Thread: FryingMan's DILD course workbook

LD #27 LD #28

Yes, gentle reader, the Firsts are Flying Fast and Furiously!

• First time 2 lucids in one night!
• First time meeting a monthly LD goal! 6/6 woohoo

This is great, I prefer to go out of the competition with a bang rather than a fizzle.

And I almost forgot Ld #27 due to another tricksy false awakening (Baggins! Shire! What has it minor summoned into its pocketses, precious!?) to my "alarm" (not my real alarm ringtone!) where I did in fact start battling empty-handed with an Orc holding a sword, and I managed to disarm it, and, .... How could I have missed that?

edit: Tried to cash in more on the great night with going back to bed after breakfast duty. It wasn't too late, and I didn't sleep into the afternoon (just until about 10:50), and I had been awake for some while in the late morning so it was catching up on sleep. Nothing lucid however: usual sort of vague after 8 hours dreams. Except in one there was a lot of "grown up activity" going on, nice...

Awesome progress, achievements and firsts FryingMan!!

I am so happy to see you making all of this very significant progress!

LD #29

Fitful sleep night by choice, hoping to induce lucids. Way too awake / excited, ended up just not sleeping enough. Did manage to get to sleep once in late morning and got lucid. Peak awareness I think is earlier than 8 hours for me, around 5th-7th hours, so this is pretty good that I got lucid at all around the 8th hour.

The dream was funny:

Spoiler for lucid:

in some random supermarket, I'm trying to get in but the line at the checkout-stand is full of people and they're also blocking the very narrow entrance to the store. I'm trying to slowly push my empty shopping cart through, I think I touch some kid lightly with it, the mother angrily pushes my cart (and thus me) backwards. I'm frustrated but I'm just sort of standing there stupidly wanting for an opening. People behind me are starting to say "let me through" and there's a guy standing close by me on my right wondering aloud "what's that guy [me] doing?" I answer him directly "I'm trying to get in to the store but the people in line are blocking me!". I eventually get through and some annoying little boy does something on my back with his hand, and I quickly push my back hard against the wall trapping his hand and I hope I've hurt some of his fingers to teach him a lesson. I'm then walking into the store and it's become a outdoor area. There are two CGs dancing together turning in a circle around each other. "I'm dreaming!" I think by reflex, and then "..yes, I AM dreaming and I'm lucid. I grab the face of one of the girls and turn her head up and to the left between by hands to look into my face. Her eyes are looking up into mine (deep brown eyes) and she looks a bit surprised. "What's your name?" I ask. I don't wait for an answer (there is none). Then I give her a few quick kisses. I think I should engage with the dream scene but then I wake up"

And a non-lucid where I spend time talking with a store clerk DC about the store location and routes and paths and other store locations and the names of streets.

Firsts:

• First calendar month with 7 LDs
• First time exceeding monthly LD goals (7/6)
• Highest LD frequency in 10 days: 7/10
• Most # of points in a competition (beating last comp, which was one week longer than this one!)
• Most # of LDs in a competition (7, last time 6)
• (maybe, if nobody else below me gets a huge night tonight) First time in comp upper league, and I finish in the top half. At least, will be in the middle most likely.

Congrats on #29,all the firsts and on a solid competition in the upper league!

I get grocery & convenience stores fairly frequently and consider it one of my minor dreams signs as well as people trying to get in front of me in line. Perhaps it is also a universally common dream sign or scenario. Losing my way is another one and that got me lucid last night along with the common feeling of not being able to make much progress forward, these may be similar to your progress into the store and your path being blocked in the LD above.

Well I can't edit my message now but I did in fact finish in the upper half of the upper league! Woohoo.

Generally good night of sleep last night, lots of dreams, with only fragmented recall though. Actually one batch of dreams with better recall and vivid visuals around 5th-6th hour, which is shaping up it seems to be my sweet spot. Slept more after that, up to about 9th hour and had better recall for that time than usual but still fragmented and low awareness.

