side notes

So let me walk you through what I did yesterday night. (End of streak to 6 )

I decided to try the technique that gave me my first and only LD: The Yell And Be Mad At Yourself technique. Basicly I go in my room and start talking about how I cant seem to LD and telling myself to RC and such. It worked the first time

So I go to sleep and try to stay pissed off so its my last though before sleeping. I still try to relax and, without even wanting it, I start seeing blue in my eyes. It starts as blue, then there's a voice that is saying stuff in my head. Not just a whisper; a very clear, solid, manly voice. Also there appears to be a creepy music in the back. My first though is that my parents are watching the TV too loud. But then patterns start appearing. The form was some kind of spiky circle. I dont know what the name of the shape is. So im starting to realize I may be in SP. My heartbeat starts racing. I also felt something in my eye, some kind of tingle. Although the voice is creepy, im not scared. Hell ive been trying so hard to SP im not chickening out anytime soon. Then I stopped, because I know its impossible to dream before going to bedand im tired. Besides, I never wanted to WILD in the first place! But before sleeping, I get up and go around the house. Both parents sleeping, NO TV, NO COMPUTER. HELL YEAH! Im hallucinating! Yipee! And even if the TV was on, you cant ignore patterns and colors.

Note: This is really weird. To keep my mind awake, I started singing the song by The AA Rejects, Gives you hell. And for like a splitsecond, it felt real. It was loud, and I could hear it as clear if I was listening for real. Is that common?

Now this morning, I noticed something: My YABMAY technique not only did nothing, but completely fucked up my recall. I remember absolutely nothing, but it was to be expected. Stress and nervouseness decreases recall, I heard. I tried to see if I could go in SP again at 7 and saw blue, but no voice or pattern.

Now heres my questions:
Was I really in SP? Im used to thinking it is sleep paralysis while it is only numbness.

The first time, I was sleeping on my stomach (my reg position) but in the morning I tried on my back. Any impact?

7 is the time when Im simply not tired enough to fall asleep. At that time, I know going back to sleep is not an option. But if I try WILD in the morning, maybe my body couldnt fall asleep? After all, my mind cant.

Can YABMAY do any good? Is there a "right" way to do it so it doesnt mess up my recall?

Im thinking of turning more of my attention on WILD. I dont like going to bed not knowing wether I will have an LD or not. Luck isnt a big friend of mine. Is spending more time on WILD a mistake?

TY

BTW: Im gonna see Adam Lambert in person backstage this weekend! Wish me luck

Remember two dreams from last night... one was a fully lucid dream.... and another one was a non lucid.

Lucid- I was sitting in a room with all of my relatives. My grandma asked me to do a reality check... so I plugged my nose... and sure enough! I could still breathe in! I Marvelled at how realistic it felt. It was truly physical... and It was very hard to convince myself it was a dream because of how real it felt... so I tried flying. It wasnt easy.... I flew like a little bit but because the dream felt truly physical and real... i just couldnt fly very much. I was able to fly over a couch... and that was about it. I was told to fully master my dream... I had to go into a room and choose from a book what I wanted to do... So I did.... I picked " ride around the grand canyon on a dinosaur" The dinosaur went strait up a lot of things which made it very scary.... because once again... it felt really physical. The dream mustve ended after that... because I dont remember anything. It wasnt the best... but hey... it was another lucid dream. Oh... and another thing.... I did not try to have it... but I have been doing reality checks whenever I thought About it. Also... I had a very hard time remembering my dreams and didnt until hours later.... and this leads me to believe I may be having more frequent lucid dreams.... But I NEED TO get my dream recall up.

Non Lucid- I went to the beach with my family... I wasnt sure how I got there I just was. There were two ropes in the water.... the first rope meant some danger and the second rope meant high danger. Me and my dad swam out to the high danger.... We were swimming when I mentioned to my dad that I saw things swimming in the water. He Said he did too... It was sharks.... dolphins.... and whales... I swam as fast as I could torwards shore.... as did my dad. I made it without problem. Later that night I was watching the news which was talking about the abundance of dangerous widelife there was that day. Not a very good dream if you ask me.

