Thread: Iriba's Workbook

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Hi Iriba,
What I was looking for was not the content of your dreams, but *how* you do dream recall. Do you set any intentions? How? When? How many times do you notice wakings during the night? Are you able to notice wakings before you move, even roll over? How long do you spend reaching for memories? What is your mindset while trying to remember dreams? How many dreams on average and how much detail (for this a pointer to your DV DJ can be helpful, you don't need to quote entire dreams here unless you think they're particularly important)

Oh, i misunderstand it, sorry. I don't set any intentions when i go to sleep
because for some reason i can't sleep while i am trying to intend something in my mind
I'm not able to notice if i wake up during night or roll-over because i always have a deep sleep.
About memory, i consider it good, but sometimes it messes up, specially on minor details.
About remembering dreams, When i don't remember them, I don't usually force myself
because for some reason sometimes at night, i can remember them in all of a sudden.
In average i can remember 1-2 dreams a day sometimes 3, but sometimes i can't even remember 1.

Thank you for providing the information, there's a lot of useful information there that I think you haven't yet mentioned about yourself on these forums!

I don't set any intentions when i go to sleep
because for some reason i can't sleep while i am trying to intend something in my mind

Setting intention is not the same thing as MILD, where you repeat a mantra over and over to yourself until you fall asleep. I'd have trouble doing that too, especially at bedtime. Setting intention is as simple as telling yourself once, at bedtime, "I remember my dreams."

It may not be important how many times you tell it to yourself -- with strong enough belief once may be enough. But I personally probably tell it to myself around 10 times, or sometimes more. Maybe for a full minute sometimes I'll repeat to myself "I remember my dreams," then I stop and empty my mind and aim to fall asleep.

I also sometimes mix in embellishments like "I completely remember my dreams from beginning to end," or "I have very vivid, long dreams." Also, "I have interesting and meaningful dreams" (from LaBerge).

For DILD I use various statements like: "I'm dreaming." "I recognize the dream state." Or the full LaBerge (mouthful) "The next time I'm dreaming, I remember to recognize that I'm dreaming." Sometimes (I think I got this from fogelbise) I'll say "The next thing I see is a dream."

The point here is that you do not need to hold these thoughts in your head until you fall asleep. If you *can*, then that would probably make them more effective. But don't worry. Try telling yourself *once* right when you lie down for bed (or just before), and then aim directly for sleep with an empty mind.

Try telling yourself just once. Then if you don't notice any issues with sleep, the next night, tell yourself twice or three times. And so on, building up confidence in yourself that you can easily fall asleep after setting some intentions.

Setting intention is widely regarded as being *extremely* important in lucid dreaming. The Tibetan monks who practice dream yoga consider setting strong intent to lucid dream during the night as one of the most important parts of the bedtime ritual in order to experience lucid dreams.

This is your first assignment: Choose one or more short intention statements, and repeat them to yourself at bedtime. As I mentioned, start small (just one time), and over time build up to longer and longer setting intent times (more repetitions). Really believe what you tell to yourself, and feel like the statement is a really important goal for you. Our brains are really good at remembering important intents.

I'm not able to notice if i wake up during night or roll-over because i always have a deep sleep.

This is another important piece of data about you, and maybe an important insight into your not reaching your lucidity goals. We all wake up at night briefly in between sleep cycles as dreams finish -- just most of the time we immediately fall back asleep and don't remember the waking, just like we don't remember much (or any) of the dreams of the previous REM cycle. Like it or not, learning to recognize these brief wakings and use them beneficially for lucid dreaming is a major part of a lot of lucid dreaming practice. Recognizing these wakings is an ability that can be learned and developed. It's true that alarms can be used to wake in the middle of the night but there are problems with alarms, the main one being they wake you up too abruprtly and may end your sleeping for the night.

