side notes

I almost had success but ended up not having any last night. Counting my breaths helped me become completely relaxed and still while also keeping my awareness level where it needs to be. My first dream I was instantly aware I was dreaming. The only problem was I was also half awake! I realized this as I was started to stabilize and ended up just waking up. I found it tough to sleep as I couldn't find a comfortable position and I believe I was anticipating the dream too much rather than going to sleep naturally. Regardless of this, I still managed to enter sleep paraysis to enter another dream! I was not lucid however because as my dream started, my tv (which was turned off) was blaring loud with baseball commentary. I immediately rushed to turn the tv volume off and therefore forgot to stabilize which quickly ended the dream.

So, I make some adjustments-

Adjusted technique-
1.During my day, practice all day awareness and work on my visualization when I can.
2.Wait until I naturally yawn to go to bed. Review my dream goals in my dream journal.
3.Lie in my bed and clear my mind. Once mind is clear, take 10 deep breaths while mentally counting each one.
4.Lie on my side, close my eyes, take 10 more deep breaths while counting each one.
5.Take 290 slow breaths, trying to relax my body and mind more with each one. Count each breath as well. If I lose count, I get up from bed, work to increase my awareness and start over.
6.Think,"The next thing I see will be a dream" and go to sleep normally. Think, "The next thing I see will be a dream" if my mind starts to wander.
7.When I enter a dream, look at my hands and say,"stabilize now". Increase clarity if neccesary by saying "increase clarity".
8.Say, "This is my dream, I'm in control, and anything's possible."
9.Stabilize every minute or so by rubbing my hands and saying, "stabilize now, anything's possible".
10.While in my dream try to keep control of my emotions.
11.When I wake up, lie on my back with my eyes closed and mentally gather all the details of my dream. Slowly get up and write down dream in dream journal.
12.Repeat steps 3-11 if still tired. If not, go back to step 1 and repeat.

I also need to work on finding a comfortable and consistant position to sleep in. Working on these adjustments, I'm sure I'll find success tonight!

Throughout the last few days, my technique has been working reasonably well. But, seeing some flaws in my technique, I want to make it better. My main flaws are that some nights I'm too mentally tired and therefore lack the awareness to get lucid, in my dreams I lack control, and occasionally my dreams will end because I lose control over my emotions, usually due to frustration. I revised my technique somewhat to address these flaws. I believe it will work. If it doesn't I could go back to my old technique. This new technique is designed to help me consistantly find the proper awareness to get lucid in my dreams and to improve my dream control and stablity. It's perhaps a bit extreme but I believe I could be consistant with it.

My Technique
1.During my day, practice all day awareness and work on my visualization when I can.
2.Wait until I naturally yawn to go to bed. Review my dream goals in my dream journal.
3.Lie in my bed and clear my mind. Once mind is clear, take 10 deep breaths while mentally counting each one.
4.Lie on my side, close my eyes, take 10 more deep breaths while counting each one.
5.Take 290 slow breaths, trying to relax my body and mind more with each one. Count each breath as well. If I lose count, I get up from bed, work to increase my awareness and start over.
6.Think,"The next thing I see will be a dream".
7.Think,"Here comes the dream" in between breaths until the dream starts.
8.Look at my hands and say,"stabilize now". Increase clarity if neccesary by saying "increase clarity".
9.Say, "This is my dream, I'm in control, and anything's possible."
10.Stabilize every minute or so by rubbing my hands and saying, "stabilize now, anything's possible".
11.While in my dream try to keep control of my emotions.
12.When I wake up, lie on my back with my eyes closed and mentally gather all the details of my dream. Slowly get up and write down dream in dream journal.
13.Repeat steps 3-12 if still tired. If not, go back to step 1 and repeat.


My dream goals right now is simply improving my teleporting, summoning, and telekinesis skills in baby steps. I've already mastered flying.

I found out the girl I refered too in Lucid #5 quit her job! That makes me want to summon her even more. Luckily my work still has a good depth of attractive young female co-workers to keep my eyes happy, so to speak.

I've already yawned while writing this. Time to go to bed!

