Extremely foggy, short LDs

Alright, so I started lucid dreaming in early October of 2012. It took me about two and a half months to have my first LD. Since then I've had roughly 10 or so. However, they've always been extremely foggy, hardly more than blurry shapes, and the dreams never truly go anywhere. I've tried rubbing my hands together and spinning (although I honestly have not tried spinning too much), and while I usually get very vague senses, nothing much really happens. It's like my mind is working at 10% capacity or something, almost as if I'm actually only a little bit conscious.

Just about every time I've had a lucid dream it was due to WBTB's, though I have tried other methods, but I figure that since WBTB has worked relatively well I will revisit other methods once I more or less can control my dreams, or at least can get my senses working effectively. My reality checks seem to be how they should, I can remember my dreams pretty well, and my intent is set. I understand that lucid dreaming is not something that happens very quickly, but I am wondering if I could be doing something wrong.

So, for whatever reason, 95% of my LD's seem to start with me already knowing its a dream, I suppose because I'm doing WBTB's. But either way, the dream is always very blurry, my senses are very vague or altogether not there, and the LD's usually last 10 seconds, give or take.

I am absolutely dedicated to getting my lucid dreaming to work, and I'm not going to give up. But it is truly frustrating to get so little result, and while I am very patient, I would very much appreciate some guidance. Thank you in advance for any advice, I will continue to look around the forums and at the tutorials for ideas. Sorry for how sloppy this was put together, I'm in a hurry, but thank you very much for any tips you may have.

Have you tried specially engaging all the senses? Like trying to feel objects, trying to hear something, trying to look at specific object in detail, trying to smell things and trying to taste objects. :peek:
Engaging all senses should stabilize dream enough, it's pretty popular stabilization technique and it's worked for me in my WBTB/WILDs. :)

Your progress is good! You're not doing anything wrong. In addition to stabilization, choose some fun tasks that will engage your senses with excitement and emotion. Choose some things that you can do quickly so that you can attempt them even in a short LD. Work with the environment to find something quickly. Focus on accomplishing the task and the satisfaction it will bring; that will take your attention away from worrying about dream quality. You can build up to more elaborate tasks and control as you progress. There's a million things but a few come to mind:

- feel the rush of air while flying
- scream
- punch a wall
- breathe underwater
- lick the ground
- kiss a DC

Also, do you wear glasses in waking life? If so, and your dreams are blurry, put your glasses on in the dream. If you don't wear glasses, you can try rubbing your eyes, shaking your head, or whatever you would do in waking life if your vision became blurry. Basically, activate a schema for sharpening your vision.

I agree with them completely ^^

Moreover, not only should you do those in dreams, but you should practice paying attention to your surroundings in waking life as well. You can check out http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...kingyoshi.html for more info on this.

Basically the idea is to pay attention to your surroundings, yourself, and your senses as much as you can in waking life. This practice will reflect in your dreams are give you better overall awareness. Once you have that, you will also start to notice the dream elements more vividly and be more solidly anchored into the dream environment.

Good luck!

Huh, well that makes me feel better. I'll keep trying to work on stabilization, to be honest I hadn't looked hard enough at ideas for stabilizing (the genius that I am). Unfortunately I don't wear glasses, but I get the idea, so thank you for that tip. I suppose I'll just remind myself to find an object and work on feeling it or something of that nature, I suppose I'll just have to run myself through a bunch of different stabilizing techniques till one works.

I also do try to practice paying attention to my surroundings, but I must say, I constantly forget to pay enough mind to everything around me. But I'll work on that, without a doubt.

Thank you all very, very much for the tips, I really appreciate it, it's nice to finally get help when I need it, and so quickly as well :)

Check this out, if you haven't yet: http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...-tutorial.html

Wow, to be honest that pretty much sums up all of my lucid dreaming worries for now. Simple and short :D

Thanks for that, truly, I'll let you know how it goes.

Much welcome, anytime. Good luck!