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    1. WILD Journey: Day 27

      by , 12-09-2010 at 11:55 PM
      Interesting night's sleep. Went to bed at 11:30pm because my room mate went to bed early to rest before his final. I didn't get to set my alarm because of that, so I was kind of upset.

      I had pretty decent recall, but still didn't write notes during the night, which would dramatically increase my recall I think because once I get one little detail of a dream, the rest just seems to light up spontaneously in my memory. I didn't get a lot of deep sleep last night either sadly even though I was pretty exhausted. I woke up throughout the night and reaffirmed my intention to realize the dreaming state and look at my hands. Maybe this is working I don't know.

      Mistakes:
      1) No CAN, no alarm.
      2) Didn't RC enough throughout the day.
      3) Didn't attempt the indirect techniques upon awakening. I don't stay still and keep my eyes closed without the alarm, I need to just develop the habit.

      Solutions:
      1) Consciously RC throughout the day whenever I walk through doors and at random times
      2) Bring up the intention to look at my hands in my dream
      3) Before sleep, reaffirm that I won't move and will perform the techniques upon awakening throughout the night.
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    2. WILD Journey: Day 25

      by , 12-09-2010 at 12:58 AM
      Day 25... Nice.

      So far I have had 2 LDs as a result of this regime... Either I am doing something wrong here or I need up stay patient. I feel like I'm not keeping up with my RCs during the daytime and that I turn PassObs when I am typing on my computer (like now) or when I have conversations with people. At these times I try to increase awareness as much as possible because I am trying to change my behavior and notice when I have fallen into routine. Hopefully, by bringing my attention continually back to the present moment, I will adopt a similar habit in my dreams, which have become more and more recurrent.

      I am noticing similar patterns occuring in my dreams now. The major dreamsigns I have are
      1) PassObs: This is a state where I am basically the camera for a movie with thoughts that roll through my head. I am a disembodied thinking machine basically. I analyze the situation, the voices, everything, even my own analysis! This dream-state I think is a result of my previous experiences growing up and trying to alienate myself from the world, zoning things out so as to not be affected emotionally. When this occurs today, I immediately RC and listen to sounds actively and notice what is going on around me.
      2) HSfriends: This is where I am in my high school or see anyone from my grade. These people are appearing regularly in my dreams, and should be a clear sign that I am not awake. I have not developed the habit yet of recognizing this, however. This dream-sign is obviously because I attended the same school for twelve years so most of my associations revolve around that particular scene, which should be to my advantage actually in my attempts to gain lucidity.
      3) FAwake: A false awakening. Usually I wake up exactly where I have gone to sleep, depending on the bed I am using. Surprisingly these occur in pairs or triplets when they happen instead of it being an isolated incident.
      4) Levels/Video Game: Recently, I have run into dreams where I am in the middle of a what seems to be a quest. I need to perform an action or complete some task in order to beat a level or win the game. I don't know why these have only started recently, but they are very recurrent, and should be another helpful dream-sign. Maybe the root of this is my competitive nature or how I was brought up to view everything in life: as a challenge with a prize at the end.
      5) Running without Speed: I have no acronym for this yet, but sometimes in my dreams I will try to jog or run but I will be moving excruciating slow. It's as if I move slower when running than when I am walking.
      6) Checking the Time: I do this a lot in dreams, and I have not isolated the anchor as a reality check in real life enough yet. I am trying to RC everytime I check the time now, but it is difficult to remember. Checking the time espcially occurs when I look at my iPhone!
      7) Teleportation.

      Last night was interesting. My room mate came back at like midnight so I had to stop my alarm from sounding at 3am, which upset me a little bit because I couldn't perform my WILD technique that night, even though I had practiced it earlier that day! I didn't get as much sleep as usual, but the amount of dreams I recalled improved, which is strange. I'm trying to figure out why recall improves and decreases but there seems to be so little correlation to anything I can figure out in real life!

      Mistakes from last night:
      1) No CAN, no ability to test WILD techniques!
      2) Rolling around too much and not resisting the impulse to shift in order to stay asleep.
      3) Didn't type or record notes of my dream throughout the night.

      Solutions:
      1) Set CAN tonight (hopefully) and attempt to separate/indirect techniques.
      2) Affirm intention throughout today and before sleep to not move and perform techniques upon awakening.
      3) Keep iphone close to pillow to record little notes throughout the night.
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    3. WILD Journey: Day 24

      by , 12-07-2010 at 06:21 PM
      Still no progress in terms of having another LD, but I am gaining a lot of experience and have come across very interesting things during this journey.

      I now downloaded another application to help me track my progress for the iPhone called Sleep Cycle Alarm. This is not an endorsement, I'm just writing down what's real.

      I went to sleep at 12:15 woke up at 8:57.

      I recalled one dream at 6am when I set my deffered CAN to wake me up. I got out of bed, went to the bathroom, posted in my DJ the one dream I remembered and then went back to sleep. I didn't recall any extra dreams after going to sleep like this. I'm interested in my own sleeping/recall abilities because I never get any dreams when napping or in light sleep. It appears that I need very deep sleep to have dreams, and then I can recall very many and in great detail. I'm wondering if maybe I really do dream in naps but I simply cannot remember or if my brain just doesn't reach the deepest parts of sleep necessary to dream. How would I test this hypothesis out?

      Tonight's mistakes:
      1) No plan of action upon becoming Lucid.
      2) Woke up at 7 but didnt perform the indirect techniques aggressively enough.
      3) Took too many naps during the day and went to bed in a not-so-tired state. I think this might have detracted from my overall ability to recall and have deep sleep.

      Solutions:
      1) Create a plan of action slash plot out an entire Lucid Dream.
      2) Do 5 reality checks today based on the anchors of opening a door and checking the time on my iPhone.
      3) Practice doing the indirect and separation techniques sometime before bed tonight.
      4) Be physical during the day (i.e. workout or run) so that I won't be tempted to take a nap and will be more tired come bedtime.
      5) Perform the indirect and separation techniques aggressively!
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    4. WILD Journey: Day 23

      by , 12-06-2010 at 06:31 PM
      Tonight was awesome. I got my dream recall back, but I lost a lot of the length and vividness associated with my dreams, probably because I'm trying to remember them from the beginning of the night instead of writing down notes periodically. I will try a note-taking method tonight and see what happens.

      I woke up at 5am from my CAN and I didn't move or open my eyes. I tried using indirect techniques and this was the first time I felt the physical vibration of the successful indication that I can separate, but I didn't remember how to separate successfully! So I ended up cycling through about 3-4 different indirect techniques, but didn't do them aggressively enough to be able to get back into the dream stage and merge into the phase. I kept sleeping for another 2-3 hours after this and had maybe 3-4 more dreams, but even though I can guarantee they were long, vivid, and complex, I am having more and more difficulty remembering details or the length of a dream, which is probably more important than remembering a greater number.

      Today's Mistakes:
      1) Didn't review indirect techniques nor how to separate successfully.
      2) Didn't perform the indirect technique aggressively to achieve phase.
      3) Didn't write down dreams throughout the night. Waited until morning.

      Solutions:
      1) Review the booklet today and practice the indirect and separation techniques sometime before bed today.
      2) Perform the technique with some aggression in practice and reaffirm the intention to perform aggressively before sleep.
      3) Keep a notepad with pen handy by bedside. Write down dreams periodically.
      4) Affirm the intention to LD with these techniques and not fully wake up upon hearing the alarm.
      5) Continue to write down in the DJ about this journey and my dreams.
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    5. WILD Journey: Day 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

      by , 12-05-2010 at 06:58 PM
      Days 15-22:

      There has been no relative improvement in my ability to WILD. I am reading more literature and have gotten back to campus. After a week of the most stressful work I have had to do and no writing in my DJ, I have come back to square one and am reclaiming my desire to get this handled! I am starting to use indirect techniques, intention and affirmations before sleeping, and waking up with an alarm about 6 hours after falling asleep. As a general pattern, I will fall asleep anywhere from 11pm to 1am and set my alarm accordingly for approx. 6 hours after. From days 15-18 I was getting very horrible sleep. There would be no ability to stay asleep or fall asleep. I would end up needing to simply give up trying to sleep altogether in some instances.

      My main problems are as follows:
      1) When I try to go to sleep, I try too hard to focus on WILDing and remembering to wake up in the dream state. I do this right when I am falling asleep instead of after I have woken up 6 hours after sleeping.
      2) I don't focus on relaxation and falling asleep, which keeps me awake. I am aggressively approaching this topic instead of letting the progress some as it will.
      3) I am not keeping up with my journal daily. This includes my WILD journal and my Dream Journal.
      4) I am not documenting my attempts and what I was doing each night of sleep to figure out patterns of success and failure.
      5) I am not focused throughout the day on LDing.

      My future solutions will be:
      1) Relax at the beginning of the night. Keep the intention to LD, but do not focus on staying awake or prolonging consciousness at this point.
      2) Wake up from the alarm without moving or opening the eyes. Perform cycles of indirect techniques and then separate.
      3) Practice these techniques during the day.
      4) Perform reality checks based on specific anchors (i.e. a bike, the moon, my hands, a girl)
      5) Maintain my DJ and create a new thread for my WILD Journey that I will update daily.
      6) Keep a positive outlook and become certain that I will LD. Imagine the experience happening and the benefits.
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    6. WILD Journey: Day 11, 12, 13, 14

      by , 11-26-2010 at 03:20 PM
      Day 11-13: No progress. Had shitty recall, didn't post anything in my DJ even though I could remember maybe 1-2 dreams each night. Had no real motivation to complete the task because I'm at home. I didn't get good nights sleep because I would keep tossing and turning throughout the night.

      Day 14: Thanksgiving.

      Throughout the day I was saying little things I was thankful for like the house, my senses, air conditioning (it was 38 degrees outside!), cars, roads, etc. This would be like a constant reality check for me because there was so much that I wasn't paying attention to that would snap my attention back into place. Like a fork, or a a phone call.

      Last night, I went to bed really exhausted. I had like 4 desserts and so much food yesterday I feel sick today. I didn't have any dreams until my CAN woke me up. I shifted a little in my bed and focused my consciousness on my hands, did a few multiplication problems in my head, got comfortable, and fell right into my lucid dream! I am excited that the distance between days has shortened, as my last LD happened on Monday, only 4 nights ago!

      I'm not even 25% done and I've already WILD'd two times with this method. I'm starting to feel more confident in my ability to actually induce this thing called a LD! Also, the CAN is helping a lot.

      Another thing of note is that I was reading about 10 pages of a book by Carl Jung called "Man and his Symbols" which involves the concepts of dreaming and reality. This reading might be something that spurred the onset of my LD, and I will keep reading this book before sleeping in order to test that hypothesis.
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    7. WILD Journey: Day 7, 8, 9, and 10

      by , 11-22-2010 at 05:09 PM
      Didn't get to post because I was in Boston, but day 7 and 8 and 9 were failures. On day 7 my biological clock got all screwed up because I flew for 5 hours and there was a 3 hour time difference in Boston from LA. I fell asleep at 2am anyway, but the bed was too uncomfortable for me to be able to get any reasonable amount of sleep. I still set my alarm but my phone was set to vibrate and it didn't wake me up.

      The second night, day 8, I go woken up by the noise at 4 30 after going to bed around midnight. I went to the bathroom and came back to bed. I didn't have an FA or anything so I didn't manage to keep enough consciousness in order to facilitate the WILD. The bed was too uncomfortable, I couldn't remain in any one position and resist the temptation to roll over without thinking about it too much.

      Day 9 I went to sleep at 3am boston time and I didn't get very much sleep at all. I had to wake up at 10am so I had no interval to actually set my clock without totally screwing me over. I ended up not getting very much sleep anyway because the bed was so too stiff for my preference! I flew back to Dallas, my hometown, today though.

      Day 10, Finally! My first night sleep in a really comfortable mattress with amazingly soft pillows. I think the contrast really helped me to have a deep sleep that facilitated my WILD! I had my second lucid dream ever and multiple false awakenings! My dream recall was amazing tonight and I feel like I could have achieved lucidity multiple times had I not been exhausted from all the traveling and lack of sleep. My alarm woke me up at 5am after going to sleep at 11pm. This was perfect and led me to have 2 back to back false awakenings. Now I am super motivated to continue to work with my WILD technique all this week while I am back in Dallas!!
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    8. WILD Journey: Day 6

      by , 11-17-2010 at 07:11 PM
      Tonight was ridiculous. I went to bed at 12:00 and I couldn't fall asleep until 1am because of all of the vivid memories that were swarming through my mind. Some nights when I try to WILD it takes me a really long time to transition, but others it happens in a flash. I decided after about an hour that I was causing myself to remember and that I needed to relax and give up any conscious control. So I stop recalling memories and stop giving myself the command to RC repeatedly, and I end up sleeping.