I''l put the dreams from the last 2 nights in the same entry

8/9

can't remember why but I looked at my left hand and I had too many fingers, failed a nose RC then checked my hand again - still manky, became lucid. Was in a room which was supposed to be my parents it was very dark. I touched the cupbords and whatever else I could reach to stabilize the dream, it worked. I left the room and was in G's house I walked to the playroom but didn't see anyone, I walked back towards G's room to see if B was there as I approached the room the dream faded.

Later that night I had a non-lucid dream in the same house, this time there were lots of DC's including a beautiful woman who was totally into me. I felt like I was cheating by being with here and tried to hide what we were up to. We kissed in the playroom and them made plans to meet in G's bedroom, she wanted me to stay another day but I said no. I went through the kitchen on the way to G's room and B was making breakfast in the kitchen. Eventually I'm in G's room with the woman and we have sex, B is there and she is giving me instructions - LOL

Nap: I'm travelling in Africa and am in charge of some teams, Dad and me split the teams mixing them. S was there.

9/9

We're visiting houses from a news story? We go into a house that I know in the dream world it is a very poor area, the house has yellow and blue walls. We're invited to sit down and I notice 2 of those buzzy magnet things on a table. I remember someone mentioning them in the inception totem thread and realize im dreaming. Do a hand RC and fail but know I'm dreaming so I do a nose RC and I can breathe. I touch some things to stabilize and walk toward the kitchen where the old lady host went. As I get to the kitchen I start loosing the dream, in desperation I close my eyes and spin and fall, I get up in the living room again and head toward the kitchen the dream fades again this time I can't stabilize it .

Later I'm fetching L from school but the building is different as I get to the gate I realize this is a dream, I RC and become Lucid. I touch the gate to stabilize. I go into the classroom but there are no DC's. I decide to walk through the door to transition to somewhere else, I walk through the door without opening it and simply am outside the school. K is sitting outside and I decide to see what kissing feels like. I put my hands through here hair to help stabilize and kiss her. It feels ok - not amazing. I loose the dream - probably because I closed my eyes.

I lie dead still after waking and slide back into the dream, this time I'm fetching P. I'm lucid from the beginning but loose the dream waking up after a few seconds .

fragments: Africa again, S is there, Trip to Russian or Turkey?

I've been writing my dreams down but haven't been updating here so here goes.

3/8

something about a juvenile prison, that is just a deterrent and me and some other DC's trying to escape over the roof.

Hectic meeting with some people I work with about some stuff that they are doing wrong, everything comes out into the open and they both admit to wrong doing. One of them admits to having an a affair.

Can't remember the significance of the rest of my notes:
D watering his plants
neighbors flat - holiday
railing kid safe
gay guy
talk to guy about flat windows

4/8

Long dream about moving into a flat in Pretoria. C doesn't like the courtyard I'm explaining that the plants have just been planted and they need to grow, it's like a formal garden with hedges. The flat is in a really nice building and we can afford it but we're looking for a cheper place that's just as nice.
There is a strange bouncy walkway with red carpets, I think CT is there.
Later F and some others are sitting at chairs in the courtyard i go and talk to them.
Later there is a swimming pool in the courtyard and I'm swimming, staying underwater for very long periods. Suddenly theres acid in the water and it burns me. I get out and the burns continue to get worse E is in the dream at some stage.

notes that don't make sense:
flyers for church
bikes, new tire
watering grass
buildings

Later I'm chasing something with the help of a bloodhound

5/8

Playing golf with K at Unicorn golf club

I'm at a mall with T and W. We are in the part of the mall that is only used by employees. It turns into a factory/mall, we are spies. We are running away and someone goes through a "baggage slot". At some point we're in a bathroom and I p on T - LOL

Also at some point in the mall we are comedians and we are ripping on a group of people for coming to do something lame - to do with strangling a lady, only thats not a bad thing and the lady doesn't mind. I tell the group that they should "not be themselves" this was apparently a witty diss.

6/8

I'm teaching people about a healing technique which has to do about the other universe (too much fringe )

In a hotel room with sex stuff going on, S and V are involved as well as K. K tries to make a fool out of me. There is lots of alcohol involved.

7/8

Was in my old SL house with C and P can't remember if L was there. Played on the giant rock with P.
Tried to stop C from seeing me in the photos inside the house.

