Thread: Realized Aspiration

Everything is clearer now
Life is just a dream you know
Its never ending...
I'm ascending

I'm posting this in hopes that it will aid my dream recall, and in good faith that someday I'll have a dream worth reading, or a Lucid dream at all.

More edits eminent.


Aspirations
Waking life...
-Better dream recall. Consistency, remembering at least one dream every morning and remembering more than one dream a night. Clarity, in what is sensed, felt, and the general plot of a dream.
-A more regular sleeping pattern. A less intrusive way of being woken up.
-Learning how to truly clear the mind, and adapting principles of Dream Yoga as I see fit.

Lucid...
-To have my first.
-To attain and retain lucidity in accord to what I desire.
-To test the fabrics of my dream reality. Flying, passing through walls, going to places I've been before in a blink of the eye or creating a place from my own head. If any difficulties arise, then tearing down that set of expectations will be in order.
-To summon Cristina, to hold her and talk to her.
-To summon Clairity, since she wants to be in someone's dream.
-To summon BillyBob and Mr Ears for an in depth discussion of how to improve lucidity... while in a lucid dream.



Legend

Lucid
Non Lucid


Notes

-The dream title will be the reply title
-If there was a significance to that day, it will be shown in bold before the date
-All dates will be night of, not the morning the dream was recalled
-If a technique was used to induce a dream, it will be shown in parentheses after the date
-All dates will be color coded to represent whether the dream was Lucid or not
-Actual dream descriptions will be emphasized by italics


Older sig from Goldney... I still like it, so I'll keep it here.


Another sig by Goldney to the list.

First Dream since visiting DreamViews February 12th, 2008. Tuesday (Autosuggestion toward better recall)

I think I should start by saying any visuals at all that I could recall were hazy, and I better remember this in plot-lines and/or dialogue. There was little to no clarity when I remembered this (I was in the shower when I recalled this, since I woke up by voice and that jumbled my thoughts upon awakening.).

However, I had this dream the night I first came to DreamViews, after using an autosuggestion technique so that I would believe, with conviction, I would remember my dream in the morning. Going from someone who remembers dreams maybe one every few months to remembering one on command was a dramatic improvement.

It was in a cafeteria, I assumed since I had a "feeling" rather than a visual cue or anything that it was lunch, and although I couldn't really see the room per se, I "knew" there were rows of long tables with chairs adjoining them.

It was as if I was sitting at my table (as school students are prone to do), and Jack Nicholson had sat at the table a row or two ahead of me... and he sat there everyday. And I was always too shy to say hi to him o0. Again, none of this was described by senses, they were merely feelings or knowledge I had.

So in this dream I decided to go sit by him and awkwardly introduce myself. There was some small talk (which I have forgotten completely, however when I got to the point I seemed to recall the conversation more clearly). I apologized, since he must get it all the time (and I "said" these words but never actually heard myself say them. I just know it was said), and asked him of all his movies, which was his favorite, and what his favorite line from The Shining was. Again, these were more... thoughts that somehow traveled to Jack, not necessarily words. In fact, the communication of what his favorite line in the Shining was was reduced to the dialogue "the Shining?", but for some reason it was understood by both him and I what I was asking.

He said his favorite movie, and the title he answered with was a movie I had never heard of. I don't recall the title, but it was a specific title even if my subconscious randomly bullshitted me, and its very possible that its wasn't his favorite of his movies at all! Or... that it was a movie that he hadn't played in. Or... that it was a movie that never existed.

His answer to the second question, his favorite line from the Shining involved the word "Idiot", but I don't recall what the line was exactly. Perhaps the thought "idiot" was communicated toward me, and I just took it as a line. I dunno. I don't recall a memorable line from the Shining involving the word idiot, but thats what Jack told me.

My last memory from the dream was me walking away, thinking that I could brag to my parents about how I had met the famous Jack Nicholson, and thought how funny it was to simply call him Jack on a first named-basis, as I had in the dream.

Not the most exciting first entry, but its odd at least.

Second night at Dreamviews February 13th, 2008. Wednesday (Autosuggestion toward better recall)

This happened the night after the Jack Nicholson dream. I won't get into details because this dream involved me having sex with a family member, and I personally don't like to think about it. I've looked it up (even before I had this dream, I read about it) and dreams where you have sex with family, friends, coworkers or anyone else you wouldn't have an attraction to doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. Often times the sex is symbolic of something in your relationship pertaining to that person.

