Can't train myself anymore

I started trying to lucid dream my sophomore year in highschool (I'm a freshman in college now) and all throughout that sophomore year I tried as hard as I could to lucid dream. I only had moderate success and was frustrated by this but I was still proud with how hard I was trying. I spent almost every minute I could questioning reality, thinking about the concept of dreaming, and thinking of dreaming goals. I was diligent about keeping a dream journal, recognized all my dream signs and always performed a reality check and truly questioned weather or not I was dreaming when I saw them in waking life. During the summer that year I stopped lucid dreaming, for reasons I can't even remember now. When I started again around winter of my junior year I didn't try as hard and had much less success, although that was a pretty low point in my life with alot of shit going down so that's pretty understandable. I stopped at some point before my senior year and at the beginning of the school year I made it my goal to start lucid dreaming again. As I start training my mind and body again I found myself to be even less dedicated then last time. I was incredibly sporadic with journaling, sometime going weeks a a time without writing a dream, I almost never thought about dreaming or performed reality check during the day, I would usually realizes this during 8th period and think "oh shit I better make up for all the lost time but thinking of nothing but dreaming for the rest of the day" and 30 minutes later it's the last thought on my mind. Now that I'm in college my attempts to lucid dream are pitiful, I don't even have a real dream journal instead I just find scrap paper when ever I remember to write a dream down, and maybe once a week I'll think about dreaming during class for all of 5 minutes. For some reason I just can dedicate myself to learning to LD anymore, but I've been want to lucid dream now more than ever. What's wrong with me?

Think of lucid dreaming inductions as a football or a guitar.

If you want to get good at the sport football or playing the guitar, you can't just read how to do it, you need experience and practise.

However one night or a couple of nights isn't enough, you need to practise and learn from trial and error and most important of all, not focus on what you fail or are bad at, but focus on what you are good at and improve that and the rest will come naturally.

So you got the ball or the guitar, all you have to do now is to go out and play... Well nobody can become skilled like Messi or Jimmi Hendrix in a day, and I am not sure anyone can just by practising and reading. Although there got to be something you can do to improve faster.

And that my friend is analyzing your attempts. If you know you are great at shooting the ball to a specific target but are less skilled at dribbling the ball, or for the guitar example you can play the chords to a song easily but struggling with the solo, well then you know what you need to work on.

You can either work step by step and focus on each individual problem or you can look at the whole of things and try to understand the core of each skill, which in both of these examples can be said to be based on the muscle memory. So you can also focus on that and improve every aspect of what you are practising.

But ok to apply this to lucid dreaming... :P For lucid dreaming the core of every induction and everything you practise is awareness.

So you can either choose to look at parts, and step by step complete the puzzle of your perfect lucid dreaming induction.
You do this by analyzing each attempt you do, begin by looking at what went well, like did you remember more dreams? did you had vivid dreams? etc. then ask yourself WHY this was the case.
Did you do anything differently than usual? Like going to bed earlier or was lessed stressed and had a peaceful mind as you fell asleep? Be creative!
Then you look at what didn't go so well, you perhaps performed a reality check that didn't worked? or you didn't remembered much dreams or you didn't had vivid dreams?
Ask yourself again WHY this was the case. As you do this you will have exact steps to lucid dream, but the only possible downside is that you are dependent on these steps, without these steps you have no clue of how to induce a lucid dream at will. But that's only a problem if you see it as a problem.

You can also look at a whole perspective and find ways of how to practise awareness. I think that meditation is the best tool for that, but you can do what you think feels best.
How meditation relates to lucid dreaming can be found in my Dream Journal, if you think it's unclear after reading it you can just ask me and I'll see if I can make it clear for you.

I do however recommend that you read this entry, because in some regards I think the mindset is more important than the actual induction, but combined with the analysation it is extremely powerful:

Yoga Nidra or Conscious Sleep - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

In my Dream Journal you will find lots of texts that looks like guides, but is actually just a way to both analyze and share my attempts. If I can make other people understand and get useful information from my experiences, well it is also easier for me to do so. So don't misstake my advice as fact, it's just an opinion based on experience. Nothing is fact don't relay on methods alter them as much as you want and relay on yourself and your own experience.

