Thread: Beginner Questions

Originally posted by Xeroer


Anyways, I'm very eager to learn to become lucid, although I don't want to really do much of the reality checks, since when I dream, I don't think I would ever remember to do one.. I am completely powerless in dreams. I just wake up and remember doing it.

Some questions though.. How do you think my attempt was last night? Was it anything close? I really think its going to be a hard battle for me to attain lucidity.

Another thing I was wondering, about the whole shared dreaming thing, do the other people actually see what you do in a dream? I mean, I'm quite the sceptic, although I don't doubt anything I haven't tried. And I have heard it has been proven to be real by science, as a form of telepathy. I find it extremely interested.

Thanks for any comments/suggestions/answers.

Yea I’m not that keen on reality checks much either, the reason why is after analysing my dreams I notice I don't do any mundane tasks such as check the time or turn on the lights to rooms. For a while in real life I began to jump around everywhere and because to me it was fun, I began doing allot of it in dreams, this got me lucid sometimes and was the closest thing I was doing to a reality check. Maybe try doing something as your reality check with an emotion attached to it. It will probably make it much more significant to you than checking the time and in turn start turning up in your dreams.

I first started getting really interested in dreams about this time last year and have gone through dry patches where I have let my dreams go like any normal person would who had never heard of lucid dreaming. But with in that one year I have only had a handful of times where I have gone straight from waking state to dreaming, so when you say you lie down with your TV on timer I know that personally would not work for me. Are you limited in the time you have, as in do you have school or work commitments? I would stick to the WBTB technique, also I have recently found if I go to sleep at 1 AM get up at 7 AM, go to school, come back at 11 AM start to relax and meditate I then sometimes slip into dreams and awake a short time later still in a meditative state on my back, these could potentially turn into WILDS if I can start to recognize I’m dreaming. I also recommend you get some vitamin B6 you might of heard of it but it makes your dreams allot more clearer and detailed, you can get a container at any chemist in Australia for around $5.00, but stick with 100 mg - 150 mg a few times a week, taking it every night you will build up a tolerance and it will loose its effects.

About the whole shared dreaming thing, it's a bit of an iffy subject if you ask me, I think it would take enormous skill to do and I don't think that skill could come from practicing dream related exercises alone. Have you done much relaxation or meditation, if you have broadband try downloading the Gateway Series by the Monroe Institute, it gets you in some pretty relaxed states, if you don't have broadband I don't mind burning the first section of the Series (There are five in the series), but you would have to supply the blank CD and pay postage each way.

Good Luck

Thanks for the reply.
I'll check into the Vitamins and stuff.
Thanks for the offer, but I do have OptusNet Cable.

I will try the same technique tonight, I will also wake up early in the morning (say around 2AM, thats four hours sleep) as when I wake up at 3:30, I'm not really "groggy" (that overwhelming tired feeling), which I think is what must be achieved to slip into that REM state.

Anyhow, I'll do what I can tonight and make note of it tomorrow.

Thanks.

Hi Xeroer!! Glad you posted.

Although the WILD technique can vary be differant from person to person, it seems to me as if you were on the right track!
SPor sleep paralysis is not always accompanied with the WILD technique. I have actually never had that with my WILD experiances. Only during the morning hours.
It also seem to me that you were seeing HI - hypnagogic imagery. This is good.
If you can stay focused, these images can manifest into greater images wich inturn can lead you directly into a lucid dream. Trying to stay aware of your concsiouness is the difficult part. I too often drift back into sleep.

As far as dream sharing look into the Research Team. We have a few posts about it and an ongoing experiment. There are a host of other topics floating around the forum as well. You may want to use the search method for that.

Thanks, I'm off to try again then.. I'll also set my alarm for early morning to give it a shot then. Tonight, I'll leave my TV off, as it may help, especially with seperating the sounds and images from mental and reality.

It's almost 22:00, so I'll post what happens tomorrow.

Originally posted by Xeroer
Hey,
Long time reader, first time poster.

...Another thing I was wondering, about the whole shared dreaming thing, do the other people actually see what you do in a dream? I mean, I'm quite the sceptic, although I don't doubt anything I haven't tried. And I have heard it has been proven to be real by science, as a form of telepathy. I find it extremely interested.

Yes, I have once had a Shared Dream and it was just like meeting the other person in real life. We were each able to recount the dream in the minutest detail, I remembering the dream from my perspective, and she from hers, with every detail tallying up.

Just reporting the progress..
Last night I layed in bed, exactly how I did last time, laying there counting..
My body had odd sensations, sort of like a numb feeling, just over the whole body.

I stayed laying there. I almost drifted off to sleep, amazingly I heard this car horn, which was extremely real, which woke me back up to what I was doing. I don't know if the horn was real or not, although there are rarely cars around the my streets at this time, and they never beep their horns.

I kept at the challange, feeling some seperation feeling. I saw some sort of things before my eyes, which were greater than yesterday.

I had this sudden feeling to move my head to the side, which I suddenly did.
About 30 seconds of doing so, I saw more intense images before my eyes.. They weren't in color, and didn't have full detail, more like outlines of objects (if you've ever seen the "Glowing Edges" tool in some paint programs, it was like that.).

My eyes felt like they were opened, so I tried opening them and it seemed like that my eyes were only half opened (before I opened them myself).
It's hard to explain.
I closed them and continued counting, seeing the outlines once again, but it kept feeling that they were actually open, looking at something in the darkness.

I stayed with it, counting and counting.
I don't know if I stopped eventually and went to sleep, or if I did fall alseep.

I then woke up at 2:22AM (I never need the alarm, which was set for 2:30AM.. my body seems to detect when I want to wake up, somehow)
I got up, got a drink of water, went to the bathroom, and tried the same thing as I did earlier.. I didn't progress too far.

When waking up about 30 minutes ago, I remembered a dream I had, in quite a bit of detail.
I seem to remember at least one dream per night now. Some nights, I remember upto 3 or 4.

I feel I'm getting closer, so I will try again tonight..

Edit: Just realised, this would have been much better in the "Attaining Lucidity" forum.. Sorry!