Nap: Parrot with a broken beek and metal prosthetic. Golf club Dad and L are there. Pool with Alex, Andre and Ant - LOL

Comment Dream Lucid Dream

Yesterday my recall sucked, today it blew me out of the water. I remembered up to 4 dreams (fragments). No lucids though, but I don't care (more or less ;p). This is progress anyway. Here goes:

I'm at a seminar of my old guitar teacher. He invited a couple of his best students to record a DVD with him and learn a couple of songs and techniques along the way. We all had to follow a certain course in which we could choose between two songs, play one of them and when we did so correctly we could move on to the next two songs. For some reason, he had decided to visualize the course outline like this, with two piramids:



We all started out on the right and could choose between song 1 and 2. Then you move up to 3 and 4, 5 and 6, and so on and so forth. I first tried song 2. It was an acoustic guitar song accompanied by me singing (song doesn't actually exist). My performance wasn't actually that bad, but the intonation of my voice dropped a bit at the end. I knew that, because halfway the performance I transferred to another version of me listening in the audience. Because my intonation dropped, the teacher said it wasn't good enough and I decided to go for song 1 anyway: Heart's Crazy on You.

-----

In my second dream I stood behind the counter at a restaurant and I was supposed to pass out french fries to anyone who would want to have them. A gorgeous lady walked up to me. Red dress and lipstick, dark hair, big brown eyes. Stunning. I looked her in her eyes and repeated a mantra in my head. I remember kicking myself in the head (figuratively ;p) because it should've been "I am lucid dreaming", but I kept repeating "Don't pay attention to the floor". Weird. To make matters worse, the lady was apparently a psychic and able to read my mind. She asked my why she shouldn't pay attention to the floor and I told her the floor was dangerous because of its colour (I genuinely believed that, though). I gave the woman her fries and she went away. And I didn't become lucid.

-----

I was waiting at a hatch with my instructor. We're in an old building made of metal and steel, rust and algae are running up the walls. It smells a bit. The instructor tells me that at the other side of the hatch are ghosts. It's the garbage dump of wherever we are and the ghosts are attracted to the trash we dump there daily. I have to go in though, so the instructor gives me some pills that are to make sure the ghosts don't come for me as soon as I enter, they apparently love human meat. The pills only work for a given amound of time, though.
I take some pills and climb through the hatch. The other side looks just as metallic and rusty as where I just was. I can indeed see some zombie-like figures wandering about, but they don't come after me. Whew. Time to go search for what I am initially here for: a lost Zelda II cartridge. After I've looked around I was able to find only a couple of cartridges with parts of the game on it, but not in it's entirety. I remember that was obvious, because the cartridge had been split up in several parts, because it was just like a zip-archive.

-----

In my last dream I found myself again at the garbage dump. This time I was much deeper in, together with someone else. This part of the dump looked like an old, neglected city, but still as rusty as ever. We were in trouble. The pills would almost lose their effect and to top it all: Voldemort was coming for us. We hide, but Voldemort still manages to find us and kills my friend. He doesn't even look like Voldemort, by the way; glasses, brown scruffish hair and a bordeaured polo shirt.

Obviously I am more than happy with this amount of recall . I do wonder where my mind gets all the references from though. I haven't read HP in 3 years now and never even played Zelda II O_o

Nothing to write about Wave 9, except that since I was in another bed that did not count and my dream streak is still at 3 while my record at 4.

Now wave 10:
I learned the hard way a lesson this morning: RC EVERY FREAKIN MORNING when you wake up.

Wake up in the hotel at morning. I look at my watch; 7:50. Crap, my family is still not up. Normally my brother and sister wake up at about 7. Especially at a hotel. Then I lye down and actually think to myself: Should I do an RC? Or not? Yes? No? And finally I go back to sleep thinking like nahh watever.

Wake up again later. Im like: Ahh what a beautiful morning! Its sunny! Yay! Im happy!

(looks at watch) And its just six fift.... No. No. NO. NO Its not 6:50! It was 7:50 a minute ago!

A serie a swearing, mental screaming (sleeping family) and despair ensues.

Noooooooooooooooooooo. How? HOW? OMFG!

And so kids, thats why you RC every morning

I am an official member of the DV Globalization Project. I have access to the forum and I now translate articles in French! Yay!
I am also the team leader and the only member in french! Plus I talked with Alex!