I hope this information helps you :) Sweet dreams and good luck!

Namaste. Inlakesh :meditate:

it all depends on your work ethic and quality of work. if you slack off your not going to get results, and if your work lacks quality you wont lucid. simple as that.
im the same way; i forget to do reality checks, i dont write some of my dreams down, i slack off. i have not had lucids due to my lack of effort.
i have been very close tho and its very possible for the both of us to lucid if we only believe in ourselves.

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Originally Posted by minilee46

it all depends on your work ethic and quality of work. if you slack off your not going to get results, and if your work lacks quality you wont lucid. simple as that.
im the same way; i forget to do reality checks, i dont write some of my dreams down, i slack off. i have not had lucids due to my lack of effort.
i have been very close tho and its very possible for the both of us to lucid if we only believe in ourselves.

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I know you need good work ethic to lucid dream, that not what I was asking. When I first started trying I had intense work ethic and crazy dedication, any spare moment I had to think I was doing something to help me LD. Now (4 years later) I desperately want to lucid dream worse than before, but for some reason I almost never think about it before I go to bed, I would have a strong work ethic but for some reason I just never think about lucid dream, despite how badly I want to do it

Maybe you are not as excited about it as you were, originally? It is a pretty thrilling concept when you first hear about it. Maybe you could start by focusing on improving your dream recall until you get excited again? Nothing gets me more excited than having a cool dream. You could even go back and review your old journals for your favorite dreams. Remind yourself how fun dreaming is, and how much it improves your life.

If you are a freshman in college, you probably have had a lot of changes, recently. Lots of new shit to deal with, a new schedule, new responsibilities. Take it slow, tackle one thing at a time, and don't become frustrated. Instead of focusing on "trying to lucid dream," just focus on the dreaming. Focus on the dreams, themselves. You are dreaming every night, no matter how much you try or do not try. Start remembering your dreams again, and the rest will follow.

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Originally Posted by starfox69

I know you need good work ethic to lucid dream, that not what I was asking. When I first started trying I had intense work ethic and crazy dedication, any spare moment I had to think I was doing something to help me LD. Now (4 years later) I desperately want to lucid dream worse than before, but for some reason I almost never think about it before I go to bed, I would have a strong work ethic but for some reason I just never think about lucid dream, despite how badly I want to do it

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You have a lot of goals for LDing, Which specific one do you want to do? If you have one major one that sticks out to you then that should be the one that keeps you thinking about LDing all day, and that would be the one to remind you to RC or be more aware. :)

If you need help finding one thing that you want to do above all look at 1000 things to do in a lucid dream, or look through old TOTMs until you find something that you personally can get excited about it (not too overly excited, calmly excited ;) ). Hope this helps. I find having a set goal to be very awesome and work well, but I do not know if it works for all. My other advice is to listen to the Robot_Butler and Mastermind :nodyes:, they are beasts.
Task of the Month

http://www.dreamviews.com/f11/1000-t...-dream-104556/

I think it's because of the methods that you were using. I'm almost completely certain (what a term) that you only tried to enter a LD over the Wake Induced (WILD) method. I guess you just kept falling asleep. What you have to try is the WBTB method and practice RCs during your AT (Awake Time). Read about this method!

You ever heard of the phrase " Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different result" ? Iknow you varied it a little, but you should try something different. Theres this thing Called the Remee lucid dreaming mask. it's not out yet, but you should look at reviews on youtube when they start shipping it in.

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Originally Posted by lonewolf101

You ever heard of the phrase " Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different result" ? Iknow you varied it a little, but you should try something different. Theres this thing Called the Remee lucid dreaming mask. it's not out yet, but you should look at reviews on youtube when they start shipping it in.

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That's a bit too far thought, but the core of this is: Try something new! (Like I suggested with the WBTB method)

Find your own routine and stick with it. If you do give it enough importance you'll do it. Get some sticky notes around to remind you of what you need to do (reality checks, write an entry on your dream journal, etc.).

