Thread: HypnosChthonius' Workbook

No luck the last few days, dream recall diminished and no LD, not even any dreams recall today despite auto-suggestion focussing on this day, WBTB, writing down the intention of remembering the dreams and becoming lucid and more RCs than ever during the last week.
Since I've always struggled with recall, I'll read and apply the dream recall compendium and hope it helps with consistency.

If you are feeling any stress over any lack of results it is better to keep up the work while saying to yourself something like "the results will come when they come." This helps to take off any pressure that may be hurting the results. Pressure and stress may help get some things done, but they are not conducive to lucid dreaming.

Feel free to make some notes here on what you found interesting or had questions about in the recall compendium.

Originally Posted by fogelbise

If you are feeling any stress over any lack of results it is better to keep up the work while saying to yourself something like "the results will come when they come." This helps to take off any pressure that may be hurting the results. Pressure and stress may help get some things done, but they are not conducive to lucid dreaming.

Feel free to make some notes here on what you found interesting or had questions about in the recall compendium.

Sounds reasonable. I wouldn't say I feel a lot of stress or pressure but I think "the results will come when they come." is really a good way to get rid of these feelings.

I found it quite surprising that temperature and light have such a high impact on recall. I've never thought about adjusting them. Adjusting temperature is no that easy but I'll definitely test the impact of letting more light in in the next days.
I also made a diary of my waking day and this seems to be quite beneficial as well. I woke up early in the night and remembered two short dreams. So I had a WBTB without setting an alarm and more dreams recalled than ever so early in the night
Mantras are interesting, too, but I've never been able to keep doing them until I fall asleep, it's quite hard to fall asleep while doing them.

Originally Posted by HypnosChthonius

Sounds reasonable. I wouldn't say I feel a lot of stress or pressure but I think "the results will come when they come." is really a good way to get rid of these feelings.

I found it quite surprising that temperature and light have such a high impact on recall. I've never thought about adjusting them. Adjusting temperature is no that easy but I'll definitely test the impact of letting more light in in the next days.
I also made a diary of my waking day and this seems to be quite beneficial as well. I woke up early in the night and remembered two short dreams. So I had a WBTB without setting an alarm and more dreams recalled than ever so early in the night
Mantras are interesting, too, but I've never been able to keep doing them until I fall asleep, it's quite hard to fall asleep while doing them.

Congratulations on the recall success

For falling asleep while doing mantras, perhaps try something more simple like "Remember" (as in remember to remember...to recall or to RC or to remember that you are dreaming for example) with more time than normal between each time you say it (perhaps even increasing the time between, if needed, to help fall asleep). It's not that you are required to fall asleep while doing the mantra for success, just that it increases the percentage of successful attempts. If those ideas aren't for you, then just do the mantra for a while, stop doing the mantra and then drift off to sleep. That will still have benefits.

Recall has been increasing in the last few days, from two to four last night. Awesome
I've increased my sleeping hours to ~9 again. I've had three false awakenings in the morning hours, all of them having to do with writing down dreams which I was unable to find in my DJ later^^
Until now, I've been too lazy to really try out your suggestion for doing mantras but thanks for the suggestion, I'm confident it will help.

Great to hear your recall is improving nicely If you continue to notice FAs you might try a reality check before each time before you write in your dream journal. One RC I just thought of is to start each entry by carefully drawing a 3D square as perfectly as possible or some other drawing that might not work as easily in a dream as it would in waking life to help cue you in that you are dreaming. If the idea doesn't fit for you, just make sure you do a proper RC and if it is a more traditional RC, do it more than once or do more than one kind of RC.

I've had 3 LD in two nights this week

I wanted to write down my dream and realized that I was still in it. Looked around a bit, the dream was very vivid and I was able to zoom in and see a far away object in greater detail than would actually be possible. I woke up when I started to bring my hands in my FOV to do a reality check.

Another time I was able to do some crazy wizardry in the dream, swapping out dream characters or summoning multiple instances of a dream character which made me realize this couldn't be reality. Felt very realistic again and when doing a Hand RC, I had 5 Fingers. Counted two times but didn't get the idea to do an other type of RC... So I was a little bit confused and woke up.

Ten minutes later, I am in a bus and know that i am dreaming, but realize that the dream is not stable at all. Remembering that RCs woke me up the last two times, I don't do one but focus on the blurry dream world instead. It works for a moment but after a few seconds, I wake up.


