Issues with identifying Dream Signs

Hi! It's been two weeks now that I began writing my dreams in a journal. I can recall between one and four dreams a night, and two of them featured short lucid episodes! That's encouraging, but I am baffled by the contents of my journal. I am supposed to look for dreamsigns, those recurrent elements which are specific to the dream world. Perusing the stories in my journal, I could spot about twenty recurring places, situations, actions, objects, characters or feelings that occur frequently in my dreams. Most of them are ordinary things (other people's homes, books and libraries, computers, transportation esp. trains, schools and colleges, watching movies, corridors and stairs, bathrooms and toilets, clothes, beaches, nighttime, my parents, talking about my current situation, my dream journal) and a few are more unusual (death and macabre stuff, severe disease or curse, travel, magic).

What's dreamike about the stories aren't these ingredients themselves, but the way I feel toward them and how I relate to them: they feel preposterous, ugly, unholy, sometimes downright threatening, and I invariably fail in dealing with them. For example, other people's homes often feel distasteful and unwelcoming, and refer me to my homelessness in the dream world (I'm always on the run, lost, or living on the streets in my dreams). Another example, books: often of bad literary taste, I often want to read them but never have enough time to do so. I also have a hard time with trains in my dreams: I lose my way and take a wrong train, I am unable to climb on them because doors close before me, steps are too high, or some force holds me back, I fall on railroads and die crushed, and so on. Well, you see the pattern.

So, what's a dreamsign in my case? Any of those items, or the failure/humiliation/revulsion associated with them? Both?

(By the way, sorry for the bad English syntax.)

im starting to think that when you write it your journal, you look at those occurances, and really, just pick one to remember. Dream signs is a more general name, rather than the more personal approach that you (and before, I as well) take. Just pick one of those to remember. I am starting to see a pattern with my dreams. People i know/used to know always seem out of place.

Bad English? :rolllaugh: you gotta be joking? You know, if you hadn't said anything about it, I would have just assumed you to be a native speaker. I mean... f%$& you even put the APOSTROPHES in the right place! F%$# most NATIVE speakers can't do that. :rolllaugh: heh.

As for dreamsigns, I suggest you get your hands on a copy of EWOLD (Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, by Stephen ?LaBerge?), it's got a REALLY good section on identifying dreamsigns, from memory.

Basically, the short of it is, "dreamsign" includes a great many types of things.

Objects, locations, people/characters, thoughts, emotions, actions, behavious of other stuff (like hovering or whatever)...

Anything that recurringly happens in your dreams. The idea is to be able to Reality Check whenever you see/feel any of these things in real life... but... yeah. Hope that's of *some* help...

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Originally posted by The Blue Meanie


As for dreamsigns, I suggest you get your hands on a copy of EWOLD (Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, by Stephen ?LaBerge?), it's got a REALLY good section on identifying dreamsigns, from memory.

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o.O Musta missed that bit! I'ma go gobble it up when I go to bed! Thanks for pointing it out, Meanie xD

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Originally posted by The_Musician+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(The_Musician)</div>

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Just pick one of those to remember.[/b]

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Just one? If I rely on only one dreamsign, then I won't have many LDs… :)

That said, I've had two LDs this morning (yep! two! WBTB rules!) and noticed something strange: in those two dreams, and in my two previous LDs as well, lucidity seems to have been triggered or preceded by viewing the color green? :D

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Originally posted by The Blue Meanie@
You know, if you hadn't said anything about it, I would have just assumed you to be a native speaker.

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I made you laugh twice today. :)
No, really? Of course, I know that I can use and spell more than a handful of English words, but I express myself in the most awkward way, don't I?

<!--QuoteBegin-The Blue Meanie
As for dreamsigns, I suggest you get your hands on a copy of EWOLD (Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, by Stephen ?LaBerge?), it's got a REALLY good section on identifying dreamsigns, from memory.

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Actually, I got that book a few days after joining this forum, and read it up to the description of the WILD technique and stopped there, because it was already too much for my small brain. :)

Yes, I wrote all of my dreamsigns on a small card, sorted by Context, Action, Form and Awareness categories. And as I explained in my previous post, there's an additional dreamsign in the Awareness category—Failure—that goes with every one of them. Context is the largest category in the table.

Now, I know that I should RC every time I perceive/feel one of them in waking life, but the fact is that, ahem, I'm very much a recluse, so only a few of them (5 out of 23, and I'm generous) are likely to show up within the bounds of my abode.

They're also used in the MILD technique, when one has to visualize oneself becoming lucid after seeing a dreamsign in the latest dream. I tried this morning... and the next dream featured a lucid episode. However, since it was unrelated to any of my dreamsigns and remembering that I wanted to remember that I was dreaming, I don't know if I could consider it a MILD success.

what is a WBTB?

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Originally posted by The_Musician
what is a WBTB?

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Wake Back To Bed. A technique to increase REM sleep and the probability to have a LD in the last part of the night. You have to wake up before your last sleep cycle, get up and get active for about two hours, get back to bed and apply whichever induction technique you prefer, and go back to sleep for a last cycle (or two...).

Wow, the colour green?! That's an intense dreamsign ;O!! Lucky you! :D

hmmmm so when would the last few REM sleep cycles be? I would like to try this. I have a rythme napping timer that i used for a session like that. I missed all of the intervals except the last 6 minutes which was on alittle over 3 minutes so i went to sleep. Nothing happened. Mabye i was missing an induction technique.

There's a good WBTB course in the tutorials section.

My two firsts WBTB were unintentional: twice I woke up too early, really annoyed because I couldn't remember my dreams, questioning my dream recall ability. I was afraid that I would never learn to have LDs “at will.” My subconscious mind must have a contrarian personality, because when I got back to bed for a few extra hours of sleep, I had LDs.

Last time it was better planned. I did some relaxation exercises before going to bed, and just before falling asleep, suggested myself to wake up early. It worked, as I woke up after 6 hours. Then I spent about 2 hours thinking about my latest dream, imagining myself back in it, noticing dreamsigns as such (traveling, a swimming pool, collective showers and the usual humiliation stuff), questioning reality, becoming lucid, doing fun stuff in that setting, repeating the usual MILD affirmations, and falling back to sleep. That's when I had those two LDs and a bunch of false awakenings to spoil the fun. :)

This technique definitely works for me.

If you want to try… I guess that's different from (and easier than) rhythm-napping in that you second sleep session does not have to be interrupted. Good luck!

ya it sounds like it, but im guessing by the way your discribing your session, you dont have to get in the REM cycle exactly. Im going to try this tonight. I was last night, but i turned the alarm off and gave up. No new dreams.