Noell's Workbook

[Noell]

So I thought it was about time that I made a workbook. After all, I came to this website looking for support from lucid dreamers so that I won't give up again. Every day I want to feel obligated to practice awareness and question reality, and I hope that having to recount these events in here with encouragement will let me reach my goals. Reality Checks: - Look at hands - Examine and question surroundings Dream Signs: -A new place I've never been to before - Water - School/college - My boyfriend's mom (whom I've never met) - My sister - My loved ones dying (especially my sister) - Strong emotions Short-Term Goals: -Complete the bonus TOTM for May - Have a second lucid dream - Talk with a DC - Fly - Explore the dream world Long-Term Goals: - Have a lucid dream every night - Meditate consistently - Improve general awareness and self-awareness - Get enough sleep (i.e., get homework done early ^^") - Be able to share lucid dream experiences with other DV members on the forums - Read some books about LD (like Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming & The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep) Lucid/Dream Recall History: - I can usually recall 1-2 dreams each night fairly well, and recently there has been a brief moment of near-lucid clarity in some of them. Current Technique: - I got my one and only lucid dream with the SSILD technique in the morning after a long night's sleep. I think it's also a good technique for falling asleep peacefully, in general. - I would like to have LDs using DILD or maybe MILD, but I usually fall asleep so quickly that I can't spend enough time on MILD. -I expect that by consistently practicing awareness and self-awareness, my dreams will become more lucid.

[Noell]

About RCs: I used to do a lot of them, but they never seemed to do anything. I mostly used them as a way of practicing awareness and to question reality, but they are also so easy to forget to do! My goal with RCs is to only do them when I discover something odd. But even then it's not easy to remember and I don't want to set a timer.... Are RCs really that important? Is it enough to just try to be aware throughout the day? I'm asking this because I have heard that most LDs occur from a developed sense of awareness rather than RCs. And RCs are best used for just confirming that you are dreaming AFTER you have become aware.

[NyxCC]

Hey Noell, welcome to intro class! I used to do a lot of them, but they never seemed to do anything. I mostly used them as a way of practicing awareness and to question reality, but they are also so easy to forget to do! My goal with RCs is to only do them when I discover something odd. But even then it's not easy to remember and I don't want to set a timer.... Are RCs really that important? Is it enough to just try to be aware throughout the day? Think about what is a reality check. It isn't a mindless yes no action that we perform (like a light switch) that automatically tells us in which world we are. Rather a reality check is there to remind us to think critically about the the current situation, to take a moment's pause and really wonder about what is happening around us and why. Performing lots of RCs can benefit us by helping form the habit of RCing, and even manifest in dreams, but if they are done mindlessly, they probably won't yield the desired results. So, I encourage you to give this tool as well as all the tools/techniques you use your full attention, take it slow, and also relate everything you do to the end result you are trying to achieve, i.e. have a lucid dream. Perfoming RCs is helpful, but again the emphasis is more or quality rather then quantity. Even better, you can try to design an RC that would be unique for you, much like Hukif did with his gravity check. http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...-tutorial.html

[Noell]

Thanks NyxCC. RCing still does not come to me as often as I would like, but the good news is that I am beginning to remember to question reality more when I'm out. In the past, the only time I could remember to do it is when I was in my room, and I never have dreams of being in my room... For the past few weeks I haven't been able to get enough sleep during the week so I mostly only have dreams during the weekend. It sucks, but I usually get multiple, long dreams when do I have them, so at least I'm not losing the ability to dream. Also, almost all of my dreams seem to be a mirror of my feelings and events that happen in reality. When I write in my dream journal, it's as if I'm writing in a diary. There is a clear reason for everything that happens. Usually it's something I'm very worried about, though. My current goal is to get enough sleep every night. Hopefully this will make it more likely for me to have a ld.

[Noell]

One thing I have noticed is that I look at items in my dream more closely than I used to. I can see their details clearly, much like what I do in real life when I pretend that I'm dreaming and do RCs. But it does nothing to help me become lucid Recently I remember in great detail a pair of golden, square reading glasses that a boy found inside of my backpack. In another dream my classmates and I made oversized sushi rolls and a student was chopping them up with a cleaver. The freshly cut pink salmon and blood-red tuna looked so smooth and saturated with color. Also, I almost never remember anything about my dreams until after the dream is over. So there is no way I can realize that I'm dreaming while I'm sleeping.

[NyxCC]

Paying more attention to objects is a good sign of progress. A similar thing happened to me, a few nights ago. In the dream I entered a room and started explaining to DCs about doing ADA, while I was paying attention to the warmth emitted by a cup of coffee and noticing what everybody was doing and making comments on top of that. A pity this didn't result in lucidity, but again, it clearly shows lding is on one's mind and the mind does what we want it to do - careful object examination in the very least. To further enhance the practices and encourage this behavior to continue, we stress some key points, either asking oneself questions about the situation and whether one is dreaming during the day; we can purposely look for weirdness or just notice more details, or we can review mentally key dream signs that might give us a clue that we are dreaming. So, you are going in the right direction, just need to be more consistent with the practices.

[Noell]

This is the first fake LD I've had, so I'm excited It makes me feel closer to my goal. I had awoken early at 5am and been up for an hour trying to fall back to sleep. About an hour later I finally fell asleep and had this dream. I had never done an actual WBTB because I'm always sleepy and fall right back to sleep whenever I wake up in the middle of the night. It didn't feel like an actual LD, though. My feelings and thoughts were no doubt controlled by my dream. Spoiler for Fake LD: I was in a dorm that was like my grandparents’ old house but bigger and I shared it with some people. Before that I was out shopping and I put all my groceries on the conveyor belt and when I went to pay, everything was gone. Then I almost paid for someone else’s groceries when I realized what had happened. The clerk was waiting for me to figure it out. I asked him if my groceries were at that one, pointing to the other checkout station. And he said yes. So I went over there but I couldn't find my groceries. They told me to check in the back of the store. The back was huge but I checked everywhere and even found my Russian professor but I couldn't find my stuff. I felt so bad, like it was the end of the world. These two other people started crying, and I felt like crying, too, so I joined them. :/ Then I was at my house trying to do things but it was difficult because I couldn't find anything. I lived with Robbie (a current roommate), Kim (a past roommate and friend), and some other guys. Then I heard a woman's voice over the old speaker above me so I looked up. It was a square speaker in the ceiling like at stores. The connection was very bad and I could barely understand her. But I thought she said something about everyone needing to leave and the place was going to burn down. A new leader like a dictator had taken control and we all had to live somewhere else. I was kind of panicking because I couldn't find my stuff and didn't know what I needed to bring with me. I wanted to bring everything. Kim came in and we talked about it and she got her stuff but didn't look too concerned. At some point I went to sleep while still in my dream. I could feel myself falling a little and my dream self realized that I was lucid dreaming. It felt really cool like my skin especially around my neck and face was vibrating a lot, so I decided to fall faster and it felt even weirder. I was in this blackness and I stopped falling. I stood up and tried to see something through the darkness. Slowly shapes started forming in the fake LD and I tried to interact with them but it was still fuzzy and I didn't even have enough control to attempt dream stabilization. So I seemed to wake up but I was still dreaming and I returned to the house in the previous part of the dream, continuing where I had left off. I'm not sure what happened after that.

[NyxCC]

Cool! It's totally possible to be able to have a full ld in a situation like this. This is called in-dream ld. Like in the dream you go to sleep non lucidly and then have another dream where you know it's a dream and act lucidly. It doesn't matter if what you thought what the entry mode was reality or dream, in the next dream, as long as you know you are dreaming, it's an ld.

[Noell]

Yeah, NyxCC, I'm sure it's possible to have an actual LD in this situation, but I could tell that I was only dreaming of being lucid. I really need to work on increasing my awareness so that I can actually get lucid from one of these. It seems like it should be so obvious but even though my dream self knew I was dreaming, it didn't reach my consciousness. I guess more frequent awareness practice, like meditation and very involved RCs, will hopefully make that part of my mind stronger. I haven't meditated for about a week, but I do a few RCs each day, usually. They involve asking myself if I'm dreaming, questioning it by examining the details in my surroundings, and end with an attempt at the hand-through-palm RC. I used to include questioning what I was doing 15 minutes ago, but that felt like too much work, especially when I was in my room for extended amounts of time and nothing had changed. I don't know of what else I should do...but I guess focusing on any more techniques would be too much. I'll do by best to practice this more and report how it turns out! This will also be practice for remembering to be consistent and to not give up So this morning and yesterday morning I spent extra time sleeping in, which has always been difficult for me, but I can tell that I am getting better. This morning I decided to try a mantra that I made a while back: "I am aware that I am dreaming." I sometimes try this before sleeping or going back to bed in the middle of the night, but it hasn't led to anything yet. I later added something about remembering dream stabilization at the end of the mantra, since the lucid dream I've had was just a blurry haze and I wonder if it would have lasted longer and become clearer if I had remembered to stabilize it. The first thing I intend to do when I get into a LD is grab objects nearby, feel them, and examine them.....maybe I'll taste them, too lol. The same goes for the floor or ground, and my body, or anything else within reach. I'm aiming for as much tactile and visual stimulation as possible. Also, after waking in the middle of the night, I tried a random WILD. I kept dozing off and waking back up. I even did a reality check once to see if it was a FA, but it failed and I was definitely awake. I felt like I was just wasting time and decided to go back to sleep.

[NyxCC]

I guess more frequent awareness practice, like meditation and very involved RCs, will hopefully make that part of my mind stronger. I haven't meditated for about a week, but I do a few RCs each day, usually. They involve asking myself if I'm dreaming, questioning it by examining the details in my surroundings, and end with an attempt at the hand-through-palm RC. I used to include questioning what I was doing 15 minutes ago, but that felt like too much work, especially when I was in my room for extended amounts of time and nothing had changed. That is a good practice. Keep it up, lds will come.

[Noell]

I feel like a slacker for being gone so long... ^^" I had to take a break during school because I was just so stressed out. Things were not going well. But next school year I'll definitely try to keep it up. Last night I had an interesting experience. I've been meditating more, and I decided to try it while laying in bed during a WBTB after waking naturally 6 hours into my sleep. The night before, I kept falling asleep before I got anywhere with meditation. This time, however, I managed to stay aware. I think that focusing on my air conditioner-chilled nose helped a lot. My plan was to clear my mind and then focus on the sights and smells of being in a pine forest. Then, if I became lucid somehow, I would find a lake nearby and complete the bonus TOTM ^-^ Eventually, my mind and body seemed more fluid. After ignoring lots of urges to itch, I could almost feel myself in a dream body in weird hypnagogic states, doing random things. All the while, I was still very much attached to my real body. I could hear cars drive by outside, feel my breathing and the bed. This went on for a while until my hypnagogic self broke something in half and threw it on the ground, my left arm twitched. The dreamy me walked a little bit, my toe twitched. Each twitch caused my mind to focus more on my real body. Almost an hour had passed and I was getting irritated and tired. By that time I was hoping for paralysis to stop the annoying twitching, heheh. Maybe if I would have kept going, I could have ended up in a WILD~ I'd like to try this again. I thought an hour would be long enough for that time of night, but I'll try for 90 minutes next time. ------------------------------------------ I'm so happy to be back!! I missed reading everyone's cool stories on DV and getting advice and encouragement from NyxCC.

[NyxCC]

Great to see you back, Noell! Indeed you seem to have been half way through wild, especially as your dream self began moving! Next time maybe try to focus more on becoming one with the dream movement (and hopefully no twiches will be there to distract you). My plan was to clear my mind and then focus on the sights and smells of being in a pine forest. Then, if I became lucid somehow, I would find a lake nearby and complete the bonus TOTM ^-^ That sounds like a great plan, good luck!

[Noell]

Last night, a couple hours before bed, I sat down to meditate...but then I got an idea. Having read Steph's workbook, I was curious about self hypnotism ^^" So I tried that. I think I did it right! It felt similar to meditation. I wasn't exactly sure about what lucid dreaming suggestion phrase to think about. I knew it had to be present tense, like "I'm happy," but if you say "I'm having a lucid dream," it sounds silly. I did try "I'm dreaming," though. I also said, "I will have an LD tonight." I only did it for a couple minutes. Nothing LD related happened last night, though This is probably something that I would need to practice every day to benefit from. If I compare meditation and this first attempt at self hypnosis, it seems like the hypnosis took less time to get into, but otherwise they seemed very similar to me. I might use them both interchangeably. ---------------------------- I am getting back into the habit of doing RCs while questioning my wakefulness. Last night I think I tried MILD after a WBTB. I wrote down a dream, then imagined myself back in that dream. I was sitting in Japanese class with my same teacher and classmates, but the school and classroom were different. To keep my mind from wandering, I decided to swing my legs. I made my desk bigger so my feet wouldn't touch the floor. I think the leg swinging helped a lot to keep me focused, but I didn't have any dreams about it in the end. It seems like every time I try that technique, it never works. I only dream of things when I DON'T try to dream about them

[NyxCC]

Last night, a couple hours before bed, I sat down to meditate...but then I got an idea. Having read Steph's workbook, I was curious about self hypnotism ^^" So I tried that. Oh, yes, I remember that. Self hypnosis might be effective in the long run. It's quite similar to autosuggestion during the day but since you are more relaxed it's supposed to sink in faster and possibly deeper. Keep it up, sooner or later it will yield some results.