Thread: FryingMan's DILD course workbook

Really, really cool FryingMan!! The mushroom bloodhounds are really memorable and the combination with their leader, the beautiful, misunderstood - some say evil - queen(this is the picture your dream was painting in my head) sounded like a great character for some fantasy story...loved it. Seriously. Is this a story or character that you have heard/seen or based on anything?

All the firsts! Very nice! With all that recall, it is hard to imagine that you didn't sleep more than you thought you did. And so impressive all of the dream control that you had in your cool lucid!

I came up with a new plan to try to get more lucids during the weekdays...I will test it out first (unless you want the info earlier I did bury it at the end of my 11/17 dj entry).

Very nice dj entry and progress all around!!

thanks! No not based on anything that I know of, just a product of my usual random wild & wacky dreams. I have many in my DJ from the past months that I have not posted on to DV, so while it was definitely up there amongst the funniest/weirdest, it's not unique.

And no she was not evil at least I had no sense of it in the dream. The mushroom bloodhounds ended up more comical than scary, although I was certainly in flight mode running for my house.

The thing is that while it can take a while to transcribe into words, the duration of the dream(s) was not all that long, maybe a minute or two at most, so that left a lot of time for lying awake. Yes I obviously did sleep but it really seems I was awake for at least 4-5 hours, it felt like an eternity.

Last night I pretty much passed out right away and slept straight for 6 hours. A bit of recall in the morning but definitely a "light" dream night. There was lots of detail I forgot, I sense. Did some MILD reps at the 6-hour mark and tried to fall asleep but the family woke up around me and even though it wasn't my day to get up and I got the bed to myself I couldn't fall back asleep. But close, very close, in fact lots and lots of imagery. I just need to let go that last little bit and not get stimulated by the approaching imagery.

I just now tried for a late morning nap since I was still feeling a bit tired and almost made it in to sleep right away. I felt a little "falling" but caught myself. I also felt some mild rocking hallucinations. I did sleep for just a short bit later on but no dreams.

It's not all that hard for me to get into that "relaxed" state pretty quickly, that first phase, but falling totally asleep is the current challenge.

p.s. recently (today's late morning nap attempt?) I saw something through my eyelids and sleep mask briefly. It wasn't HI, I was "seeing" using my "eyes". Very brief, but interesting. Also a number of rocking sensations. Also some HI congealed pretty convincingly into something like a laser printer that started to become clear, then faded back to a vague blob.

Oh, I was just letting my mind go off further with her character thinking that, though a beautiful woman, with all of those mushroom bloodhounds, she would often be misunderstood as evil by some...

their leader, the beautiful, misunderstood - some say evil - queen(this is the picture your dream was painting in my head)

On nights where you need to make sure you get sufficient sleep I would recommend just doing the things that you know (reasonably well) that you can do and get back to sleep fairly easily (if you try anything at all). I am experimenting with a very short wbtb about 1.5 to 2 hours before I need to get up (during an 8 hour sleep schedule) with the benefit that I get a solid 6 to 6.5 hours of sleep initially and still have a chance to DILD and get more sleep which is the way it worked last night. That view through your eyelids and sleep mask seems promising! In your signature, I would put "Lucid FAs" (or "L-FAs" perhaps) to fully claim that success!

I am not sure what happened and why the thread got closed. I'm wondering if I checked a box accidentally when I posted my last post. anyway this should fix it!

Last sleep cycle breakthrough, thanks to my new best friend Mr. (Ms.?) Melatonin

Wow, I tried a 3mg tab of melatonin about 40 minutes before bed last night and the difference was impressive. I woke about 4 times with dream recall just fine (no REM suppression?) Going to sleep was not very fast about normal maybe I took it too close to bed. But to-bed is not the issue, it's the back-to-bed recently that's been the problem especially after 5-6 hours.

Woke at: 3, 6, 6:45, and 9 hours with recall not my most detailed, but about average. Recall fluctuates a bit night to night normally anyway. Certainly better than the previous two nights with just one dream recalled. Could have slept more probably but had to get going.

Most important was getting back to sleep after the 6:45, I was fairly awake still in bed and doing some dream incubation visualization/day-dreaming and decided that the entire point of the melatonin was right now getting back to sleep for that last late morning sleep cycle , so at about 7:30 hours I used my new "relaxation" tech and it worked! I got back to sleep. Once I finally resolved to go back to sleep and let go of the fun daydreaming it didn't take all that long.

