greekwarrior's Workbook

Hey I'm greekwarrior I live in Greece and I have never lucid reamed. This week I started to practice DILD but didn't have any luck yet. Everyday I do reality checks (I mostly count my fingers and pitch my nose) and I try to say a sentence many times before I sleep. The problem I face every time I do that is that I focus a lot on my sentence that I cant get any sleep. Later if I fall asleep, but most of the time in that point I have forgotten my sentence because I feel tired. Also I get very few dreams (1 or 3 per 15 days). I play videogames everyday so shouldn't I get more lucid dreams or at least normal ones?



Would be great if you help because I am a bit lost.

The picture is me when I cant lucid lol

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I am sure FryingMan and fogelbise will have some good advice for you, but I would suggest putting some time into establishing dream recall. Do you have a dream journal? If not, I would start one as soon as you can. Make sure it's something you only write down dreams in (don't want a grocery list finding its way in).

Concerning reality checks, how are you doing them? It's recommended to be as present as possible while carrying them out. By present, you can take in your five senses, become aware of what you are thinking about and where you are going. Seriously ask yourself whether or not you could be dreaming at this moment. Then do the test. Once you've done the reality check, if you are not dreaming, visualize what you would do if you were dreaming, and make an affirmation that you will recognize the dream state the next time you're dreaming. You don't have to do this too many times a day--whenever something weird happens, and at most, 5-10 times in a day.

Concerning falling asleep, the LaBerge MILD is an effective technique to use on a WBTB (Wake Back to Bed, or getting up after about four hours of sleep). When you return to bed, do MILD. Don't let a technique keep you awake. The most important thing is to set a strong intention and then fall asleep. If the intention is strong, and the daily practices have sunk in, your chances for lucidity will be high.

Thanks for the tip! I will start right away.

Hello greekwarrior, and welcome to the DVA DILD class!

ThreeCat has given you some good advice on reality checks and MILD, thanks 3C!

Greekwarrior, it sound like you're at the very beginning of lucid dreaming practice. Dreaming and lucid dreaming is such an incredible addition to life, it's really exciting to think of all the fabulous dreams you will have throughout your life!

Why don't we start by examining in more detail what you do during the day and night.

Day time: about how many times do you do reality checks? How much time do you spend doing them? ThreeCat is correct that it is best to give reality checks your full attention when doing them. You want to do enough of them that you keep the subject of dreaming close to your thoughts during most of the day, but you do not want them to ever become automatic or become bored of them. You'll need to experiment to find out just the right frequency that works for you. That is true for a lot of lucid dreaming practice, by the way: teachers and others can guide you, but it's up to *you* to build your dream recall and awareness to high levels, to do the day time and night time LD practices.

I just today wrote a long welcome message to another new group member, have a look through it >>HERE<<, concerning dream recall and daytime awareness.

Have you read any books on lucid dreaming? I highly recommend LaBerge's Exploring The World of Lucid Dreaming, there are many excellent points and practices in there to help you get started.

Definitely, the first place to start is with dream recall. In my tips, you'll see that I emphasize that *every time you find yourself awake in bed, immediately reach for dream memories*. If you make a solid practice of doing this, over time (generally you should see the results very soon) you will recall more and more dreams.

Journaling the dreams in a dream journal (written by hand, or typed into a computer) is important for several reasons: it keeps the topic of your dreams on your mind; it shows your subsonscious that recalling dreams is *important* to you; and not least of all, you have a written record of your nighttime adventures that you can relive any time you want in the future. Yet another important aspect of keeping a dream journal is that you will, over time, come to see patterns of reoccurring dream situations that keep coming up again and again in your dreams. We call these reoccurring themes/situations/characters/emotions "dream signs", and as you learn about your dream signs you can use these to help attain lucidity, by imagining yourself in a dream encountering a dream sign and seeing yourself get lucid.

I would add one small point to what ThreeCat wrote: it may be subtle, but I prefer to distinguish between "reality checks" and "critical reflection moments". A "critical reflection moment" is when you're taking a lot of time and care to examine your surroundings, situation, etc., to ask yourself questions like "How odd is this?" and "Why do I think I'm awake?" "What was I doing 15 minutes ago?" "How did I get here?" (you'll notice that a lot of these are related to memory: developing memory is also important in becoming lucid). You're trying to determine if anything dream-like is happening. You can spend even several minutes continuously in critical reflection moments throughout the day. You want to do as many as possible, to keep your mind constantly questioning and evaluating your situation to see if you might be dreaming.

A "reality check" is a way to *quickly* answer the yes/no question of: am I dreaming right now? Counting fingers and trying to breathe through a pinched nose are examples of reality checks.

Critical reflection moments and reality checks are closely related to each other. It is the act of frequent critical reflection moments that raises your awareness to the point where you think of doing a RC to determine yes/no am I dreaming. In fact, you should do an RC at the end of (or during, several times, if you want) every critical reflection moment.

However, whenever you get the feeling that you may be dreaming, immediately proceed to doing a reality check. In a dream, you do not want to spend a lot of time in a slow, careful critical reflection moment if you're not fully lucid yet, but think you might be dreaming -- you may miss the chance to get lucid. Go right away to the hand check or nose pinch. Then, once fully lucid, if you like, take a long slow careful look around at the dreamworld your mind is creating for you.

A point about patience and "how long should it take?": As another DV member said very well, lucid dreaming is not like cooking. You don't put together the recipes (techniques), stick them in the oven, and 30 minutes later out come guaranteed lucid dreams. Everything we do in lucid dreaming is to *increase the chances* of getting lucid. Building dream recall and high awareness takes time, dedication, diligence, and determination. You should start to see improvements in dream recall almost right away. It takes, on average, around one month of solid practice before most people get their first lucid dream. For some it's faster, and some it's slower. If you think of it more like a journey of personal discovery, then you will be thinking correctly about the practice.

About video games: I'm not sure. I've seen some studies that reference increased chances of video game players having lucid dreams, but I know that in at least some kinds of video games it's possible to "lose yourself," or get "zoned out," which is the opposite of the awareness we try to build in lucid dreaming practice of paying attention to yourself and your situation/environment. But in any case, nothing is ever a guarantee: dedicated work, over long periods of time (don't quit, you don't want to lose your hard-won progress!) is what yields the best results.

Again welcome, and be sure to let us know any questions you have! And don't forget to answer the questions above. Let's get started!

Thanks for the help Frying Man, I already started doing reality checks through out the day, but I have a problem. The problem is that I almost never get any dreams so I can lucid. I cant even remember the last time I got a regular dream. Usually when I fall asleep, I loose consciousness everything blacks out then when I open my eyes its already morning. I sit still and try to remember If I even dreamed about anything but I don't recall anything. Is this even normal? I cant remember the last time I had a dream. How am I supposed to lucid when I have no dreams?
Anyway thanks for the help ill put the info you gave me in good use :)

You are welcome, and you've come to the right place to work on dream recall :). Yes, it is normal not to remember dreams in the beginning. We are built to "black out" until morning. And dream memory is very fragile and is easily erased. I've had a head full of dream memories *SNAP* like a rubber band and they all vanished in an instant sometimes. It takes time and effort to change these built-in traits so that remembering dreams every night becomes your new normal, so that dream memory becomes larger and less fragile. It's a change that happens slowly over time with your continued effort.

So let's get started, first of all, have you read through >>my dream recall tips<<? (<< click on that link, it's also in my signature). There's a lot there, read it through a few times and let the points sink in.

As my favorite chess teacher says: in learning any discipline, you need to do several things:

* add positives
* subtract negatives
* a combination of theory and practice (lots and lots and LOTS of practice!) [and doing so must be *enjoyable* to you so that you continue doing it and stick with it]
* analyze your practice performance, and adjust (preferably with the guidance of a more experienced practitioner)

What are some positives? I outline them in my tips, we want to add these to your daily practice:

* Recalling dreams must be *really important* to you, and you should be really excited every night to remember your dreams. You should start getting in the habit of realizing when you've woken up, and immediately reaching for dream memories, lying still with your eyes closed.
* Learning to recognize the little wakings in between sleep cycles during the night, and taking this time to practice dream recall. You can learn to wake up without alarms by setting intention at night, like: "I notice every waking, remain still, and recall my dreams"
* Set intention to remember dreams before bed: "I remember my dreams.....I remember my dreams....I remember my dreams..." do this for at least several minutes, really believe it and feel the importance to you (don't let this stop you from falling asleep, though!)
* Regular exercise (too intense may also cause "black out until morning" if you are over-exhausted, you need to strike a balance).
* Brain/memory/health friendly diet: whole natural foods, seeds, healthy oils, etc. Avoid processed, chemical fake "foods."

Some negatives, we want to get rid of these:

* Poor sleep habits: too little sleep, being too tired, irregular bed time, changing every day
* Being stressed or anxious
* Being frustrated or angry about not enough progress in your practice

Regular practice: every single time you find yourself awake, reach for dream memories. Stay quiet and calm, don't move, keep your eyes closed, and keep a "dreamy" feeling in your head. Do not start thinking about your waking day while you are in bed. Plenty of time for waking day stuff once you're up OUT of bed. Being in bed should be all about dreaming and remembering dreams.

Analyzing performance: come on here every day and update your progress, even if it is "I didn't recall anything." Also, start a dream journal (could be paper book, could be on-line), and write in it every day, even if your entry is "no recall last night."

Set some goals: to start with, let's focus on adding positives and subtracting negatives, and learning the theory well (e.g., read the tips, read LaBerge's book Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming).

Assuming you're well-rested and not feeling stressed out, being really excited about recalling dreams and setting strong intention at bedtime may be enough to start recalling dreams right away!

Realize that you *do* dream a lot, every night, already, this is natural, all you have to do is to start spending effort in remembering them!

If you keep it up, without quitting, you WILL start remembering dreams, more and more.

One last thing: day-time awareness work is closely related to dream-recall (this is my theory): you can't remember something that you don't pay attention to. Most people live life on auto-pilot, like a zombie, automatically responding to stimulus without really thinking about it or experiencing it actively. The more you start paying attention to waking life, the more you'll start paying attention to dreams, and once you start paying attention to dreams, you'll be able to remember them when you wake up.

So let's start with this for several days, and write back with any questions you have, and let us know what you've started doing and how it's going. Good luck and have great dreams!

edit: one more thought. You may want to trade off a little bit of video game time every day for going for a walk outside, and doing RCs and paying attention to yourself and your environment. Any break-up of daily routine can be great for dreaming!