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Date: 21 Jan

Entry 1/2

Pre bed: 3mel

Wbtb: 1/3 latte, had trouble falling asleep (external factors)

At some point, I begin to feel energetic as has been occasionally the case, but interrupt the process by visiting the restroom. Finding a comfortable position is not easy.

WILD: Finally, I turn to my lhs and remain still for some time. Then find myself staring at this DC woman with green blouse, it feels like I'm in.

I make cautious movements, trying to get up from the same position I was sleeping, initially just move my head. A slight scene change, I am now in my old room. I begin rocking sideways, the way I did at the beginning of another ld. This makes me feel more comfortable/fit in my dream body. Then I fully get up. The dream feels slightly unstable and I head for the window, where I tear down the curtains and look outside.

It is dark as hell, no light in the apartment and not a single light in the entire town. I remember to look at the sky - it's mostly clear, a slight mist and no stars at all. I look to my right and feel a bit creeped out. It is dark there. My worry is that I might summon something by habit. I recall I wanted to and shortly do breathing exercises. The effect is very powerful, I feel lots of saturated energy coming in and as part of me.

I decide to get in and turn around, it is a bit brighter in the room. I head towards the switch and turn it on. No light. Then I concentrate on the bulb and try to make light radiate from it, there's some effect but the room does not get brighter. I imagine another lamp and try to do the same with similar results.

Maybe I can use some candles, so I summon three small blue candles and work hard to light them. I've always thought that lighting a candle should be easy in a dream, but it turns out not. I just can't imagine the fire I guess. The wicks get bigger and fluffier and the candles change to larger ones and I make some fire-like sparks with my hands, rubbing the wick, hoping it will catch fire and use the other candles to spread it. They appear to have a ghostlike fire now, but don't emit much light as I place them around. I am annoyed with my abilities, but feel that I just need to do some fire gazing irl to improve them.

I retreat to the bed and examine the furniture. There's lots of stuff around and it looks as if I am back in this room. I wonder about how accurate the proportions are. It's exactly the same size. Most of the objects belong to the particular time frame when I lived there, but there is the blanket from our current home. Then a sofa from our old place appears for my amusement. I think about doing more breathing exercises (maybe just a few breaths?, not much done or effect) and contemplate on my life while living there. In the meantime, it is a much brighter day outside, when did that happen? Cool!

At some point I notice that I am holding a melting candle in my hand and decide to extinguish it and put it aside, but somehow feel that this symbolic act means the end of the dream. Indeed, just a bit later, the dream starts to thin out.

I think I did touch on my body very briefly, but it might have been a in-dream chain.

DEILD/DILD: I eagerly wait for the next scene, wondering if it will be in the same place. I see (kind of like in third person) myself walking in bathrobe in this place. I'm in properly now and have the ability to look around and choose where I want to go. It's inside a building and I look at this open door which reveals a softly lit bedroom apartment. I briefly consider it, but prefer to go outside, so head towards the door. It seems that it is still winter, piles of semi-thawed snow and I am not properly dressed, but for once boldly go outside. I try to phase through the glass door, but it's solid so I just open it. As I pass through the back entrance of the building and yard I see that part of the yard is sunlit and feel happy about that. Maybe I will finally have the opportunity to look for a palace looking building once I get to the street. I also think about possibly being invisible, but not sure how to apply at this point.

There are different levels of the side of the building, so I have to maneuver by climbing near a balcony to manage reaching the front of the building. I see a weirdly shaped gray cat there and wonder if it is a real cat and can see me (cats are supposed to see things like people possibly obeing), but it doesn't react like it would if that were the case. It's controlled by my thoughts and comes closer. There's something not very catlike in it, like another sort of animal I can't identify. I don't want to get too involved (and have it stuck to me like a blanket) so ignore it and think about finding the palace. There are only normal buildings around and I think I need to get in the middle of the street where I would get a clearer (trees here) view of the buildings and hopefully think of or see something appropriate.

In the middle of the street and my mood is great, sun is shining brighter too. I do some sort of bounce where I float and remain mid air and then gently float up. Very pleasant feel. I come near this tree with very small bipinnate leaves (possibly closest to honey locust tree, but with thicker leaves), it looks very beautiful. I'm starting to lose height so wonder if I should use the nearby thin end of the branch to hold on to, but with the delicate tree leaves this is not going to be very nice for the tree. I prefer not to do any mess on the tree even if a dream tree.