I had a dream then that by all rights should have been lucid: I saw my deceased dog, played with him and knew he was deceased and cried because I knew I wouldn't see him again (because it was a dream? perhaps), probably the deep emotional feelings were too overwhelming. Saw my family as it was 14 years ago with kids running around at that super cute age 3-4 doing funny things and saying funny things, all sorts of things in the environment wrong (why is the glass-top dining room table [which turned out to be part of a weird 2-piece piano] ruined? Why is there a hole blasted in the fence in the garden? Oh yeah because of the strong wind [which occurred in real life a few days ago] Yes it's completely normal that my deceased dog purrs like a cat when petted, I "remembered" that he could do this).

Anyway that's just what I was looking for: getting that last late morning sleep cycle back. Interesting that the 3 hour waking was normal: pretty detailed recall in fact. Doesn't seem like I had much REM supression from the melatonin. Maybe that means the 3mg is a perfect dosage for me dream-wise?

Do anybody know the chemistry of taking additional melatonin? Does it basically increase the "bank" of melatonin floating around that then gets "burned off" normally throughout the night, so that you have a surplus all through the night?

I don't plan to take it regularly (yet) but it seems it may be effective in breaking through "can't get that last sleep cycle" dry spells.

That is great that your fixes are working! CanisLucidus seems to know a good deal about supplements and physiology, so you might ask him that question, or maybe he will see my or your post here.

Saw my family as it was 14 years ago with kids running around at that super cute age 3-4 doing funny things and saying funny things

I love these kinds of dreams! I got teary eyed in a lucid with my son looking like he did when he was about 1 year old and then just recently seeing my wife as a 2 year old in an ND...just heartwarming stuff to me.

DJ for melatonin night: melatonin experiment, went pretty well - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Last night was unfortunately back to more of the usual sleep issues. Couldn't go back to sleep after 5 hours waking, rolled around in bed a long time until wife left to do errands, stubbornly stayed in bed until I fell asleep again finally and dreamed, hours later. Took a drink of herbal sleep stuff, it has Mother's Wort and rose hips. It seemed to help get back to sleep, I dreamed but somehow my recall of it was weak, maybe the tea was too sedating, I just came away with a few fragments.

I did I think though get 95% of the way into observing the transition at one point! I was falling asleep, not trying to WILD, and all of a sudden I noticed a quick kind of jumbled progression of images that seemed to solidify, but I became excited/aware and woke up.

I read in a thread here on DV that one technique to solidify the transition is to try to grab the imagery with your dream hands. I may try that a few times.

Had some PMs with Hukif. He recommended because of my back to sleep issues to avoid WILD, WBTB, and just do DILD with ADA, ADA/RC (like he does, he also can't get back to sleep if he's up for more than a few minutes), and DEILD.

I think WILD attempts somehow really messed up my going back to sleep ability -- even though I'm not trying to, I end up getting jolted when the transition approaches or occurs or lots of HI happens. Even though I like trying to WILD and I think I'm getting closer each time, for now I will focus only on DILD/MILD and DEILD.

I may try minimizing journaling as well to just keywords. The thing is I really like all the detail I can remember right after waking up. I'll try it both ways (full journal and keyword journal) and see how it goes, maybe giving the keyword journal a few weeks.

Again I'm a day behind on journaling. Need to give this priority again so SC knows it's important.

Yikes. Was that trouble despite having repeated the dose that seemed to help the night before?

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I think WILD attempts somehow really messed up my going back to sleep ability -- even though I'm not trying to, I end up getting jolted when the transition approaches or occurs or lots of HI happens. Even though I like trying to WILD and I think I'm getting closer each time, for now I will focus only on DILD/MILD and DEILD.

Sounds like a good plan, especially if it is being seconded by Hukif! He's such a cool, helpful guy with a lot of LD experience!

Woohoo LD #8. Some more firsts:

+ 1st couch morning nap LD
+ 1st DILD aware from the beginning

I'm calling it a DILD even though it was WILD-like in some ways: slow falling asleep, a mantra but but only sporadic: "The next thing I see is a dream". But I'm not "doing WILD" (maybe a 'psych out WILD'?) now, and I don't recall the transition, so DILD it is.

I appeared on the deck of my parents house (primary DS), it's twilight, beautiful view out over the water and the city, I immediately think "I'm dreaming" and get the lucid rush. "All RIGHT. Lucid from the start...awareness feels strong!" (anticipating doing lots of stuff) but then vision faded to black . I tried prying open my dream eyes with my dream hands and even had a notion of eyes opening but still black. Tried imagining flying out over the view but I woke up.

About 10 seconds... I probably was only very lightly asleep. Not very satisfying but hey lucid is good, right?

