Thread: Jasstar's Workbook

Welcome to DILD class!

Originally Posted by jasstar

I've been debating whether or not to post here, because all the other people that have seem to be teenagers (I'm in my thirties.. suddenly I feel old!)

Don't feel old, I;m older than you. But I won't tell, if you won't.

Originally Posted by jasstar

I'll say right now that I'm a bit obsessive - I have the good fortune of owning a sleep monitoring device that tracks when I'm in light, REM and deep sleep with fairly good accuracy. I've been putting all this information into a spreadsheet and tracking it along with my dream journal entries and lucid dream counts. I've been doing this since early December 2012 and I'm up to 62 recalled dreams, 11 of them being lucid to some degree (ie: became aware that I was dreaming, but not necessarily able to control them.)

That's nice. I keep a fairly detailed dream journal, with time of bed, time of waking up from a dream, supplements taken, etc.

You can have different levels of control in a LD, or even none.

Originally Posted by jasstar

I've toyed with a few of the methods mentioned on DV and I think I've decided that I'm going to stick with DILD as it's been the only one that I've actually achieved any LDs with. I'm fairly inconsistent with my RCs - I try and do them every hour or so which is easy when I'm at work, but at home I have a small child which means I very rarely get the time to do them. A couple of days ago I discovered RDAT and so I'm trying to incorporate that with my RCs whenever I cam. I'm also trying to perfect a mantra at the moment - my current one is "I will recognise my dream signs" and then I go through a couple that have appeared quite frequently in my dreams. I'm not sure how successful this is going to be though - most of the time I encounter a dream sign in a dream it just passes me by.

RDAT - do you mean reverse RC from sageous, or form mine Collection of techniques.
Whichever you have read, I recommend you read the other one, too.

There is a fairly quick and easy awareness + RC, that's just mental. Look around as if you were in a dream, think to yourself "if this was a dream, that [something] would be [something else]. And expect it to change. You can make it fun too, like "that tv would be 92 inch flat screen, or there is a 6-pack in a fridge when I open it) Just anything that sounds fun to you.

But the looking at hands and counting fingers is extremely powerfull RC, so do that when you get a chance.

Your mantra -
Mantras work the best in present tense. For a dream sign mantra to work, you would have to RC every time you see it in waking life. That's how it will trigger RCing in a dream when yo see it. I really like the hands RC plus hands mantra. If you pick one, I would recommend you start with this one. it's an old classic and it's great, because you have your hands with you all the time in a dream, no need to go look for something or wait for a dream sign.

You can also RC at random times - post #7 in this thread

Originally Posted by jasstar

Anyway, I'm here because there's no one else that I can talk to about this without being thought of as quite mad

Unfortunatelly, that's how it is for majority of us. Think of it as a secret, exclusive club, not that many people have access to.

Originally Posted by jasstar

My goals are to increase my LD count, make them a little bit more reliable and also to increase my stability and control (I've had one beautifully long and controlled LD, but the rest seem to last for less than a minute and I have very little say in how they go.)

Most of the people have short LDs most of the time. We get lucid the easiest when our minds are starting to wake up. That's why it's so easy to wake up from a lucid, unfortunatelly. Plus, it's such a strange and new state for our minds, that it takes lots of practice to make them more stable and longer.

So ask if you have any questions and post your progress. happy dreams

Originally Posted by gab

Welcome to DILD class!

Thank you

Originally Posted by gab

RDAT - do you mean reverse RC from sageous, or form mine Collection of techniques.
Whichever you have read, I recommend you read the other one, too.

I meant the one in your collection of techniques, but now I've read both of them and I can see that perhaps I'm doing more of a reverse RC.

Originally Posted by gab

There is a fairly quick and easy awareness + RC, that's just mental. Look around as if you were in a dream, think to yourself "if this was a dream, that [something] would be [something else]. And expect it to change. You can make it fun too, like "that tv would be 92 inch flat screen, or there is a 6-pack in a fridge when I open it) Just anything that sounds fun to you.

This is something that I used to do (even before I knew what LD was). I was quite consistently telekinetic in my dreams, and used my telekinesis almost every night. So I used to make a game of it in boring meetings at work - seeing if I could make something come to me (which of course I couldn't).

