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I was in a dream using the Wild method when I took out a cigar, started smoking it while thinking of what I should attempt to do when all off the sudden I stopped being lucid.
I just forgot that I was in a dream still of the sudden and was no longer lucid.
Any ideas what happened?
Hmm, hard to say.. what was experienced at the time you lost lucidity? What sensations came about?
Well I remember doing a reality check, then smoking the cigar while on a bus
This has happened to me before ... I'll realize I'm dreaming and then a moment later just "forget" that I'm lucid. For example, I remember having a dream once where I was on a boat and suddenly realized I was in a dream. I got so excited I jumped off the boat into the water (because ... I don't know why) and then immediately reappeared on the boat again and was no longer lucid. :P I think sometimes the excitement of realizing you're lucid causes the lucidity to vanish. Maybe try to learn some stabilization techniques?
This happens to me a lot. All I do to cure this is to constantly do Reality Checks throughout the dream even though you're Lucid. I don't know if it'll work for you but its worth giving it a try.
Did you consciously decide to grab and smoke the cigar, or was it mostly a mechanical action like the habit of smoking in your waking life? Chances are you weren't very lucid, and since lucidity levels can be subject to fluctuation during the dream itself, you can loose lucidity pretty easily if you don't stabilize enough (by stabilizing, I mean getting a good "mental grip" in the dream).
Practice will prevent situations like those from being common, so don't worry too much ;)
I was looking at my hand for a grounding technique and using the cigar as something to touch. Also I was pretty calm.Quote:
I got so excited I jumped off the boat into the water (because ... I don't know why) and then immediately reappeared on the boat again and was no longer lucid. I think sometimes the excitement of realizing you're lucid causes the lucidity to vanish. Maybe try to learn some stabilization techniques?
I basically became lucid then lost my lucidness in about a minute of the dream and did a reality check once in that minute so I think that wasn't the problem.Quote:
All I do to cure this is to constantly do Reality Checks throughout the dream even though you're Lucid. I don't know if it'll work for you but its worth giving it a try.
I don't smoke that much, but I was trying to remain calm and think of what I was going to do after I got off the bus, so maybe I just started smoking to calm down as a mechanical action.Quote:
Did you consciously decide to grab and smoke the cigar, or was it mostly a mechanical action like the habit of smoking in your waking life?
When I lost lucidicity I went almost immediately into third person so maybe I didn't have a good enough mental grip of my body? (Started watching the bus driving along from an outside perspective)Quote:
you can loose lucidity pretty easily if you don't stabilize enough (by stabilizing, I mean getting a good "mental grip" in the dream).
It's not so much about physical awareness as it is mental clarity, so it's safe to say that the shift to 3rd person perspective wasn't necessarily related by something you did wrong. Try to take your time when you become lucid: you want to make sure you're thinking as clearly as you can. Engaging your senses with your dream is always good to prevent yourself from waking up, but even more important is creating this awareness that you are in a dream (which is hard to explain, but an analogy would be being in a class with sharp attention or being extremely sleepy).Quote:
When I lost lucidicity I went almost immediately into third person so maybe I didn't have a good enough mental grip of my body? (Started watching the bus driving along from an outside perspective)
But don't worry too much about this (unless it becomes a regular occurrence, which it's very unlikely): situations like loss of lucidity can appear out of the blue, even to people with loads of experience....sometimes, factors beyond your control end up affecting your dreams ;) You should be fine as long as you keep practicing!
Yea I just started trying to lucid dream seriously this week so everything is new to me. I just think it's very weird to suddenly forget that you are in a dream, especially since I basically just started thinking about what next to do in the dream, it's like I dropped my thought and completely forgot everything except for the setting in the dream.Quote:
It's not so much about physical awareness as it is mental clarity, so it's safe to say that the shift to 3rd person perspective wasn't necessarily related by something you did wrong. Try to take your time when you become lucid: you want to make sure you're thinking as clearly as you can. Engaging your senses with your dream is always good to prevent yourself from waking up, but even more important is creating this awareness that you are in a dream (which is hard to explain, but an analogy would be being in a class with sharp attention or being extremely sleepy).
