JoannaB's workbook

[JoannaB]

Hi, I am JoannaB and I am a dreamer. I am 39 years old. About 20 years ago, I used to be proficient at LDing only DILD back then. I love it, and I no longer remember why I stopped, and all that used to work for me. But from what I can remember, I have changed in those 20 years and what used to work does not work anymore, but different things do. Since returning to LD practice in February my dream recall has fluctuated, but usually when I try I do remember something each night, and on many nights it is a full dream though sometimes just a fragment, but other times more than one. Since February I have had one successful WILD (been trying to replicate that success since) and one successful WBTB DILD (last night!). I try to sleep about 10-11pm to 6-6:30am on weekdays, and sleep in on weekends, plus some weekends I can afternoon nap. I work full time. Am married and have two boys, so busy life). Most recently: May 17 I started the competition #12 with Checker666. First night of competition I recalled one dream. Second night I did a WBTB and had a dream fragment during which I actually briefly became lucid and then stupidly woke up right away after telling myself that I bet if I opened my eyes I would actually be in bed since I am dreaming (duh), plus I also had another non-lucid fragment and non-lucid dream. My afternoon nap was unsuccessful since I failed to actually fall asleep, but I did have some cool hypnagogic images.

[gab]

Welcome JoannaB! The competition can indeed be a great motivator. I was gonna join in too, but I missed the sign-up deadline. I'll catch the next one, watch out! Since you seem to be pretty good at DILDs, and interested in WILDs, you wanna tell me how do you WILD? And perhaps I can offer some pointers. Or ask about DILDs too.

[JoannaB]

Welcome JoannaB! The competition can indeed be a great motivator. I was gonna join in too, but I missed the sign-up deadline. I'll catch the next one, watch out! Since you seem to be pretty good at DILDs, and interested in WILDs, you wanna tell me how do you WILD? And perhaps I can offer some pointers. Or ask about DILDs too. Actually, I used to be good at DILD 20 years ago, now I am abysmal, and would love to become good at either DILD or WILD or both. How do I WILD? Well, I lie down and listen to the aquarium or fan's white noise for a while with closed eyelids. I also try to look at what images or light appear behind my eyelids. I am good at getting some cool images. I suspect though that I am trying too hard. Another problem is that in general I am not good at falling asleep. It generally takes me a long time most times, and usually I fall asleep once I almost give up hope of falling asleep.

[JoannaB]

Oh, and what else might be relevant: I have been dabbling in ADA, and mantra/intensions, but my commitment level alas varies - though i every day do "something". And while I for a while was good at remembering to RC during waking recently I have not been good about that.

[gab]

Ok, the trick with WILD is that you have to time it right. You have to fall asleep at the same time, when you either see the dreamscape behind your closed eyelids, or you get some other kind of confirmation, that you are already asleep. The more I WILD, more I realize, that the point when you can exit into a dream is much sooner, than I realized. This is how it sometimes is for me: I stare at the back of my closed eyelids. At first, there is just blackness. Then I may see this blackness moving. Like a fog, with black and darker black and maybe dark grey. I may start seeing some images formed out of this fog. Not very well defined. Then I may see some clearly defined individual objects. Like a classic alarm clock. A cartoon figurine. Geometric shapes. At some point, I may see my whole field of view turn white. As if someone turned the light on behind frosted glass. These images of objects may start to get animated. More dream like. Until I may see some picures, as sharp as a HD photograph. And after this, I may get a movie. I usually watch this from birds eye view, as if I was flying over it. At this point I look at the ground and say something like "I am there". This transports me there and I'm suddenly in 3D environmet completely lucid. Now, sometimes I don't get the images at all. Instead I get physical sensations. Vibrations are the most frequent ones. Other times, I suddenly realize, that I'm looking at my room. Convinced, I'm awake looking at waking world. But if I make a leap of faith at this time, I stand up and once I do so, again, I'm in 3D, fully consiouss. Other times, I just get the idea that I'm tired of waiting for images, vibrations, my room, and I decide to get up. And I'm in 3D again. I have missed on bunch of opportunities to get lucid, when I was waiting for something to happen and THEN I would act to enter the dream. Instead, I should have been paying attention to the feeling of "I'm in a dream already". It will take a few tries, but you will get used to it and will recognize it. So just have patience. Every time you attempt, you get further into the process. Our minds have to get used to this strange new thing you doing and allow you to go on with it. While I wait for me to fall asleep, I use mantra. Usually something simple, like "I'm dreaming". But if I need to remember any goal, I use that. Like "when I see my room, I get up". It works like a charm. All of my WILDs happened in the morning, or during morning nap. I have tried with at night WBTB, but kept falling asleep too soon. Morning nap is, when I wake up at any time 6-9am. Stay up from 1-3 hrs and then lie down on sofa watching TV till I get sleep. Lately, I don't even need TV anymore to get me sleepy. If everything goes right, I start feeling my legs relaxing within 5 minutes and vibrations soon after. Then I either get the images, or I just get up and walk away. I'm sorry, I'm sure i'm leaving something out. Please ask if there is something specific.