Also very interesting: soon after recently noting on DV that I've been swimming for months now without a single swimming dream, I've had 4 dreams about either being at the pool swimming, or out in rough-ish water/waves outside. The mind's a strange thing.

Very deep sleep 4 nights in a row now...not waking up in the middle of the night generally, and if I do, I get right back to sleep. On the one hand I like this, but on the other hand, in-dream awareness not reaching LD levels, and recall is fragmented. Some very detailed memories, but only for short moments. I know the dreams were long and involved, but I just remember a few snippets of them.

And for dream residue, why does my SC need to choose my cat biting me rather than the CGs I see during the day?! Hmm well actually fair enough I did get both now that I think about it, but the cat dream-incident was much more vivid .

Have you taken the foot off of the gas a little? I must admit that I have since the competition ended.

^^ Well I kept up the day work mostly, not quite at competition peak levels, true, but like I said I've just been sleeping deeply. I haven't pushed hard to wake up in the middle of the night so I guess that could be considered as letting up on the gas a little. I drank about 1/2 liter of water right at bedtime last night to help with waking including setting strong intention to wake up after every dream. I did wake up, but I think mostly because my wife was coming to bed super late. It takes a LOT of water to get me out of bed, I've sort of trained myself over the years to go back to sleep with a full bladder. Morning can be a bit of an urgent race, however .

Wife and one son took off for a short trip this morning, so of course we were up very late getting them ready, and they were up early to head out. So I got effectively a nice long WBTB, and I tried a formal WILD attempt with the totally quiet room after they'd left, which I hadn't done in a while. I aimed for sleep with the mantra, and did fall asleep (yay, way better than staying up for hours with no dreaming) after a while of that, and had some dreams with much more self-awareness than the dreams since the comp. Knew who I was, talked to people whom I knew from WL. Invited a few CGs to engage but curiously none did (dang, missed a KILD or two I think), just not enough awareness (or bravado) to dive in anyway. I didn't note my back to bed time and realized this while half-way through WILD relaxation, but I didn't want to start all over so I'll just have to approximate. It's not that important, but I did want to put a time limit on the dive attempt.

I've noticed that when my dreams are closer to lucidity there's less super bizarrre stuff going on, they're mostly me, generally with knowledge of who I am, walking around interacting with people like in waking life (but with a few small twists like, "oh look at this big hill here, I could just take off and fly down there"), and that's what I had most of this morning after BTB, which is a good sign of heading back to the lucidity zone.

I woke up with a LOT of recall and had trouble holding it all before I could record. Lost a bunch of detail I know, but I got down a number of different scenes at least. And it was over a couple of wakings. Was just a bit too lazy to reach for the recorder at the peak memory times, the competition really helps with those little pushes. So I had to hold on to several waking's worth of dreams all at once and inevitably they all suffered.

I have two nights coming up with solo bed so I will really "step on the gas" for waking after dreams and trying a few more WILDs.

I may also try for a nap during the day to reduce the super deep drowsiness at night time.

^^ I did take that nap and wow I had some fun dreams (all non-lucid)! I need to nap more often! Head hit the pillow and I was out like a light, 4pm to 5:50pm (alarm set for 6pm) very unexpected I thought I'd be tossing and turning for a long time. I may be undersleeping now with my level of exercise....interesting thought, more dream opportunities!

Including a great flying dream, followed by a dream of me talking to my kids saying "what a great flying dream I'd just had, but boy, I missed all the signs for lucidity, including the buildings where the lights were out strangely..." and I was composing a DJ entry for that dream ... in a dream!

Feeling close to another LD, the awareness levels are on the rise! Tonight, baby! Also a formal WILD attempt tonight if I can wake myself up at the right time.

edit: yes not being able to make progress forward in a crowd has come up a number of times.

It takes a LOT of water to get me out of bed, I've sort of trained myself over the years to go back to sleep with a full bladder.

This seems helpful for DEILD.

Feeling close to another LD, the awareness levels are on the rise!

Very nice! It is coming, one way or another!

Thank you, Foggy, your predictions have never failed me! Lucid tonight, woohoo! Enough with the boring work dreams! (Although the waffle was nice, and the episode with Boom Boom and the live grenade was amusing)

Hmmm. Well a week + 1 day now. I feel completely recovered from the competition, yet no lucids. I'm continuing to sleep deeply for the most part, and long if I let myself.

Last night I had a long nightmare (at least 5-10 solid nightmare-y minutes) and didn't get lucid, that's the first time in my LD practice a nightmare didn't jolt me lucid. Maybe because it was with normal people pursuing and terrorizing me instead of "creepy eyed" family members. I kept running and running and they stayed right with me. They even gave me a baseball bat sized zucchini to hold them at bay.

And missed a KILD. And the college kids were running the "sex in a box" club. And the stupid dishes kept falling down from the high shelf no matter what I did. Man, I really must do something about missing all these signs. Hmmm...

That next LD is still waiting in the wings for you my friend. Perhaps the awareness timing was not synchronized with the dream signs in those "misses." You got this!

Weird-ish night. A bit off schedule, 00:30 bedtime, an hour late, out of bed at 09:30, after trying to get back to sleep from 07:30, almost made it but not quite, too light too much noise, too uncomfortable, I *did* however make it back to sleep at 06:30 after waking with only vague recall, not even a fragment, was kind of miffed by that. Did dream in that hour, should have gotten lucid, ah well. Being chased dream, couple of false awakenings in some indoor location, standing outside with family my fingers kept getting caught in the hair of the woman standing right next to us, it was some sort of strange flirting situation but I didn't engage ("wife" was right there), woman eventually gave up and lay down with her friends muttering something about "missed opportunities." Trying to find my water bottle amongst tons of water bottles, trying to read the initials written on the bottle and determine if they were mine, I saw the letters fairly clearly but couldn't quite read them.

These long dry periods are annoying. Thought I had hit the big time again, only to go dry as soon as the competition ended. I'm going to need to cultivate some sort of "always competing" mindset I guess.

Kind of lucid moment last night, not really worth counting perhaps, at some strange moment where I was looking at some device that had broken open and a voice/being was telling me that our entire purpose of being was now ruined. Then my older son leans his head into the room and asks me what I'm doing. I think this is just like a FA I had the other day where my son leans his head into the room after I know he'd left for an overnight trip, think I may be dreaming and do a nose pinch and it indicates dream but the feeling is weird, like I'm already half awake, I'm hovering between sleep and dream and trying to do another nose pinch with dream hands and think if I get back to sleep I'll lucid dream.

Other than that a number of wakings with spontaneous recall, dreams mostly "normal" stuff indicating closer to lucidity. Two grocery stores, one water slide where they turned off the water on me half-way down, and one conversation with wife telling me about how I must present myself to the judge to explain my over-limit credit cards at 7:30pm, and us discussing in detail just what the conditions were that led to this situation.

I felt pretty wide awake at bed-time (which despite my best efforts was an hour late because of my wife's late Skype call with a friend), so popped a 1mg melatonin, love that stuff, out like a light soon after that. Haven't needed it generally of late but with some recent job stress to-sleeps have been slower a couple of recent nights. I did think though that the bedtime alertness was a good sign for dreaming and the recall was pretty good last night and had a bunch of WL memories represented, and I was me. Generally a good sign that lucidity is close again.

edit: was feeling a bit underslept so went for a nap from 10 to noon, slow to sleep but did sleep (on my back which is odd since I never sleep on my back). I did the "metronome breathing" which I just read about on reddit (synchronize breathing to heartbeat), it seemed to help get to a relaxed state where I felt rocking but couldn't go deeper [for WILD], but eventually slept.

