First LD. Why so unrealistic?

**LaxoSomniator** · 01-01-2012 10:36 PM

I recently had my first LD without waking up.

(It can be seen in my dream journal, although I'm too noob to post links apparently).

I'm not so concerned about the fact that I eventually forgot that I was dreaming, but rather that my dream didn't feel realistic at all. The only way that it was different, is that I had more control and concious thought.
Is this normal? Is there something I can do?

Even so, I am very pleased with this long awaited achievement. And also very surprised - yesterday was in a way the first day I've tried to LD in a year. Beginners luck?

**sean95** · 01-02-2012 04:35 AM

Some are better than others. Your LD's will get more vivid and realistic with time.

**MissLucy** · 01-03-2012 11:27 AM

It might be due to disbelief? But yeah, they're most likely to get better over time

**fOrceez** · 01-03-2012 11:35 AM

Very nice! Congratulations. As people have said, some dreams alter in levels of 'reality'. Some may feel as real as waking life, some may feel not so real (as you have experienced) and some may feel even more real! What I mean by this is you have something you don't normally experience in waking life - a sixth sense. Perhaps in your lucid dream you felt like you 'knew' where everything was? Or that everything felt somewhat familiar?
Beginners luck? Maybe. But you should definitely claim it as skill. Confidence plays a key role in lucid dreaming - take advantage of that.

**Loaf** · 01-03-2012 11:53 AM

Congratulations.

Lucid dreams (and all dreams for the matter) come in a variety of styles. You will often see people talk about dreams in the following manner:

Vividness
The strength of color, detail, and the realism of dream objects, characters, and scenes.

Cause: Vividness comes and goes in dreams. It should be at its strongest at the earliest point of the dream, and it tends to weaken at the end of the dream's life.
Cure: Vividness can be improved by entering the dream via any WILD method as opposed to DILD. You can also try to use RC and stabilization techniques to try to improve the dream. Teleporting to a new scene using dream control may also help "kick start" the dreamworld again. Melatonin helps with lucid dreaming, and in my experience vividness as well-- if you want to go that extra mile, try eating cherries about an hour or less before sleep.

Stability
The strength of a dream, and how 'stable' it feels. Unstable dreams can often lack vividness, will be very dull or uneventful, and the dreamer may experience lack of senses (including sight and sound) and a feeling of fading in and out of consciousness. Unstable dreams have a feeling of flimsiness; almost like they are on the verge of collapsing, hence the name.

Cause: Unstable dreams are most likely to occur when the dreamer is at the end of his / her sleep cycle (if you are trying to dream around the time you usually wake up, consider it useless). Unstable dreams can also be caused by poor or broke sleep. It is also extremely common for dreams to become unstable when the dreamer gets emotional, esp. from fear, excitement, or arousal. It is typical for new lucid dreams to get over excited and spoil their first experience as a result.
Cure: There are numerous ways to make dreams stable. You can look up techniques on stability here at DV; a very popular way of doing this is to rub your hands together in the dream. If you lose your vision, you should try to pry your dream eyes open with your hands; I learned this from someone here, and it really works. You may wish to try waking up and using the DEILD method (do a lil' search on that, I highly recommend you learn it) and falling back to sleep from scratch. If the sleep cycle is over, its best to wake up and save your efforts for another night.

Control
Control is totally separate from being lucid. As we all know, its the degree of success that the dreamer has in manipulating the dreamworld. However control can vary from dream to dream as well, and even the best dreams can fail at times.

Cause: Lack of control is often caused by lack of confidence. But if you are already skilled at controlling dreams, you can also struggle in two additional ways. One, by how involved you are in the dream (for example, becoming spooked by DCs despite acknowledging they aren't real) which can affect you ability to focus. And two, the quality of the dream; some dreams feel like they are just being stubborn, and this could be the result of impending instability. You may also be having dips in your lucidity. Though again, some dreams are just bad from the start. It happens.
Cure: There are many ways to control dreams. You may wish to try a new form of control if your dreams aren't responding to your whims anymore (this happened to me one day out of the blue, and I had to learn a whole new style of dream control). If this is a one off, have a go and reality checking. Otherwise try the DEILD and start a fresh dream.