The dream still bothers me, so I won't describe it. It was however (and thankfully) just as hazy as all my dreams, and not vivid at all.

And obviously non lucid :/

Third night at Dreamviews. February 14th, 2008. Thursday (Autosuggestion toward better recall)

This is a set of dreams I recall next to nothing about. A reoccurring theme I have with some dreams is stress. It is typically concerning school, work etc... things that aren't the end of the world, but mean an end of my "career" so to speak in those areas. I'll fail all my classes for some reason, or get fired, or whatever.

This night I had two or three dreams with this exact theme, and, this is also the first night I used autosuggestion to get myself to wake up after I had a dream. I succeeding in waking up... but I went to sleep right after, as if I was annoyed from getting up that soon. I'm not used to this stuff yet XD

Everytime I have these dreams, I wake up with a sense of relief. I do have a good amount of stress in my life (due largely in fact to my killer cocktail personality traits... ambition spiked with apathy), and I feel this is my subconscious' reaction to that.


Addition:

"Did you ever have a job that you hated and worked real hard at? A long, hard day of work. Finally you get to go home, get in bed, close your eyes and immediately you wake up and realize... that the whole day at work had been a dream. It's bad enough that you sell your waking life for minimum wage, but now they get your dreams for free." ~Waking Life

February 22nd, 2008. Friday (None)

I don't recall ANY details, only a plotline this time. And not a very thorough one.

However, this entry exciting as it is the first time someone from DVs appeared in my dreams (I expect a few more, from how much time I spend here... looking at you, BillyBob and Mr Ears)

Anyways. I sat by Aquanina and talked to her in my dream. I don't recall the conversation, but I know that we just talked. So don't take this and run with it.

Anyways, the title of this entry is merely for comedy. A girl already has a decent hold on my heart, as much as I flirt with the ladies here at DV. That doesn't detract from how attractive Nina is xP but I'm stuck on one girl at a time, and stuck on one right now.

February 23rd, 2008. Saturday (Autosuggestion towards remembering dreams, and waking up after them)

Yesterday was interesting, in that I learned a lot more about how my mind works before and after sleep. I found that if I pay attention to one thing, I find myself losing focus and random scenarios happening in my head. However, I have yet to be able to focus on one thing (even as simple as the one word "aware") and witness these scenarios a once.

I also discovered how easy it is to dream reentry after leaving a dream... but I wasn't paying attention enough to really try any technique. I'm convinced that the "door" to the dreaming world will always be there when I wake up, and always apparent. The trick will be going through it while retaining my wits.

The one dream I did have was as follows...

Another extremely odd one, with another actor. I don't recall in what order all these things happened, but apparently, a bunch of people were staying over at my house... along with any pets they had >.>

Jim Carrey was here, as well, and seemed to be training me o0 for whatever reason I was deadset on climbing this stair/wall thing... yeah, I dunno either.

I also recall an apocalyptic feeling... as if outside was dangerous and we shouldn't go outside. I'm not sure why or what happened... but the significance of that comes later.

I also remember some old guy being in the dream. I dunno who he was, his relation to me, but him and I were good friends in the dream (even though my dream self and him hadn't met... I could sense I hadn't met him prior). A bulk of the dream involved this guy and my conversations with him, bu I can't recall them. In fact, I forgot this man up until just now while writing this. I DO recall, however, that he had a stringed instrument of some sort... perhaps and Mandolin? And at some point my dad was playing guitar (he actually does play, and play well, so its not unusual) so the old guy from my dream joined in with his mandolin. I remember seeing this, the both of them playing the instruments close to eachother, and then I remember my dad switching the guitar with a bass guitar in a few cartoonish fashion... meaning it was very quick, almost impossible, and the movements were way too elaborate. He then proceeded to play the bass furiously (it LOOKED good, though what I heard was just a jumble of notes... extremely vague and undefinable. It was more like "I'm hearing bass" than "he hit those notes well" or anything like that) slapping and popping the strings, still in cartoony exaggerated motion. Then the old guy looked at the bass guitar as if he'd never seen one before and tried to play, and he did just as furiously as my dad, but I had the sense that my dad did it better, good as the old guy was.

The most meaningful part of the dream came later. For whatever reason the people who were at our party left through the backdoor and backgate, leaving it open. This was strange, because for whatever reason our house seemed to be a shelter and going outside was dangerous. My dreaming mind seemed to abandon that plotline, instead focusing on what happens anytime my backgate is left open... my dog gets out. And since my backdoor was open, so do my cats... although only one of them were seen in this dream.

