Letaali's DILD workbook

Day 10

I bought Rimworld and played it until 2am, so I decided to skip WBTB tonight.

Had a dream of a physics lecture. The lecture was on thermodynamics, which I'm very familiar with, since I've taught it at high school myself. I easily realized that the teacher was spouting nonsense. After the class I asked him questions that I hoped would make him realize his error without making him mad. It didn't work, he was adamant about it and started drawing things on the board to illustrate something. The teacher also asked unrelated questions, like how old I was. I started questioning my state, but it was too late. Quick visit to the void, then I woke up.

Interesting dream that makes one wonder about the mechanics of dream dialogue. Also, congrats on starting to question your state!

Day 12

Haven't focused on LDing for the last two nights. I needed less things to stress about for a few days. Focusing on university stuff and taking care of myself.

Vivid dreams from last two nights, but nothing too exciting. In one dream I stole all the 5€ notes from a store's cash register. I had a futuristic flying robot that counted it. Apparently the total was 206€, which is obviously wrong.

I know what you mean, but even when trying to have LDs, it's good not to stress about it. Stress and anxiety are fairly fatal to good dreaming, and lucid dreaming in particular. It's not easy to create that balance (there goes "the B word" again!) between intent and calm patience, but LDing is all about finding balance between many things simultaneously. You could "place your order" for the kind of dreams including lucid dreams that you'd like, phrasing it like "it would be great to have one," without setting up a situation where you feel disappointment at not getting lucid.

Having vivid dreams is great! Feel joy and accomplishment at this, give yourself some reward. We need to train our subconscious to keep providing these vivid dreaming experiences so that we can work them into becoming lucids...

Day 20

FryingMan, I know stress is not good for LDing. It's not really stress, LDing practices take focus and time. 45 minute WBTB is not something I have time for. There is not much time for my meditation and visualization sessions either.

But I did think about lucid dreaming before falling asleep last night. I visualized becoming lucid. That was enough. In a nightmare in the middle of the night, I realized that the dream repeated itself and was an impossible situation. I tried to summon someone in front of me, and only a weird squarehead appeared (literal squarehead). I visualized a person and a body grew from the head. He didn't look familiar, but I could see a floating name, like in a game. He had my brother's first name and unfamiliar surname. He didn't talk much...and seemed to be a squarehead figuratively as well.

But I feel like I lost lucidity or something. I continued to sleep for several hours after that and can't recall what happened before the lucid or how the lucid dream ended. In the last dream before waking I was telling about this lucid dream to some familiar DCs.

After this initial uni chaos sorts itself, I'll try to get back to my normal LDing routine.

Certainly, "taking care of your life" is also an important maxim in LD practice. You don't have to do 45 min WBTB or WBTB at all, you could just set intention before bed, or some visualizations just like you did. One reason why I really like the practice of mindfulness is that being mindful in itself doesn't take time away from waking activities, and benefits waking life just as much as dreaming life.

Congratulations Letaali on becoming lucid again! :) If you don't wake up (you certainly may not want to) and you go on to non-lucid dreams which is very common, you are more likely to lose details like exactly how the lucidity ended which many of us experience from time to time I'd say. At least you were able to remember what triggered the lucidity for you, sometimes that is not clear either.

I hope to see you around after things calm down with Uni.

I don't think university will become less stressful or time-consuming for a while. But I'll try to keep some lucid practice going.

Yesterday I had a dream where I was in a secret underground tunnel network and met a man in there. I stopped, since I realized that it was not real. I didn't become lucid. It felt like I was looking for the light switch in a dark room and just couldn't find it. The DC in front of me also stopped and waited for me to become lucid. I've experienced this before several times. I know I'm in a dream, but that "light" never turns on, I never become lucid. I'm guessing the stage of sleep was not suitable for lucidity or something.

^That's a good sign at least. With just a little more self awareness in place, you likely would have become lucid.