The benefits of recognizing these wakings for dream recall and lucid dreaming are numerous: 1) you recall more dreams! If you recall 2-3 dreams at the end of the night, you very well may recall 2-3 dreams *per waking* for the night, resulting in 12-15 or more dreams recalled for the night. Now, noticing *every* waking can sometimes be tiring, but that is how I started out: for my first 3 months I set intention to: remember dreams; wake after every dream; and become lucid. I was so excited to wake all through the night and remember so many interesting, funny, weird, exciting dreams. Being excited about dream recall is also really important in developing the ability to its highest level. 2) These wakings are a great time to renew your intention to become aware in dreams: restate your intentions, perform MILD, perform WILD, perform DEILD, or just get up a bit for a WBTB. In short, the foundation of most of the approaches we use to promote lucidity all depend on the ability to notice wakings in the middle of the night.

So here is your second assignment: once you are comfortable setting intention before going to bed, Set intention at bedtime to notice your wakings in the middle of the night. I personally used the statement "I wake up after every dream." Some people think this is too strong and could result in actually waking up fully. Another option is "I notice the wakings between sleep cycles." A longer one I've used is "I wake up after every dream, remain still, and recall my dreams." In these wakings, at first spend just a short time trying to recall dreams from the prior sleep cycle, maybe repeat one or two intents, and then aim directly to fall asleep again.

When recalling dreams, remember to remain physically still (noticing your wakings is important here, too: if you can realize you've woken up before you've moved, you can best recall your dreams at that moment), and stay mentally quiet. You're not trying to "force" yourself to remember dreams, you're just trying to cast your mind back into your recent experience searching for memories (of dreams, since your "recent experience" was dreaming). You can ask yourself "What was I just dreaming about?". Spend some time on doing this, I'd recommend 10-15 minutes at least. The best way to build great dream recall is to reach for dream memories every time you find yourself awake.

There are two concrete things for you to try. If you can master them (or even just get a little bit better at them), I believe your chances for lucidity will improve quite a bit. Realize that it may take you time to get good at doing these tasks, so be patient, and always maintain positive thoughts about your dreams and the practices you use to reach lucidity.

Let us know in this workbook how you progress! Once you get good at these then we can start looking at DILD techniques like MILD.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Thank you for providing the information, there's a lot of useful information there that I think you haven't yet mentioned about yourself on these forums!



Setting intention is not the same thing as MILD, where you repeat a mantra over and over to yourself until you fall asleep. I'd have trouble doing that too, especially at bedtime. Setting intention is as simple as telling yourself once, at bedtime, "I remember my dreams."

It may not be important how many times you tell it to yourself -- with strong enough belief once may be enough. But I personally probably tell it to myself around 10 times, or sometimes more. Maybe for a full minute sometimes I'll repeat to myself "I remember my dreams," then I stop and empty my mind and aim to fall asleep.

I also sometimes mix in embellishments like "I completely remember my dreams from beginning to end," or "I have very vivid, long dreams." Also, "I have interesting and meaningful dreams" (from LaBerge).

For DILD I use various statements like: "I'm dreaming." "I recognize the dream state." Or the full LaBerge (mouthful) "The next time I'm dreaming, I remember to recognize that I'm dreaming." Sometimes (I think I got this from fogelbise) I'll say "The next thing I see is a dream."

The point here is that you do not need to hold these thoughts in your head until you fall asleep. If you *can*, then that would probably make them more effective. But don't worry. Try telling yourself *once* right when you lie down for bed (or just before), and then aim directly for sleep with an empty mind.

Try telling yourself just once. Then if you don't notice any issues with sleep, the next night, tell yourself twice or three times. And so on, building up confidence in yourself that you can easily fall asleep after setting some intentions.

Setting intention is widely regarded as being *extremely* important in lucid dreaming. The Tibetan monks who practice dream yoga consider setting strong intent to lucid dream during the night as one of the most important parts of the bedtime ritual in order to experience lucid dreams.

This is your first assignment: Choose one or more short intention statements, and repeat them to yourself at bedtime. As I mentioned, start small (just one time), and over time build up to longer and longer setting intent times (more repetitions). Really believe what you tell to yourself, and feel like the statement is a really important goal for you. Our brains are really good at remembering important intents.


