Thread: FryingMan's DILD course workbook

I tried the alarm-DEILD last night and failed because I forgot that turning on "do not disturb mode" (to prevent spam SMS messages from waking me up) suppresses the notification sounds. Turned it on in the late morning but I was just too awake, almost fell back asleep, but didn't make it, and didn't try extremely hard since I had to get up for work. Will try it again tonight!

fogelbise, you did it! 101! Congrats! *jealous*!

Kind of weird night for me last night. Experimenting with always trying to DEILD at every waking which messes up recall (when I can sleep that is). Tried it with alarms last night, this time setting them up properly. May be too jarring for me, I woke up and couldn't sleep again. Got up for an hour or more, felt drowsy again, BTB, tried for classical WILD, loooooooooooooooong time relaxing, finally get to the noise, it's been a long while since I was there, try to ignore it stay calm, but no dream waiting for me or I wake up too much. I dreamt a bunch more that morning so my REM was not all used up, I just got too alert. I should have tried to "sink deeper" at the noise and may have made it at that point perhaps.

Lots of dreams and wakings in late morning. 4-5 at least, they're in my DV DJ. The first one was almost lucid, felt a lot like my DEILD, I just suddenly find myself staring at a wall of snow and I start thinking things about it. As it fades I realize I'm dreaming, or I realize I'm dreaming and it fades, I"m not sure. I may have in fact woken up and then realized I was dreaming as it still faded, I don't feel like counting it as a lucid. I tried to bring it back / DEILD but was too alert. I'm realizing that I dream a lot about snow and being at a ski resort! It's a minor DS of mine. The other dreams following it did not have that awareness.

For the alarm method, did you try it with vibrate only and in a pajama pocket or next to you in bed? It was less jarring for me that way but the unnatural interruptions definitely left me more tired the next day. I tried it for a week and had 2 lucids and then stopped using it but may try it again at some point.

Lucid #19 last night, woohoo 1 to go to 20. So my dreaming is returning to its more or less normal state, lots of recall if I set intention. Just in time for another 12-hour time adjustment jet lag in 5 days . Also the curse of the 5th hour waking. I found I had lots of interesting recall so I recorded but then I was wide awake, after trying to sleep for about an hour, I got up, and about 30 minutes later went back to sleep, that's when I got the lucid about 1 hour after that, waking from the lucid I was excited so couldn't get back to sleep for that last 1 hour. Kind of groggy in the morning, lots of wakings, and sort of a "food hangover" I ate a ton of exotic stuff yesterday and my stomach was churning all night long trying to process it all.

The lucid was finally more than a moment, probably about 30 seconds but very unstable, I had a "buzzy" feeling in my head the entire time. I could think somewhat and told myself I needed to stabilize. I should have done the body-awareness stuff like rubbing hands and patting myself down but I faded to awake in bed.

It was fated not to last long though given how I got lucid, female-interaction-initiated-lucid dream .

edit:

The month and the week is not over yet, but I'm pretty pleased that I've managed 3 LDs this month, 2 of them on the road and jet-lagged. Given my major life changes (new, demanding job, international travel), my dreaming has rebounded back nicely. Great recall last night, really fun dreams: Teaching people to fly again (recurring now to the point where it may be promoted to a dream sign), flying and battling other flying evildoers (tried shooting lightning at them from my fingers, I don't think it appeared). I hate hotel beds and artificial linens, I wake up absolutely roasting after a few hours. The stupid A/C in the room has no "always cool" setting, it shuts off once it reaches the minimum temperature, I can't sleep in a stuffy room. Give me my cotton flannel sheets, please, warm in the winter and cool in the summer. And those horribly fluffy hotel pillows that my head sinks completely inside and also starts roasting, ugh! I ended up using the decorative little bar cushion for a pillow because it's small and firm.

Congrats on #19!!! And overcoming all the challenges! Too bad you are travelling so soon.

Almost, ALMOST fell into a DEILD (or at least a DEID) this morning, right after waking up, felt REALLY tired, body constantly on edge of WILD noise, just couldn't sink into it. The image started to form almost right away after waking up for the DEILD, but I pulled myself out of it / couldn't sink into it. It was starting at about at 7hrs, perhaps my body was just done dreaming for the day. Kept at it for about 2 hours, lots of HI, but none that could solidify into dreams. No exercise to speak of for going on 3 weeks and eating like a pig, it's catching up with me I think, in that I'm needing less sleep or sleeping worse.

perhaps my body was just done dreaming for the day

I had wondered the same thing a few times recently feeling like I wasn't really sleeping or dreaming...like when you are tossing and turning. However, I would then remember a dream or two in these recent examples. This seems more common after I have gotten a good amount of sleep like what we talked about before: awareness increases but at some point starts to decrease again or go more foggy. In those examples I felt that I just lost track of time. Not sure if this could have been the case with you though.