Yes, I definitely recommend finding some level of practice that you can maintain until things settle down. We often suggest to find a part of the practice that you enjoy the most and keep that up at the very least. Keep in mind that the strong lucid dream practitioners have found things in their practice that enhance other parts of their life and very well could be a benefit to studies, for example.

Alright. I'll try to get some lucid dreams again, now that I can sleep somewhat normally. I've had 5 lucid dreams since last time I wrote here.
I haven't made any progress in them. No personal goals or DHL tasks or anything.

I made a 14 minute mp3 file with some soothing music and recordings of me saying "You are dreaming". I'll play it after I WBTB.
Either I wake up and DEILD, or I have a DILD. Or both, if I'm lucky :D
Anyway. I'll update here again if I make any progress. Recall hasn't been the best, but I'm sure that will fix itself.

Good luck! :) Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks fogelbise! Well, I haven't made any progress yet. Listening to the mp3 I made hasn't worked.
Oh well. Back to the normal routine.

What are you currently doing for daytime and nighttime practices?

I RC and bring awareness to my state while awake.
I visualize my plan for the next lucid dream a few times during the day and before bed.
I WBTB, focus on my goals and repeat my mantra and I fall back to sleep.

Last night I only got 3h of sleep. I'm having some trouble keeping my sleep schedule normal.
It's a combination of sleeping too long some nights and having stomach pains and nausea again. :/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Letaali

I RC and bring awareness to my state while awake.
I visualize my plan for the next lucid dream a few times during the day and before bed.
I WBTB, focus on my goals and repeat my mantra and I fall back to sleep.

Last night I only got 3h of sleep. I'm having some trouble keeping my sleep schedule normal.
It's a combination of sleeping too long some nights and having stomach pains and nausea again. :/

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That first part all sounds like a good base of practices.

As you are eluding to, having a normal sleep schedule will help a lot. It will also allow you to use WBTB more often, which is a big boost to lucidity.

It sounds like you know what you need to do, but let me know if you have any questions or challenges you want help with.

I got a short lucid dream last night. It was a nightmare, so lucidity was triggered by the need to escape the situation.
The dream was pretty stable, but I had difficulty removing myself from the narrative and it ended up costing me the lucidity.
I tried to end a life, failed and lost lucidity. The dream kept going fairly long after that.

I didn't even think about my personal goal or anything like that. That's bad. And there was a severe lack of dream control.
I couldn't harm the bad guy at all. Any tips for that?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Letaali

I didn't even think about my personal goal or anything like that. That's bad. And there was a severe lack of dream control.
I couldn't harm the bad guy at all. Any tips for that?

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At least you became lucid and it is great that you are striving for more! :) As for tips, this is a good situation to use a "just got lucid ritual." It basically involves visualizing becoming lucid during the day and at night (especially with WBTB) and what you will do next like reminding yourself that you are dreaming, rubbing your hands, recalling your goals and perhaps visualizing starting and/or completing your goals if that feels right for the goal. Sometimes awareness is low but the fact that you became lucid typically points to something being done right and you may just need a little more focus to get to where you want to be. Let me know if anything I said is not clear. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Letaali

I couldn't harm the bad guy at all. Any tips for that?

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It's tough, in fight-or-flight situations, because this is just the primitive programming of our brains, survival instinct. I've had it myself in lucid nightmares: Nothing will hurt the bad guy or monster, and it's hard to snap yourself out of the natural instinct to just wanna rage/fight back/defend yourself. How about something complelely different, like instead of picturing something violent, try turning the bad guy into an enormous fluffy rabbit or a unicorn farting rainbows, something to make you laugh? Imagine a banana skin on the floor tripping him up. Try to difuse the situation rather than escalate it.

Easier said than done of course... have had this problem numerous times myself.

My suggestion would be, don't focus on that, instead just celebrate and remind yourself that it's awesome you realised it was a dream. :D

Thanks for the advice guys! Had a lucid moment last night when a computer monitor turned to look at me. :D I woke up instantly, so I assume it was just the end of a REM cycle.