Keeping our brains active

I read another post the other day about engaging your mind by doing riddles or something to help attain lucidity.

And then it dawned on me. I was wondering why I am having a dry spell now that I am done school and have time to sleep in, given that I have most, if not all of my LD's when I sleep in.

I'm done school! This means I havent been using my brain nearly as much lately.

I'm going to try engaging my brain a little more and see if this helps. I like the idea of trying to solve some riddles...although a really tough one may keep me up all night.

Any ideas?

Now that you said this, it made me wonder. Last week, right before going to bed, I read this little mystery story book, like a who-dun-it, along the lines of Encyclopedia Brown. The "stories" were 2-3 pages long, someone died, and you had to take clues from the story to figure out who the killer was. I failed miserably. But, the next morning, when I awoke, I had some of the most vivid dream recall I have had in a while. I immediately began writing down my dream and I ended up with 3 pages of 2 different dreams. Maybe it effected something? Maybe not. But I don't usually do mind stimulating actions before going to bed. Worth a thought, and maybe some experimentation.

Ooh... this has possibilities!

As I look back on my dream recall, the more hours I put in doing menial sorts of work - running machines or assembly work or whatever - I both feel more tired and have much lower dream recall.

When I am engaged in things that are mentally or intellectually challenging, my dream recall is MUCH better.

I have been attributing this to just plain tired-ness, as my long hours come with certain jobs that just need to be done. These are almost always dull and repetitive.

I'm looking forward to hearing others examining a correlation between mental activity during the day and dream recall/LD success at night.

I've noticed my dream recall is coming along better now. I remember 4 dreams from last night, which fills about 1 1/2 pages. But sometimes I have trouble knowing if something I think of was a memory from the dream, or something my brain is creating at that moment. If I have question about this, I don't write it down since it may have not been in my dream.

Yay, my 200th post! :-P

hmmm. I have notice th oposite effect, during school time I have a harder time rembering dreams let alone LDing but its probly a stress issue.

before i go to bed, i like to play tetris on my handheld system. it doesnt realy help me though.

We should all try an experiment. Everyone should do something that engages the mind, yet is relaxing, right before calling it a night.
I am going to do a few Sudoku puzzles before I go to bed and see if that has any effect on dream recall or vividness. I will report back.

I also wanted to mention sudoku, It's just the thing, I think :)
Here's a link to a nice online sudoku, it creates puzzles, gives hints if you want, it's perfect
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/mark/sudoku...ku/workpad.html

http://www.fiendishsudoku.com/sudoku.html

Use it or loose it they say!
Similar to the B vitamins that help aid the neurological system so to does using it.
With lucid dreaming I think that you have to try and integrate techniques that focus on the realm of hypothetical, while engaging in using relative cognitive functioning.

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Originally posted by skate4011
hmmm. I have notice th oposite effect, during school time I have a harder time rembering dreams let alone LDing but its probly a stress issue.

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That sometimes happens to me too. I agree on the stress. My guess is mental activity is good, but if you are stressed out, then the benefits of activity, no matter how great, are completely wiped out by the adverse affect of stress. I haven't really payed attention to how much mental activity I do, and how much recall and LD's I have (though I haven't had enough LDs to studdy myself in any way), but I do know when i am stressed out I have no recall at all.

Sounds logical =)

http://www.justriddlesandmore.com/riddles.html

Like I said I would, I did a Sudoku puzzle before bed last night, but...
I had a horrible nights rest. I laid there from 2:30am until 5am without falling asleep. I dunno what my problem is. Even when I did sleep, I recalled two dreams, but I did not become lucid. I think I just had a bad start because I was pissed the Sandman passed me by.
So, pretty much that attempt doesn't count. Anyone else?

I did a Sudoku and read some astro-physics before bed last night.

I slept great and had fantastic dream recall. No LDs though, and even blew two opportunities to try WILDing. But the dreams were very vivid and entertaining!

This doesn't establish a correlation... but it is interesting. How do we rule out the placebo effect here?

I did some riddles from the justriddlesandmore site in the evening, but I didn't end up having any recall or LDs. Maybe I was trying too hard or something. I dunno.

try doing a rubix cube before you got to bed...

My recall goes up exponentially whenever I read science fiction right before bed.