Thread: General Questions/My Experiences thusfar

Hello all.

I've been reading about lucid dreams for years now, and recently (in the past 2 months) have attained my first lucid dreams that I know 100% are lucid. I've been having about 2-3 a week since this started. I started a dream journal and had a few entries, but mainly my stronger desire to lucid dream lately has helped my dream awareness and recall. It also is apparently allowing me to lucid dream much more often.

However, like all newbies, I'm having a few small issues with lucid dreaming, and I'm going to post them here mainly just to assure myself these are normal and that I will progress with time.

Vividness - The main problem. When I first became lucid last night, it was in a grove of trees, so I focused on the detail of the dreams to increase vividness and also to get my mind off being lucid so I wouldn't wake myself up from excitement. The bark of the trees was really clear when I focused, but the entire dream/dreamscape itself is still lacking in "sharpness". It all has that slightly "blurry" quality.

Control - Obviously with being new, my control is still limited. Last night I attempted to fly, but only ended up "moon jumping" then falling flat on my face at the peak of the jump.

So I guess my questions are: What do I do now, to make my lucid dreams better? I guess I could probably read others' posts, which I have been doing, but I'd also like to have personalized answers.

I'm about to help out by posting my dream from last night, which ultimately turned lucid.

I am riding in my car to school, but my grandpa is driving for some reason. My grandma is sitting with me, holding onto me. I remember thinking how nice it felt to have an excuse to act like a kid again (?), but I keep riding. My cell phone is in my car, and for some reason we stop the car and I get out, but we aren't at the school yet.
I am now looking into a building from outside through a hole in the wall. It looks old inside, and it seems that nobody is there. There is a door to my left with a small latch for a handle. I grab the handle to pull the door open, but it breaks off the door completely. I start thinking about being accused of burglary for a second, and feel a quell of anxiety. I realize my phone is in the car, and I can't call my grandparents, who have left me for some reason. So, I begin to walk to school.
Suddenly, I think "Why am I going to high school? I graduated 2 years ago" - which immediately starts my lucidity as I answer my question with "I'm dreaming".
I am in a grove of trees now. I walk up to a tree to focus on the detail, hoping to stay lucid and to increase the vividness of the dream. I begin to climb the tree as if I am a cat, with no problems. I then jump down, and the dream is starting to fade. Gravity feels different, so I fight to stay in the dream and attempt to fly. I end up "moon jumping", and then falling flat on my face behind an old lady who was smiling at me as I was falling. She says something like "That was my best attempt ever at flying", although I was the one who was flying.

I then open my eyes, immediately awake.

So there's an idea of what my early lucids are like. My question basically is: What's Next? What do I do now, to improve?

Welcome to DreamViews and congrats on achieving lucidity! You just need to keep practicing and gaining experience. That was a solid first experience, so just try to build on that with each future lucid. I currently am running a DVA class on dream control, you can read through the lessons to get an idea of how to go about controlling your dreams. There is also a lesson on prolonging lucid dreams and stabilization. Here is a link if you are interested.... Dream Control (KingYoshi) . The lessons are all stickied. Congrats on your success and good luck to you in all your future endeavors. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Recall: Work on your recall and you will find that the sharpness of your dreams increases. A lot of people when first starting out tend to forget that although you can be lucid in a dream and it is very clear, when you wake up you can still forget the whole thing, or a large chunk of it . by increaing your dream recall you will find the dreams become sharper all by them selves.

Interaction: try to interact with your dream enviroment as this will help keep it stable, feel the ground, taste something, really get yourself moving and engage yourself.

Control: control takes practice and a lot of it , you can help yourself along by doing visulation tricks throughout the day and really seeing what it could look / feel like. This will make things easier for you at night time throughout the lucid dream.

Also on control, start slow, most people want to jump into the deep end and fly walk through walls blow stuff up have sexual relations etc but they find that when they try all the achieve is they wake up.

In your first 10 or so lucid dreams really try and focus your mindset on balance, its a fine line between waking and sleeping even more so when you are lucid so if you can train yourself early you will benifit in leaps and bounds later. think about it like hitting the gym, your probably not going to be able to lift 100kg on your first visit, but if you learn the right techniques and train hard you will get there quick than someone who trys to take the short cuts.

but remember, before you sleep be positive, thinking about increasing your recall and see images in your mind about controlling the enviroment.

Start with pushing your finger through a wall in your mind, when you can do that clearly in your mind when awake give it a go while lucid. it should have paid off.

Yeah, I agree, baby steps are the best steps. I'm not saying you should waste an entire lucid by just staring at trees and touching things, you grow by experience, as KingYoshi mentioned, experience is vital.

There is a fine balance. Baby steps and taking it slow are essential, but taking it boring is unnecessary. Try to stretch your boundaries and do new things, just don't over do it. Also remember that now that you have had your first lucid, the rest come pouring in and are much easier to attain. Keep up the confidence and you keep up the lucidity.

I appreciate the helpful responses, guys. It's great to have a community like this, because where I'm from, nobody really ever talks about lucid dreams. Good to have others to relate to. I'm going to try to post more often.

Yeah, I have tried my best to get some people around me to get into lucid dreaming. I haven't had much success . The community here is great and I hope you stick around.

I wouldn't ever tell the people around where I live I do this. They would just think "Dreams? Thats really gay" or something stupid like that.

But it's not about the stupid "What does my dream mean?" and all that crap. This is proper science and mental stuff.