Strange unaware dreams (like usual), where I'm: 1) playing with a creepy faced baby, I realize it can turn its face to sound so I move my head back and forth quickly from left to right making sounds which makes it laugh). 2) playing an interesting tune on a guitar, I see the fret up close, and my finger playing the tune on the strings, I'm doing all sorts of effects like hammer ons, bends and glissandos, it sounds awesome I think . 3) I'm with a group of people leaving a restaurant including a very large woman.

p.s. I have a feeling I know who's going to be first in line for "Lucy"

Originally Posted by FryingMan

p.s. I have a feeling I know who's going to be first in line for "Lucy"

Lucy?

You mean you haven't seen this yet? Dude you're in for a treat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVt32qoyhi0

Not only is it Scarlett-tastic, it looks to be lucid dream incubation heaven!

Originally Posted by FryingMan

You mean you haven't seen this yet? Dude you're in for a treat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVt32qoyhi0

Not only is it Scarlett-tastic, it looks to be lucid dream incubation heaven!

Awesome!! At first I was like "why is FryingMan showing me a clip of Scarlett getting abused?", and then revenge time! And it is lucid dream-like powers and the whole idea of her ever-expanding knowledgebase sounds like it was written by a lucid dreamer! I hadn't seen or heard anything about it yet. It looks like it will be out this summer.

Well, LD #30, not terribly excited because it was short and very low lucidity, but it did involve a CG But lucid is lucid may it be the harbinger of more to come. Well it does deserve a first I guess:

+ first time getting lucid, losing lucidity [waking up?], and getting lucidity back again with a common element (the same CG).

Basically, noticed a CG standing right next to me in a tight black top/sweater, got lucid, grabbed her, dream ended/transitioned. I'm then standing in a restaurant with people around, notice same CG again in same black top, get lucid, go to her, say "We have unfinished business!" and grab her again, again dream ends.....

Definitely low lucidity, just "cave man me" there .

I had the impression of another lucid moment in a large white hall (anti-void?) but was so short and unsure so I won't count it.

So I'm truly located in my lucid hideout now, it's been around 5-6 months since I've been here. First night I practically got hypothermia since it takes about a day for the stove to drive out the winter chill, and we arrived super late, so only a fragment of a fragment, basically no recall that first night. Second night I broiled in my camping down sleeping blanket which I dug out from the garage since I got so cold the night before, but the stove had been running all day and it was +20C at bedtime in the house and it held to about +17C in the morning so partway through the night I took off practically everything except a simple blanket and was quite comfy. Had some interesting fun and lightly lucid dreams as noted above. The superman show sequence was really interesting and felt quite long but only lightly recalled unfortunately. So sleep fitful as well last night since it got a bit stuffy in the heat.

So tonight's the charm: to bed on time soon, and a good solid night of (lucid!) dreaming coming my way. Did that open beta day 1 thing a long time today on a nice long walk.

Congrats on #30!! Good luck at your lucid hideout!

Catch every dream! That's the new focus. Don't want to miss any of them! That's the focus of the awareness, I'm always questioning my state so I don't miss a single dream! Awareness was sort of "just because" before, hoping to result in lucidity, waiting for the right conditions. I feel this is a more active mindset, don't let a single dream get by. Question: Who [am I with]? What (am I doing)? Where (am I)?

Slept long and deep last night, couple late morning wakings with recall, remembered some dreams across at least one waking. And I had a 2 hour nap yesterday afternoon (no recall). I was underslept on that morning, however.

Always on the lookout for dreams....ain't none gonna slip by me, soon!

Dreaming (non-lucid) continues. It's good that recall is holding. Mostly sleeping through the night. Had a wakeful night (mostly from intent) 2 nights ago after an intense refocusing on day work. Very stressful family situation threw my sleep off mid-week. Some dream images are very clear and I suspect would be more vivid if I woke enough to do recall in the middle of the night. Some very detailed sequences, not but as many as I'd like.

Focusing on brain and memory-enhancing foods and vitamins.

Had some awesome lucidspiration yesterday and really refocused my determination to master LDing.