Fitting LD's into a school schedule?

If nobody has noticed, I'm only really active for random short periods of time here on the forums. This is applicable to my general interest in dreams too. Although I do know myself to have issues committing to a project, I can definitely say that a lot of the blame for this issue goes to the fact that these things can be challenging to fit into a school schedule. I do know that with patience, I can attain a pretty decent lucidity rate and dream recall status. However, even though it may be asking too much in my situation, I'd like to know of any possible ideas for an optimal schedule. I also have a few questions.

- I know that naps are EXTREMELY useful for lucid dreams from experience, but I also have heard that it is important that you keep a constant schedule. If I didn't have school blocking napping opportunities off, this wouldn't be a problem, but unfortunately I can only take naps on the weekends. Ergo, would it have a negative effect on my dream recall, lucidity rate, etc... if I were to take early morning naps on the weekends but not on Sunday through Friday?

- Are there any other efficient ways of increasing dream recall other than using a dream journal? (Although, DJ's and dream recall go together like a horse and carriage.) Because in the mornings, unless I start waking up earlier, it can be a struggle to write down a dream in my dream journal and then get ready for school in time.

- What is it that makes WILD's so "not good" for a school night? Is it the fact that it takes a long time to get into a dream? Or is there some other factor that I'm apparently not aware of at the moment? The prospect of being able to go right into an LD is very tempting, although my current method is the DILD simply because it's simple and can fit into pretty much any schedule with little effort when done properly.

Help would be GREATLY appreciated as these questions constantly pop into my head.

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Originally Posted by kvxdelta

- I know that naps are EXTREMELY useful for lucid dreams from experience, but I also have heard that it is important that you keep a constant schedule. If I didn't have school blocking napping opportunities off, this wouldn't be a problem, but unfortunately I can only take naps on the weekends. Ergo, would it have a negative effect on my dream recall, lucidity rate, etc... if I were to take early morning naps on the weekends but not on Sunday through Friday?

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It is important to keep a constant schedule, a continious sleeping pattern will only help you figure out the most likely times you will be dreaming.


to be completly honest, journaling is going to be the best way for you, however there are techniques you can use. My advise would be, that when you wake up just jot the following details down: Location, basic plot, recognisable people and feelings. Make a quick note of those and when you come home from school you should be able to read through this and jolt your memory and write it out in full. Im probably not the best person to talk to about WILD'ing so i'll leave that for someone else ;)

i'm a really active and busy student too! (lazy also..lol). i sleep at 9-10 o'clock and wake up at 5 oclock. at 5, i write my dreams in my DJ, take my dogs for a walk, perpare for school, and stuff..

i don't take naps. im too busy, i have to do homeworks (takes hours for me to finish them), courses, etc..
i record my voice, or write only the highlited events in my dreams, so not too detailed..
i dont know about wild not good for students like us, but i use DEILD and DILD. (sometimes WBTB).
i choose DILD because i am a big fan of reality checks and ADA, and i think increasing your awareness will fit better with DEILD.
and i use DEILD because it is simple. just wake up in the middle of the night, sleep again, and be lucid!

I go to school to. I just WILD on the weekends.

I use the Dild method and try it on school nights, although I haven't had an LD on a school night it still works out well my dream recall has increased greatly and also I go to bed at 11:45 wake up at 6 then off to school at 7 and I tried Wild but that's best for napping times and I don't have time for that, so I would stick with Dild for some time and stay consistent same bedtime same wakeup time, and mantras help a lot before going to bed

Just sleep 8 hours every night. You should see an improvement in your school/work/LD in a couple weeks.

Sounds like I'm definitely sticking with DILD, especially since in all of the time that I've used it, it's never really caused me any problems. The only problem with it was that everybody would look at me like I'm a madman when I pinched my nose or counted my fingers. Then again, that wasn't even ever that bad, I just explained it to them as it was and they understood. :D I also have another question...

- I read on the main page of the site in those little tutorial things that you should get a good dream recall before trying the LD techniques. Is this true? Or will I be fine performing both the techniques and increasing my dream recall at the same time, as it seems most of you do.

I recommend doing both at the same time. I do not know why people say that. It will be much more effective with recall, but it is good to get used to. You should check out my tutorial for DJing in my sig, it should help with your recall a lot. :)

I do have one little inquiry though.

- Would it be a good idea to try to WBTB on weekends, or would that be detrimental to the effectiveness of my DILD during weekdays?

Its always a good idea to try WBTB. Its only going to increase your chances of having an LD. :)

When it comes to WBTB, normally the best amount of sleep to get is six hours, correct? As in like before you use an alarm or whatever to wake yourself up. Also, does using an alarm harm the effect of a WBTB? The only natural way I can think of to force myself into it is to drink a glass of water or something before bed so I wake up in the middle of the night needing to go to the bathroom. One more little inquiry as well, I've heard using an aesthetically pleasing dream journal seems to make it more effective. I was kind of thinking of forging together my own and was wondering if it would have a positive effect on my dream recall.

I use an alarm, because I don't want to get in the habit of waking up in the middle of the night, so I'm less tiered for school.

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Originally Posted by kvxdelta

I've heard using an aesthetically pleasing dream journal seems to make it more effective.

