side notes

Date: 7 June

Total sleep time: 8+ hrs

Pre bed: SJW, B6

Sleep quality and WBTB: I have been sleeping like a sloth all week long. One thing I have changed in my WBTB routine was to switch from using an alarm to using natural wakes. This has worked out partially fine. I do wake up naturally 2-3 times after sleeping 4-5 hrs. I think that in this way I am allowing my body to determine the best time for WBTB, instead of me forcefully using the alarm. The only problem is that, out of fear not to cause insomnia and possibly due to laziness, my WBTBs were not as serious as they should have been, thus not raising alertness to desired for LD levels. Will have to work on that.

Dream recall: While my recall has been somewhat reduced by my sleepiness, I have additionally been skimming my dreams. I have been putting only keywords instead of journaling, which has allowed me to...sleep more. The dreams weren't too interesting, so there wasn't much that I have missed apart from a brief lucid yesterday, that I couldn't access at all. I think that's fine so far.

WBTB: peppermint oil capsules

Dream1 DILD: I missed the transition. I suddenly find myself in front of my parents' place but the way it was a few years ago. I spend some time looking around, feeling happy. Then the neighborhood begins to morph into other buildings from my home town, so I stop staring at them, because I feel that I am causing the change. I check out my hands and they are in a mudra. After yesterday's discussion, I now wonder if I should try meditating in the dream or try to recall a past memory. I spend too much time in idleness and the dream escapes. I find myself in the void.

I feel that if I wake up I can successfully DEILD back. I am in the void and not back in bed yet but get confused because I feel my body? Obviously this is my dream body and some dream is starting to form, but I think that I am in my bed feeling my real body. In real life I am sleeping in my bed, but the body I feel while in the void is sitting in a chair. I am too dumb to realize that this is my dream body, get irritated with the strange position I have assumed, try to change it and lie down? I struggle in the dark. Then I wake up in another dream.

Dream2: Short FA, where I am in bed, reviewing the event and now completely sure after the dream that whatever I couldn't remember yesterday was indeed a very short LD where I didn't get much done.

I wake up (left side) for real and take key notes

Dream3: An elegant Asian woman talks about investment opportunities. She recommends that Western countries allocate 50 percent of FDI to China and the other 50 to Malaysia. This interview happens during some event. While this is happening I hear a piano playing. It is part of the melody from Mika's Grace Kelly. The sound is astonishing.

Fragment4: A classmate follows me around kissing me. While it feels pleasant I try to avoid him because I have a bf.

Fragment5: Me and a friend enter in a luxurious store where they sell toothpaste. It slowly changes and is now some kind of bar full of hookers.

Fragment6: I look into the nearby building and Christian Slater is there with more hookers having some night party

Fragment7: Me and bf, no comments

----------------------------------------------------------
Progress with this month's goals:

- Do 100 RCs (added)
- notice real life DS 100 times and RC (added)
- 10 proper WBTB attempts -> days (3/10)
- 10 morning RCs (1/10)
- 2 proper WILD attempts (0/2)
- task flexibility
- journal flexibility

Fragment 1: I was very pleased about some crystals I got that worked extremely well, with obvious results. I think I got them from Judy Hall (author of a few crystal books I own IWL).

Interestingly, I had placed a double-terminated quartz I had once dug up in Arkansas under my pillow after reading that those aid in dreaming, and ended up having more dream/fragment recall than ever. I've slept with various other crystals over the years to no effect. Hmm.

Fragment 2: I was cutting/texturizing the ends of my hair, not even looking into the mirror, just grabbing the ends and snipping little triangles.

Fragment 3: I found out that Merlin was going to continue. It wasn't even going to be a sequel picking up where the finale left off, but stuff that happened between Arthur's death and that shot of Merlin in present times.

Watched the season finale on Syfy last Friday and was very disappointed in it as well as about the series coming to an end.

Dream 1: I was at a place that was a cross between a warehouse, a grade school, and a thrift store (IDK!). I had to help organize stuff and was annoyed about it. There was a guy who seemed around my age who owned or ran the place. I also passed by some schoolgirls while carrying stuff.

