Nerefa

The night before last, I visited an alien planet. There were no plants and no breathable atmosphere. The ground was covered in gray sand (which had the appearance of ash).

There was no life outside, but civilization existed within an indoor city. Because indoor space was limited, the city was very compact with buildings being closed together and no roads for wide vehicles.

It resembled a shopping mall, but with more businesses and residential buildings all packed together.

Because this planet wasn't naturally habitable, it had no native life. The economy was sustained mostly through tourism.

I explored the city for a bit, then turned into my dragon to explore outside in the uninhabitable parts. Eventually woke up in the morning.

The following night (last night), I came back to this planet and applied for the local college. I’m not sure what I'll be studying yet, but I took a bus to the campus and enrolled, so I'm a student now!

The admissions office directed me to a grassy indoor field, which had a large spiraling staircase smack-dab in the center of it. The staircase looked like it was once heavily polished and adorned with artwork, but it was now an archaic relic that had been restored.

This was where I would be taking a test. The admissions office told me to climb the stairs as high as I could to test my eligibility for classes. Weird, but alright. I followed the instructions and started going up the stairs. At first, it was just stairs, nothing peculiar. Maybe the test was at the top, I figured.

Then, as I got higher, creatures started emerging from nooks and crannies. They attacked me.
There were spiders, rats, bats, bugs, and other critters I had to fend off. It was mostly just an annoyance and I jogged my way through them.
As I went up further, more creatures came at me. Bigger ones. Tigers, wolves, alligators. This was more challenging, but I got through them, too.
Then I encountered human soldiers with military grade weapons. They attacked me on sight and I had to use my dragon to shield myself and get past.

I began to realize this was the test. Every student who climbed this stairway would face these increasingly difficult challenges.
For a while after passing the soldier level, I wondered what the next one would be... and I walked with more caution, looking around every corner.

The next trial wouldn't be around any corners, though. Instead, it was in my head. I heard a voice.
The higher I went, the louder and clearer the voice became. It cackled and taunted me demonically, threatening me with the trials ahead. It told me that it knew my greatest fears, and that's what I would soon face.
Knowing this is a dream, I don't doubt it. I seriously thought about going back, but decided that the voice in my head wasn't a deal breaker.
I continued up the stairway, ignoring it.

Eventually, the voice faded as I ascended beyond it.

But it was true that much worse things were higher up. The creatures that came for me next were supernatural. Zombies, ghosts, demons, and hallucinations of blood and other horror that personally disturbs me. However, I had already mentally prepared for it thanks to the warnings. I was determined to keep going and ascended past the supernatural scares. 


After getting past all of that, I stopped and looked up to try and see the top of the staircase.
There was no visible end. It seemed to go on infinitely, actually.
The stairs disappeared into gray fog in the sky.

I saw a glimpse of the stairway reaching into space and past the boundary of the universe.
This terrified me more than any other horror, so I stopped and jumped down from the stairway, declaring that I was done with the test. That's as far as I went!

What is a PR?
PR stands for Persistent Realm and refers to recurring plots, narratives, places, characters, and other elements that "persist" from one dream to the next.

If you've heard of a recurring dream before, this is similar, except persistent realms may not have any psychological basis behind them (you can have a PR simply as a result of incubation/training/intention, rather than trauma or other psychological need for repeated experiences in dreams). There does not necessarily have to be a "reason" why persistent realms exist in your dreams, other than habit and intention.

With persistent realms, you can have positive and fun recurring themes and plots that build over time, so it's not necessarily the same exact events being replayed, but more like a movie that continues from one dream to the next, a second life, or a video game that you pause and continue the next time you go to bed.

If you're thinking "Wow! This sounds incredible! Is this why people want to have lucid dreams?" then you would be right! Many people want to lucid dream just for the purpose of having persistent realms. You can live any fictional story you desire. It is the ultimate form of virtual reality!

In persistent realms, it's common to see the same locations and dream characters repeatedly and eventually learn their names and backstories, just like you would get to know places and people in your life over time. You can frequent the same locations like a particular beach. You can wear the same time-traveling watch in multiple dreams. Characters can remember previous dreams they interacted with you in, and they may refer to your past experiences just like in your regular life. There can be advanced world-building and you can engage in increasingly complicated plot structures.

Persistent Realms can be as simple or elaborate as you want. You can create a whole world, cast of characters, and powers/devices, plots, and scenarios that you return to anytime you go to sleep! Ever wanted to go on an epic adventures with a genie? Journey to the center of the earth to look for treasure? Get abducted by aliens? Or have a dream family? You can do it all with PRs.

We spend a third of our lives dreaming, so we might as well be living it to the fullest extent!

Lucidity and PRs
Lucid dreaming (knowing that it's a dream in the moment) is not required for persistent realms, even though many people prefer it. You can start developing a PR any time even if you don't know how to lucid dream. The only requirement is that you be able to have and remember your dreams.