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I think it helps. I have a notebook for scribbling down things when I wake up, like an A4 size of detailed notes (In fairly big writing because I'm half asleep). But my more interesting dreams AKA 90% of them, I write up in microsoft word when I get back from school. I use a lot of colors for different things, and I make sure it looks very neat and professional. I then print it off at the end of each month and put them in a binder for future reading. I also use Brandon's DJ technique by the way.

But overall, I prefer having an aesthetically pleasing DJ. Maybe because I'm a visual learner, but keep in mind having things organized does make it easier to find and read in the future when you want to read over your past dreams. Hope this helps. :D

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Originally Posted by kvxdelta

When it comes to WBTB, normally the best amount of sleep to get is six hours, correct? As in like before you use an alarm or whatever to wake yourself up. Also, does using an alarm harm the effect of a WBTB? The only natural way I can think of to force myself into it is to drink a glass of water or something before bed so I wake up in the middle of the night needing to go to the bathroom. One more little inquiry as well, I've heard using an aesthetically pleasing dream journal seems to make it more effective. I was kind of thinking of forging together my own and was wondering if it would have a positive effect on my dream recall.

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I wake up whenever I want. I find that waking up like 4 or 5 times a night helps a lot with recall. I am not in a "habit" ofwaking in the middle of the night. I am just kn 100% control of when i wake up. Using an alarm kills recall and changes your awareness to the alarm away from dreams. So I WBTB after about 2 hours and then about every hour after.

How would you go about controlling when you wake up? I understand mantras can be highly effective but I don't recall *slight pun intended* ever seeing them have such a drastic effect.

The way people did it for thousands of years without alarm clocks. Just think when you want to get up. I can tell you how, but it starts as a mantra, so you lose that for LDing for a while. Later on it isn't a mantra as much as it is you just think once "wake up at 3,4,5,6, and 7." And you do. It is really weird when you wake up and look at the clock and it is exactly what time you wanted it to be. :)

Wow, I really ate my own words last night. I said a mantra to get myself to wake up at 6:00 so that I'd have time to DJ. I woke up at 6:30 AM. Unfortunately though, no dreams that night. ); But either way, I do have to say that was pretty cool. Thanks for the help, it's genuinely appreciated. Anyhow, I think I've drained myself of all these questions, at least temporarily. Once again, thanks everybody, you really cleared up a lot of the things that I was having trouble with. :)

Didn't know mantras worked that great, will try it tonight and see how it works, but will have a backup alarm just in case

Neither did I... Hey Brandon, have you ever tried using mantras to get to sleep at a certain time? Last night I tried to get to sleep at 10:00 PM but ended up finally getting to sleep at around 2:00 AM. I doubt that the mantra's success was accidental because I had no alarms, usually wake up at 7:00 AM, and stayed up really late. Surprised I didn't sleep in later. I'm going to continue to try that. I'll also be trying to see if mantras could get me to sleep at a specific time, as that would be absolutely WONDERFUL.

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Originally Posted by azoller1

Didn't know mantras worked that great, will try it tonight and see how it works, but will have a backup alarm just in case

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Always use back up. If you are too tired it won't work as well. :P

@ kvx
I shall try that for a few weeks. Sounds promising.

Sorry if this thread has just become a storm of questions to sate my curiosity. Anyhow, does anybody have any advice for those complete dream recall dry streaks when you can't even remember any dreams? I'm not recalling a single detail. I'm not even recalling the feelings. I've been going to sleep at 10:00 PM every night now. I've also tried staying still but no matter what, I can't remember anything. Not even reciting mantras has had any effect on this dry streak. Am I supposed to just wait it out, or is there a solution to this problem?

Go over your old DJ entries before you go to sleep and when you wake. This should be the same type of memory you are activating.

If no DJ then go over favorite dreams in your head.

Just start thinking of random, stuff I totally forgot a dream in the morning than I was thinking about some person then it triggered my dream and I recalled the rest of the dream, seems to help me out

Wow, I took a look through my old DJ recordings today and half the time, I was like, "I remember this!". Then I was like, "Wow, look at all of those grammatical errors". The oldest dreams I found dull because they were just old and stale, they didn't have the same "style" (I guess?) as my more recent dreams do. Some of the recent ones though really just clicked into me, I get a good feeling that I'll remember some of tonight's dreams. Also, I'm still slightly confused about something. I've had maybe 12 LD's now. All of those were in a very short period of my newbly newb days. (First two or three weeks maybe?) Yet, I look at people who have clearly had tons more time and practice than me who have only gotten two to four LD's. It's absolutely mind-boggling. I'm pretty sure the undying craving I have for LD's isn't any more intense than that of everybody else. I don't think I'm practicing better either. In fact I'm pretty inefficient with my practices at times. I am bewildered, dumbstruck, and confused.

Well. There are quite a few factors. The main one I think is that you might have found a tech that works well for you, and the others have yet to find one.

Did you start in July last year?

Also, don't discount that you mighy be trying harder. Most people that try and LD will only remember to do it every other day and consistency is a big thing when LDing. Some people also think that sleeping 8 hours is too much sleep. This can hurt you.

Also, some people are just better When I first started there were a lot of people that were getting more LDs than me that started at the same time (mainly brother in law). Then I read ETWOLD and got on this site. I finished that book in a day and automatically started frequently coming here. This made me start getting frequent LDs automatically. Starting out good helps a lot, but it doesn't increase the chances of you continuing LDing for a while, that is just will and determination.