[Wednesday, 19th, 2012] [After Midnight- before I had fallen asleep]
I turned off the lights, turned on the LSD dose from iDoser (a binaural beat that induces a drugs effects), and lied down with headphones. I folded a shirt over my eyes and I zoned out and began counting down from 847. After awhile I became more and more relaxed, letting my mind become numb... I would recount numbers and forget where I was and restart at random numbers- this is when I knew I was in a trance. I felt detatched slightly... and tried imagining something.

I imagined myself in a blank white room. Suddenly a potted plant appeared in the center. It grew and grew and grew until it became a Venus Fly Trap plant of giant proportions. It ate "me". But it was just the body, the vessel, for my consciousness- I understood this and made a new one, and walked up to the plant. "You are simply a creation of mine and you cannot hurt me. I love you because I created you." The plant did not try to hurt me again. I walked through the wall to the left with such force, it shattered reality. The scenery outside the white room was a beautiful beach scene; the sun just setting a dark red velvet and vibrant orange against a dark navy sky and ocean. I was high in the air, far above the smooth sand or the water, but I was walking on air, on invisible pulsating steps. I walked a distance and then decided to travel along the pulsating steps like monkey bars. I dropped down so that my hands could hold on to the level where my feet just were and I pulled myself along as if they WERE monkey bars. Still pulsating a clear crystal light.

At that moment I reinvented the scenery. I was in a blank room again, but this time I was seated behind a table. I invited my subconscious and/or dream guide to appear and they did. Four figures walked in through the door instantly and each took a seat on the opposite side of the table. I made note of their appearance first... on the far left was a fiery feline female with fiery-colored hair, a mix of orange, red, and yellow. Second, was a huge muscular, black-iron-armorered figure with a fiery green skull with flames licking high into the air. Third from the left was a human walking-stick. Almost simply put, a bamboo man. Just a stick of bamboo going straight up into the air. Last, on the very right- I couldn't make them out very well. It was as if they were invisible, and I could only sense their Galka like presense.

I announced the reason for this gathering first, speaking in a pronoun that was mixture of I and We: "I/We are in a state of great confusion and despair. I/We are broken and must do something. We must become one, and work together to solve the problems we face." I stopped after the sentence and asked if anyone would be willing to finish my sentence due to how cloudy my conscious mind was. The 1st aspect chimed in and tried to finish, as my conscious mind jumped into her body- I saw from her eyes and began to talk... but trailed off, most likely because I, without meaning to, took control of her. Someone else chimed in right after, it was the 4th invisible Galkan aspect... I don't remember what he said, but it was full of force and meaning... and it made perfect sense. After he finished I stressed the importance of lucid dreaming: "It would be beneficial to US to lucid dream. We could solve a great deal from it and the daily link between all of us. We need to lucid dream." I was conditioning all of us- we all knew that I was hypnotizing the whole room. I was strengthening the importance of my conscious mind being present in dreams. After this I asked: "Okay, so who are you?" I was referring to each individual aspect of me. The first, the female aspect spoke up immediately: "I'm your female side, and I'm the one who emits light! I keep you on track and keep you afloat with joy!". I believed every word she spoke. I turned my attention to the stick. It radiated the answer: "I am your intellect. Your intelligence. The one who collects wisdom and shares it with everyone here." I couldn't sense a strong color from him. The next to speak was the ghostly presense of the armored man. He spoke something like this: "I am the one who keeps you alive. I know what you need- I make the hard decisions that benefit you, that you don't want to make." I understood. He was the line that knew when he was crossed. I looked at the invisible aspects seat- but never got an answer.

"Are you my dream guide?" There was no reply.

I was thrust back out of my imagination and into reality. I could feel a slight tingling sensation all over and I felt slightly detatched from my body. Thinking about this re-inforced my attatchment and I was back in my room again, listening to the vibrations in my headphones. I lied there for awhile and until the crackling in the headphones that's ALWAYS there kind of made my neck-hairs stand and I had to sit up. I sat up slowly and looked around. I could DEFINITELY feel something. The room was dark, but I could see exceptionally well. The clock on the wall was stretching and breathing. The whole room was stretching and breathing! I put my hands up in front of my face and I can't explain how alien my movements were... I felt like I was viewing from far, far away. I looked down at my blanket and it resembled a tangled mess of brain. The light coming under the door pulsated gently a light green mixed with turqoise. The patterns on the pillow moved like vines- just like in Fear and Loathing's Casino Carpets. The wall to my right was Tiger striped; shadows dashed ever-so-carefully across the white. The entire room was a calming, breathing dark mess of storage- it was new to me, as if I had never been there before. I brought my hands up to my face again, not exactly sure what I was doing, and I drew a cross on my left palm with my right index, then drew a circle on my right palm- then I clasped my hands together gently.

