Life's Recollections

As per the title, I had only a few tiny dream fragments but the way I slept (I just kept falling asleep over and over again each time I woke up) I basically forgot everything. I maybe should have tried a little harder to use the wakeups as DEILD (dream exit induced lucid dream) attempts, but I always forget to hold still when I wake up. I should probably start working on that too!

I label this attempt 3, because even though I used to practice this years ago, I hadn't until recently and it feels like starting fresh.

WILD (wake induced lucid dream) Attempt 3:

During the day yesterday, I would say about 5 times overall (trying to make it more), I practiced the "Reverse Reality Checks" described in Sageous' WILD class. I tried to follow my curiosity naturally as to myself and interactions with the world, just investigating the self and trying to be genuinely self-aware, inside and out. It's a difficult thing to do "honestly" (when I investigate the self it often feels like nothing is there), but general mindfulness is something I have been working on a lot anyway, so it goes right along with recent practice. I have just tried to think about my place in the world mostly, both in the recent past and my predictions of what I will effect in the close future.

Also, re: Sageous' recent advice, and my experiences last night, I made some changes to my WILD strategy. Namely, to set the dream up beforehand, choose a mantra related to getting into the dream, and to focus on visualizing the dream during the WILD attempt.

I set my alarm for 5 AM (I fell asleep a little later today), and woke up, spent 15 minutes again on the edge of my bed figuring out where I wanted to go in my dream and thinking of a suitable mantra (I had thought it over the night before as well but hadn't set it in stone yet). There is a small little forested shore that I sometimes visualize myself in when performing meditation that is of a visual nature, that I find quite a relaxing and unthreatening place to be, so I thought it would be interesting to see it in a dream. I can visualize it rather well, so I figured it should be easy to visualize in a dream also. I chose "I'm coming home," as my temporary mantra, because this place I was trying to go is something of a mental home for me, and I found it a relaxing thing to repeat, as well as drawing me towards my intention.

I laid down with my arms by my sides today (no crossing) and found this much more comfortable. I still had some trouble avoiding swallowing 2-3 times, but I find this does not wake me up immensely and is at most a few seconds of set-back when it happens, so while it would be ideal not to do it, it doesn't seem like the end of the world.

At any rate, I laid there for about 20-30 minutes, repeating my mantra, and trying to visualize walking around this small shore and the forest that surrounds it, picking up sand, putting my hands on the trees, crouching in the grass, etc. I found that when I could carefully hold my focus on these activities, it definitely helped draw me towards sleep and away from my body. Oftentimes I would be imagining one of these activities, find myself a little emotionally lightened (or something, that's the best way I can put it), and with that came a lightening of consciousness, as if I was becoming more comfortable and thereby more ready for sleep.

I also noticed something during this attempt: I know that I shouldn't be focusing on my body but it is sometimes hard to forget the difference between your visualized body messing around in your visualized intended dream, and your real body lying there and its sensations. However, I found that as I became more sleepy, I for some reason found myself 'staring' at my eyelids naturally. It's hard to explain, but I think as I became more sleepy, my mind drew back from my body more and more (it was becoming more numb anyway), and I found myself almost secluded in my head with my thoughts, until something roused me a little and I found myself in my whole body again. I experimented a little with intentionally 'staring at my eyelids' (again, so to speak, because there's nothing to look at) and found that it did seem to help me force this state a little more, the feeling of being just inside my head in the dark, rather than lying on a bed with my eyes closed. That may be something I'll experiment more with.

Unfortunately most dips towards sleep were followed by things that when woke me back up, such as becoming distracted from the visualizations, or some HI that accidentally caught my attention a little too much (at one point I faintly saw a window seemingly peering out from a spaceship into space, near a moon of some sort, and even though I was attempting to ignore it, I almost couldn't help but look-- but as quickly as I looked, it vanished, leaving me more awake than before... darn HI).

I eventually laid there for about 50 minutes before I realized that I was seeing something light grey, and at first thought perhaps my WILD attempt had brought me into sleep and I hadn't noticed somehow, but I couldn't figure out why I wasn't having a dream. Unfortunately, after about a minute or two of staring at this light grey, I had a realization, and opened one of my eyes-- it had simply become light outside as it was almost 6 AM! Perhaps I need to get a sleep mask or shift my sleep schedule back a little.

