It's Funny How the Success Varies

I mentioned here before that when I first found out about LDing I had a sort of beginner's luck, where the reality checks and at least once just having the topic on my mind led to lucid dreams quite quickly.

My last fully lucid dream was near the start of this year. It was a long and quite vivid dream and I eventually got lucid when I was talking to a DC about why a school lesson kept moving location all the time, which is a big DREAM SIGN for me. I had a dream about four months later where I just seemed to know it could be a dream (out of a window, thought if it was a dream I could fly, but gave up because it seemed too dangerous), but didn't manage to do any good RCs. I'd call that one semi-lucid.

Since I started posting on dreamviews just under a month ago, I tried to really ramp up the frequency and intent of my RCs, I tried to read a bit of this site every day, and I've even changed my computer's wallpaper to remind me about lucid dreaming and what to do when I get lucid. Maybe I'm impatient, but so far I've had just about no luck at all with these new techniques.

During my dreams, my critical thinking seems to be bad at the moment - I know in the past I've managed to ask a lot more questions in my dreams. I find it odd how it comes and goes. Anyone got any ideas about this? I've noticed when I start to enter a hypnogogic state whilst talking to myself in my head, sometimes logic seems to completely break down and I start thinking nonsense sentences. It might be something like "If I can just tighten that bolt ...then the elephant will be happy ...through the mail box." I feel at each instant like I'm reasoning logically, but it's like the start of the sentence escapes my memory as new parts of it form. Is that typical of hypnogogia?

I've very occasionally had dreams that are almost as incoherent and illogical as that. Obviously I need the logical part of my brain to be as awake as possible to get the best chance of lucidity. Any idea how I can improve that? Does fresh air help?

I also wonder whether stress and poor sleep quality could be holding me back at the moment. I've been trying for a WILD almost every night. The trouble is, although my dream recall is pretty good, lately I've been unable to remember the beginning of any of my dreams after attempting a WILD - so for all I know, I could have had lots of LDs but just not remember them! I just wish I could get up early enough or sleep late enough to try for more DEILDs. It's just too busy and noisy around here to have much luck with that unfortunately. I do remember when I was younger, I think before I even knew about LDing, I concentrated on a dream I'd woken up from and did manage to resume it, so I know I can do it in the right circumstances.

Am I on the right track or could I be trying too hard? Shall I just give it a few months and see what happens? I know you can be doing or thinking about something every day and it can take months or years for that to show up in your dreams, but sometimes I wonder how much my subconscious is actively working against me here.


TLDR: Does anyone know any tips to help wake up the logical side of your brain more during sleep? When you've been doing new techniques for a month and just seem to have gone backwards, is it worth sticking with them?

All my opinion only here. I think stress and sleep quality will probably have some impact. I know in my case that when I was first getting into lucid dreaming, I was also having a period that was particularly good for my sleep and during which I had "appropriate" amounts of stress, for the most part, so I did have a lot of dreams at that time where I would be doing RCs a lot and such, though often with a low success rate because I honestly was just not mindful enough and I have a generally poor prospective memory if I'm not actively training it.

It's possible you're trying too hard, sure, but on the topic of sleep quality, it's worth bearing in mind that generally we get the shortest days at the moment, which could have an impact on your own body cycles that interferes with your goals. I wouldn't go too hard on myself over trying too hard, because honestly it's very natural to try too hard at times. It's a bit a thing of passion really, we get really into it and that kind of drives us on its own, sometimes too much, that's all. If you find that you are trying too hard, then do focus on something else for a while, you may find that it helps. It's the same thing with creative activities and anything involving memory; if you try too hard, it can get unnecessarily difficult, but let go for a minute, and you often get a window during which you have exactly the right mindset for what you needed. That's not to say it always works that way, but the effect of trying too hard does seem to bring a different kind of stress of its own that we don't necessarily perceive as stress.

