Thread: INTRO-2 Insideout

Hey check your private messages there is homework to be done

Alright, so my homework was to read this tutorial on dream stabilization and write what I thought about it.
I have read it, but I'm not sure what to say about it. So I'll write some thought I had while reading it.

While reading the described techniques, I thought about my own experiences with using them, and the ways I could have done them better.
The techniques I have used are hand rubbing, verbal command, and spinning. Sometimes they have worked, several times they have not. Possibly I did not focus enough on what I was doing or on my intent to stabilize the dream.

I intend to use the hand examination and verbal commands in my next lucid dreams, as described in the tutorial. Often while lucid dreaming I forget to stabilize and to re-stabilize. So, I need to get better at that.
The tutorial says that if you rub your hands too much in lucid dreams, then it will lose its effectiveness. I think this may have happened to me. In recent lucid dreams I basically just rubbed my hands together out of habit, without focusing enough on the sensation.

The tutorial also suggests doing a reality check after waking, in case it is a false awakening. I think this is a very good idea, and I am trying to build this habit.
The mindfulness practice mentioned in the tutorial is also something I have been trying to do, along with watching out for anything dream-like, and reality checking at appropriate times.

That’s pretty much it. It’s a fairly informative and useful tutorial. I will keep these techniques in mind and hopefully try them out in future lucid dreams.

I will wait until next Tuesday, before class, to put my favorite dream of the week in this workbook. Maybe I’ll have some better ones before then.

My favorite dream this week was the successful WILD attempt that lead to a lucid dream.

Successful WILD

Dream Lucid

January 31, '11: I slept for around 6 hours, stayed awake for 20-30 minutes, and then laid on my back, focusing on my breathing and ignoring any other thoughts. It took a while, but I eventually felt tingly vibrations.
I opened my eyes slightly and looked at the clock. But I couldn't have physically done that because I was facing the wrong way and I had on a blindfold (homemade sleep mask).

I felt myself switch from my physical body to my dream body. I moved my arm and then got up. My vision was not very good. It was dark and faded. I rubbed my hands together. Then I removed a pair of glasses I was wearing and everything was suddenly clear.

I rubbed my hands together again to stabilize the dream, focusing on the sensation. (I forgot that I wanted to examine my hands to stabilize, rather than my usual hand rubbing method.)

I was in a large cabin-like building, full of stuff. It reminded me of the pixel dream world I made on my computer, but in realistic 3D form.
I felt light. I floated into the air and did flips and pushed myself from the walls. I floated up to a big wooden light fixture thing. It was like a chandelier, but weird shaped. I don't remember exactly what shape it was. I made it fall and it broke on the floor.
I floated up higher and I saw into an attic storage space. There was an old stuffed rhino doll that I grabbed.
There was also a large fireplace behind a glass wall.

Then I remembered what I wanted to do. I tried to stretch my arm to reach something far away. My thumb and forefinger stretched and picked up my ghost lamp, and brought it closer to me.
I tried to stretch my arms, but it didn't work.
At some point I also pushed my left hand finger through my right hand palm, not as a reality check, but just because I've never done it before.

I was hungry (my physically body really was hungry) so I went to the fridge. I ate three slices of old pizza and then ate a bunch of other things, wrappers and all. Then I woke up.

While trying to re-enter a dream, I had a short dream-like thing. Someone was instructing me to climb through a small hole, or passage and told me to focus my awareness as I did.

Here are three dream signs that have made me lucid in the past.

1. Stressful situation. - It's kind of vague, but I have lots of stressful dreams. So whenever something stressful or startling happens in waking life, I try to remember to do a reality check. I have become lucid more than once after something stressful happened in the dream. Unfortunately, often when something stressful or frightening is happening in a dream, I'm too distracted by the situation to think to do a reality check.

specific stressful recurring dream situations:
a) Driving a car that I cannot control properly.
b) Arguing with parents, or sometimes other people.
c) Pets in danger or plants dying.
d) Being attacked by animals.

2. Strange reflections in mirrors. - A few times I have realized I was dreaming after seeing something very strange and/or creepy reflected in a mirror.

3. Flying - At least once I have become lucid because I was flying and realized I could only do that in dreams. A few other times I tested reality by flying and confirmed that I was dreaming.

Other possible dream sign:
4. Being in one of my childhood homes, church, or grandparents' house. I have not been to any of these places in years, yet I regularly visit them in dreams. Perhaps if I regularly stop and check my surroundings in waking life, this could use this as a dream sign.

Very good work the dream signs will help you to become lucid.

I was reading some of my older dreams and decided to do sketches of some of the things that showed up in my dreams last year. I made an online dream journal entry for it:
Dream Sketches

Favorite dream of the week:

Dream Lucid Partially lucid

February 6, '11: Had another successful WILD. It took a long while, and I moved a couple of times. But eventually I imagined that I was moving, and I felt my dream body move.

I got up. It was dark. I rubbed my hands together and on my body, and looked at my hands until my vision got better. I was in my old bedroom. I opened the window and stuck my head out. I shouted out to the sky "Hey dream!"
I heard my own voice return from the distance, it said "Hey!"
I shouted "What force is keeping me from doing what I want?" (thinking mostly of past lucid dreams, but also waking life.) It was a little difficult saying it right.
There was pause and the voice just said "Hm."

I almost woke up. I tried again and asked the same question. The voice answered and said "fear cells."
I asked what that meant. It had something to do with internal fear.
I asked "How can I overcome it?" but I don't know what the answer was, or if there was one. As I was asking these questions, the window opening kept getting smaller and I was somehow stuck.

I looked at my hands throughout the dream to stabilize.

Then I went outside, crossed the pond on some kind of tarp that was over it, and I climbed up onto the bridge (all of this is in front of my parents' house). I was barefoot and I felt the wood of the bridge with my feet. There were some guys walking around wearing what looked like hotel uniforms. The pond was now purple and boiling, with lots of waves and steam coming from it. I asked one of the guys what it meant. Either he responded or I concluded that it represented my "inner turmoil."

But I said, "It's not always that bad. See, it's calmed down." It had calmed quite a bit, but was still very wavy.
I asked how I can make it better. The guy said "grouse."
I said "what's grouse?"
Turns out it was a meat that a lady was handing out to people. I asked the lady if I could have a piece. She wasn't very outgoing or friendly, but she gave me a stick and a piece of the meat to put on the stick.

Several people were going down to the water to fry the meat on their sticks. I kissed a girl in passing. I didn't want to get too distracted by sex.

There I saw Julie. I said hi and told her that she was dreaming. She just said "OK." She was happy and friendly, but didn't seem to care about that. We went down into this little room area with a wooden floor, where the frying stuff was suppose to be. But it was all gone. Someone commented that the floor wasn't even warm.
I shouted out for heat. I didn't feel any, but the other people said it worked.

I sat between Julie and another girl, and talked. I noticed that the patterns in the wood floor looked like letters. But they didn't make any sense. Suddenly Julie kissed me and I got very aroused. She said that it was my dream making her do that. Gradually I was losing my lucidity. I told her that in waking life I like her but I don't want to have sex with her. And soon after that I woke up.

This is a significant lucid dream for me because usually dream characters in my lucid dreams are not very responsive. But these were definitely responsive and conscious dream figures. Also because it's the first time I've addressed the dream with a question.