Thread: Alright, now I need some help

A good place to go from here is to try MILD. Did you do that?

Okay, so I had two dreams last night and tried the MILD technique.

My first dream I was riding a bike with a bunch of friends and we came across a cave, felt SO real, and we were all talking in the cave around a fire and then eventually I woke up, and the second dream we were in a beach house on the beach throwing a huge party, and this too felt extremely real yet I couldn't get myself lucid. I can remember every small little detail, this is getting frustrating. What should I try for tonight?

Well you don't explain a lot so I could be way off base but, the most important thing for me is to question reality. Hell, I do that naturally anyway. Anything and everything is suspect. When I first started out trying to LD, I tried to really question anything that was the tiniest bit odd. My first hint it was working is when I was in Wal-Mart and there was this odd plant in a pot in the middle of an aisle. That ain't right. Well turns out it was. The thing is, most people accept 95% of everything as is. It's there so it is. Obviously in a non lucid dream you are sort of believing your dream is the real world, otherwise you'd be lucid to begin with. If you wanna question your dreams, you need to question everything. That's how it is for me anyway. On a related note, even in lucid dreams sometimes you will accept quite odd things. A good example is once I was searching quite hard for a teleporter to change my dream scene in a quite lucid dream. After searching and summoning to no avail, I turned around and almost bumped into one. I said "Oh duh this one has been right here the whole time!" never questioning it for a second. Interesting I think.

Edit: Also, I have very good natural dream recall as well to the point I could write a novel some nights. But I never had a single lucid dream til I started questioning "reality"

Thanks for the tip man. I'll try to start remembering to do that throughout the day, but just because I question things during waking time does that really mean that my dream self will do the same? The way I see it is my dream self won't even remember to do that. Idk, quite frustrating. I'm actually about to sleep soon here within the next hour, any pre-sleeping techniques I should know about? Thanks for your help man.

For me it seems, in fact generally anything I intend to do consistently in the real world translates over into my dreams. It makes sense, again if you aren't lucid in a dream you are believing it to be the real world. No I wouldn't except it to work right away, it could but just as you can't learn to put the toilet seat down everytime you go to the bathroom in a day, it's like that (an odd analogy, but hey) if you try enough times and remind yourself enough, you'll likely incorporate it. Another thing you can do is try to question reality based on a given cue. I can't help you pick one, but if you remember your dreams as well as you say, find a commonality between them and your waking life, and every time that happens check yourself. As for pre sleeping, I can't help much with that. The harder I focus the less likely I seem to be to succeed. Way back when I was first active on these forums there was a post about how you tend to really try hard for a few days after you have a lucid dream, then when you finally just give up and accept it will happen when it does... it does. A good number of people shared that experience, and me as well. If you are like me you are pretty much there, as I said I have naturally over the top recall as well, it took me two weeks for my first lucid dream. I did focus especially hard, and only then to wake myself up in excitement but hey, after one time it gets easier. Right now you are thinking can I really do this? Once you do, then you'll know you can. And believe me, knowing you can do something in a dream is one of the most important steps in doing it.

Edit: I really kinda avoided the last question. For me the best I can do pre-sleep is a positive mindset and willingness to accept what I dream, lucid or not.

Thank you for putting alot of effort in helping me right there I'll try to incorporate all those tips as fast as possible.

I'm about to go to sleep, so I'll update with how things go tonight tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!


Edit: If anyone else has any tips they would be extremely appreciated. Good night and happy dreaming.

im sorry if I missed it, but I didnt see any mention of Reality Checking in your initial post. You wont be able to become Lucid easily unless you can test your state with an RC

Originally Posted by james-25:22pm

im sorry if I missed it, but I didnt see any mention of Reality Checking in your initial post. You wont be able to become Lucid easily unless you can test your state with an RC

You're very right. When I was speaking of checking yourself and questioning reality I took it for granted that this meant to do a reality check. Kinda silly of me to omit that but hey it was late and all... Oh also in regards to whether things carry over into dreams, one of my dreams last night involved me posting in this very thread. Incidentally half of the screen was made of wood and I didn't do a reality check and just happily replied to a post on my wooden monitor... lol.

Haha thats hilarious :]

Anyway, last night as I was going to sleep, i read on here somewhere about focusing on your breaths through your nostrils, in and out, and my god, after about 7-10 minutes of that, my heartbeat soared and i felt extremely numb, unable to move my toes or fingers, and felt as if i was floating, and i felt like i was asleep, and got so excited that the feeling went completely away. anyone know exactly what happened there? i then had 2 dreams but didnt question weather any of it was real and just had normal dreams.

Hey! Do you keep a dream journal? Because it is really useful to identify dreamsigns. I also have good recall but writing everyday your dreams focuses more on the dreaming thing. It lets you find analogies with the waking world and that also helps you understand yourself a little better.

Good job so far btw. You will have lucids in no time.

Oh, you can also try to re-enter you last dream after you wake up. That's how I managed to do my first one. Just vividly imagine the last scene and knowing it's just a dream. Tell me how it goes. Good luck!

Originally Posted by h2hummerz

Haha thats hilarious :]

Anyway, last night as I was going to sleep, i read on here somewhere about focusing on your breaths through your nostrils, in and out, and my god, after about 7-10 minutes of that, my heartbeat soared and i felt extremely numb, unable to move my toes or fingers, and felt as if i was floating, and i felt like i was asleep, and got so excited that the feeling went completely away. anyone know exactly what happened there? i then had 2 dreams but didnt question weather any of it was real and just had normal dreams.

Yeah what happened was you almost did a WILD. I'm playing FFXI online right now and I can't type a lot but sounds to me like you entered sleep paralysis and got too excited. You were THIS close man. Keep it up and yeah, do a dream journal if you aren't.

Edit: Oh also go read a tutorial on WILD if you haven't. Useful stuff there.