While falling asleep I also tried grabbing HI a few times with dream hands but nothing was solid.

Also while falling asleep tried incubating a scene by injecting quick flashes of what I wanted, not trying to hold the visualisation, just "seeding" it and letting go. Several times I noticed new things appearing, usually a DC I hadn't placed initially off to the side entering the scene.

November goals: 3 LDs / 8 Gotta really ramp it up, only a week left.

p.s. and no, I didn't take melatonin 2 nights ago (last post) or last night, instead tried a sleep tea last night with Mother's Wort and rose hips. Recall very fragmented and short, and again the 5 hour waking thing and not going back to sleep. I read some more on melatonin and some people suggest caution and say things like retina damage can occur, it can eliminate your natural melatonin production making you dependent, etc., so I think I'll keep it in reserve.

I'm going to start up effort on an ADA/RC: location. My dream location is almost never somewhere real other than my childhood home or the home where my children were small. Also my dream location is always in motion, with funny perspectives. Maybe blend in some emotion sense as well, see how it goes.

#8!! Great stuff FryingMan, keep knocking those DILDs back and the experience will help you in whatever your pursue in the future!

Also while falling asleep tried incubating a scene by injecting quick flashes of what I wanted, not trying to hold the visualisation, just "seeding" it and letting go. Several times I noticed new things appearing, usually a DC I hadn't placed initially off to the side entering the scene.

Interesting, I was trying the something similar with my nap attempts. Was this during the nap?

On the melatonin, I just wanted to emphasize that I know nothing about melatonin, I was just curious if you had tried it again...sounds like if you can go without it that would be best.

I'm going to start up effort on an ADA/RC: location. My dream location is almost never somewhere real other than my childhood home or the home where my children were small. Also my dream location is always in motion, with funny perspectives. Maybe blend in some emotion sense as well, see how it goes.

Do you have a game plan for this or is anyone advising you? My dream sign manta experiments incubated the dream signs into my dreams and I did DILD in a few of them, but it is all at an experimental stage for me. CONGRATS once again!!

Originally Posted by fogelbise

#8!! Great stuff FryingMan, keep knocking those DILDs back and the experience will help you in whatever your pursue in the future!

Thanks!

Interesting, I was trying the something similar with my nap attempts. Was this during the nap?

Yes it was.

Do you have a game plan for this or is anyone advising you? My dream sign manta experiments incubated the dream signs into my dreams and I did DILD in a few of them, but it is all at an experimental stage for me. CONGRATS once again!!

Well the inspiration came from my PMs with Hukif. Basically the idea as he says is that ADA/RC is a "targeted" version of ADA based on your own experience in dreams, what you notice about yourself. ADA is good too but it takes more effort, and doesn't emphasize your personal dream experience. In my case #1 is location: I'm never in contemporary waking life locations in my dreams, and some locations repeat very heavily (parents' house). A close #2 is emotion, usually way stronger in dreams, so I'm keeping half an eye open paying attention to my emotional state during the day (usually pretty calm).

I also specifically recently started frequent visualisation (kind of like daytime MILD reps) of my parent's house, "If I'm in my parent's house, I'm dreaming," "If I'm outside my parent's house, I'm dreaming", "If I'm in the neighborhood of my parent's house, I'm dreaming" and so on with lots of visuals from recent dreams. It's very easy for me to accurately visualize my paren't house since I lived there so long during my formative years (about 17 years). It must be working because my last two LDs were in my parents house! If I can maintain that then I'm golden!

On a different note, I've said it before but I think it's especially fascinating that I find myself now remembering decades old dreams that I haven't thought about in, well, decades! They're all up there, I think, just awaiting the proper association to trigger the memory.

It must be working because my last two LDs were in my parents house! If I can maintain that then I'm golden!

Awesome FryingMan! It surely can't hurt to keep working along that line, refining as you go to meet your goals. And you know you've got some potentially powerful ideas when they come from Hukif. When I do daytime visualization I like to also visualize stabilizing and reminding myself about my goals which sometimes reminds me of the goals as soon as I become lucid.

On a different note, I've said it before but I think it's especially fascinating that I find myself now remembering decades old dreams that I haven't thought about in, well, decades! They're all up there, I think, just awaiting the proper association to trigger the memory.

Isn't that great? The things we remember that probably would not have come back up were it not for this focus. Similarly what we were talking about before, seeing our kids or others when they were younger is just incredible, it feels like time travel to me!

The firsts keep rolling in . Another short LD with vision issues. Also I believe lucid seconds after the start. And vision also faded (to vague lightness, not black this time.) I'm new to this "lucid from the start" thing so I suppose I'll have to learn to let things settle, (look at the ground? Rub hands? Spin around?)

