MILD 1 workbook - LucyintheSkywithDiamonds

This is my workbook for the MILD 1 classes here at DV. Guess I should probably introduce myself first since I haven't really posted a lot on here, definitely have read some very interesting posts on here since joining. My name is Johnny, I'm 21 and live in a pretty small town in WA at the moment.I'm into photography, skateboarding, reading (been into this really great book by Robert Waggoner called Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self), finding new music at the library... I've been interested in lucid dreaming for a while now but haven't been focusing on it as much as I'd like so I decided to really dedicate myself to it this time. So, onto my workbook...

My common recurring dreamsigns:

• being in a car
• skateboarding
• being around my highschool or seeing old friends from it
• using a camera
• water
• wallet

I guess I'll start with a dream I had last night

08-03 (≈2:30am)
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[Non-Lucid] In this really vivid scenery of some mountain forest during the day, I notice some little islands on a lake while wandering along this trail. I think before this moment I was on a boat with a few friends and other people I don't know... At the edge of a cliff I look down and suddenly I'm flying through the air across this body of water. It's not like usual flying, but almost like I'm on a zipline because I notice these lines above me going in different directions and have no control over my downward path. As I zoom closer to the landing I notice it's this hill with a bunch of shrubbery and brush, very ragged looking terrain. I can sense how rough the landing will while hoping to myself I don't fall into the water because I feel like it's going to be really cold. I crash into the hillside in a surprisingly gentle way right at the edge of the water and look up to the place I just flew from. I notice all the lines above me, not black like cables but like more like strings of light or energy. I reconnect with one of these lines somehow and start flying back upwards. I'm now back on a boat where two of my good friends are and there's this guy who I assume is the captain and decide to pay him some money. I leave the boat and somehow I end up in what seems to be an old empty parking garage and I start to take photos of the trees that can be seen through some old windows. There are all these fractal, mold shaped patterns of yellow and orange growing on the glass which looks cool in the shots. There's also some white letters along the wall that get in the frame of my photos but as I try to readjust my composition I notice that some of them are somehow still in the shots, like they are outside and suspended in the air. Then I wake up

I read Robert Waggoner book too. It's awesome. From that book I got the advice to used lucid dreaming for more than just having fun. Thanks to that book I met three personal goals during my lucids. You can find them in my DJ, in the memorable section. One is called "Revelations" and the other one "Talking with a deceased family member"

It is excellent you read and get sucked into it. You will have a big head start.
Nice dream!

Remember to keep focused on the topic and positive. Remember to post your meditations and thoughts, specially before going to bed and in the middle of the night.

Thanks Percy, yeah it's really what got me back into trying to improve my lucid dreaming abilities. Some may be skeptical about the metaphysical side to exploring ones dreams but I believe a lot of what he says makes sense. It's truly amazing to see what a person is capable of discovering about themselves that they might just pass off as a random dream. My goal is to use lucid dreaming as a tool to broaden my artistic sensibilities and translate these inner thoughts and emotions through photography. I use a camera quite often in my dreams and I truly believe that if I improve my vivdness and recall, with the help if becoming lucid, I will be able to find a way to capture these inner visions and share them with others.

08-05 (≈7:30am)
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So I went to bed at about 12:30 last night and read the book I'd previously mentioned for a bit, then laid there for a while trying to focus on becoming lucid by breathing through my nose. I had a pretty deep conversation with my brother before going to bed which did distract me a bit. Using some breathing techniques to help relax and using a bit of visualization on becoming lucid I finally fell asleep. Unfortunately I woke up at around 6:30 to my alarm and couldn't remember any dreams. I stayed up for longer than I planned (about 45 min) so I was more awake than I wanted when I tried WBTB. I reset my alarm to wake me up in 90 min (a digital clock radio, the station I use is this classical music but it was coming in kind of fuzzy) I laid there for a bit and said to myself "I will perform a reality check and realize I'm dreaming" while focusing on some of my dreamsigns. Got a little restless but tried to keep focused and eventually slid back into sleep. Then I think I had one of my first false awakenings... I notice my alarm going off (probably in the background while sleeping) and the music and fuzziness was annoying me. I got up and tried to readjust the tuning and when I was holding it I noticed this lever on the bottom I'd never seen before. It was like a handle or knob coming out of it, like on a steering column of a car, which said AM on it and wasn't sure what it did. I twisted it a bit and the music came in a little clearer, then layed back down in my bed. Then I woke up and realized my alarm was going off and I remembered that the knob I was fiddling with was so absurd that I must have dreamt it. Hmmm...