[JoannaB]

I suspect that I may need to pay more attention to when I am tired and time my attempting to go to sleep better. I will try to focus on that. Thanks for your advice, gab, at this point while I theoretically understand that the point to enter sleep may come earlier than I expect and I will try to watch out for it, but in practice I am not sure what to do yet. Sigh.

[gab]

Well, I'm sure you gonna have a blast figuring it out. In this case, the journey is as much fun, if not more, than destination itself. At least for me. Good luck P.S. Actually, I kind of envy you. All these cool discoveries just awaiting you.

[JoannaB]

So far I got only that one lucid after this completion started, but hey at least my dream recall seems to be progressing nicely. And I will need to work on the falling asleep better. I need to focus on observing why some nights I have trouble and others I do not. Yesterday I thought I was progressing on WILD initiation during a nap, but no dream recalled. I am not sure what is better to be impatient or patient.

[gab]

I am not sure what is better to be impatient or patient. I think best is to be indifferent. With pinch of intent. But I think you have a pretty good handle on things and very good understanding of what and when and why. That's interesting how you fell asleep that fast. I never fall asleep in 15 min. It's more like an hour, or even longer. I guess having too much on mind and not enough physical activity is what is causing this for me. And cats starting their "night life" the moment I shut the lights off. Good luck

[JoannaB]

Hey, I may have had a breakthrough on the falling asleep struggle, that or I was unusually sleepy during nap today. I remembered reading that a normal person takes about 15 minutes to fall asleep, so i decided to just count myself to sleep to see how far I got. I was not counting any sheep nor anything else, nor was I visualizing the numbers, just counting in my mind. Well, I did not get far. Alas this did not make me lucid, but I did fall asleep pretty quickly. I think after less than three minutes or so? But perhaps I was unusually tired, can't base a conclusion on one experiment.

[JoannaB]

Silly me! I think I realized one of my major mistakes since I returned to lucid dreaming and joined DV. I had not been reading most of the tutorials. I had incorrectly thought that I remembered most if the induction techniques, since I used to be quite familiar with them about 20 years ago. Well, guess what? I yesterday read the WILD tutorial and read more about how to do it, and now I read the MILD tutorial. It finally dawned on me that 20 years is so long that while I knew all this stuff probably back then but I probably forgot more than I remembered, and since February I have been struggling with partial techniques and trying my own because I assumed incorrectly that I already knew what to do! And while I read the Are You Dreaming? book by Daniel Love recently, but now I wonder whether I did not skim or not pay enough attention to some of this stuff, thinking I already knew it. I need to reread LaBerge's book!

[JoannaB]

I can report that the WILD tutorial continues to work like a charm as a perfect sleep aid: I count my breaths, I count the visualized numbers, and I am asleep, no sheep needed - alas I am not successful in WILDing, but falling asleep fast is a good start.