At this point I basically abandoned the attempt, and decided to experiment a little as I fell asleep: I turned on my side away from the window and held my hand near my face to block the light (which is a more natural sleeping position for me than on my back, weirdly). I still felt pretty awake and aware, and not like I would fall asleep suddenly. I tried repeating my mantra and continuing the visualizations, and even experienced some more auditory HI. However I kept feeling the urge to move, and again just for the sake of experimentation (even though everyone says not to move, I know!) I decided to just move whenever I felt like moving to make myself more comfortable each time and see if I would fall asleep more quickly while I was still fairly aware.

Of course as one could predict, my experiment ended in me eventually shifting into a position I was comfortable in, and immediately hard falling asleep for the next 4 hours, without even any memorable dreams, lol.

Take-aways:

• Visualization of the dream definitely helped somehow, I'm not sure how but there was a palpable sense of movement towards the dream.
• I'm unsure whether the mantra ("I'm coming home") was better or worse-- much like "keep it tight," it occasionally seemed to be helping draw me towards something, but I don't know if it was the dream. Mostly it just felt like something to do while lying still, though this could just be the sign of a bad mantra.
• There seems to be something to me about shifting the focus into the headspace and away from the body intentionally. In retrospect this seems obvious but I had not found a good way to do it, whereas by 'staring at my eyelids' I seemed to almost force this perspective a little bit.

Awake/explanation
Normal dream
Semi-lucid dream
Lucid dream

Due to the nature of how I slept last night, by which I mean lots of waking up without bothering to voice memo (for shame), I don't remember a lot of my dreams but I do have a few snippets I can log. Maybe I'll remember more later today.

Time unknown

I dreamed that my neighbors had a daughter around my age who wanted my help with something related to her computer. I agreed to come over and help her to install something (I don't recall if it was stated what that something was...). When I showed up at their house, she greeted me at the door and then went inside, and I immediately ran into this sorta deadbeat guy that her mother used to date, sitting in a recliner watching television. He looked very exasperated to see me, sorta sighed, and I quickly explained I was here to help with something computer related.

He told me that her computer was actually her mother's computer, and that he didn't think she wanted to be woken up. I apologized, feeling like he clearly didn't want me there, and said that I would leave if he liked. He didn't say yes, but simply looked back, and around that time the daughter (whom I didn't ever learn the name of, incidentally) came around the corner and told me that her mother was okay with it. Apparently she also was ordering a pizza for all of us since I was there around dinner, and at this, the guy in the chair looked even more exasperated.

The pizza was quickly produced (I have no idea where it came from, it just showed up on the table at the suggestion of it being ordered) and I woke up while I was getting a couple pieces.

Time unknown - 8ish AM

I dreamed I was at my grandparents' house during some kind of family gathering. Most people were outside, but me and my father had come back inside and were sitting down to check out their TV. They had some sort of streaming system which wasn't tied to any specific brand, but was instead provided by their satellite, and simply hosted a recording of the episodes of each show that were new that week. I turned it on and started scrolling, and was very surprised to see "The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy," from when I was a teenager, had a new episode listed. I scrolled over and booted it up, and the show started strangely with some animals in the forest eating grass and such.

I can't remember exactly what happened, but somehow all the animals had eaten some particular berry or something that was growing in the woods, and Billy had just wandered into the forest and eaten one also. He complained that his stomach was hurting, and then immediately ripped a huge fart, which is pretty on-color for the humor in that show (lol). Immediately afterwards, the animals all began farting loudly in sequence, some in unison, with the scene cutting to various animals being surprised by their farts, scaring off attackers with their farts accidentally, etc. I thought it was mildly funny, and I looked at my dad and he looked back at me seemingly embarrassed (in real life he would surely find this side-splittingly hilarious with his childish sense of humor, but he didn't seem to like it in the dream). He suggested maybe we shouldn't watch it around my grandparents, who are known for being somewhat uptight about matters of politeness. I agreed while making a mental note to look up when the show had come back later.

The dream fragment ended however while I was looking to see what else was there: I recall my dad pointing something out to me, looking for it only to find he was misreading the name (his eyesight is not so good), and someone else coming in and telling me what he was actually looking at. I scrolled over to it and quickly woke up.

