Thread: KonchogTashi's workbook

Progress night of 11/20

Another good day of practice followed by good night conditions. During the day I continued to perform state checks combined with intention setting. I probably logged 15-20 solid checks. Additionally I re-read sections of EWOLD that discuss state testing, MILD, and WBTB.

I made it to bed at 10:30 after drinking a glass of water and setting my intention firmly on lucidity and recall. I woke up at 12: 30, got out of bed, went to the restroom and got a small snack. I performed 3 state tests during this time. I was out of bed for about 10 minutes. I went back to bed and performed the MILD procedure as described in EWOLD. I got distracted several times, but came back to the visualization and intention setting each time. This woke me up and I tossed and turned while continuing to MILD for about 20 minutes. I feel really positive about how I did with the implementation of MILD. Perhaps If I had woken up at 3:30 instead of 12:30 I would have recognized the dream state.

I woke up later in the night, maybe 3:30 with some recall, but was unable to rouse myself enough to log it. Upon waking for good at 5:15 I had a complete dream, a long fragment/dream and a short fragment. I good night! A long and very vivid lucid dream is right around the corner!

Progress Friday 11/21, Saturday 11/22, and Sunday 11/23

Three days of solid daytime training. I continued to perform 15-25 state tests combined with intention setting during the course of each day. I am still using the hand check & nose pinch test.

Friday night I got a solid 7 hours of sleep. I woke up with decent recall. I logged 3 scenes with 2 of them straddling the line between fragment and dream. Saturday night I did WBTB after about 4 hours of sleep. I had no recall at that time but kept myself up for 15 minutes as opposed to my usual 5. In the morning I had 3 solid dreams to log, excellent. Sunday night I had a lot of difficulty falling asleep and only managed about 5 hours of total sleep. I am pleased that despite this poor condition I was still able to recall and log a complete dream in the morning with two common dream signs (high school girlfriend and dilapidated Victorian style, haunted appearing house). However, I did not recognize either of these common dream signs. There is always tonite, and I am confident I will have a long and vivid lucid this week.

All in all, I am pleased with my general direction. I have been able to maintain consistent daytime practice and have recalled at least a fullish, detailed fragment every morning for the last week. In general, my recall is becoming both more extensive and more detailed.

Keep up the good work and try not to worry about missing the dream signs. I am a believer in putting dream signs to work for you and I have put them to work for me off and on but sometimes your awareness or memory just are not working in your favor. I, not too long ago, saw the word "lucid" in a dream and didn't become lucid.

Progress 11/23-11/30

I continued with my daytime training as described above. This is basically "combining reality testing with intention setting" as described by LaBerge. I average 15 state tests per day, a few of the days more, a few less. During this week I was mostly off work. This allowed me to experiment with my sleep schedule a bit more than usual. For 3 nights I practiced WBTB with MILD, faithfully following the instructions in EWOLD. For the WBTB I stayed up 10 minutes on 2 nights and 35 minutes on the third. This produced mixed results. On the first two nights no lucids and OK recall( 1 dream and 1 fragment the first night, no recall the second). The third night I got very good results, logging a very vivid fully plotted dream, a shorter and less complex dream, and several fragments.

On two nights (including last night) my sleep was very poor and as a result I had no recall and no LDs.

In general, I allowed myself to sleep until I woke up and took a break from the alarm. I feel this produced decent results, but generally did not lead to increased recall. If I have extra time to sleep I think I need to set alarms at intervals corresponding to REM cycles in the second half of the night to maximize recall and MILD attempts. I have another break coming up in 3 weeks and plan on utilizing this strategy. Until then, I plan to continue with my state test/intention setting and MILD when I wake up in the night.

I am happy to hear that you are keeping up with your day practices. It sounds like that longer wbtb on the 3rd night may be the reason for the stronger results that night. Everyone is different, so this is very useful info and of course further experimentation will tell you more.

Originally Posted by fogelbise

I am happy to hear that you are keeping up with your day practices. It sounds like that longer wbtb on the 3rd night may be the reason for the stronger results that night. Everyone is different, so this is very useful info and of course further experimentation will tell you more.