Dream 2 (post WBTB): I was sharing a dorm or hotel room with two other girls. It seemed like a school setting, and I don't know where the other girls went, but I was preparing for my upcoming audition.

The place was really cluttered. Still, I thought I should hang up my coat in the wardrobe. On my way, I passed a closet and something inside it moved. I concluded that I was being haunted.

I stopped dead in my tracks because between the wardrobe and the closet I had just passed was a mirror. I've heard many stories throughout my life of people seeing scary figures -- or even looking demonic themselves -- when gazing into the mirror, so I was afraid. But I didn't want to let my fears get the best of me and I also remembered that finding a mirror in my dream and describing my reflection was one of the TOTMs, so I proceeded boldly.

I stopped to look into the mirror, except now it looked like a somewhat distorted 50s style television. At first I got kind of scared because there was something definitely wrong with my left eye. I looked closer and realized that it was swollen (though it didn't look like a real swollen eye would). I figured it was related to the discomfort I've been feeling there due to my recent migraine.

While I was not aware of dreaming in that last dream, my thought processes before looking in the "mirror" resembled my waking thoughts more than the majority of my dreams do. Usually when I make decisions in dreams, it doesn't involve a drawn-out and coherent thought process. The summoning of will and courage in a dream is also something I don't remember experiencing in a dream before. Then again, I was terrible at recall until this year and especially these past two weeks, so maybe I'm just not familiar enough with my dreams.

Also, that last dream is my first successful dream incubation Wish it had been a more pleasant experience, though.

This one is kind of long and not particularly interesting so i'm going to highlight a few of the more important parts.

-At some point I was driving, which is my biggest dream sign, and I didn't do a RC. A little disappointing.
-I was in an asian supermarket and saw some banana flavored popsicles, which looked delicious, but the logo on the front was the gorilla glue logo. I thought it was funny that that logo was what my brain decided to associate with bananas.
-At one point I was at the pool out back of an unfamiliar house, and on the wall was the same mural I painted in the courtyard of my fraternity house. What was interesting is that the words didn't change no matter how many times I looked at it. I suppose this is because my brain sees this as a whole picture rather than words. That's all.

Here's a pic of the mural for reference:

Tonight I'm going to see if changing my immediate surroundings has any effect on my ability to lucid dream. I'll be sleeping in the guest room with heavier blankets and a thinner pillow. also since I'll be closer to my computer instead of lying in bed and trying to recall the events of my dream I'll just wake up and come straight here.


So the results were rather odd. I WBTB'd by setting myself an alarm for about five hours after I fell asleep. I had some trouble falling asleep though due to the thin pillow but the heavy blankets were very helpful because I didn't really have to make my bed again after I woke up the 1st time because I shift around a lot so there was no carnage. I remembered the 1st dream in great detail and posted it in mah DJ then went back to bed. I had two false awakenings in a row which was strange as this hadn't happened to me before so I wasn't aware of the fact that I was still technically dreaming. I'm gonna tweak the method a bit and run this again at a later stage.

Well I think I found out the hard way that when you work out every day and don't eat enough... your body has a nasty way of telling you. I planned on using the new technique again last night, however instead of having vivid dreams that I became lucid in, I just had tons of scattered fragments that I didn't even bother recording. After that I even slept through my wake up alarm at 8:00 and slept until 9:30! Either way, I gotta eat a little more in the evenings I guess, cause just an apple for dinner isn't cutting it.

Anyways, here are the dreams from when I first tried the new technique...

#1 - I was in history class, and the teacher got up and reminded us all of the assignment that was due that day that we were supposed to do o ver the weekend. I had forgotten to do it obviously (since it's summer!) and I started reasoning with myself why was I even in school during summer vacation? I then rememebered the exact date and was like "I'm DREAMING"! Soon after that I got up and started walking around the classroom. I was focusing on just staying in the dream and not letting the rest of the class distract me and lose lucidity (like my DC's usually do). I then gave them all A's on thier papers cause I was in charge now that it was MY dream, and let them all go outside, away from me. Then after my victory I got woken up anyways by my mom cooking breakfast. -_-

#2 - As soon as I woke up though, I just went right back to sleep and re-entered the same dream. The room was a little different, but now there was a clock in there. I looked at this clock, and it was 8:00. I then looked away, and looked back for a reality check, and boom! 8:15 I then knew I was dreaming. Soon after another teacher entered and left a cell phone on a desk. I grabbed it and gave it back to her, saying she forgot it, but she just said it was her husband's and he wanted it left ther for some reason. Soon after though, I got woken up again by some sound from the kitchen.

