I just started my LD training again after a long break and literally got a Lucid on Night 1. Not only that, but I made decent progress. "Day in the Park" I was having some internal dialogue with myself and then I was thing about my homie the other day had something in his smoothie that did not make sense like a rock or something. I became lucid in the most chill way, like, "Heh, yeah, sure dream, sure." I stayed calm and put my training to use. I walked through a park that children were playing through. I touched this blue plastic surface that had spider webs on it. In order to help with stability, I was narrating my every action and it was working! Unfortunately, I got distracted. I was thinking about how I was in a dream and how dream spiders could be super scary which kinda stopped me from touching the object. The dream ended shortly after because my monologuing stop too. I also started with touch. Ideally I'd like to start with sight, then sound, then touch, lol. Overall, I'm really happy with that dream. That was such good progress, and if I can continue the grind, it will only get easier from here. I stayed calm and began stabilizing the dream. Perhaps it would have ended soon regardless of if I got distracted, but I like to think that if i maintained my focus through the whole cycle, I could have successfully stabilized. I remember when I couldn't stabilize a dream. Gotta remember to take a deep breath, start with sight, and definitely do more focus meditation. Additionally, I've been thinking about just how many of the 928 days since starting my most recent DJ I've been really giving LD practice my all, and at most, about 33% of it. about 8% of THAT was actually lucid; 31 Lucids / 347 dreams recorded. 31/928 total days. Lucid dreaming, like any skill, requires consistency. My adhd makes this difficult. I will really try this time, however. I've been diagnosed and prescribed, though my Adderall is still on delay so no medication yet. Hopefully I can hold out until it arrives though. I can't use it before sleep since it makes you too awake, so unfortunately i'll be on my own in a dream either way. That's why the meditation will still be useful. Lucid dreaming was one of my hyper fixations, and that allowed me to focus a little bit more on it than other skills. However, as my ADHD gets more severe and depression takes a bigger toll on my life, I've found it hard to continue, much less be consistent. However, even the uneventful Lucid dreams I have bring me great joy, so that also helps fuel me to seeing this to mastery. So, this is why, despite "5 years of trying", despite knowing so much about how to induce lucid dreams and what lucid dreaming practice entails, I have little to no actual experience in the dream world; A lack of consistent, high effort LD training and day time practice.
I made a DJ Google form template. It was getting annoying to manually record the data I thought to be useful in a DJ, so I made a google form that I think works pretty well. It will even generate a sheet i can use to make graphs based on the data. This will allow me to see how much of my journey i am really spending at my best. Hopefully you find it useful. I'd Link screenshots but I can only figure out how to add only one picture :/ Title - Morning Data Description - Data collected upon awakening. What is the date? (put in date) What was the dream? (write the dream) How vivid was it? (1 - 5 linear scale) Was it Lucid? (Y/N) How was sleep? (1-5 linear scale) How long did you sleep for? (duration in XhrYmin. Start and end times. I can do this because I have a fitbit, but rough estimates can also work.) What tech was used, if any? (Write down the technique used, if any. checklist.) Title - Evening Data Description - Data collected just before sleep. How Many RCs were done today? (1-10 linear scale. I know more can be done but linear scale only allows for 10 for some reason.) How many PMT goals were hit, if any? (1-4 linear scale. I do Prospective Memory Training from time to time so I added it to the form incase I do it.) If meditation was practiced, how long was the session? (short answer, probably in minutes.) How much effort was put into today's practice? (1-10 linear scale) (makes more sense to put here)