I'm sure you'll be able to find the motivation to do it again.

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Originally Posted by howtoluciddream

Find your own routine and stick with it.

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Having a routine is key. It should become habitual. I'm sure your routine is all screwball with the recent changes in your life. See if you can adjust so lucid dreaming becomes a part of the new routine.

You're doing it wrong, plain and simple. Don't take this post as offensive, but I've been in the same situation you're at, and it's necessary to cut off some of your current thinking.

First of all, habits aren't easy things to change (but you already know that). The deal is you can harm yourself (yourself= your goals) pretty harshly if you try to include one task of utter importance to the point where you're obsessing over it. You don't go out to the gym and work out all day, every week. You'll just hurt your muscles, and have a negative effect on your training. On the same way, you can't expect yourself to literally inflate your brain with queues and tasks with long duration and be fine with it. It will just lead to burnout plain and simple. If you add it spontaneously to your every day routine, it won't work either. Why? Because you're filling the blanks, you're adding it as a distraction, and not really a well-defined objective which is important to you.

Lucid dreaming is easy indeed, but no one said it's effortless. But you already know that. Do you? Did you accept the requirement of TIME? Did you accept that it might take MONTHS to get a regular minimum amount of lucidity? It's not months of every day stressing about it. It's not every day months of waking up and "maaaybe I'll write something down today". Nope, it's months of defining a time to practice, of finding effort and dedication to install a place for lucid dreaming in your life. Sure you might get occasional lucids without that. Sure you can do WILD and get lucid dreams sometimes. But if you really want to make it a part of your life, you have to make room for it. Not by changing your life upside down and erase your schedule for the sake of reserving it all for reality checking. The same way we get better results at studying if we do it over a long period of time filled with short duration sessions over a couple of super intense days, we also lucid dream better if we re-code our mental schemes to include lucid dreaming (read it, awareness) bit by bits, creating an array of powerful and multiple connections.

I've made plenty of solo research in ways of inducing lucidity, and it was easy to conclude that whatever technique you develop, whatever aid you have, it's the long-term consolidation of itself that gives you a high degree of regular lucidity. Let's be honest, you're re-activating certain parts of your brain by becoming lucid, you're defying the nature of the dream (because we're not even meant to become lucid in the first place), and more, you're making connections which didn't exist for most part of your life (I only heard about lucid dreaming when I was 20), so no wonder they will take time. If you try to take shortcuts to get the house built, the easier it will fall than one which had extended period to be constructed. These aren't just lessons of patience, they are rules when we refer to the neurobiology of learning.

The last thing I want to talk you about is emotional vs mechanical awareness. Even if you don't really feel "excited" about it, the fact is you'll make connections that can lead you to question reality (like recognizing dreams signs) if you practice enough. So, the only thing you have to do is make your mind to complete those chores, even if they seem to you a price to pay to get the goodies. Because they certainly can be that. Habits get easier with time, but don't go out and think you can change your life in a week. Make goals, like 3 dreams per week. Then 5. Then 7 dreams a week. Meanwhile, 5 minutes before bed to think about lucid dreaming. Then 10. Then 15. Then 5 minutes after you wake up. Then 10. Then 15 minutes during the day for specific exercise. Then half hour. Meanwhile, watch 1 movie that might inspire you every week. Then a movie and 2 dream reports from DV. Then have a bad week, but keep those 5minutes before bed, 5 minutes after waking up, 3 dreams per week, 5 minutes after meals to reserve to lucid dreaming. Then get inspired, and increase that time.

And now I'm freaking inspired. :panic:

I'm in the same boat as you bro. One similarity of note is how you say that you want lucid dreams now, more than ever. This kind of emphasis, i've found, puts anything out of reach. I just experienced this same rule with a girl. You can't put shit on a pedestal. It might be better to simply Know you have the capability, unquestioningly, but then to also see your shitty behavior and resolution as the only thing between you and what you think you want. Not you, but your bad habits. Might make it easier to overcome your patterns.

So comeon! Stop pretending to be a piece of shit! and just be what you want to be.