[mood change]

In the meantime, I see two female DCs that I identify as bitches down on the street. My attention is directed at them, I want to and then do something to one of them. I briefly wonder why the hell do I have these desires with those bitches, one of them looks a bit like Rachel Weiss. Luckily, even after what I have done, I manage to control my impulse and don't get a sexy feeling. I think about my tasks again. I am now in what reminds me of my school but the building is kind of shifty/unstable. I think that maybe I should summon my dad and he will drop me off the palace. The dream fades.

I had some success returning to sleep last night that I'd like to share and comment on.

I had bedtime at around 00:00, and wakings at: 03:00 (recall), 04:25 (no recall),
At around 04:45 I realize I'm not making progress back to sleep. I don't feel drowsy at all. There's no "sleepiness" waiting for me at the exhale of relaxing breaths. I think that's an important signal that sleep is not near, or I'm mentally "holding on too tight" and need to do something to change up the situation and shake this hidden tension loose. Just lying in bed and continuing to relax is not going anywhere.

At about 30 minutes of not sleeping I decide to follow the advice given in several places: get out of bed. You do not want your mind/body to associate being in bed with being awake. I decide to do a "proper" WBTB. Sit in a rocking chair about 20 minutes with eyes closed, working on incubation and visualisation. Move to kitchen, warm some milk & drink it, sit there (all the time in the darkness as much as possible). Massage my jaw muscles (typically the major tension holder in the body). Do some relaxing breaths and find some drowsiness there on the exhale. Decide I'm feeling a bit more drowsy, if not super sleepy, so I go back to bed at 06:00. My alarm is set for 07:30, in the past this knowledge would keep me awake but I ignore it and do not sweat it. I don't "try to sleep", I just try to totally relax more and more deeply on each exhale. Try to maintain the relaxation on the inhale (it seems to receded a bit on the inhale for some reason). I'm sure I can make one more sleep cycle with dreams before the alarm sounds.

back to bed at 06:00 slept fairly quickly, waking at: 07:36 (alarm) (recall)

Back to bed (not main bed, alone, cooler room) at for nap at 09:00 (not too long falling sleep, surprisingly lots of drowsiness on exhale), wakings at: 10:12 (recall) (also not long getting back to sleep after 5 minutes of voice journaling in bed), 12:14 (recall + lucid dream!)

What do I mean by "relaxing breath?" Well, an inhale/exhale that is just a little bit longer than sleep breathing. Not really a big deep breath, just a little bit longer than a normal breath. Inhale as normal, but when exhaling try to imagine all tension melting out of everywhere in your body and mind. Try on each breath to go deeper and deeper, becoming more and more relaxed. I even tell myself these words sometimes (a form of sleep hypnosis induction). Sometimes I constrict my throat a bit to provide a little bit of resistance and sound to the exhale.

This is very encouraging: I'm having more and more success with this technique. With each success come more confidence in my ability to go back to sleep, reducing back-to-sleep stress. For those times where nothing works, get out of bed for a while to shake things up. Sometimes, your body / mind just may not be able to sleep, just know that this won't last forever. As a last resort try something like melatonin. Traditional techniques like warm milk can really help, too.

Eat a small snack if you've been up for a while, it's hard to sleep when hungry.

Make sure the temperature is comfortable for you, this is very important for me I've found. Keep a thermometer by the bed and record temperature at bedtime and waking time and record in your dream journal how well you sleep for that temperature.

If can't sleep for 30 minutes, get up, go to another room, do somethin quiet, come back to bed only when fleeling sleepy.

Do not eat, read, watch TV, in bed. Only for sleep.

Go to bed at same time of day every day. And get up at same time every day.

Avoid naps.