The dose still going on- I got impatient and took my headphones off. I heard a noise that did NOT exist in real life. My computer was making it... it sounded as if it was some sort of alien technology... making vibrating laser beam sounds. Like a woobawoobawoobawooba, but much faster and much higher pitched. I knew it was just my brain being confused from the binaural beats, but it was still fun to listen to. I crawled across my bed and crawled into the computer's chair and turned the screen on... after a few seconds of another strange feeling, I sobered up and typed this.

This has been my first night of regular sleep since working overnight. Last night was quite a bit out of the ordinary, starting out by waking up roughly 3 hours after going to bed. No dreams were recorded though; I could not recall any for some reason. The neat thing though is that 3 hours of sleep felt longer. It was actually pretty nice. Other than that, I woke up a few other times with no recall at all. Hope I keep this up when I can get my routine fixed.

This one's kind of awkward LOL. Firstly, I wasn't even fully asleep. I could still feel my body in bed. But whatever I was portraying in my mind seemed real. Like It was a dream, but I was still awake. And I remember that if I didn't focus enough, it would go away. The setting was a shower. I wasn't actually in it, but I tried to imagine the sound of the shower going, hoping that my girlfriend was in it so that we could... Nevermind LOL. The point is... I was half awake, and half asleep. And dreaming at the same time. What is this?! It was a dream, no doubt about that. But what exactly is this? Half dreaming? My body was not fully asleep, I could feel my body laying in my bed. But my mind kept dreaming...

This dream is not being rated.

I had one dream last night that I took a shower and my hair dye washed out (I currently have semi-permanent dye in my hair IWL; it's supposed to last a couple weeks). I had another dream that there was a whiteboard with some Latin words/phrases and their English translations on it; some of the words seemed Latin-ish with weird definitions, and other words were just weird. Then, someone erased all that and started drawing the Mane Six (from MLP:FiM). They just drew the ponies' heads, but then they drew a full-body pic of Applejack. For some reason, I thought Molly (my cat, who died a couple years ago) would be jealous because only Applejack got a full-body pic.

Hmn, now this is some odd happenings.

So I have this dream, right? And the only part I can remember is right at the end where I (in the dream) am exhausted and hug/lean against a certain lady-friend of mine. Well, she think is best that we sit down before I crumble into a zero-energy mass, so she starts walking me (whilst I lean my head on her shoulder) over toward a park bench. (Weren't we just in a gymnasium??)
Well, the motion of walking/dragging me over to the bench caused my head to slip down... down her front a little over half a foot.
Now it should be clear why I didn't feel like just forgetting this dream.

Okay, so I wake up. And it's hours before I need to 'rise 'n shine', so I attempt to re-enter the dream. Creative, imaginative guy that I am, that shouldn't be hard, right?
True. I can see the dream-location in my head, I'm there, she's there. Now poke her, Elliot. 'Kay, that works.
But I didn't feel it. It's not me, it's "me".
Waitasecond... I'm in third person perspective, falling into a stage-1 sleep reconstruction (or continuation) of my dream, right? Okay, then WHY is it that I can't get back into my dream-self? I mean, the dream is even throwing in some odd things and non-sequitors like it would if it was a true dream. Because it IS.
BUT I STILL CAN'T GET MYSELF INTO IT!
Grrrrr....

Well. Does the counsel of my peers here on DV tell me anything about this conundrum?

Commentary-
So, yesterday I carried out the adjusted technique I explained yesterday. Falling asleep seemed easier and smoother with the visualization techniques. Prior to my first two awakenings I had strange dreams-random sounds but no visuals at all. The second awakening was disappointing because I was excited to find myself in sleep paralysis but I couldn't DEILD because the tv was on! So I turned the tv off, went to sleep and the fun began...