I agree with your assessment of the longer WBTB. I have plans of utilizing this this weekend and making on my upcoming break from work. In general I feel as though WBTB of some duration is very essential to lucidity for me. I am currently utilizing the glass of water method for very short wake ups in the middle of the night during the work week.

Daytime practice was good although perhaps something left to be desired owing to being raggedly tired from a poor night's sleep on Sunday. Lights out at 11:00, up at 5:55. Very poor recall, only a hazy fragment of 3 sentences in the journal. I feel like my sleep schedule is not ideal as my wake up time is in the middle of a cycle, not near the end when REM prominent. Pushing wake up back to 5:00 is less than desirable as this is getting me in to the <6 hrs. of sleep range, and pushing it up to 6:30 is not tenable due to morning schedule. This has been an ongoing issue.

solutions: do nothing
earlier lights out
earlier or later wake up
middle of the night waking/journaling


The least desirable for me is middle of the night journaling as this is likely to lead to full awakening and an abrupt end to the night's sleep. I think this is a good option when I have more flexibility in my sleep schedule. Earlier lights out is a good option as a 10:30 lights out lends itself to a nice 6:00 wake up right at the end of a cycle.

I have also been thinking I need to develop some short term goals. I have long term goals, but they are kind of nebulous (increase frequency and duration of LDs). I think If I developed some good measurable goals with a timetable this would contribute to quicker development of lucidity and attendant skills.

question: What is a good time frame or limit to use for LD goals? weeks? months?

Thanks!!

Yes finding the sweet spot for sleep is important. If you can move your lights out time earlier, do that, and see how it goes. More time to sleep is more time to dream, and those later REM cycles are the particularly juicy ones (although I did have a really long, vivid dream between the 4th and 5th hour last night myself, but that's a bit unusual for me).

I like setting monthly goals. In lucid dreaming it takes a while for your performance to catch up with your practice, so a month would be enough time generally. I've been a bit lax myself recently, time to set some LD goals! I had a really important goal to reach a certain # of LDs by my one year practice anniversary, and I ended up blowing way past it…that's the power of a really important goal. That's the other thing: your goals must be *important* to you in order for them to be powerful. Adjust as you go, if you're not making a particular goal, then set a slightly lower bar, no reason to be depressed about "getting behind" in your goals. Constant adjustment is good, but always try to leave a liiiiitle bit of stretch there so that you're reaching. The brain has an amazing goal-satisfying center -- if you can tap into it it will absolutely help you!

For goals is pays to be very specific. "I will recall X dreams per night over the month" "I will have 4 lucid dreams this month" and so forth. The goal should be just a bit beyond comfort level, but be realistic. Over time you will get a better feeling of what is more or less realistic for you. But pushing past your current boundaries is the only way to grow, in any discipline. LaBerge mentions what large role (good) goal setting plays, you may want to review that part of ETWOLD if you haven't read it already.

Originally Posted by KonchogTashi

I agree with your assessment of the longer WBTB. I have plans of utilizing this this weekend and making on my upcoming break from work. In general I feel as though WBTB of some duration is very essential to lucidity for me. I am currently utilizing the glass of water method for very short wake ups in the middle of the night during the work week.

Keep up the experiments, yes, just because a longer one worked for you once doesn't mean the shorter ones are worse. I had some of the best BTB results from probably 5-10 minutes. Longer than that and I'm up for a looooong time.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

For goals is pays to be very specific. "I will recall X dreams per night over the month" "I will have 4 lucid dreams this month" and so forth. The goal should be just a bit beyond comfort level, but be realistic. Over time you will get a better feeling of what is more or less realistic for you. But pushing past your current boundaries is the only way to grow, in any discipline. LaBerge mentions what large role (good) goal setting plays, you may want to review that part of ETWOLD if you haven't read it already.

In the last 30 days I logged 20 "dreams", 17 "fragments", and 2 LDS.