Morning exercise is best. No closer to bed than 3 hours before.
Establish bedtime routine (warm drink, shower, short read, meditation)
Yoga/meditation/relaxation before bed.
Melatonin/Valerian. Melatonin should be cheap. Valerian can be taken every 4 hours.
Eat small bedtime snack: complex carbs, small bit of protein w/tryptophan and calcium. Avoid sugary, all carbs snack.
Calcium helps brain use tryptophan to manufacture melatonin!!!
Low sugar dairy products. Nuts. peanuts with skins, whole almonds (for more fiber), walnuts, pecans, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, pistachios, red peanuts with skins
Ground flax seeds is a big source of tryptophan.
The best bedtime snack is one that has both complex carbohydrates and protein, and perhaps some calcium
For dinner and bedtime snacks, eat a meal or snack that is high in complex carbohydrates, with a small amount of protein that contains just enough tryptophan to relax the brain
Stop working on any task an hour before bedtime to calm your brain.
Don't discuss emotional issues right before bedtime.
Avoid large meals two hours before bedtime. A light snack is fine
Valerian becomes more effective over time, so it's best to take it every night for a short period of time. Start with the lowest dose, then increase over several days' time. Valerian is considered safe to take for four to six weeks.
eat bananas, avocado, peanuts, almonds, figs, and milk-based drinks, all containing tryptophans, a precursor for creating melatonin which regulates sleep.[2] Some snacks to consider include: cookies and milk, sliced banana with chopped dates, and wholegrain bread with lettuce
Plain nonfat yogurt for best calcium. Then cheese, milk,

Date: 31 May

Pre bed: multivitamins (included gingko and ginseng), SJW, two drops of peppermint oil

Side effects: increased heart rate, heavy insomnia

Other: I think the multivitamins I took stimulated me too much before bed time. I was also dehydrated which made the situation worse. The heart rate wasn't too fast, but it was noticeable when going to bed and made it difficult to fall asleep.

Dream quality and recall: WILD, too dark, which made it harder to engage in the dream. The two DILDs after that were vivid and of higher quality. I woke up after each one. Then had about two hours of insomnia, went into very deep sleep and had little recall.

Impressions: It was an interesting experience, although I wouldn't repeat it again (because of the insomnia)

Sequence: multivits > heartbeat> WILD> about a hour of sleep/or trying to sleep> DILDs> insomnia> deep sleep> WBTB> dream

Dream1 WILD: In bed, dehydrated and with a noticeable heartbeat which made it difficult to fall asleep. I was still for some time, paying attention to the heartbeat, then found myself in darkness. It felt like my consciousness was split in three sections. Part of it was asleep, part of it knew exactly what to do, giving me instructions, and part of it followed the instructions. A bit like having three different thoughts at the same time.

I am in the darkness, and I say to myself how exactly I should grab the scene. The instructions are now vague, but I remember struggling with the darkness, and performing some bodily movements until I end up on a solid street. I find it a bit strange that I am now on this street, a city from my past, I notice that I am sitting on the pavement. It is dark, and there is nobody in sight. I decide to walk a bit, choosing another street I know. I spend some time walking, and reach a bus station. I look around once again, everything is still very dark, so it is hard to see, and there isn't a single light on.

I am a bit worried that the dream will escape, because I almost cannot concentrate on anything here. Then the "interact with a DC" task comes to mind. I know Xanous would probably not be asleep at this time, but decide to try to reach him nevertheless. I call out Xanous a few times, and look around. I cross the street and there are some DCs there, I stop one and try to ascertain if this is Xanous. It is dark, so hard to tell any facial feature, and the guy's face is also blurred. Well, it doesn't feel like him so I let the DC go. I stop another one and hold him for a while. His face gains a bit more definition and I try to analyze it in the darkness. I say that whatever I am doing makes no sense but still hold on to the DC. The dream slowly fades and I wake up.

I go to drink some water then back to bed. Reviewed the dream in mind. Fell asleep.

While I had begun to question whether some of my short lucid moment memories that I couldn't recall in the past few weeks were real, I now have an absolute certainty because I woke up shortly after these two.

Dream2 DILD: In some version of the same city, but everything is much more vivid now and it is day time. I am supposed to meet a friend of mine like the last time we did that. But somehow our plans don't work out. Instead I end up facing a threat from an invisible enemy. I am lucid now, and have a greater sensory perception. Initially it was as if I am on the balcony, but it quickly changes into multidimensional walled space in front of me, hard to describe. The energetic entity is not visible because it is behind the wall, yet I feel it because I stretch move with my entire being through the wall that feels like just space, and come in close contact with it. It is not pleasant, I feel its energy. I am trying to move it away by manipulating the matter. I get rid of the thing and find myself between four walls with creamy tiles on them. I notice that there is no door, but don't care much. I can move through space.