Lucid #2-
I almost immediately recognized I was dreaming when I found myself in a dark empty living room at night with a random child with me. "Do you want to play?" he asks. "How about golf!" I suggest. "Okay," he says. So, I go outside, pick up speed and jump up to fly, leaving the poor kid behind. As I start to gain some elevation, I look around at my surrondings. At first, there seemed to quite a lack of detail in the layout of the area with just a single light for each of the homes in a grid like pattern. But, as I see some skyscrapers for the downtown area, I find myself landing there as the buildings start to increase in detail immensely. Soon I was surronded with beautiful architecture everywhere. Inexplicabily I found myself walking down a street in similar in layout to Market Street in San Francisco heading towards Embargadero Street in daylight. Only, this city looked different as it was a tropical oceanfront city. As I approached what would be Embaragadero Street I simply hopped right over it. I hopped around a couple more times, testing this ability. There was a party type atmospere with a lot of people at a plaza type area I found myself at. I walked to the left and saw at a shaded oceanfront park a long line of pairs of people getting ready for what looked like a water balloon fight. After presumably a go signal the water balloon fight began. Some people were holding grocery bag sized water balloons which their partner simply poked with a pin or scissors. The dream ended as I was viewing this.

Commentary-
So, the technique worked just as I had planned. I trained my mind to differentaite the waking world from the dreaming world so I was almost immediately lucid when I had the dream. I didn't have to do any reality checks. If my earlier dreams this morning had visuals, I might have been lucid in those as well.

The tv habit really has to end.

After my lucid dream I tried to go to sleep again but couldn't. As I was relaxing and visualizing, I started to get hungry. Since I convinced myself anything was possible when I was in dream mode, I visualized myself eating a bowl of cinnamon roll flavored oatmeal. My hunger went away!

Prior to my lucid dream, when I was visualizing to relax myself, I imagined going to sleep at night at Santa Cruz Beach and occasionally at a tropical beach in daytime. This probably had an effect on my lucid dream as it started at night and ended at a tropical city in daylight. I've heard about dream incubation but I haven't read about yet. I'll be sure to today. Hopefully, my technique will continue to work!

[Saturday, September 15th, 2012]
No dream recall- due to drinking, stoning, and overexhaustion after a night with Alex. :\

+

(Taking a nap around 2:00PM)
(At this time, I'm extremely relaxed from listening to binaural beats, meditating, stretching... almost to the point of being in a trance. I decide I'm too tired to read anything else, so I close out of my book at page 106. I face the speakers playing the binaural beats towards the bed and lie down. Then realizing that binaural beats won't work unless coming from different ears, I turn them off and just lie there. I lie there for what seems like awhile and my consciousness starts slipping. I can feel that I'm falling asleep in waves- and my mind will run off on a thought tangent and I'll stop myself before I totally FADE. But these tangents started becoming more real... and more in-depth. Slowly, the thought tangents were becoming mini-dreams. In the middle of each mini-dream, just like each tangent before, I would catch myself from falling asleep completely... by now stopping and thinking, "THIS IS A DREAM!". The first dream I remember was the Baby Coyote dream... there were more before that that I had become lucid in too, but I don't recall them.)

Alex, Nathan, and I are driving down Saguaro Dr. in his Jeep. It's pretty dark outside, but the moonlight leaves a dim outline of the world for us to see. Approaching the turn in to my old home, we see something in the middle of the road. It's a baby coyote. I'm filled with love for this little creature, and I just want to get out and hold it and love on it. Even knowing the parents would probably still be around. After waiting too long, Nathan finally drives off, apparently less impressed than I was. The parent coyotes join the baby and start to walk up my driveway. We drive off a little ways and I say, "Go back! We can still go see them!" Nathan turns around and Alex points out that they are still around, just kind of waiting there. We turn around and head back to his house, Nathan uninterested, but wanting to drive by again for us. Suddenly I realize it's a dream and wake up.

