Thread: Having Trouble Lucid Dreaming

You haven't said what techniques you are trying apart from MILD?
It's probably worth having a go at DEILD and WILD just to mix it up a bit.
Obviously consistency is important, but if it isn't working it's worth trying something else.
For me, that first time was really important as a boost in confidence (I can do it!).

I would also recommend getting plenty of sleep, doing a WBTB/WILD, and be prepared to stay a awake trying to WILD for at least an hour even if nothing seems to happen, and explore the effects that hopefully you will experience.

Don't give up! It took me a few months for my first.

I have to agree with Goldenspark: if what you're doing now isn't working, then switch to something new. Most people here find it very beneficial to use the various methods to becoming lucid, and there's a reason for that. Pick out one and try it for a few weeks, and if that one doesn't work then pick out another. Everyone has at least one thing that really sets them off with lucid dreaming, and sometimes it's harder to find that.

(Also, have you tried napping? LDs are typically very easy to be had in naps, and it's personally my only sure-fire way of getting lucid.)

Make sure you include WBTB. It is almost a must for me.

Hi again! I have been giving WBTB a go in the last few nights but normally just try for a DILD. Still no LD but I had a vivid emotional dream this morning. I don't often nap as I find it hard to sleep during the day.

You need to practice your ability to reflect over your current situation.
For example, in everyday life you probably accept whatever situation you are in as waking life, and in that case this will make you have the same attitude to the dreamworld as well - basically, you don't really take the time to question it, and you just "know" that it is waking life, even though it is a dream!
This is an attitude that needs to be changed.
Your first step should be to start questioning your state even if you are sure that you are awake - ask yourself things like "HOW do I know that I am awake?" whenever you feel even slightly suspicious about your current state, and then try your best to prove to yourself that you actually are awake, or that you might be dreaming.

Also, it is worth keeping in mind that waking life actually IS a kind of dream in some ways, because your senses use whatever information that they receive of the waking world and then recreate them as accurately as they can, and this is what you actually experience.
You never "see" the waking world directly, you only see the stuff that your brain has created out of that information;
so your experience of waking life consists of the same "stuff" as the dreamworld.

When I RC I tend to look for something strange in my current situation and then ask myself how I got there and do I remember what happened before I got there.

That's very interesting about life being a kind of dream.

Originally Posted by ecp13

When I RC I tend to look for something strange in my current situation and then ask myself how I got there and do I remember what happened before I got there.

That's very interesting about life being a kind of dream.

Yes, waking life can on some level be considered a dream, because you experience the world in the exactly same way as you experience dreams - that is, your brain receives sensory information, and then tries its best to interpret the world from that information.
This is also why people can experience hallucinations, by the way - hallucinations happen when our brains for some reason have difficulties simulating the world correctly, so it starts creating other kinds of simulations instead.
Luckily, our brains are usually so good at creating an accurate simulation of the world that we don't even notice that it's happening.

Dreams work in exactly the same way - you have something on your mind while you sleep, and then your brain uses that information to create a model of those thoughts.
Of course, the reason why waking life is always completely stable is because your brain uses information from an external independent world, whereas dreams are in your own mind, but they are very similar in the way they are "presented" to you.

In my dream last night I actually went shopping for lucid dream sleep masks but still didn't pick up on that! :/

Originally Posted by ecp13

In my dream last night I actually went shopping for lucid dream sleep masks but still didn't pick up on that! :/

This is something that takes practice - after all, you are relearning an entirely new attitude to life itself, at least if you haven't been familiar with lucid dreaming in the past.
One thing is for sure, though - the more you practice and persevere, the greater your chances will become each night, since your brain is getting more and more used to the idea.

One question that arises from your problem regarding the sleep masks is - what do you think would happen if you were searching for lucid dreaming sleep masks in waking life?
Wouldn't you just assume that you were awake in that situation, since you "felt" awake?
I think you have a similar problem in your dreams - you "know" that you are awake (even though you aren't), so you never think of double-checking your state.
It is highly recommended that you start to question your state even when you are sure that you are awake.
You might feel completely sure that you are awake since you have been awake for a long time and everything feels familiar and unchanging etc, but try to check your state anyway - can you do something impossible?
For example, can you look at a red house, then close your eyes and imagine a new colour, and actually make the house get that colour instead, just from the power of your thoughts?
Try to perform harmless tests like this even in waking life.
If anything, this will at least make waking life feel more "dreamlike" to you on some level, and this might make it easier for you to connect with the feeling of being in a real dream.

Personally I really like to think of waking life as a form of dream, because this gives me a foretaste of lucidity, kind of like "this is what I would feel like if I was aware in a lucid dream!".
Then I will walk around in safe unfamiliar places, like for example places at my campus that I have never seen before (new places are exciting, and will feel like unfamiliar dream environments that I am just starting to explore; "what will I find behind the next corner?" etc), and also try random tests every now and then, just to "make sure" whether I am dreaming or not.

One of the very best types of tests is to read a piece of text, then look away for a while and then see if something has happened to it.
Texts tend to be very unstable in dreams, and usually the letters will start floating around or behaving in weird ways - so written texts can often be used both for confirming your waking state and your dreaming state;
they will always remain perfectly stable in waking life, and pretty much always end up moving around and doing strange things in dreams.