Can't Lucid Dream for over a year.

[pshah563]

As you can tell by the title, you probably know that i am not able to lucid dream. I've been trying for over a year, and still nothing. I try very hard every night. I write in my dream journal every morning, and my dream recall is very good. I have tried a couple methods of attaining lucid dreams, but neither of them worked. I have tried WILD and FILD. Please tell me what I should do, because I think I'm starting to lose confidence.

[dolphin]

Find patterns in the content of your dreams. Find the pattern which comes up the most. As you're falling asleep, repeat this pattern to yourself in the form of the shortest mantra possible, not stopping until the pattern comes up in your dreams again.

[MasterMind]

Babystep it. Think long term instead of short term. What usually differate the people with consistent success from those with no success is the fact that the people that got consistency focused on taking it one step at the time, while the the people that failed attempted to jump the whole staircase over and over again. This is often the problem with people attempting to learn to lucid dream as well. Their only goal is to learn to become lucid. But what you have to realize is that lucidity is an advanced practise, you are going against the odds. Just think about what lucidity in itself actually is: Lucidity is when you activate parts of your brain that is not active by default while we sleep (the logic centra and possibly the prefrontal cortex that deals with rationality). So to attempt to become aware of ones dreams is to attempt to consciously activate specific parts of the brain. Take a look again at your so called "problem" - "I've been trying for over a year, and still nothing. I try very hard every night." You have to realize that the lucidity community wants to attract people and therefore makes you believe that this is easy, you just have to reality check and recall your dreams and practise some techniques. In theory yes this is true, but realize again that lucidity is very advanced stuff! I don't want to discourage you, as you can see on the forum there are lots of people having lucid dreams here and there, so we know that it is possible and that is all we need to know. But my point is that you should not beat yourself up for doing something that probably NOBODY so far can do on a regular basis. And since this task is so advanced, it is not very wise to set high goals, why? Because it is unrealistic and contra-productive! Kind of like a baby crying over not being able to do a backflip, you first need to learn to walk, or even just keeping your balance for that matter. So if you want a future life with consistent lucid dreaming result, then you should LOWER your criteria for success! As a newbie back in 2010 I started out by practising dream recall and dream awareness and was excited by just the fact that I was doing attempts every night and learning new things. Today I have so high awareness in my dreams that I wake up shocked every morning. Since the logic centra is shut down in my brain I do not get lucid most of the times, but I still experience the dream like a vivid virtual movie I wake up every morning with the thought "Holy sh*t was THAT a dream?!". And I have sporadic lucid dreams here and there. But the way that I "mastered" dream recall and general dream awareness, was the hard (but fun) way of practising, failing and learning from the failures. Enjoy the practise of lucid dreaming in itself, and your result will come. But start small, really small and build your way up. It's not your fault that you are impatient, our society have raised us that way. RESULT, RESULT, RESULT! 6 pack abs in 3 weeks! So people buy gainers to get 1000 extra calories to gain muscle weight, but it's a shock to the body so even if you get the result, you can't maintain it. it's better to do it slow and steady, and safely! It's not sexy but it's freaking effective. So again, think long term not short term, take it one step at the time, enjoy the process. And if I could give you ONE advise to sum up all that I have learned, is that meditation and the attitude and state of mind that the practise of meditation teaches, is all you need. Remember that I said that achieving lucidity is basically to attempt to activate certain parts of the brain on command? There are only two ways that I know of to do this, the first is drugs but that I do not want to use and the second is meditation. So if you wonder what I do, read my Dream Journal. Enjoy! And if you have any more questions just ask again. Peace!

[cooleymd]

You don't mention wake back to bed. This is probably critical for your first few lucid dreams, it is fine to try to set an intention at 9pm. But how much better it would be to set one at 3am (assuming you can get back to sleep). Most of my best lucid dreams happen when I notice a particular dead relative in my dream and think Hey your dead, sometimes I even waste time trying to convince the DC that they are dead. Dead pets have worked too. Once I spotted both of them and held up my hand to the human one saying see, I'll never forget looking down and seeing the Harlequin Dane lifting its paw in an attempt to reality check. Then when I looked at my hand it was colored part black and part white, I almost laughed myself to a dream death. So what I recommend is that you wake back to bed and look at some pictures of a dear departed loved one / pet. And then think I will see them in my dream, I will see them in my dream. Try this every night for a week at least. And focus hard on your recall, and not just on the person or pet you tried for. You might see some other dead person / animal instead. Make a list of them all and when you wake up if you don't have clear and total recall think about each one. Also before you begin your dead mantra, imagine yourself somewhere they might be, and imagine seeing them in a dream, thinking hey they are dead, then reality checking (not that you'll have to if you realize they can't be real). By spotting the dead I always have the best lucids, because I usually only become aware at the end of REM, but when a dead person walks up to you, BAM instant lucidity, not always tho, I saw this person last night and we were both trying to fill out voting cards, very hard to do in a dream as the form kept changing but I never became aware. But if you consistently try to plant and visualize the idea of the dead in your dreams and that they can't be real, eventually you will trigger off of them. Don't forget to plan to stabilize, tho if you trigger early in REM you might not need to (it is always a mistake not to stabilize tho)

[jaymuise]

I use to have the same problem and from personal experience i think you're overthinking it all and viewing lucidity almost as an impossible state. Relax and take a break, don't think about dreaming for a week all the way up to a month and start again, you might even find yourself having accidental lucid dreams in this period as your mindset will have changed, this will give you the confidence you need to strive in the dream world.

[LouaiB]

My friend's friend kept trying really hard every night. he only started getting lucid after a year and a half when he bought a REMDreamer. not advertising here or anything. as cooleymd said, you should wbtb if you don't.

[UncannyFAE]

Trying too hard at lucidity can be counter productive. Maybe try one method a night and take a break from lucid dreaming once in a wild and just have a normal night of sleep.