Thread: JoannaB's workbook

Ok, I will have a lot of work to do to get back to where I was even a month ago. I have let things slide again, and now I have a cold as well. Recently I had a lot of nights staying up or waking up in the middle of the night worrying about things. The last two nights I took Melatonin to help me sleep, and it did. On the plus side, I have been more creative and doing a lot of short story writing, but I have been procrastinating a lot on a lot of stuff, and stressing a lot.

Today, I woke up to find out that it is a snow day: no school for the kids and no work for my husband and me, yay! It really helps to live in a wussy school district and work for federal government, so when school and government closes one does get a day off. Anyone in Poland or Wisconsin (where my husband and I grew up) would shake their heads in disbelief that the capital area closes after only this little snow, but sometimes it helps to have really poor drivers and limited snow plows and all that. We took it slow this morning, and then we walked to a local restaurant to get a fancier brunch. I decided to be adventurous and got an omelette containing chili peppers, only to discover that I could not taste them - it was a good omelette though. We tried to buy kids' boots, but the local store did not carry any, so came back home. Lazied about a lot. Wrote a short story. Then changed the water in both aquariums, did some dishes and laundry and mail and such. A combination of lazy day and chores day. Overall, it was a good day.

There she is And I see you did a day recall post as well!

A very stressful day. Gave no thought to reality checking or awareness or any of that. Sigh.

It did not start out so bad, though I did have to de-snow/de-ice the car, and worried that I would be late to the appointment for the estimate for my car's bumper (I rear-ended a school bus recently - the bus had almost no damage). My husband (God bless him) offered that he could take both boys, but I decided that I could take the older one to school and still make the car estimate appointment, and I did. The estimate was fairly painless - yes, the bumper needs to be replaced, but I kind of knew that given that it has a hole from the school bus's exhaust pipe in it, but our insurance will cover more than half of it, and it's not so bad, and luckily no one got hurt, that's what matters.

Anyway, coming back to today (not the day of the accident), I then got gas, and was an hour late to work - I had called in late. Then my boss immediately called me in for a meeting in his office, and I had barely enough time for lunch, and had several business phone calls to take care of, and a meeting, and time sensitive something or other, and did not even get to start a process which takes a long time to complete, before it was time to leave and pick up the kids, and get home.

Then my mom and step father came - they arrived in town today. My mom's visits always stress me out - it's the grown up daughter mother thing, even though my mom means well and I overreact. Add to that my having had a stressful day at work and being exhausted. Dinner actually went well and we all got along - my stepfather had picked up some Peruvian chicken from a local restaurant and some yuka, so I did not have to cook. Then I made the mistake of logging into work while too tired, trying to start that long process, and I made a mistake, which luckily I think was not a big deal, but luckily I caught it before proceeding further. I realized I was too tired to fully kick off the process.

Right before leaving my mother told me "Be sure to ensure the kids brush their teeth before going to bed" and when I did not reply, she repeated it. And that's when I exploded in anger "Don't tell me how to bring up my kids. What do you think I do when you are not here? Don't tell me what to do when you are not around. It drives me nuts!" Not a good start to the visit. My mom is luckily staying at a friend's house because I cannot handle the two of us under the same roof, my roof. It does not help that my mom always comes for sooo long - she will be here until right before Christmas (we will then each go to separate destinations - it is not my mom's turn to get us for Christmas, we are going to my in-laws), and then my mom will be back for half of January. When my mother-in-law comes to visit, she rarely stays a whole week, and usually I am not stressed even at end of visit - whereas when my mom plans to come, my stress level goes up a couple of weeks before the planned visit. I wish I did not overreact so, but I cannot help it. Sigh.

That sounds like a challenging situation. Good thing she is not staying at a friend's house at least! Good job day journaling

Today woke up remembering a dream and a fragment, so that was good. In the car watched out for red cars on the highway for awareness practice. Had an important meeting at work. Alas had a horrible migraine headache for most of the day. Then was frustrated with a work process that kept failing to complete and had to be restarted. My mom picked up the boys from after school care. I ordered Thai food. Dinner was pleasant and evening was much less stressful than yesterday.

Tonight dream competition starts. I will try not taking Melatonin for a change to see how well I can sleep without it. I shall wake up and remember my dreams.

I shall wake up and remember my dreams.

Sounds like a good way to start the competition!