Recall has been getting more and more consistent, I can remember at least two dreams when sleeping in, sometimes up to 5. Even when only catching 7 or less hours of sleep, I can still remember at least one fragment.

FAs have not occurred since my last entry here.

Great work HypnosChthonius! Keep doing what you are doing while maybe trying to remember not to worry about holding onto the dream and just enjoying the experience...sometimes that extends it just by taking your mind off the idea of the dream ending.

Are you sure that first one wasn't an FA (since your were about to write down your dream)? It doesn't really matter though...the main thing is that you became lucid!

Not so much LD success during the last weeks but was at least able to keep recall at a good level with 1-5 dreams/fragments per day.

But of course I still need to improve and since I have quite some free time, I am working on a new DJ App focused on using data and statistics to find the sweet spot for optimal recall. Or at least get as close as possible. Sensei's How to Effectively DJ inspired me to copy and extend it and upgrade it to use the digital tools that are available. I am already using the app to journal and accumulate data. I'll probably publish it on the forums once the statistics part is ready.

So you are programming your own app based on Sensei's DJ recommendations thread? Nice! Will it be for IOS or android?

Good job keeping up the recall. If you aren't keeping detailed notes of what practices you are doing, I recommend making that part of your DJ notes and perhaps the app too (would be a nice feature to be a sub-entry within each DJ entry...it might even have a timestamp stating the last time you entered a "current practices" sub-entry). These type of notes could help you figure out if you are doing anything differently from a few weeks ago when you had the 3 LDs in 2 nights.

I look forward to hearing more about your app.

Unfortunately, I can only create and test it on Android don't have an apple

It does have the techniques used as a sub-entry. But unfortunately, I didn't really do anything differently when I had the LDs. Just had awesome recall (3 dreams + 4 fragments) the night before (and generally most days before) but not the nights after the LDs.

I have started to combine my mantra at bedtime with visualisation of the last dream dreamed for MILD. The impact of this is quite impressive. The first time I tried, I dreamed of the exact thing I visualized. So if I can quantify these dreams maybe it will be an easy way to get some LD if I the mantra which says that it's a LD persists in my head.

Originally Posted by HypnosChthonius

Unfortunately, I can only create and test it on Android don't have an apple

I am android user. It think there are plenty of us on here.

It does have the techniques used as a sub-entry. But unfortunately, I didn't really do anything differently when I had the LDs. Just had awesome recall (3 dreams + 4 fragments) the night before (and generally most days before) but not the nights after the LDs.

If you can't think of anything else you did differently, then maybe the great recall you had is something that you want to work on duplicating.

I have started to combine my mantra at bedtime with visualisation of the last dream dreamed for MILD. The impact of this is quite impressive. The first time I tried, I dreamed of the exact thing I visualized. So if I can quantify these dreams maybe it will be an easy way to get some LD if I the mantra which says that it's a LD persists in my head.

Nice!

My absence from this workbook might not suggest it, but my last month was actually awesome 5 LD in one month!
The thing that has by far the most influence on my probability of having a LD is recall on the day where the LD happens and on previous days. I have a high chance of LDing if I recalled at least 2 dreams per night without fail the previous week. At times where I recalled on average 4 dreams per night, I had the most LD and the greatest awareness in these dreams.
While one was quite long, long enough for me to loose lucidity again, most of them are only a few seconds in length. Do you have any tips on how to prolong them, fogelbise?

I'm still doing MILD, still waiting to see results. I am also reading Stephen LaBerge's Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming which made me implement an enhancement of the MILD technique by adding an intention technique in between two repetitions of the visualization.

Awesome job! Recall pays dividends!

Had a long and vivid LD a few nights ago although not doing much for daytime awareness. Just pure chance and mediocre recall the nights before. Was able to do many great things I had been unable to do previously. Long flying sessions, dream combat, even manipulating gravity. I'm wondering how aware I really was since I did all these cool things but hadn't planned to. And being awake, it feels like I never would have acted this way. It would be awesome to be able to remember to take a moment to figure out what my waking self would want to do when I get lucid. I guess it should be possible by setting this as my #1 dream goal.

I hope more of my future lucid dreams will be this long, stable and awesome And may yours be awesome just as well, of course

That sounded like a blast, nice!

Originally Posted by HypnosChthonius

I'm wondering how aware I really was since I did all these cool things but hadn't planned to. ...And may yours be awesome just as well, of course

I do think it is easier to keep it stable when your awareness is lower and you are not thinking too much about the whole thing, so that may have been a happy side effect for you.

Thank you