#3 - I re-entered the dream and then looked at this same clock again. It worked like a charm, and I became lucid again. At this point I decided ti was tome to work on dream goals. I went and sat in the corner and focused. However, I got woken up again. Grr...

#4 - I was then in my room. I remember walking out the door and seeing the box for my Genesis. The box art kept changing and I knew I was dreaming. After this I went to the back porch to get outside and work on my dream goals. Woke up again though from breakfast being made.

#5 - Finally though, I re-entered this dream and was now standing on the back porch at my house. I remember watching all these cars going by, just like normal life. It was so life-like I wasn't sure if I was actually dreaming, but it was re-affirmed when some random person on a bicycle came by, tipped over, then just randomly kinda floated back upright and continued on. This strange occurrence assured me I was dreaming, and I wouldn't look like a fool trying to spin in circles and change the dream scene. However, I apparently don't have much experience changing the dream scene, as it didn't work and I just fell on my butt I then just sat for a minute and stabalized the dream. I then tried commanding the dream to change scenes, but right as I was doing this I got woken up again!

Well, I guess I only had 5 dreams But still, it was pretty awesome! I'm gonna eat more for dinner tonight so I have energy in the morning adn try this technique again! Can't wait!!!

See ya

Yep, you heard that right, I had 6 lucid dreams last night! They all seemed sorta chained together but eh, I was awake between each one so I call it 6!

Since it's getting late and I haven't had much time to record these on DV yet, I will do that tomorrow. But here is the technique I used to achieve this..

So last night I was reading about lucid dreaming and I came across this thing called the napping technique. It is really similar to a WILD except you stay up for a long time in between waking up
and going back to sleep. What I did was go to bed around 11:30. Then I set my alarm clock to get me up at 5:30. From this point I made myself stay awake for the next hour. I read out of my lucid dreaming book during this time to keep myself focused on dreams. When I first went back to bed, I remember having a non lucid for a second, then waking back up and realizing it. (or maybe I didn't wake up? I can't remember) Anyways, after this dream, my thinking during my dreams was VERY logical. Without giving away the first dream that started it, basically I was questioning why I was back in school, when it was June 3? (yes I remembered the exact date) Anyways, from there I became lucid. I kept waking up for some reason though during these dreams, but I was easily able to chain them together using a clock that was located in the room in the dream world. By then end I had had 6 dreams, and was VERY, VERY close to FINALLY meeting that individual I have been trying to for soooooo loooooong now.

Anyways, I found this technique to be the best thing since sliced bread, since it produced 6 lucids the first try. I'll log the dreams tomorrow, and hopefully alongside even more from tonight!

See ya

...And alternating between focusing on an object and allowing the mind to rest in naked awareness, you actually come to recognize the basic truth that neuroscience has shown us: Everything we perceive is a reconstruction created in the mind. In other words, there’s no difference between what is seen and the mind that sees it.
This recognition doesn’t, of course, occur overnight. It takes a bit of practice. In fact, as we’ll see later on, the Buddha provided some specific methods for dissolving the distinction between the mind and whatever the mind perceives...

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, « The Joy of Living»

I read about this in this thread by Zoth and tried it out during last night. I woke a couple of times and jotted down keywords like he suggests in the thread, in a mind-map format. It sounded like a great idea as it was quick to just turn on my little penlight, lift up on one elbow (my DJ is next to me in bed), scrawl the words and fall asleep again. (If I wake up too much I struggle to fall asleep again.)

