2.5 years without a lucid dream, would love your help!

Hey everyone!

It's been a very long time since I last posted. I joined these forums just over 2.5 years ago with the hopes of attaining my first of many lucid dreams. Unfortunately, I've yet to experience one. I've taken many breaks from trying to lucid dream with my latest break being the longest (probably 7 months or so). But I've decided to come back to it and seriously try and achieve that first LD.

About 2 weeks ago I decided to update my dream journal more frequently and my recall has increased substantially. I purchased 'Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming' by Stephen LaBerge and upon reading the first few chapters I decided to set myself the goal of having at least one lucid dream by the 10th of May.

This is where I can use your help Dreamviews. I'm currently practicing MILD techniques and started incorporating the WBTB technique into my routine yesterday. I'd really love some tips, advice, motivations and more generally your experiences with lucid dreaming!

When in bed, do the MILD technique until you realize you're dreaming. Don't stop until you do, or else it won't be nearly as effective. The point of the MILD technique is to incubate what you're doing into the dream in order to become lucid. Giving up the technique in order to fall asleep faster doesn't help with this.

My first advice would be to also set small goals that is within your control, something small that you can easily achieve and by doing so, your brain will buy in and believe that you can actually accomplish what you set out to do. Because most of our problems are due to mental blocks and hindering belief systems or a lack of motivation.

My absolute first goal as a new lucid dreamer was: Be able to recall a fragment of a dream.

Now my goal is a little more extreme like: Meditate for one hour before going to sleep, but my point is that you should start small with tangible action goals that over time will build on each other.

Just like when you learn to play guitar you don't start with having the single goal of "learning to play like Jimi Hendrix" you start out by being easy on yourself like first learning to hold the guitar, learn some easy chords and over time this builds on itself.

For you I would recommend to have the goal of just trying different method and just see and observe what happens.

Or to simply have a goal of building a habit, like practising for a week and then do some reflection.

Or learning to meditate, or reading a book on the subject.

But do not focus on outcome at all, trust that the result will come in time and at the right time.

Trust the process.

The problem with our society today is that we are conditioned to seek fast gratification and to get result FAST.
But if you look at successful people you will see that they never got good fast, it took time and they took a journey.
So why do we seek fast result even though no successful person actually did that? It sells... Magic pill society. You want to lose weight? Well you could go out and run for free and eat healthier that takes will power OR you could take this pill. You are anxious and depressed or suffer from negative thoughts? Well then you could start reading in books about what food that affects your mood and learn about your own psychology, learn to meditate and make efforts in being grateful because you are living in this incredible era! Or... You could take a pill.

So you want to learn to lucid dream? Well you could begin your journey and try out what works for you and reflect on your progress and learn new things but it will take will power and effort. OR you could find the magic pill technique and forget about all that.

Morpheus: You take the blue pill you wake up in your bed and believe what ever you want to believe.
You take the red pill (be ready to take a journey) you stay in wonderland and I'll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Although soon there will be a virtual reality machine called Occulus Rift that I tried out and it was very similar to a lucid dream.
You felt like you were really there and you constantly had to remind yourself that what you were seeing wasn't real.

So that will be a nice consolation price for those who can't handle the journey of a oneironaut. ;)

But I believe in you!

Have fun :meditate:

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dolphin

When in bed, do the MILD technique until you realize you're dreaming. Don't stop until you do, or else it won't be nearly as effective. The point of the MILD technique is to incubate what you're doing into the dream in order to become lucid. Giving up the technique in order to fall asleep faster doesn't help with this.

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Some people fall asleep easier than others. I for example have an immense challenge falling asleep with any active mental processes. So I do the recall/visualizations then must "turn off my brain" and aim for sleep. I do hope to work on this as I think maintaining the mantra/visualizations until sleep will be more effective as you note.

Hi, try FILD.

Wow, thanks for the replies guys!

I've always found meditating useful and I try do it before I go sleep because it takes me a while to fall asleep and meditation does help with this. I guess if I just take it slow and believe I will lucid dream, then I eventually will.

Don't get too hung up on performing techniques, they are just different ways to become lucid that happen to have names.
In short, the main goal in any technique is to be more aware and prepared for the next dream.
I think that this is what you should concentrate on - what can you do in order to bring your questioning attitude to your surroundings into a dream?
Try experimenting with different methods, and try out techniques if you feel like it.