It was odd. I felt tired/groggy, but couldn't sleep. Just kept creeping up to where WILD-noise would start, and hung out there. I wasn't trying to WILD mostly, just sleep. I need to forget about WILDing again because it just gets me too attuned to the sleep transition, I may have gotten that DEI(L)D if I had just let the HI solidify a bit. But again, maybe I was just done for the day. Sageous is whom I got that notion from. However, I have successfully "forced" my self back to sleep before under similar circumstances.....but as noted, sometimes the dream awareness is already ebbing past about 8 hours and those won't be lucids (unless you're in REM rebound or something).

WILDs can be tough. My attempt last night felt so close with vibrations but I must have dropped into a non-lucid FA (in my dream there was an odd pillow with growth on it), hopefully I didn't lose lucidity before that and forget!

What is up with baseball dreams? It seems to be a a medium-frequency dreamsign for me. I never played much baseball/softball, some certainly but not anything like basketball or racquetball, and I never see basketball dreams (RQB dreams though are about as frequent maybe a bit more as baseball).

I've seen in various dreams: little ground lamps in between the bases, a giant fat man running the bases with the face of a famous fat actor turn into a centaur, and now baseball in the snow. Various others too.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

What is up with baseball dreams? It seems to be a a medium-frequency dreamsign for me. I never played much baseball/softball, some certainly but not anything like basketball or racquetball, and I never see basketball dreams (RQB dreams though are about as frequent maybe a bit more as baseball).

I've seen in various dreams: little ground lamps in between the bases, a giant fat man running the bases with the face of a famous fat actor turn into a centaur, and now baseball in the snow. Various others too.

That's an interesting question. Did you play some as a young child...t-ball perhaps? It also reminds me of Sageous' "Other People's Dreams" thread. How soon are you jetting about again?

Did you play some as a young child...t-ball perhaps?

Really only very occasionally....that's why it's weird. Probably played approximately no more than 30-40 times in my life...

Well it's about time! Not lucid but recall of a long long dream one of the longest in fact with continuity between about 8 location/scene changes all taking place in/around a non-waking-reality friend's house. Haven't had one that continuous for a while. I woke up directly from the dream which explains that. Should have gotten lucid,though . It included glide/flying, and a very strange/unusual approach to a house, but other than that it was just hanging out chatting with DC "friends," (some WL friends too). Ah though the scene where I just could not enter my ipad passcode should have made me lucid, I tried about 8 times and every time the 2nd or 3rd letter I would miss and hit the wrong key.

Here's the entry for it:

http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/fryi...e-dream-55071/

Kinda tame other than the flying bit, but notable due to the the continuity and length. Several facepalm (why not lucid?) moments.

Congrats on the length! I still get those facepalm moments, but they can become less frequent (assuming your recall of them doesn't go up drastically..haha).

Sleep deprivation / jet lag is weird. I thought I was doing great yesterday but totally collapsed at 4:30pm and slept until about 9:30pm. I had some dreams too which I noted. Then absolutely couldn't sleep at bedtime of about 2am, actually I was heading to sleep but then wife came in to bed and woke me up. I was having pretty strong body hallucinations before that almost immediately upon getting into bed: waves. like on a raft on a lake with big waves going from head to feet. I thought I may make it into a dream even, and got close a second time later on but was disturbed by wife's movements/sounds again.

Got up for an hour or two, then back to bed again, long time, eventually slept, and had a pretty vivid dream of a reunion with a childhood friend that was pretty emotional. I saw his face pretty clearly at it seemed accurate, normally I do not notice faces much in dreams.

I was doing a lot of mantra/intention setting during the day and at bed time. I really thought I'd get into a LD, and I may have if I could have managed to sleep. And now I'm exhausted .

Ah well, I'll get out for some exercise and take a 1mg melatonin tonight to make sure I sleep at the right "bedtime." Didn't want to take a melatonin at 4:30am since I thought it would make me groggy all day. But I'm groggy all day anyway for not having slept! At least I had a dream I remembered pretty well.

Feb goals reduced a bit but still aggressive considering jet lag recovery: 8 LDs. Going to really step up the daytime work, have to come up with a consistent schedule and stick to it. Want to keep dream yoga exercises going, too.

Well you have a plan in place as always, now just to get over that jet lag hump! To a quick recovery!

Good pool exercise session last night, the exercise will help, my travel-induced-weight-gain is already starting to melt off. Did take the 1mg melatonin 1 hour before bedtime, boy that stuff is magic, there's a deep black yawning abyss awaiting you to sink into after about 40 mins/1 hour. For some reason it took me a while to fall asleep still but got a good solid block of sleep. One waking or two with some recall, made mental notes, remembered fragments upon waking in morning.

Solid deep sleep and recall is a good result! You will be back to your old self in now time

More exercise yesterday, even better sleep last night, got to bed a little earlier (finally!), 1mg melatonin again, don't remember anything about falling asleep or earlier morning wakings, but I did have some recall in the morning around 7hrs, several scenes.