So I started following the "Infinity" Lucid Dreaming Course last night. Here are the two dreams I had:

We are outside of our house, my wife and I, at night.
Leah says her mom wants me to hang out more.
I get mad and say I can't and don't have the time.
She says I can visit on Sunday.
I tell her it's my only day off and I already waste half of it as it is.
I realize I'm runnin late to work and stomp off at 9:50.
I walk up a sidewalk and it seems like it's night time.
I see three dogs that look like my parents dogs and they bark at me. Leah laughs

This next dream is a bit more intense, detail wise. This singer from a local band, Kirkland is their name, is working at the gas station next door to my real life work. I remember going over to visit, it was still night like my first dream, and I was incredibly nervous. So she's walking around or whatever. And then for some reason I see her hanging out with this singer from this other local band, Matter of Fact, like in real life. And then I'm driving up from east of the gas station, still dark, and listening to a song that both of those singers did together. It was kind of trippy.

And suddenly a guy I barely know/talk to and I are going into this tiny and abandoned tennis court. It's right by the highway and fenced up as if it were a prison. Creepers and vines are everywhere and leaves cover the court. It was sort of mystical. I say to the other guy, Nate, "Man. It's been forever since we got a good tennis game in." And we start to play tennis. I just remember the court is cramped and we're trying to play, still at night, and Nate mentions something about how he "hates it when people return in that area. It's so cheap.

So nothing crazy awesome tonight. The dreams were interesting. I honestly didn't sleep very well and had to force myself to take down notes for this DJ entry. I'm moving on to day 2 of the Infinity Course. I tried willing myself into SP last night and I could get to the point where I was completely numb but I was too awake to fall asleep.

31.05.2010

Thoughts on Sleep Paralysis and "visitations" (Note)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I can't remember my dreams from last night in any great detail (apart from one part where I fell in the lake and soaked mah phone!), but I felt like rambling out some thoughts anyway. Maybe I need a blog.

I was watching "Derren Brown Investigates" earlier, a show where famous illusion/hypnosis/trickster-guy Derren Brown investigates different paranormal phenomena. Each week he goes in with an open mind, but nothing has yet shown itself to be anything more than bullshit. Anyway, this week it was the turn of ghosts/demons, and he spent some time with a "ghost hunter". The woman whom he was supposed to be helping with her demonic infestation described how she had woken up in bed at night unable to move, and had malevolent figures standing over her. She also said one time she was screaming, but no-one was hearing her, and the bed was shaking. All the time she was explaining this, I was thinking, "Surely, someone here has heard of sleep paralysis. This is textbook!" In the context it was presented by her (as a ghostly visitation, told to a ghost hunter), it seemed almost plausible that it was a ghost. But a rudimentary grasp of sleep paralysis would tell you otherwise. I found it really strange to hear it from the perspective of someone who believes in ghosts, and it made me think. I wonder how many (otherwise rational) people believe in the supernatural purely based on experiences like these. Same goes for alien abductions. Personally, I don't rule out the possibility of the existence of aliens, but I no longer give any credence to the paralysed, float out of bed, classic alien abduction stories.

The ghost hunter himself seemed to believe in what he was doing though. But from what I saw, everything he based his belief on was a combination of wishful thinking, poor-quality gadgets, and his own sleep paralysis experiences as a kid. At the end, Derren adressed this, and talked about sleep paralysis as a medical condition. The way he described it made it sound like quite a serious subject- a medical condition, I mean. I did a little bit of wider reading on sleep paralysis and found more of the same. Accounts of terrifying sights and monsters invading bedrooms while the victim is unable to move. Is it weird that we intentionally induce this state? I say yeah! But what lucid dreamers have done is proved that sleep paralysis can effectively be harnessed, directed and used as a platform for lucid dreams, which are awesome.

Me? I love sleep paralysis. It's a great ride. The realism of the sensations I've experienced have opened my eyes to the power of the nearly-sleeping brain, and have shown me a way to access greater levels of creativity. Some examples: levitation, sliding around the bed (as if being thrown around by a poltergeist), spinning like on the head of a giant drill, loomed over by a witch-monster, and thrown onto the floor. All stuff which could potentially have made me a believer in ghosts (and think I was haunted) in another day and age. Thank god for the internet! Thanks to the internet (and Dreamviews in particular), I've been able to recognise these occurences for what they are, and go into them with a positive attitude, even seek them out. It's given me some great times too. Listening to and manipulating my own personal soundtrack- without earphones, OBEs and of course, lucid dreams.

