Consistency

Almost every time I read advice from someone experienced to newbies, the importance of consistency gets mentioned.
But what does it mean?

Doing something every day? Doing the same thing/techniques/routine every day? Just having lucid dreaming on your mind every day?
The same daywork? The same night-time routine?
Sometimes things work better when they are new or disrupting, sometimes they work better as they settle in.
What about days off (or even longer periods)?

What's this consistency to you and what type of consistency do you see as important?

And how it fits with the challenge of making enough effort so it works but also doing it casually enough so you don't burn out?

Set realistic goals for a specific date and once you reach that date, reevaluate your goals. You'll also be time managing many other things so maybe what you can expect to set for yourself will vary.

Dreaming is not about just one exercise.

For myself, I find it's pretty realistic to remember my dreams almost every day unless I wake up late for something and I'm in a rush. In that case, I'll give myself a pass. But I prefer the choice to not take the time to remember my dreams be a conscious decision. Days off for me will simply be those days I know I won't have time to remember my dream or much to remember because I have only few hours to sleep. Longer periods? Only if I have to go through a long period of little sleep. If you are cramming for exams, probably not the best time to put much effort that way. You might still do it anyway, but I like to at least consciously choose to remove the intention to try... (to insinuate that otherwise it should be a reflex to remember my dreams).

Your dream practice will include many different exercises. If you do WILD attempts, well, what's realistic for you. Once a week? I wouldn't try every single night. Reality checks? Those you can probably realistically do more often. Etc... Personally, I focus on non-lucid dreaming every day and put extra energy for MILD or DEILD on nights I know I can sleep a lot.

For myself, it keeps it fresh enough.

oops

Thank you. It sounds like you have found a good balance. I would love something like that but I doubt it would give me regular lucid dreams, although I like the "focusing on normal dreams" approach.
I am in a LD-friendly situation - working from home, can sleep as long as I want every day, no major stress in life (other than background depression), not too interfering family or work life).

For different parts of LDing routine:

Journaling/recall - I don't have any problems doing this every day. I am trying to prioritize sleep before recall though but I am not always successful. The usual dilemma during waking up at night - writing some keywords to get the dream out of my head to be able to sleep but risking waking up too much vs. trying to have it at the back of my mind through the rest of the night and risking not sleeping well because of it - that's still there but I think I am learning to manage it.
On days when I have to get up early, I just write keywords.
I don't do any multiple WBTBs just to recall dreams, not anymore.
I think I made a mistake gamifying this and calculating my stats every week. I was feeling bad when my daily average went under 4 dreams and had the need to do some "cheating" (WBTB, morning napping) to catch up. This week I am on 3 dreams per day but I do nothing and I am telling myself this is actually good as a low-effort background recall and I am OK with it. During bad weeks, it is usually fluctuating, like nothing one day and 7 dreams the day after.

Daytime routine - Honestly, I haven't found one I would like yet. I don't believe in RCs (at least not for me), and I don't like ADA. I tried a couple of other techniques but realized I just can't do them well - I am only doing them when nothing's happening, not when I do something active. I am considering doing just a simple meditation instead.

Night-time techniques - I used to do something every day. Different techniques every day. Some say this is wrong but I don't know. I feel like my sleep pattern changes when I do the same thing every day and it stops working. So far what made me lucid (I think) was really messing with my sleep but I don't like that. I don't trust MILD, I see it as a "low effort technique which maybe works once per week if done every day after a WBTB but do nothing for me". This could be wrong but I see doing only MILD and not even every day as too risky/wasting time.
Taking a day off for me means doing nothing at night. Just going to sleep normally and wake up normally (this still usually means some micro-WBTBs but without any technique... repeating my intention max... but I think even that gives me sometimes problems with sleeping). And recently, these days off have been a blessing. I think I really like to just sleep, without trying to do anything. But I think I won't get lucid dreams on such a relaxed schedule. Instead, I'll get back to my normal - which is semi-lucidity and 0 layer lucidity very often but no real lucidity. It's like this is my home/default layer and to get that awareness spike that allows me to go higher, I need to do more. (BTW I get lucid almost always spontaneously - questioning reality or doing/needing a RC is almost non-existent for me)

WILD - Trying once per week is reasonable and I like to do it like that. But I think I have much better chances at spontaneous WILDs. It's like the timing is right very rarely and never at the planned time. I still like the regular planned WILDs because they are at the moment my most reliable way how to get a DILD :) but they are exactly the "messing with my sleep" category.