This is another important piece of data about you, and maybe an important insight into your not reaching your lucidity goals. We all wake up at night briefly in between sleep cycles as dreams finish -- just most of the time we immediately fall back asleep and don't remember the waking, just like we don't remember much (or any) of the dreams of the previous REM cycle. Like it or not, learning to recognize these brief wakings and use them beneficially for lucid dreaming is a major part of a lot of lucid dreaming practice. Recognizing these wakings is an ability that can be learned and developed. It's true that alarms can be used to wake in the middle of the night but there are problems with alarms, the main one being they wake you up too abruprtly and may end your sleeping for the night.

The benefits of recognizing these wakings for dream recall and lucid dreaming are numerous: 1) you recall more dreams! If you recall 2-3 dreams at the end of the night, you very well may recall 2-3 dreams *per waking* for the night, resulting in 12-15 or more dreams recalled for the night. Now, noticing *every* waking can sometimes be tiring, but that is how I started out: for my first 3 months I set intention to: remember dreams; wake after every dream; and become lucid. I was so excited to wake all through the night and remember so many interesting, funny, weird, exciting dreams. Being excited about dream recall is also really important in developing the ability to its highest level. 2) These wakings are a great time to renew your intention to become aware in dreams: restate your intentions, perform MILD, perform WILD, perform DEILD, or just get up a bit for a WBTB. In short, the foundation of most of the approaches we use to promote lucidity all depend on the ability to notice wakings in the middle of the night.

So here is your second assignment: once you are comfortable setting intention before going to bed, Set intention at bedtime to notice your wakings in the middle of the night. I personally used the statement "I wake up after every dream." Some people think this is too strong and could result in actually waking up fully. Another option is "I notice the wakings between sleep cycles." A longer one I've used is "I wake up after every dream, remain still, and recall my dreams." In these wakings, at first spend just a short time trying to recall dreams from the prior sleep cycle, maybe repeat one or two intents, and then aim directly to fall asleep again.

When recalling dreams, remember to remain physically still (noticing your wakings is important here, too: if you can realize you've woken up before you've moved, you can best recall your dreams at that moment), and stay mentally quiet. You're not trying to "force" yourself to remember dreams, you're just trying to cast your mind back into your recent experience searching for memories (of dreams, since your "recent experience" was dreaming). You can ask yourself "What was I just dreaming about?". Spend some time on doing this, I'd recommend 10-15 minutes at least. The best way to build great dream recall is to reach for dream memories every time you find yourself awake.

There are two concrete things for you to try. If you can master them (or even just get a little bit better at them), I believe your chances for lucidity will improve quite a bit. Realize that it may take you time to get good at doing these tasks, so be patient, and always maintain positive thoughts about your dreams and the practices you use to reach lucidity.

Let us know in this workbook how you progress! Once you get good at these then we can start looking at DILD techniques like MILD.

Little progress:

This!, i think the first part of the teaching is working!
I started to use this mantra "I will remember my dream tonight"
Since 29th november i could remember almost all dreams i had
mostly 1 dream each night , except 1 day i didn't remember anything
because i had to wake up early in that day and i focused to sleep only.
Now i am aiming to other mantra which is "I will remember 2 dreams tonight"
But looking at my dream journal now, it feels like i'm getting better at MILD!
Thanks for this, i will keep my work!

Originally Posted by Iriba

Little progress:

This!, i think the first part of the teaching is working!
I started to use this mantra "I will remember my dream tonight"
Since 29th november i could remember almost all dreams i had
mostly 1 dream each night , except 1 day i didn't remember anything
because i had to wake up early in that day and i focused to sleep only.
Now i am aiming to other mantra which is "I will remember 2 dreams tonight"
But looking at my dream journal now, it feels like i'm getting better at MILD!
Thanks for this, i will keep my work!

Excellent, I'm glad to hear this is helping! One small suggestion: try it without "will", intentions are best done in present tense: "I remember my dreams". It's ok to add "tonight" if you like, but without "tonight" the meaning is "I always remember my dreams." It depends on what works best in your native language if it's not English. Keep it up! And if you can remember to, tell it to yourself a few times during the day as well: "I remember my dreams…. I remember my dreams." Really put the feeling into it, and believe it, the more dreams you get, the more confidence you'll have and you'll start remembering more and more.

Great work, keep it up, and write back to let us know how it's going.