But when I woke up this morning to try and write it out in my DJ I couldn't decipher what I had written. They were just random words and I couldn't connect them to memories. I think I am going to have to write them out in more detail in future. I would really like to use this method.

So these were the fragments I could glean from the keywords:
- I had an argument with my ex (we've been divorced for 13 years, for heaven's sake!)
- I was in a prop plane we drove around some towns and then flew over them.
- I was having a party at my house and stood in front of a mirror on the wardrobe. Didn't look in the mirror
- I was at a concert, naked, and I flew across the front row of people, trying to be inconspicuous (yeah, right, a naked flying woman is really inconspicuous!)

That is all I could extract from the keywords I wrote down. They were all involved dreams with a storyline but I couldn't remember any of them.

Darn recall better get better.

Well, I meant to post these the day they happened, but the internet went out when I was gonna post them so I am just now getting to it.
Also, these dreams all occurred after I started using the Equisynch brainwave demo, which I find to be very helpful. It is like the binarual beats I had been
using, but professional and much better and more relaxing.

*******
June 2
******
We were having baseball tryouts or something and we were in this
huge gym. I was playing third base, but then I got benched.
Then soon afterwards a ton of other people started showing up
and it was a huge chaotic mess. It was really loud in this gym, and that's
about all I remember for that dream.

In the next dream I was on this train. I remember seeing the year 1935 somewhere.
Everyone on the train were like refugees from East Berlin or something, and they were
mainly little kids. It was wierd though cause there was a DVD player like you would
have hanging from the cieling in a car. I remember trying to play a movie but the
DVD was all scratched. Also, then I remember seeing all these kids randomly having sweet
laptops that SEGA on them though.

Another dream that was SEGA related was this guy giving an interview about the latest Sonic game I believe.
He was explaining something with the rings. I remember that I was actually holding some rings, and there were also
some special blue ones.


**
June 2
**

We were driving down the highway, when out of no where all of these tornados started appearing! We then pulled off into this little
town. I saw some people get into thier car to try and outrun the tornado, and I don't know what happened to them.
I remember right before our car got hit that I was really quickly trying to put on a coat for some reason.
Then it hit! The car NEARLY flipped, but didn't. Then I was concerend that my car was destroyed, but that was all I remember.

In this next dream I remember seeing someone scraping the side of my Sega Genesis box with scissors! This made
me really mad, cause that is a cool box! Anyways, that's all I remember from that one.

In the next dream I was riding motorcycles with some other guys. I got stuck on this little underpowered 500cc
that was really slow and hard to balance. I remember swerving all over trying to keep it upright.

This next dream I was at my house with eveyone from school. We were split in groups and my group won some award for paying
the most attention or whatever. Then out of honesty we said that we didnt deserve it.

As you can see, it appears that the Equisynch brainwave entertainment is working very well. I am really hoping to start having some more lucids again!

See ya

Although May has been a good month in terms of LDs (15 + 4 micro-lds), my induction routine has become very disorganized and I feel I need to use this month to work on that. I also want to attempt a more viable sleep/wake life balance because I have been taking lots of my meditation time to dream journal. So my current goals for June:

- 10 proper WBTBs
- 2 real WILD attempts
- 10 mornings when I RC upon wake
- rely on intuition as to how much to dream journal
- possibly concentrate on fewer tasks during lds?

Didn't remember anything from last night. I wrote in my intro to the forum that I couldn't attempt anything that would interrupt a night's sleep, but I have decided to hell with that, I just want a lucid dream! I write an exam on Wednesday and after that I am on holiday (and so I can nap and catch up any missed sleep) so I am going to attempt WBTB. I am all motivated after reading others' workbooks!

- Helping complete strangers
- Being angered
- Undermining authority figures
- Multi-coloured skies

I've decided to stick with one bedtime routine and combination of techniques for the entirety of June. Last night was night one.

I ended up going to bed an hour later than I outlined in my routine. Less than an hour after that, I woke up from one of those dreams I've been having all the time lately, where I'm trying to yell at someone and my voice just isn't coming out. This time it was my sister, which is a first.

After that, I lay awake for hours. It didn't help that I had to go to the bathroom every ten minutes.