But don't worry too much about this (unless it becomes a regular occurrence, which it's very unlikely): situations like loss of lucidity can appear out of the blue, even to people with loads of experience....sometimes, factors beyond your control end up affecting your dreams You should be fine as long as you keep practicing!
This happens to everyone. Dream stabilization THROUGHOUT the entire dream is important. Always use RCs to reassure and strength your lucidity.
Happened to me A TON in the 100-200ish range. (LD Count)
Well it happened again yesterday. I became lucid and right when I did, I felt too tired to maintain it really. First I kept going into third person mode until I forced myself to stay in first person, I immediately thought of trying to do time dilation using a watch or something, but that thought quickly left because I almost completely fell asleep and lost being lucid in the dream.
Then I tried to keep my mind busy by first modifying the girl I was walking with in the dream, then after I finished that I immediately began to start to fall asleep again so I quickly made a second girl and started walking with them, but then I couldn't come up with where we were heading fast enough, so I left the body I was controlling and completely fell asleep, no idea what happened after.
I really didn't go to bed much later than I usually do, so am I just not used to having an active mind in a dream? Usually when I go lucid and am able to maintain it, the dream is scary, so maybe I should try making monsters to keep me awake?
Do you have any tips on how to stay awake during a dream?
It happened to me in my second LD. My first one I was just saying cool and all of that lol. I think you stopped being lucid because you were just standing there and not doing anything?
I don't think so since I was first making two girls, then it was when I started walking that I lost being lucidQuote:
*I think you stopped being lucid because you were just standing there and not doing anything?
I think this happens to most people at one point or another - if you do keep practicing and dreaming, it's a problem that you should eventually overcome just by getting a better sense of how it is to be lucid, thus being able to maintain it better. Practicing awareness in general should definitely help. Maintaining a lucid dream takes more active focus than doing things automatically as we often do in waking life. In real life we could, as you did in your dream, smoke a cigar automatically without really thinking about it while our minds were actually focused on something else entirely - as another example, planning or reading or remembering something. We can safely travel into our thoughts or imagination without fear of the cigar vanishing, or becoming less substantial, or of our focus becoming so swallowed up by these other things that we'd never be able to direct it back to what we'd been doing. But in a lucid dream, all these things can easily happen.
You need to try and focus all your attention on the dream and what is around you, to pay attention to and become as aware of it as possible. If you start thinking about how none of the dream is real, you might start thinking about what is "real" - about your body and waking life, which can easily cause you to wake up, or have a false awakening, or just lose lucidity. In this moment, you're present in the dream, and the dream is all that matters. Try to let go of everything else and relax. Just take a moment to pause and look at everything that is already there. Perhaps try imagining that the dream is like a page of text and you're looking at it with your eyes unfocused: focus them, and really look closely. It can be hard to get the right sort of focus and the right balance between relaxation/alertness, but you'll get there.
I think one of the reasons many stabilization techniques seem to work is because they bring you into the moment and make you focus on one or few things at a time. If you don't have time to rub your hands, or spin around, or say mantras, just try looking at what is there right then and holding it in your mind, just perceiving it and knowing that you're dreaming, you're seeing it, it's there in the dream. If you're smoking a cigar, think about the feeling of holding it, of drawing from it - the taste of it, the texture, the exact shade and shape. Similarly, perhaps the reason that the monsters in the dream kept you awake was because they induced a strong sense of fear, which forced you to really focus on them (in the same way that if something were attacking you in real life you'd devote your whole attention to it rather than starting to think of something else, or simply letting yourself zone out or fall asleep) so, while the monsters might work, other things should, too :) Instead of thinking about how unreal things are, perhaps try focusing on how real and intense they can seem. Just not getting stressed and keeping your mind interested, focused and engaged with the dream (starting with what's already there before moving onto trying anything else) should help.