If you're here for dreams, that's it, but what I also want to log is last night's attempt at a WILD (wake-induced lucid dream):

WILD attempt:

I set my alarm for 4:30 AM, went to sleep, and ended up waking up around 3:00 AM having to pee anyway, and quickly got up and peed and decided that I would scrap the alarm and use this awakening for my attempt at a WILD (I had been sleeping around 3-and-a-half hours). I had hastily decided on a mantra the night before which I felt was unique to me, had some power when I said it somehow, and reminded me of my goal (staying awake while I fell asleep, and staying focused): "keep it tight." Which I know sounds silly; it made me chuckle when I thought of it, but the fact that it gave me a reaction is why I picked it.

I stayed up for about 15 minutes sitting on the side of my bed thinking about what I was going to do and steeling my resolve to do it. I told myself I'd succeed tonight and tried to get rid of any negativity or doubts. In retrospect, I'm not sure that sitting up for so long was good and may shorten it, because I think it woke me up too much.

After around 15 minutes I laid down at 3:20 and began my attempt. I folded my hands over my stomach, relaxed on my back, and began breathing in through my nose and out while thinking my mantra, "keep it tight." Towards the beginning I took some time to meditate on who I was also, and what divides me from the world around me, but also what parts of it relate to me as cause and effect. I quickly abandoned this though and just focused on my mantra. I'm purely guessing (I know how long everything together took but not individual parts), but I would say I laid there for about 15 minutes until I started to experience a sensation of heaviness/numbness. Part of this was that my hands being clasped over my stomach had my elbows bent, and the pinch in my elbows was causing my arms + pinky and ring finger to go completely numb, lol. I decided to ignore this and carry on, focusing on my mantra. I occasionally felt the need to swallow, and tried to not focus on it, but three or four times, it happened even though I tried to ignore it.

Around 30 minutes in I started occasionally experiencing some light hypnagogic imagery (HI) that disappeared whenever I noticed it was happening, as it generally does. None of it had any real substance but it was mostly visual. I resolved to try to ignore it and focus on my mantra. At one point I quickly saw a large, blue... thing come flying right at my face which caused me to jump slightly and had my heart racing, but I returned to lying still and repeated "keep it tight," which calmed me down, reminding me not to get worked up.

At around 45 minutes, my finger started to really hurt. They had gone completely numb, but because of the way they were sitting on-top of one another, the fingers on my right hand were starting to feel pinched and there was a dull-ache. This eventually got so bad I could no longer ignore it, and decided to move my hands, which basically ended my WILD attempt, because once I moved them down by my sides, all the blood began rushing back into them creating an insane tingling sensation and warmth that was even harder to ignore. I laid there for what I imagine was the last 15 minutes or so, repeating my mantra, but at that point was so disturbed I felt it was a lost cause in my heart of hearts.

Eventually I looked at my phone clock and saw it had been an hour, and even though I know not to do this, I decided to roll on my side to see if I would become tired more quickly. I rolled onto my right side (I normally sleep on my left) and laid there once more, repeating my mantra. I'm not sure what happened; I seem to have quickly faded in and out of sleep several times, because I had several moments where I "came back to" unsure of what had just happened-- and eventually I looked at my clock again and discovered that 25 minutes had passed!

At this point, once again, I decided I had been at this for an hour and a half (it was now almost 5 AM) so I rolled over on my left side figuring I'd continue repeating my mantra, but fully expecting to fall asleep. I faded in and out like before a couple times, and there were several times when I faded back in suddenly unable to even remember what my mantra was in the first place and having to grasp at a few before remembering. Eventually, probably after not 10 minutes of this, I fell asleep for good.

Take-aways:

• I should not claspe my hands over my belly-button to avoid the painful numbing sensation; I should let them rest by my sides.
• The mantra "keep it tight," worked fairly well but could probably be better.
• I should probably shorten my WBTB (wake back to bed) time from 15 minutes to something less. It feels like sitting up so long woke me up too much.
• It's tempting to try to look at HI, but it disappears when you try and seems to wake you up when it does.
• Rolling on your side, even your bad side, is still just a bad idea.

