Eek, trying to get lucid is harder than I thought

Well, I've heard of lucidity being like a three-legged stool: awareness, memory, and dream recall. Problem is that I'm no good at any of the three. For the dream recall, it's having ups and downs, but it's mostly a few fuzzy fragments or nothing. It doesn't even feel like it happened at all, which is what my dreams used to be like. I've tried (still trying) dream and waking journal, but it's not improving my recall at all. :(

My memory is absolutely horrible. I've always been known to have a short memory (and that's why no one asks me to remind them of something) and I forget things all the time!

Plus there's the ADA I've heard does wonders, but I day dream at every second of the day - on a regular basis - and it's hard to do ADA because then I start day dreaming again. I can't stop it!

(Reality checks are also a no-no for me. I keep on forgetting about them). All in all, I've lost motivation because of this and I don't know what to do! :(

Think of how amazing the ability to LD would be. Also estimate how many years you likely have left in your life. Assume LDing takes you 2 years to get the hang of, so subtract 2 from how long you may live (say 55-2=53 years)

Imagine 53 years of amazing adventures,,, keep at it, it is worth it. Hard, yes,, worth it? Hell yes.


Start small and do not feel the need to rush. For recall, start by writing down a single word in the morning from a dream you had. That is it, one word. Do not move onuntil that is easy.
For awareness, pick a small block of time each day to do it. Perhaps the bus ride to school. Stick with just that until you can focus that long. Do a couple RCs at that time.

Hi there!

I can relate to all of this. Especially the part about daydreaming. I always have my head in the clouds, so ADA is very difficult for me. With enough practice though, it does get easier. You just have to catch yourself whenever you realize that you are starting to space out. One problem for me was that I have always been rather fond of daydreaming, and I've been reluctant to give it up. However, you don't really have to give up daydreaming completely. Just keep up the ADA practice and it will get easier, I promise. Even if it takes longer than it would for most non-daydreamers.

That being said, ADA isn't completely necessary for LDing. It's just a very helpful catalyst.

Also, do you happen to have a smart phone of any kind? I often forget to perform reality checks and I can go days without remembering to do one. However, there are many handy little apps that you can use to set up reminders for yourself to do reality checks by having them go off every 30 minutes or so. (Although, you might want to turn the sound off during work or class.) If you have an iphone, there's this app called "Lucidity" that makes a short ringing sound ever fifteen or thirty minutes to remind you to do a reality check. It may also be on Androids. I'm sure with non-smart phones you can still set alarms (set to vibrate and to not make an obnoxious sound in an inappropriate situation) to go off every few hours to remind you. Eventually you'll start getting into the habit of doing them.

Also, you said that your dreams used to be more vivid. Is there anything that you can think of that you're doing differently? A change in diet, perhaps?

Awareness does not require that you stop daydreaming. Just be AWARE of the day dream. You can still have everything the same in your life, just start noticing it.

I relate to your predicament CherryBomb. I've been lucky in that I've had two LDs now, even though I'm still pretty new to the whole thing. I've read it can take months or even a year or two before you can consistently LD.

Your dream recall sounds about like mine was 2 weeks ago; and now I've gone 7 days straight remembering at very least a dream fragment, but most often nearly an entire dream! So 2 weeks of dream journaling and I've improved 100%. Hang in there, Cherry, it will work out for you. As for the ADA thing, I have a very hard time with that too; not so much with RCs, but I don't do near enough. You could try the doorway thing: make yourself do a RC every time you walk through a door.

OR, set your watch to beep every hour, and do an RC then. I know I know, many of you advanced LDers will say then you start relying on the sound too much to remember RCs, but if you can't remember to do them anyway, it will help you get into the habit of doing them, and you can start weaning yourself off the "RC alarm."

Trust me, Cherry, if I can get to remembering a dream a night, you definitely can! Just don't give up :)

~SilverWolf~

@DreamingNinjas: Haven't changed my diet, no. But I think I've been in depression for a while and it may be affecting my recall.

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Originally Posted by CherryBomb

@DreamingNinjas: Haven't changed my diet, no. But I think I've been in depression for a while and it may be affecting my recall.

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Once i thought that depression affects our ability to recall our dreams, until i had a depression. I do not know even why exactly i had it, maybe because i achieved everything i wanted in my life and temporary did not have any target or life goal, but it was a strong depression. It lasted for around a week but i had extremely bad mood during that week, however my dream recall did not get worse, it just got better :) and i had the same amount of lucid dreams as before.
During depression, in most of my lucid dreams i was only thinking, all night long.

So for my self i made a conclusion that depression does not affect our ability to dream or lucid dream and their recall.

My memory is terrible, but I remember dreams very easily, so I guess you will improve it with practice. I mean, in WL I don't remember the song someone told me 10 minutes ago :D.

Hey CherryBomb, I think it's very important to get your dream recall going first. One tip I have is, learn to keep your eyes closed and keep very still just as you wake, and that includes during the night. Just relax and don't try too hard to remember, but when you do remember something, try to link it to what happened before. What I then do is go over the dream or fragment a few times so I remember it. You may want to write it down.
If you find you can't keep your eyes closed, do the next best thing and close them asap, same with keeping still.

[QUOTE=sivason;2045726]
Imagine 53 years of amazing adventures,,, keep at it, it is worth it. Hard, yes,, worth it? Hell yes.


Can I have 53 years of amazing adventures?...I'd be 122 by then...only joking.

Don't be down-hearted Cherry-bomb...just trying for lucidity is quite a ride. You learn so much about yourself and your brain (mine's about as dysfunctional as they come) In my view Lucidity is the new American West...a vast (largely) unexplored area where anyone can discover new techniques and try "little helpers" in foods...and tablets (legal ones of course and taken in moderation) The "indians" are the little itches, your tiredness making you fall back to sleep before you've recorded your dream, excessive heat in the bedroom...things like that.

But you can overcome those and you can train your brain to perform better. I'm old, with inevitable deterioration in some of my faculties but I can already see improvements. I've seen enough to know that the "naturals" ...the ones who drop instantly into Lucidity...are in the lucky minority. Using another corny "Western" analogy we're like pioneers panning for gold...and the Dream world doesn't often give up its nuggets easily

Enjoy the ride (I am)...work at it and talk to people here (I should...I'm more like a grizzled old prospector, panning away in a corner)

See you around pard.....

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You will feel overwhelmed if you let yourself see the bigger picture of how much work it could take. Just work on one leg at a time, and once you have them all mastered you'll be done! Just remember that every single night of sleep you get is progress towards lucid dreaming, because every night you're working on your intent, your recall and your awareness. Keep at it!