need help staying in my LDs

[CursedSeraphim]

Hi DV I've been keeping myself busy reading about LDs and trying to achieve lucidity for a few months now. At the moment I have about one LD every week which is not that amazing compared to the awesome people here who have 5 a week but right now I can be happy with that ^^ The problem I have is that I haven't had an LD in which I could actually do anything amazing at all because they ended very quickly. That has happened even though I am not expecting them to be short at all. Also I have been trying all sorts of techniques from the forum etc. to make everything more realistic and prolong my dreams and what not. Most of the time I don't feel the dream fade away before I wake up either. I'll just list a few of my last LDs (not the whole entries) and what I tried and hopefully you can help me stay in my LDs, give me tips and tricks or just tell me what you do to stay in your dreams or whether you had similar problems and how you solved them. 30.08. ... I am in my room and do a reality check.. after that I concentrate on my senses one by one to make everything realistic as I read in a tutorial somewhere on DV.. I make the dream look more than 100% realistic.. then I make it sound more than 100% realistic but before I can even start concentrating on my other senses I see Charly Sheen in my room (probably because of the ALS challenge vid) he acts a bit annoying but not to bad.. and thats when I wake up 07.09. I enter an LD via falling asleep in an FA.. do an RC and become lucid.. again I try to clear my senses.. vision works.. hearing works.. I then tell myself that I am gonna be in this dream for 1-2 hours but I close my eyes for a few seconds and when I open them I am awake.. (the next time this happens I should open them using my dream arms) 14.09. I am somewhere around the house I live in and it suddenly hits me that I could be dreaming.. I do an RC and become lucid.. I concentrate on my vision and before I get to the other senses my brother turns up.. I talk to him and figure that my unconsciousness made him appear as though he didn't know that this is a dream.. everything fades to black before I can do anything else and I wake up 21.09. a dream about some huge, strange underground laboratory complex in which all the soldiers who work there (including me) are being killed or chased by the aliens or robots which are held there.. it's a very long and vivid dream but not actually all that scary.. after a very long time of being in the dream I suddenly think about the possibility that it in fact could be a dream.. I do an RC and become lucid.. I now try something else and start with touch - after that vision - and then sounds.. I touch the surrounding entities in my dream and then look at them closely.. i try to hear every sound.. then the dream just ends 28.09. a bus driver is talking about how something is strange.. after that I do an RC and become lucid in a different dreamscape.. I shout "clarity!" and after reading about it on DV I also shout "lock me in this dream for at least 45 minutes!".. I walk a short distance through the dreamscape and quickly lose track.. and after that I wake up Maybe after some more LDs this problem will slowly start to vanish.. but with the help of this forum I could perhaps find some trick or technique that works for me so plz plz plz help :3

[VoRTeXeR007]

I'm not very experienced in this area, but i think i can help you. Do constant reality checks, about 1 every minute you are in it. Then after a few more LD's make it 1 every 5 minutes. Then make it 1 every 10 minutes.. so on so forth. Also you must expect yourself to stay in the dream and not wake up (since most Lucid dreams are based on expectation and beliefs, you might just be holding yourself down). When you get more and more experienced in Lucid dreaming - they will get longer, more vivid and very realistic. In 21 Lucid dreams i have gotten from 30sec to about 5-10 minutes (occasionally not remembering parts of them) I got 1 very rare case in which the dream seemed 30 minutes long but i don't remember 80% of it because of how long it was and i was not ready for that. I hope I've been helpful.

[CursedSeraphim]

thx for the reply :3 I'll try to remember doing frequent RCs and then slowly extending the intervals.. sounds like good advise

[DreamingGhost]

Are you getting excited or experiencing a high level of any emotion when you become lucid? I only ask because when I become lucid some of the time it only lasts a few dreams minutes because of this excitement from becoming lucid or fear (I had a FA which is turning into a nightmare and I must exit my room in a hurry before some nightmare creature gets me). If you find this is the case try to calm yourself before you start to lose the dream. Also before I wake up every time I am lucid I can feel it (even if it happens fast) as like the dream is slipping from me. If you find you have this same feeling again try to calm your self and reengage your senses by narrowing down the dream to a small spot in front of you to focus on and then when you can feel you have this solid expand the dream once more. Not sure if I explained that very well but this has helped me a few times to stay in the dream with out waking up.

[Sensei]

Your LD count says 1 per week, is that 1/week for a long time? I wouldn't really worry about it until after you have about 100 LDs. There is no reason to worry about any stability or dream control problems until you have it happen like 50 times at least. Before that it is probably just coincidence or becoming lucid near the end of the dream, which happens a lot during the first hundred LDs.

[CursedSeraphim]

Are you getting excited or experiencing a high level of any emotion when you become lucid? I only ask because when I become lucid some of the time it only lasts a few dreams minutes because of this excitement from becoming lucid or fear (I had a FA which is turning into a nightmare and I must exit my room in a hurry before some nightmare creature gets me). If you find this is the case try to calm yourself before you start to lose the dream. Also before I wake up every time I am lucid I can feel it (even if it happens fast) as like the dream is slipping from me. I don't recall being particularly excited or feeling strong emotions and such.. also I only felt it end once up until now but I haven't had many lucid experiences anyway If you find you have this same feeling again try to calm your self and reengage your senses by narrowing down the dream to a small spot in front of you to focus on and then when you can feel you have this solid expand the dream once more. Not sure if I explained that very well but this has helped me a few times to stay in the dream with out waking up. I think you explained well enough ^^ I'll try and remember that seems like an interesting idea thx Your LD count says 1 per week, is that 1/week for a long time? I wouldn't really worry about it until after you have about 100 LDs. There is no reason to worry about any stability or dream control problems until you have it happen like 50 times at least. Before that it is probably just coincidence or becoming lucid near the end of the dream, which happens a lot during the first hundred LDs. not at all it's just been for a month and a bit that I had them exactly 7 days after the last one ... and I haven't had much more than 10-15 LDs in total so I'm still quite the noob thx it's really cool to get advise from experienced DV member.. I'll try to be patient :3

[Sensei]

not at all it's just been for a month and a bit that I had them exactly 7 days after the last one ... and I haven't had much more than 10-15 LDs in total so I'm still quite the noob thx it's really cool to get advise from experienced DV member.. I'll try to be patient :3 Aw, you are gonna make me blush! I would say that patients is great! Not just sticking with it, but consistently staying with it. If you aren't consistent in your practices, you won't be consistent in LDs. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! It is good when you see people that you like their advice, to check out their "Recently started threads" This is a quick and easy way to find about their beliefs and practices!

[CursedSeraphim]

alright thx sensei ^^ Last night I had my longest LD yet yey *^* I knew from the start that it was a dream.. I'm not even sure whether I even did an RC.. I woke up after what I guess were about 15 minutes.. hard to say though since my feeling of time kinda vanished when I was awake also I woke up again by closing my eyes.. this time I tried opening them with my dream hands which more or less worked because it made me enter an FA. To bad I didn't notice that which eventually made me wake up :'D