This morning woke up at 4am, recalled a dream and a fragment, tried to WBTB, but failed to fall asleep. Pleasant cuddling with hubby before getting up, plus he surprised me by having coffee ready so I got coffee in bed - perhaps I had dosed off after all since I did not know he had gotten up. I exercised for 15 minutes - wall smasher and karate. Printed out some family pictures for younger son's show and tell. Delivered younger son to preschool. At office had conference call in which I was one one of two people talking the most. Went over some budget estimate numbers, and did a few other tasks. We did team photo thing. I called to settle a few of my personal bills. My husband wanted to pick up kids but needed my help with that in last moment due to traffic. In the car I thought of work issues which I will definitely not do anything about over the weekend, useless fretting. I tried becoming more aware instead but was not successful. Came home. Exercised for another 15 minutes - yoga this time. Dinner with my mom and stepfather and husband and kids - this time my husband cooked, and I did the dishes. Now kids are watching TV and I am tired lying down in bedroom. I also have a fruity herbal tea.

My plans for tomorrow do include a brief afternoon nap hopefully for competition and also to help with my cold. Today I had a bit of a headache still/again, but nothing like yesterday. Tonight I want to remember my dreams, and again WBTB - this time let's fall asleep again successfully, ok?

I am impressed and I see positive things in your day journal! You seem to be exercising quite a bit and that's great! Let me know if there is any way I can help you as I would like to see you have a strong competition

So today I woke up around 4am again with a headache. Used steam inhalation in addition to Tylanol to combat it. Staid up over an hour, among other things researching for a Christmas present for my mother in law. Went back to bed (WBTB) attempting to WILD, and while I did not succeed with that but I did fall back asleep. I wish I could remember my dream better and not just fragments because the fragments hint at a wonderful dream complete with Indian shamans, flying on eagle's wings, animal transformation, magic, falling into water, a possible ghost - nifty stuff, all non lucid.

Woke up still a bit headachy - sinus headache - but got better throughout the day. Went to a birthday party of a 5 year old friend of my younger son. Drank green tea. Napped, tried to WILD for nap, but no dream recall - sort of half sleep half awake most of the nap time. Went to a lovely evening at a Polish cultural organization, an evening of Polish and English language Christmas carols and Polish food. This was my mom's idea, and my mom and step father and my husband and I and our boys all went. Upon returning home stressed out over a financial issue I had neglected to take care of when I should have, but took some steps to hopefully resolve it - an issue due to my not paying enough attention and letting important things slide, but I am now correcting some of them. Played Tap Tap Revenge to reduce stress. My boys were very excited because they won the Castle Panic collaborative board game which they played with their dad tonight. I should play with them next time.

Around midnight last night I had finished watching the video about evidence for psi that Chimpertainment posted yesterday. I found it interesting and since my husband was still up to I came to tell him about it. Then what happened: he says he was being playful, while I was being serious, and I felt like he was ridiculing my interest, my feelings got hurt, we discussed how we have issues we need to resolve (to react to eachother better, communicate more, spend more time together). Alas I was exhausted already before all this started, and then got even more so. I got maybe about 5 hours of sleep, and woke up with too much stress to fall back asleep. In the morning I exercised for 15 minutes, and my older son joined me for most of it, and that was good. At church I was close to tears, not because of what was happening at church but before. While I did get a nap in the afternoon, but no recall. After nap though things improved: we played Settlers of Catan - my husband and me and the boys and it was good. Had dinner. Now my husband is watching football, kids are playing with transformers and Megazord, and I was playing Luminosity before. My mom was with us at church, and my stepdad and mom are still coming over for tea this evening - they had other plans before.

My main concerns include issues between my husband and me, and also that my stress level right now is so high that I am close to crying even at less stressful part of day, and I feel like my feelings are easily hurt and I am likely to overreact. Though I am not sure whether or not I overreacted: we do have some serious issues there. Psi of course is not the issue, though it is a growing interest of mine, which my husband does not understand, but that's just the topic of the day - our communication issues go deeper. Also I need alone time to revitalize, and yet we need more together time too, and there is not enough time.

Update: did another 15 minutes of exercising for a total of 30. Overall despite the major argument with hubby, there were good parts to this day of course.

Your workbook seems to be flowing quite well as a way for your personally track your progress. Please continue, along with your day journal, and if you have any DILD questions perhaps put them at the beginning of your post so I am sure to see them and respond.

**

Not a DILD question but an awareness one: should I think that my awareness is really low because I left my car running with lights and heater on and key in ignition for an hour in a store's parking garage and came back to a dead battery, or should I take it as a positive sign that I then proceeded to RC since it seemed to me highly unlikely that in waking life my car would not have been stolen under these circumstances? Earlier that evening I RCed after realizing that I had just gone through a stretch of road that was one lane used in both directions which is highly unusual, and yet I had been on autopilot right before that and thus did not remember seeing the light or whichever signal that must have been there to ensure that cars knew to go or to stop for this stretch of the road. Overall, I am thinking awareness fluctuated.

