Thread: I feel like I can't become fully lucid no matter what I do.

I know what you mean

I have been pracctising for a little more than 2 years now and all the lucid dreams that I have got have been fuzzy and short (2-3 minutes).
(Ok I have had some super realistic dreams, but they also ended fairly soon.)
And I am also frustrated over this, so I did some research and I read Hobson theory on dreams and our behavior.

The chemical system in the brain that make us crtical during the day or aware is called the aminergic system (serotonin and norepinephrin), and the system that takes over when we dream is called the cholinergic system (acteylkolin). This might be complicated terms but while reading just change aminergic to awareness and cholinergic to dream.

When we dream there is obviously an increase of the cholinergic system, but there is a decrease of the aminergic system, which is why we can accept odd events happening in the dream.

We normally remember our dreams when the cholinergic system decrease and the aminergic system increase, which can make us more aware of the dream and sometimes lucid and because we are then on the awake/asleep treshold it's very easy to wake up.

But when we apply the WBTB and wake up in REM we increase the aminergic system and we actually set the REM on hold, because the brain needs the REM, so the next time we fall asleep, about 30-60 minutes later, we will experience a much more vivid REM-period.

And if this is correct then, in theory, WILD combined with the WBTB should make us more aware and the dream more stable. Because the direct entry from awareness makes us go to the dream with a high activity of the aminergic system, and because the REM was on hold the cholinergic system is very active as well.

But with the DEILD we will sleep normally first which will make the aminergic system decrease and we will therefore not be as aware as if we would have been if we used a direct entry.

Here is this morning DEILD:

I had a normal dream, then I woke up. I was aware of that I had woke up and I started to see flashes of light and stars.
I then started to hear weird sounds and I noticed that it was sound associated with my thoughts, so I could control what sound I wanted to hear and hear it vividly. I imagined that I heard a bird singing it's song to me and I tried to stand up, but when I moved I was afraid that I had just ruined the attempt. (Later when I woke up I realised that I was in fact dreaming).
So I quickly lay down in bed again and tried the teleporting/jumping technique I was immediatelly in a dream in another scene.
I saw a big building, looked like an old tempel. I looked at my hands and my body and I was sure that this was a dream.
I started to think about stabilisation, so I rubbed my hands and thought "ok this dream hopefully will last".
But I didn't do more stabilisation and maybe that was the problem.

I then saw Tyra Banks and I really wanted to have sex with her :/ :S In real life I know that sex probably will ruin the lucid dream, but in this dream I didn't care, I couldn't control my emotions. And me and her had our little fun, but I lost the lucidity...

Maybe with more stablisation and the ability to resist sudden temptations this dream would last longer.

So in order to have super vivid lucid dreams the WBTB combined with WILD will give you dreams that some people would refer as an OBE, because it's more vivid than reality.

I need more pracctise to learn to stay in the dream, but maybe Stabilisation technique should be enough, but in theory you will wake up either way...

So this probably isn't the best tip to give to a beginner, to start WILDing I mean, because that is more challenging than normal techniques, but the reward is greater if this theory is right.
Or you can help me see if stabilisation is enough by setting an intention to stabilise the dream the next time you get lucid.

I hope this gave you more clarity to why some techniques work and so on.