Getting back into it

**Highlife** · 04-14-2016 08:53 AM

Hello Dreamers

I have had an interest in achieving more frequent LDs for years, but longer gaps between successes has often led to many months of complete inactivity. Now in my mid twenties, I made the decision to invest more time and effort, including my registration here today. I am not active in any other forums, and have signed up to communicate about a subject that rarely anyone in my waking life has any conception of.

I am using the following to achieve lucidity:

ADA
Hand RC
Lucid dreaming induction mask (REM-Dreamer)
Audiobooks / LD literature

I do have a DJ under my bed, but I really have a hard time using it. I guess I am trying to find out whether I can get away without one. Can I?

There is much I have yet to achieve in the lucid dreaming space. Given the fact that I have just returned from a long absence and negligence of practice, I have no regular weekly LD count to boast. I am at the stage where I set a certain intention (may be as simple as touching the dream floor with both hands) that I will act out at the beginning of a dream, as a proof of lucidity for my waking life memory, and then usually focus on increasing clarity, the creation of objects, and the interaction with the dream space and DCs (who all seem very passive at this stage).

My medium-term goal is to achieve multiple LDs per week, and explore the depths of consciousness, see who is behind the curtain.

**Shabby** · 04-14-2016 10:03 AM

Welcome back, Highlife!

Don't worry about not being very far yet. Everyone starts somewhere -- in fact, I definitely recognize the symptoms of the whole absence thing, since I've been at it and off it with large intervals in between as well.
About your DJ Question: Short answer, yes, you can.
Long answer: You could, but it's generally not advised. What aspect are you struggling with, in particular? Is it the effort to write in it regularly, or staying up to write as soon as you remember, rather than going back to sleep? Because, in the end, the main goal of keeping a journal is dream recall, which is nice to have, because otherwise you might be forgetting your lucid dreams too! But there are other things we can do to log our dreams. Find what works for you.

Some quick suggestions:

-Instead of writing down your dreams completely, use keywords. You can quickly jot them down effortlessly and they'll spark the memories to come back when you wake up later. When doing this, I would still recommend you to log the full dream at a later time, however. You really do want to tell your brain that you want it to remember your dreams, rather than simply forget them once you wake up.
-Similarly to writing keywords, you might like making drawings. They don't have to be pretty, as long as you know what they mean.
-Perhaps you'd rather type than write. You can use a phone application for this. You can also simply voice log this way.
-There's also mindmaps, and a ton of different other ways you could go about recalling your dreams. I suggest you visit this topic: http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-sign...ompendium.html

If you have any other questions regarding recall, just post here: Dream Signs and Recall !
Or, you could hop onto IRC chat, and the people there can help you. Good luck!

**Highlife** · 04-14-2016 11:10 AM

Thank you Shabby, regarding the DJ, my 'reasons' for not keeping it up are as follows:

- If I wake at night after a dream, or because my REM mask has woken me up, I try to get back to sleep straight away to see whether I can follow up with an LD.
- If I wake up in the morning, I don't usually have the motivation or time to write dreams down, I tend to squeeze the last few minutes out and rush in the morning, mainly because I have trouble falling asleep before midnight, giving me suboptimal hours of sleep by default.

The few entries I have are written as short stories, I will have to see how keywords work for me. I have a few drawings, for very memorable settings. That said, I do not usually read through the DJ - I will do that tonight.

I thought of using an App, but I also dislike typing on the iPhone keyboard, and always find that the light shining in my face in the darkness has a negative effect on sleep. I think that is a bit better since they added the orange-toned 'Night Shift' mode, to reduce the amount of blue light emitted.

To aid dream recall, I usually try to play it through while taking a shower, and can generally remember normal dreams for about one day, maybe two if it was memorable, without too much effort. My most memorable LDs stay with me for years, actually - even short ones sometimes.

My non lucid dreams tend to be wildly different each time, with little to no reoccurring dream signs that I know of. I also don't really care enough about random dreams to have the desire to engage further with them, or analyse them.

It is obviously my main goal to rewire my awareness to recognise the strangeness of a dreamscape, so I will have to force myself to recall and record more going forwards. The DJ is usually the first LD tip given, so I actually wondered whether there are serious lucid dreamers that do without....

**HansiElneff** · 04-14-2016 07:02 PM

Welcome to DreamViews, Highlife! I Just thought I'd mention how I train my recall.

Just like you I'm really lazy when it comes to writing down my dreams in detail every day so here is what I do:
I go through my dreams in my mind in the morning, and throughout the day, to remember as much as I can. If I get lucid in one of my dreams or if it seems special somehow, then I write it down in as much detail as I can, when I get home from school. If it's just a regular dream, then I just try to memorize it, without writing anything down.