Taking some steps back: in the morning a fairly slow morning, hard to "jump start" my system after the weekend. Remembered one fragment, but even that was good because at first I thought I remembered nothing. At work talked about budget with boss, also reached important conclusions on what would need to be changed about a report. Made some progress on a financial matter but not enough progress yet. Despite being very tired, drove one hour to my husband's work place for an office Christmas party. I might not have chosen to go, but given our recent issues, I decided that putting in the effort was important. Party was ok, and it was nice to see his work place. Then came the issue with my car's battery (but I was so lucky it had not been stolen). Meanwhile my mom spent the evening with the boys, and they went to see a neat Christmas lights display in our town, and my older boy did part of his homework - yay. Upon returning home I felt very schlumpy, so here I am lying down and typing.

Originally Posted by JoannaB

Not a DILD question but an awareness one: should I think that my awareness is really low because I left my car running with lights and heater on and key in ignition for an hour in a store's parking garage and came back to a dead battery, or should I take it as a positive sign that I then proceeded to RC since it seemed to me highly unlikely that in waking life my car would not have been stolen under these circumstances?

Legitimate LOL! Wow, untouched...maybe any criminals thought it was a trap or an episode of "What Would You Do?" Seriously though, the RC was a recovery.

Earlier that evening I RCed after realizing that I had just gone through a stretch of road that was one lane used in both directions which is highly unusual, and yet I had been on autopilot right before that and thus did not remember seeing the light or whichever signal that must have been there to ensure that cars knew to go or to stop for this stretch of the road. Overall, I am thinking awareness fluctuated.

Awareness definitely fluctuates even with the best of them. Most people go the entire day on auto-pilot.

Taking some steps back: in the morning a fairly slow morning, hard to "jump start" my system after the weekend. Remembered one fragment, but even that was good because at first I thought I remembered nothing.

Excellent! I find that I need to lay in bed just a little bit longer to get the recall flowing. Sometimes I would give up too soon..."Nothing there...oh well..." and I get up. Take a few minutes for yourself.

Woke up from a scary dream in which I was being gorged by a boar/rhino. Intended to go back to sleep, but had some thoughts on how to improve a work process instead. I made coffee and heated up frozen pancakes for breakfast. I exercised only 8 minutes, but every little bit counts. My husband offered to take both it's this morning, which was nice of him. Before they left, I signed up the younger one for some specialty classes. Took out the trash. My hubby also kindly took my car since he has longer commute on highway and thus my car's battery would charge longer. Work was productive, included improving a process and a report, then a presentation by someone else, and finally a short deadline last minute assignment. My boss gave each of us a box of chocolates - it's the season for chocolates. I picked up the boys. Started some work processes which run faster after hours and which I can kick off from home. Meanwhile the toilet overflowed when my younger son was flushing - oh, well, it happens, I fixed it - not my favorite part of the day. My husband fixed dinner. I called my mom asking whether she could return the orchid plant she bought me because I have too many orchids as is and am hoping to reduce not increase my collection, and she decided she will give it to a friend of hers instead then. My younger son suggested we play truth or dare at the dinner table, which is a new favorite game of the boys. Overall a good productive day, and I note that my husband was a darling today in many ways.

Remembered a dream though at first I thought I did not, but as I lay there cuddled by my husband I recalled one. Did not get a chance to do any awareness training or RCing during the day since it was a hectic day.

Helped older son practice for spelling test, and took him to school. The back doors of the van would not open due to being frozen shut, so my son climbed back from the front seat. However the attempt to open the doors must have dislodged them enough for the car to think they were open but one could not close them any more, so we drove to school with the constant beeping of car due to "open" door. At school I finally managed to open back doors and shut them again.

At work double checked a short deadline project which I had worked on and then a coworker. Then had an in person meeting which I had to leave in the middle of for a conference call, which ended up being cancelled due to a work related crisis of some key stakeholders who needed to troubleshoot something instead, so I returned to in person meeting. When it ended I had barely enough time to fetch lunch, and saw a former coworker but had no time to chat. Wolved down lunch. Another in person meeting. Sent some files to a coworker to double check and explained to him what's what.

