I Joined Dream Views on October 27th, 2011. I Had My First Vivid, Controlled Lucid Dream an Hour Ago

[SarcasticIndeed]

I feel like I should be a little angry. Not everyone takes four years to have a full-blown Lucid Dream. If I had to guess, with someone that is bold about getting it right, you'd probably need less than half a year to consistently have LDs. But I tried and I tried and I tried, but none of my numerous WILD attempts never bore any fruit. I set up alarms, I thought about Lucid Dreaming all the time, to no avail. So imagine my surprise when I randomly turned lucid after a non-dream related WBTB and continued to DEILD, managing to chain three sessions of the same dream. I feel pumped this happened, but also disheartened, because I know that these elusive, fun dreams will only arise once in a blue moon, when some factors I am unaware of combine in a way to produce this deviant effect. I could try to WILD again, but I think at one point a man just has to call it quits. Surely I could master this technique, but in the last 4 years, it hasn't worked for me once. All my lucids came about as me completely randomly realizing that I'm in a dream, or with me recognizing that I'm in-between dreams. I'm sure some of you are familiar with the latter. I'll mentally "wake-up" just in time when my body would be preparing a dream, and I have over time learned to recognize this state of mind. Either way, might as well tell you a bit about the dream, not gonna write a full report, because my memory of it is not so great. The whole thing was long, and a big chunk of it was non-lucid, not sure I can even pinpoint the point I turned aware. ____________________________________________ It started with some weird company. I remember smoking pot with my mother with my grandma around, a sentence that simply makes no sense in real world. The dream continued with my brother leading me to a weird purgatory-ish world. I was to enter it , do the three quests I've been given before I was allowed to leave. Most of my time spent in this world I was fumbling around, trying to complete the quests. This was a very, very bizzare setting for a dream. Random people, none that I know, walked around, doing meaningless every-day activity, but it felt ominous, caged. I was in some sort of limbo. And I walked around, talking to different people about how to approach my problem of getting out. The specifics, I'm afraid, eluded me, but I remember it being really interesting. What I do remember, is, that in this clusterfuck of a world, I somehow became lucid. And it was beautiful. Not only was I lucid, I was completely in control of my body. I moved where I wanted to, I didn't freeze up randomly, and I felt my dream body. This was something that never happened in my life. Other than that, the world was crystal-clear and vivid, not that usual, foggy-don't see anything kind of dream. So I did what my dream-self naturally wanted to do-have sex. It had to happen. But it didn't last for long, for some reason I was bored and went outside in this world. Marveled at the clarity for a bit, then realized I probably could fly this time. And hey, I did! Sort of ran until my legs became light and I just got of the ground, amazing! The flight itself was nothing impressive and didn't last long. As I was reaching the ground or when I reached the ground, I entertained the idea of creating an energy blast/Kamehameha-style thing. Sadly, I didn't work, but I caused some weird lightning effects between my hands and probably a real lightning in the distance, oh well. The next part I remember is me wanting to meet a certain cute dream character, and to learn more about her, I first talked with her friend. I awkwardly tried to fly while holding her friend, but it was as she was dragging me down and we only scraped the ground with our feet as our upper bodies levitated off the street. She didn't really mind and I got into my first lucid conversation with a Dream Character. I asked her about her cute friend, she gave me her name, which was very... weird. Never heard of it, but she was apparently called Razica, wherever she got that from. Well okay.... She also told me her friend had a boyfriend, to which I said "It doesn't matter, because this is my dream, and you are only a character within it." She (who has somehow turned into a he by now), was mildly surprised by this sentence. The dream ended. ____________________________________________ In-between parts of this dream, I noticed everything fading a few times. Through these parts, I just lied down in the dream and closed my eyes, to wait for when it would start again. It worked every time! Not much more I have to say, I just feel the need to report everything LD related to this site. Cheers!

[JPDreeamnz]

Hey SarcasticIndeed.. Awesome experience! - Not the part about smoking pot with parents, that give me chills.. uhhh Seems like you can easily DEILD. Have you ever tried doing FILD ? I'm terrible with recall and stuff, had one LD every now and then but with FILD I'm having lucid experiences more often and It's an easy technique

[FryingMan]

I've been in consistent LD practice for two years, but barely have any WILDs at all -- and the ones I'm counting as WILDs I'm still not 100% sure about (but they were definitely at least "start of dream DILDs"). WILD just doesn't seem to work for some. How long to have lucid dreams "consistently?" Hard to say. I think it is not out of the realm of possibility that it does in fact take years. At six months I think most serious practitioners are still just barely getting things figured out. My LDs averaged out over my 2 years comes to 1 per 5 days, but they don't occur like that. They bunch up together in "hot streaks" and are separated by up to several weeks of "dry/cold streaks." Lucid dreaming, like any serious discipline, takes "the 3 D's:" diligence, dedication, and determination. LD practice (and closely related other ones like sleep yoga) may in fact be one of if not *the* most demanding mental disciplines there is. How has your recall been over these 4 years? Have you been journaling every day? Working on awareness every day? It's really hard to make progress with an on-again-off-again practice

[SarcasticIndeed]

Hey SarcasticIndeed.. Awesome experience! - Not the part about smoking pot with parents, that give me chills.. uhhh Seems like you can easily DEILD. Have you ever tried doing FILD ? I'm terrible with recall and stuff, had one LD every now and then but with FILD I'm having lucid experiences more often and It's an easy technique I am far from easily DEILD-ing, but if I have a lucid one, it's sure to be a DEILD. I often wake up during my sleep so I might try FILD-ing, but I believe it'll end just like my many unsuccessful WILD attempts. I've been in consistent LD practice for two years, but barely have any WILDs at all -- and the ones I'm counting as WILDs I'm still not 100% sure about (but they were definitely at least "start of dream DILDs"). WILD just doesn't seem to work for some. How long to have lucid dreams "consistently?" Hard to say. I think it is not out of the realm of possibility that it does in fact take years. At six months I think most serious practitioners are still just barely getting things figured out. My LDs averaged out over my 2 years comes to 1 per 5 days, but they don't occur like that. They bunch up together in "hot streaks" and are separated by up to several weeks of "dry/cold streaks." Lucid dreaming, like any serious discipline, takes "the 3 D's:" diligence, dedication, and determination. LD practice (and closely related other ones like sleep yoga) may in fact be one of if not *the* most demanding mental disciplines there is. How has your recall been over these 4 years? Have you been journaling every day? Working on awareness every day? It's really hard to make progress with an on-again-off-again practice Oh, I'm not saying that it took me four years of consistent "training" to get lucidity, far from it. If I was diligent about the whole ordeal the whole four years, I don't doubt I would often have LDs by now. I am just looking back on the irony that throughout the times when I was consistent, which was for a decent time when I started and in short bursts after that, I never really made any meaningful progress when the first decent Lucid experience came about a long time after I dropped trying to have it. I'm not trying to dishearten anyone by my story, it just seems that this task is for whatever reason either hard or I've used the wrong method. The little gems like the one I got today always motivate me to try and pursue LD-ing more, but now I don't even know how I'd go about it, when they always turn out to be random events. My recall is fairly good and has always been. If I get a good sleep, especially if I sleep late (as summer allowed me), chances are I'll remember a few dream experiences. Forget most of them by the next day however, unless they are meaningful in any way.

[JPDreeamnz]

Sarcastic, don't give me that negative response FILD is easy indeed (for me is the most easy DEILD technique), but you need to wake close to REM and do not think of anything when you makin' the dance of fingers \o/ I'm here wishing you luck, waiting for your results in a future post.

[kevinmwhm]

It's been a while since I've posted and this seemed like a nice spot to jump back in!!! It took me a long while as well. I'm a bit older with poor sleeping habits (kids) and I took a break from my ada, recalls, etc. It seemed like so much work. I went close to a year so I feel for you. I've only had 5 since about the same time as you and never through WILD or WBTB or anything other than just normal sleep. Good Luck, hope they come more frequently.

[Rothgar]

Just want to point this out....I also tend to think my lucid dreams are random occurrences. I can't point to any specific thing I am doing that works. Try as I may, nothing that I try seems to matter or affect the outcome (directly). As a computer programmer I expect a given input produces a given output and I just don't see it. But here's the thing. Before trying to lucid dream, I had a total of 3 in my entire life of 50+ years. After trying, I have had over 300 in 4-5 years. So although there isn't a formula I have found, the disciplines DO work somehow. You took 4 years...well, some people have never had a single one, remember. To you it may seem like they just happened, but that doesn't mean you didn't indirectly cause it.

[FryingMan]

Just want to point this out....I also tend to think my lucid dreams are random occurrences. I can't point to any specific thing I am doing that works. Try as I may, nothing that I try seems to matter or affect the outcome (directly). As a computer programmer I expect a given input produces a given output and I just don't see it. But here's the thing. Before trying to lucid dream, I had a total of 3 in my entire life of 50+ years. After trying, I have had over 300 in 4-5 years. So although there isn't a formula I have found, the disciplines DO work somehow. You took 4 years...well, some people have never had a single one, remember. To you it may seem like they just happened, but that doesn't mean you didn't indirectly cause it. Lucid dreaming requires a "perfect storm" of prior preparation and current conditions all coming together. We have good ideas about the preparation (awareness in all its forms, dream recall) and the conditions (WBTB, supplements, basically going to sleep with a more awake mind at the right point in your sleep cycle), but the mind is not a deterministic computer, so input A does not necessarily give output B, at least not on the schedule that we'd like. Either that, or we just haven't discovered all the right inputs yet.