Advice please - I still can't stabilise!

I've had about 25 or so LD's, but only one has been longer than a few seconds.
The other night I did a WBTB WILD and managed to get lucid. I knew instantly I was dreaming and looked at my hands. My right hand had no fingers at all, but within a second or 2 the dream started to fade. I tried quickly rubbing my hands together but although it did come back for a second or so, it then faded to black.
Although I know I am excited, I don't feel that excited. What am I doing wrong? Or, are there any other things I should try to stabilise?
It seems I only have a second or so before it fades, so it needs to be something that I can do quickly.
I do always feel very awake when it happens, so maybe I am just coming out of the dream state anyway?

The one longer LD I had lasted a couple of minutes maybe, and I thought I had cracked it, but this is getting me down a bit that I can't seem to progress past this stage.

Any help gratefully received!

Try different stabilization techniques - one of them is bound to work. Touch other objects, breathe in the air, even eat something - you just need to stimulate one of the senses.

Try spin or just take your time to look at everything, just feel items around you. Try make it all clear. Yet I haven't done stabilization yet but I did lots of research and yea.

Not out of personal experience; but through research I would recommend trying to interact with objects in your environment... take a breath of air, touch objects, if there is any food taste it (or if you fancy taking a bite out of a chair), etc..

Let us know how it went :)

After becoming lucid, take your time. Don't rush off doing things. Make yourself part of the dream. Touch your hands, clap, feel your clothes, the ground, nearby wall or other objects. Smell the air, taste something. Happy dreams:alien:

*Moved to Dream Control

I think it comes with a time. I had this problem too, even when I was doing stuffs for control dream. I think, most important is to slowly do anything, do not immediately trying something awesome. Don't rush. And don't think about the length of your dream. For me is usually better, when I now Im in a dream, but I don't do any RC, when I do, the dream ends immediately (It's weird, but if you know It is dream, you don't need RC anyway).

Singing and praying for God ( or something similar ) to keep my lucidity are two very effective ways to anchor me in the dream. Praying is also interesting because you are putting the stabilization responsability in the hands of God and not yourself :D

Thanks for all your replies.

@Gab, thanks for moving the thread - should've known better!
I'll try and do the things you suggest, but it's like I need to incubate that reaction before I become lucid, because there is so little time before the dream fades!
I did try spinning once, and I sort of span up into the air and the dream went black.
I think I have also been getting into a problem where I am stressing about needing to stabilise really fast or the dream will fade, but that itself is probably causing it to fade!

@Aldraz, thanks. It's nice to hear when someone has had the same issue. Having thought about it a bit, I have realised that I am always in a bit of a frenetic high speed mood when I have got lucid.
I will try to be a bit more "care less" and really slow down.

@Vagaltone, I'm not a very religious person, but I sort of get your drift, however, I think I'll stick to the secular techniques for now.

Quote:

---

@Vagaltone, I'm not a very religious person, but I sort of get your drift, however, I think I'll stick to the secular techniques for now.

---

Oh, i am not religious either :D..although interested in the study of religion.
I think the trick is to activate devotion, gratitude or any other strong positive attitude that can replace the fear of waking up.
That deserves to be called secular :D

When you say you tried rubbing your hands together, did you REALLY try to rub them together, or did you just picture it happening and try to imagine the feeling and sound vaguely?

My imagination is not great when it comes to imaging feeling sensations, but what I found has helped me a lot is instead of just visualising my hands rubbing together I actually to some extent really try to rub my hands together, but I don't allow my body to do it physically (while awake), this can create the slightest feeling of physical tension, which I then try and mould into the actual sensation of doing it. I've found that in a dream, this tension is magnified into the real thing.

@LucidJordan
It all happened so fast it was difficult to say exactly what I did, but I guess you're right, I probably only visualised it and it wasn't real enough.
I think the key is just to slow down and do things more deliberately, then really engaging with rubbing hands or sensing my surroundings should be more intense.

