Running out of ideas

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

I, too, am not a fan of being awake at night. In fact I blew 1/2 a night of sleep just last night after not being able to get back to sleep on a WBTB.

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This is a bit off-topic but I used to have insomnia quite often especially from trying to LD and I think the main reason is feeling tension, physical or mental (usually linked together). It's also really normal for most people to not even realise how tense they are, I didn't realise it until I started doing Tai Chi (which emphasises relaxation for martial art, note: relaxed doesn't mean limp) and then it took some time before I started feeling all the tensed up areas of my body, in other words it took developing some body awareness and correct movement.

Anyway my point is try to loosen up physically and you might be surprised how quickly it fixes insomnia. I'm not saying to do Tai Chi (you would need to find a good teacher, too many money grubbing phonies around, same with yoga unfortunately, if you come across a real expert you should consider yourself extremely lucky though) but a couple of things you could do would be:

- Hot bath.

- If you can get into a proper meditation posture, like half-lotus (I still can't do full-lotus, actually even half-lotus kills me after 10 minutes) but regardless it's infinitely more relaxing to do a proper poster on a hard floor even if it's only for 5-10 minutes than on a chair in my experience. Don't force anything and you should never, ever feel pressure in your knees.

- Do Zhan Zhuang!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y07FauHYlmg

Zhan Zhuang is martial art standing practice (most commonly seen as horse stance in movies where the master forces the student to stand for hours to build up leg strength, but the stances vary) and it builds body awareness, relaxation and also strength. No need to worry about the strength part but removing that body tension is really important, so if you can't get to sleep try standing for 20 minutes and concentrate on releasing tension wherever you feel it. I almost guarantee if you do Zhan Zhuang every day (gasp!) for at least 10 minutes after some time you won't even remember what insomnia is.


Now back to our regular broadcast. :offtopic:

I personally review dreams and recite some mantras about "when I'm dreaming I realize I'm dreaming", that sort of thing. I'm not a WBTB master myself as I have avoided it for fear of insomnia (I wake up very quickly). So I'm still trying to determine the best time, etc. Eventually I hope to focus on micro-WBTBs (quick journal and right back to sleep).

Well here's a little update.

Yesterday night I spent time thinking of everything I'd like to do in a lucid dream, and I underwent self-hypnosis with the focus being to remember to become aware. While I didn't have LDs I did have crazy dream recall, recording 2 long dreams and 2 short ones instead of the usual 1 long and sometimes 1 short.

Back in bussiness :wink:

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Originally Posted by Memm

This is a bit off-topic but I used to have insomnia quite often especially from trying to LD and I think the main reason is feeling tension, physical or mental (usually linked together). It's also really normal for most people to not even realise how tense they are, I didn't realise it until I started doing Tai Chi (which emphasises relaxation for martial art, note: relaxed doesn't mean limp) and then it took some time before I started feeling all the tensed up areas of my body, in other words it took developing some body awareness and correct movement.

Anyway my point is try to loosen up physically and you might be surprised how quickly it fixes insomnia. I'm not saying to do Tai Chi (you would need to find a good teacher, too many money grubbing phonies around, same with yoga unfortunately, if you come across a real expert you should consider yourself extremely lucky though) but a couple of things you could do would be:

- Hot bath.

- If you can get into a proper meditation posture, like half-lotus (I still can't do full-lotus, actually even half-lotus kills me after 10 minutes) but regardless it's infinitely more relaxing to do a proper poster on a hard floor even if it's only for 5-10 minutes than on a chair in my experience. Don't force anything and you should never, ever feel pressure in your knees.

- Do Zhan Zhuang!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y07FauHYlmg

Zhan Zhuang is martial art standing practice (most commonly seen as horse stance in movies where the master forces the student to stand for hours to build up leg strength, but the stances vary) and it builds body awareness, relaxation and also strength. No need to worry about the strength part but removing that body tension is really important, so if you can't get to sleep try standing for 20 minutes and concentrate on releasing tension wherever you feel it. I almost guarantee if you do Zhan Zhuang every day (gasp!) for at least 10 minutes after some time you won't even remember what insomnia is.


