Trouble with Lighting

[d4llin]

I've been lurking around for a couple years, never bothering to make an account until now. I've had many on-and-off phases when it comes to lucid dreaming, and have had a reasonable amount (probably between 40-50, about 10 from reality checks, 0 Wilds, and the rest MILDs), but a major issue is pretty much all of them have been quite short. I am working on basic stabilization techniques, but one problem that seems to be quite persistent is that pretty much every time I become lucid, the surroundings are dark. I have attempted normal stabilization methods right away, such as spinning, feeling the surroundings, and rubbing hands together/opening and closing them. While this usually prolongs the dreams, it does nothing about the darkness, and when I stop, the dream begins to fade into nothingness. Of course, I attempt to create light within the dream, and when it does work, like getting the ceiling lights to turn on, they immediately begin to fade again. For example, last night I had a lucid where I began in my house, and the lights began to dim, the only way I found to work was grabbing a small lamp (considerably smaller than a normal lamp, with a bulb like a single christmas light), and touching its light to the other darkened ones around. This lit them, but they had darkened again completely in about 3-4 seconds. Eventually the dream just faded completely. Any advice on how to get lasting, reliable light to be present within a lucid dream?

[Zoth]

Any advice on how to get lasting, reliable light to be present within a lucid dream? Yes: stop looking for it. It may sound contradictory, but have you wondered if your in some way disturbing your dream with an anxiety over the fact that the scenario is dark? The way you describe it, you seem to be (without realizing) waking yourself up due the stress of the "routine to get the lights to work". Lucidity is like a sweet spot: you're halfway between sleep and wakefulness, and pushing too much to either side can ruin your day! How lucid would you say you are? I'm asking this because if you can't get past the "light problem" then one thing that may help might be self-talk. - "Do I need light right now?" - "What if I ignore the light problems and just enjoy the dream?" - "I see something over there..." From my experience, light problems stopped being a problem after I disregarded light. Sure it's dark, but it's a mental model that you are creating, there will be variation at some point. Sure the dream is fading....so what? Darkness is not necessarily the end of the dream, it might actually be the gateway for a scenario transition. These rationalizations don't stress you out unlike "I must do something to get rid of this darkness", because they help you accept a dream component and ignoring it. Certainly easier said than done, but at least you know what line of thinking you will benefit with. Good luck!

[DreamscapeGoat]

Zoth worded it perfectly. You'll eventually transition into a new scenario, so just enjoy the dream as much as you can.

[d4llin]

Thanks for the response Zoth! I will definitely try to disregard any light problems and enjoy the lucidity, the next dream I have. It's hard to say whether my focus switches to the darkness and trying to get lights on when I feel the darkness begin to fade out completely, or my focus on the darkness causes it to become an issue, placing more importance on it than it actually holds, causing the dream to end short. I would guess that early experience with the former has begun to form a tendency of the latter, resulting in a vicious cycle that keeps dreams much shorter than I would like. If this is the case, your suggestions will definitely help, especially as I get practice with those mindsets in dreams that I'm lucky enough to not have start dark. I think the scenario transition possibility is probably accurate quite a bit as well, because I have noticed that as the dream fades, if I am able to hold on to the dream enough, it frequently results in a false awakening (which I don't usually catch in the moment). Yes: stop looking for it. How lucid would you say you are? I'm asking this because if you can't get past the "light problem" then one thing that may help might be self-talk. - "Do I need light right now?" - "What if I ignore the light problems and just enjoy the dream?" - "I see something over there..." I would say in general, I am quite lucid, although my thoughts seem to be much quicker within lucids, making it difficult to retrace any in-dream thought processes and analyze them to determine exactly how lucid I was. I will say that I at least feel pretty lucid, and I do recognize that I am in a dream, or at least can control my actions and surroundings to a certain extent, but I think I do treat it a little too much like conscious reality rather than a dream, as most of the conclusions I come to don't reach the true potential of a dream (like with the turn on lights mindset, I could think, hey, this roof will crack open and the sun will stream in rather than just try to will some lights on). Thanks for the help, and I'll be sure to try your suggestions.