[JoannaB]

I got lucid! I got lucid! I got lucid! I got way too excited and forgot to stabilize, but hey I recognized the dream. No, voting at a bar apparently is not enough to tip me off, but my mother on TV talking about her dreams finally made me realize. I think the entire night was good: great recall, and in hindsight my awareness was maybe a bit higher in that I questioned some things in my non lucids too, but then rationalized them. And my first dream of the night was like a no lucid about lucidity, so the night started off well and ended even better. Yay! Edit: So since returning to the hobby I had 3 lucid dreams: LD 1 WILD during a nap, followed by 2.5 months gap, LD 2 WBTB in morning, followed by 3 week gap, LD 3 (tonight) last dream of night in morning DILD Things that contributed to this last success: 2 nights of 9 hours of sleep, doing the MILD memory awareness exercises for two days so far, playing Brain Trainer games on my iPhone, first dream of night was almost lucid and set the tone, total 5 dream recall this night

[JoannaB]

It occurred to me that I am way more excited about this lucid dream than about the previous two, and I think part of me is more hopeful that this is it that now I will have more lucids sooner. Part of it is due to the fact that this was in general a fantastic night for me with five dreams recalled, and part of it is that I can really feel the effor starting to bear fruit and I am thus more optimistic that this is not just a one off occupancy but rather the beginning of more lucid dreams for me, like this is a major breakthrough. Out of some reason I did not quite have that optimism the last couple of times.

[gab]

Congratulations! Not only on you lucid, but on the general state of mind. Yes, I strongly feel that excitement plays a huge role in getting lucid. That's how I got my first one. I only practiced awareness question, RCs and a mantra for half a day, or even less. But I was incredibly excited. You have your confidence back. Keep up your excitement and practice. And don't be discouraged by WILDs (I know you are not). Happy dreams

[JoannaB]

Woo Hoo! Another lucid this morning Poker Table in Elevator - No Problem, but Elevator Numbers Out of Order - LUCID! - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views What I especially liked was that I had enough awareness that the reality check not working did not fool me, and did not matter. Really need to work on stabilizing dream to not wake up right away. But hey: from 2.5 months gap between lucids, to 3 week gap, to 3 day gap now - that's definite progress!

[JoannaB]

Ok, so in the meantime I have been trying the awareness exercise of MILD not quite successfully, and today I tried meditation quite unsuccessfully or rather I discovered that my mind cannot yet focus on my breath like at all, which I believe was the goal of lesson one first attempt, so it was a huge success in a way. Oh, and another author I am reading has almost convinced me that we all have the potential within us to become one with God, however that also makes me realize how much I am falling short if my spiritual potential. My car is no longer possessed by whatever demon took it over after the rain. Oh, and I expect to lucid dream tonight. After all it has been five nights since my last lucid dream, so surely one is due again right, and with all that meditating, and contemplating the power within me, surely I am more aware. Although before I go to sleep I should go open a door, since that was something I was supposed to be aware of today, and I did not notice it a single time. Hey maybe I should open a door while asleep?

[JoannaB]

Hmm, so I realized I have not posted anything in my workbook in a long time. I must admit to myself that I have been slacking on day time awareness and reality checks, but since lucid dreaming continues to be on my mind while I participate in this forum, I must be doing something right enough that I had a lucid dream four days ago http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/joan...-flying-48836/. I noticed that this lucid dream was longer and I successfully stabilized, so of the five lucids I had since returning to the hobby, this one was indeed an improvement. It was a DILD, and I became lucid by noticing that the toilet was out of place and rejecting my initial rationalization of that. I am at a point where I enjoy lucid dreaming and dream interpretation almost equally, which is good because then I get satisfaction even when I do not lucid dream. Although it may be bad because I then do not have as urgent a motivation to lucid dream. The largest big development is that I now kind of believe in precognitive dreams also since two of my dreams recently were too close to events that happened soon after to keep me comfortably in the "there are no precog dreams, and even if there are, they do not ever happen to me" mindset - they could have been just coincidence, but my gut feeling is, they were not. So now, my goals are to (a) have more lucid dreams; (b) enjoy interpreting dreams even if non-lucid; and (c) watch out for possible precog dreams. Alas, this morning my mind recalled three fragments but then insisted I was too tired to write them down right away, so by the time I wrote down, there was only one. Got to watch out for lazy mind playing tricks on me again!

