side notes

I did a counting induction into a lucid dream. I felt the transition but the reality check passed so unfortunately I did it too early. The transition was awesome though.

Had a lucid dream this morning. I was at my old elementary school when I realized that this must be a dream. I walked out to the parking lot and did this spin technique to teleport back to my house because I wanted to complete a dream task: finding my dream guide. I made it back to my house and walked outside to see it raining extremely heavily and I noticed I had no shoes on. Now I'm thinking, "I don't want to spend the majority of my lucid dream trying to walk to through rain and mud". So I decide that I am going to go into my backyard and climb over my fence to find the dream character I am looking for.

I mean, I understood that dreams function off of expectation. My expectation was to find my dream guide at the park which was a bit of a long walk from my house. However, it was raining so heavily so I changed my expectation to find my dream character in the house that was behind mine so I only had to get over the fence and travel a shorter distance to find her. Dream ended unfortunately.

This isn't the first time an obstacle has stopped me from finding my dream guide. The first time it was this heavy wind that blew me away as I was trying to make my way down to the park.

Now how did I induce this DILD? It could have been several factors. For starters, I was more awake and active during my longer WBTB period. I mean I had turned on lights and written in my dream journal to the point where I had trouble going back to sleep. Secondly, I did my method of "Ambience Induced Lucid Dream" which involved me lying in bed and attempting to meditate, quiet my mind, and be aware of the ambient space of the room. In other words, suppose you had to navigate a room with your eyes closed. What senses would you need to focus more to get an idea of the space around you? I would say this is in a similar vein to SSILD that has you shift awareness to each of the major senses of Sight, Hearing and Touch. Other factors could have been my intense motivation to have a lucid dream; motivation being a big trigger for lucid dreams as explained in ETWOLD.

After a long dry spell, I went back to what worked in the first place - meditation; particularly with a focus on absolute presence, calmness, and clarity of the mind. I did this before I went to sleep at night and had a lucid dream this morning about visiting a neighbor's house.

I feel like the crux of my meditation is a focus on, "I am". There is nothing more present than that statement. It's not a mantra I repeat 10,000 times, I am just simply aware of my self and my breathing in the moment without being distracted by other thoughts because nothing else matters in that moment except that, "I am". Looking forward to more success via meditation.

Of course dream journaling is important too. I am becoming more diligent in writing down my dreams every single time I wake up.

Because my brother decided to leave his radio on super-loud before leaving, my dream was influenced by this christian talk-show. I dreamed I saw a city in the sky which I thought was 'The Kingdom of God.' I also saw these sheep being slaughtered by these large, black monster looking things.

I stood under the monster and it dropped and large axe on my left shoulder and through me to the side. I met this man who was babbling to me about consulting the FBI for direction on finding the place where Jesus died because it is a government cover-up or something bullshit like that. I saw blood trails.

I also dreamed that I had my laptop in my bed I was trying to check Reddit for something important happening to day. I had trouble getting to the website and it is my own fault I was not skeptical enough of my reality. False awakening then?

No lucidity.

The bright side is that mindfulness meditation helps me fall asleep faster than normal and get these easy-to-remember dreams. Either way, I feel like I am on the right path to master lucid dreaming. The trade-off is that my non-lucid dreams are more 'adventurous' than my lucid-dreams which have mostly been featured in my own house.

Met a man who was wearing a suit and a rainbow afro. Was a vivid dream but no lucid because I was a bit lax and impatient with clearing my mind. Nor was I fully relaxed as I should have been.

Will try again during the next nap.

Had two LDs this morning. All from the SSILD variation which I shall explain below plus a realization.

The lucid dreams were standard; I was in my neighborhood. The first lucid dream had me exiting a vehicle in my driveway and trying to go down my block. The second was me actually walking down my block during the evening time and into a house.

I spoke to a woman behind a glass window like I was in a office or something. I remember now, I was searching for a woman named 'Jazmyne Adams' and the office was a car directory or something. I wanted the secretary to do a reverse search on the name and find out information such as the where she lived, what car she drove, etc. She gave me something to sign and that was all that I remember.

I am always on the hunt for dream characters.