      I had like 10 dreams last night, with two False Awakenings, but the dream was very light sleep and I woke up many times throughout the night while continually asking myself, "what did I just dream about" so I could have it all fresh in my memory for when I woke up in the morning. Maybe I need something to write these down with in the middle of the night, but I have a roommate who might get pissed at the idea....

      My CAN-WILD didn't exactly work because I didn't hear the alarm at 5am, but I think that I still had 2 FAs right after it, which indicates to me that even though I didn't consciously register the sound of the alarm, my consciousness level shifted within the dream world and caused me to "wake up."

      I'm really motivated now to actually have my first LD through deliberate techniques because I can feel it coming. Already from tonight, I can clearly see all of my dream signs just being blatantly displayed in front of me, and I actually took control of one dream without being lucid, so my level of consciousness is definitely getting elevated. For tonight, I will try to go to bed a little more tired than last night, and I won't try to reminisce as much before sleeping.

      I will still time my alarm for 5 hours after going to sleep and we will see how it works. It's going to happen tonight so I'm excited to report tomorrow!
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    9. WILD Journey: Day 5

      by , 11-16-2010 at 05:31 PM
      Tonight I felt massive improvement in my ability to WILD. I was reading so much on the forums because I want to get this skill down, and I'm really starting to understand that this could potentially allow me to LD every night and every nap!

      So I went to bed at midnight, which I feel is going to be my consistent time to sleep because it gives me room to experiment with the amount of sleep I need to appropriately time my WILD. I think I have found that setting my alarm for 5am works best because 4 30 was too early. I would wake up just before my alarm would go off, and then have to wait for it to ring.

      Maybe I am not so anxious about this journey anymore so that I can relax into sleep better or maybe I was just exhausted from working out, but I slept very well last night. I got to bed and fell asleep in 20 minutes. I didn't wake up until the alarm clock beeped at 5am. When the alarm clock beeped, I successfully woke up, and tried not to move. I remembered that I was trying to WILD so I started counting my breaths and trying to stay at least semi-awake. I can tell that this method was successful because I had my first FA in a while right after I fell back asleep. I was in my bed in my dorm room, which is the most common way to RC after WILDing! So I'm definitely making progress on that front.

      I didn't successfully realize the dreamstate yesterday, but I'm really optimistic about today. I'm doing RCs all the time during my day and repeating affirmations along with continuing to read guides/forum posts about WILDing on these forums to keep the idea fresh in my head.

      Tonight, I'm going to look at my hands while I'm dreaming and realize that I'm dreaming. It's going to be awesome.
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    10. WILD Journey: Day 4

      by , 11-15-2010 at 06:11 PM
      This journey is getting ridiculous because I don't know whether I am doing things wrong or whether this is part of the whole process in order to get over some hump and have my body just relax into it.

      Last night I went to bed at 11pm and set my clock for 5am. I couldn't get to sleep for what felt like 2 hours, but the whole time I was having these vivid and fantastic flashbacks to everything I had been doing in my life, ranging from age 7 to age 18. It was amazing, but it also felt inopportune. I know that I shouldn't attempt to WILD before getting at least 2-4 hours of sleep, so I wasn't exactly trying to get myself to transition into that state, but I was occasionally reaffirming my intention to recognize the dream state, which I think kept me conscious longer.

      With this trouble falling asleep, I am also having trouble staying asleep. I will toss and turn throughout the night and I can't fall asleep as easily when I do find myself awakened mid-night. Before this journey, I would very systematically just fall asleep within 10-15 minutes of going to my bed, and then have the ability to drift off to sleep if I woke up after a REM period or something.

      I think my alarm woke me up at 5am, but I didn't register that I was trying to CAN-WILD, so I just rolled over and tried to fall back asleep, which is the cardinal sin of CAN-WILD! Do not move when the alarm sounds! So, with that being said, I have school today so maybe I will be better distracted from this effort and will be able to just fall asleep more easily. Let's see what will happen, I'm excited!

      Maybe WILD isn't for me, but I'm not giving up yet. When I finally get the access to post I will ask these questions in a forum.

      How do I fall asleep quicker?
      How do I WILD without giving myself the conscious intention to do?
      Did others have this similar setback when they started a WILD Journey?
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