(I wake up with my eyes closed and fade back into another pretty fast.)
<dream recall starts>
I'm with Nathan, and it's around 3-4PM, the sun is shining and we're both in his Jeep driving down Saguaro Dr. We turn into his driveway, and I begin telling him about a dream I just had with us driving the Jeep right by a coyote on the road. Just as I speak my first sentence about it, a coyote sprints across the dirt driveway in front of us and runs into the desert. I... stammer, "Whoa whoa... whoa holy shit..." I look over at Nathan with wide bug-eyes to express my surprise and confusion. Coincidence happens. But I recognize when probability isn't at the right level. I explain, as he continues driving, that my dream had to have been telling me something or telling the future at the most. (Ironically, my subconscious was trying to make me lucid.) We pull up to his house, by his garage, and we start talking. Harley springs up out of nowhere and starts wagging his little tail like he always does. I think he came out of the garage door that isn't closed all the way. Nathan begins to close it just as I'm crawling under it. It's shaped in an almost alien fashion... and it closes as if it's an alien door with metal blinds... but it still comes dangerously close to crushing me. I'm gripped with slight panic as it pushes on my back... but then it stops. I crawl back out from underneath and seem to forget what just happened. Suddenly, the neighbors are calling out to us. I look up and see a small crowd by the next door house, a couple of girls waving at us. Nathan doesn't notice until I get him to look. I wave back with enthusiasm and continue talking to Nathan. I see Harley wag his tail, and notice he's tied with a thin red string to an unfamiliar vehicle where Nathan's Jeep was JUST parked. It's a maroon old-fashioned-esque car. It must be those neighbors or something. Suddenly they walk up from the driveway. It's a soccer-mom and her girls. She talks to Nathan as if he knows her. <memory> Before she leaves, she mentions something to ME about there being a scheduled "thing" and to not forget. The lady then gets into the maroon car and pulls out with her family. I watch them drive off, me being in the yard closer to the tree. I realize I'm dreaming and wake up.

(This time I wake up and decide to try something. The last few dreams were confusing me immensely, but I've gained the ability to "feel" if it's a dream or not. Being semi-awake again, and grounded in my bed, I begin to visualize until I feel I'm ready to induce sleep paralysis. My eyes still closed, I think, "Induce sleeping state, NOW!" or "Induce that state [that I'm thinking about]... NOW!" something to that effect... My whole body begins to vibrate and I can feel that I'm on the edge of sleep paralysis, but not quite there. I set to work immediately.

I began to visualize me being in the middle of a bunch of different scenes, and adding movement for added immersion. The first was a mall... I could hear the people talking... dragging their feet on the ground... but no visuals. I tried other scene's, none really getting me into a lucid dream. Just triggering new thought tangents. I tried again, this time, it was more specific: I was in the mall, but on a fountain's steps lying down. I could feel the sandstone... hear the water trickling and splashing... feel the cool air... I tried adding movement by rocking back and forth... I rolled off the steps and began to fall into nothing.

I open my eyes, and I'm back in my room again. But on the floor... I rise up and see an exact replica of myself sprawled out on the bed... on my back, hugging a pillow to my chest, a blanket's corner covering my eyes. I get so excited that my heart races and I look around the room one last time before my... experience... ends. I my Grandma's the old pendulum wall-clock with the time of 12:30 on the dot. (The clock is a few hours off of real time.) My experience ends and I open my eyes and take the blanket off my face. The clock says 12:31.
(It's around 5:30PM when all of this ends.)

Commentary-
Last night I tried to go to sleep later so I could fall asleep easier while repeating my mantra. It didn't work. It's seeming increasingly likely my lucid dream a few nights ago was more a chance occurance than a product of the technique I used. I did have a very short non lucid though so that's better than nothing!

Non Lucid Dream-
I was watching a Giants baseball game on tv when the announcers went to a commercial break. Instead of going to a commercial though, the screen went black but I could still here the announcers talking to each other as if the television crew was having technical difficulty...)

Commentary-
Which is interesting as my technique for lucid dreaming was having technical difficulty! My mind probably tied that with my excitement for how well the Giants are doing. Some dream interpretation there!

I took a nice bath today and was thinking about what I could do enhance my technique. My technique as it is right now isn't working. By repeating "I'm dreaming, I'm trying to put my mind into dreaming mode as I'm sleeping but I still not lucid. Thats when I had an aha! moment!