I was in my childhood neighborhood playground (3 LDs in the old neighborhood in one week, each one lucid, that intention stuff WORKS!)

It was also dark-ish (twilight) like the night before, so this time I called out "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" with my arms raised up in the air . Instead of a bright daytime scene I got a half-lit void thing with kind of a static-y nothing to see. I then called for a DC "NN", a Girl Friday of mine , to pull me out of the void by the hands, didn't happen. Dream then faded to awake.

Firsts!

+ first LDs two days in a row
+ first time 3 LDs in one week
+ first LD in close contact with wife (this may be huge, I've always so far avoided contact while trying to LD to avoid distraction...this may resolve a subconscious tension I've been carrying about wishing there were less distractions around. Instead I thought of feelings of love, warmth, and comfort, and I got to sleep and LD'd!).

I also used my new favorite mantra a bit, "the next thing I see is a dream"

November progress: 4 LDs out of goal of 8, I just may make it! Still feeling tired, time for a nap, hopefully I'll get some more!

edit: did ADA/RC (location) yesterday all day. Kept it up a good amount of the time. Noticed when I'd let it slip on multiple occasions and reinstated it. It's actually challenging to keep up when not moving around! When moving and transitioning between different places it's easier to keep active.

edit 2: I'm calling this a WILD -- Wife Induced Lucid Dream

Woohoo! That's so exciting. Congratulations!

Awesome awesome FryingMan!! I recommend to make sure you are keeping notes in your dj of exactly what your are doing day and night...sometimes it is easy to forget some of the little things at some point.

I hope you are having #10 right now but even if you aren't your goal is still possible! Excellent perseverance through the tougher nights!

Thanks! Yeah I'm doing not very much at night now, focusing on sleep. Recall is down a bit. Last night no recall, first time in 3 months when not sick, weird night, long time getting to sleep, no earplugs because my ears are getting "itchy" from wearing them so much at night and while swimming so I'm going to take a break from them at night. I woke with dream memory I just didn't feel like journaling, nothing really epic though. Small bit of alcohol at night, after about 1-1.5 hours of no sleep (since I had to get up in the morning) I took 3 200mg tabs of Valerian, they eventually kicked in and I got to sleep.

The big thing is during the day doing the ADA/RC (location), and continuing to do visualization of childhood neighborhood and telling my self "I'm dreaming". ADA/RC is definitely a challenge but I'm going to really try to keep it up since I think it may be the real deal for maximum lucids.

Didn't get lucid in the nap yesterday but I had several weird-ish dreams. Probably shouldn't have slept in since I couldn't fall asleep last night right away.

Kind of tired now so hope that will mean good sleep tonight!

ADA/RC is definitely a challenge but I'm going to really try to keep it up since I think it may be the real deal for maximum lucids.

Do you mean the time it takes or some other aspect?

On the notes recommendation I just meant to try to remember what you are doing day and night but all of the note taking and focus can happen during the day as long as you are still facing sleep challenges.

It's a challenge to keep a pearl of awareness constantly focused on noticing and evaluating the RC (in my case, location). I frequently notice that I have dropped the ADA "feeling" and re-established it, along with a physical RC whenever this happened, all through the day. Because in dreams location changes a lot (for me), so I'm also focusing in particular on staying highly aware through transitions (going through doors, whenever anything changes like what street I'm walking down, crossing the street, etc.). I assume the more I do it the more second nature it will become.

Like just now, several times upon waking this morning I "automatically" restored the ADA/RC location sense, which I think is a good sign .

On other news, nice sleep & dream night last night! All NDs, a variety of fairly short scenes, but the best thing is: wakings at 3:50, 6:19, 8, 9:43.

Note all the successful return to sleeps after 5 hours, 3 of them! I think my mental adjustment to not become frustrated at distractions really helped.

It took me a while to return to sleep at the 6:19 I think (or the 3:50 don't recall which), but I kept at it, kept focusing on relaxing. Eventually I got into a groove where I was quite sleepy at the 8 and 9:43, and I could have kept on sleeping but need to start my day.

Woohoo, that's the kind of sleep/dream night I want, wakings-schedule-wise. Also, *tons* of HI, just a huge bunch of it. I tried grabbing it once in a while but it still didn't work . Also felt some rocking sensations around 8h I think but I will not allow myself to "impromptu WILD", I'm focused on DILD now. I did quick mantras before falling asleep again, "the next thing I see is a dream," and "I'm dreaming," but not working hard on visualizations and not doing it for very long.

