Thread: Very Confused

Hey everybody,

So there's been a few times recently where I've posted asking for help about various things, and since I have even more questions, I figured I might as well lay all my cards out on the table and see if there is someone out there that can give me an idea of what I may (or may not) be doing wrong. This may be a rather lengthy post, but I'm not sure I can summarize all of my problems quickly.

Alright, so, roughly three weeks ago I had a lucid dream, the first one where I actually considered myself to have a feasible balance of control and clarity. I'd thought I was getting closer to about 10 LD's total, but after going through my dream journal I was surprised to find that it was actually only my 4th or 5th LD. It was the first night I'd decided to try MILD in a different way than I usually do, and I told myself before going to sleep that I would LD, no question about it. Well, that worked, I did have the LD. But here's where my problems start.

Now, honestly, I may just be overreacting about this, but ever since that LD I seem to have had a sudden and very difficult issue with reality checking and awareness. Before that LD, I was almost constantly reality checking, and I always kept a lookout for potential dreamsigns. I was also trying ADA, but for whatever reason I basically ditched it, although now I'm trying it again, which I will have questions about later. But after I had that LD I found myself having trouble remembering to keep watch for anything that might give me a hint that I'm dreaming. I know that you shouldn't base reality checks on how often you do them, but rather, do them when you honestly think you can be dreaming. Even now when I see something that seriously makes me think I'm dreaming I check, but I still feel like through the day I am not aware, and I find myself doing probably about 5 reality checks a day compared to the 30 I was probably doing. When I have school or am doing something like talking to someone, my awareness tends to just disappear, yet a few weeks ago even while I was in school or focused on something I was usually fairly aware. Another thing to note is that I absolutely understand the importance of actually observing my surroundings and asking myself if I'm dreaming when I reality check, so I don't have issues with doing the reality checks, just doing them often enough or being aware enough. My main questions would have to be, would anyone have an idea of why my awareness suddenly seemed to just disappear, and also, how should I go about being more aware again? Another thing is that recently I've found I can't think as positive and as determined as I could before a few weeks ago. Perhaps I need to take a break? I truly have no idea.

I am currently practicing ADA, although to be honest, it sure is difficult. There are many questions I have about it, which I suppose I'll just go straight ahead with. First, is ADA constantly being aware of everything around you at once, or is it more along the lines of observing different parts of your surroundings and yourself individually? As an ADA beginner, I usually do the 5-10 sessions. I know to do these mainly when you actually want to, not as a chore, but how many sessions should I try for per day? Also, if I'm in a distracting scenario, like school, watching a movie/playing video games, talking to people for extended periods of time, things like that, how might I be able to fit ADA in? Should I only do ADA in times where I can concentrate solely on it? Since I am in school for so much time of the day, and then talking to other people or doing some distracting activity for the rest of the day, I feel like I allow myself to lose awareness for large parts of the day. Any tips on what I should do?

Well, alright, that was quite haphazard, but it's really everything I have to ask for now. I've posted a few times before, and I feel like I'm asking the same questions sometimes, so I'm truly sorry for that, but these past few weeks I've been quite worried, I've found myself to be more negative than usual about my progress, and my awareness just seems to have almost disappeared. If you guys suggest I go ahead with ADA, I would really, really appreciate it if you could give me some help on the previous ADA questions. I don't know why I suddenly seem to be much less positive and less patient than before either, it truly is beyond me. I don't know if all these issues are in direct relation to the lucid dream three weeks ago, or if it is total coincidence. Regardless, I appreciate any and all help, and I'm sorry that I constantly seem to be asking for support. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and for giving any help you can give. Tell me if there's something I left out that you guys need to know.

Ok, so I think I have a similar issue to yours just earlier in the process. I just came back to lucid dreaming hobby after years of absence, and now I have been working on it for two weeks. I have brought my dream recall up from virtually zero to 1-3 dreams or at least dream fragments every night, and I had one lucid dream.

And now my mind has decided to fight back. I have had a dream questioning the importance of writing down dream fragments. I have had one incident of a false memory that I had already written a dream journal entry and did not need to write it any more, whereas I actually had not written it yet, and by the time I realized that, I forgot most of the dream. I think what is happening in my case is that this takes a lot of effort, and part of me is lazy and does not want to put in the effort. Also since I have had a bit of success in improving dream recall and the one lucid dream, my mind is now a bit cocky and looking for shortcuts in the effort and thinking let's not bother with dream fragments but go only for the big important stuff. Impatience is definitely part of what is going on here. Of course my conscious mind knows that it is way too early for shortcuts, and since most of my dream recall is fragments, I know I cannot drop them, plus my conscious mind often finds those gems of dream fragments really fascinating. But it's not my conscious mind that has decided to cut corners, it's my subconscious! So now I need to bring it back into the program.

Do you think that what is happening to you may be like what is happening to me?

Same here - lately when I wake up in the night I just roll over and go back to sleep without even trying to recall the dreams, then in the morning I'm lucky to even remember one confused fragment. But if I make the effort to wake up more fully, even if it's only been 2 hours of sleep (1st REM period) then I can usually remember and write down the dream or at least a fragment. And I find when I do go to the trouble of doing that it pays off because dreams have a way of linking together so that if you fail to understand one you get different versions of the same message in several more - so comparing them helps a lot. And of course to compare them you need to remember them! And write them down.

I think each time I have a micro awakening I'm going to get up at least for a little while and do a WBTB rather than just try to dimly remember a dream and then drop back into unconsciousness. Actually waking more fully makes all the difference. Of course, hard to do if you need to get up in the morning and do anything.