Incidentally, it seems to be quite typical for us to try lots of different things when we're on this sort of phase; I know that early on I tried a lot of different things that I wouldn't necessarily bother with now (also sometimes because of the conditions I have around waking for example), not unless I had spare mental capacity and time too. I feel that it's only worth sticking with a technique if you have some kind of feeling that it will be helpful in the long run. If it feels like a hassle or like its too annoying in some way, then it might be worth dropping it for now. It might indeed take years, but you'll probably find things that do work better for you, though I would never say that you need to settle on one or two things, because we're not set in stone and our patterns can change over time. It all takes a sort of long-term dedication, I feel.

Also, about the hypnagogic state thing with reasoning; this seems normal to me. Even when doing mental exercises while being pretty much awake like meditation/visualisation, I get the same thing to some degree, and not all the time either. It can feel particularly annoying when we have specific goals for what we want to be doing and the best thing often seems to be to just get on with it and ignore the fact that it's not what we hoped for; maybe treat it like an obstacle that you expect and should avoid, rather than one you get annoyed with and get stuck on, if that makes sense. Ultimately, sometimes I've had very fruitless sessions when trying something, but I would prefer to try more often than to not have tried as often.

IMO stress can have a really big effect, but I supposed it depends on the nature of the stress. If it's something that's dominating your thoughts during the day and night, that can have a big effect. The effect on dreaming of going to bed upset vs. going to bed with a smile on your face because you had such a pleasant, relaxing, or fun day, in my experience, can be huge.

There are two very effective approaches to increasing brain wakefulness in dreams: WBTB, and supplements (galantamine in particular, when paired with choline(s)).

I recommend trying both of these. Experiment with WBTB timing (when you start, for how long you stay up). I recommend keeping it relatively short in the beginning so as to minimally effect your sleep schedule. And perhaps not trying it every night.

I do not recommend trying to WILD every night, *unless* you are not losing sleep or dreaming because of this.

I do recommend perhaps reframing your practice as a dreaming practice where you're also working on lucidity, as opposed to a lucid dreaming where non-lucids are seen as lesser dreams, and not getting lucid is seen as a negative. It is conceivable that such a mindset could be a hindrance to lucidity.

You said your recall's pretty good: do you reach for dream memories on every waking? Do you record keywords at least on every waking? Building a very close connection to your dreams, as evidenced by increasingly higher (more vivid, longer, more detailed) dream recall, is also one of the most effective ways to promote lucidity in dreams.

It is very easy to fall in to a mindset where you are "working hard to try to make lucid dreams happen," as opposed to working on all the fundamentals diligently, but letting the results come to you in their own time. If you can keep it fun and light-hearted, and convince your subconscious that dreaming in general is really really GOOD for you, a source of such happiness and joy, and so very important to you, this also may accelerate more frequent lucidity.

Do you have concrete dream goals that are motivating for you? Just "wanting to get lucid every night", I've found, is too vague for my mind. I need something specific like "I want to return to that fairy-tale stained-glass colored forest and walk around and explore."

The reason why I recommend supplements like galantamine is that they can help you remain motivated. Dreams on galantamine can be really amazing experiences.

One month is not really all that long. It was one month before my first LD when I first started, and when I've been away for a long time, it takes about a month for lucidity to find its way back into dreams. It takes time for new ideas to percolate into dreams.

But while I was (impatiently, I'll admit) waiting for my first LD, I enjoyed the practice so much, because all of a sudden, I could remember my dreams! I'd never tried to do that on purpose before, and it WORKED!

Dream recall is a wonderful way to stay motivated while working on increasing lucidity. Try to love and value *all* of your dreams. Try to build recall REALLY high. This takes time, diligence, consistency, and patience!

It's not a race. Some people hate the phrase "it's a journey, not a destination," but dang it, it's true! Love the journey!

It helps to find a practice that really works on boosting the fundamentals (lucid awareness, intent, memory/recall) every single day, that integrates nicely into your waking life so you can keep it up. If you really want it, you can do it!

If you can write up your detailed day and night practice details, we can make further suggestions. I hope something here has been helpful!

Thank you very much to both of you for your detailed replies. You've given me encouragement after a bit of a low point and that means a lot to me. :) I'll try and respond to your points in detail when I have a bit more time but I'll just say now that I had a LUCID DREAM last night! :D

CONGRATS!! AcidicBeing!! :breakitdown::cheers: