Thread: I was so close!

Hey Rin!

You're on the right track! Just keep going! I wouldn't recommend slacking off with your dream journaling, though. Make sure to jot down something from every night and your chances of becoming lucid will increase.

Yeah, it'll be like that for a while. You'll be this close to realizing, but something will just have to distract you.

I myself have been keeping a dream journal for months now, and despite knowing full well what some of my most prominent dream signs are, I still can't get myself to recognize them while I'm dreaming, LOL. Nowadays, I'd usually get lucid either because of these random moments of awareness (like "Oh, I'm dreaming!") or by noticing the dream "ambience" around me.

Have you tried any particular induction techniques?

If you did your reality checks, you might have taken them in your dream and became lucid

When i remember a dream during the morning, I take my ipod and write some keywords on it. usually 1 or 2 words/dream. i also try to remember everything that happened in the dream.
I don't instantly complete my dream journal in the morning, i just do it whenever i want somewhere during that day. I will remember most of it as long as i have the keywords on my ipod.

I also cant recognize any dream signs, i just think like fuck yea im dreaming or i should do a reality check, and then i close my nose with my fingers and try to breath.

Just keep practicing, you'll get lucid eventually

Patience and persistancy is key! Once you follow that rule, you'll be LDing! Keep at it, you're doing fine!

Thanks guys. The problem with the dream journal is that when I wake up, I usually go back to sleep and don't want to write my whole dream down.
Is it okay to do it when I actually get up? (I generally remember them even after I go back to sleep and wake up again)

I know I should keep myself persistent with those reality checks. I'll have to start writing RC on my hand like I used to do.

I never get up in the middle of the night or in the morning to write down a dream if I want to sleep some more. What I do is, as soon as I wake up, I try to remember the dream I'd just had in its complete and sequential form, then come up with a short and concise name for it, that's like a key word, and just go back to sleep. Then when I get out of bed, I recall all the keywords and either write them down on a sheet of paper (if I'm busy) or open my dream journal (which is a .DOC file on my computer) and write the whole dreams down.

Just did this today, in fact, and I successfully remembered 6 dreams.

Oh wow. That's a great way to do it! Thanks!

Yeah I highly recommend what Molder does. Just keep a sheet of paper next to you, and write down key words or something.

Don't let the loss bother you too much. In fact, it isn't much of a loss, you were practically there!

Just keep it up.

Oh, and cat, your avatar is freaking awesome!

Thanks for all the support. It's making me not feel like such a failure considering I've been trying for weeks, haha.

Yeah, it can actually take a couple of months for some people. It's all about determination

I read that dreams don't get stored in your long term memory unless you make the effort to go over them in your mind as you remember them, essentially copying them to your long term memory. Writing them down works well not only because you then have a written reference, but because you think faster than you write/type. I've ditched my written dream journal in favour of replaying the dream over in my head a couple of times when I wake during the night and typing it up in the morning or afternoon, which works but I find the discipline that comes from mid-night writing gave me better results, so I will probably return to it.

What I do is my phone is always on my bed. If I happen to wake up after a dream, I usually write down the time, and some key notes. Then when I wake up in the morning, I'll glance at the notes, fill in the gaps, and write down any other dreams I had in my phone. I'm lazy and keep them in my phone to write down on paper "later", lol. I spent an hr writing down about 15 dreams that I had saved as drafts in my phone, haha!

So for an example, here's how I layout my stuff:

Date (day of sleep and day waking up, though I usually don't go to sleep until after 12, but w/e. It works). Time I go to sleep (about). Time (If I wake up from a dream). The times are supposed to help me find how long it takes for me to enter REM, but it's never worked for me... and haven't really used it how I wanted to use it, but still do it for record keeping purposes. I should really use it. I usually have my dreams in the early morning, so don't wake up often

7/6-7. 12. 5. [I didn't wake up after it, but using as an example]. Ashley's house [friend]. Calander. Star Trek. Transporter. Hand messed up. LD! Fix hand.

Then, using those key words, I'd fill everything else in in the morning:

At Ashley xxxxxxx's house. Checking out her room, small, yellows. See a calendar and flip through it. People’s pictures on their birthday. Some look like Mai xxxxxxxxx, Josh, and Chingy. Then I’m at some business place. Star Trek like. I’ve just come through a transporter and my fingers get messed up so try to transport only my hand to fix them. Count my fingers by sight but miscount, so move them as I count and count 7(2 completely extra) and become lucid! Doesn’t hold and I lose lucidity but keep dreaming. Try to fix my hand again, but doesn’t work. Count fingers(same as before) and I have 6(coming out the middle of a finger, but seems to be like it was a pin and not actually attached), become lucid again! Start to lose lucidity again. Dream fades into a poor video quality look and darkening. I’m looking at a girl. Then back into dream and my fingers are fixed. Hit on girl working at the computer bank [lol]

However, like I said, I rarely wake up after a dream, so I'm usually stuck remembering 2-4 dreams and writing them down at once, lol

I have found that once you wake up, keep your eyes closed and think about the dream and what happened to solidify it further. It seems once I open my eyes, I start to lose it (depending)

As for keeping focus, I've heard of people rubbing their hands, saying "stabilize" or "clarity", RC... I'm sure there's more, but find something good. In one LD I shouted "stabilize/ clarity" and it worked

Sorry I've kind of just yammered on, lol. Hope something helps