And remember, every time you find yourself awake, the first thing you should always do before moving is recalling dreams.

Woke

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Excellent, I'm glad to hear this is helping! One small suggestion: try it without "will", intentions are best done in present tense: "I remember my dreams". It's ok to add "tonight" if you like, but without "tonight" the meaning is "I always remember my dreams." It depends on what works best in your native language if it's not English. Keep it up! And if you can remember to, tell it to yourself a few times during the day as well: "I remember my dreams…. I remember my dreams." Really put the feeling into it, and believe it, the more dreams you get, the more confidence you'll have and you'll start remembering more and more.

Great work, keep it up, and write back to let us know how it's going.

And remember, every time you find yourself awaked, the first thing you should always do before moving is recalling dreams.

Progress and bad news:

MILD keeps improving and usually i ca n remember m y dreams when i use MILD, i tried already this mantra "i woke up during night" after some hours i woke up. So this makes me get more confidence in my MILD technique. Tonight i used a new mantra that i thought that could work
"i have a vivid dream" in this day i also drank some apple juice, that i heard it makes your dreams more vivid so i tried the mantra as well, but it was a normal dream

Bad news:

My dream recall is getting worse, i barely remember them, but as i said before, probably that dream was vivid enough to make me remember it today
Because of my mantra and the apple juice

Tell me what i should do please

Recall does increase and decrease naturally some days. It doesn't mean your recall is "getting worse," it means just that for whatever reason, maybe you're a bit behind on sleep, maybe you moved too much, or you're thinking of other things.

Your assignment remains the same: keep setting intention at bedtime, particularly for dream recall ("I remember my dreams"), and work on doing dream recall every time you wake up. Don't give up quickly when you reach for recall, remain calm and quiet and relaxed, and just let your mind drift to find any recent memories.

For example, just this morning I woke at one point with no immediate dream memories, but I realized that I had just been sleeping, and since it was late in the morning, I realized I must have been dreaming. So, I remained quiet and still, and soon my dream came back to me.

Just keep working on it. Building better and stronger dream recall is a life-long discipline, so just keep at it!

It can help to review your waking memories throughout the day, too, to practice this access to memory.

edit: make sure to keep celebrating your successes! Just a little while ago you said you couldn't set intention at bedtime because it kept you awake: now you can set intention apparently without any insomnia problems. And you've had some good recall there for a while. So be very happy with your successes, and look forward to every night. I myself had no recall one recent night and almost none the next. And then I had a big big night later, and some lucids earlier this week. So low recall can happen to anybody, depending on their life circumstances. And it doesn't mean anything is worse, and the very next night could be full of wonderful, vivid dreams. Always look forwards with positive emotion and excitement to great dreams every night, and most of the time this is exactly what will happen!

Hello fryingman, i've decided to take your advice into action, and yes my dream recall is getting better
because even the poor dreams i can remember them now, but something doesn't feel right, when i before
practiced ADA, even i could only keep it for 1 minute or less, in that time i got 2 lucid dreams
they didn't feel like real life, but i knew i was dreaming, when i left ADA and start practicing mindfulness
closing my eyes and feeling myself in this world, i never got a signal of a lucid dream again
and now all i do is trying to focus my self-awareness, that i am in this world, trying to carry it to dreams
but i can't also keep it for much time, i'm afraid i'm doing something wrong. or i've been doing it all this time.
And for some reason, now i find hard to believe, that lucid dreams are like real-life
i try to convince myself but there is always this doubt in deep of my heart.
I don't know what to do anymore, it's like i'm in a empty desert without any hint
As sometimes i ask myself "Have i been doing the right thing?"

Hi Iriba,
Celebrate your successes with improving dream recall! That's great news.

Ultimately you must follow your own path to self-awareness, in a way that feels right to you. If "ADA" does it for you, then do it. I think mindfulness (which basically is self-awareness, which is lucidity) is a better path, but that may not be for everybody.

What I'm working on now is integrating breath awareness into everything: meditation, waking awareness/mindfulness, relaxation for sleep, and looking for breath awareness in the dream world. Successful lucid dreamers tend to figure out "one thing" that works for them and stick with it and get better and better at it -- try to find what makes sense and works for you.

