Thread: LDs last only about 5 minutes

I've never had an LD last more than 5 minutes without waking up. I've tried focusing on things, spinning, rubbing my hands together, and none of it really seems to help. I'm using WBTB.

This is about the average LD length.
I'm hitting the same wall. A guy I used to mentor who now mentors me and teaches advanced courses (lol.. he passed me) here says that it's not about rubbing your hands in spinning. It's about anchoring yourself. Pay attention to your senses and the physical world more than the mental aspect -- it's the exact opposite of normal life. Things aren't real, physical needs more attention than mental, and laws of physics change.

He said if you absolutely must, to rub every part of your body and not just your hands and it should help "anchor" you down.

I haven't tested this, but have you thought about putting your keys or something in your hands and just playing with them as you walk around? In my case I'm using a guitar.

Originally Posted by jarrhead

A guy I used to mentor who now mentors me and teaches advanced courses (lol.. he passed me) here says that it's not about rubbing your hands in spinning. It's about anchoring yourself. Pay attention to your senses and the physical world more than the mental aspect -- it's the exact opposite of normal life. Things aren't real, physical needs more attention than mental, and laws of physics change.

He said if you absolutely must, to rub every part of your body and not just your hands and it should help "anchor" you down.

Sounds like he studied my tutorial well.

Originally Posted by nina

Sounds like he studied my tutorial well.

Sounds like I didn't.

Originally Posted by jarrhead

Sounds like I didn't.

Well...hop to

Dream Stabilization and Clarity Tutorial - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

My dreams usually feel like five minutes long and jump from scene to scene, so my LD length is average.

Originally Posted by jarrhead

This is about the average LD length.
I'm hitting the same wall. A guy I used to mentor who now mentors me and teaches advanced courses (lol.. he passed me) here says that it's not about rubbing your hands in spinning. It's about anchoring yourself. Pay attention to your senses and the physical world more than the mental aspect -- it's the exact opposite of normal life. Things aren't real, physical needs more attention than mental, and laws of physics change.

He said if you absolutely must, to rub every part of your body and not just your hands and it should help "anchor" you down.

I haven't tested this, but have you thought about putting your keys or something in your hands and just playing with them as you walk around? In my case I'm using a guitar.

Sounds like he studied my tutorial well.

Just kidding nina's is better.

From what I understand, when you enter a lucid dream, you should anchor ALL your senses. Touch, taste, sight, smell and hearing. This helps you keep in your dream body :3

A lucid can last any length of time, depending on how well grounded you are, though sometime's it's just unavoidable to have a really short dream. Personally I went through a phase where I had a lot of really short LD's which lasted around 30 seconds no matter what I did. It passed though, and now I've been having LD's which are much longer than my old average

Is this average for everyone that LDs only last for 5 minutes? How long can people hold an LD for if they are very experienced?

extremely experienced people can hold them the length of the REM cycle, I suppose.

mine are usually shorter than 5, but then i will occasionally have 15-20 minute ones.

ive found that the more i go with the plot, the longer it will last, but the greater chance i have of becoming non-lucid.

i am mediocre at stabilizing and need to work on it. last good, long one, i picked up a rock and carried it with me, rubbing it as i walked. that seemed to help.

something i intend to try next time is to keep my eyes moving, roving around the scene, briefly catching more details. i heard this from percy on here and i have found that if i fixate on something (especially something far away) the dream will usually fade. i feel like this will probably help that issue.

Aaa okay... I was kind of confused at the average length of a lucid dream, but now I understand that anchoring is really important. Hopefully, when I have my first lucid dream I'll be able to attempt to anchor myself to be able to make it last longer.

Originally Posted by Quantiq

Aaa okay... I was kind of confused at the average length of a lucid dream, but now I understand that anchoring is really important. Hopefully, when I have my first lucid dream I'll be able to attempt to anchor myself to be able to make it last longer.

Dream Stabilization and Clarity Tutorial - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views
http://www.dreamviews.com/f14/unifyi...ontrol-117900/

Wow, thanks for the tips everyone. Not only did it help prolong my LD to around 20 minutes, but it also helped me 'anchor' myself into the dream when I felt it forming.

Originally Posted by rvbfreak

Wow, thanks for the tips everyone. Not only did it help prolong my LD to around 20 minutes, but it also helped me 'anchor' myself into the dream when I felt it forming.

20 minutes is pretty sweet.

My modest opinion. The more phantasmagorig and exciting are my lucid dreams, the less they last. In those dream I rush over river and mountains at the speed of light. The other category; the lucid dreams that look boring and uninteresting last for ever, to the point that I become tire and finish them. In all my lucid dreams I decide when to wake up, except for those that end abruptly.

Originally Posted by sanctispiritus

My modest opinion. The more phantasmagorig and exciting are my lucid dreams, the less they last. In those dream I rush over river and mountains at the speed of light. The other category; the lucid dreams that look boring and uninteresting last for ever, to the point that I become tire and finish them. In all my lucid dreams I decide when to wake up, except for those that end abruptly.

Ever tried Galantamine? When I've taken it in the past, I usually get those very exciting lucid dreams but they are much more solid and last so much longer...usually a few hours with some skilled DEILDing. I feel like Galantamind has a built-in LDing anchor.

Originally Posted by sanctispiritus

In all my lucid dreams I decide when to wake up, except for those that end abruptly.

You wouldn't say...? LOL. Of course. If you don't wake yourself up, it ends itself. That's like saying "I'm pretty experienced.. except for the times that I'm not."

Oh no, I work in a Pharmacy and have access to everything, but that is not my goal. I like to remember my dream. Before joining this forum I did not know what lucid dream was and I almost never was able to remember my dreams. Now, I remember at least one every night. For years I had those dreams in which I was flying ( non lucid all of them),o I do not know how is possible that people who are lucid dreaming can not do that. I am 62. At the begining a thought that it would be impossible for me to LD because of my age, but now I have at least one lucid dream a week that is good enough for my decrepit brain

If you can't seem to get past the 5 minute mark, work on DEILDs! Thats where most of mine are from (probably like 25) and if you do it a lot, you can start to chain them together! (My record is currently 5 LDs total, 4 DEILDs and one DILD.

5 minutes isn't that short. That's probably pretty average, try napping, those REM cycles are much longer.

I understand that after many of us become lucid, that the dream lasts about 2-20 more minutes.

What if you do MILD, and you begin a REM while lucid? Aren't REMs like around 45 minutes in real time? Perhaps an hour in 'dream time'?