General newbie looking for guidance. Appreciate all replies :)

[Anxietybbx]

So I have had about 4 lucid dreams in my entire life, however recently I have been actively pursuing them and immersing myself into the hobby and culture which I didn't know existed. I have been really enjoying researching the topic and lurking on these forums and I am really excited to become a regular and avid lucid dreamer as I feel it would really help me with a number of things. I went from hardly remembering dreams to now being able to write paragraphs of my dreams in a dream journal in the space of 7 days however not having much luck with the lucidity part but it has only been a week since I started practicing. I managed to have my first mild lucid dream 3 nights ago where I was Super Mario (lol) and thought to do some reality checks, the fingers through the palm didn't work but then when I went to pinch my nose I realised I was still breathing and voila! I woke up soon after I went to explore a little but I haven't managed to become lucid in any of my other dreams. I have identified clear dream signs too: a specific friend had appeared in four dreams, a specific supermarket in two, time travel in four and my ex gf in two however I still haven't quite worked out that I am fully dreaming yet. I tried to WILD last night and set a different alarm tone to my usual one but rather than waking up I was in a dream trying to work out where this music was coming from for about 30 minutes! Running around in the dream and smashing numerous things up trying to stop the sound then realising when I woke up it was my alarm all along haha. Shall I continue just doing the reality checks and dream journalling? Try WILD alongside all this? Maybe even try and set a different alarm then auto turns off as this seemed to penetrate my dream last night? Maybe I will work it out oor even record myself saying 'You're dreaming!' just an idea. Appreciate any responses and nice to enter the LD community Also just to add I have been meditating for a month (mindfulness) so if there is any specific meditation techniques I would be interested. Also vitamins and supplements are welcome (I would rather not try galantamine and just stick to vitamins)

[FryingMan]

Welcome! Sounds like you're off to a great start. A great feature of DV is the Dreamviews Academy: sign up for the intro or DILD class or anything that looks interesting to you there and you can keep a workbook thread and get feedback from the wonderful, friendly, helpful teachers there (). By all means, start trying WILD. Every LDer should have this tool (and DEILD, and of course DILD) in their LD toolkits. Just remember LD practice is a journey of self discovery relating to sleep, dreaming, and consciousness, that takes place over a lifetime. Daytime practice of RCs + mindfulness is great. Nighttime practice you may want to add try adding WBTB, and learning to notice the little wakings during the night. Keep up the recall and the journaling. In time, the dreams keep getting more and more vivid, present, and lucidity starts popping in more and more. edit: all LD practitioners should read LaBerge's Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming. My personal opinion is that multi-vitamins help sometimes, but only if you're deficient in something. Once you're "full up" they don't help much IMO.

[Anxietybbx]

Welcome! Sounds like you're off to a great start. A great feature of DV is the Dreamviews Academy: sign up for the intro or DILD class or anything that looks interesting to you there and you can keep a workbook thread and get feedback from the wonderful, friendly, helpful teachers there (). By all means, start trying WILD. Every LDer should have this tool (and DEILD, and of course DILD) in their LD toolkits. Just remember LD practice is a journey of self discovery relating to sleep, dreaming, and consciousness, that takes place over a lifetime. Daytime practice of RCs + mindfulness is great. Nighttime practice you may want to add try adding WBTB, and learning to notice the little wakings during the night. Keep up the recall and the journaling. In time, the dreams keep getting more and more vivid, present, and lucidity starts popping in more and more. edit: all LD practitioners should read LaBerge's Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming. My personal opinion is that multi-vitamins help sometimes, but only if you're deficient in something. Once you're "full up" they don't help much IMO. Thank you! I will definitely sign up it is nice to have a platform to adhere to

[Dragonworkz]

You're definitely off to a wonderful start. Ditto everything FryingMan recommended. As you continue, test out the different techniques more and more and get a feel for which one brings you the most success. Certain techniques work better for some than others, and all of them have their pros and cons, so don't feel obliged to stick to the one you're good at constantly. Keep up the good work, and happy dreaming!

[Eonnn]

Sounds like your doing a good job of things so far, keep up the hard work and I'm sure it will pay off. Perhaps grab yourself some vitamin B and take before you go to sleep. Melatonin is a good one too. Don't know if you have heard of him but Eckhart Tolle is the master when it comes to mindfulness. Check out some of his vids on youtube. There's an awesome book he wrote called "The power of now" well worth the read.

[ThreeCat]

I think even more important than formal meditation is post meditation--how mindful are you on a moment-by-momement basis? How often do you question whether or not your current experience could be a dream experience? I think this, along with actively recognizing dream signs and keeping a positive attitude, is the key to having more lucid dreams. But definitely continue the sitting meditation. It will help set the stage for the main event