In my opinion, one of the simplest "techniques" is to just decide for yourself to realise that you are dreaming the next time you are dreaming - in other words, you prepare yourself during the days and then fall asleep with the intention to go "hey, this is a dream!" when you start dreaming.
I am not sure what kind of technique this is, but it's probably MILD (Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams, a technique where you use your intention and prospective memory to remember to become lucid).
The lucid dreaming researcher Stephen Laberge used this technique a lot for three years for his dissertation study about lucid dreaming, and he managed to go from about one lucid dream oer week to one almost every night in three years.
I think he also used other methods as well, like writing down his dreams in as much detail as possible so that he could more easily remember his lucid dreams, always looked for signs that could mean he was dreaming etc.

I saw ur post and couldnt resist helping out a fellow fan ^__^

A nice trick to boost your chances is to take some galantamine. My favorite brand is one called galantamind. I get mine at iherb.com and it's very helpful for a decent price. I personally got many lucids using galantamine with some of my other routines.


You are on the right track as WBTB is probably your best bet as far as LDing techniqes go.

But dont forget to add a proper Reality Check to the mix. If you do a reality check like poking your finger through a wall you will be aware you are dreaming when it works.


Finally everything i mentioned above is more of a cheap trick to get a quick LD while you have a time limit goal. If you really want to master Lucid Dreaming it will come down to dedicating time to techniques like All Day Awareness: http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...kingyoshi.html, or Dream Yoga: Dream Yoga in order to have consistent lucid dreams. Also don't forget to eat healthy, exercise and get a proper 8hrs of sleep for optimal results! Sounds cheesy but it's crucial!


Success to you Nakama,
Wisher

Here is a fun way to see the power of process orientation:

Put a trashcan a few feet away from you, then make three paperballs.

Now begin to try toss each paperball into the trashcan. (I did this because it was mentioned as an example in a book about process orientation)

At first you will suck or you might even have beginners luck because you have no expectations, but the thing is you wont be able to get all the three paperballs on the first try. You wont have consistency or mastery. Now what do you think will help you the most? Sitting on a forum reading about the best method of moving your arm and then make a few attempts every now and then on hitting the trashcan? OR read one theory and then proceed in just making 1000 attempts at hitting the trashcan?

It is obvious that the last suggestion will help you the most, because by doing it over and over (just like when you were a kid) repetition, you get immediate negative feedback that help you see what you need to change. THINKING WONT DO THAT!

I actually did this papertoss game yesterday and at one point I just knew how to toss each paper ball in the trashcan, I think I did about 20-30 tosses.

And here is a weird example but it really shows how "the impossible" can be made possible if you just practise.

I used to be shy and could barely talk to girls, so I wanted this solved so I went out in the public street and started to talk to random girls.
The first few approaches was very humiliating and I stuttered and could barely ask the girls for what time it was. Then on day 6 I ran around doing high fives with every person that I saw and on day 7 I was supposed to tell strangers awkward things about me, I told them that I never had had a girlfriend.

Then on day 8 I had approached around 20 girls with an intention to flirt and that day I did push ups on the ground to realize that people did not give a F about me and I thought more about myself than others did about me. Then I ran up to a girl started to talk, after 2 min I asked her out on a coffee date and after 5 min in that date I leaned in and kissed her! It almost felt natural, it was just me. And this was after about 20-30 approaches.

There are many theories out there about habit and the new trend is that it takes 66 days for the brains neuro plasticity to change.

But again THIS IS JUST THEORY! Take massive action and break the norm! Action is what it comes down to in the end anyway.

We are a spectator nation, we look at other peoples social lives on the internet, hel* we even look at other people's sex life on the internet, we watch and play other characters adventures on the TV and we admire other people's success (celebrities). This is why we can't do things on our own without freaking out, we do not want to wake up from this dream and numbing state. We can't see the world with our own eyes.

Matrix quote again:

Neo: "Why do my eyes hurt?"
Morpheus: "You have never used them before..."

I am just letting out all what I feel, this is just as much of a message to you as it is to me.

I have existed in the theoretical realm for too long, time for ACTION!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AnWEftJZiM

The more you can maintain attention to all phases of sleep, the better it is for your lucid practice. Don't just get fixated on dreaming... try to experience what it is like to fall asleep, keeping a sliver of consciousness flickering for as long as you can. Every time you go to sleep, reinforce the idea that you will remember to pay attention to what it is like to wake up. As you are waking up, try to remember to remain calm and still and simply observe the process.

The more awareness you can develop and maintain during these transitional states, the easier it is will be to learn to WILD or DEILD. :zzz:

My advice may not be useful as all of the other poster but here it goes.
Along with using the techniques mentioned above, you need good sleep. Maybe try fixing your sleep time so you're not deep in sleep but not lgihtly sleeping to the point where you easily wake up. One thing that helped me was, turn off all electronics and avoid direct eye contact with artificial light.
Good luck :)