The combination of waking self-awareness work and improving dream recall should eventually start creating a feeling in your dreams that "you are there," even if you're not yet lucid. This process can take time -- it only really started happening a lot for me in the last couple of months.

I think it's important to incorporate into self-awareness work the realization that there are two states of consciousness, both real: waking and dreaming. When I ground myself into my self-awareness in a mindful moment, I also think about the two states of consciousness and determine which one I am in at the moment. It is important to keep your mind also on the concept of "dream" and "dreaming" and always be on the lookout for the dream state.

So, for now, continue setting intention to remember dreams, and if you're not already, set intention to notice the wakings during the night, and if you feel you can, start doing short WBTBs during these times and MILD or SSILD to see if they work for you. It is worth the investment in learning how to fall back asleep easily after WBTBs, as most frequent LDers do a lot of WBTB, it seems to help a lot in getting lucid.

And look for the form of self-awareness work that makes the most sense to you: ultimately, whatever form you choose, you should get very comfortable paying attention to yourself and your surroundings, and keep a corner of your mind on dreaming and the fact that being conscious means *you could be dreaming right now*.

You can keep a few questions in your head throughout the day that will help with this last thing: In any situation, think "How odd is this?" Also, when going about your day, ask yourself "Why do I think I'm awake?" The implication of both questions being you're looking to recognize the dream state.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Hi Iriba,
Celebrate your successes with improving dream recall! That's great news.

Ultimately you must follow your own path to self-awareness, in a way that feels right to you. If "ADA" does it for you, then do it. I think mindfulness (which basically is self-awareness, which is lucidity) is a better path, but that may not be for everybody.

What I'm working on now is integrating breath awareness into everything: meditation, waking awareness/mindfulness, relaxation for sleep, and looking for breath awareness in the dream world. Successful lucid dreamers tend to figure out "one thing" that works for them and stick with it and get better and better at it -- try to find what makes sense and works for you.

The combination of waking self-awareness work and improving dream recall should eventually start creating a feeling in your dreams that "you are there," even if you're not yet lucid. This process can take time -- it only really started happening a lot for me in the last couple of months.

I think it's important to incorporate into self-awareness work the realization that there are two states of consciousness, both real: waking and dreaming. When I ground myself into my self-awareness in a mindful moment, I also think about the two states of consciousness and determine which one I am in at the moment. It is important to keep your mind also on the concept of "dream" and "dreaming" and always be on the lookout for the dream state.

So, for now, continue setting intention to remember dreams, and if you're not already, set intention to notice the wakings during the night, and if you feel you can, start doing short WBTBs during these times and MILD or SSILD to see if they work for you. It is worth the investment in learning how to fall back asleep easily after WBTBs, as most frequent LDers do a lot of WBTB, it seems to help a lot in getting lucid.

And look for the form of self-awareness work that makes the most sense to you: ultimately, whatever form you choose, you should get very comfortable paying attention to yourself and your surroundings, and keep a corner of your mind on dreaming and the fact that being conscious means *you could be dreaming right now*.

You can keep a few questions in your head throughout the day that will help with this last thing: In any situation, think "How odd is this?" Also, when going about your day, ask yourself "Why do I think I'm awake?" The implication of both questions being you're looking to recognize the dream state.

I see, i could work on ADA. but to be honest i can hardly keep it, so i think i will mantain the mindfulness.
also, you mentioned the breathing awareness, i've been testing and it looks easier than the "i'm here" self-awareness.
Although, i don't understand how can breathing can take you to lucidity.
although you're saying eventually i'll start to feel i'll get a feeling "i'm here" in the dreams, that never occured to me.
in fact some of my dreams are a bit more vivid, but i still don't feel my body in the dream scene, like in real life.
About WBTB - i already do them whenever i have the time, and i can fall back asleep easily, but sometimes i don't really
am really awake, i'm just a little drowsy and go back to sleep again. Would that still count as a WBTB?

