DJ Comments

You surely do love space ! And I can understand why, sometimes I take walks in the night just to enjoy the view of the stars and the moon, while everything is quiet and peaceful...

Well, it was already very stable. It never seemed to be distorted or not clear in any way.

Thanks anyways.

You should've done ADA or something to stabilize the dream.

Yeah, it was tons of fun.

She wasn't really freaking out though, she just sort of said it. Like, "Oh, I'm not real."

That's a nifty lucid! Even if it seemed like a poor video game, but I love how you made it to France. Oh, and it's funny how your aunt said that she can breathe and thus is not real. True and yet funny. Lol

Thanks for the advice, I'll try it tonight.

You know I had no dream recall for a few days, and then I read a comment, I think it was either CanisLucidus or BrandonBoss or Scionox who said yesterday that if one only practices dream journal as only tool for dream recall than it tends to fluctuate, and so I looked again at the tutorial for dream recall suggestions, and one of the things it suggested was to mantra "I remember my dreams" before going to bed, so I did, and tonight I remembered a long dream. So, I recommend that wholeheartedly.

Oh yeah, totally agree! Very very close on this one.

Even if you feel like you've woken up or the dream has faded out, don't give up! Sometimes you're just momentarily in the void and you can build out a new scene. Sometimes it's a false awakening and you still have the chance to "roll out of bed" into a dream bedroom. And if that doesn't do it, you're in a perfect spot to DEILD, too.

Great job! Flow with this momentum. You were right on top of one.

So close indeed! LD next time?

Looking back on this, I realize that these dreams were much shorter, but with much better vividness.

A good example in my mind is this one, (I can recall exactly what I was eating) and the "Loooong dream" one (long but barely any details).

I wonder what I'm doing wrong (and right)...

Yeah that's the reason I didn't delete it.

The reason I thought about it (it wasn't really a joke) was because looking back at it, there are so many questions, like, were these different dreams, were they the same dream, did I not remember an important part yada yada. Stuff like that.

But yeah, I usually try to keep any dreams I have in hopes to improve recall.

First of all, do not even joke about deleting this entry. It's a perfectly valid dream, and the purpose of DJ is to help encourage one's mind to recall more, and what kind of message would deleting an entry send to your mind?

In addition, I really liked "This is your Casey speaking (Casey's my name) thank you for flying who-cares airlines"

Maybe not the same thing, but I had to abandon my dream journal because writing on it DECREASES my dream recall. If I don't use my dream journal, I can remember (usually) two dreams very well, sometimes even more. When I use my dream journal, I can remember only tiny fragments, sometimes not even that... I guess the brain does what the brain wants to do.

Yeah, that's what I thought at first, but I'm not really sure.

Ya, i guess it's because you stopped trying. Sometimes the effort of actively trying something can be counter intuitive. On the other hand sometimes your brain really does just seem to make life extra hard

That sounds like a very nice LD, congratulations!

Alright thanks for the help.

You little dreaming ninja you...
(Just had to say that)

It's definitely possible to do have a lucid dream without remembering it. But they're much easier to remember than normal dreams, at least in my experience. So when you wake up, lie completely still and try to recall what you dreamt about. If you had a lucid dream, it will most likely come to you.
It's also possible that you did a reality check and just didn't become lucid. It happened to me when I first started learning how to lucid dream.

Thanks for the help guys! I'll try this tonight.

Better get to making some cookies...

Nightmares can be tough. Especially those which are incredibly personal. Random monster trying to eat us dreams are easy to deal with. But we all know they can be more complex than that.

I have personally found that staying asleep through the nightmares helps. Whenever I wake up from one, my whole day is rooted in that dream. When I stay asleep through one, they usually resolve and I've found peace with it before I wake. It also helps for gaining lucidity in said nightmares. I can then sometimes travel back in time to a pivotal pre-nightmare point in the dream and prevent the whole mess from happening. That helps me a lot.

You might also try doing things to decrease cortisol, and norepinephrine, as well as increasing serotonin, dopamine, and testosterone levels. This can be done by "giving yourself a treat for surviving the day". Also, do a two minute power pose (something expansive, take up a ton of space, puff up, look proud). These will get all those feel-good and feel-powerful hormones boosted. Then take the time to relax once you get into bed. When you wake up, give yourself a reward for having good dreams, don't give yourself that reward if you have bad dreams. It might even help to say out loud "no cookie for you because you gave me a nightmare." Our minds are a lot like puppies, they actually do respond to cookies. Sounds dumb, but boy does it work.

It takes time, but we can indeed stop having nightmares. I now only have the nightmares I allow to happen.