Yep going to be back soon! Lots of ADA/RC-location yesterday, held it for a long stretches all throughout the day. I'm really dedicated to this, I believe it's the key for me. The trick is going to be keeping a pearl of it going while I work. Frequent breaks and alarms may help here.

Couldn't get back to sleep after doing the family breakfast routine for a "nap", but got really close. Relaxed for another hour at least. I think the issue is that I'm "trying to fall asleep" which of course prevents sleep. I'm aware of this and try to stop it but it's tricky... probably just a week or two more and I'll be sleeping well again. Also, will step up the exercise.

Less exercise with watching the Olympics. Not successful getting back to sleep after 6 hrs several nights in a row, with pretty good recall though at that time. Getting to sleep really fast at bed time at least. A lot of rather tame waking-life-like dreams recently, not my previously usual wild and wacky, but last night I had a bit of a return to that including banishing a ghost with the sign of the cross, and a cat swimming in a huge living room. Where are the lucids? Seems I'm in another tough time...

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Where are the lucids? Seems I'm in another tough time...

Don't worry, if you are continuing the fundamental day work and not stressing over becoming lucid, they will come. I noticed my awareness in dreams got weaker again until last night and I think for me it was the day work was a little closer to being on auto pilot unfortunately. 6 hours of sleep several nights in a row is probably not helpful, not only in missing those additional REM opportunities but also in the side effects of getting less sleep. Are you doing anything right before nodding off at the beginning of the night or does that make it hard for you to get to sleep?

I've been doing multiple-hour practically continuous sessions of ADA/RC-location for the last several days. Always asking myself critically, "where is this place?" "Where was I before?" and frequently declaring, "I'm dreaming!", doing nose pinch, and hand inspection. Always thinking about LDing, checking DV posts, etc.

Got some exercise yesterday. At bed-time, and I'm tending to get to bed earlier successfully (before midnight I consider "early"), I'm falling asleep almost instantly fairly consistently now. Which is great, there's nothing I like less than lying awake at bed time (or any other time).

I'm not setting strong intention to wake up after each dream recently. In fact, I think I only managed last night to do "I have interesting and meaningful dreams" last night (I've been having boring dreams lately so I want to get back to my wild and wacky, two nights ago I did have a more "normal" dream-like dream (rather than just standing around talking to people)), and I think "I remember my dreams" but I didn't make it to "I wake up after every dream,remain still, and recall it." Frankly I'm not too excited about waking up after every dream these days -- my goal is to get lucids without night-time wake-up technique (thus the ADA/RC approach).

A pattern has been developing for the last week, which is I'll wake between 5-6 hours after bed with recall (sometimes more, sometimes less, but always something), I voice record it, and after this I try to go back to sleep and just can't make it back in. I'm trying for generally at least 2 hours to get back to sleep then I just get up to make sure I'll be tired for the next night (and to get the body used to getting up at a particular time / regular schedule).

My previously developed back to sleep technique is just not getting me there. Could be a more active mind with my new job, or something else, perhaps the tail end of the jet lag. I do get HI each time usually, but I become alert when these occur, even though I try to slip deeper. I'm "trying not to try" but that's tricky!

I could try not recording, (or really try to stick to key words, a few seconds, instead of several minutes), or setting intention again to wake up after every dream. Maybe different wording would work better, "I notice when a dream ends" instead of "waking up after every dream".

Yeah I know they'll come it's just frustrating that I seem to have to keep "starting over" after I get every good batch of LDs.... it's like 20 steps forward and 19 steps back.

Follow-up to the above: went back to bed for a late morning nap and slept for approx. 3 hours, 2 sleep cycles, I recall waking up once with recall but chose not to record and just try to slip back in, I did go back to sleep but not lucidly, don't remember those first dreams, but I did wake up right from the second batch of dreams with decent recall.

As is typical for those late morning dreams after about 8 hours it pretty much was "go with the flow" very low awareness, except right at the end I was sitting with a bunch of college students on some table and notice a long blonde haired stunning girl with her back towards me (pink leggings?), and I start to hit on her making a joke about the topic of conversation (which was showers), I touch her back to get her attention and start to give a stupid pick-up line involving showering ( ), and decide, no, I'm not going to do that, and I instead just am very genuine and "would like to go out with you." She's looking at me and says something is different about you, your hair?, and I touch my face and realize I've shaved off my beard, and I feel that my hair is very long and sex-ay.

Then that transitions to hanging out with a bunch of college girls and a narrator says "you don't want to run with the buffalo" (meaning you don't want to hang out with girls who just are with you to raise their status but are otherwise not in your league.) and I wake up.

Interesting dream and the awareness bump towards the end sounds promising. I know we've talked about the timer method and someone posted a link to an old tutorial with the same idea in the WILD thread. Probably nothing new in there for you but he talks a little more (I think) about transitioning than in the other thread we were following...it might be an interesting read: http://www.dreamviews.com/wake-initi...torial-**.html Reading the OP made me feel like trying the method again before long.