"And look for the form of self-awareness work that makes the most sense to you"
Well this would be the "I'm here" awareness, because
if i dont notice i'm in this world, how will i notice i'm in the dream world?
Also i like to be aware of the vivid colors of the real world, but many times
i distract myself and can't be aware of those things. i find a lot easier to be
aware to my breathing, just like i do with mindfulness. But again i say, i don't understand´
how can breathing awareness lead to lucidity, if you could explain that please.

Anyway i appreciate your time and patience trying to help me
Happy new year!

Happy New Year!

About breathing:
From elsewhere on the internet, much thanks to the author "Mattson":

You are now aware you are breathing.
Trippy huh?
What if I told you in the span of time it took you to read the title and this part here you were lucid?
That feeling you had upon reading the title is exactly what you want to feel to achieve lucidity. That is what lucidity feels like. What you just experienced is lucidity. You just experienced the most important feeling in the world.
Notice how I speak in the past tense? The more you pay attention the closer your lucidity gets to oblivion. It is quite the balancing act.
Familiarize yourself with this feeling. It is the key to lucid dreaming.
The next time you do a reality check invoke this feeling. Become aware of your breathing. When you lay in bed to go to sleep don't chant a mantra to yourself. Just focus on your breathing as they come in and out... focus.
Focus and lucidity are one in the same. Determination and lucidity are one in the same.
They will come. Awareness is key. You now know what awareness feels like at its purest form.
Sweet dreams.
EDIT: Oh and before I forget... REMEMBER THIS FEELING!

Samatha meditation is focusing attention on your breathing.

Mindfulness practice uses focus on the breath to bring yourself into the present moment.

Relaxation for sleep uses the breath to go deeper and become more and more relaxed.

It's all focusing around the breath. That's what I personally take from all this. So I'm going "big" into investing into breath awareness. Maybe it will make sense and work for you, too.

During the day, as many times as you feel like doing, just "STOP", take a big breath in and release it, becoming aware (lucid) of your present moment. Stay in the present moment for a while before returning to what you were doing earlier, but try to maintain some mindfulness as you continue.

I suggest getting a great book, "Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life." There are lots of books on mindfulness and meditation, I recommend books by B. Allan Wallace, in particular, "The Attention Revolution: Unlocking The Power Of The Focused Mind." It's all about mindfulness and a lot about minding the breath. It includes discussing daytime and nighttime practices of dream yoga.

I, too, like concentrating on the breath, it's not exhausting like ADA. So I heartily encourage you to acquire and read these books. They're both available as ebooks from Amazon so you don't have to wait for shipping.


About WBTB: find what works for you. Some people need to get up for 30-45 minutes or more, some people just "grab some awareness" and head right back to sleep (a "micro" WBTB). Experiment to see which version gives you the most effect on our dreaming. And don't just try once, make a lot of attempts to find which one has the most effect.

Sometimes it can be hard to get back to sleep -- but work on relaxation, and (again) read the B. Allan Wallace book, it covers how to go about doing this in detail.

edit: a lot of edits, be sure to keep checking. About "I'm here" awareness: do you ask "where" you are? Always realize that there are two states of consciosuness: awake, and dreaming. And *at any time*, you could be dreaming. If you think "I'm awake," ask yourself, seriously, "Why do I think I'm awake?"

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Happy New Year!

About breathing:
From elsewhere on the internet, much thanks to the author "Mattson":



Samatha meditation is focusing attention on your breathing.

Mindfulness practice uses focus on the breath to bring yourself into the present moment.

Relaxation for sleep uses the breath to go deeper and become more and more relaxed.

It's all focusing around the breath. That's what I personally take from all this. So I'm going "big" into investing into breath awareness. Maybe it will make sense and work for you, too.

During the day, as many times as you feel like doing, just "STOP", take a big breath in and release it, becoming aware (lucid) of your present moment. Stay in the present moment for a while before returning to what you were doing earlier, but try to maintain some mindfulness as you continue.

I suggest getting a great book, "Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life." There are lots of books on mindfulness and meditation, I recommend books by B. Allan Wallace, in particular, "The Attention Revolution: Unlocking The Power Of The Focused Mind." It's all about mindfulness and a lot about minding the breath. It includes discussing daytime and nighttime practices of dream yoga.