Lucid dreaming is a great addition to persistent realms, though! It allows you to have greater control over your PR in the moment. You can do all sorts of amazing things with lucid dreaming such as pausing, rewinding, or fastforwarding through parts you want to skip.

Persistent realm elements can also trigger lucidity. If you know that a certain character only appears when you're dreaming, for example, you may become lucid from your own PR since it makes you realize the implications (that you must be dreaming).

Lucidity and persistent realms go hand-in-hand and often feed into each other naturally. If you have lucid dreams, you're more likely to naturally develop a persistent realm than someone who doesn't have lucid dreams. And vice versa if you have a persistent realm, you're more likely to develop "natural" lucidity than someone who doesn't have a persistent realm.

How to Develop a PR
Developing a PR can be done either inside a dream or while you are awake, though I find it much easier and more effective to develop things while awake (before bed is a great time for this, though you can do it any time).

You can either develop a PR from scratch, or work off of existing dreams. I find that working off existing dreams works best, even if the PR goes off in a completely different direction. Using a previous dream to start out with is often the most powerful tool.

Waking PR Development
You can develop your PR any time of day or night, but the best time to do it is night before bed (or when waking up in the middle of the night before going back to sleep).
To develop a PR from waking state, you should do two things: 1. Develop the idea and 2: connect it with your dreams.

Think back to any dream you want to start from. Say you met an interesting dream character a few nights ago (or even years ago) and want to expand on that old dream.

1. Developing the Idea
You can start by developing a part of the dream, like a character. Decide on a name for the character—let's say Sara. Think about Sara's day-to-day life. Imagine what it's like to see Sara go about her day as she drives to the bank, goes to a store, works at the local coffee shop, and meets with her ex who she doesn't get along with. Imagine her stating her name to the bank teller, or greeting customers where she works. Think about what she wears, her name tag, all that stuff (it's best to go with whatever pops into your head first for anything you're not sure of).

By fleshing this character out in your mind, you create a life for her. When you dream about her, your mind will remember all of these connected features and events you set up for the character, and the dream will assume these to be facts of her backstory. Think of it like a computer and your mind is a database. You need to populate some data to give your mind something to process, start dreaming about (the dream can pick up wherever you leave off).

2. Connect with Dreams
As you go through these ideas in your mind, connect them with previous dream elements you've had. Do you remember walking down a particular street in another dream you had one? Let this be the street Sara walks down. Did you ever see an unnamed man in your dreams? This could be her ex. Connect any and everything that makes the most "sense" to you, creating a web of ideas in your mind (this will strengthen your efforts to build a PR).

Connecting ideas you want with things you've already dreamed about will not only strengthen the concepts in your mind, it will trigger the elements to appear in your dreams. For example, the next time you walk down that street in your dreams, you might look over your shoulder and see Sara because she is now associated with that street in your mind. Or you might encounter her ex! Each mental pathway you connect between ideas, the easier to navigate them in your dreams.

Dream formation works with connects and associations between your thoughts, so creating this web around what you want to dream about will yield whatever results you want. The more everything connects and "makes" sense, the better!

Prospective Memory
What we're working with here is called prospective memory. It's a is a powerful tool for actively plan your PRs and make specific elements recur. You can choose to see a specific dream character in your next dream, or revisit a location you've been before. Sure, you could do this on the fly in a lucid dream, but planning it ahead helps to ensure you will remember what you want to do and enhance your dream control (especially in the case of more complex goals).

You can even imagine yourself having a dream while you're awake, and this can become part of your PR lore. For example, if you imagine yourself going to a concert with Sara, the story you envisioned can become canon to your PR—the next time you dream about Sara, she will already know who you are and refer to that time you two went to that concert (when you were awake, but she won't know the difference—unless you want to get meta with your PRs).

Dream Initiated PR Development
In-dream development of PRs can work too. You can do this with lucid dreaming simply by using dream control and engaging in whatever it is you want to do. If you repeat the same activities in multiple dreams, they will easily become habits that repeat naturally over time. The more you engage with something, the more it appears.

Keep in mind that you do not have to control everything. In fact, if you are trying to control every little detail about your PR, you may end up having tension in your dreams. Tension is the feeling of friction or pushback, which dreams manifest as lack of control—causing you to get stuck fighting with your dreams, rather than enjoying them.

Going with the flow of your dreams and letting them unfold over time instead is the best way to go. Your goal is to control things through incubation and natural association, rather than creating tension through force.

Going with the flow can also result in natural PR formation. The act of simply practicing dream recall, journaling, thinking about dreams, and increasing your awareness in dreams tends to result in more naturally recuring PR elements.