A measurable, month long goal related to this recall data:

"between 12/2 and 1/2 I will log at least 30 dreams and 5 Lucid dreams"

That allows for a 10% increase in "dream" recall and a 150% increase in the number of lucid dreams. I feel this is achievable as with "auto-pilot" LD practice and almost no effort being put into recall I was still getting an LD about once every 30 days. During this time I will also have more than a week of time during which I will be able to sleep longer than is typical and therefore be more courageous with my WBTB and MILD practice. I will re-read the sections of ETWOLD you mentioned as well.

Thanks for your helpful input!

^I like the goals! I will let the recall king FryingMan address if he thinks you might want to up your recall goal but I saw what you said about that. Also, what he said about experimenting is true. It sounds like you have addressed the downside to the longer WBTB's by delaying the longer ones to the weekend. That is what I did early on. Again, everyone is different, but in my early and middle experiences longer WBTB's corresponded to significantly increased chances of LD's. This assumes that you have time to not worry about getting back to sleep (like weekends) and are able to get back to sleep of course.

Progress Update Night of 12/2

Daytime:

I continued with my state testing & intention setting. I estimate I got in 20+ checks between wake up and lights out. I am trying to stretch out the duration of the check a bit, to really thoroughly take stock of my surroundings and state.

Nighttime:

I was trying to have lights out at 10:30 and wake up at 6:00. Actual lights out time was closer to 10:50. I set my intention to recognize the dream state and recall dreams on awakening. This went pretty well. I was awakened at 5 by my spouse's unattended alarm clock. This threw me into a mini-panic as I had no recall and realized there was no time for a complete cycle. I struggled for recall for 10 or 15 minutes then fell asleep. When my alarm went off at 6:00 I woke with a clearly remembered complete dream and an additional dream fragment. A relief!

I think I need to focus more on recall as I fall asleep and save the lucid intention setting for middle of the night awakenings. Some lucidity will probably still come as a result of my consistent state testing and intention setting. In general, recall still seems like a tenuous situation. Most nights I come up with at least one dream, but I am still having a nights here and there with no recall or poor recall. Sometimes I feel like my nighttime practice gets a little complex i.e.: "Tonight I will have lucid dreams, they will be stable and clear, in these lucid dreams I will remember to stabilize the recognition and then accomplish tasks a, b, and c., when I wake up I will have detailed and complete recall of these dreams..."

Well you probably know by now what I'm going to say about recall: you can never have enough. In terms of your goal for recalled dreams I think it's fine, but what I'd like to see is consistent always *trying* for recall, at least a little bit, every single time you find yourself awake, and certainly for the last waking of the night. The effort is more important than (for now) the results. We'll get the absolute numbers up there eventually. And frankly it's quality/length/vividness not quantity. My favorite nights are the "single dream that lasted forever" sort of nights like I had two nights ago. While last night I had a bunch of seemingly unrelated scenes. But regardless, the goal is to accumulate a lot of dream experiences, ultimately to feel like "you're really there" in your dreams most of the time, because that's where the lucidity comes in: when *you* are already there in your dream. Then you just have to remember to notice!

So keep it up! I think you're doing great, and you're putting in the effort every day and night, that's 99.99% of the battle right there.

For intention wording, yes I do think less is more, but the important thing is that you get the "feeling" of what you intend into the statement. Sometimes the longer phrases really help you to cement your intention.

Oh, something I just remembered that I'd forgotten over the last few months! A visualization from the Tibetan dream yoga book I took out is: "I shoot my awareness through the night like an arrow to fly through all my dream experiences" and visualize yourself shooting from the wold's most powerful bow a bright arrow of your awareness into the darkness of the night to meet up with your dreams. I personally like that a lot, I'll have to return to it!

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Well you probably know by now what I'm going to say about recall: you can never have enough. In terms of your goal for recalled dreams I think it's fine, but what I'd like to see is consistent always *trying* for recall, at least a little bit, every single time you find yourself awake, and certainly for the last waking of the night. The effort is more important than (for now) the results. We'll get the absolute numbers up there eventually. And frankly it's quality/length/vividness not quantity. My favorite nights are the "single dream that lasted forever" sort of nights like I had two nights ago. While last night I had a bunch of seemingly unrelated scenes. But regardless, the goal is to accumulate a lot of dream experiences, ultimately to feel like "you're really there" in your dreams most of the time, because that's where the lucidity comes in: when *you* are already there in your dream. Then you just have to remember to notice!