I'm not lucid in my dreams because my mind can't differentiate the waking world from the dreaming world when I'm asleep. If I'm thinking "I'm dreaming" at night when I want to be in dream mode, when I'm awake during the day I should be thinking "I'm awake" when I'm in awake mode! That way over time I can train my mind to differentiate the waking world from the dreaming world so I could become lucid every night.

Also the essence of dream control seems to be completely believing that anything is possible. So I should train myself to believe anything is possible when I'm in dreaming mode.

I know that when I'm repeating "I'm dreaming" at night in between breaths I can't go to sleep. This is because I need to relax more.

So a new technique forms. I believe the logic behind the following technique is promising so I'm pretty sure it will work eventually.

My adjusted technique-
This technique is an all day cycle. When I wake up, I do a reality check to make sure I'm awake. Then I write my dreams in my dream journal. As soon as I done with my dream journal I think "I'm awake", enter "awake" mode and I start my day. As I'm in "awake" mode, as much as possible, I take slow breaths and in between my breaths, I think "I'm awake". As soon as my day is over, I relax and make sure my mind is clear. When I'm relaxed and I'm just about to close my eyes to go to sleep think when "I close my eyes to enter dreaming mode, anything is possible". I close my eyes and take deep breaths at first thinking "I'm dreaming" in between breaths. I take deep breaths until I feel completely relaxed. Then I switch to slow soft breaths still thinking "I'm dreaming" in between breaths. If I still have trouble going to sleep doing this I visually transport myself to the most relaxing location possible and continue with slow, soft breaths until I go to sleep. Then I hopefully lucid dream at will all night! When I think I'm awake, I do a reality check to make sure I'm awake and the cycle continues until I become proficent at lucid dreaming. If I need to work on my dream control, when I have time, I will relax and think "As I enter dreaming mode, anything is possible". I will then work on my visualization and daydreaming thinking "I'm dreaming" in between slow soft breaths. When I'm finished, I'll think "I'm awake".

I seems simple enough that I can be consistant with it every day. Hopefully, I see some results!

(This one is from last night, bringing my DJ up to date again.)

Awake, Non-lucid, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm in House #4, which is enormous and elaborate and has lots of rooms [far, far more than in real life]. I go into one room that I had been using as an office/storage room, turn on the lights, and wonder why the lights in the ceiling fan don't turn on when I flip the switches, like they always have. [Arrrrrgh! *facepalm* It's been a while. I completely forgot that this was a dream sign until just now, when I was writing about it!] Then I notice that the room has been completely redecorated and filled with all kinds of objects and belongings. Someone has moved into these rooms. That someone has left a note on a rectangular sheet of yellow paper, attached to the wall, and has signed it with her first name, Emily.

While walking through the house, I pass a seating area with couches and a coffee table in an open area of the second floor, on a sort of landing next to the walkway that leads to the other bedrooms.

I'm in a dining area, sitting at a table, eating a meal with my roommate, LB. We talk about how I have this is my last night in the house, and I have to return to my original home.

I go downstairs and walk out of the house, which is now a small cruise ship sitting at a dock. Someone says something like, “If you don't come back, the ship will leave without you.” And I'll be marooned, I think. Well, Long Beach sure is a great place to be marooned in.

I wander off, along the city streets, heading toward the ocean. I find the frontage road that runs along the edge of the beach, and follow it to the next cross-street that leads inland. [The intersection I came to looked a lot like this intersection here, a place I know well from real life, but that intersection is actually in Santa Barbara, not Long Beach. In the dream, this area looked like that intersection, except grayer, more urban, and more built up - more like Long Beach, in other words.]

I turn right and head up that street that leads inland from the ocean. I come to an enchanted-forest-themed park area, where there is a gently-curving path through a forest of tall trees, and little statues and figurines, including one that plays a chipper, pre-recorded message when you touch a marked panel in front of it. The companion I'm with does so, and I turn around and walk back the way I came along the path, annoyed by the recording.