In general, I am trying to trust myself more and trying to get to know my brain and my body better (and I've been doing good progress at that). But it can be frustrating when I see people who don't face the same challenges as I do or when I feel like most of the techniques, tutorials and guides are written for someone else.

I would say never let a day go by without thinking some about if you might in fact be dreaming. Beyond that just keep working on it. It will not matter so much if you change what you do as long as the attention to lucid dreaming is the consistent thing.

I second Sivason’s comments above. I find continuously thinking about all things lucid dreaming regularly is the best thing you can do. The consistent things I do on top of this are my dream journal, dream recall and setting an intention before bed to be aware and alert, ready to notice when I’m dreaming. I also frequently do WBTBs.

I think when most people talk about consistency they are referring to doing the same routine techniques everyday, mainly dream journal and reality checks. Through the day I sometimes reality check but mainly I just keep thinking about dreams and my dream signs and try notice when they pop up in my daily life.

When life gets in the way and I have a particularly stressful week I stop thinking about dreaming and stop lucid dreaming and recalling as a result. I find It has to be at the forefront of my mind. All day is difficult given our busy lives but it certainly has to be the most important thing before bed, during sleep and upon waking.

A decent and consistent sleep schedule is also another thing people recommend and is a common topic when referring to consistency.

It does seem like you have a level of consistency already IndigoRose.

It seems like you think your level of consistency as of now is low-level because you are only getting 3 dreams per night and few lucids. For me, I think some dreams are so impactful, I need a lot of time to think about them so three dreams per night is a lot if you create a bond with your dreams. For example, I'm still thinking about a dream I had one week or two weeks ago that I posted. And I connect that dream to other dreams I've been having since and dreams I've had before. And I'm really not done thinking about it. I remember I use to be able to get 7 dreams per night pretty consistently but it was a lot of time spent to write them down, some were mostly fragments. When I get an impactful dream that I have to think about a lot, I'm really fine with having no recall the next day even, thinking, there's no point spamming my brain with memories.

But here's the main point I want to get to about lucid dreaming. I think we are fast to categorize dreams as non-lucids and lucids. I think we are conscious in both those types of dreams. Lucids have that extra meta moment where you become mindful of the fact that you are dreaming. You can have those moments in life and daydreaming, reading a book or watching TV but these moments don't add so much meaning to those events in themselves. So anyway, I think the line between non-lucid/lucid can be blurred constructively. And that's where visualization and daydreaming come in for me.

First step: dream recall: revisit your dreams.
Second step: lucid daydream: as you visit this memory, become aware that you are simply daydreaming/visualizing and go from there.

The goal is, first of, I think daydreaming/visualizing is fascinating in its own right. There is this same duality as in dreams of your subconscious mind forming things all on its own and you directing that creation. You can let go of the control let your mind do most of the job. In that case, you need to learn to value chaos. I think there's a lot to learn there about lucid dreaming. I see a lot of people wanting this perfect reality emulated in dreams with no holes, but if you learn to love visualizing, and orienting yourself in that experience, you will also learn to be orient yourself in a dream.

So, I like to orient those lucid daydreams around dreams I've had and recurring dream themes. As I visit them, I try to find how they are meaningful to me. Ok, let's say I'm talking about my restaurant theme I posted recently where in my dreams I'm always stingy, well, in my lucid daydream, I don't just think "it's a daydream, I can do anything." Instead I think "I'm in a daydream and how is my stinginess meaningful to me?" And I can visit many memories that are linked to that feeling and come back and think how do I want to respond to this event in a meaningful way. In my lucid daydream, I manifested a feeling of ease with spending and I started spending, buying food at restaurants. In my following dreams in the week, a new trend appeared where I was spending at restaurants and participating in local markets.

Personally, I find a lot of satisfaction out of this kind of dream exploration. See how doing this, I changed my non-lucid dreams. It's a dream practice rooted in mindfulness just like lucid dreaming, and it can make that time in between lucid dreams very satisfying!

I'm in a rush, so I'll leave these ideas as they are even though I feel like I could write more or clarify things but I have to go, good luck!

