Thread: Experienced LDers - question about the learning curve

Well, what techniques I started with, strictly speaking, I started with DILD, but I had no idea that "techniques" existed, or what they were named, so yeah. I went with that for 8 years and got no success. Which means all my (20) LDs came naturally, after that, decided to do a WILD (Didn't know the name either), once I got it, focused on the dream to find stuff that felt different from reality, then used that as my new RC and finally was able to do DILDs. So, for WILD, it took me around a month to be familiar with it, and for DILD, 8 years and 3 months.

When I started, my dream recall went from like zero dreams per night to 1-2 per night right away. After that it took about a month to get to 3-4 dreams per night.

The only technique I've ever done is being "aware" of what I'm doing, asking myself "why am i doing this" a few times a day to check.

Just doing that, and keeping up my dream journal, over the course of 3/4 of a year I'm up to usually 1 lucid per week, with between 2 and 8 dreams per night. I wouldn't consider myself good either by any definition, putting in effort of doing alot of RC's and other real techniques would probably net you 2+ lucids per week after a year, if not more.

I just do this as a past-time.

Hey Bob!
For me, I don't necessarily have 1-2 lucids a week but that's because I don't put the same effort in as I used to. I think it really depends on how much you want to have them, combined with how much time you spend on it. Having said that, be careful not to obsess too much because I find that can manifest dry spells. Pretty much if you consciously affirm LDing on a daily basis in the form of: RCing, Dream journaling, WILD attempts etc, you will very likely have lots of LD's.

As for what you should expect from yourself... Aim high. Expect an LD every night. All that can do for you is make it more likely to happen. From my experience LDing is not something that is a very stable hobby. They come and go... I've had dry spells of 2 months even when I was actively affirming LD's on a daily basis... On the other hand I've had LD's twice a day for periods of up to 2 weeks. It's really sporadic.

Cheers,

- Jamal

Well, I get lucids almost every day now. Sometimes for a few days in a row. The way I started was just trying to get my dream recall up first, I had no recall at all to start with, so I download a dreamjournal program(using it every day now). The first few days I couldn't remember crap, then I started remember more and more with each day. When that kinda hit its peak I got my first lucid dream. Then regular dreams for like 4 days. Then I started getting a lot of short lucids. They'd come in bursts. Like i would have them for like 3 days in a row, maybe skipping a day, then I for the next 2-4 days I wouldn't have any. Then have them in a burst again, This kept happening a few times. Then I had a very long lucid, then more long lucids. Then it suddenly stopped for like 4 or 5 days, no lucids, and bad recall do to rude awakenings. This was around the time I discovered subliminal MP3s and Peanut butter and banana sandwiches. That worked extremely well. Ive also done a few WILDs by accident. And now here I am at this point in time having lucids almost every day now. With great recall. This all started when i joined dreamviews. (read join date) In all my lucids I don't have much control, probably cause most of the time i don't want to control it, just see whats going on. My first lucid happened with a WBTB. Most of my long lucids are WBTBs.

Intention is very powerful, remember that. Its mostly why im getting all my lucids.

Just for reference, I have at least two lucid dreams a week.

It took me a few days to get my first LD, definitely less than a week. I was able to control my dreams almost immediately because I did a lot of research and knew what to expect. My current level of experience and control in lucid dreams probably came about a few months ago.

I started out with WILD and DILD. I had a few WILDs in the beginning, but now I focus mainly on DILD.

Practicing simple awareness is the best technique one can do in terms of trying to get lucids. It's important to be genuinely skeptical whether or not you could be dreaming, because in our dreams, we don't usually question this. I rarely do reality checks unless I'm questioning whether or not I'm in a dream, and reality checks never cause me to become lucid; only awareness does; reality checks are to confirm the state. As for dream control, it's pretty much "knowing" what will happen, and expecting whatever I want to happen, just like I'm rewatching a movie I've seen a hundred times over. It's a very simple principle.

usually when i lucid dream, i get chains of dreams. I don't know if it counts as more than one lucid dream, but i get at least one of those a week usually.

I started off with maybe one every couple months. Google'd controlled dreaming and came here. In the begining it dramatically helped. I had one once every two weeks. Then as long as you maintain doing your own thing it slowly gets better. Your lucids last longer. But they never stop being fun. I DILD btw. I can't wild. Although i'm keeping track of how many times i try wilding and what happens when i try.

I am not extremely experienced yet, but I have had several lucids in the first weeks. I put a lot of effort into dream research, studying sleep cycles, and stuff like that. I have been training for six weeks and here are the results.

Week --- DILD --- WILD
1 -------- 1 -------- 0
2 -------- 1 -------- 0
3 -------- 1 -------- 0
4 -------- 2 -------- 0
5 -------- 0 -------- 0
6 -------- 2 -------- 1

I used a method for the DILDs similar to WBTB. I set my alarm for the same time every night about 5-6 hours after I went to sleep and I got up and wrote dreams in my dream journal. I did this for the first week, and it worked great. I thought I wouldn't have to do it anymore so I stopped. But at week 5, I didn't have any lucids. So I started the technique again this week (week 6) and I had 3 lucids this week. Everyone is different and this technique might not work for you. The hardest part of lucid dreaming is not giving up.

Thank you so much, everybody, for your responses.

There's some really awesome stuff here. Nothing really compares in terms of usefulness and insight when it comes to advice from experienced practitioners

Thanks again! Keep it coming

Originally Posted by TriGoon

When I started, my dream recall went from like zero dreams per night to 1-2 per night right away. After that it took about a month to get to 3-4 dreams per night.

Actually, I have a question about this, since my dream recall isn't the best. If you remember more than one dream in a night, does that mean you wake up in the middle of the night to write down dreams, or do you just remember multiple dreams in the morning?

Originally Posted by uberyoshi

Actually, I have a question about this, since my dream recall isn't the best. If you remember more than one dream in a night, does that mean you wake up in the middle of the night to write down dreams, or do you just remember multiple dreams in the morning?

I think it's waking up after dreams. Actually, my brother had a theory that you only remember dreams which you wake up in the middle of, if you sleep pasted the dream, you wouldn't remember. I argued, but think it's true. I usually wake up from dreams and since it's dark, i just write down a few words to spark my memory on the dreams when I awaken, and that always works.

Nah thats not true, Ive remembered dreams I haven't woke up from.

Same, to me its how vivid the dream is. Plus if a dream has nothing exciting going on in it, i purposely won't care and forget about it. Like last night i remember that i had a vivid dream, but i remember telling myself it was boring and not to care about it. I think it was something to do with school. But i've remembered 2-3 dreams normally waking up in the morning without wbtb. Granted alot of the times i use melatonin and that puts your dreams closer to when you'd wake up.