I, too, like concentrating on the breath, it's not exhausting like ADA. So I heartily encourage you to acquire and read these books. They're both available as ebooks from Amazon so you don't have to wait for shipping.


About WBTB: find what works for you. Some people need to get up for 30-45 minutes or more, some people just "grab some awareness" and head right back to sleep (a "micro" WBTB). Experiment to see which version gives you the most effect on our dreaming. And don't just try once, make a lot of attempts to find which one has the most effect.

Sometimes it can be hard to get back to sleep -- but work on relaxation, and (again) read the B. Allan Wallace book, it covers how to go about doing this in detail.

edit: a lot of edits, be sure to keep checking. About "I'm here" awareness: do you ask "where" you are? Always realize that there are two states of consciosuness: awake, and dreaming. And *at any time*, you could be dreaming. If you think "I'm awake," ask yourself, seriously, "Why do I think I'm awake?"

Progress:

1/2015

something interesting happened after i read this, i was training
my breathing awareness and on the same night
i got a dream about a breathing disease, i meet a kid that had asthma
i found this really cool, feels like my subconscious is somehow "hearing me"

2/2015

Something strange happened in this day, i really didn't want
to go to bed because i was watching movies, somehow i got more motivated
with watching those movies than rather dreaming, maybe because in deep of me i thought
i was gonna fail again and lost motivation.
Most of times i go to sleep around midnight or 1 AM
to remember some dreams, if i go to sleep later than that
my recall becomes rusty and i can barely remember anything
Here comes the interesting part.
I went to sleep around 6AM
I didn't do any mantras, no technique, nothing.
i just wanted to sleep.
And i got lucid! although it didn't felt like real life,
and i didn't do any reality checks, i simply knew
that i was dreaming.

This really makes me think my subconscious don't want me to
lose motivation and to keep going for higher goals and to keep
going through this hard task.
It almost makes me think he gave me a lucid dream on purpose
to keep going on and not give up
at least i like to think in this way.

What do you think?

Awesome Iriba! Congratulations on the LD!! I wouldn't be surprised if it was like me during some of the competitions. LD's would sometimes dry up when I was trying too hard but deciding to not worry if I got lucid would help in those situations. I was still doing the day work and night practices but I was just not worrying about it all. So I think it very well could have been due to all of the practices that you have been doing during these past days kicking in when you took the pressure off of yourself. Also the fact that you went to bed at such an unusual time may have played some kind of factor here as well. FryingMan is doing a great job helping you here!

Just returned from a trip, congrats! I knew you could do it, and now, more importantly, *you* know you can do it. Now it's simply a matter of keeping everything up, continuing the process of discovery and adjustment, patience, and continued determination.

I'll comment more once I've slept a bit.

Hi Iriba,
I just wrote a response to Mr Priority about how paying attention to waking life will result in better and more vivid dream recall / dream experiences which I'd like you to read:

http://www.dreamviews.com/dild/15521...ml#post2141471

I think it's very exciting that breath awareness came right away to your dreaming. It is a sign that it may be a very good approach for you. Keep it up for now: throughout the day, take a few deep breaths, and center yourself in the present moment.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Hi Iriba,
I just wrote a response to Mr Priority about how paying attention to waking life will result in better and more vivid dream recall / dream experiences which I'd like you to read:

http://www.dreamviews.com/dild/15521...ml#post2141471

I think it's very exciting that breath awareness came right away to your dreaming. It is a sign that it may be a very good approach for you. Keep it up for now: throughout the day, take a few deep breaths, and center yourself in the present moment.

It as indeed a good post although i already have some those things in mind :p
About the different perspective of the objects and space

here it is a little progress:

Seems like my MILD is still getting better, on 3 nights i mentally said
a mantra "I'm in home in my dream" and those 3 dreams were in my home
What it really bothers me, is that today i tried a different mantra "I'm seeing my friend
on my dream" and the dream automatically sent me to somewhere else.
Although i had the same confidence and determination that would work.
What did i fail in?
Why didn't it work?
This is why i'm replying here

Also about breathing awareness, i like to think that whenever i am aware that i am breathing
i am also aware that i'm in the present
It's like 2 Awareness senses in 1.