Anyway I think I've rambled enough for one night, I'm getting sleepy. Here's hoping for some demonic visitations tonight!

If you have anything to add, thoughts, or you watched the show as well, feel free to share!

29.05.2010

Superlucid Musical (WBTB)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I was woken up and went back to sleep three or four times this morning, so lots of mini WBTB's. My memory of them has really gone down the shitter though, due to other dreams and the time between then and now.



I remember already being lucid in a kind of mall. It was extremely bright. The walls and roof were made of glass with a steel frame. The roof was pretty damn high above me, and there were lots of little white columns and platforms on top of most of the shops. My friend Hugh was beside me. I turned to him and said,
"Dreaming aye?"
"Yep," he replied. I told him I wanted to do the task of the month, even though there was only like a day left. (Jump off a skyscraper) I reckoned that if I could fly up to the top of the highest columns, I could maybe get out onto the roof and see if there were any skyscrapers nearby. Hugh and I flew gently up in the air towards one of the taller columns. I didn't quite make it to the top, but I grabbed onto some rungs on the side. I surprised myself with the clarity of my thoughts here. I knew I had been completely lucid for a decent while, and had no difficulty remembering details from waking life. Then Jess shifted beside me, and the dream crumbled. I percieved that I was back in bed, but desperately clung to a feeling of disassociation to try to DEILD. I "moved" around and grabbed the rungs of the ladder as much as I could, focusing not on my real body, but the dream body. Not to blow my own trumpet or anything, but it took quite a lot of concentration! Pulled it off, I was back in. I drummed on the column with my fists in jubilation. The realism astounded me again- this was kind of like going back to my first few lucid dreams, wonderment-wise. Just a few seconds ago I had been lying in bed, but now here I was, seemingly physically somewhere completely different, banging my fists on a surreal column-platform thing, which appeared for all intents and purposes, completely real.

Those moments of super-lucidity really are great. When you are 100% you, not some quasi-self, slightly warped by the dream world. I was me in the Matrix. Unbeatable realism.

I think I gave up on climing to the roof, it got a little difficult and I was having trouble flying. (Lack of control sometimes seems to go hand in hand with hyper-realism for me) I ended up back on the ground, looking down the other end of the mall. A set of very tall doors looked to open up into a type of ballroom. I decided to investigate, and started running towards the doors. As I did, music started playing. It was a brass band or something. The floor was shiny through the doors, so I dropped to my knees and slid through, arms open wide. In mid-slide, someone tossed me a microphone, and I caught it, jumping to my feet. I was on stage in an auditorium. There were two galleries full of people near the roof at the other end of the room, and on the floor between them was a massive fountain. Behind me was the band. I instinctively started singing. The band backed me up. I was literally just singing whatever came into my head, but for some reason I was hyper-creative and the song just seemed to flow. It became a continuous medley of songs from the 80's. I remember YMCA was definitely in there. As for the rest, I wish I could remember more of the song, it was brilliant. It was a proper musical performance. The audience loved it, and cheered wildly.



When I finished the song I bowed, and reminded myself that I was still asleep. I thought,
"No doubt Jess will wake up soon, she's an early riser." It was strange. I visualised the sight of her lying in bed- as in, just imagined it. But the act of doing so made it real. I wasn't just thinking about it, it became part of the dream and caused a false awakening. I got out of bed and started typing this up.

Makes me wonder. Can we have a visual imagination in a dream? Surely that ability is already maxed out with the creation of the dream itself. Is it possible to imagine something in there and not have it become real in some form? Puzzling.