------------------

You say you don't like RC or ADA. What about simply taking a moment or moments throughout the day to be particularly mindful. And without the crazy expectation to focus your awareness on 100 things at all time. Meditation is a good idea and if you want to be consistent with it without taking an extra moment of every day to do nothing, I like to think you can pair meditation with many other activities. If meditation is about focusing on your breath or observing your thoughts, you can do those things as you walk or wash the dishes really.

Thank you very much, everyone. I am sorry for getting back to this so late but I needed some time for processing.
I am actually quite happy with my last week in the end, it was a very relaxed one but I still had many interesting dream experiences and I can feel that the relaxed approach can work for me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sivason

I would say never let a day go by without thinking some about if you might in fact be dreaming. Beyond that just keep working on it. It will not matter so much if you change what you do as long as the attention to lucid dreaming is the consistent thing.

---

This is basically what I hoped to hear.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Occipitalred

But here's the main point I want to get to about lucid dreaming. I think we are fast to categorize dreams as non-lucids and lucids. I think we are conscious in both those types of dreams. Lucids have that extra meta moment where you become mindful of the fact that you are dreaming. You can have those moments in life and daydreaming, reading a book or watching TV but these moments don't add so much meaning to those events in themselves. So anyway, I think the line between non-lucid/lucid can be blurred constructively.

---

Thank you for your well thought out posts. I agree with this wholeheartedly. It reminded me of your recent advice to InvisibleO (it took me some time to found it, so here it is for a reference).

Spoiler for post:

I have grown convinced that there's something about the way we learn about and practice lucid dreaming that inherently creates this subconscious expectation because of the lucid dream police trend I've seen from so many people. What I call the "lucid dream police" is when someone becomes lucid, and the dream characters start to oppose it, and stop them from doing this or that.

I think it's because we treat lucid dreaming as abnormal, as unnatural, for the elite, for the rare interested person. I like to think that all dreams are conscious dreams: even in non-lucid dreams, we are conscious enough to be aware of the dream. If we were unconscious during dreams, we wouldn't be seeing and feeling things, making decisions, thinking, and remembering. Lucid dreaming only means we recognize the experience as a dream, which honestly, doesn't require much more awareness. We've dreamed every day of our life, and we easily recognize it subconsciously, I think.

I dreamed last night that I got caught by an enemy and they injected me with my own blood, and then my corporal experience was weird, so I started narrating over the dream and saying I was now a spiritual being, that my gravity was opposite everyone else's and that I couldn't exist in water. And then as I said those things, I would experience them. I wasn't "lucid", but I was deciding the dream at this point. Doing this, then, thinking, wow, that's crazy, what if someone pulls me underwater, I will die!" I was simply engaged, but subconsciously, I clearly recognized I was dreaming or else I wouldn't be narrating and deciding the dream.

In that sense, lucid dreaming is not abnormal or unnatural. It is anything but. Nonlucid and lucid dreams are natural dreams. Our awareness belongs to dreams.

I agree with this so much I think it should be set in stone.
I love many of my non-lucid dreams. And recently, I've been amazed how many "shades of grey" there are between a completely non-lucid dream and a lucid dream. Not just levels of lucidity, but also levels of awareness in non-lucid dreams and the scale isn't simply linear but branched, like there are different types of awareness, I don't know how to describe or classify it.
Knowing it is a dream subconsciously - this happens to me very often. My dream me often comments about the dream but there is no real reflective awareness. Then there are semis which are considered something else than a dream while they have a high level of awareness. False lucids. And maybe even false non-lucids - I had a dream recently in which I reflected on the dream from the point of the dreamer ("I am just telling myself stories in my head", "things changes because that's what dreams do"), I thought it is only a light dream or partially a daydream or me thinking, I never realized "this is a dream, I can do whatever I want, I am lucid", I just thought about it in the background, while it was happening. When I woke up, it felt surprisingly like waking up from a lucid dream. Very smooth, no shift of perspective, no major change in my thinking.
That brings me to the thought that I really dislike the usual definition " lucid = knowing/being aware it is a dream while dreaming". It's not well defined and it isn't as binary as people see it. It's really all about the perspective - seeing and perceiving the dream as the dream ego (awareness of the dream) vs perceiving it as the dreamer (meta-awareness, awareness of the awareness, reflective awareness). And I think this isn't completely black and white either.

Anyway, I am getting off-topic :)
I like your daydreaming technique for your restaurant/food dreams.