So Angry

I'm sure there are way too many threads about people complaining, but here's my deal:

How does everyone recognize their dreamsigns? I know that a lot of dreamsigns are missed, and everything is seemingly normal in a dream, but every so often someone says they recognized they were dreaming because of something they saw.
My dreams are flooded with dreamsigns, but nothing ever clicks for me. Some of these dreamsigns are for example:
-Weird illogical things, (ice-skating on dirt, etc.)
-My school security guard in a tophat, swingdancing.
-I am in a denver broncos uniform, fighting someone with a lightsaber.
-My football coach teaching band class

Anyways, I am having no luck lately. Sucess stories just make me jealous. Aaa it's so frustrating. If anyone else is this frustrated, please, let your anger out here. I'm glad to here it.

You've gotta train yourself to recognize your Dreamsigns. While you may realise after the dream that it was painfully obvious that it was a dream, during your dream such bizarre things are generally not questioned.
I would recommend the next time you see something like your Coach or whatever, you do a reality check, that way when you see your Coach in your dream, you'll do a RC.

If it can comfort you, I have hard time even in dream recall... Once in a while I can remember some piece of a dream that eagerly write down in my DJ.
But I had my first LD just few days after discovering this community, so I'm still reasonably optimistic.

In my very limited experience (2 LDs...), what triggered lucidity was not a dreamsign, but apparently a strange feeling of immobilization or suffocation that could be related to sleep paralysis (a normal phase of the dreaming activity).

Basically I consider lucid dreaming as a gift, so I cannot be angry if no one is giving me this gift.

I would suggest you to just relax for some time, without doing RCs during daytime. Don't worry about LDs, and they will come back. If you express anger towards LD, you're expressing anger towards your subconscious and It can become kind of shy in expressing itself.

eXistenZ

If it makes you feel any better about yourself, I don't think I have any dreamsigns. At least, nothing seems to repeat in my dreams, they just seem generally focused on what I've been doing for the last while.

I find myself the same as khaz where my dreamsigns are concerned and yes I do share your pain regularly aswell nugget, just last night I had the most obvious sign that I was dreaming. My pecs had disappeared completely while the rest of my musculature was intact and normal. I was very angry about it in my dream, ranting about how long it would take to correct this disformation. I actually didnt even remember this dream until midday and smacked my forehead in disbelief. I would have to say this happens to everybody. Don't let it discourage you at all, just remind yourself you will improve and believe it.

Also look into inducing dreams which you would be more likely to notice they were a dream (check tutorials section I believe there are a few on this subject).

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Originally posted by Nugget75
Anyways, I am having no luck lately. Sucess stories just make me jealous. Aaa it's so frustrating. If anyone else is this frustrated, please, let your anger out here. I'm glad to here it.

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I agree that trying to learn lucid dreaming can be extremely frustrating, and even seemingly impossible at times. All that work doing reality checks all day long, trying to be aware every moment of the day, reading books on different techniques and trying them, and yet nothing seems to work. At least not on a regular enough basis to make a person feel like they are making any progress.

For this reason I have stopped trying so hard to have lucid dreams and just started concentrating on the things I do well such as dream recall and having as vivid dreams as possible, and doing some concentration type exercises.

By measuring yourself on the things you are able to do well you will be able to see the progress you are making and feel good about it, instead of feeling defeated all of the time by the inability to have more lucid dreams.

By measuring yourself and making progress in the smaller things you will not only stay more positive, which is important to succeeding at lucid dreaming, but you should also eventually succeed at lucid dreaming. Like building a house, if you build a good foundation, then the rest of the house will be more solid once it is built. By taking small steps and doing the things you can do well now, you will be building a good foundation for a solid future of lucid dreaming...At least that is my plan. Hopefully it will work :D

Yeah, I think I just need to slow down a little. The one good thing about LDing is that you have to sleep everynight, so even if it takes you an extremely long amount of time, you can try everyday without too much effort. Thanks all for the replies.

Another method is to not look for dream signs, but do something crazy. If you are awake you will obviously not do it. However, if you are in fact dreaming and nothing bad happens after performing an abnormal action, then you will realize that you are dreaming.
Hopes that helps

In response to what JeX has said in reguards to performing crazy actions, it can be hard to have enough control to even think of doing such things when you're dreaming. If their is anything that I've learned through my dream expierence is that if you have even the tiniest thought in your mind that you might be dreaming... you are! It might seem scary from time to time when your having a vivid dream to do something illigal or deadly when only a very small part of you thinks its a dream and that you have doubts that what you are expierencing might be real, but think of it this way... how often have you confused reality for a dream? For me, Never! Now take the inverse. How often have you confused a dream for reality? All the damn time! Don't be afraid to be crazy if you have the slightest belief you might be dreaming. Feel free to jump off buildings or randomly try to have sex with people you see walking down the street.

WARNING: Do NOT follow the above advice when on new medication that effects your thinking or when using illigal drugs. I'm not responsible if you get stoned and think your dreaming and end up killing yourself or doing something illigal.