Actually quite a successful to-sleep night as I battled waking life thoughts, there are very traumatic things going on in my extended family (cousins), and I probably will be making a slightly-risky change of job soon, but I was able to let these thoughts drain out of me and focus just on relaxation and breathing "dream gas" which will "put me to sleep in seconds."

Confidence in getting back to sleep will lead to less stress and break the vicious insomnia cycle.

It's interesting: the longer I sleep, the sleeper I become upon wakings it seems, making it easier to just keep going right BTB.

I am sorry to hear about your extended family! Your success is even more amazing with those different things going on. You have a great game plan coupled with quick adjustments as needed putting you are on the fast track. Congrats on a good night! Did you see this thread about a similar constant ADA/RC that focuses on breathing and blinking?... http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...ml#post2062916

It made me think whether or not I would really want to always be lucid or semi-lucid while dreaming. That specific post in the link put it as the "main downside" to being always lucid...not long ago I thought such thoughts were a joke but I can better imagine sentiment now. Maybe a good question for Hukif to see if he sees it as a downside. Let me know what he says if you decide to ask or if you want me to ask.

Last night just OK, I thought it was going to be another gangusters night like 2 nights ago with lots of wakings and dreams but it ended up just a mediocre night, not terrible but not great. Handful of short dream scenes. Had to get up before I was ready to at 7 hours, had another cycle in me I think that I had to miss. Tried a nap 2 hours later and got deeply relaxed and may have hit some NREM but no recall.

I drank some St. John's Wort tea before bed, dutchraptor (and other places on the net) says it gives vivid, kind of bizarre dreams. Didn't notice it did anything other than perhaps made dream recall suffer slightly. So another "magical" supplement bites the dust. Either that or my supply is not potent any more, or I didn't take enough (two teaspoons of mixed "bits").

Edit: those guys have been LDing for *decades*. Yeah, maybe after 6,000+ LDs all night long it gets old after ten years. I will very gladly take that heavy burden upon myself immediately and let you know how it is in 20 years .

In the worst case there's 5-HTP and melatonin and other REM-suppressors to make sure one gets at least some dream-free time during the night.

You have a great game plan coupled with quick adjustments as needed putting you are on the fast track

I sure hope so! In addition to determination and persistence, honestly self-evaluating and figuring out how to fix something that's broken (several bad sleep streaks in my case, on a few occasions) is of key importance in LD training. And nobody can do it for you since it's all in your head! Of course nowadays there are lots of resources like this great place that can help a lot. "Things not working out? Quitcherbitchin' and find a way to get past it!" That's what I keep telling myself.

ADA/RC (location) in its 4th day now I think. Still need to constantly re-establish it, but the good news is I don't go very long without noticing I've let it drop.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

"Things not working out? Quitcherbitchin' and find a way to get past it!" That's what I keep telling myself.

Love it. You don't strike me as someone that needs to remind yourself of that too much but I think we could all use that advice from time to time!

Well thanks for the vote of confidence . I tend to swing back and forth between positives and negatives fairly easily though.

Kind of a mixed bag last night. About 2.5 hours wakefulness in the middle of the night thanks to stupid argument over snoring (mostly my fault. Remember, your wife is always right, magic key to happiness). But then I slept in and had some pretty good and really wacky dreams, unfortunately not up to my highest level of recall detail but definitely amusing / bizarre.

Probably the best part was being a jedi conquerer of a planet and realizing before addressing the entire planet on TV that I had no pants on . Either that or trying to take a picture of the evil shark-monster faced killer whale baby that was chasing me through a ship .

Day (5?) of ADA/RC: location and had a hard time keeping the location awareness always on. Will keep at this for a good while since I think it may lead to the holy grail (lucid all night). And if location doesn't work I'll try something else. In fact, I'm doing location + especially noting any and all transitions (doors, turning from one street to another, entering and leaving a cross-walk, etc.).

Still also do RCs and RRCs every 20 minutes (using a dreaming RC app for that ), as well as when anything surprising or unusual happens.

Need to continue vigorously incubating my primary dreamsign as it seems to also now be an auto-lucid (3 for 3 of the last times it came up).

Rehearsing what to do if the visuals go out again: rub hands, look at feet, spin, shake whole body, do a full body pat-down up and down: chest, legs, head, etc. , dive through the ground, etc. Do SOMETHING with the dream body other than just stand their going "duh....." until I wake up. And imagine the last place I was (or the place I want to be) the whole time.

couple recent djs from this week:

00:00 Monday 2013-11-25, nice recall! - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

00:00 Wednesday 2013-11-27 - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views