Comment Dream Lucid Dream

Oh, joy! I think I may have had my first LD this night in a long, long, time (8 years or so?). Before I went to bath I read about meditation on the internet yesterday. I then took a bath - which I normally never do - and relaxed. In the mirror I told myself why I would have a LD. Afterwards in bed, I spent some time on DVs (reviewing the my previous DJ entries, reading others', and rereading the chat log of the first MILD-1 lesson) and went to sleep. "I can Lucid Dream" must've been one of my thoughts. 'twasn't long, but it's a start:

I'm in my room at my mum's house (which I do sleep in atm) and for some reason realize I'm dreaming. I then see if I can float, which sort of works. I run to the attic, to the room of one of my two little brothers and fly out of the window to see how well I can fly. It is now that the vividness increases, but also that I can't remember what happened next. I'm not saying this was a full-blown lucid and entirely vivid, but I remember saying to myself: "I'm dreaming this" and making the decision to go the attic.

[EDIT]
I now remember I flew out the window, dived down and just before I crashed into the ground took up and flew about. I then thought about changing into a wolf (a thing I have done before in my dreams. I love the feeling of sprinting around, close to the ground with huge leaps). Couldn't really decide though whether I wanted to fly or run around, and my mind was still discussing whether it actually feels more like a wolf or a frog. I think the chaos is what made me lose control and ultimately lucidity.

-----

I'm in the bus riding home and I think I've got a girl seduced. She has black hair and, obviously, looks rather nice. When I get home though, and fetch the drink I offered her, I find her and my other brother (not the attic one) happily humping along. Whore. I run away and sit in my room, feeling crap.
I decide though, I'm not going to give up that easily and at least tell them what traitors they are. Fortunately, when I re-enter their room, I see now what a monster the girl really is. She's fat and has tons of boobs and asses all over her body. Iew. (Wtf @ my mind) In a strange twist of fate I think it would be better if I just became a second Indiana Jones now (I'm not even a Jones fan) and start looking for secret caverns. After some time I find a huge labyrinth in a kitchen somewhere. By figuring out a poem I found somewhere, I know the exact way to traverse the maze (left, right, then crawl through a small hole). Later on I have to fight some monsters and at the end a giant Majin Buu. I'm not even into DBZ, and the monsters looked like this:

Spoiler for Image:

I can't really remember these two dreams in vast detail, like I hoped, but I can remember a decent amount. I remember two dream fragments:

#1: I was in some sort of foresty valley with a bunch of other people to celebrate my friends wedding. My wife was there and so were my other friends. It was Whitneys wedding we were celebrating. I remember seeing Whitney in pretty vivid detail and Brian as well. Then for whatever reason I'm walking through the middle of nowhere, still at this wedding, to another town to use the bathroom. Gotta love dream logic. And then, for whatever reason, the fighting begins. Inspired by Dragonball I, for no reason whatsoever, have to begin fighting my relatives in Dragonball style. But for some reason my relative is Tien from DBZ. So we start fighting and I remember throwing energy blasts at him and I seem to hold my own pretty well. For whatever reason another person joins the fight and I remember vividly trying to perform my kamehameha attack but nothing comes out of my palms. However, Tien still stumbles backwards as if hit by energy. It was a really cool feeling. I also remember sneaking into a small house, crawling past a small bedroom with a TV and a video game on, to go use the bathroom. But I couldn't find the bathroom and, from one of the darker closets, a cousin of mine grabs me and scares the crap outta me.

#2: And now I'm in some giant kind of superstore stocking shelves. Mike, my buddy from work, is there too. We're both working hard. I remember Jason and David, the owners of the company I work for, being there as well. For whatever reason I have to go out of the store and down to a ditch where there is a big pump moving water. So I get down there and there the pump is. It is blue and rectangular and sitting inside of a box which is in the water. However; the box only has three sides. No fourth side. I remember this sorta making me extremely confused. Because, without the right wall of the box, how is the water staying in there? I shoulda done an RC because I'm pretty sure I would have become lucid if I thought about it. My confusion, even though the dream isn't that vivid to me, was really strong and I remember it VERY clearly. So anyways I fiddle around with the pump by moving it around. I'm afraid of the water getting low and the pump sucking up air and dying (gotta love it when your work invades your dreams). So I move it outta the box and higher up this muddy slope. It begins to pull less water. OK. So I move it back down towards the box and suddenly it's shooting all of that water again. It's at this point, while fiddling with the box and pump, that I see two gold coins just sitting in the mud. I pick them up. My first thought is: I should give these to Leah to show her dad (who is a coin collector). I look at the coins closer and see that they look similar to the 2010 US pennies at one side (with the flag like shield) and on the other side is a pair of large trees that cross at the very top and in the middle is a couple of giraffe standing in some tall grass. I think to myself: "These coins must be currency in Africa!" And then I'm walking back into the "superstore" to show them off.

