Lucid Instability

[Ancient]

This is something that has happened to me on occasion, most often late in the morning when I am in a very light sleep. I will realize I'm dreaming, but only because something in my surroundings has awakened my body. My awareness will be divided between my sleeping body and my dreaming mind. The dream will instantly begin to fade away, and I am unable to find my way back into it completely. Here is an excerpt from my DJ in which this recently happened: "...I become lucid. The background fades to black, and I am looking at the table and my hands on it as if through a filmy plastic. I attempt to stabilize the dream by focusing on my hands, and feeling the surface of the table, as well as reinforcing the fact in my mind that I am lucid dreaming. This meets with no success. I allow lucidity to slip away after getting frustrated." When I become lucid normally, there is a moment where I say "I'm dreaming", and I go about my lucid dream completely engrossed in the dream state, with no awareness of my physical body. However, in the sort of dreams I've mentioned above, no amount of techniques for stabilizing the dream seem to work. Has anyone else experienced such difficulty, and found a way to overcome it? These are perfect opportunities for becoming lucid, and it is very frustrating to miss out on them.

[Jonnydebonnair]

Have you tried spinning around, its a classic but it works for me. I usually start flying when I become lucid, and I can guage if I'm at the right level of not too wow, but not too deep by how good I am at taking off! If I can't get into propper flight I'll spin around like I'm trying to get dizzy, or if in mid air starting to lose it, spin around my axis arms out. Happy dreaming

[Ancient]

Haven't tried spinning before, but it's hardly a similar feeling to when a lucid dream begins to dissolve. When that happens, I'm able to concentrate on my hands and on the texture of surfaces around me and bring it back. In this case it's like the dream hasn't completely formed. It's strange, and somewhat difficult to describe.