Thread: MelissaJuice's Workbook

Welcome to DV and Intro class Melissa!

Thank you. Great content on here so far!

Here is my action plan so far:


Dream Recall
My baby step goal right now is to remember at least 1 dream every morning. I will increase this number with time. I'm usually able to remember a lot but lately due to lack of practice I have been noticing days where I completely blank out when thinking about what my dreams were last night. So I'm starting small again.

Dream Journaling
I'm going to start writing down my dreams every morning. The goal is to do it 7/7 days a week. Since it's summer right now and I don't have school, I can afford to take time out of my mornings to do that. Eventually I would like to sleep very early and wake up very early so that even if I have to go somewhere in the morning I would still have ample time to write my dreams down. But as of right now, it seems a bit unrealistic. I think once school comes around again, I will still write my dreams down, but instead of writing full dreams I will write keywords, and then finish the entry while on the way to school or at school. I will write in my journal regardless of whether I remember a dream or not. If I don't recall anything, I will write "I don't remember any dreams right now." Just so I can still say I wrote something to get that habit formed. Also according to one of the tutorials on here, doing that will make the brain really want to remember.

Sleep/Night Routine
I will start going to sleep at regular times and shooting for 8-9 hours per night. I'm also using sleep tracking apps on my phone to get familiarized with my sleep cycle patterns. I'm also going to read from my dream journal every night before I go to sleep, to get myself in the mindset and also to remind myself of my intentions and goals.


That's it for now. Soon I will start incorporating SAT/ADA and WBTB and all that stuff after a couple weeks (or less hopefully).

Questions about dream recall / micro-awakenings:

1. A lot of people say to write the dream down as soon as you wake up from them (in the morning, and throughout the night). I wouldn't mind doing this at all and with intention I have been able to but I'm wondering if it's healthy and natural. Does "rising from micro-awakenings to write down a couple of key words" count as interrupted sleep? Because I know interrupted sleep is not good at all. Or is it okay because it happens naturally at the end of a sleep cycle?

Basically my question is, if you "interrupt" your sleep at the end of sleep cycle, does it actually count as "interruption"?


2. If you wake up, write something down, is it recommended to turn a light on? Otherwise how do you see what you're writing? I have been writing in the dark and have not been able to even read what I wrote in the morning! But if I turn a light on, wouldn't that interrupt my melatonin production? Are there special lights that work better? Yellow bulbs or something? What do you guys use?


Thank you!

Hey Melissa, we are programmed to wake up naturally after each REM cycle, so technically you are not interrupting the sleep cycle. However, I wouldn't recommend waking up and writing down all your dreams after every cycle. I don't think that's very practical and may be a bit invasive especially if you haven't been doing this all along. For starters, I would say make it a habit to write down your dreams after your final wake. See how much you can recall. Then, the next step will be to try to notice your natural wakings. Take some notes about these so that we can analyse the situation and determine what to do from there.

Regarding the light, it is obviously necessary unless you find an alternative technique such as mental journalling that does not require writing.

Okay, I will do just that. Thank you!

As for the light, hmm. Guess I'll have to look into yellow bulbs. I was so mad this morning when I couldn't read my own handwriting haha.

Bad WILD Attempt + Question

I had a lucid last night. It was not very good, but it was a lucid nonetheless.

I noticed about at least three natural awakenings. I don't remember any of the dreams from earlier in the night now because I didn't write them down (I only wrote down dreams closest to morning). Near dawn I woke, and even though my goal right now is just DILD + dream recall, I decided to go ahead and attempt WILD cuz why not, it seemed so convenient... It took AGES to fall asleep. I've been able to do WILD in the past before but I haven't done it in such a long time, I guess I'm really rusty. I felt my body going numb, and started to lose awareness of my body, but for some reason my mind would just not sleep. It might have been excitement or impatience. I tried to focus on my breath but kept getting distracted.

Once I FINALLY started REM Atonia, I started hearing distorted noise, feeling my body move through space in weird ways, etc (the usual). But then at the end.... there was no dream. It faded away and I was back in my bed, in real life (I reality checked). This brought to my attention that I have experienced this many times before, in which I go through REM Atonia, only to be awake again.

Could it be that my mind is still not sleepy enough? When I woke up I didn't get up or do anything, I only checked my watch. Maybe I have a naturally alert mind?

