Thread: FryingMan's DILD course workbook

Yes, yes!! You are on it! Great work FryingMan!! Tell me more about your "LD practice reboot" or where to find your details on it.

My reboot: don't stress about LDing, affirmations that I'm an awesome lucid dreamer and that the lucids are right around the corner (even tonight!), continuous vigilance (at any time, I could be dreaming! Keep a watch out for this), mindfulness. Still frequent RCs but they're not the focus, the vigilance is. Continuing with RRC. ADA-"lite": notice the world around but don't go overboard and exhaust yourself. You don't need to see the shadows caused by the hairs on the legs of every fly: just notice....more. Enjoy! And I've started a bit of considering myself from other's perspective in RRCs. Stay positive about dreaming, love non-lucids, stop counting and stressing about counts. I'm going to get much more into meditation. Returning to waking during the night and recording and night-time practices (SSILD, MILD, WILD).

The vigilance stuff I think doesn't work for newbies. I know I wasn't ready in the beginning. I had to experience a thousand+ non-lucid dreams where I really really felt like I was experiencing waking life to internalize the point that really, truly, at *any* point where I think I'm awake, it in fact could be a dream. After that, the motivation for vigilance is easy because you *know* it's true.

It seems to be paying off. My last two lucids were miles ahead of most of my others. Not necessarily the most aware of lucids, but they were just such mind-blowing awesome experiences, so bright and vivid and detailed.

On my reading list: Mindfulness In Plain English, and The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep.

This thread has a really eye-opening discussion on it as well as valuable links:

http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...roach-ada.html

^^Excellent! This all sounds like great stuff for you to be doing and it is so great that you are getting the bright, vivid and detailed lucids!! I really feel like you have turned a corner! Keep up the good work and mindset and try to avoid becoming over-confident to the point that you stop doing what is working and go on coasting mode...that has backfired a number of times for me.

Got the 1st great lucid sequence of last week typed up. It's like the lucidity went on forever...

00:00 Monday 2014-06-23 Epic LD sequence: teleport, fly out of void, false memory house - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

ah crap dreamviews ate my post, I forgot to save the text before clicking "post"

summary: saw your recent great successes over on StephL's workbook, what's your day and night practice like?

I had some sleep deprivation REM rebound running until late this morning (lots of dream periods), tons of scenes, but didn't convert any to lucids.

Met some new young friends over the weekend and introduced them to the wonderful world of lucid dreaming, starting with dream recall. I entertained them with tales from my dream journal of this last year (the family-friendly ones). I wish I had someone tell me about lucid dreaming a few decades ago! I envy them their dream lives to come.

Nice going FryingMan!

Fairly epic early morning long dream, non-lucid, wild/bizarre/wacky/random, but on a couple coherent themes:

00:00 Wednesday 2014-07-09 long bizarre early morning dream: "AED": fAtalistic Eternal Determinants - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

followed by insomnia (melatonin in the amounts of 3mg has that effect: the early night sleep is deep, I generally feel rested when I wake up even after just 4 hours or so), got up, watched some Friday Night Lights episodes, then returned to sleep.

I woke up from the REMee lights I think (they went off shortly after waking while working on cementing the long dream's recall) but didn't recognize them in a dream.

Sounds like you are having some very nice dreaming the last couple of nights and you and I are in agreement on the value of those!

summary: saw your recent great successes over on StephL's workbook, what's your day and night practice like?

I double checked her workbook to confirm if you were talking about me...sounds like it...if so: not doing enough really and it was quantity over quality so not "great" success but I guess the better quality lucids in the past have me a little spoiled...either way, I shouldn't "look a gift horse in the mouth." To answer your question, I have been doing longer WBTBs but I am convinced I need to shorten them closer to what I had been doing up until recently. The day practice I mentioned in her workbook was basically imagining my RC showing I'm dreaming and then practicing taking a moment to ground myself in the dream, soaking in my surroundings, before taking off flying or sexing right away.

I am realizing I didn't respond to your epic LD post here in the workbook on July 1st, but I did respond back then in your actual DJ entry.

I've been wondereing where the imagery for the lightbulb on top of the long pole against a blue sky came from in my last LD. Then I looked out the window at my desk and noticed...the tall streetlight lamp post with a light on top, against a blue sky....whoa....

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I've been wondereing where the imagery for the lightbulb on top of the long pole against a blue sky came from in my last LD. Then I looked out the window at my desk and noticed...the tall streetlight lamp post with a light on top, against a blue sky....whoa....

Very cool!

Well finally got lucid again. Tremendously vivid dream environment at the beginning. Rather poor LD unfortunately, rather short, about a minute I suppose, I was hurriedly walking through the scene (where was I going?), and felt somehow the need to erase all the DCs from the scene and did so by waving my hand across the view (abracadabra!), haha, at least that worked.

Egads time to work on rehearsing getting lucid ritual again.

Dreams sort of randomish but interesting, I felt like me there, thinking & acting, not just responding/observing.

LD #44, OK guess I've started counting again. I don't think that's going to hurt me, I have a patient non-stressed attitude about dreaming now. Lucidity will come when it does. For now I'm just enjoying my dream recall, work doing frequent but non-stressed day work (mindfulness / vigilance mostly -- at any time I could be dreaming). Frequent repetition of "Dream alert!" Read the self-hypnosis for sleep a few nights ago: I read the intro, read the lucid dreaming text, then read the dream recall text, then repeated the lucid dreaming text, then the "wake up."

I also visualized a few times yesterday "tearing aside the fog" of non-lucidity, to become lucid in a dream. I physically raised my hands and "ripped" apart the non-lucidity.

Will be starting the Zipplord47 self-hypnosis for LDing script soon, maybe tonight.

Some nice dreams where I'm "me", thinking and making decisions, not just observing. That's a sign that lucidity is close, and guess what, yep it was! Fairly late morning LD, probably around 7.5 hours.

00:00 Thursday 2014-07-17 LD #44, elevator mansion, bricks, tank, plane, CG musician/hooker - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Congrats!! I also liked this idea:

I also visualized a few times yesterday "tearing aside the fog" of non-lucidity, to become lucid in a dream. I physically raised my hands and "ripped" apart the non-lucidity.

Edit:just noticed this was my 1,000th post...you must feel so honored...haha.

LDs #45, #46. Second ever double-LD night to put a better end to an otherwise mighty dry July.

Vivid clear dreams, first one took some convincing to realize I was dreaming, it was SO CLEAR and I felt *so there*. SC was nice to me last night giving me some really strong hints: hint #1: wife's eyes changing color right in front of me, several times (missed this!), hint #2: poster with "dream" or "dreamer" written on it (caught it!). Super quality, lost some lucidity due to realism and stability, got it back later.

2nd LD a successful exercise in willpower and stabilisation, held on for a good minute or more turning a waking moment into a full-blown LD.

DJ entry: 00:00 Friday 2014-07-25, LDs #45, #46, Gifts from the Subconscious - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Nice way to gear up for the competition, and now I'm feeling fairly confident that I may break 50 LDs before my 1 year anniversary!

Congrats on the double LDs FryingMan!!! The 2nd one sounded like it could have either been a WILD or an almost WILD! Either way, great job pulling through with the hand rub!!

Edit: 2 possible reasons for the changing eye color...Do you look into Scarlett's blinking eyes much in my sig? Were you wearing the Remee perhaps?

Originally Posted by fogelbise

Congrats on the double LDs FryingMan!!! The 2nd one sounded like it could have either been a WILD or an almost WILD! Either way, great job pulling through with the hand rub!!

Edit: 2 possible reasons for the changing eye color...Do you look into Scarlett's blinking eyes much in my sig? Were you wearing the Remee perhaps?

Thanks! Second one was very late in the morning, and I don't remember any consciousness before it started, it could perhaps have been a start of dream DILD with immediate lucidity, yes it did sort of feel that way a bit. Usually dreams that late are so unaware that I can barely recall them, so again a sort of practical victory managing to enter the dream lucidly and hold it for a while.

You know I thought later about your Scarlett image, maybe! Although my wife's eyes iris color entirely changed, not just the pupil, it was pretty cool actually I was astonished in the dream. Yes I was wearing remee, that is a possibility...

Ugh, terrible competition for me, worst so far in fact. Maybe I'll try stuffing myself with melatonin at bedtime and set an alarm for 3.5-4 hours and chug some galantamine tonight and see if I can pull out a drugged LD point-fest. So far no supplements at all during the competition other than the occasional 1-2mg melatonin at bedtime. Tonight's the last night I can reasonably go for supplements (being able to sleep in), so we'll see. My recall peak (including my two last LDs) definitely hit right before the start of the competition, too early, darn, and it's been generally in decline throughout the competition.

Got up this morning at 5.5 hrs for a quick bathroom, sat up in bed for about 1 minute, then BTB but 2 hours later got out of bed, unable to sleep. Drat. Had breakfast, read, and back to bed 4.5 hours after the waking, slow to sleep but eventually did sleep and had recalled a couple fragments and a couple dreams, including a nice (but strange) short kiss dream.

It's not quite time for my 1-year anniversary wrap-up, but this is the way I'm leaning at this point:

Since intense daytime practice doesn't seem to be doing it for me (getting me beyond a small handful of LDs/month at best), I'm going to back it off a bit. Concentrate more on brain-building activities like music and language study. I'll keep some day activities (SAT, mindfulness, gravity focus when walking), but won't have it be the focus of my entire day like it's been for a while now. I've been spending way too much time on DV, which is taking time away from other activities, so I plan to reduce my presence mostly to just DJing.

Also now finally getting down to reading the Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep (currently trying to get through all the introductory karma, prana, chakra, etc. stuff to make it to the practice portion, but I figure understanding the background is required to understand the practice).

Next on the list after that (maybe will start it simultaneously) will be Mindfulness in Plain English. Both are available as free pdfs. 3 days in a row now I've done 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation during the afternoon, I intend to make it a daily practice and work up to 30 minutes, adding 5 minutes per week or so. My focus on learning to fall back asleep, and all the WILD attempts and SSILD and relaxation have resulted in a pretty strong ability to concentrate and ignore the wandering mind, so the mindfulness meditation is not too hard or strange for me so far.

then BTB but 2 hours later got out of bed, unable to sleep.

I hate this!

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Also now finally getting down to reading the Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep (currently trying to get through all the introductory karma, prana, chakra, etc. stuff to make it to the practice portion, but I figure understanding the background is required to understand the practice).

Hey, Fryingman--you're reading one of my favorite books! I actually skipped the introductory chapters and went straight to the practice, and later on circled back. If you are new to Buddhism and the nature of dukkha, then the beginning is a good introduction but a little dense. The practices can be understood easily enough and are available to everyone (as Wangyal mentions). The thing about Buddhism is that you can read the same stuff twice, by two different authors (or the same author) and find some new bit that you missed before that now applies to your waking (and dream) life.

Also check out this, which is a summary of the daytime practice of dream yoga by B. Allan Wallace: The Daytime Practices of Dream Yoga | Reality Sandwich

I would also check out Wallace's 13 episode podcast on lucid dreaming, dream yoga, and meditation available through Dharma Podcasts: https://www.upaya.org/2010/03/lucid-...-part-1-of-13/

One last thing: Wangyal mentions his method of meditation as eyes open and never blinking. I could never get this down as it made my eyes burn horrendously and trickle water everywhere. I like Bhante G's method in Mindfulness in Plain English much better--focusing on breath. I am guessing that lucid dreamers should spend some time meditating in open presence--simply being aware of all physical and non-physical phenomena as they manifest--but I find this much harder than focusing on one anchor, like the breath. Good luck.

I will miss seeing you around here as much FryingMan! Do keep in contact! I wish you well on your new path and you know myself and others are here to help as needed!

ThreeCat, thanks for the references, they sound great, I'll check them out...
I recommend trying out sivason's dream yoga "diffuse vision" exercise, I've turned it into basically eyes-open meditation. I do blink from time to time but I find it creates a wonderful mindful peaceful trance-like state that can be held for long periods of time. I'll probably continue doing that and the eyes-closed breath-focused mindfulness meditation as well.

Edit: btw I made it through to the start of the dream yoga practice section, going to start reading that today! I found the intro mostly approachable, most terms are well explained except for a few like dualism

fogelbise, I'm not planning on vanishing, just focusing and hopefully wiping out some mental barriers and eliminating some viral negative expectation, working to maintain a totally positive attitude.

Anyway, still a week-ish away from my grand 1-year anniversary wrap-up.

Sounds good! By the way, thank you for introducing me to sivason's diffuse vision exercise. I probably should look into the full details of it but I got a lot from what you shared. I especially like it when I am standing outside looking down the street and I am amazed by all of the things I notice that I otherwise miss when looking at one thing at a time...looking at everything while looking at nothing! Very cool!

Well wouldn't you know it, lucid right after the competition. I don't think it's the after-the-competition effect, my dreaming has been on a natural uptick in the last few days. Just my luck that my dreaming lull exactly coincided with the competition. I was observing some scene (on the computer) and realized I could enter it lucidly, and I did! Just stood there, I heard a truck and decided it must be real sound so I did the sivason's trick and imagined it was a truck driving by on the street outside and I saw it drive by a second later, cool.

I'm discovering a pattern: if I wake around 6-7th hour, and drowsiness is low, back to sleep is a real battle, but if I persevere, the following dream cycle is phenomenal, like yesterday and today, today with some lucidity. Dreaming is hard work!

Awesome awesome awesome!!! I am so happy that you broke that lull!!! I do feel that you are on to something with that pattern that you discovered! Great job FryingMan!!!