Then a deployment occurred and then I discovered issues and was in work crisis and resolution mode until after 7:30pm (missed a job interview of new potential coworker which I should have participated in but too busy, had to make time for an important work call not related to crisis and scheduling a meeting) - I did manage to get home around 6:30 but immediately had to log back into work to ensure that the crisis got resolved. My role was mostly coordinating and verifying and sending instructions and ensuring that people were available after hours.

Bad cold, took Mucinex upon returning home. Ate dinner after everyone else in my family and did not feel up to heating it up so I ate it cold. Now sipping a Sinus tea and half lying on the couch. Yup, it's been a full day.

PS: My older son who is quite a lucid dreamer, and recently got into increasing his own size in dreams and also gliding to the ground instead of falling - cool stuff, so as I was kissing him good night he sang to me "I wish you a lucid dream. I wish you a lucid dream. I wish you a lucid dream, and a happy one, too." To the tune of We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Super cute. I did remember to RC upon returning to my bedroom after that. However, apparently I got a super cute and supportive of my LD practice almost 8 year old boy in waking life.

Woke up with just the memory of having written down a fragment in the middle of the night, and indeed there it was, and I had no memory of the dream beyond that, apparently a falling dream. I took a Galatamind, but could not fall back asleep. Helped my older son set up a Wii game they got as an early Christmas present from friends of ours. Started to make scrambled eggs, but forgot I had put them on, and my husband saved the resulting omelette in the last moment. It was actually pretty good. My husband took the boys to church for rehearsal for Christmas pageant while I did a last moment correction to Christmas shopping. Sorted rubber bands for rainbow loom by color. Some laundry, some dishes. Later in afternoon some cuddling with my husband while boys played in other room. Dinner. Fairly uneventful, mostly lazy day.

Originally Posted by JoannaB

I took a Galatamind, but could not fall back asleep.

Did you also take a smidgen of melatonin to go with it? If not you might try that next time. Or perhaps wait for a waking where you feel like you have a lot of drowsiness available to counteract the waking influence of the Galantamine.

I still haven't tried any supplements so far but CanisLucidus seems to get good awareness with multiple LDs from it. I did actually walk into one of those nutrition supplement stores and ask if they had it. They said "you mean glucosamine (or similar)?" I said "no, but do you have anything to aid lucid dreaming?" She said "what is that?" and I said "conscious dreaming" and she just looked at me weird...haha

So I had not been on DV nor any other forum for a while. Too much stress, depression, whatnot.

The only recent dreams I recall from the past week or two:

I accidentally stabbed a friend of my son's who was staying over night at our home apparently, I stabbed the friend with a pen in the throat. I woke up when i had been trying to reach 911, and trying to prevent the kid from taking the pen out of throat because I thought she would die if she did.

There were people drowned in a river on both sides of a bridge. I tried to burry them by throwing ice in the river, but the ice kept melting, but I kept throwing in more ice. One of the bodies the head separated, but it did not look real more like a plastic head of a manekin at that point whereas it had been real before.

We bought a new home. One of the bedrooms had no windows, but it had a deep pit on one side of the room that was an accident waiting to happen - I was trying to figure out how to secure it so no one falls in there and breaks a limb or neck. Also in this room, there was a bed, and a whole bunch of ladybugs were swarming on the pillow. Normally I like ladybugs, but in this dream they were creepy.

And that have been my dreams lately. Using my dream interpretation skills, I conclude that my mind is deeply disturbed, but I already knew that.

Welcome back JoannaB! Those are very interesting dreams indeed! Perhaps a few dream signs in them. Sorry to hear about the stress and depression.

Thanks for the welcome back, fogelbise.

The day before yesterday after a long staff meeting at work I suddenly had the feeling as if all joy had drained out of life, and so I cried in my office, and left an hour early and exercised, and sang Morning Has Broken and Amazing Grace, and had a bath, and played a board game with the family, and felt a bit better.

That night I dreamed I wanted to play the lottery (which is something I do want to do in real life, haven't bought a ticket in years, but now I could use a break). So in my dream I went to try to buy lottery tickets, and was told that most lotteries have been discontinued, and the only one I could participate in, the winner would get an expensive purse. Did I want to participate? No, because then I would just have the additional trouble of trying to resell the purse, and I don't need that.

Yesterday was better. I actually did get a few things accomplished, and I did not have a breakdown, which was good.

I recently started crocheting again. That helps. Making a kid's poncho now.

I am not really doing anything for lucid dreaming at the moment except an occasional reality check once in a while when things get too weird if I think of it. However, mostly I think I need to get to a better place mentally before I continue.

Maybe a good time to play the lottery since it entered your dreams!