Dream3 DILD: In the more or less the same city, some kind of scenario is developing. People are still using horses instead of cars, they are leaving the city because of some emergency. I watch while this is happening, there is some blue stuff of the floor. I remember that this is the second time this is happening. I am lucid, I spill more blue stuff on the floor, and enjoy it for a while. I make a strange posture to show/explain something to one of the DCs in the room? I turn and look to the other side of the room where there is a window. I decide to stabilize the dream by intending it. I check the overall feeling, yes, stable. My mind is also clearer now. I look out the window, and see three boys in the distance. "Interact with a DC", on my mind again. (I really wish I could remember more tasks! ). I climb through the window and slide down. It feels like the roof of a building or on top of a train. The boys are playing soccer, so I shout that I want to play with them. They kick the ball towards me and I see it coming, but it is too high, I control its movement so it is easy for me to catch it. As I am preparing to have a kick, the dream falls apart and I wake up?

Fragment4: I am having a short dream where I am discussing the three boys. I identify one of them as a neighbor kid from the past, but I know he is grown up now.

I wake up and review the dreams, I am super awake and cannot fall asleep for two hours. When I finally do, I slip into unmemorable dreams.

WBTB: I wake up tired about one hour before the planned wake time. Upset that I messed up the plan for tonight. I decide to take one p.oil capsule, then go to bed concentrating on having an ld.

Fragment5: A classmate is wearing strange clothes

Fragment6: I am in some water, and there is sand around. My bf is also swimming with me in this strange place. I try to get out of the water, climbing strange sand dunes. Then we go to an indoors swimming pool where I plunge into the water, a bit worried about hitting the bottom.

Key:
{Curly brace & blue} .... Relevent waking life details before entry, if appropriate

Black .... Dream body/narative text

(Standard braces & dark green, bold) .... Dream notes, lucidity, time. method etc

************************************************** ***********************************

{This one is from two nights ago.... 29 may 2012
Waking life I've been trying to WILD, and have been getting quite close.
So I went to bed at my normal time, with the intention to get 4hrs+ REALLY GOOD sleep,
so that I should easily WILD when I've taken my early morning 3.30 to 4am pee}

(Non-Lucid)

I dreamed that I couldn't sleep for most of the night & that I was tossing and turning..
.. Though the night seemed to pass by quite quickly.. it was soon really light outside,
and eventually was that not far off my normal alarm waking time in waking life
.. I was worried that my lack of sleep would wreck my chances of a WILD.

I even at one point, picked up my mobile in the dream, and browsed a few of pages on the subject of sleep

(I know it was a dream, because...
1) The web pages I browsed on my phone in the night weren't in the browser history
2) On recollection in the morning, it felt 'dreamlike'
3) I 'woke up' when my alarm went off in waking life, without feeling like I hadn't slept

I don't remember anything from last night other than there were dreams, though part of me didn't want to remember my dreams. I was feeling really off emotionally, so I kind of let go of the lucid dream intent and even the remembering intent. I didn't feel like bringing any of that into my dreams even though I should have, I might have been able to process something or learn something.

I know I was dreaming. My insomnia was particularly bad. I went to sleep around 4 am, woke up around 8:30, went back to sleep around 11 am and woke up at 2:30. Ugh. My day is half over. It doesn't help that I am self employed either, there's nothing making me get up to go anywhere. :/

Okay, this was my dream last night.

Morgan, Rubee, Samantha and I were at this sort of building. I didn't know the use of it. This woman came over to us, and spoke to me. I didn't know who she was, but she said "I remember waiting here for you and her,". Then, I remembered it was a hospital, and this was where me and my ex-girlfriend Tash used to meet. Then, I saw in the carpark (directly oppsite where I was sitting, with a glass door in-between) Tash sort of waving. I ran to her, and hugged her. I remember I couldn't stand properly, and sort of kept losing balance and falling back, as if we were sort of wrestling. Tash looked a lot fatter than her usual skinny self. Then, we walked around this garden bit (I think it was my back garden). Suddenly, we were walking back along Urraween Road. The same road the hospital and my school is on. She said something about her stepmum. Then I saw my Dad's car, (not the one he has in real life), and I hugged Tash goodbye and ran to, what I think was my school. When I went into the building, it turned out to be some fast food restaurant. Then, my friend Samantha was yelling they were locked on the inside. I went around the back, and saw a guy there talking amongst each other. I don't remember what they were talking about, but it was something I took an interest in. Then, I think the door opened, and we ended up on this island boat thing. I really don't remember. Then, I woke up.