Whew! For two "fragments" I sure did remember quite a bit. I love it when that happens. I think that, with my new routine, I'm going to be making great progress. Last night I forgot to do my meditation/mantra but I did the rest all day. Today should be more effective, I think, because I was up too late last night.

I'm leaving this evening to go to the beach, so I won't be posting here for at least a week. I hope to have plenty of dream adventures to record when I get back!

So, I didn't remember any dreams last night, which really kind of sucked. I'm going to go ahead and copy some of my workbook into here again, for continuity's sake. I'm also going to be sure to keep a notebook by my bed tonight.

I probably should have expected that I couldn't have two good dream-nights in a row. Ah, well, here's how it went. I went to bed at 11:00, which was a little later than I was hoping for, anyways. I then had the same problem I had the previous night: I couldn't get myself to fall asleep.

I'm beginning to think this is a common problem between sleeping in general for me and my, as of yet, failed attempts to WILD. Basically, whenever I think about 'wanting' to fall asleep, I can't. On a normal night, especially when I don't have to do anything the next day, this isn't a problem, because I just lay down and don't worry about it. However, I've noticed that, for example the night before school starts each year, I have trouble falling asleep. It's that feeling of lying there, not exactly tense, or thinking about a ton, but being just the slightest bit anxious about falling asleep that seems to make it impossible. Last night, and the night before during my actual WILD attempt, was the same way. I'm not exactly sure what to do about this one.

So, anyways, it's a little before 11:00, and I can't fall asleep. I lay there until a little after twelve, when I decide to read a chapter or two of a book to get my mind off of it. (This is what I do to relax every night before bed, anyways.) I do this, and it seems to help, because within 15 minutes or so, I fall asleep. At 3:30, I'm going to guess the alarm went off, but just didn't wake me up. Any way around it, I don't remember a thing, so I'm guessing I was pretty well asleep at this point. Anticipating this, I had set an alarm for 6:00. This was a regular alarm, not one that stopped after 1 ring like the CAN-WILD one I had set for 3:30. As a result, it did manage to wake me up. I think I tried to WILD at this point, but I wasn't very motivated, so it failed as well. I laid there waking up on and off until 9:00, when I finally got up. I did have one dream during this time, but I didn't have my DJ by my bed, so I didn't write it down.

One last thing: sometime in the night, I'm pretty sure I started to enter SP, which is a first for me as well. Funny enough, it wasn't when I was trying to WILD, even. I felt vibrations over my whole body, but I think I must have gotten too excited, because they faded away fairly quickly and weren't accompanied by any HH. I laid still a little longer, to see if they would come back, but when they didn't, I did a RC or two. They all passed, so I must not have managed to fall asleep. Kind of interesting though.

For the last 20 days, since seeing the film "Inception", I have been cataloging my dreams in my dream journal. And through this I've grown to be able to recall my dreams in pretty decent detail every night except for nights where I don't get much sleep. That, in itself, is pretty awesome. I've also been doing my reality checks throughout the day (whenever I remember, I'll go ahead and perform them). Now I'm ready to take the next step. Here is my plan to become a lucid dreamer:

1. Maintain a Dream Diary.
2. Randomly throughout the day perform reality checks. Truly questioning my surroundings.
3. At least four times a day take a moment to truly study my surroundings. Waking awareness and attention to detail, I think, should carry over to the dreaming world.
4. Write a big letter "A" with a question mark on my palm. Every time I see this, do an authentic reality check.
5. Before bed, meditate. I call it "finding my void". I'll focus, in my mind, on a tiny flame in a vast black emptiness. All I well think of is how it flickers.
6. When I'm done meditating repeat my mantra: "I AM dreaming." until I fall asleep. I'm hoping this will carry into my dream and, when it does, I will become lucid simply by stating (subconsciously) my mantra.

Outside of that I'm really just going to immerse myself in the idea of lucid dreaming (LaBerges book, the forum, movies..) and try to enjoy the journey. The harder the journey the better the arrival, I think.