Thread: Can you remember anything from reality while LD?

Yes, i know you can control your dream
while LDing. The thing is, can you remember anything from your real life events while you are being able to control your dream? For example, i am setting my goal to dream about lynx from chrono cross so that i can date him as i am drooling over him. I know all of you dont know him and dont care but he is too handsome and sexy that i must describe his name no matter what. If i successfully managed to LDing, will i remember my goal to meet him during that moment of lucidity? Or, the memories during LD is random that i eventually forget about him and my reality? I dont know how to describe this properly but i hope you guys understand what i mean. English is not my primary language so forgive me..Please help.

You can remember anything when LDing. I find what helps me remember my dream goals is reminding myself of them when I go to sleep.

The stronger your intention to do something, the easier it is to remember.

Heh, there's been a pretty big thread on the forums for bout a month now, called Memory, the forgotten fundamental. It deals exactly with what you're asking. To quickly summarise, yes, you do remember waking life while LDing. Otherwise, it would be almost impossible to do a TOTM. In the beginning most people can't remember much, but eventually you'll be able to remember almost everything. I for one can remember pretty much everything, although this may have to deal with the fact that my primary method of induction is WILD, which is pretty much a straight transition to dreamland rather than going to sleep for a couple hours which may 'clear' your head. There are LOTS of LDers however who have perfect memory using DILD, so the method doesn't matter all that much. I guess I'm just a WILD fanatic
If you wanna dream about Lynx, then a very easy way would be to MILD with the mantra "I will have a lucid dream about Lynx". Go to sleep thinking of him, and he's very likely to show up in your dreams. If you happen to get lucid in a non-Lynx dream, you can just summon him up. A common technique for beginners is turning around and expecting him to be there, or asking a DC where he is. Good luck!

I remember flying past my house in a LD thinking I was asleep right now, and I remember thinking I can't wait to write this down in my dream journal. I was smiling in my LD knowing I was about to wake up, I woke up with the smile still on my face. 3 years ago now though

Now that I'm keeping track of my dreams I find it interesting all the things I remember from my waking life that I actually question in my dreams but apparently just short of the threshold for attaining lucidity.

The one LD I did have I was lucid from the beginning and just needed to do a quick RC to confirm it. It was a false awakening and the day before I was thinking of a childhood friend and wondering what they were doing. In the LD I tried, but failed to summon them. That seems like a very recent waking memory/desire accessed in my dream and resulting in me taking an action to manifest it.

hmmm... I think that the idea of lucidity is remembering that there is something else out there besides the dream. I just recently started trying a new way of remembering my goals. I put a note in my wallet with my goal on it! It worked last night and I was able to try out my goal.

Constantly. I'm always concentrating on the differences between waking and dreaming reality, that's where my interest lies. Sometimes I get distracted though so that's when I lose my concentration and usually end up back in a vivid dream.

One thing that i am upset is that i tend to accidentally thinking about something else everytime i want to
focus on this lynx alone everytime i am sleeping. Seriously, it was an accident. I didnt mean to think about something else. It just became out of control. Is it crucial to focus on the detail of his appearance in order to dream of him easily?

Definitely. What really helps me is to write it down. It's not necessary to do so - it's still possible to remember goals even if you haven't written them down, but for me that truly cements it in my mind. As an example, I did this last night - I woke from a lucid dream and got an idea for something to try out while writing down notes on it. I wrote down the goal and kept it in mind while falling back to sleep. In my next dream I became lucid and instantly remembered the goal (to use a particular technique to "find" a forest in the dream.) I could also remember what I did right before bed as it weirdly tied into the storyline of the non-lucid part of the dream. I think that entering a lucid dream straight from waking does make it easier to remember things, but most of my lucid dreams are DILD and I mostly can remember things well when I have the intention to.

Try not to get discouraged, though, if you have lucid dreams in which you can't remember things from real life at first. Some lucids are clearer than others, and it can be easy to become absent-minded or distracted. If you forget in one dream, that certainly doesn't mean you'll never remember it in a different one, especially if you work on it, set the intention and develop your LD skills in general.

Also, setting an intention to dream about a particular thing before sleep doesn't mean that you have to focus solely on that one thought and exclude all other thoughts. Getting upset/stressed over it isn't going to help. It's not crucial to focus on the detail of his appearance. It sounds like you know it well, and our dreaming mind can recreate people or places we know in a lot of detail without us having to obsessively focus on it. Often just one small detail or word or phrase is enough in a dream to remind you of a particular thing. So if you can learn to become lucid and aware in a dream to the point where you notice and question everything, just the word "lynx" and the intention to remember can lead to the association to all the rest. Honestly, it might help to relax, and to focus on becoming more aware and lucid first. I'd write it down before sleeping, and then just keep the general idea and intention in mind without focusing too hard on it while falling asleep.

There are degrees of lucidity. Sometimes I become lucid in a dream and can't remember my goal, or I don't even think to remember. Other times I remember right away, and my consciousness is just like being awake.
Others have already given good advice. Even if you don't remember your goal the first few times, just keep practicing and you'll get better at it.

Looks like i have a long way to go to meet my handsome cat. I really hope that i have conciousness about my goal in LD. I'll have to be patient then.

I remember one time when I was lucid I was talking to my husband and kids and I couldn't remember any of their names to save my life...btw, I have been married for 20 years and my children are grown.

It took me a solid dozen of LDs to reach my first goal, and another ten to complete it. Have patience and be stubborn about it, it should work out in time. LD is a skill that takes time and effort to hone, and only with experience you will be able to achieve goals regularly.
At first everything is so new and strange, and if you are not constantly aware of what you are doing you can easily lose clarity or trod along the plot without realizing it.