Last night I resolved to wake up and remember my dreams, even in the middle of the night. I woke around 4:00 and put effort into recall for at least 15 minutes. Nothing came. Then I resolved to just go back to sleep and try again during the last hour or so of sleep. As I was drifting off a fragment came to me and I tried to trace it back and forward. I was able to elaborate on it a bit, but never to the point I would consider it a dream. The effort put into recall kept me awake and I was unable to fall back asleep for the last cycle. Ah well, another night. I got up and got in some intense morning exercise along with my normal mediation session. Tonite I will have lucid dreams!

Originally Posted by FryingMan

So keep it up! I think you're doing great, and you're putting in the effort every day and night, that's 99.99% of the battle right there.

This is encouraging! Thanks!!

Originally Posted by FryingMan

For intention wording, yes I do think less is more, but the important thing is that you get the "feeling" of what you intend into the statement. Sometimes the longer phrases really help you to cement your intention.

This is great advice. i tend to get too literal and heavily conceptual with mental practice. I can take this to heart.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Oh, something I just remembered that I'd forgotten over the last few months! A visualization from the Tibetan dream yoga book I took out is: "I shoot my awareness through the night like an arrow to fly through all my dream experiences" and visualize yourself shooting from the wold's most powerful bow a bright arrow of your awareness into the darkness of the night to meet up with your dreams. I personally like that a lot, I'll have to return to it!

If it works, use it!
Its ironic as my religious tradition has a complete path of dream practice, yet I find the methods it employs much more difficult than the science derived methods such as MILD. Furthermore, I am an atrocious visualizer, even after years of dedicated practice. Visualizing before sleep keeps me wide awake. I associate the deficit with the "literalness" with which I approach mental practice i mentioned above. None of my teachers have introduced me to the dream yoga methods in our tradition. However, I have spoken to one of my teachers about recognizing dreams. He was pleased that I have had the experience. I asked what I should do when I recognize the dream state, asked how I should utilize it. He replied "no need to do anything, just recognize is good." I was frankly expecting a bit more elaborate advice. One of these days I will ask one of my teachers for the transmission of the dream yoga teachings.

Progress Update Night of 12/3

daytime:

I kept up the practice of state testing combined with intention setting. I am not really having any difficulty remembering to do this. I do not count checks, but I estimate about 20 per day.

nighttime:

Lights out at 10:45. I fell asleep cultivating the intention to wake up and recall dreams each time they occurred. I woke up at 4 and struggled with recall, eventually (15-20 min) coming up with a decent fragment, but definitely not a full dream. The effort involved in recall woke me up sufficiently that I was unable to fall back asleep. I tried practicing MILD, but as time passed and my wake up alarm grew nearer and nearer I threw in the towel and got up and on with my day. Lucidity awaits tonight!

I would definitely temper the effort you spend on middle of the night recall, at least for now, especially if you have issues falling back asleep. I didn't mean to imply that you *must* notice middle-of-the-night wakings. If you do notice them, that's great, as you can build up a lot more recalled dreams that way. But for now, if it's like pulling teeth just to get a fragment after 15 minutes, I say back off a little. It's important to find your sweet spot. I would recommend starting with just a "quick memory check" -- ask yourself "what was I just dreaming about?" and if nothing comes in about a minute, bail and aim directly back to sleep. If you enjoy spending the time doing recall, then by all means, keep it up. You have to be your own barometer here. The main thing is to always reach for the memory, to associate waking up with remembering dreams -- for now though, make it a quick check. Reserve your 15 minute deep delving for the final waking of the day. Over time, as you gain experience and confidence and ability, spend more time if you find it helps. I usually don't spend a long time on a stubbonly blank mind -- what I spend time on is going over the memories I *do* have, repeatedly, to solidify/cement them, which tends to pull in others. But if I have absolutely nothing and it's the middle of the night, it's right back to sleep for me, especially these days.