Note to self: The man at the end, was the same man in the drivers license your dad found. Tash's grandma looked different.

I've had a bad night with insomnia, but after many hours, I finally felt asleep, and had some interesting dreams, and I can remember 6 of them. No, bang, I can remember one more! It's a weird one, haha!

:insomnia:

The Mine

I found myself under the ground.. Or, it was so dark, so I couldn't find anything. I found some fire, and saw my friends. They screamed, because it all shaked. We all had orange hats on, to protect our heads. There was kind of an elevator. The stones began to fall down, and we all ran over to the elevator. All my friends came in, and it made me happy. I was a few meters from it, when a big stone hitted my head, and everything became black.
And I woke up with a terribly head ache!

From 4/22/11

• Ask what I can or should do for my insomnia / odd sleeping schedules - so that I can have more of an option to join in events that typically occur during the day on a regular basis.
• Create a computer program; come up with ideas for computer programs
• Explore my waking life meditative dream house and characters (I had a significant series of meditations that stemmed from a dream years ago. It was part of the work I was doing with a Jungian counselor.)
• Write jokes or ask dream characters for jokes (develop more enjoyment and free playful thinking)
• Ask about career goals and how to bring them about

1:30am - finished one cup of Calea tea and went to bed
2:30am - still wide awake, take ~2mg melatonin
3:30am - still awake, lying still and trying to sleep
4:30am - still awake, lying still and trying to sleep
4:45am - move to couch, hoping to sleep more easily there
5:30am - still awake, get up and read, make a cup of catnip tea hoping for sedative effect
5:45am - sun is rising, drinking catnip tea, wondering if it will be possible to sleep yet
6:15am - go back to bed, cat takes an interest in my catnip breath, kneads my pillow, cute but whiskers tickle
6:20am - cat lies on top of me as I lay on my left side, comfortable and obliging me to be still
6:30am - around here I go to sleep at last
7:15am - wake up and recall two dreams, clarity good, content and recall average
7:16am - focus on remembering the dreams for later, need sleep too much to write them now
7:17am - carefully extricate myself from cat and blankets and visit bathroom
7:18am - discover cat is now somehow hogging entire pile of sheets, blankets and pillows
7:19am - grab another comforter for myself and try to go back to sleep
11:15am - wake terminally and write down the previous two dreams in bedside journal
11:20am - as I'm writing, suddenly recall two more dreams I had during second sleep period

Conclusion: Results negligible apart from the sleeplessness, since I normally remember multiple dreams when keeping an active journal.

April 22, 2003:
I know I've been studying too much when I have a dream that I live in a library!

April 27, 2003:
Every time I close my eyes, I dream that I'm studying - or I'm in a library, or something. The insomnia's worse than the dreams.

April 28, 2003:
All night I had dreams about exams - that as I was going to take my exam, a huge tornado hit, and I had to go and hide in one of the offices. For some reason, my old Geography professor was doing paperwork there. I was supposed to fill out this form explaining that I couldn't take my exam because of a tornado. Then my brother got hit by a car with these 2 annoying prissy girls in it. They broke his leg and they kept trying to compensate us for it by giving us makeup... my mom was really pissed off, so was I, he didn't seem to give a damn, and Mom told them she'd see them in court. Then I found out that I'd been exempt from the exam to begin with - EXCEPT that I was supposed to have turned in ANOTHER form verifying that I was, indeed, exempt...

April 29, 2003:
I had a dream that there was some sort of alternate dimension, and we were on a film project to film it, or something. And it was just a huge movie, and all of the people in there were actors - they knew they were actors, and would go to other dimensions to "star" in them (like movies). So there was this one, and he had really long black hair, and he was supposed to be like the antihero/supervillain type, and he starred in this one dimension as a swordsman (a la Highlander) and then hopped to the next to become an evil sorcerer. But he didn't start out as one - just as a sort of twisted, misguided sorcerer. Then he got into a fight with this humongous hairy beast, and it killed his son, and he got all angsty/dangerously insane, and created a dimensional bubble where he screwed with reality. Then he turned into a woman.