Lost ability to lucid dream!!! need help getting it back ( long post)

Hello everyone,
I am 23 years old and I have lost my ability to lucid dream. I had the ability when i was very young about 4 years old. Between the ages of 4 and 15 I was able to have lucid dreams about many things. From flying around places, to being inside a computer game, and what i find most incredible, was to zoom in on things so close they were touching my nose ( things like a pen on a desk), stopping and rewinding time in my dreams, etc etc. I was also able to have control the sensation of spinning my body around in circles while laying in one spot.
I have since lost those abilities and cannot get them back. I need help getting those abilities back for i truly miss them, a lot. If there is anyone who can help me please post. If you need more information about anything feel free to ask. If this has been covered before, feel free to send me a link.




Just to share my some "unique" things i did that I THINK indirectly helped me lucid dream when i was younger:
1. When the sun, or any light was present, i would close my eyes and try to look for patterns or spots or anything.
2. I used to place my head in my pillow to make it pitch black and try to look for same thing; look for spots and patterns or anything.
3. Actually spinning around in circles till i got dizzy. ( you know you've done this when you were little)
4. putting my face right up to the carpet in my house with my nose 1 inch off the ground ( when i was younger) and looking at each and every single piece of carpet; all at once.
5. looking at lights that were very bright, but not bright enough so that you could look directly at it. Then trying to look for patterns or spots or anything moving.
6. With my eyes open, going into a double vision like state and again, looking for spots.

To conclude: I know there are people on this board that are very knowledgeable, and that their knowledge would help many people, including me. If you have any suggestions, questions, etc.. please express them. I would greatly appreciate it, and I'm sure other people would also.

Thank you very much,
Espionage01

Welcome to the forums.

You say you've lost your ability to lucid "since" the age of 15. Does this mean you've been at a complete loss for 8 solid years, or has it just slowly tapered off over that period of time between age 15 and now?

Have you ever actually tried out a regiment of dream journaling, reality checking, dream sign finding, WILDing and DILDing and WBTB, etc? It's a rough road but people who've been nonlucid all their lives garner results from it in time, so if you have prior experience you've already a step up on them... at least you know what lucidity feels like.

It makes logical sense to think that since you've "naturally" lost the ability to lucid that there is simply an unchangeable part of you that is resisting lucidity and that there's nothing you can do about it. Yet there are two possibilities:

1. There really is a subconscious part of you that's fighting your will to have a lucid dream (and you just have to work against the stubborn thing as best you can), or
2. The only reason you can't have a lucid dream is because you think you can't.

I'm not saying one or the other is correct - I honestly don't know and can't tell you - but think about it: if your problem is the first, it doesn't matter if you believe in yourself and your lucid ability at all, since there's an objective, unpersuadable roadblock in you that blocks your progress no matter what you think. Be optimistic or pessimistic, but the results and the progress will be the same. But if your situation is the second one - and a lot of lucid masters tend to emphasize that it is all about confidence - then it's in your best interest to believe you can, since that's the only way you'll ever actually be able to. In that case, no matter how much evidence you have in the past to prove that you'll probably fail tonight, it does not serve you at all to pay attention to it.

Since believing in yourself doesn't matter at all in the first example and can only help you in the second, there's no reason not to jump into lucid training with the complete and possibly even childish confidence that you can do it - make yourself lucid and control your dreams. It goes against all common sense and all standards of scientific empiricism, but... there you have it.

Not that it's easy to do that; I haven't had a lucid in over five years and I know similarly that it's best for me to forget about all that failure every night and pretend like I have no reason to not be able to have a lucid at will. But it's very very difficult for me to ignore the hundred of nonlucid nights tipping the scales against my favor.

Hello Spamtek,
Thank you for your response.
To answer your question, i did not completely lose my ability at age 15 and it did seem to have taper off.
I would approximate my having lucid dreams at 2 - 3 between 15 and 17. Then one at the age of 19. That was my very last one. But all of them of low level lucidity. Except the last one. Which I consider WILD. And I'll explain the contect of how it happened and my thoughts at the end of this response.

I have tried the pen and pad method. I agree that this does help a person consciously remember what they were or sometime still are dreaming about. But my own practice and experience yielded very little. In the end, waking up up jotting things down, and trying to go back to sleep were the results. But just the fact that i woke up to jot things down means I was capable of realizing i was having a dream. So this tried and true method works, but my PERSONAL results were mediocre at best.