Although, practice getting back to sleep is invaluable in lucid dreaming. I'm definitely on your team in this regard: it can be quite a battle to get back to sleep under various circumstances, but I *have* gotten a lot better over the last year, to the point where I *know* if I can gather the will to shutdown distracting thoughts and focus 100% on relaxation, that I will make it back to sleep (all things being equal: important morning appointments and/or stress/upsetting life circumstances can throw all that out the window).

When all else fails, a smidgen of valerian or melatonin can work wonders, but beware of it too close to waking time as it can lead to grogginess during the day. I also don't like to rely on it.

Very intersesting about approaching your teacher regarding dream training. He may just be leery of you not being ready for it (although it sounds like you're fairly well-established), or perhaps he's just not familiar with the details of that particular practice. You can already read the books on the subject if you haven't yet.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I would definitely temper the effort you spend on middle of the night recall, at least for now, especially if you have issues falling back asleep. I didn't mean to imply that you *must* notice middle-of-the-night wakings. If you do notice them, that's great, as you can build up a lot more recalled dreams that way. But for now, if it's like pulling teeth just to get a fragment after 15 minutes, I say back off a little. It's important to find your sweet spot. I would recommend starting with just a "quick memory check" -- ask yourself "what was I just dreaming about?" and if nothing comes in about a minute, bail and aim directly back to sleep. If you enjoy spending the time doing recall, then by all means, keep it up. You have to be your own barometer here. The main thing is to always reach for the memory, to associate waking up with remembering dreams -- for now though, make it a quick check. Reserve your 15 minute deep delving for the final waking of the day. Over time, as you gain experience and confidence and ability, spend more time if you find it helps. I usually don't spend a long time on a stubbonly blank mind -- what I spend time on is going over the memories I *do* have, repeatedly, to solidify/cement them, which tends to pull in others. But if I have absolutely nothing and it's the middle of the night, it's right back to sleep for me, especially these days.

More great advice. I had a similar experience last night (thursday). I woke early in the morning and could not come up with anything. I only gave it about 5 minutes then back to sleep. I woke up for the final time and had a nice complete dream right there, although I am pretty sure it got killed in progress by my alarm.

One thing I repeatedly marvel at is the stupidity and dullness that sleep imparts to my mind. This morning I almost dismissed the dream thinking "It is just random thoughts, I haven't fallen back asleep yet" I was about to let it go and have 0 recall, but stuck with it for a minute more and realized it was in fact a complete dream with a setting, multiple characters, and several distinct "actions" or "scenes".

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Although, practice getting back to sleep is invaluable in lucid dreaming. I'm definitely on your team in this regard: it can be quite a battle to get back to sleep under various circumstances, but I *have* gotten a lot better over the last year, to the point where I *know* if I can gather the will to shutdown distracting thoughts and focus 100% on relaxation, that I will make it back to sleep (all things being equal: important morning appointments and/or stress/upsetting life circumstances can throw all that out the window).

When all else fails, a smidgen of valerian or melatonin can work wonders, but beware of it too close to waking time as it can lead to grogginess during the day. I also don't like to rely on it.

Very intersesting about approaching your teacher regarding dream training. He may just be leery of you not being ready for it (although it sounds like you're fairly well-established), or perhaps he's just not familiar with the details of that particular practice. You can already read the books on the subject if you haven't yet.

I have used melationin in situations where I am wide awake late at night and nearly in a panic about facing the next day with 2 or 4 hours of sleep. It works well, but I am sensitive to the next day grogginess you mention, particularly if I take it for more than one night. I notice it powerfully around 3-5 pm the next day. It is usually all I can do to stay awake. This being said, the hangover is worth the 2 or 3 hours of sleep it imparts. Like you, I try to only use it when I really need it.

Thanks again for all of your great advice. Using the workbook is really helping me to stay focused on practice!