While retracing our steps, my companion and I come to a section of the pathway where there's a little toy train that runs along a ledge, about three feet off the ground, on one side of the footpath. The train consists of a toy engine, a toy caboose, and a whole bunch of random, small objects in between them. Any object placed in the line of objects between the engine and the caboose levitates a few inches above the ledge, and is pulled along as part of the train. The idea is that you're supposed to stand on the objects and ride the train along the ledge. I take my totem out of my pocket and place it on one of the flat objects in the train, and look at it for a moment. However, I then put it back in my pocket, because I don't want my companion to see that I have it. [Again, how did I not realize I was dreaming? Apparently, in my mind, that totem object is associated with the idea “This is a secret - no one else must know you have this” much more strongly than it is with the ideas “This is a symbol of your membership in the lucid dreaming community, a reminder to do reality checks, and a way to do them.” Great. :/ ]

(This is a catch-up post. This dream took place on the night of September 8-9, 2012.)

Awake, Non-lucid dream, [Commentary made while awake]

I'm in my old hometown, on a major east-west street. I have to transport some large, cooked meat dish from one place to another in the trunk of my car, without letting the juices from it spill all over the trunk, so I have to drive very carefully.

[Later, different dream.] I'm in my apartment in Omaha. My parents are there with me. They've come to visit along with SS [a good friend of my mom's], and we're trying to figure out a more comfortable sleeping situation than cramming both of my parents and SS into my office, which is what we have been doing. We wander into the far side of the apartment, where I don't go very often. We walk through a hallway that goes past an outdoor courtyard, with a brick floor and a stone fireplace, and into the large master suite.

“I don't come in here very often,” I say. The master suite has a large, unused bedroom and its own bathroom, which solves the problem of sharing bathrooms. We can also move someone into that bedroom.

A little later, I walk toward the door of my apartment, from the inside, and find that my parents are decorating it for Christmas by putting lights up all around it and putting a green garland over the top of the door, so it hangs down on the inside and the outside. “Mom!” I say indignantly. “I don't put up fall decorations until the autumnal equinox, and I don't put up Christmas decorations until December 1st!” I start taking the decorations down.

My parents and I are discussing the amount of money we spent on my relocation, and how much I still owe them. They are under the impression that I owe them for the car we rented, but I counter with the argument that no, I don't, because that expense went on my mom's credit card, not mine.

My friend Jim is in my apartment. He looks very young [younger than he is in real life] and is holding a baby girl. I introduce him to my parents: “Mom, this is my friend Jim. Jim, this is my mom,” and the same with my dad. While I'm doing so, Jim disappears, leaving only the baby floating in midair. [I have no idea how I didn't realize I was dreaming. I did take note of how strange it was that Jim looked younger than he normally did, though.]

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Side notes:
This is the first time I've dreamed about my new apartment since I moved here, which was 1 month and 9 days ago now. This dream comes as a relief. I was beginning to worry about my mental state. On two previous occasions when I've made a change in my life (when I moved into the rented room and when I got my first smartphone - see my DJ entries from July 24, 2011 and September 4, 2011), only two weeks passed between the date of the change and the date that change was reflected in my dreams. This led me to develop the hypothesis: “Evidently, two weeks is how long it takes for my my unconscious mind to accept something as normal and start incorporating it into my dreams.” This time, it took just over five weeks. Time to adjust my previous hypothesis. Here's the adjusted version: “When my unconscious mind has begun to accept something as normal, it starts incorporating that something into my dreams. The amount of time it takes for that to happen may vary.” On a conscious level, I would agree that it has been much more difficult to adjust to and accept this change than it was to adjust to the other two changes in this data sample. I believe that this accounts for the time discrepancy.

I recognize several of the other themes in this dream as themes that have been on my mind lately while I'm awake. I frequently think about how my apartment seems very large for just me, so in my dream, my apartment actually was as big as it feels, or even bigger. I really am excited about decorating my own apartment for Christmas, so it makes sense that I would dream about that. Yesterday, when I was shopping, I really did purchase a few Christmas decorations, but I didn't put them up. My policy on putting up decorations is exactly as I said in my dream.

My best guess as to why Jim was there is that I subconsciously feel guilty that it's been five weeks and I still haven't found or joined a new Toastmasters club yet, because I keep putting it off.

