Go digital!

I've been lucid dreaming on and off for the last five years. Ive had a high number of successes and a greater number of failures, and I've always been able to find inspiration here at DV and lucidity.com. I thought I would start my first post with a quick and simple tip to greatly increase your odds of having a lucid dream.

Keeping a dream journal and doing reality checks are the two most dread-inducing disciplines you need to develop solid LDing. They take a lot of patience, and it's easy to let both slide in the every day grind. But their importance is paramount if you want to LD. They're a necessary evil. I myself became fed up with these disciplines and let them go for a while. After a long LD dry spell, I decided to change it up and bought a small digital recorder to record my dreams, and was amazed at the bonus perks that came along with it. I think I had about 2 or 3 super vivid lucid dreams a night for about 2 weeks straight.

simple little thing like this
http://www.amazon.com/Olympus-140129...9032041&sr=8-7

So first, the problem. A true dream journal should be updated after any major REM period. This is some true suck. It involves waking up, turning on a light, moving around and trying to recall the dream all the while. Most LD tutorials will tell you to keep perfectly still after waking from a dream for good recall, so this also complicates things if you're trying to get to your dream journal. Sometimes you can't go back to sleep, and other times you are too tired to make the effort at all. Using a digital recorder eases both of these issues.

Just keep the recorder in an easily accessible place, like under your pillow. When you wake from a dream simply grab it and begin recording without making any large movements. Some of these recorders are more advanced, with sound activated functions, and will begin recording when you simply start talking (worth it). It is very easy to go back to sleep, and just a couple descriptive sentences is enough to remind yourself the next day of much longer dream content. I'm often surprised by what I have recorded the night before, and dreams come flooding back. From there you can expand on the dream from what you remember and add it to a written dream journal. Usually I will add the previous nights recorded dreams to a journal just before I go to sleep the next night, so I have a fresh idea of what to think about.

One unexpected side effect I found very quickly is that the recorder also acts as a reality check. Technology often fails in dreams, and the recorder is no exception. On several occasions I thought the recorder was broken, only to realize that I had experienced a false awakening, thereby initiating a LD.

As a last note, having the recorder nearby really gives a boost to your intention to have a LD. Just knowing that it is there under your pillow or wherever can be enough to remind yourself to become aware that you are dreaming.

good luck and more soon