Progress Update night of 12/04

Daytime:

I had a bit of difficulty remembering to state test. In general, I felt like my awareness was rather dull the whole day. I still got in a good deal of state testing and intention setting, but down from my usual number and quality, probably 10x.

nighttime:

I fell asleep focusing on recall as opposed to lucidity. I didnt notice the HI like i typically do, which tells me that I lost awareness sometime before actually falling to sleep. Perhaps this in part accounts for the poor recall that resulted. I woke up early in the morning ( i didnt check my phone as I have found this to lead to to much wakefulness and intrusive thoughts if it is close to my final wake time). I tried for recall but no dice, I felt as though something was just right there, but I could not make it clear enough to write anything down. I threw in the towel and went back to sleep cultivating the intent to become lucid. I woke up with my alarm and seemingly no recall. I had a little scene there and was about to dismiss it as "a bunch of thoughts" but then after a moment realized that I had indeed been asleep and that it was a dream. I spent about 5 minutes on recall and ended up with a complete (if alarm shortened) dream. Not bad. I am going to try for a longer WBTB with MILD tonight as I can afford to sleep a bit longer than normal tomorrow morning.

Originally Posted by KonchogTashi

One thing I repeatedly marvel at is the stupidity and dullness that sleep imparts to my mind.

You have discovered the enemy. We must strive for strong clarity of self-awareness when waking in order to have even half a chance at lucidity when asleep. The fog and dullness of the dream state can be overcome, but it always takes effort and intent. I myself had a really short lucid last night where I started in a party that was so awesome I thought I should check for a dream. I just stood there breathing through my pinched nose, again and again and again, and still couldn't reach any clear conclusions or understand the implications of what was going on. "Can I breathe, actually?" It was a "wake up call" (haha) for me that I must attend to my waking RCs with a clear focused mind when awake in order to set the model for doing the same in dreams. The danger for more veteran dreamers is becoming blase over time about these moments.

edit:

Thanks again for all of your great advice. Using the workbook is really helping me to stay focused on practice!

You are very welcome, glad to be of assistance!

Progress Update Night of 12/05

Daytime:

continued with state tests/ intention setting as previously described. After work traveled by car for 3 hours with family. Gave me some nice new situations/locations to perform state tests in.

Nighttime:

Really fantastic night. I went to bed at 10:15. I set my intention to wake and record dreams during the night. I woke up first at 1:30 and recorded a full dream. I woke later and recorded another. Each time I went to bed I practiced MILD according to ETWOLD. The first wake practice was particularly good as typing out the dream woke me up considerably. In the cycle that ended at 5:30 I recognized that I was dreaming. The dream lasted perhaps 1 minute. I would describe it as being pretty low level lucidity as I was still very much under the sway of sleep ignorance even after recognizing the dream. It never occured to me to try to stabalize or leave the confining place I was in. Oh well..it felt great to be lucid again.

After the lucid I woke up and typed it out, went back to be practicing MILD. I had a very vivid dream of teaching a group of co-workers how to get lucid. I taught hand check and nose pinch state tests. Both times they failed, that is, my hands looked crazy and I could breathe through my nose. I guess I expected it as the dream setting was teaching an LD class. Pretty funny!

I think the WBTB/MILD combination works pretty well for me. I would say at least 50% of my LDs have come after practicing it.

After the final wake up I logged 3 detailed dreams, an LD, and 2 fragments. I actually could have entered more, but felt satsfied with my haul for the night.

Thanks so much for encouraging me to record dreams in the middle of the night awakenings, I feel this really contributed to this success. I included dj entry for the dream below. THANKS!!