Well I definitely need to get to bed a little sooner and give myself less time in the morning before attempting WBTB again. I'm sure I'll have much more interesting things to post tomorrow. I think Ill try to WILD since I haven't tried it in a while, maybe Ill have something interesting to post in a bit. Thanks for reading

That was a close call!!!! Too bad. It sucks when you miss such an evident sign. Keep up the good work, a close call means you are making progress, so keep going!

Ok so I've been pretty busy the last two days and my dreams have been kind of foggy. Two days ago I attempted a WILD and listened to some bineural beats... I was laying there for quite a while and would start to feel some vibrations and my body tightening up. I started to get some HI occurring like some dots and this tunnel of light or something but but after laying there a while my alarm went off and I felt extremely groggy and sore afterwords. I've been doing quite a few reality checks everyday, especially when Ive been out skating because I do that pretty often in my dreams.. I think it almost paid off last night. I woke up at about 7 this morning and couldn't remember any dreams so I went back to bed for a while and repeated to myself that I would be dreaming and do a reality check. I was at this weird place, like a hotel in an industrial park... One of my friends was there and someone else skateboarding. I had a board as well and was skating around a bit. There was this train of dumpsters that were all connected and it was rolling down this hill. I grabbed on and started going pretty fast, ending up crashing into this wall or something. Then I was with this group of people that were going to go swimming, but I didn't have any trucks with me. At some point during this chain of dreams I remember looking at my hand though it wasn't very focused. I looked at my hand at the pinky finger was all distorted and I think I think I had another finger after inspecting it for a moment. Either way I felt like I was discovering something amazing and probably could have become lucid but for some reason I got distracted and kept going along in my dream. I also remember seeing some heiroglyphs somewhere in my dream... Anyway, tonight I'm going to have more time to sleep so I will post some more stuff very soon.

Nice one!!!!!! That was a very close call, a near miss. You probably turned lucid for a second, and I would count it as a lucid. Did you had an unexpected feeling, even if it lasted half a second?

Remember to post if you meditated or not, your feelings, etc.

Keep up with the work, please, so I can couch and help you!

Ok, so I've been writing every detail of the dreams I've recalled so I'm going to post a few dreams here from the last couple, but first, I'll talk a little bit about my incubation and meditations, feelings, etc... So for the most part I'm still new to lucid dreaming and am trying to figure out what works best for me. I've tried listening to some very quiet bineural beats for about 30 min each day, usually around 7 or 8pm. I've been laying down and relaxing my body with a breathing technique and slowly relaxing different parts of my body starting from my head down to my toes. What I've been visualizing is a beach with an overcast grey sky. I try to incorporate all my senses here as I feel like this is a great setting for it... I can feel the sand between my toes, smell the ocean, hear the waves... I like to just focus my breathing on the movement of the waves coming in and washing over my feet. When I breath in the waves go out and when I exhale they gently creep up onto the beach and wash over my feet. As I lay there I visualize a message inside a bottle washing in, and as I pick it up and examine it, it tells me that "I am dreaming" or coming across an absurdly large starfish, and upon coming across these moments I recreate the excitement of becoming lucid and doing RCs .Another time before sleep I've visualized myself in a forest, walking along a straight path lined with trees that swoop over the top and almost form a tunnel. I visualize a gate far at the end, one that I can't climb over. I tell myself that once I get to the gate I will realize I'm dreaming and fly over it. Because I sometimes lose my focus I try to add in elements that keep me in the scene, like the waves washing in, coming across varoius objects washed up that make me realize I'm dreaming, etc... For the forest one I visualized a deer guiding me towards the gate and motivating me to stay focused on my goal of reaching the end. I've also visualized berries that glow orange and yellow, that are amaziningly sweet. I tell myself when eating them that they are "lucid berries" and will help me stay focus and become lucid. Not really sure if the things I'm adding in will help but it's my form of externalizing some of my goals and painting a picture inside my head to keep me from getting bored and accidentally falling asleep. I think what I picked up in lesson two will help as I do these same visualizations before sleep, but I was doing it the wrong way around. Before I was doing my mantras and then visualizing becoming lucid and I now realize I need to visualize first, then do the mantras.