I have a similar issue in most of my lucid dreams. I've never really done any stabilization techniques on purpose, but one lucid dream I had that seemed to be 20 minutes long incorporated one sort of by accident. I realized I was dreaming, and focused first on what was going on around me. I decided to just go with the plot of the dream instead of changing things, except for things like being able to fly, and being unharmed when shot or stabbed etc. I think what gab said about making yourself part of the dream is extremely helpful.

So last night I woke naturally at about 4 and took Galantamine. I had a couple of vivids before a lucid. In the lucid I was walking in a shopping mall and as I passed by one shop I noticed a very ornate Chinese lantern hanging over the door. I immediately became lucid, but this time I was more calm and less excited. I looked at my hands but they seemed completely normal, so I did the nose pinch RC, which at first seemed to fail because there was a leak, so I pinched a bit harder and I could obviously breathe even though my nose was sealed, but as I did that I seemed to float up some stairs and then the dream faded.
I just wonder now if it is the very act of trying to RC that is breaking me out of the dream. In this case I was already lucid before I looked at my hands and did the nose pinch. I wonder if I'd be better to just focus on my surroundings instead?

Could be. Once, in a dream, anesthesia actually woke me from the dream. So, on the flip side, do something that makes you more "awake"

I've had this problem for a while (most of my LDs are a few seconds long, and maybe 1-2 lasted longer), but today I managed to have a slightly longer lucid dream. The key for me was basically what gab said: slow down, stop rushing or thinking about how I might wake up, etc. I actually looked around for once (and looked at what I was wearing, too. Funny how I never thought to do that before) and managed to stop myself from jumping off my balcony like I usually do. I focused on being in the dream instead of real life (though that vacuum cleaner running outside of my bedroom didn't help much). Hopefully I'll manage to do that again and figure out the best way to stabilize so I can go off and do something fun :)

If you do wake up, and notice that you're still a bit tired, don't move or open your eyes. You are already heavily relaxed and aware, so it is much easier to consciously fall asleep again.
passive meditative awareness helps in that state.

Kind of skimmed the thread, don't know if it's already been mentioned, but on top of what everyone else says (try different techniques and try to really stay in the dream and feel the dream around you), don't expect that it won't work or that you'll wake up. I know it sounds a little weird and difficult, but when you start stabilizing and you start thinking "Well I don't know if this will wor-"
nope
"What if I wake u-"
wrong
"Oh no, I can feel the dream fa-!"
lies, all lies
But really, the moment you start thinking all that, replace it with:
"Oh, yay, I'm lucid, this is going to work!"
"My hands feel so realistic, this is cool!"
"This is so totally going to be an awesome and lengthy dream!"
The problem with failing on something in lucid dreaming so much, whether it's flying, or summoning, or in your case stabilizing, you start building up the expectation that it's not going to work the next time you try it. You have to break that, and get those doubts out of your head. Forget every attempt you've done before and next lucid dream, jump in like it's your first try. Have confidence while doing it--it will work. :)

That hand technique you're using was originally intended as a reality check, not a stabilization techniques. Any artist knows hands are notoriously difficult to draw, in RL or in a dream, so there is a high probability of anomalies when you look at your hands. The kind of anomalies that draw your attention, which amplifies them, letting you know you are in a dream.

Not sure when the hand rubbing started, but it's ineffective.

Your problem is that in a dream, everything requires your attention to exist. The moment you get lucid, all your attention is on your hands. There is not enough to sustain your environment. This is pretty common, as when people get lucid, the tendency is for their attention to retreat inwards.

To solidify the dream, you need to hook your attention on enough reference points to sustain a 3D world. You are always the first point of reference, and hand rubbing will hep with that, but not the other two, which makes it a waste of time. I've found brisk movement implicitly involves the perfect balance of reference points to stabilize the dream. You have you moving, the place you're moving too, the distance between and the location of your destination.

Jumping, sprinting, flying, all great methods to stabilize. Although when I start off flying, I often waste the entire lucid doing nothing but that.

A similar thing happened to Me at one point and it soon became clear that it was the Stabilisation Techniques themselves that were the problem as doing them automatically made Me think about waking up.

