LukeSid

Lucid-dreaming again last night, but with 2 major differences. Firstly, only 2 days between events...secondly I drifted in and out of lucidity on at least 4 occasions. As per usual there are prices...it takes at least 5½-6 hours of sleep, then a WBTB (so I went to bed at 12.30 and finally got up at 09.30...I couldn't do that if I wasn't retired)

Also, the events don't seem particularly long (although my recall may just be limited) It's beginning to look like I need at least 1½ hours before I WBTB (rather than the hour I have been doing) Also, I'm not doing a massive amount of preparation...the usual “I'm dreaming...I'm lucid” etc exercises throughout the day for a few moments at a time.
But, as before, I had an extended session while I'm relaxed for meditation...I'll carry on doing that.

I didn't do any reality checks during the LD...I didn't need to. I'm walking through fields and everything suddenly firms-up and becomes so vivid and I'm thinking “Yay! I'm there again” (by now I just know when I'm lucid...the sensation is so different, the level of awareness is there and I'm thinking and planning) Then it drifts a bit (my recall suggests?) until the next scene which firms-up and again becomes lucid...and so on...

As per usual, my impatience kicks in and I decide to fly...but too hastily, as I feel as if the lower part of me is lagging behind...not good. I stop, then instruct myself to start again, but slowly and gently and that works. Clearly, the whole thing wasn't a solid consistently drawn-out experience because there's gaps in my memory and the coming-and-going of lucidity but I'll take what I can get thank you brain cells (forget Ed, these are now my little Minions and I love 'em)

I'm so thrilled I start to tell the wife...and I can see her tense-up. That hurts, because we've been married so long and she surely knows that I'm not given to flights of fancy...I'm just used to sharing things with her. I tackle her about it (gently) and ask her if she thinks I'm imagining all this and she's non-committal. (you think I'd have learned by now)

Finally she says “I don't believe in this sort of thing” which presumably either means “you are imagining this or “get thee behind me Satan!” It's easy to see that it was a foolhardy individual who mentioned lucid-dreaming in the middle ages...although generations before that had a much better deal because it was “just the shrooms talking and next time you're out can you get me some dear?”

All very interesting...where to go next? 1. Keep the exercises ticking over (maybe, if I can get a cluster of lucids, things will move to earlier hours of the night...I can but hope) 2. I've got my long-term plan to kick-start the brain. 3. Who cares? I'm loving it anyway.

A puzzle. I instruct my brain to wake me closer to dreams ending and often feel a bit ill. Yet I can feel lucid dreams ending from inside a dream (how much closer can you get to dream-endings?!) and feel no ill-effects whatsoever...

Strangely, there are trade-offs. I can have a few days of 2 or 3 dream-recalls a night, but no lucids, then a cluster of days with a couple of LD's, but with no recall of other dreams...as if there are only so many Minions on the job and something has to give. Also, my developed ability to recall a dream I had a few minutes ago (and I've moved around a bit...even sat up sometimes)...results in the discovery that recalling celeb's names, if I'm watching quizzes like Pointless, requires me to wait patiently for half a minute, until my brain generally spits out the answer...send me more Minions!