[Sensei]

On rejecting irrational thought: My biggest Dream sign is not understanding something. If something makes no sense one second and perfect sense the next I always question it. Any time I try to figure anything out I slow down and make sure that I am questioning everything and making a clear line of thought. This gets me lucid a lot. Especially when doing dream like things (running on all fours, talking to people that only exist in my mind, using dream powers). If you actually change your mindset, you will change your dream mindset. What exactly are you doing to get lucid? You mentioned ADA and MILD, but what so your days and nights look like?

[JoannaB]

On rejecting irrational thought: My biggest Dream sign is not understanding something. If something makes no sense one second and perfect sense the next I always question it. Any time I try to figure anything out I slow down and make sure that I am questioning everything and making a clear line of thought. This gets me lucid a lot. Especially when doing dream like things (running on all fours, talking to people that only exist in my mind, using dream powers). If you actually change your mindset, you will change your dream mindset. What exactly are you doing to get lucid? You mentioned ADA and MILD, but what so your days and nights look like? I think what I am doing varies, and that's part of my problem why I am not getting lucid more often. I obviously think about lucid dreaming a lot, being on this forum, and also throughout the day, and before I go to sleep, and when I wake up in the middle of the night. I am pretty good about dream journaling, and identifying dream signs, but not good enough about then looking out for my dream signs during the day usually, I must admit. I have bursts of using MILD or ADA but am not consistent about either. Though I will often try to ADA especially during my commute to and from work. And some days I am good about RCs, but again, not consistently enough, so yes, I need to work on that. I often try WBTB or WILD if I wake up and there is at least two hours until I need to wake up for good. I sometimes mantra before going to sleep, but again not regularly. So bottomline, yes, I need to work on being more consistent, and need to add RCs and looking for dream signs or "looking for the weird" awareness into m everyday life more consistently.

[Sensei]

It is really hard to be consistent. I personally would recommend making a consistent sleep schedule with a ten minute routine before bed that you can pair with things like brushing teeth etc. This is a good time to do your mantra, visualization, meditate, ADA. That way you can be consistent easier.

[JoannaB]

Did some basic analysis of my LDs this year, and it looks like what I need is to join more competitions! This is the trend I found: Join Date 2/26/2013 Lucid Dream #1: 3/6/2013 (8 days after join date), WILD during early afternoon nap, expectation leads to result, wake up soon due to being confused in LD http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/joan...ragment-44244/ Competition #12 5/17/2013 - 5/31/2013 Lucid Dream #2 5/18/2013 (2 months after previous LD, 1 day after competition start), WBTB, wake up right away http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/joan...wake-up-46542/ Lucid Dream #3: 6/6/2013 (3 weeks after previous LD, 6 days after competition end), DILD, lucid due to noticing something weird, basic summoning my husband http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/joan...m-lucid-47126/ Lucid Dream #4: 6/9/2013 (3 days after previous LD, 9 days after competition end), DILD, lucid due to noticing something weird, RC in dream failed but ignore fail, not stabilized http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/joan...r-lucid-47251/ Competition #13 7/5/2013 - 7/19/2013 Lucid Dream #5: 7/23/2013 (1.5 months after previous LD, 4 days after competition end), WBTB, DILD, lucid due to noticing something weird, stabilized dream, longer, flying http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/joan...-flying-48836/

[gab]

Competitions can indeed be a great motivator. Congrats on all your lucids so far, WILD and DILD!

[JoannaB]

Forgive me father, it has been most of a month since my last lucid dream. Err ... Wait a moment, this is not a former Roman Catholic's confessional, never mind then. No forgiveness needed. But yes, it has been a while, and I have been a naughty girl and not doing enough to induce LDs. But I feel good about last night's recall: one dream and five fragments is nothing to sneeze at, although given that I do have this lingering summer cold or allergies, I might sneeze anyway. With such good recall last night, surely tonight is the night to LD again, right, subconscious? Are you listening? Repeat after me: "I am aware. I dream. I notice I am dreaming. I remember my dream." I will find some chocolate in my pocket. I will eat that chocolate. I will turn around, find a door, behind that door is the Taj Mahal, and I shall go get it with all that energy from that chocolate. It is vivid, it is steady, it is grand! I can do it. I know I can. Am I dreaming now? If I were dreaming my finger would go through that palm. May I still have some chocolate regardless of reality check outcome?

[LucasPotter]

That was a very amusing post!