Throughout the night, however, I remained aware of a lot of auditory and visual HHs. Many more than is normal for me.

I also remember that some point I was having a dream or detailed HH, and I thought about doing an RC, but I was afraid it wouldn't work. Something along those lines, anyway.

So it seems that, at the very least, my will to become lucid has been imprinted on my subconscious; I think that as long as I am disciplined with my routine, this is going to be a very interesting month indeed. And, hopefully, as the excitement fades just a little I'll actually be able to sleep.

In this dream I was part of a huge project creating documentation for the military. My two bosses was the same as in real life, but I had many coworkers whom I had never met before. There were a number of coworkers on this project who were graduate students from a reasearch university, and even in the dream they were new coworkers to me. What was interesting was that in this dream I was significantly younger than in real life - in fact I was younger than these graduate students, and pretty shy around them, trying to impress. However, I was still a major player in the project, often acting as my boss's representative, which was inconsistent with my dream age, more consistent with my actual level of seniority where I will informally at times act that way with my boss's blessing on less important conference calls and such.

So we were building huge amounts of documentation for the military. (This reminds me of my recent other dreams of creating huge amounts of documents on a large ship. The military part of this dream is probably due to my having interpreted someone else's dream about military last evening before going to bed.) I remember this dream as being long, but now I only remember some significant parts. In one of them we are having an informal meeting in what looked like a dorm room: the graduate students, my Italian American boss who is the less influential of my two bosses - more of a project manager) and myself, and one of the graduate students was saying, "we have all this documentation planned, but what about the shopper's guide? We usually do a shoppers guide for this type of project." Me: "I cannot say. You should really ask our government lead, he is the boss, and he is paying you for this project, so you should ask him whether to do this document." Grad student (this one seemed to be like a leader of the bunch, and in a previous scene he and I had been thrown together, and I was now a bit less shy around him - he was cute.): "Yes, but what do you think? Would you like us to make a shoppers guide? Would you think it useful?" Me: "I think a shoppers guide could be useful. However, I don't make the decisions and I am not the one who pays you, so my opinion is not what you should be seeking." My Italian American boss/team lead: "What she is saying is that she does not have the cojones."

In a later scene I realized that a document that my government lead asked me to prepare was actually a version of the shoppers guide. So I went to tell the grad students, and I also said "When dealing with the military, proper terminology is important. This is not the shoppers guide. This is called the acquisitions plan."

I also remember some scene that seemed to be part of the same dream where I was out in a parking lot. It was raining, and I had to retrieve something from a locker in the parking lot.

I have the sense that there was much more to this dream. I think the scene with my government lead telling me to work on the acquisitions plan was an actual dream scene, not just a memory, for example. Also the scene of being thrown together in some task with the graduate student, which made me less shy around him. I also remember walking down a hallway side by side with the grad student.

Analysis: I think I am dreaming dreams of creating huge amounts of documentation because I am having a sense of not being creative enough in my work and just creating documents but not actually creating something. I am thinking as a solution I should start making bread or crocheting at home again to get an outlet which produces more tangible non written results.

Well, last night was a bit dissappointing. I had finally started into deep sleep around midnight I believe, when out of no where my dad
came upstairs and flipped my lights on. I guess he was checking I wasn't doing any late night programming but come on! Anyways, it
got me all out of rythm so last night I can't recall anything.

However on a positive note, today I was watching some youtube and low and behold, an ad came up that was actually useful! It
took me to a place that deals with binaural beats, and they have a product called EquiSynch. The beats that I use I simply ripped
from youtube and di myself, but according to this Equisynch these ones have been professionally developed into individual sessions
that you can use. I downloaded the free demo (which I plan on keeping btw) and if it goes well I will most likely end up purchasing the
entire thing. I'm not sure yet what all the different sessions do, but I am very excited to get started with this demo.

Also, I don't know if I had mentioned this, but I acquired a pair of Sleep Phones during the school year. They are really great and I use them every
night. I am super pumped to try out Equisynch with my Sleep Phones! I'll keep updating on how it goes, and if it helps me get back in the swing of
things.

See ya