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Long dry spell. Waking life taking up all my mental efforts this year. Had a couple brief LDs in the last week after giving it a bit more attention, and also because I believe I tried a demo of a VR system a few days ago (really impressive, and totally amazing/dreamlike, probably great for LD incubation!). Recall remains pretty good but I'm not journaling much these days.
Nice! I think VR can definitely prompt LDs. I also feel like owning (or easy access to) a quality VR headset can take away some motivation to put in the work for lucid dreaming due to the ease of having an experience, though it is an experience without the infinite possibilities of lucid dreaming.
Did an RC (didn't get lucid unfortunately) in a dream two nights ago, so that's some progress on my practice reboot. Some good recall last night (pretty much an epic non-lucid, long 7-8 scene continuity) but only 6 hours of sleep. Gotta practice relaxation for sleep techniques and practice settling the mind meditation.
Several nights now of quite vivid dreaming and good recall. Increasing awareness of and beginning reflection of events and features of the dreamscape. No in-dream RCs after last week's. I now have a very regular sleep schedule (big issue for me in the past), so I'm hoping for some payoff in dreaming, if only I can get back to sleep more quickly at the middle-of-the-night wakings. After about 5hrs of sleep (as always) is a very challenging back-to-sleep.
It's too quiet around these parts! C'mon everybody, get dreaming!
2 LDs recently, one last night. Very short, probably more of a lucid moment, but I consider it a victory. I did a BTB after getting up for a bathroom break after about 6.5 hours of sleep. I had the bed to myself so I put in earplugs and pulled a folded t-shirt over my eyes to keep things dark and quiet. I made it back to sleep (I've been getting more disciplined in my back-to-sleeps recently, eventually reigning in the runaway train of random thought chains and focusing on relaxation until I sleep, and slept for about another 3 hours. Recall is always poor after about 8 hours of sleep, but I did get lucid, and had some dramatic, interesting dreams in that period.
It is quiet. I often have weeks between visiting here lately. It is great to hear about your lucidity and improvement in getting back to sleep!
Congrats on the lds!
I think we need a Winter lucid challenge to get the ball rolling!
Set some PM targets today:
+ every time my dog yawns: HIT every time (~4-5 so far)
+ leave front door to building: 1 miss
+ enter butcher shop: miss
Held one reflection/intention minute
I've set goals for this months TOTM tasks. Need to meditate on these more before bed.
Poor sleep last night, room too hot, popped 2mg melatonin still early enough to be useful, that allowed me to fall asleep eventually.
I've made the decision to return to full-scale full-on LD practice. I've been too long away, and I've wasted too much precious time on the path towards more skillfully navigating the night and consciousness/awareness/lucidity.
"Intention ON!"
One of my key targets is dealing with my dream-busting middle-of-the-night insomnia. Most nights I fall asleep quickly enough, but after about 4 hours, any waking may see me up for a while, and especially when I do any sort of night practices (MILD, spend too much time recalling dreams, WILD, etc.). My relaxation techniques help somewhat, but not reliably enough. I want to get to the point where I can fall asleep in just a couple of minutes at will.
Well obviously this year got screwed up big-time with the virus, which put my renewed LD practice on the back burner. Recall has been hanging in there, some days more than others, but I haven't been DJing and LDs are few and far between.
I upped my intent for LDs in recent days, and have been more stubborn about those 5-6 hour wakings, really sticking in there to get back to sleep instead of giving up and getting up for the day. Today, with some sort-of-MILD setting intent for an LD and BTS after such a 5-ish hour waking, I did fall back asleep and had a brief LD -- a "sexy time" dream where I took a moment to acknowledge that I was dreaming before getting on with the action.
Funny moment where when I cajoled the dream lady to say something sexy, she instead squawked out the response "EIGHT O'CLOCK!".
Congrats my friend! Just saw this. I imagined all kinds of explanations for "8 o'clock!" including maybe mishearing her saying something that sounds kind of similar.
A couple of lucids recently, not really actively practicing, but sporadically focusing on raised awareness sometimes throughout the day, generally recalling dreams in the morning but not often recording them, which affects recall quality.
The first one had me walking through a local museum with a lot of people mulling around, I was pinching my nose and was able to breathe through it but not really paying attention to it, I was a bit curious that despite how hard I squeezed my nose I could still get some air in and out of my nose, then it hit me, OH! and went on to have a short lucid. I remarked how very clear and "high definition" the surroundings were, how realistic the DCs looked. I even bumped into one with my shoulder as I walked by.
The second one was just the other day, I was walking on the street outside my childhood home with my fiance and some other guy, looked up into the sky and decided something wasn't right (two moons?), realized I was dreaming, and took my fiance's hand and took her to fly and dance with me in the sky :).