I think you may have just slammed me into a wall with your either or situation. I am going to pick number one. After the age of 15 I went through some difficult times. Things that i would like to forget and not remember. Which goes against what lucid is all about right? Being able to remember, controlling it in a dream state, and go have fun. So i think that my repressive behavior through those years is or has hindered my ability to lucid. I am going to give this one some deep thought. Thank you.


My last Lucid Dream: Flying around in my room

I was 19 years old. I was in a relationship. And feeling great.
30 min before i had the lucid, I told my girlfriend at the time to go home and drive safely; and that upon arriving at home to give me a call to make sure she was alright. 10 minutes after she left I put my cell phone on my pillow where i rest my head and laid down. 20 min into the fact i start dozing off, but i am conscious that i am dozing off for the simple reason that I am expecting her call. At 30 min, the time she calls I open my eyes, and got a quick glance at my room before looking for the cell phone and closing my eyes again. I had a quick ~20 second " Glad you're home safely, have a good night, sweet dreams." *click* opened my eyes once more for a split second to put the phone down and closed my eyes to sleep. About I immediately see: the first quick glance when i opened my eyes to pick up the phone, and the second glance when i put the phone down. Then I have a completely lucid dream. I was floating in the middle of my room looking around. I hover over to my desk area and look at the objects on desk with high clarity. zooming in and out looking at various object in my room.float around some more, then I wake up because I was in awe that i had a lucid, again..finally.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Espionage01

Hello everyone,
I am 23 years old and I have lost my ability to lucid dream. I had the ability when i was very young about 4 years old. Between the ages of 4 and 15 I was able to have lucid dreams about many things. From flying around places, to being inside a computer game, and what i find most incredible, was to zoom in on things so close they were touching my nose ( things like a pen on a desk), stopping and rewinding time in my dreams, etc etc. I was also able to have control the sensation of spinning my body around in circles while laying in one spot.
I have since lost those abilities and cannot get them back. I need help getting those abilities back for i truly miss them, a lot. If there is anyone who can help me please post. If you need more information about anything feel free to ask. If this has been covered before, feel free to send me a link.




Just to share my some "unique" things i did that I THINK indirectly helped me lucid dream when i was younger:
1. When the sun, or any light was present, i would close my eyes and try to look for patterns or spots or anything.
2. I used to place my head in my pillow to make it pitch black and try to look for same thing; look for spots and patterns or anything.
3. Actually spinning around in circles till i got dizzy. ( you know you've done this when you were little)
4. putting my face right up to the carpet in my house with my nose 1 inch off the ground ( when i was younger) and looking at each and every single piece of carpet; all at once.
5. looking at lights that were very bright, but not bright enough so that you could look directly at it. Then trying to look for patterns or spots or anything moving.
6. With my eyes open, going into a double vision like state and again, looking for spots.

To conclude: I know there are people on this board that are very knowledgeable, and that their knowledge would help many people, including me. If you have any suggestions, questions, etc.. please express them. I would greatly appreciate it, and I'm sure other people would also.

Thank you very much,
Espionage01

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Wow I'm just amazed how similair your story is to mine. I have been a skillfull natural Lucid Dreamer from my early youth uptil I became about 12 years old. Los my Dreamrecall completely for years. I regained itwhen I was 17 again and when I was 19 I came across a site with onformation about Lucid Dreaming. I was familiar with the idea because it's what I used to do alot in my youth. Mainly to excape nasty nightmares. I got back into it and had quite a couple of semi-intended/incidental lucids which were always DILDs when I would remember to do an RC while I was dreaming.

But still I can't count on at max 1 lucid dream a month at this moment. ANd intend as I might non of the induction techniques except doing RCs and hoping I would remember them, have been successfull for me.

personally i dont believe that you have lost your ability...i believe that you went through a 'dry spell' and when the dry spell ended you let yourself believe that you couldn't lucid dream anymore so u eseentially gave up for a while and lost the ability...there are many cases which r just the same...

so the point that im trying to get at is that u havent lost the ability you just have forgotten it, just like learning another language...if you dont use it for a while you lose your familierarity with it......so in other words, all u need is to jog your memory of lucid dreaming and u should be able to do it well again.....