Flanplinth's Workbook

Excuse the crazy nickname. There's no sense to it, I just made it up for a forum about 20 years ago and have used it ever since.

I'm a newbie to the LD world, but I think I'm doing okay so far. On 18th November 2017 I watched a couple of Youtube tutorials on LD, just because I was bored at home and for the first time in about 8 years I had the house to myself for a week because my wife was away dealing with a family emergency. I spent time during that same day carrying out reality checks (finger through palm) and toyed with the ideas in my head of what I might do if I became lucid. I went to bed that night with little to no thought of LD, but woke early the next morning in shock, as I'd just become lucid for the first time in my life and had been messing about in a fighter jet or spacecraft of some kind, flying it over a harbour and shooting its cannons. The roar of the craft's engines and the pin-sharp visuals and vivid colours still impress me now, over a month since.

I immediately got myself a book which serves as my dream journal, watched as many LD videos and tutorials on the web as I could, and upped my reality checks. I scoured the Youtube pages of people such as Daniel Love and Giz Edwards for more info. I became familiar with the MILD and WILD techniques and found some copies of EWOLD etc.

Since that time I've had two more lucid moments, one prompted by a lucky nose-pinch reality check out of the blue, the other prompted by noticing that a door which was recently closed but was inexplicably open a small amount - this then lead me to RC and again find I was dreaming. On both these occasions I became lucid the visual element of my dream stuttered and then froze like a faulty computer programme. I was left with a single static image (the first time it was like a test-card you get on a faulty monitor, with pixelated colours. The second occasion was like a frozen image of the doorway I described above, but black and white contour lines of that image).

My circumstances - 40 yrs old. I sleep alongside the wife, so Wake-Induced dreaming generally is out of the question - Every time I've tried so far I get disturbed or annoyed by movement or noise. My dream recall is good. I wake on average twice a night and can recall a good amount of detail from the previous dream each time. I don't do WBTB (aside from a short bathroom trip if necessary). However, I generally sleep between 11pm and 6am, so my REM durations are very limited. WL awareness is a real struggle, but I'm trying. My job and hobbies involve a lot of computer time, and I'm an artistic character, so I naturally strive for flow-state (i.e. non-mindful action). I may try to incorporate daytime meditation at a later stage, but life is currently too busy for that.

Im doing well with dream journaling - and I put daily WL entries in too, so that helps to keep a flow and keep day residue in context.

Any guidance is most welcome. I suspect that DILD will be my method as time goes on, though last night I tried SSILD for the first time and it seem very natural, though it's too soon to say how effective it will be for me.

Cheers,
Flan :)

Welcome Flan! Congrats on a nice first lucid and getting lucid twice more as well! Those subsequent two sound similar to lucids I've had at the end of REM but either way those issues will decrease with continued practice. A good strategy is to expect the dream to continue. Check out post #8 here: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...ml#post2177196 and then check out the first post.

You are doing fine and should progress without changing your game plan.

Wife - same here. I use earplugs and sometimes a sleep mask. A great strategy is to assume any wife movement to be HHs and keep going.

Toying with what I would do if I were lucid now or in my next lucid is one of my favorite activities...it doesn't feel like a chore and is fun and often promotes lucid dreams.

I love SSILD. Experiment with it whenever you can at least 15 times or so.

I have an idea on incorporating mindfulness with flow-state but I think it is best not to overload yourself at this point.

Thanks Fogelbise!

I particularly like SSILD now, having given it a good go for the last couple of weeks. I've not had any direct success, but it seems to help me fall asleep more methodically regardless of any other effects. I have used it like a WILD method on a few occasions and noticed hypnogogic sounds - some very vivid voices and swooshes. When you say try it for 15 times I'm assuming you mean 15 rounds on the same attempt of falling asleep?

I'll play with your idea of how I'd use my current situation if turned out to be a dreamstate - that's really interesting concept, thank you :)

During the nights surrounding New Year I lost a lot of dream recall - sleeping hours were reduced so less REM time and also because of a little bit of alcohol I think. I've noticed on nights that I have had one or two drinks (and only one or two!) I don't recall dreams so well. In addition my awareness and reality checks dropped down to very poor levels. Now I'm back home and back to work in my normal routine I'm getting my usual one or two dreams each night.

I have been thinking over my experiences so far and noticed a couple of trends:

I have a natural tendency to turn over during micro-wakings immediately on finishing a dream. Only in the last couple of weeks have I really spotted this but it's a very important thing for me. If I have the memory of a dream quite fresh in my mind I can lose the thing completely when I turn over, so this is something I'm training myself to overcome. I don't yet have a habit of RCing immediately when I wake so I want to work on that just to see if I can catch any false awakenings.

I'm enjoying DJing and seeing what crazy stuff my head comes up with each night, but I don't seem to have any obvious dreamsigns; no objects, places or people that turn up frequently. That is proving a bit frustrating and is stopping me from using the most commonly described method for RCing when you spot a dreamsign. I will continue with working on awareness, working on recall and random RCs. If I get time I will put some journal entries here for others to review and perhaps there is something obvious that I'm missing :)

Flan

The 15 times was referring to trying it on about 15 different nights at least before abandoning SSILD, if you ever abandon it. I haven't.

Alcohol does the same for me.

That's great that you are catching your micro-wakings. RCs at waking are a great way to catch false awakenings as you mention and false awakenings are very common with SSILD which you may or may not have noticed yet.

Based on what you are saying, I wouldn't worry so much about dreamsigns then. One trigger for RCs that I read about more recently (and I like the idea) is RCing anytime you catch you mind wandering or day dreaming. Let me know if you want more details on this.

I havent managed anorher lucid dream yet, but i do have a journal that is absolutely packed with crazy dreams from the last half year, so i have been making progress in that sense!
I dont reality check systematically these days, so im convinced that is why my lucidity has eluded me. I intend to work on this now.
I stopped using SSILD because i found i was dropping off to sleep very quickly while still recalling dreams well. Im quite aware that my lack of effort in recent months has resulted in a return to non lucid life, but im going to give it another go...

Sounds good. Crazy non-lucid dreams can be rich experiences too, especially when they are vivid and you feel or remember feeling your presence in them.

Let me know if you need help or anything.