Awake/explanation
Normal dream
Semi-lucid dream
Lucid dream

This is a collection of 3 dreams. This is the first attempt I've made to become lucid in several years, and it was successful! But not through the method I was trying.

Sometime before 2:30 AM
I dreamed that I was an official content censor for some kind of fascist regime, but even as an editor of content was victim to extreme regulations. I worked in an open office surrounded by other workers and was encouraged not to move from my post or stop working. I remember trying to move unsuccessfully a few times but only small bits of this dream stayed with me.

2:30-4:45 AM
I dreamed that my school had a 'software hit-list' of things they wanted coded for them (I'm a CS major) and one of these was a more secure meeting method. Someone had coded this and randomly instated me as a moderator because I was a CS major, and I realized that all CS majors were given such honors for reasons unclear (we are not generally known for our people skills, lol). Anyway, I hopped on a bus, the physical representation of this new forum for students of my university. I also decided that if I was a moderator, I'd try to be a good moderator, and make sure nobody was doing anything wrong. So I scoped out the area around me.

Next to me a guy was sitting in a trench coat and sunglasses, and I tried to look past him to see what was on his other side without bothering him. There was just a window, and in the end he did see me trying to look around him and gave me a funny look, so I apologized and looked forwards again. I sorta realized in that moment that I was being stupid trying to moderate just because it was written on my name, and started behaving normally riding the bus again.

It gets a bit fuzzy here, but I recall a friend from high-school being on the bus, and lying in the floor. I woke up again later.

4:45 AM-7:30 AM
And here's the meat, the lucid dream. I woke up, used the restroom (I had drunk a glass of water so that I would wake up in the middle of the night), laid down again, meditated for a few minutes while counting my breaths. When I lost count I rolled on my side and began counting my breaths again, trying to fall asleep. And then I did fall asleep! But not lucid.

I can't remember this dream back all the way, but the first thing I remember was playing baseball with a bunch of kids. I guess I was a kid too, I'm not really sure. At one point, we were playing on an abandoned lot, and the pitcher's mound was in the middle of a partially constructed scaffolding (inconvenient), and I was pitching. Batting was a girl who I went to high-school with who was well known for throwing hissy fits when things didn't go her way (no offense to her, I'm sure she's more adult now, but we were all probably 12 or 13 in this dream...). She was indeed throwing such a hissy fit because I was pitching too fast at her. So I lobbed one slowly to let her have her way.

She immediately smacked it and sent it flying into the scaffolding I was standing in, and I picked it up and tried to turn to look to throw it to first base, but I couldn't see first base. I then turned and saw second base was also obstructed, so I turned some more and threw it to someone who was running up from near third base. Of course, when I threw it to him, he missed it, I felt silly for throwing it too hard, and he turned and ran after it. Within those precious moments, two opposing runners had run up to my scaffolding and were standing at the edge yelling at me. I turned to look at them and hear what they were saying, which was that they were complaining that 1st base was a pit, so they had run to the pitcher's mound instead, and that should count as a home-run.

I'm not sure why I was allowed to decide but I shook my head yes and agreed, and the game was over (I guess they were already ahead). Soon, everyone congregated around the pitcher's mound/scaffolding and we started discussing that playing baseball here sucked (gee whiz). I suggested, from nowhere, that nearby was a series of under-construction houses where nobody lived, that was sure to have some open air nobody was using that we could play. It occurred to me we might accidentally break some windows or something, but I secretly figured we could probably get the heck out of there without getting caught if so (sorry construction workers, I was a kid in this dream, I swear!).

So off we set into this nearby construction area, and me and one other fairly small kid who couldn't have been more than 8 ended up going into a nearby house, and walking around inside, because nobody was there to stop us. As we were walking around looking I suddenly made a joking comment that the house was so empty, it almost seemed like a dream...

And the saying of such a thing is one of my well-known triggers (anytime something seems like a dream in real life, I tend to reality check reflexively just as a habit because I have said it in dreams many times and woke up frustrated I didn't become lucid). I reached up and plugged my nose and blew air through, and found I could breathe. Ta-da! My first night back at lucid dreaming a success, I felt pretty proud of myself and thought back to posting on Dreamviews the night before. I remembered reading an article about lucid dreaming to hype myself up and them talking about how realistic your hands are, so I looked down at them.