No dreams for me last night! Last night was just a bad night for recall. I was ampted up and excited going to bed to try to induce another lucid dream. It also didn't help that it was one of my days off and I got less exercise than usual which might have impacted my recall as well. I still have the habit of going to sleep with the tv on which I read also impacts recall. I went to bed trying hard to induce a lucid dream repeatedly thinking "I'm dreaming" which probably impacted my recall as well. As I said in my first entry-no recall equals no lucid dreams. So I make some adjustments.

I'll lay this out to make it more clear

Reasons for poor recall-
1.Not as tired as I should have been
2.TV habit
3.intense repeated thinking creating tension, making it more difficult to go to sleep.

Adjustments-
1.Got a lot more exercise today, being a busy work day as a waiter. I should get more exercise on off days too that way I'm tired when I go to bed. I should also use yawns as a cue to go to sleep.
2.TV off
3.Rather than simply thinking "I'm dreaming" repeatly, I will only think "I'm dreaming" in between slow breaths. This should also help me to go to sleep. Rather than trying to force a lucid dream with repeated thoughts alone, I'll focus on the technique rather than the lucid dream itself to induce the lucid dream.


I've also been experimenting with a new sleep position designed to "lock" my body in a comfortable position bringing WILDs and DEILDS into play. I find I can keep my lower body still by interlocking my kneecaps and my upper body relativily still by putting my hands in a praying position and resting them on my forehead as I sleep on my side. This is a work in progress though.

I believe these adjustments will improve my dream recall and allow me to lucid dream tonight. But, like I said, I'll focus on the tehnique rather than the lucid dream itself.

Happy dreams for me tonight!

Welcome to my dream journal! I'm still relativily new to lucid dreaming. I've had some lucid dreams here and there by chance but nothing until recently purposely induced by any technique. My curiosity compelled me to surf the web and caused me to stumble upon this great site! I lurked around for a bit and tried some techniques to find something that worked. Trial and error caused me to discover a simple technique that made one of my first fully lucid dreams almost effortless! This success really motivated me and let me know that I can do this. So like many others, my goal is to master lucid dreaming.

My goal is to dream about whatever I want whenever I want. Whose isn't! After a bit of thought, acheiving this goal comes down to mastering two things...

Lucid Dream Induction Technique-to dream whenever I want
Dream Control- to dream whatever I want

Mastering my Lucid Dream Induction Technique
My new lucid dream induction technique inspired me on this quest to master lucid dreaming. My technique is simple. I simply think "I'm dreaming" as many times as possible as I'm falling asleep. When I enter a dream, the very first thing that comes to my mind is "I'm dreaming" which immediately causes me to become lucid. As of right now I've only tested this technique once. But, it worked so well that I feel it will be reliable in the long haul. If this technique ends up failing consistantly I'll have to find a new technique but I'm convinced the former will work. As I have tested this technique only once, it might evolve over time if I find ways to improve it.

Mastering my lucid dream induction technique and dreaming whenever I want means mastering these things...

Technique Reliablity
How reliable the technique is. The success/fail ratio.
Dream Recall
I know dream recall has nothing to do with my lucid dream induction technique but if I can't remember my dreams, I can't have any lucid dreams!

Mastering Dream Control
To me to be able to dream whatever I want to me is the essence of dream control. My dream control as of right now is not too good and is the place I can most improve. After a bit of thought, mastering dream control consist of mastering the control these things
Environment
The setting and all the important objects of the dream.
Plot
The storyline of the dream and all the characters, including myself.
Dream Quality
This is the quality of the vividness and the stabalization of the lucid dream.

Occasionally to see where I am I'll give myself a score on each category (1-5) to see where I am and where I can improve. When I give myself a 5 in all categories I'll have achieved my goal! Here are my initial scores
Lucid Dream Induction Technique
Technique Reliablilty-5
Dream Recall-3
Dream Control
Environment-1
Plot-2
Dream Quality-4

In future journal entries I will only post lucid dreams and a bit of commentary when needed.

That's it for now, gotta go to sleep

Waking Thoughts/Dream/Lucid

The next few days I will have to destroy my routine again. Having to work overnight till Friday... Maybe I can take advantage of this somehow? I'll do a bit of research. Anyway' attempting to get ready for tonight' I stayed up fairly late last night, which means I had to turn off my alarms that helped me remember dreams. So last night I really did not remember any dreams. I had a few fragments this morning, but was too tired to write them down.