Again, I don't understand this, but the cars that belonged to the visitors of my "end of the world" party had been backed up from the driveway, but stopped, as if hooked on something. I looked under one car, and I couldn't see but simply "knew" that Bishop, one of my cats, was under the tire. However, most startling, I checked under another car and I actually SAW quite vividly my dog Buffy bended in half under it. I could see the shadows of the night splashed in this vision, as well as the blood coming from Buffy's body and mouth. It happens to be my most vivid vision from a dream yet.

At this point I howled in agony in the dream...


Which translated to a groan as I woke up from what I guess you could call a nightmare. It was another one of those dreams that made me feel relieved when I woke up... and that sense of relief proves that my dream self believes entirely what is going on is real.

I'm excited about some of the discoveries I have made, and how vivid things in my dreams can possibly be. I think I'm closer to Lucidity.

March 9th, 2008. Sunday. (Autosuggestion towards recall)

Originally Posted by AspirationRealized

"Did you ever have a job that you hated and worked real hard at? A long, hard day of work. Finally you get to go home, get in bed, close your eyes and immediately you wake up and realize... that the whole day at work had been a dream. It's bad enough that you sell your waking life for minimum wage, but now they get your dreams for free." ~Waking Life

I remember, insanely vaguely, I was crafting a man from polyurethane foam... and thats it.

I use this foam at work, which is Taxidermy (those animal heads on walls and stuff). The foam is what the "forms" we use are made of, which we then attach he skin to via sewing (the proper term is "mount", not "stuff". We are "mounting" deer, not "stuffing" them... reserve all jokes, I've heard them all).

Ex.



Form of giraffe made from the foam.

Polyurethane foam, like all polymers of this family, starts out as two separate chemicals (in this case, "A" and "B". I'm not sure what the different chemicals are, but thats really irrelevant to me). You mix them together, and soon they expand and fill up whatever space you put them in. In this way, suppliers create forms from casts that were once sculptures of animal musculature... and if you're creative enough, you yourself can create things (my dad specializing in "altering" out of the box forms...).

And in my dream, I was making a person. Thats all I could catch in recall.

It must symbolize the long hours lately. I've been putting in some outrageous time... so this is what I get.

First Wild Attempt March 16th, 2008. Sunday (WILD)

I'll start this off by saying I am a bad DJer. I've had two nonlucids since the work epidemic, but they're so uninteresting. For future reference of my own, it was one about Hiding April (ugh) and another about a hacker in the DVs Chat. They're not interesting enough to talk about.

More importantly is a certain recent event... my first WILD night on BillyBob's schedule falls on the day after he took a long vacation from DreamViews. This saddens me, since even though I didn't get to talk to him as much as the other fine people that can be found here, he was the one I connected with most when it comes to Lucid Dreaming. His tutorials made the most sense, as well as his outlook... and when we did talk, it flowed nearly perfectly as well. Ironically, he left because he felt there weren't enough people here that think like him... when Sean999, myself, and I'm sure many others I've yet to meet would disagree.

Regardless, his ideas have fostered my beliefs on Lucid Dreaming... he's actually the reason I decided to register to these forums. So of course, he will be missed. He says he won't return for a half a year or a full year, and I'm not sure I'll be around DVs that long.

Luckily, I have other good friends at DVs, so not all is lost. Those of you reading this (that would be two people who don't even freqeunt these forums... and I'm guessing a VERY small amount of people who do (if you do actually read this, please reply and let me know o0) and even some who aren't are the ones I'm talking about.

In any event, tonight was my first WILD night. Early on, like EVERY newb (I can tell from the groans of the more frequent members when I talked about it) I though it would be the best technique. However, later on, when I learned what was actually happening when I was falling asleep (it turns out it is HI, but not what you normally hear, but we'll get there later) I found that WILD may actually be the most promising technique for me.

Excluding autosuggestion for recall and dream rehearsing (correct Reality checking paired with... decent Dream Journaling?) to get DILDs, WILD is also the only technique I've tried.

Only recently... like, this week recently, have I started using an alarm clock. Ever.

Yeah, thats extremely strange, and I'm not sure why I never used one. But this of course, leads to better time management... something as a procrastinator, and a night owl, I definitely need. It has been a "mental block" of mine, or rather... a self-imposed limit on my lucid dreaming that I have an irregular sleep schedule, so using this alarm signifies a huge step in my lucid journeys (or towards them?). I've seen this as the ONLY reason I haven't been Lucid yet, as I know a great amount of information from my short amount of time here at DVs. And the double part of this self-imposed limit (in this case, intentional... many of us have unintentional limits, but ALL are self-imposed) is that it was motivation to get my life in order. I won't go into details, but my life is a total mess, and time management is one reason.

Wow, this post is long. My apologies. Onto the good stuff.

I know that between 3 and 8 hours is when most people find its best to WILD (or more centralized, between 5 and 7), so I picked a number somewhere in there. Just to be silly, I set my alarm to wake me 5 hours and 50 minutes after the time I went to sleep (around 12:45... damned August Rush movie keeping me up). 550 happens to be my favorite number, don't ask me why.

I woke up irritated... the alarm came way to soon. Luckily, instead of just smacking the alarm to shut it off, I looked at it in an effort to get me more pissed off. It was only a bit past 6:30... why am I waking up now? THATS RIGHT. I have to WILD.

I am excited about this, because I honestly expected not to keep myself awake. I've had that trouble with waking up after dreams... in that I automatically go back to sleep. So this is success in my eyes.

I sit up, and look around my room for anything odd... ok, I lied. I look around so I don't fall back asleep. I forgot that part of the WILDing experience... but at least I kept myself awake. I notice that the sore throat I had been harboring for the whole day has gotten worse, and this irritates me, but after a few minutes (like 5) I lay back down. I feel aware enough, since... if awoken with a start, as I was in this case, I am relatively awake.

I get myself completely comfortable, my body flat to the bed, the back of my head against the pillow... I feel most of my pressure points disappear. I am a side sleeper, which makes WILDing on my back the best way. I rest my hands on my hips and near my groin (feels most comfortable that way... and don't look at me weird, I hear lots of people do it as well).

I focus on my breathing, counting everytime I exhale, until 30, as instructed in my favorite WILD tutorial. I try to lose focus on what's around me, only concerned with my breathing. Without any transition, my thoughts go from losing all thought to a random scenario sprawling through my head. I have asked many and confirmed this as HI.

It is not like the HI most people talk about. I see no images (nothing vivid or discernible, anyway) and I hear no sounds. My senses seem missing, however... I have a "knowledge" of what's happening around me. Its very possible that my experience of these scenarios started as definite sensations, however, I don't recall sensations... only a plot. These scenarios are illogical, but make sense at the same time. What I mean is, there is a flow, a cause and effect. This happens because of that, etc. I have yet to really recall any of these scenarios past a few seconds, so I can't tell of any recurring themes... however, I know there is a flow, which means this is my schemata acting.

When I find myself in these scenarios, I have lost any awareness of my breath. There is this urgency to... do something. And that urgency grows and all the sudden I am aware. I experience it as fast as a blink... the scenarios, then perfect awareness. Not once in the scenarios is my breathing (my "anchor" as I like to call it to the waking world... that is, that which keeps me aware as I pass into the dream realm) evident, noticed, focused upon. And whenever I recall I need to do that, I lose awareness.

I fall in and out of these scenarios several times, to my dismay. I realize something else inhibiting me... my sore throat.

I am not fond of medicine, only using it when something is unbearable. Typically, when a certain part of my body irritates me (in this case, my throat) I ignore it. So as each breath tickled the infection in my throat, my natural impulse is to forget that its there as best as I can.

I also realize, as I strain to focus on my breathing better, that I have no achieved a mental block. Great job. You think this sore throat will ruin the WILDing, so it does. I understand I ruin myself and continue doing it anyway.

I finally give up on tonight, choosing to go to sleep willfully (and in stubbornness) instead of letting the dream realm trick me into a nonlucid against my will. I look at the clock. I hasn't been ten minutes, and it pleases me that I saw so much HI in such a short amount of time of doing it.

I am confident that WILD will be my best way. But tonight is a WBTB, so I'll give it a chance for the first time.



Also, so as not to mix it with my WILD experience, I did recall two sets of lucid dreaming. However, when I woke up half past six I was too focused on my WILD attempt to write down my dream. Its a shame, too, because when I woke up in the morning I remember trying to hold onto three very specific plot points in my mind. I recall these points, as sparks of memory, and that has been successful to remembering the bulk of dreams. But I lazily never wrote them down.

In the morning, I was woken up earlier than I had intended for work, thus forgetting the contents of my other nonlucid. All I can say is that it was sexual in nature. I don't remember much else.