Then I set out after my small friend who was with me, and told him I was having a lucid dream! He looked at me like there was a giant spider on my head and began fast-walking away, so I walked after him saying, "No, really, look!" and tried to summon a baseball from thin air to show him. I tried several times, but my dream control has always been a bit wonky, and I couldn't get it to happen. I tried looking away from my hands and looking back. I tried closing my eyes and thinking "BASEBALL" (lol) and opening them and looking back, and nothing. Soon me and the kid were outside of the house standing in the grass, and I still didn't have a baseball. He looked pretty skeptical, and I suddenly feared me losing my lucidity to this goal of getting a baseball, so I said, "aw nevermind," and walked away from him.

Still marveling at all the weird wrinkly detail of my palms, I walked off towards the nearby woods. As I was walking along, the whole group of children I had been playing baseball with came to where we were and began asking if I had found a place to play baseball. I told them I wasn't looking anymore, really, but they could probably play somewhere near here if they still wanted to. They set off into the woods also (for some reason) so I followed them nearby, but quickly got distracted by a humongous ravine going down hundreds of feet, and instantly was taken with doing what I always do in lucid dreams: jumping off stuff and trying to fly.

I jumped off the edge into this enormous canyon and hovered my way down with my arms out, but as I stuck my arms out I was suddenly bothered by the feeling of my sheet on my bed (lol) and the feeling that it was like a wall blocking me from sticking my arm out all the way. This bothered me and also again, worried me I was waking up, so I pulled my arms in-front of me in more of a Superman position instead. I alighted down on a giant metal tower, crawling with futuristic soldiers.

My lucidity started to degrade a little here. I was no longer doing anything I wanted but getting sucked into the current of the dream, while aware I was dreaming somewhat.

These soldiers all began shooting at me, and, aware that I was dreaming, I stood my ground to see what they were shooting. As if in slow-motion, the shots came as a multitude of lasers, followed by a few canisters that looked like grenades. I started smacking these canisters back, and hitting various things on top of the tower and destroying them, eventually succeeding in knocking the soldiers off the tower I was on. Then a large docking bay door opened on the side of the canyon and I was being shot at once again. I once again tried hitting or grabbing and throwing the canisters, but they were far too far away (easily 100 meters). I settled on another plan, which was to forcefully punch parts of the tower towards that loading bay (ambitious).

And of course, as with my dream control, I punched them so lightly they simply limply fell off the tower. I tried harder, and harder, and soon was greeted with a (phony) percentage number indicating my percentage of full power that I was using (which I took for a real measurement, hence why I marked this lowered lucidity). I could only get this number to around 20%, which launched the things I was hitting a decent ways but not quite there. I heard someone call me a fool, and looked to my left to find, who else: Darth Vader, sitting in a chair.

I don't even really like Star Wars which makes this stranger, but anyway, he told me that I would never summon my full control in such a way. Suddenly finding myself curious at what he had to say, I think my lucidity started to come back up here.

I figured, who worse to steer me wrong than Darth Vader in a dream. But at the same time, maybe he would say something useful, so I urged him to continue and sat down next to him. He spoke cliches, telling me that I should 'let my emotions rule me,' and 'use my anger to summon my full power'. I nodded amicably and then noticed that I was now sitting beside him in a flying vehicle. In an act of defiance towards Mr. Vader but also in the interest of trying what he said, I screamed at the top of my lungs (haha) while grabbing the side of the car and pushing, and surely enough, I ripped off the entire right side of the car and part of the roof, and dropped it as we flew along. He didn't really say anything-- he didn't seem threatened but rather like I was acting like a child, and I felt mildly embarrassed (again, haha).

We soon rolled up at a small garage that I felt I recognized from another dream, and I simultaneously felt the dream was coming to an end. It was as if this was a final destination for me, and I could tell this by looking at it. I don't recall what the sign said fully, but I do recall it used a nickname of mine people have given me ("Loaf" a missaying of Life), and I looked around and at Darth Vader again. He didn't have much else to say, so I thanked him for his advice and said maybe I'd use it again later. Then I hopped out of the car and walked up to the shack, and as I was in the process of doing so...

My eyes opened and I hopped out of bed to get my coffee and write up this journal!