Ive also been doing lots of reality checks throughout the day and really questioning where I've been in the last few hours or how I got to where I am. I've had two dreams now in the last week where I've looked at my hands but even though I get excited and feel like I'm discovering something, I drift back into the stuff going on in my dream. I look at my hands, then look back, then after hold my nose to see if I can breathe through it. Also checking digital clocks when I'm around them. When I've been waking up from dreams I've felt pretty good and positive about being able to remember two long dreams. Getting close to becoming lucid again this week has definitely helped me stay focused and become more excited to become lucid again and complete this weeks task.

So, the last couple of dreams I've had... some are kind of weird but pretty interesting.
08-09
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[Non-lucid] I'm on this boat in the middle of an ocean, but it's actually more like a skyscraper that is spiraling like a screw. I'm on the top deck with my brother, a man and his son, a black woman, and an old man. We are sitting in these chairs on the top deck. I get up from my chair and look over the edge. The water around us is filled with these glowing/bright whirlpools, maybe 3-5 ft. across, and there are all in a perfect grid pattern. This was incredible for me and still really vivid in my memory, got really excited when I saw this. As this boat/skyscraper thing floats over the water, it spins around sinks down like a screw until the top deck is now level with the water. I trip over a chair as I try to sit back down in it while some of the water spills over the edge. I get sucked out into the water and can see everyone watching me as it rises back up, and the whirlpools throw me extremely fast across the water until I land on the edge of an island. It's weird though because then I remember going from the top deck down to the lobby and telling my mom my brother got sucked out to sea and was on an island. She didn't hear me though because we were in a lobby and this game show was going on in it. I watched it for a moment and the question was "which word is spelled wrong in this sentence?" and a man answers... its a word that starts with C I remember. Either way the next question is up and I try to tell my mom again but this time she answers some question correct and the host tells her she won a $100,000. Somehow I go from this dream to another, where I'm with a group of people and they are on some sort of field trip or adventure. We get to a house and they decide whos going in first, and it's me. I get hoisted in through some window and its really messy on the inside. I'm very nervous about getting caught. I look around briefly and leave through the front door. Walking through the front yard I'm around some girl at this point and kind of embarrassed by my legs, which are all dirty, bleeding slightly, and I'm barefoot.

08-10
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So this night I read harry potter a little before I went to bed. As I layed there I repeated to myself "Tonight I will perform a reality check and become lucid" and I visualized myself doing spells before falling asleep. Interestingly enough even though I wasn't lucid, I had a dream where I was skating at this old school in an empty parking lot and a couple of them were doing dueling with magic. I think it was wands but it could have been with just their hands? Kind of fuzzy on how it was happening but it mostly looked like how it does in the movies, kind of like flames, some were blue. THEN I notice one of my roommates walking up across this field and I leave and go with her. Then we are at her house and a few people are getting ready for a Halloween party. The rest is kind of foggy but from what I remember there were these groups of blue bugs the size of mice crawling on the ground. To get rid of them we were doing it in different ways, making them catch on fire, disappear... This was around the time when I woke up. I jotted these things down quickly and was pretty amazed that I actually was able to come pretty close to doing magic. Even though I wasn't lucid one part of my mantra did stick. I think I just placed too much visualization on this aspect but it did prove to me that I am more capable of incubation than I previously though, now I just need to focus all of that on becoming lucid and flying over a forest.

08-11
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First thing I remembered from a dream last night: Wu Tang clan all crammed into this like 1920s vintage car and rapping as they drive through all these old villages. Kind of like I was watching it as a music video. Then I remembered another dream as after a WBTB... my brother tells me he got sponsored playing video games and he has a sepearyte free internet connection so I can download anything I want (he usuaully argues with me and tells me it lags his games). Then I'm walking down the sidewalk in a city and these federal agents walk up to me and put their hands on my shoulders and are like "come with us." As I'm guided down the block all these people are taking pictures of me and flashes are going off. Then they turn a corner and there are like 10 more officers. They put me on a train with all these other kids my age, and they are asking me what I did and scoffing that it was just for pirating music. Then I find out that it was mom who called the police on me for it, and I'm just like "Why the hell did you do that, you don't even know what pirating is" since she is like a technophobe I totally should have spotted that and become lucid...

Thanks again for today's lesson Percy, should definitely help me in this weeks task. I will certainly try harder to keep more specific notes on my meditations/feelings so I can write more about that here. Thanks for reading!

Nice job and nice dreams!!!

How is it going this week? I need to hear about your dream incubation, please!