There was also another standard dream of me at school, at the end of the year. It is kind of ironic because right now it is the end of summer vacation - more or less - here in my part of Texas. School starts a week from today; on the day of my birthday. Anyway, I was in the principal's office collecting a trophy from an award ceremony that I missed.

Had the perfect WBTB. I was sleepy, Hynagogic images and sounds were everywhere...all I needed was the right method. I chose MILD because Stephen LaBerge makes it sound like the holy grail of lucid dreaming in his book.

Did it, but did not get lucid. Felt like I wasted a huge opportunity for nice and long lucid dream. I dreamt about school non-lucidly.

I hate wasting my time.

Get a hot streak of lucidity > Have confidence > Go on a dry spell > Repeat


What is so irritating about lucid dreaming it that it isn't a linear progression like fitness or a mastery of any other skill. The success rate is so random and inconsistent that it feels like I am wasting my time. At this point, I should be a master of lucid dreaming because I have been writing, thinking and acting on it for about 7 years now. Anyway, I had a dream about my old private school; a place that I had not been to in over 10 years yet it has been a recurring dream scene.

It was the end of the school year, we were finishing up taking final exams and I thinking about how I was bored and wish I had brought my laptop - the one I am typing on right now.

If I can understand the root cause of why dreams are incubated and successfully control that root, lucid dreaming should be a piece of cake. What is it, memories? Expectations? Things which I have been mindlessly engaged in? Or how about things that I have been mindfully engaged in like a show that has resonated with me? Both the latter and the former have occurred inside my dreams.

Right now? I am actively engaged in writing this journal entry. So much so, I was not aware of the fellow opening a bag of chips behind me until I started paying attention. My thoughts are reading these words aloud so my mind's hearing is also engaged in this.

Instead of a mindless repetition, why don't I give a mental speech about lucid dreaming inside my head as I fall asleep instead of a mantra. Sure that is a billion different words more than a simple mantra repeated indefinitely, but as long as a the main idea of "Have a lucid dream" is a recurring, I should have no problem smuggling that idea into the dream world.

Mantras have never worked.

Maybe I need to slow it down too; give my mind time be passively engaged as to let me fall asleep and seamlessly transition into the dream world.

Following my previous blog entry, I formulated a guess about how my lucid dreams have been induced all this time, strangely enough. This morning I had another lucid dream with a unique twist.

It was a another DILD following a WBTB wherein I recognized I was dreaming but as usual, didn’t hold the dream for more than 10-20 seconds. I woke up shortly afterwards with my eyelids still lit up with vivid hypnagogic imagery such as a playing cards twisting and spinning and even the word “RSAtouble” was seen. I believe I was reading the word as “Roundtable” - just poorly misspelled.

I wasted no time in trying to gain entry into the dream world again and tried to do the FILD method while waiting for the opportune time to move my limbs again, do a reality check, and explore the dream world. I was certain I was dreaming but I was still in my place of rest so I got up, did a nose-pinch reality check but could not breathe so I lied back down and tried once again to get back into the dream scene using the FILD technique.

The thing is, in retrospect, that reality check should have failed because that entire FILD sequence was a dream, I now realize. But because I thought I was fully I awake, I expected the reality check to succeed and thus it did.

Expectations are huge in the dream world. I am not talking about these forced expectations that are induced via mantras. I am talking about expectations as natural as you expecting a light to come on when you flip a switch or when you turn a doorknob. They are not consciously thought about, you just passive anticipate the usual result after countless repetition. A routine essentially. Anyway, back on track.

It wasn’t till after I had woken up one last time to get ready for work that I realized what had happened, I had some inception-style lucid dream.

I noticed a pattern in when my lucid dreams have occurred:

1. I sleep for 4-6 hours then wake up for 45-60 minutes.

2. I go back to sleep with awareness of the time and the intention to awaken at a later time. Why? Because it would be absolutely dreadful to be late for work trying to lucid dream.

3. I expect to have a lucid dream but I don’t try to force anything. My priority is to get as much sleep as possible within the 2 hour time frame I’m allowed.

If the second item is the reason for my lucid dreams, then I may be on the cusp of mastering the induction of lucid dreams. After that, it is only a matter of training stability and control.