TheoryCat

Introduction

I got up far too early this morning and decided to go back to sleep and lucid dream. It took me a while to fall asleep again after waking up. I used the usual MILD strategies - keep my body perfectly still until I experience sleep paralysis; focus on sleep; and maintain my lucid dreaming intentions. After an hour I so, I found myself in my first dream of several.

The Dreams
I was able to repeatedly induce a series of semi-lucid dreams, most of which I have already forgotten. I still remember a few of the dreams though. The first was a false awakening where I checked my hands. It was then that I realized that it was a false awakening - I had six fingers on each hand! Next, I squeezed my nose and realize that I could still breathe through it. That confirmed it - I was in a lucid dream! At this point, I was so excited that I was starting to wake up as I felt my hands on my bed (despite standing up in the dream). I tried to go back to sleep and lost consciousness. And so, I decided to "reboot" the dream.

Take two. I held on to the previous dream in order to re-enter it. This time I found myself in the same dream bedroom I woke up in but instead of a false awakening, I was standing in the room. Just for fun, I did some experiments: I jumped and floated around. Then I waved my arms. Uh-oh...I was getting to excited again and my physical body was starting to wake again! I let go of lucidity and tried to "reboot" the dream again.

Take three. Once again, I found myself in the same bedroom. I found my dad who was a dream character who behaved almost nothing like him in real life! I approached him with the intention of conversing with my subconscious. He seemed quite ... untalkative, providing with one word answers on everything I ask him. Nevertheless, the answers provided what I needed to move on. I was starting to wake up again from trying to be too lucid so I gave up lucidity again and rebooted into another dream.

Final dream. I found myself at a lottery booth with lottery tickets scattered across a table. I tried to read the tickets for numbers and dates, hoping to see today's date and tonight's predicted winning numbers. But the numbers keep changing each time I glanced away. Instead of numbers, some of the tickets had words on them. For instance, one of them had "poop blossom" instead of lottery numbers. Hahaha...very funny, subconscious mind.

Observations
- Time/Duration: 7 AM - 9 AM / 2 hrs.
- Dream control was poor in all of these dreams.
- Dream vividness was also very poor - these felt more like daydreams than lucid dreams.
- I was more "awake" in these lucid dreams than any I have had before (which were all DILD).
- I was partly awake during the transitions between dreams.
- Lucidity disappears if I become too "awake" in my dreams because then I can feel my physical body.
- I was very "analytical" in these dreams, much like in waking life. I constantly tried to figure out what's "rational" and what's not in order to stay lucid. Maybe that's why I couldn't do many physics-defying tasks such as flying.
- I was tired after waking up.

Speculations
- Having a series of lucid dreams reduces dream recall, analogous to having a series of regular dreams.
- Vivid lucid dreams require me to be "less awake." DILD earlier in the morning may be best for that, based on prior experience.
- Dream control requires less analytical thinking and more spontaneity. Stop thinking about physics!

Planned Experiments
- Try another MILD early in the morning but wake up after the first dream instead of "chaining" more dreams to it. Is dream recall improved? Am I less tired? How is dream vividness?
- Dream control: Be more spontaneous in dreams. Stop being so analytical. (This is hard...)