Trying to control woke me up.

Hi all.

Two nights ago I had my second LD. I woke up and turned over to try sleeping the other way, whilst turning I did a RC. When I fell asleep I did an RC and it failed, so I did it again, failed again. Realising I was dreaming, I tried to fly. Have always wanted to do this and been thinking I should try it when dreaming. I bent down to jump, but when I went to straighten my legs, I could only do it slowly and not fully, feet staying firmly on the ground.

Having realised I had tried to control the dream, I knew I had to write it down. This caused a scene change with me in front room with a pencil and paper. My girlfriend was vacuuming the room, and Spike from 911 (British 90's boyband - a tv program that evening was about them) was there doing drugs. She kept asking what I was doing.

When I was writing it down in my dream I was controlling what I wrote and it was similar to what's above. However, I then asked myself, why use pen and paper when I have my dream journal on my phone? So after asking myself this, it woke me up and then I actually noted it down in my phone.

How annoying is that! Anyone got any tips to avoid things like this? Or just practise?

Thanks

Woah, so, you decided t write down your dream in your dream?... So you wanted advise on flying, is that it?

Yes please on flying. But also general advice and thoughts.

For your second lucid dream, this is really good. As you guessed, practice practice practice is the right mentality. It's also important to have a plan beforehand. Pick a task and rehearse it with visualizations, watching movies, and daydreaming.

Lately I've had a problem similar to you. I attain lucidity, have a false awakening (then loose lucidity) and report my lucid dream in another dream.

How are you going about fixing it? As is only my 2nd LD, I think it's stabilisation I need. But will have a play around with a few things.

I was just given advice (for what is happening to me) to do a reality check right when i wake up, anytime- to counter any possible false awakenings.

Last night I had another dream about recording my dream. It wasn't lucid in any way, it was just normal. Can you go overboard with reality checks, dream journals etc? Which may cause other problems in becoming lucid?

Or do you have to go "Overboard" so it can seep into your dreams and then realise you're dreaming?

It's not overboard. It's good that your waking actions are seeping into dreams (this is called "day residue"). Writing in your journal has become a dream sign, so treat it like any other dream sign. To catch dream signs and false awakenings, you just need to combine some good habits together. Before moving to write in your journal, take a moment to increase your awareness and perform a reality check. Ask yourself, "Am I really in my room?" After you write a sentence or two, do another reality check.

I agree with sisyphus.

Eucid, please keep in mind though that there is one way to go overboard with reality checks. This is when you perform reality checks in the daytime frequently with no real thought / don't take your time. It's probably more effective to do say 10 reality checks a day where you consciously ask yourself why this can't be a dream / be thorough and take your time, as apposed to mindlessly doing (for example finger-through-palm) reality checks thirty times a day. The reason why this isn't a good idea (and i know from experience) is because if you habitually do reality checks with little thought- you assume you're finger wont go through your hand for instance, and the RC will be invalid in the dream. You'll do a reality check in a dream and you're finger won't go through your hand etc. etc.

Hopefully you get what i'm saying :P

Yes I do, thanks!

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Originally Posted by Eucid

Yes please on flying. But also general advice and thoughts.

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Well, I have flown many times in LD's but always had issues with propulsion and staying in the air. Over time, I'd always float down eventually, no matter how hard I imagined going "up".
I managed to think of a trick, though. I imagine my hands and feel are invisible jet engines: extra propulsion. Now I can stay airborne indefinitely, and fly up to 300km/h easily. You should try it!
Just pretend you're iron man.

Looks like there are some similar patterns in our minds trying to confuse us after LDing with another dream pretending to be reality and taking away our awareness :). I've also had my first LD (2 in a row) last night. I've covered the experience in my DJ here. I've tried levitating immediately, too. It was quite a sucessful attempt, frankly, but too much for the fragile lucid dream to handle, so after being a few feet in the air, I woke up. As I went back to sleep (DEILD didn't work, unfortunately, cos I opened my eyes with the dream fading away), I tried to WILD, but failed and had another ordinary dream that was trying to make me believe I'm actually still awake. Sort of like the opposite of false awakening :) ? And it took a while to recognize it being a dream, although that led me to being deported into the waking world once more. :doh:

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Originally Posted by Eucid

Yes please on flying. But also general advice and thoughts.

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When I first starting flying I was like Ralph from the 80's TV show "The Great American Hero". I could take off and fly. But I had trouble with stabilizing my flight and with speed. In the beginning I seemed to only be able to fly very slowly. Kind of like a fast balloon floating in the wind being bounced around.

I eventually figured out I didn't want to fly like a bird. I wanted to lift myself up like superman and pull myself through the sky by my will of mind. You will have to consider it like a super power you have. And with a superman superpower you have unlimited speed and strength. You just lift yourself up and fly anywhere at any speed.

I think I remember seeing the 1978 movie "Superman" and seeing two scenes that helped. 1) The one at the balcony with Lois Lane that he just lifts off and moves around the air at will through the sky. 2) The scene toward the end of the movie where he was flying at super speed around the earth. I think that is when I started to master flying in my dreams.

Not sure if I was lucid in this dream. I was chasing someone across a field and I realised I was dreaming. So I stopped and tried my RC (finger through palm), however my arm wouldn't move so I couldn't do it. Reality then started creeping in, it took a few seconds, but I could feel myself getting more and more awake.
I presume I was lucid, but has anyone else struggled to do their RC?

Oh man - I hate those where you become lucid but you're already waking up!! It's the dawning conscious activity that makes you lucid, but it isn't very satisfactory, is it? It was probably also dawning conscious awareness that made you unable to move your arm - you were becoming aware of your physical body lying in bed and losing contact with your dream body.