Driving home from Columbus with and a new coworker I am driving, it is night. I turn off of a major street into a neighborhood. Wife asks why i am going this way. I say " I don't know columbus well" will this get us home?" "This will lead to aurora ave, it will get bus home, but not fast. I can drive" she says. Now she is driving (no switch over) and it is day. I look around and see lots of buildings with curved roofs. There is a donut shop made of glittering, dully iridescent bricks on my right. It has a beautiful curved brick roof. On the left there is another brick building, 2 or 3 stories tall, also with a rounded roof. Then we pass a strange structure on the left, what looks like two very large (10-12ft.) tall nautilus shells capped with polished red metal on the sidewalk. They sit in front of "the firehouse" and are apparently a landmark. Behind them is a very old stonewall with a hilly cemetery behind it.- I check my hands and they look strange. I check again and they seem a little off, I am puzzled. I check a third time and realize I have an extra finger and that pinky and index finger are oddly splayed and shrunken. " I am dreaming." I say. I look at wife and say "I am dreaming." She just smiles and looks at me. "Who are you?" I ask. Talking seems difficult, like it takes a lot more effort than it should, I feel like I have food in my mouth or something. She does not reply. "Who are you?" I ask again. "Ummm the person we are with is a dangerous alcoholic. Did you see that thermos they had? What do you think is in that? Look at him." She says (he is asleep, probably passed out). But who are you? I ask again, also I remember I need to stay calm and close my eyes for some reason. The dream fades.

Excellent! Congratulations. You can really wrack up a serious bunch of dream journal entries that way. Getting up for actual WBTB is a great way to promote lucidity, I'm so happy you had a great night! LOL at all the "Who are you?"'s ! Yes sometimes talking feels like I'm underwater or have a mouth full of cotton. If you remember, you can just "mind talk", the DCs hear you just as well of course!

Congrats on the DILD KonchogTashi!! FryingMan has a wealth of knowledge so I am glad that you two are working together to get you to the next level. Funny response from your wife about the alcoholic passed out in your house!

FryingMan has been so thorough that I haven't had much to add. You have obviously found something that works well for you and with additional practice you will see your consistency increasing. The only thing I will add at this point is to try to not connect closing your eyes in the dream with anything negative. There was a TOTM to close your eyes for some length of time in a lucid and several of us did it and broke that myth you may have heard. It is also handy for Sensei's closed eye teleport. By the way he is trying to put out 1 podcast per day for 30 days on all kinds of great lucid dreaming subjects. Check his signature or profile (harder to link...I'm on my phone). It is great to listen to anytime you are lounging or want a break from reading or other LD practices.

Originally Posted by fogelbise

Congrats on the DILD KonchogTashi!! FryingMan has a wealth of knowledge so I am glad that you two are working together to get you to the next level. Funny response from your wife about the alcoholic passed out in your house!

FryingMan has been so thorough that I haven't had much to add. You have obviously found something that works well for you and with additional practice you will see your consistency increasing. The only thing I will add at this point is to try to not connect closing your eyes in the dream with anything negative. There was a TOTM to close your eyes for some length of time in a lucid and several of us did it and broke that myth you may have heard. It is also handy for Sensei's closed eye teleport. By the way he is trying to put out 1 podcast per day for 30 days on all kinds of great lucid dreaming subjects. Check his signature or profile (harder to link...I'm on my phone). It is great to listen to anytime you are lounging or want a break from reading or other LD practices.

Thanks for the continued support! Also, thanks for the heads-up regarding the podcast. I will certainly give it a listen!

Progress Update nights of 12/06 & 12/07

Daytime:

I continued as before. Sunday was pretty stressful with travel and getting ready for the upcoming week. Consequently, I probably logged fewer state tests than is typical. I would still estimate that I got in 15 checks.

Nighttime:

Saturday night I got to bed later than I would have liked. As a result of this I did not make any aspirations to wake in the middle of the night to record dreams. I woke up with a very detailed complete dream to add to my DJ. Sunday night was more of the same. I got to bed at 10:45, wake up time was 6:00. I made intentions of waking up and recording my dreams. I figured I would practice MILD or a permutation of it as I went back to sleep after recording. I woke up once in the middle of the night but was unable to rouse myself enough to enter anything in the DJ. At final wake up time I had a full dream and an additional fragment to log. I have noticed that my recall is improving in terms of detail per dream. I am remembering more exactly. For example my dream on Saturday night contained a lot of dialogue that I was able to recall precisely. I am quite pleased with this. Also the spatial relationships in the dreams are becoming a bit clearer "this is on my right, this is on my left."