Well, my dreams always end rather abruptly. (Lucid or Otherwise). I don't think I have ever had a dream fade out like you describe except with maybe the exception of when I have fallen asleep in a dream. |
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I've been lucid dreaming for well over 20 years, but it has been a LONG time since I have had a lucid dreams over a few minutes. I have focused heavily on dream stabilization. As soon as my dream starts I rub my hands together and start observing and touching objects around me. To rule out getting too excited I have been simply engaging with dream characters in conversation rather than doing anything exciting. I recently had an extremely vivid lucid dream and began talking to a dream character. After about two minutes I found myself in bed without warning. This seems to be a pattern lately. The dreams don't even fade out where I have time to re-stabilize, spin, etc. I wonder if there is a distinction between dreams that fade out and one where you just find yourself instantly in your bed?? I try to induce a DEILD at this point but sometimes I am too awake. I wonder if maybe i am having lucid dreams at the end of my sleep cycle or if perhaps there is no distinction between dreams that fade out and ones that don't. I am not sure if this is a lack of dream control or what I am missing. I really want to get back to having long lucid dreams. I would be happy with even a 10 minute dream. I used to have epic lucid dreams that were an hour long when I was younger. |
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Well, my dreams always end rather abruptly. (Lucid or Otherwise). I don't think I have ever had a dream fade out like you describe except with maybe the exception of when I have fallen asleep in a dream. |
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I think it has some variation. brain chemistry, how tired you are, and the person can all be a factor in this. |
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I tend to have near-instant "ejects" as well: very very fast fades with no chance of catching them. In my very first LD, I recall a slow fade to gray that happened twice. The first time, I did the traditional spin-move and it worked! I stayed in the dream long enough to go running madly a little farther down the path and then the second time the fade occured I couldn't save it. |
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FryingMan's Unified Theory of Lucid Dreaming: Pay Attention, Reflect, Recall -- Both Day and Night[link]
FryingMan's Dream Recall Tips -- Awesome Links
“No amount of security is worth the suffering of a mediocre life chained to a routine that has killed your dreams.”
"...develop stability in awareness and your dreams will change in extraordinary ways" -- TYoDaS
Yes I think it is likely that is related to brain chemistry, the sleep cycle, etc. Most of my lucids fade out slowly unless I intentionally wake myself up which I try to only do if I am in a lucid nightmare and I get trapped in a cycle where a new nightmare is forming (or continuing) no matter what I do. Have you had any really vivid lucids fade out slowly? I wonder if this is a factor as I find that dreams that aren't vivid seem harder to hold on to anyway. Considering that I seem to feel wide awake afterwards I wonder if they are just occurring at the end of my sleep cycle. Regardless though of when they occur or how they are induced (WILD, DILD, etc.) holding on to them for more than a few minutes seems to be a challenge for me. I consider myself a really experienced lucid dreamer (I have had thousands) and yet, I can't seem to master this principle. It is pretty frustrating. |
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My LDs all tend to edge towards losing lucidity when I wake up. I'm still lucid but usually am fully concentrating on something, uh, stimulating... |
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FryingMan's Unified Theory of Lucid Dreaming: Pay Attention, Reflect, Recall -- Both Day and Night[link]
FryingMan's Dream Recall Tips -- Awesome Links
“No amount of security is worth the suffering of a mediocre life chained to a routine that has killed your dreams.”
"...develop stability in awareness and your dreams will change in extraordinary ways" -- TYoDaS
I thought before it was stimulating dreams that were waking me up. Maybe because even when I am not doing something stimulating it is in the back of your mind. I am going to keep practicing until I figure out the secret is to breaking that 10 minute mark, but even 10 minute seems like a rare gift lately. I seriously would sit there and do nothing just to accomplish my task. I figured talking to people would be surefire way. |
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My first thought was, as you mentioned, that it is easier to become lucid as you are nearing waking. *If* you don't have the same level of daytime and nighttime practices that you once did, you may be sort of coasting on past neuroplasticity - neural pathways that have formed (call it years of lucid dreaming experience if you prefer) but pathways that still require the right set of circumstances to fire up and if you aren't doing much in terms of daytime work or nighttime intention setting and/or practices. You may be firing up that old lucid pathway in your brain, that may have been neglected, only when you are close to waking/close to the end of REM. |
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Something important for every newbie: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...-read-imo.html
Listen while you work or before bed? http://www.dreamviews.com/dreamviews-podcast/
More great audio: http://www.dreamviews.com/dreamviews-audio/
My lucid dreaming journey: http://www.dreamviews.com/members/fo...boutme#aboutme
My day time and night time practices are pretty strong. I practice all day awareness and use MILD and WILD techniques throughout the night. Ironically last night I had about a 30 minute lucid. Woo Hoo! This was only possible by using DEILD two times during the dream, but I was put right back into the same dream (one time it just went to black instantly and the other time it faded quick with no time to do much). Which brings me to another question... I wonder how many people who are having epic length lucid dreams are doing so in one continuous dream or if this is only achieved by using a DEILD approach? I will probably start a separate thread for this. |
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Perhaps stopping to do stabilization is disrupting the dream narrative and making it end quickly. You could try to continue with the dream plot when lucid and just influence it slightly as you go along. But be warned, I did this for a very long time and it worked (LD's lasted longer) but it got to the point where I never remembered my goal. I would just go with the plot and see where it takes me and do what I feel like in the moment without a goal in mind. |
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I have always heard the opposite really... that doing stabilization every minute or so is essential for long lucids. I stopped many times to do stabilization but haven't seen a consistent pattern as of yet to say one way or the other. When I was a kid i would have hour long lucids before I even knew what dream stabilization was. Disrupting the narrative is something I have been trying to investigate (i.e.: it's affect on dream stabilization). Often I don't really know what the narrative is. I don't try to change the dream scene in many cases but I am not sure what the dream is really about. I just know I am dreaming right when the dream starts. I wonder if getting in deep conversations with the dream characters disrupts the narrative or what it really means to "disrupt the narrative". If the dream was me running from the police, it would be (somewhat) obvious what the narrative was, but often it would be hard to define what disrupting it actually meant. Last night I dreamed of a party, but what was the narrative? I am not sure... Other than remain the party what could I really do? |
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Ironically I have been having some epic length lucids lately. I am not sure what changed. Maybe the hard work is paying off. |
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For me most of the time my dreams end with everything slowly going dark and disappearing, transitioning back into my body if I am waking up. When I have lucids however sometimes I feel like I get almost sucked out of the dream if I sorta forget what I am doing there or stop doing stuff and stay stagnant. |
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“I don't think that you have any insight whatsoever into your capacity for good until you have some well-developed insight into your capacity for evil.”
― Jordan B. Peterson
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