Thread: Sharpshoey's Workbook

Another LD last night! That makes LD number 16. I tried flying again, and when I couldn't do that I tried hovering. When I was right on the verge of being able to hover I would just fall over. I totally forgot abut summoning an object to help me. After I failed a couple of times I went into caveman mode. I tried to resist it and almost did. I saw a hole in the wall and was trying to go on an adventure, but finding other girls was apparently too exciting to pass up.

Haven't posted here in a while so its a good thing I have a question

Does writing in my DJ in detail increase the vividness of my dreams. It would be cool to have HD type dreams, but the main way is to pay attention to your environment all day like ADA, which is super hard. I've heard some people say that writing down detailed dreams increases vividness though, is this true?

Dream journaling helps with recall, but I'm not sure about vividness; someone may have some info on that. Awareness in waking life definitely helps with that though. You don't have to do ADA to get HD-type dreams because, yes, it's incredibly exhausting, especially after a few days of doing it in my experience. Sporadic moments of awareness during the day would be great though. As an example, when I have sporadic moments of awareness I do: RCs, reflect back on what I did during the day, look around to find anything out of place or strange (plus try out Dream Control to try and change anything), and ask myself questions like, "Where am I?" or, "What am I doing?"

In my opinion, it's easier than ADA. I just realised that I went a bit off topic. Whoops! Well hope you found this helpful, regardless.

Great advice from Astralmango!

I also have to say that journaling will probably not result in truly increased quality but rather better recall of details. I'm thinking of two alternative ways you can try to pump up your dreams.

1. During the day, look at some awesome high quality bright color pictures. This will help saturate your mind with perceiving in better quality and may result in dreams simulating this. It may also result in incubation of specific scenes from the pictures so again you may become more likely to perceive those more vividly, especially if you associate those with a positive emotion (emotions in general amplify dream vividness for better or for worse).

2. You can extend this a step further and after looking at awesome pics, try visualizing those. Visualization is a super versatile tool that can help with lding, dream control as well help boost vividness. It's like a muscle and the more you practice it the better your skills in these areas will become.

I need to start writing down goals to keep me motivated and hopefully to help me get lucid even more. I am just going to write out each week's goals when that week comes up and then put the monthly and yearly goals I have with each one. I'll edit in my yearly goals when I've really thought those over.

December

Week 1 Goals

Out of Dream
- Have 1 LD
- Remember 30 dreams
- Get my daily practice ingrained into my mind (Finally have a consistent practice to work on)
In Dream
- Summon a jetpack to aid me in flying (was going to do a magic carpet but a jetpack seems more believable)
- Get the feeling of flying down (This will kind of be one of my goals for most of the weeks until I get it)

Monthly Goals For December
- Have 10 Lucid Dreams (It was lower but I remembered Christmas Break so I raised my goal by 2)
- Be able to fly consistently (Going to try to do this before the month ends.)
- If I have time after learning to fly, work on a basic task of the month

Just a quick question I can't seem to find the answer for. Right now I am working on my MILD technique before going to sleep. I want to start incorporating SSILD in my WBTB and then once I get more LD's and I start noticing my awakenings in the night more switch to WILD. So during my WBTB, do you recommend I only do SSILD, or is there certain conditions where I should be doing either MILD or SSILD? Any tips on this would be greatly appreciated.

You can do MILD + SSILD if you like or only SSILD. One of the major concerns of people is they are falling asleep too fast to do both, but if you can manage to do both techs, then why not? Do a few trials and see what the effect is for lds, dream contents, your sleepiness levels etc.

Just a quick update...Not able to do any lucid dreams this week because my sleep schedule was super messy. So I'm going to be starting my goals next week. So I'll only have three weeks of goals this month, but I guess I'll have to make do with that.

Alrighty then...I'm back for good! I know I haven't been gone, but what I meant was that I'm back into the practice of LDing. I set those goals up earlier thinking that they would help me. But one, I haven't had time to work on LDing and two, I keep changing practices and I can't seem to stick to one. I now have time again to focus on LDing, so after about a month of on and off practicing and stressing about which practice to do, I took a step back and observed the situation.

I realized that if I ever was going to stick with a technique and become good at LDing, I was going to have to largely come up with my own practice. Now I'm not saying that I invented these techniques, because obviously I didn't, but I have finally pieced them together in a way that I like and will be able to stick with. It isn't so effort intensive that I lose motivation, but it's not so light that it doesn't do anything for me.

So anyways, on to my practice. I'm mostly just writing this down so I don't forget it, but also so then I can get some feedback on it and suggestions to make it better if it needs to be. I first looked at all of the ways to become lucid. I cam down to four things.

1. Realizing you are dreaming by noticing something odd
2. Realizing you are dreaming because a thought about dreaming pops into your head.
3. Remembering in the dream that you need to become lucid (Basically the same as number 2, but for me there is a very thin line between them, so I put them seperate)
4. Consciously entering the dream so you're already lucid

After coming up with those four things I proceeded to come up with ways to practice becoming lucid from all of them. After all, if I could master each and every one of those (and to me those are the main ways to get lucid) then I'll have a very high rate of lucidity. Mainly my practice is what you hear all around the forums and I've read about doing this for a long time on here, but I never really did it thinking that it would lead to becoming good at LDing. I think breaking it apart like I did helped me.

Starting with number 1 - Realizing you are dreaming by noticing something odd
So I thought about how I could become lucid by doing this, and I realized this is exactly what I was doing when I first started practicing Lucid Dreaming. I looked back in my workbook and noticed all I did was ADA and an RC with a mantra. I got 6-7 lucid dreams each month for the first two months, so that probably was working for me. I think I stopped doing that because I got "too much information" and was always thinking that doing a different technique would be better.

I decided that throughout the day, I would just constantly be on the lookout for anything odd going on. To go hand in hand with that, I would keep up a general awareness of things (like ADA...but less effort intensive) so I could notice odd things easier. Whenever I notice something strange I'd do a RC with a critical question of "am I dreaming?" Then I'd do a memory check and an actual RC. If I feel like it on some of the RC's, I'd imagine what I would do if I was in a dream.

2 - Realizing you are dreaming because a thought about dreaming pops into your head
This practice was very easy to come up with because it only involves on thing. I try and keep in my head all day the mantra "I realize I'm dreaming" That doesn't mean that I'm constantly saying it, but I'm holding onto that feeling of becoming lucid and that thought that I need to realize I'm dreaming. Every time I notice myself losing these thoughts, I'll just say my mantra again to the point where it just becomes second nature. It does two things in my mind. First it makes you constantly wonder if everything around you is a dream or not...and second, it gets that thought of realizing you are dreaming into your head so then in a dream you may think that and remember to realize that you're dreaming. I also say this whenever I do an RC to associate the mantra with becoming lucid.

3 - Remembering in the dream that you need to become lucid
So this is basically the same as step 2 because the mantra will hopefully pop into my thoughts in a dream and remind me to realize I'm dreaming. The reason this is another step though, is because throughout the day the "I realize I'm dreaming" mantra is also reminding me that I need to become lucid in my dreams, and I'm also doing MILD before going to bed at night which sets even stronger intentions to the fact that I need to become lucid, so then hopefully I'll remember to become lucid in a dream.

4 - Consciously entering the dream so you're already lucid
This is just WILD so I don't need to describe anything here, but I will briefly describe how I'm going to go about my night work. Before sleeping, I do a MILD. Then at any natural awakenings throughout the night I do a MILD. I'll set an alarm for 5.5 hours after going to sleep (I've noticed waking up at this time the most) and then do my WILD then.

So any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions about my lucid dreaming practice would be greatly appreciated! I want to make this the best practice that I can and I'm hoping that this will help me to get good at Lucid Dreaming. I mostly just went back to what I was doing when I first started LDing, but I added in some more stuff that I've learned in that time.

EDIT: I didn't know where to put this but I don't use dream signs. I never have because my thoughts are that you should be able to become lucid all the time, not just every time you see a specific dream sign. But if you have any thoughts on this that would be great too. And hopefully you could understand what I was saying in my post, sometimes my writing can ramble on and you lose the basic meaning of it.

Welcome back, Sharpshoey! Nicely laid strategy and practices. I think if you manage to practice these consistently you will start seeing great results.

About dream signs, one can focus on them as main technique or as a complementary technique. You already have a few core techniques, so for now, I would suggest just take note of your dream signs, maybe highlight them in your journal and if you want think about them. This way, you would have them written down in case you might want to experiment with DS related induction in the future.

Keep up the good work Sharpshoey! You've already achieved some nice results and once you get reorganized lds will start coming again at full power.

Been sick the last couple days so haven't had much time to practice. I have been still trying to at least MILD before going to sleep though. Hopefully I'll get better soon and can start getting back into my practice. My day feels so empty now when I'm not focusing on LDing. I've gotten so used to it.

Hope you feel better soon, Sharpshoey.

Just had my 16th LD! I think I may have posted a different 16th LD in my workbook before, I'm not sure, but I totally forgot that one and didn't write it down and I think it was pretty lame. I started up with my practice like an hour before I went to bed last night and became lucid! It may have been from the MILD though, as I woke up and did that. I didn't really get that excited feeling because I can't remember how I became lucid. I was obviously excited it was an LD but its even more fun when you are so surprised you literally jump in the air. I have been working on remembering that my physical body is in bed, and that this is my dream body, but when I did this in a dream I had a false memory of going to bed in a chair so I don't think I fully convinced myself that I could do anything. I jumped off a balcony to fly and...was able to float!!! I know that's not flying but even that felt really cool and it shows that I'm slowly making progress toward being able to fly. I also did an RC to reconfirm that I was dreaming and the RC showed that I was dreaming, but my memory must have been mostly shut off because even though I could breathe with my nose closed, I thought that showed I was awake. Luckily I was aware enough to still stay lucid though.

Question about MILD. I've heard people say you should visualize in first person. For some reason, that is hard for me. I can visualize in first person for a bit, but my visualizations are easier and more vivid if its in third person. Maybe I should just work through it and keep practicing in first person until those become very vivid. What do you think about this?

So my original plan was to do MILD, DEILD at any natural awakening, and then WILD with an alarm awakening about 5 and a half hours into sleep. But I think that I have found a better method. I don't really notice waking up after dreams so that means I'm going to have to set an alarm for the DEILD, and then once I get used to waking up I an drop the alarm. My plan is to just do MILD before sleeping, then set alarms that automatically shut off to DEILD throughout the night. If I fail to DEILD, then I can just make it a WBTB and then MILD again. Once I've more or less mastered DEILD and got the feeling of going consciously into a dream, I can start to work on WILD. DEILD seems to be better all around than MILD, but I'm sure there will come a time where I will want a WILD. (Like if I fail a DEILD, I can WILD instead of MILDing).

Yay! Congrats on the ld! You really made a quick comeback!

Question about MILD. I've heard people say you should visualize in first person. For some reason, that is hard for me. I can visualize in first person for a bit, but my visualizations are easier and more vivid if its in third person. Maybe I should just work through it and keep practicing in first person until those become very vivid. What do you think about this?

If I try to remember a past dream, I just visualize the way it happened. If I try to think about my next ld, I imagine some key elements from the tasks - bag of gifts, etc. and think about the action. I think it's ok to do it in third person if that is easier for you, see if this leads to lucid dreams or dreams about people in third person. Best way to test it is by trying.

I think I'm going to have to take a different approach to how I'm doing DEILD. I read that you should repeat a mantra that you wake up after dreams until you fall asleep, but I can't do that because I want to be able to focus on my MILD to get me lucids. So maybe for now I will just remember to DEILD after every lucid dream or the ones where I become lucid as the dream is ending so I am aware I'm waking up. Also, those autosuggestion things have never really worked for me but I haven't done them for very long at any time so who knows?

I'm going to go back to practicing a WILD after 6 hours of sleep but I'm going to try and combine my WILD with my MILD at that time so I still have a chance at an LD if my WILD fails. Part of my MILD is just looking at the back of my eyelids and knowing that the next thing I see will be a dream, so I am going to try an do that in my WILD as well.

Tried WILD last night but ended up not being able to sleep for an hour :/ Maybe I should just do my MILD and since I guess it could lead to a WILD the way I do it, just let the WILD's happen when they will? What do you think about this? I've been debating but can't decide if I should focus on WILD or just do my MILD and let the WILDs come. It seems every time I focus on WILD or keeping awareness, I can't get back to sleep. I even barely focused on awareness last night but still couldn't fall asleep.

Here's LD #16

http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/shar...y-ld-16-63049/

Also, I think I want to get started working with some dream signs. How do you choose dream signs? Do you just choose one main one? Or do you choose multiple? I don't see how you could keep track of all the multiple ones. But I also don't think I have one main dream sign. So any tips or ideas about this?

I had another LD last night. But the problem is, I really can't decide if it was a lucid or a false lucid. I'm leaning more toward it being a lucid dream. In the dream, I went to turn on a light and realized here was more switches than usual. I thought about how that would have made me lucid, if I wasn't already lucid. Then it felt like I had no control as I invited a girl over and "messed around". My brother came home and I quickly got into my room and shut the door and wanted the girl to be quiet so my brother wouldn't know. But before I invited the girl even though my DC mom said not to. So at some points I thought that my actions would actually have consequence and at other times I knew they wouldn't affect me. Throughout the dream I was afraid of it ending prematurely and I was surprised that it continued and was very stable and vivid, so that's why I was leaning more toward an actual lucid dream. So yay for that! That is 2 lucids in the span of 4 days!

Congrats! Could be a lower level ld with on and off lucidity.

About dream signs, do you already have a list of those? You can certainly have more than one dream sign, and it can also be something that appears in both dream and real world or only in dream world. If it is in both, RC when seeing it. If it is only in the dream world, you can do visualization plus mantra or just mantra, "I see DS I know it's a dream" type of mantra. You can go over a list of your dream signs during the day or prebed and think how they occur only in the dreamworld or again, use mantras or visualization.

If you have been tagging your dream journal, some items that appear a lot could point to your DS.

Thanks for the help on the dream signs.

Also, I had another Lucid Dream last night! I have changes up my mantra. I first changed it to "be aware" and then "I'm dreaming", but I've settled on "see the dream". This allows me to constantly think I could be dreaming and allows me to be on the lookout for the dream throughout the day. It also goes with my MILD better than the other two mantras. It is more direct in what I am trying to do in my MILD, so I think it will work better.

Awesome! Keep them coming!

Another Ld last night! It was pretty short but I did a bit of dream control in it, so I'll count it as a success!

I forgot to mention that two days ago, I woke up completely still with my eyes closed remembering to DEILD, but I couldn't get back to sleep so I just got up and did a WBTB. But at least I got that first step down.

Congrats! I find that deild works best for me after a lucid dream, so my advice would be to try it after one.