I've noticed that it seems to be getting more and more difficult to have an LD these past couple of weeks. I'm wondering if perhaps I'm trying too much and not sticking with the basics enough? I seem to have dropped a lot of my RC's and now at night I'm getting caught up in MILD or attempted WILD (which has never worked for me).

I think that's my goal for this week - go back to the 'try and make something impossible happen' + RC on a regular basis throughout the day. Go to sleep each night with a mantra and when I wake up throughout the night (which I usually do at least 3 or 4 times) go back to sleep with another mantra. Which brings me too.....

Originally Posted by gab

Your mantra -
Mantras work the best in present tense. For a dream sign mantra to work, you would have to RC every time you see it in waking life. That's how it will trigger RCing in a dream when yo see it. I really like the hands RC plus hands mantra. If you pick one, I would recommend you start with this one. it's an old classic and it's great, because you have your hands with you all the time in a dream, no need to go look for something or wait for a dream sign.

The problem with my dream signs is that they are signs on the basis that they would never happen in real life (ie: seeing someone that has died or is a fictional character). So I see your point, I'm not going to be able to RC when I see them in real life.

I didn't realise Mantras should be in the present tense. How does that work if you have one to say during the day and one to say at bedtime? I I say "I'm dreaming" when I'm sitting at work, does that not confuse the issue? I just went looking for the page on mantra's but there seems to be a few of them, with differing advice. ..???...

Thanks again

JaS

Instead of "I'm dreaming", you can say "I'm a lucid dreamer", "I lucid dream".

This is based on the notion, that our mind recognizes only two states: Now, and some other time. It doesn't understand the effort, that we mean when we say I will have a lucid dream.
It doesn't understand the time between now and not now.

So if you say "I'm dreaming", it will give it to you at the earliest opportunity, which hopefully is the nearest night.

When I started using "I'm dreaming" mantra, I had a dream in which I heard a voice saying "I wonder how it will take her to realize she is dreaming". That got me lucid.

Yes, you can use mantra for many different purposes. They are affirmations, the way to tell your higher self, what you want. Please ask, if I should clarify something more.

Woohoo! Success... an LD last night. It was about half way through the dream when I was changing clothes in front of a mirror. I wasn't really dressing/undressing as you do normally, I was just making them appear and change. Funnily enough, that wasn't what made me realise it was a dream. It was what I was wearing - a military uniform from a television show.

I have this 'procedure' of sorts that I go through after I realise I'm dreaming. It's something that I prepared just in case an LD presents itself (rather than not knowing what to do with myself and simply waking up). First thing I do is rub my hands - I've found that really stabilises things. I had to do it twice last night because the first time didn't seem to be enough. My next step is to try and change location - this is always difficult and I was trying a new technique last night, closing my eyes and visualising where I wanted be and then clicking my fingers (sort of like a camera change cue). It worked partially, half the room changing to what I wanted it to be, so I did it again and more of room changed. My next step is to always conjure up a particular person - not someone from real life though. This has always been amazingly easy for some reason and this time he appeared without me even needing to think about it (in fact, he appeared before I'd even done the location change so clearly he wanted to be there ) Then I went through the 'script' that I'd decided I was going to do on my next LD and it all played out pretty well.

I don't think it went for very long, but everything seemed to go just according to plan which was incredible.

The most important thing I got out of it though was that I stress to much over LDs. Every time I wake up (usually 4-5 times a night, usually at the end of a dream) it feels like it's just another missed opportunity gone by, which has been frustrating me. I was also having a little problem last night with dream recall, I'd move or roll over before I realised I was awake and I'd lose all but the last few seconds of the dream. So at 4am I decided to just give up on it for the night and get some sleep - no mantras, no worry about recall, nothing. Next thing I know, LD. Now if only I could just convince myself to do that every night!

JaS

That's some nice skills you got there! Nice stabilizing and control.

And yes, wanting it too much is reported to hinder the ability to have LD. It happened to me a few times. But when it's so hard to "just give up" and go to sleep normally