid dream this morning. Was in this gas station searching for and eating pastries that I love so much. I was going to pay for them but decided since I was dreaming I was not going to do a damn thing but eat the pastries. After a while, I figured it was time to stop messing around and complete my goal: Find the dream character named, "Naomi"

I went outside the gas station to find a vehicle that was going to transport me as fast as possible to the park where I expected Naomi to be. All I found were cars that were missing a wheel. This is significant because here we see another obstacle keeping me from finding Naomi. I find a car that had all its wheels so I stole it of course. I heard sirens in the background meaning out of the blue(no pun intended) the police were on my tail. Fortunately, the park where Naomi should have been was only down the street from the gas station. I swerved into the park and ran into a tree. I rushed out of the car and ran towards the park bench where I knew Naomi should be. I was getting excited to finally complete this dream task I have been planning for weeks.

I finally arrived at the bench.

Instead of finding a black/asian woman with long, black braids, I found my dad sitting on the bench.

NO, DAMN IT.

Mind you I was lucid at this time, so I tried to use my dream powers of expectation to sort of summon "Naomi". I saw my father morph and distort a bit but no dice. The dream ends.



RANT TIME: The Naomi Obsession

Why the hell am I so passionately obsessed with finding a dream character from several dozen non-lucid dreams ago? Because the mere act of finding Naomi, at a certain place, at a certain time, in a specific form, to have a specific conversation, vindicates my ability to control the dream scene. That will officially mark the beginning of all the adventures I aspire to have; all the adventures that are the reasons why I have spent 7 years dabbling, researching, fantasizing, and failing at lucid dreaming. I can't have these adventures and memories if I spend most of the lucid dreams I ever have doing mundane things in places I already have familiarity with in waking life.

I am talking about achieving Inception levels of adventure; at least 4 nights a week. This, in my view, can not be done unless through sincere desire, planning, and expectation as in the case of finding Naomi.

Techniques:

So the "Ambience Induced Lucid Dream" technique I was fantasizing about several days ago is garbage. However, the root of it, SSILD, still holds water and has yielded positive results. This morning, I got an idea about the effectiveness of SSILD. Perhaps it was not in focusing on a sense for an extended length of time - as outlined in the original guide - that increases lucidity. Perhaps it was the act of switching focus from sight, sound, and touch that created the conditions favorable to induce a lucid dream. So I quickly switched focus from sight, sound and touch in a steady cadence. I guess spending 1 second per sense would be an accurate statement. Sometimes faster. Sometimes I would slow down and focus on a sense for a bit longer. But I was trying to get in as many cycles as possible because I have been having a problem where I would fall asleep without getting much done.

But of course, this wasn't the only thing I was doing to induce this lucid dream. I was also using prospective memory to visualize me becoming lucid in a later time. I wasn't repeating a mantra 10,000 times. I focused more on the visualization of me becoming lucid with the feeling that remembering to do this was very important. Mind you, I wasn't doing MILD and SSILD at the same time. I was bouncing between the SSILD-variant and the MILD-variant. WBTB was longer as well. I was awake for about 35-45 minutes. It wasn't intentional, it was just that I had a hard time falling asleep again.