PRs also develop naturally from paying attention to particular elements in your dreams, or doing the same things until you form consistent habits/routines. The more you pay attention to certain things in dreams, the more likely they are to naturally recur. Use this to your benefit by focusing on the things you want, and putting less attention onto the things you don't want.

This also goes for PR-formation itself. If you hyperfocus on 'creating the perfect PR', it takes attention OFF of the contents of your dreams. This can result in more meta dreams and tension that prevents you from effectively controlling your dreams.

PR Development Strengthening Tips
- Connect what you want (your goal) with something you already have. Connecting scenery, characters, and other elements from can create a more cohesive structure that makes you more likely to revisit the PR.
For example, if you want to set up a persistent area where you can go eat chocolate cake, think back to a previous dream you had with any building in it. Now imagine that there's a bakery with cake in that building. Imagine walking inside and meeting the chef, who wants to give you unlimited free cake! There's never any lines, and everything you want is on the menu.
- Connect elements that 'make sense' to you. This will strengthen dream plans into something believable that you will have an easier time dreaming about. For example, it makes more sense to find chocolate cake in a bakery than under the sea. So if your goal is to eat chocolate cake, take the path of least resistence and create a persistent bakery in a city or town, not underwater.
Disclaimer: You CAN create fanciful things like underwater bakeries! If that's your goal, it's absolutely doable. I just recommend, as a general rule, sticking with things that "make sense" unless you have a specific other goal in mind, simply because it's easier.
- Associate a feeling. In addition to imagining your senses, you can also imagine the feelings in dreams to help form connections and create PRs based on those powerful emotional connections (which can have incredible influence over our dreams).
For example, a small town bakery might elicit a feeling of old-timey personalized cakes with homemade frosting and higher prices, as opposed to a city bakery where you might have a greater selection of decadent premade cakes at lower prices.
- Take advantage of pre-existing consistency. It's okay to deviate from previous plans, but staying consistent helps strengthen your PR. Personally, I go into PRs with a "don't fix it if it aint broke" mindset. This gives the PR a much more consistent framework (80%+ of my PR formed naturally, and I don't change things unless there's a reason to change them).
- Set intention! Intention to do something in the future is a brilliant tool when put towards dream planning. When you tell yourself x is going to happen, it is surprisingly effective at making x happen in dreams. Have you ever anticipated waking up early to do something you're exited about, and then found that you woke up naturally before your alarm? Even if you aren't a well practiced lucid dreamer, people have a natural sense of intention and follow-through that naturally transfers into dreams.
- Use repetition. The more you think about dreams and develop your PR, the more likely you are to succeed. You can even do it during the day.
Note: repetition that is mindless and devoid of your thoughtful presence is not as helpful. If you are doing something like a mantra, make sure you're being mindful and not just repeating empty phrases.
- Consider details. As you go through dreams in your head, include as much or as little details as you want. You don't have to think in great vivid detail for it to be effective, though you can if you enjoy doing so! Considering details can help reinforce your intention. Be aware that what you focus on now, is what your dream will likely focus on later.

That's is for now. Enjoy!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I change something that already happened?
A: Yes! Even if something already happened, you can change the past, present, and future of your PR. For example, if there was an FBI agent out looking for you in your PR, even if this has been going on for years, you can change it with logical plot twists. Maybe he was looking for someone who looked like you, and realizes the mistake in your next dream. Convince yourself of this new plot twist, form ideas around it, walk yourself through it, and it will occur.

Q: What if I create an ongoing nightmare?
A: The nice thing about dreams is that you have control over them. If there's something from a previous dream that you don't like, you can change it at any time whether during the dream itself or in the next dream. You're never forced to keep the same narrative going. Unlike waking life, persistent dream realms are your creation. You have complete control over it. YOU decide what continues, and what goes away.

Q: But I don't want to control everything?
A: Good point! I personally only plan about 10-20% of my PR. When you develop your PR either inside the dream or when awake, feel free to skip over/gloss over anything you don't want to control. You can set the stage for things as much or as little as you want. For example, you can plan to activate a portal to a magical realm without planning where it goes, and have the magical realm be a surprise.

Q: Why does planning PRs while awake sound like MILD?
Mwahaha! That's because it is. Planning PRs works similarly to MILD technique for lucid dreaming, but instead of becoming lucid, your goal is to trigger, engage, or modify your PR. Here's a guide for MILD that you can convert to your PR goals: https://skyfalldreams.net/guides/skyfalls-mild-guide/

Q: How do I start lucid dreaming?
A: Lucid dreaming is outside the scope of this guide. To get started, I recommend reading a recall guide:https://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/ner...l-guide-94405/
Then, pick a lucid dreaming methodsk like MILD or WILD and you'll be set!
MILD: https://skyfalldreams.net/guides/skyfalls-mild-guide/
WILD: https://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/ner...d-guide-94340/