Now back to our regular broadcast. :offtopic:

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Getting back to sleep is *never* off topic on this board in my book! My issue is not bed-time insomnia, but WBTB time, especially after strong intention setting and MILD-like visualizations. I'm afraid that if I did standing exercisse in the middle of the night it would energize me too much. I am in fact more tuned in to body (especially jaw/face) tension, but I probably can do more and get more in tune. Thanks for the references, if you have any more you could PM them to me, thanks!

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Originally Posted by Aziq

I don't know why or how, but the last 5 to 8 LD's I remember I didn't feel a shred of excitement when I became lucid. Nor did I try anything amazing or w/e I just kinda accepted that I was dreaming and shortly afterwards woke up or lost lucidity. I don't understand where my excitement went, it just dissapeared over time or something.

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Originally Posted by Aziq

I'm not sure if most of my LDs were when I was most excited in LDing but I know for sure that they were most fun when when I was most excited. The LDs I've had recently have been rather dull. Being in a dream and suddenly realizing I was dreaming felt like how christmas morning felt when I was a kid. Nowadays they just give me a short feeling of proudness but that's kinda all there is to it.

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I've been facing similar obstacles—and if I'm honest with myself it pertains as much to waking life as to dreaming. I love your description of how lucid dreams used to feel like "christmas morning when I was a kid." I remember that feeling—in relation to both dreams and Christmas!—but it's been getting harder to capture and maintain in both cases. This last Christmas was almost dispiriting, I was so not into it.

In my case, I'm aware that my biggest problem is that I become blasé about things very rapidly, whether they're good or bad. In the past this has manifested in absurd situations like getting used to showering in cold water for over six months before deciding, "Hmm, maybe I'd better get around to calling someone in to look at the water heater." Another aspect of this is a natural tendency toward emotional equanimity and a distrust (bordering on dislike) of strong feelings, again whether good or bad. I am one of the most low-drama people you're ever likely to meet. On the other hand, the near-constant sense of emotional neutrality—frequently interrupted by minor aggravations—that characterizes my life and most of my dreams is not particularly admirable or enjoyable either. Actually, one of the tasks I've set for myself is to try to cultivate various emotional resonances in the dream state, but I almost never remember to do that one!

I'm convinced that the solution is plainly apparent: the cultivation of "beginner's mind," a sense of freshness and enthusiasm, toward waking life no less than toward dream. But this is one of those things that is easier said than done, especially when one's motivations to do so are already impeded by a thick shell of blandness and cynicism! And the nature of cynicism is to resent itself but to resent the prospect of freshness and enthusiasm even more...

Verre, while I agree on the solution, I don't think we'll ever truly regain our initial level of excitement and curiosity. Nonetheless, we can certainly get damn close to that and we can remind ourselves of why it is why want to have LDs.

For instance, there's been a thread floating around for 4 and a half years now in which people share their ideas of what to do in LDs. A quick 15 minute look through that rewarded me with a list of my own of 30 things I would like to do in LDs. This in and of itself felt great to me because I had forgotten that LDs offer (near) limitless control of everything, and I had kinda forgotten about my goals but instead just focused on basic stuff such as flying or whatever. As a result, my dream recall skyrocketed and that gave me a boost of confidence I could do this.

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Originally Posted by Aziq

Verre, while I agree on the solution, I don't think we'll ever truly regain our initial level of excitement and curiosity. Nonetheless, we can certainly get damn close to that and we can remind ourselves of why it is why want to have LDs.

For instance, there's been a thread floating around for 4 and a half years now in which people share their ideas of what to do in LDs. A quick 15 minute look through that rewarded me with a list of my own of 30 things I would like to do in LDs. This in and of itself felt great to me because I had forgotten that LDs offer (near) limitless control of everything, and I had kinda forgotten about my goals but instead just focused on basic stuff such as flying or whatever. As a result, my dream recall skyrocketed and that gave me a boost of confidence I could do this.

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I think you're definitely right that planning tasks and experiments is a huge boost to the likelihood of getting lucid. But by a couple years into my lucid practice, mine were multiplying to the point where I so many ideas swimming around in my head that it got harder all the time to focus or decide on a particular one! That's why I love this site. The aspect I've found most helpful to my dream practice is the sense of community and shared goals fostered by the TOTMs and TOTYs, and the fact that they eventually expire is a great motivating factor to getting lucid and getting them done within the right time frame!