Originally Posted by Iriba

It as indeed a good post although i already have some those things in mind :p
About the different perspective of the objects and space

here it is a little progress:

Seems like my MILD is still getting better, on 3 nights i mentally said
a mantra "I'm in home in my dream" and those 3 dreams were in my home
What it really bothers me, is that today i tried a different mantra "I'm seeing my friend
on my dream" and the dream automatically sent me to somewhere else.
Although i had the same confidence and determination that would work.
What did i fail in?
Why didn't it work?
This is why i'm replying here

Also about breathing awareness, i like to think that whenever i am aware that i am breathing
i am also aware that i'm in the present
It's like 2 Awareness senses in 1.

It's great you had those incubation successes! Unfortunately we can't tell you why you had those success and not the other one. Can you think of anything that felt different about the one that didn't' work? Maybe your home has stronger meaning to you and that's why it succeeded. Incubation and dreaming is not exact, it is never like "do A and you'll always get B". It's more like "do A over and over and think about it for a long time and eventually you'll start to get more and more B's over time."

It sounds like breathing awareness feels right to you, keep it up! I like breathing awareness too, and just had breath awareness in my dream for the first time a few nights ago, which is exciting.

Let's keep up that breath awareness!

Originally Posted by FryingMan

It's great you had those incubation successes! Unfortunately we can't tell you why you had those success and not the other one. Can you think of anything that felt different about the one that didn't' work? Maybe your home has stronger meaning to you and that's why it succeeded. Incubation and dreaming is not exact, it is never like "do A and you'll always get B". It's more like "do A over and over and think about it for a long time and eventually you'll start to get more and more B's over time."

It sounds like breathing awareness feels right to you, keep it up! I like breathing awareness too, and just had breath awareness in my dream for the first time a few nights ago, which is exciting.

Let's keep up that breath awareness!

Thank you for answering :p
it makes me very happy that incubation is working at me
And as i read in other thread, the more i try with a different mantra
my subconscious will accept that idea.
Also i don't know why it works with my home, maybe because
most of time i'm at my home, i barely go for a walk or something.

But what is worrying me now is that i don't often do reality checks
in my dreams but i do a lot of them in real life. I don't understand why
i barely do them at my dreams.
I've been drinking apple juice for 2 weeks now, because i read that it increases
your dream vividness, i am also trying to increase my visualization for MILD, although
i'm not quite sure how to train that.

But my main problem is, why i barely do reality checks in my dreams?

If you have a lot of success in incubating dreams in your home, you might want to place more emphasis on daytime MILD visualiations where you see yourself in your home in a dream and tell yourself "I'm dreaming" and see yourself doing reality checks.

Doing a reality checks comes from a moment of raised awareness. When doing RC in waking life, try to hold the awareness at high levels, don't just do the RC then forget about it. I think fewer RCs but making them really high quality high awareness times is better than a ton of RCs where you just forget about it immediately.

I personally think it is good for LDing to get out of the house. When I'm in my own home a lot without going out my dreams are more boring and I think it is harder to get lucid. Get out and take lucid walks, in the country/a park, where it's quiet, and also in the city where there are lots of people and lots of hustle and bustle. It's great practice maintaining your breath awareness in both places (quiet places and busy places). A lot of my DCs are strangers, so when I'm out among strangers when awake, maintaining awareness and thinking about lucidity, it's easier to get lucid in dreams.

Do you talk to DCs a lot in dreams? If so, try to talk to people in waking life and maintain your awareness while doing so.

You're doing great and making great progress. Even if it feels slow to you, remember: slow progress IS progress! Slow and steady wins the race. You have many many years of great dreaming and LDing ahead of you: build the solid foundation now and you'll enjoy great dreams for decades to come.

Hello DILD class member,
I'm making a one-time announcement to individual recently active workbooks to let you know about the new DILD class announcement thread. Please subscribe to the announcement thread to see notifications of activities and other threads of particular interest/importance to DILD class members!

The first announcement is about the upcoming Sensei dreaming competition (starting on Thursday [in 2 days!], look for the official rules and scoring post on Wednesday).

http://www.dreamviews.com/dild/15591...uncements.html