Not a lot of activity on workbooks recently! It would be great to see people continuing to work on their dream goals and dreaming in general.
I'm working on a return to dreaming, lucidity, and mindfulness practice, and this year, hope to really keep it up and make it part of everyday life, to enhance those mostly lost hours during sleep. I miss the uber-vivid dreams in particular, the epic, long weird, funny, beautiful experiences.
Two nights ago, I had my first LD in a quite a while! I'm excited that increased effort has shown some results in a short period of time. I know this is a journey, and I'm steeling myself for the effort required if I choose to really dedicate to it.
Hi, FryingMan!
I finally took a couple of days to read through your workbook (to be honest, I wasn't able to read everything, but a large part of it, and also some of your dreams). Because from other random posts on DV, I know you had to fight (and maybe still have to) middle of the night insomnia... I know that a bit too well, although some of my insomnia is fake insomnia. I can relate to many things from your experience (like the troubles with WILD, WBTB etc.).
It is very valuable to have the opportunity to read about someone's journey over so many years. So thank you for keeping at it and for updating :)
Thank you for the kind comment! I have a very uplifting status update for today -- since my return to practice, I've been eagerly anticipating dreams of the sort I call "epic non-lucids," and have bee somewhat disappointed at the relatively poor recall (compared to what I used to have) up to now, and last night I finally got my first epic! So I've proven that yes, I can in fact still dream like I used to.Quote:
Originally Posted by IndigoRose
Last night involved not just one but several back-to-sleeps that were all successful. I could have probably continued, but sleeping too long is also bad for recall (it disrupts your sleep schedule), and from experience I know that dreams decrease in quality and awareness the longer I sleep past about 8 hours. Getting back to sleep after a particularly interesting dream and spending time recalling it is sometimes challenging, but I made it and continue to dream several more times.
So for those with middle-of-the-night insomnia, there is hope! (What is fake insomnia, I'm wondering?)
What I've found that works most of the time:
+ Total relaxation of mind and body. Particularly the face: tongue, jaw, eyes, forehead. For me, learning how not to "look" actively at the back of my eyelids was key
+ Directing your attention out of your head: something like a 61-point relaxation technique where you move your awareness from point to point around your body, relaxing these points. Or if visualization is an option, some "quiet" visualization, like flying or hovering outside your body
+ Resolving not to engage thought chains that arise, just acknowledge them and let them dissolve
+ Remaining calm, tranquil, accepting, happy, to be in your very comfortable state of relaxation
+ Let go of all "trying" to do anything. Your body and mind already know how to fall asleep, you just need to get out of the way
Congrats on your epic dream, I haven't had a long epic dream for weeks, I dream in tons of seemingly unrelated fragments these days. But it will pass, I am sure. Focusing on recall and lucid dreaming has made my normal dreaming significantly better, that's what I absolutely love about it.
Also called sleep state misperception or paradoxical insomnia. It is a significant underestimating of how much sleep a person gets or how long it takes to fall asleep.Quote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
People with fake insomnia feel like they slept very little but a sleep study shows normal sleep patterns.
When awoken (usually from light sleep), they would swear they were awake.
More here but it is poorly understood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_state_misperception
I read somewhere that it could be caused by a slightly higher awareness of the sleeping environment and of the body.
On Wikipedia, they mention more alpha waves (and possibly also beta and gamma), which makes me think about possible lucidity/self-awareness in NREM sleep, maybe a low-level or short bursts producing the illusion of continuity of cosciousness?
My personal experience is feeling like I was awake for 2 hours or more in the early morning but then feeling reasonably well-rested at my normal waking time (and I am very sensitive to getting less sleep than I need). So my thinking used to be that just lying there, resting with closed eyes, somehow works too.
Only after I got into lucid dreaming training, I've realized that being conscious doesn't equal being awake. I also started to learn more about my body and my sleep.
I would have some middle-of-the-night insomnia, then I would wake up from a dream and think that I haven't been sleeping at all, but I would remember the dream, proving that I actually slept. And this could repeat three times in one hour.
I also get dreams about sleeping. I am usually in a different location (often childhood home or random hotel rooms) and I try to sleep. I want to sleep because I need that to have a LD. But I can't, so I give up and go to do something else. I guess that FAs like this could play a role in the illusion of not sleeping. Once, I even dreamt about being in bed and telling my husband, that I can't sleep.
Then, there is conscious (self-aware) NREM sleep. I guess this happens more than people know. Most people perceive non-consolidated sleep (N1) as being awake or as being half asleep, and that makes sense because it really isn't sleep, it's more like drifting in and out of consciousness + hypnagogia. Or when WILDing, that peaceful state when all hypnagogia ends but there is no dream, is it N2? I think I experience conscious sleep relatively often but how can I know for sure? I don't experience the void, I am always aware of my body and outside sounds. Sometimes, I am almost sure that I am sleeping because my thought patterns are dreamy (associative, without my input), much slower, and time passes much more quickly than when awake.
But no matter if it is sleep or not, I can't enter REM from it. I know what probably is the REM onset well - a sudden change of the state, my breathing gets slightly faster and the heart rate too and there can be vibrations or light shaking but not always. But it's like my mindset is wrong for going deeper, even though I really try not to care, it's like just noticing it makes it go away. Annoying.
When entering from hypnagogia, it can be easier because kinesthetic hallucinations, phantom movement or tactile hallucinations can help with getting in, but often, I am half in the dream (perceiving parts of the dream body and/or parts of the dreams scene) and half in reality (perceiving my real body) and I can almost never get in, the sense of my real body preventing the immersion into the dream. Or I can get there for a second or two and then it collapses.
Anyway, I think that the best option for me is not to worry if I sleep or not. Anxiety kills everything.
It is also best not to worry if I am asleep during WILDing or not. It also doesn't matter what sleep stage I am in.
I don't attempt WILD seriously these days at all but my brain sometimes gets into the WILDing mode (noticing every bit of noise and "waking me up" for the transition). I hate this :) Sometimes I give it an attempt or two and then give up... and then I make it when I am genuinely in the state of not caring or being completely passive.
Yes, this.Quote:
+ Let go of all "trying" to do anything. Your body and mind already know how to fall asleep, you just need to get out of the way
But sometimes, just thinking "I am going to dream soon and I am looking forward to it" ruins everything.
Sort of a "diary entry":
Finally starting to settle down into taking a serious approach, a "training" approach to dreaming. Training as opposed to just practice, to "just exercising." Training in the context of weight-lifting means performing specific planned exercises on a regular schedule to increase skill and to achieve goals: usually muscle/strength growth. Training uses the principle of "that which is measured, improves."
I've also been thinking a lot about knowledge vs. skill (knowing versus doing) in regards to life activities and specifically for dreaming practice. I recognize that I'm addicted to the addition of knowledge, and I shy away from increasing skill. I think because adding knowledge gives you the impression of having achieved mastery, without having to go through the pain of actually achieving mastery via increasing skill.
I've been wasting a lot of time online getting my dopamine hits from messaging, arguing on social media, etc. It's a massive loss of life and crucial time best spent pursuing goals. Time -- which is in such short supply. What have I achieved with these time wasting activities? Not progressing sufficiently in work as much as I could, avoiding needed household improvements, not taking care of required document tasks, avoiding strength training. Avoiding dream training.
My fiance has a dessert-tooth, especially for ice cream. Despite not really dessert-focused (My preferred food vices are salt/starch/fat, e.g., CHEESY GARLIC BREAD...., Chinese, Thai, Indian, pizza, burgers, you know, All-American stuff), I've been giving in to her dessert desires way more than I want to, just because it makes her happy. I need to start kindly declining.
We go hot and cold with alcohol. Sometimes months without so much as a drop of wine, sometimes really hitting the wine, champagne, and Scotch. Especially New Year. Alcohol's very bad for dreaming. Gotta preserve those remaining brain cells!
So, on to LD training! Make a decision, and execute on it. Do it. Set goals, devise practice regimes, keep records.
I really want to get back to where I was before with recall, nightly epic non-lucids, and lucid frequency. That took middle-of-the-night recording. I did voice recording in my initial practice, but I can't do that now, I may have to do fast written keyword summaries.
Update. Life threw another curveball (more like a big kick in the teeth) with a chronic, very serious immediate family illness, which has been a big nervous, mental, and physical drain, soon after the above post, and I gave up all attempts at LD training soon after, until the last week or so. I'm still coming to grips with how to reasonably live with the situation while it continues. I've decided to (again!) try to reboot my dreaming practice, and to maintain it despite all the crap that life and the world can throw at you to mess things up. It's worth it. So here's hoping I stick with it this time. I feel like I've had a slight uptick in recall vividness and presence in the week that I've been practicing. Decent recall, but I want more: overflow recall, like it feels like you've been dreaming all night with vivid, beautiful, fun, interesting dreams. Epics. And LDs, of course!
I'm supplementing my usual mindfulness approach with a particular LD training system called "Dreaming For Gamers" by a very experienced (life-long practitioner) lucid dreamer. He focuses on building skills like memory in order to build/rehabilitate neural pathways. Google search it, it's interesting, and a free course covering dream recall, dream perception, dream awareness, and so on. I've glanced though it and (while it could use some better editing in places) the ideas are sound, and worth a look.
Despite incredibly stressful world events and continuing immediate family very severe and troubling health situations, I managed my first DILD of this reboot last night :).
I had time to engage the environment, do a nose pinch to be sure, felt the upholstered hand-railing on the staircase I was on, went outside and interacted with some DCs.
Fun fact: today (March 6th 2022) is the one-month anniversary of this current LD practice reboot (started Feb 6th 2022). Back in 2013 during my very first LD practice period (which lasted about 3 years), I also got my very first LD at exactly the one month point!
I always return to this section of TYoDaS (Introduction to Part 3, Section 1). If I had to choose two pages from all of the LD literature to take with me to a desert island, it would be this introduction. Nothing else I've come across is as complete, and direct to the point what we're trying to achieve in LD practice. I even have the final words in my sig :).
My go-to reference on SAT and it's applicability to lucidity & dreaming, from The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep (summarized, emphasis mine):
I believe this is the ultimate summary of the practice available anywhere in the literature.Quote:
In order to progress we must develop some stability in the mind so that we can maintain greater awareness in experience, in "vision," and develop the capacity for skillful responsiveness. Therefore, the first practice is calm abiding (zhiné), in which the mind is trained to be still, focused, and alert.
As we bring greater awareness to experience, we can overcome the habits of reaction ... [we are] training the mind to use every object of waking experience as a cause for increased lucidity and presence.
You can determine for yourself how mature your practice is: as you encounter the phenomena of experience, examine your feelings and your reactions to the feelings. Are you controlled by your interactions with the objects of experience or do you control your reactions to them? Are you thrown into emotional reactions by your attractions and aversions, or can you remain in steady presence in diverse situations? ... if the latter, you will increasingly develop stability in awareness and your dreams will change in extraordinary ways.
Had LD #266 today! :banana: It may be a bit of a stretch, but I think I'm going to set the goal of reaching #300 by the end of the year. That would mean matching (or even exceeding) my average LD rate from my initial practice years. It may need some adjustment as life continues to play out, but it's something to work towards :).
Very hot weather this last week -- I'm finally getting outside and doing summery things: going to the lake, swimming, etc. Getting lots of sun. With the increased physical activity I'm sleeping more deeply and recalling dreams is a bit more challenging. But I'm also getting in a lot of practice of remaining in lucid, present awareness throughout the day, and having a lot of "getting lucid" moments where I realize I'd been zoned out or lost on wandering thought chains, and coming back to lucid presence.
Recall up and down. Had a pretty big recall night on June 22, 2022, finally got around to editing the speech-to-text of the voice recorder.
Last night, July 4, 2022, uptick on recall: glass of red wine a few hours before bed, and spent about an hour or two in the afternoon/evening editing and publishing speech-to-text DJ voice recordings.
A lot of dreaming recalled at the 4 hour mark, and then again at 7-hours. The experience of lots of detail remembered, but detailed memory fades pretty quickly with movement and time. Voice recorded the major recalled dreams. A positive evening, all things considered.
LDs #267 (2022-07-07) and #268 (2022-07-08) two nights ago and last night! :banana:
I've been doing ADLP -- All Day Lucid Presence, including state awareness, and a lot of memory/recall work, for about a week, or perhaps just a bit less. In short, sort of like my Unified Theory of Pay Attention, Reflect, Recall. In place of just "pay attention," it's "be fully present in the moment, with full lucid awareness compromising external, body, and internal/thought awareness". I strive to maintain awareness of state (waking / dreaming) constantly. I use body/hands awareness as triggers / anchors to remain in the present moment. Striving to, as my signature says, build stability in awareness.
I've been doing some day journaling to stoke the fires of recall, showing my unconscious / dreaming mind how I want to be able to recall dreams. It has already helped me move from "I forgot what I had for breakfast" where the days are one big blur, to a point where at least for some periods on some days, being able to recall details and sequences of experiences in high detail. LD #267 was followed by a non-lucid which was very vivid and had some internal introspection on whether or not I could fly :).
I also had a near-WILD, or perhaps a very short WILD. I was aware while falling asleep of some REM atonia "noise," (some repeating bursts of white noise sound), felt a sort of REM atonia tingle, and then found myself in a dream scene which rapidly grew to a full 3D sensory environment. I looked around, was really stoked that I'd made it into a dream lucidly, and then the dream faded right away in a few seconds....oof! Still, generally a good success.
I attempted the TOTS bonus last night, elevator task, I consider it a partial success, got in the elevator, but the dream faded before I could arrive anywhere.