Am I not focusing on the right things? I tried to focus on breathing but did often get distracted by uncontrollable random thoughts. I tried to direct my attention back to breathing but I kept having the impatient "ughh should I go with this or should I just try to sleep... how much time has passed" thoughts.

Was it because my REM time hasn't come yet for some reason? I had around 8 hours of sleep that night, and this happened near morning. I don't drink or do drugs. I MAY have woken up because of some noise outside, I'm not sure.

After a couple tries of this, I finally entered a lucid that wasn't very great, and more on the boring/nightmarish side. I probably was out of energy by the time I got there so I didn't do much about it. When I finally woke up for good, I still felt the tingly sensation and had to shake it off. Did not feel very refreshed.

So, bad WILD attempt. There it is.

Past two days: good LDs.

Been able to remember in a lot more detail now ever since I started doing dream journaling again on Monday.

Semi-successful WILD last night, and ... something else the previous night.

About the previous night, I think I did DEILD? But it was triggered by a recurring FA of waking up and getting ready for the day. Except this time the moment I saw myself get up to get ready I RC'd and went on to have a great LD. Would that be a DEILD or a... FAILD??

Also since I was already in a lucid, I went ahead and experimented with some dream stabilization and clarity techniques and it went successfully as well. I feel pretty good about it.

Another successful WILD (again, even though I didn't mean to), coupled with MILD.

However I thought I failed at first, because I felt like it was taking forever and I just couldn't fall asleep. Turns out I had already been dreaming the whole time, when I finally decided to just get up and wake up, and RC'd.

Went on to have a good LD in which I practiced a lot of dream control.

New Problem
Now my dreams are getting a bit too detailed and they're taking forever to write down.

Way to go Melissa! Very impressive progress!

Lol about the new problem

Thanks!!

My goal is to see if I can finish all the lucid tasks for this month. The advanced tasks seem a little daunting but I will try anyway!

Definitely, give them a try! You can also get the advanced wings with the bonus task.

I want to try them all!

By the way, progress update on DILD practice:

Even though my intention was to practice DILD I ended up doing WILD most of the time. For me DILD is harder than WILD. I really want to get good at it though. I read this sticky (http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...hecks-rcs.html) and it suggests using a mantra along with the RC. And also to have triggers. I know in LaBerge's (?) book he said something about practicing prospective memory? So I'll try that too.

As for dream recall I've been keeping up the habit steadily!

Hey Melissa, congrats on your success! Some tips regarding your issues:

- Dream recall is just a good thing, not a source of neurosis Don't wake up in the middle of the night to write dreams down, it's not vital, and may get you insomnia. Being tired is not conducive to mental clarity, hence, not productive for LDing;

- After many years and all kinds of practice, I've fallen in LOVE with WILD. It is hands down the BEST way to have LDs almost everynight, without much effort. I don't even keep a dream journal anymore. I just write the most significant dreams once in a while, and all lucids, of course. Don't worry too much about detail in your dream journal. Keep it short. Just write what is really significant.

However, correct WILD technique is paramount. I've developed my own almost by chance, but later I've found that CrazyInSane already had writen it down (I guess nothing new under the sun, eh?). I direct you to his post:

http://www.dreamviews.com/wake-initi...al-%2A%2A.html

The thing is: when you wake up, don't move. Keep still. That will facilitate the transition back to the dream, avoiding those long boring hours of 'am I asleep already?' in bed. Instead of focusing on your breath, I like to focus on the imagery that will soon form in my view, and as soon as it forms, I 'jump' into it. Usually, it takes 10 to 30 seconds for that to occur, if I didn't move.

And of course, there are nights when you fail, but I prefer to call them 'practice'. Once in while I just sleep for the sake of it, without any concerns for LD practice or whatnot. I call it 'decompression', and I find it helps with my overall drive and intention.

Hope it helps. Make sure to check this thread, if you haven't already:

http://www.dreamviews.com/wake-initi...al-%2A%2A.html

Another thing, meditation helps A LOT. Just do a few minutes of breathing mindfulness twice a day.

Good luck!

Hey thank you so much! Those are all really helpful tips and I will try them tonight!!

I too think WILD is the best and most reliable. And it really is a combination of getting many of the little things right for it to work. I will read over the tutorials again later and follow them religiously, thanks!