The solution was to forget about them and instead concentrate on Linking Techniques, in particular the Spinning Technique.
When you become Lucid try not thinking about stabilising and just go off exploring, without trying to stabilise you might find you keep the Lucid a little or much longer.

Whether or not it does last longer though just remember as soon as the Lucid begins to fade start spinning your body with your arms out and tell yourself you're Dreaming, hopefully you will then enter another Lucid and can try and explore again for longer.
When you've successfully used the Spinning Technique a few times you can pretty much bypass the Stabilisation Techniques for the time being as you know you can just link when your Lucid fades.

That's not to say there isn't a place for Stabilisation Techniques though as they can be very helpful, this is just a way I got round them when they were collapsing My Lucid's.

Lastly if you don't want to try this and just want to stabalise then really rub your hands together hard and fast trying to cause real friction, then start rapidly clapping them together and quickly go back and forth between the two, this is what I mainly use now when I'm Lucid but not quite in a Dream body yet.

To expand on what Maxis and Cusp wrote...building your attention physically, will often help in dreaming as well.
For instance. We live in our bodies here...try for a full day, to be aware of the sensations your skin feels. The fabric you have on, the pressure in your feet as you walk, or body as you sit, lay down etc...before you know it, you will most likely have forgotten to pay attention to your skin, even if it is all around you. Just know that is okay, and once you realize it, start again. Learning attention can take time, and practice.

Many times we walk non-lucid physically...so becoming lucid here, will help in understanding the focus of attention needed to solidify, and maintain lucidity in dreaming.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Cusp

That hand technique you're using was originally intended as a reality check, not a stabilization techniques. Any artist knows hands are notoriously difficult to draw, in RL or in a dream, so there is a high probability of anomalies when you look at your hands. The kind of anomalies that draw your attention, which amplifies them, letting you know you are in a dream.

Not sure when the hand rubbing started, but it's ineffective.

Your problem is that in a dream, everything requires your attention to exist. The moment you get lucid, all your attention is on your hands. There is not enough to sustain your environment. This is pretty common, as when people get lucid, the tendency is for their attention to retreat inwards.

To solidify the dream, you need to hook your attention on enough reference points to sustain a 3D world. You are always the first point of reference, and hand rubbing will hep with that, but not the other two, which makes it a waste of time. I've found brisk movement implicitly involves the perfect balance of reference points to stabilize the dream. You have you moving, the place you're moving too, the distance between and the location of your destination.

Jumping, sprinting, flying, all great methods to stabilize. Although when I start off flying, I often waste the entire lucid doing nothing but that.

---

Ha!! Thank you!
Feels like the most insightful stuff on the topic I read in a long while!!
The very first thing, I will concentrate on next time is my moving frame of reference and once I got 3D established - I can go about whatever else!!
But no hand-rubbing and other "activate your senses stuff" - it always has the opposite effect on me.
And I understand why a bit better now, I believe - starting out with such a self-referring activity - no wonder the tendency to loose the dream-world rendering in lucidity onset.

I heard meanwhile that many long-time-span LDing people don't do any of the "activate your senses" stuff anyway.
Once you have 3D optics - giving the rest of the virtual sensual data a chance to chime in is surely good, if it didn't happen on it's own anyway by then.

But not to primarily be conscious about if "anything from outside" (= the dream/the virtual reality) can be felt from "within the dream-body".
Don't know, if I can make myself clear, what I think - but anyways - I will try this approach out the very next opportunity.

:yddd:

Update:
So I got lucid last night and thought of my plan.
For once - it didn't go like it used to go in that longish streak I had with almost instantly loosing dream-perceptions and waking up. Which is great.
Buut - I should have combined it with a bit of cognitive stabilisation a la dutchraptor, I forgot about that.
And so I started running and getting a beautiful 3D scenery and ran on a bit lucidly and enjoyed the landscape - and ploink - lost lucidity.
Really a start, though!
Next time both then!

:yddd: