Soundround's workbook

[Soundround]

Hi! I,m male, 30 years old. I had several lucid dreams 7-8 years ago, but they all were very short. And recently I had another one, which was short too. I decided to learn lucid dreaming and yesterday i had a lucid dream, it lasted about 1,5 minute. It's a record for me! But during this dream i had to rub my hand's, because my sight was awful and there no sound in it.

[Soundround]

To this time I have been checking reality and using the intent technique for a week. It may be important, I never lucid dreaming after checking reality. I was just aware that I was dreaming.

[Soundround]

I remembered two dreams today. Both unlucid. The first one was quite long, and I managed to remember it well. When I woke up, I tried not to move and tried to replay the dream in my head. Then I got out of my bed and wrote down the dream, which took me about half an hour. When I got back to bed, I repeated my intention to remember that I was dreaming when I was dreaming. The second dream was very short, but I clearly remember that I was thinking about my sleeping in it. But in spite of my intention, I couldn't realize I'm dreaming.

[FryingMan]

Hello, Soundround, and welcome to the DILD class! Привет! Feel free to use your workbook to track your progress, set up goals, ask questions, etc. The key thing in lucid dreaming is realizing that you're dreaming. Reality checks, or state tests (to determine your state: waking or dreaming), are just a tool to help you confirm your state when you're not sure. But always, raised awareness comes before performing a state test. So some people do not do state tests very often or at all in dreams, while others do them more. There is no advantage to doing them or not doing them. Have you read any books on lucid dreaming? Are any of the major books (like LaBerge's Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming - ETWOLD) available in Russian? Is so, or if your English is good enough (it seems quite good!) to read it in English, I'd really recommend it, because it gives a lot of very good advice. From what you've written, it does sound like you have have read ETWOLD...? Great job on the lucids, and on recalling and recording your dream! It takes time to build up enough awareness to where you're having lucid dreams more frequently, be patient. Building really good recall of all dreams is an important step to lucid dreaming more often, and is in itself very enjoyable. Also very effective is working on being mindful throughout your waking day, and reflecting on your experiences throughout the day ("is this dreamlike?"), and reviewing your memories of the waking day in the evening, just like how you recall your dreams in the morning. It takes time for waking intent to break through into the dream state, so keep it up, the longer and more consistently you do it, the more often and the easier it will become to become lucid in dreams.

[Soundround]

Hello, FryingMan! Thank you for your attention to my workbook. Yes, I've read ETWOLD (in russian), and I try to use as many techniques from it as I can. And now I apply begin thinking that the most suitable technique for me is All Day Awareness. I've been using it for three week and I was lucid about 7 or 8 times during this period. But all of my lucid dreams (except the first one, which lasted for 1,5 minutes) were very short. I can't stabilize my dreams. And thank you for rating my English I go on learning it.

[Soundround]

Today I realized myself in a dream in a funny way. I'm walking down the street with my girlfriend, and I have a green leatherette backpack in my hand. I tell her: "I don't have such a backpack, I only have a gray one and a brown leatherette bag. Do you know what that means?" I ask her, and continue. "It means I'm in a dream." At this point, I didn't realize it yet, but dream became clearer. I have a thought in my head: "wow, I should remember this for the future, when I will sleep, that I don't have such a backpack." And then the next one: "So, stop, I'm sleeping now!" And then I became lucid. The first thing I did was calm myself down so that I wouldn't wake up right now. I felt as if something was pressing down on my back from above and I couldn't straighten up. I decided to sit on the ground to fix the dream and make it clearer (I've read this somewhere). I sat down and looked at my hands, trying to see more details and get rid of the pressure on my back. After about 10 seconds nothing happened. I thought that I needed to apply the technique of falling on my back to be teleported to another dream (I've also read it), leaned back and fell through the ground as if through water. Well, I woke up right away.

[Lang]

поздравляю! This is a good start! Keep up the great work!

[FryingMan]

Glad to hear the great progress, Soundround, keep it up! There are a lot of discussion threads about "ADA" (All Day Awareness) on this site, I'd encourage you to read them. My take on it is that "Awareness, All Day" is a good goal. "ADA" as described here is usually an approach where you focus simultaneously and closely on tiny environmental sense data (sight, sound, touch, etc.). While there are some benefits to this, I much prefer "mindfulness." The goal in mindfulness is also to be aware, all day, but your focus is not on a deluge of sensory input, but rather placing attention on your high level, human, self-awareness. But whatever approach you take, keeping a reflective, critical, introspective, self-aware mindset throughout the day (in other words, being lucid in the day) will inevitably lead in time to frequent lucidity in dreams as well.