Am I incapable?

[GreenSynergy]

I have tried for many months (4 I think, If not more) to lucid dream using the DILD and the WILD methods, None of which worked for me. I have had a lucid dream before but it wasn't fully lucid, after that I haven't LD or even had a dream at all :/ . I have heard some people say that children cannot, ect. I am 14 BTW (I bet ya didn't know that) and people say that developing minds cannot LD until they are at least 20~ years old (I didn't think that sounded right at all). I try my best to practice my RCs but it gets hard to as time goes on due to me being busy and others will think I'm a psychopath. I even have listened to the Audio Aids every night before bed (12 nights in a row) usually listening to 1.0 and 3.0. My sleep schedule is horrible too (Maybe that that something to do with it?). I go to bed at 2am and wake at 10am (in Eastern Time), I'm not sure when my REM is because I've never paid much attention to it at all, but REM seems to occur when I listen to the Audio Aids but will shortly go away when I attempt to relax and cannot. When I attempt to relax it feels like I tense up more, also when I try to count my breaths (for a WILD) it seems like they want to speed up for no reason and it is difficult to mimic a sleeping person's breaths. I'm not sure if I'm incapable of LDing or even just Dreaming till I'm much older or just not trying hard enough, to I'm reaching out for help. Hope I didn't bore you to death with my ramblings but I though I'd add every detail I am open to Skype, but know I ramble a lot and have a schedule of 11:30pm-1:45am EST. Just PM me and I'll give you my info to add me. Help, Green Synergy

[cooleymd]

Recall is the first skill needed, if you don't remember your dreams how do you know you haven't been lucid several times and forgotten, even if you wake yourself from a lucid dream you might just false awaken run around telling DCs about your Lucid and then transition into something else and then actually wake up and forget all the dreams. So forget about other stuff and focus on dream recall (during the day look for things you might dream about, like pigs or trains or what ever) When you go so sleep tell yourself things like my dreams are important or I will recall my dreams when you wake up lie still and try to remember something from your dreams, even if not an image anything like 'feeling tired in the dream' or 'scared' journal what ever you have, do this until you improve your recall when you wake go thru lists of things from your life, like car, bike, skateboard, train, bus asking did you dream about these chicken, pig, horse how about these lay there and go thru every item you remember dreaming about in past dreams and all the things from life you are dreaming you are just forgetting your dreams. if you don't get enough sleep it might not be a good idea, but you could also try drinking lots of water at bed time and every time you wake up, but recall and journal before going to the bathroom. your first decent rem is probably at about 3hrs in then 4.5hrs in then 6hrs in and just before waking so 5am, 6:30am 8am and 9:30am try drinking the water and journal your wake times if nothing else of course if you have insomnia you will just get worse and need to spend more time sleeping

[Raswalt]

ive been trying to envision a level of a game i used to play and know well, and say to myself that i will be lucid or something like that.. hasnt worked yet but if you pair a simple tech like that with dream recall you might be on a good path.. i hope i am.

[dolphin]

I suggest you start all over. Stop focusing on lucid dreaming techniques, RCs, audio aids, REM periods, breathing patterns, age barriers, or how hard you're trying. Let's face it, it's all not working. Your lucid dreaming practice is one giant psychological knot. Don't try to untangle it, just throw it away. Start over by doing nothing except focusing on what's happening while you're in bed for the entire night. This will redirect all of your attention to where it should be, but isn't at the moment.

[GreenSynergy]

I suggest you start all over. Stop focusing on lucid dreaming techniques, RCs, audio aids, REM periods, breathing patterns, age barriers, or how hard you're trying. Let's face it, it's all not working. Your lucid dreaming practice is one giant psychological knot. Don't try to untangle it, just throw it away. Start over by doing nothing except focusing on what's happening while you're in bed for the entire night. This will redirect all of your attention to where it should be, but isn't at the moment. Is there anything specific I need to focus on? Or do like cooleymd said exactly, I don't have a very long attention span unfortunately and I end up forgetting many things through the day

[Raswalt]

I suggest you start all over. Stop focusing on lucid dreaming techniques, RCs, audio aids, REM periods, breathing patterns, age barriers, or how hard you're trying. Let's face it, it's all not working. Your lucid dreaming practice is one giant psychological knot. Don't try to untangle it, just throw it away. Start over by doing nothing except focusing on what's happening while you're in bed for the entire night. This will redirect all of your attention to where it should be, but isn't at the moment. this. i feel like this should be stamped on the foreheads of everyone who is "overdoing it"

[Raswalt]

Is there anything specific I need to focus on? Or do like cooleymd said exactly, I don't have a very long attention span unfortunately and I end up forgetting many things through the day maybe for you, dont worry about what your doing in the day so much, but like dolphin said focus on whats happening at night, and if you loose focus try to see where your thoughts wander and bring it back to 0. this takes effort but thats what practise, patience and meditation and intention are for. no one said lucid dreaming would be easy.. trust me i know.. im still trying for LD#2

[dolphin]

Is there anything specific I need to focus on? Or do like cooleymd said exactly, I don't have a very long attention span unfortunately and I end up forgetting many things through the day Pay attention to anything you're conscious of. Attention span doesn't matter here. You pay attention for the entire time you're in bed because you never really know when you're going to start dreaming, so you want to always be paying attention as often as you can. Once you're paying attention well enough while sleeping you'll be paying attention during your dreams because you dream while you're sleeping. Once you're paying attention to your dreams, you'll at least remember you had a dream upon awakening which is the first step towards recall. Pay attention well enough, and you'll notice at least 3-4 dreams a night rather than 0. This will create a foundation on which to build a DILD practice. Pay attention even more, and you'll be paying attention during the transition from waking to dreaming, creating a foundation for a WILD practice. So, you need to pay attention in order to build any foundation of a lucid dreaming practice. Don't stress, though. Have fun! If you're stressing, you're not really paying attention to what's happening anymore, which you need to do.

[GreenSynergy]

Pay attention to anything you're conscious of. Attention span doesn't matter here. You pay attention for the entire time you're in bed because you never really know when you're going to start dreaming, so you want to always be paying attention as often as you can. Once you're paying attention well enough while sleeping you'll be paying attention during your dreams because you dream while you're sleeping. Once you're paying attention to your dreams, you'll at least remember you had a dream upon awakening which is the first step towards recall. Pay attention well enough, and you'll notice at least 3-4 dreams a night rather than 0. This will create a foundation on which to build a DILD practice. Pay attention even more, and you'll be paying attention during the transition from waking to dreaming, creating a foundation for a WILD practice. So, you need to pay attention in order to build any foundation of a lucid dreaming practice. Don't stress, though. Have fun! If you're stressing, you're not really paying attention to what's happening anymore, which you need to do. Okay. I just will need a bit of assistance learning how to "Pay Attention" when I'm in bed. All I see is just my the back of my eyelids, along with when I'm trying to imagine something, my brain will horribly distort it or make it seem much more different than it should be. I get worried sometimes that my brain isn't wanting to co-operate well enough to imagine anything normally (or how it should be). I do notice that sometime I don't pay much attention to things, or clearly enough. If you can find any extra info, let me know, same if you want to personally contact me. I apologize if I seem like I'm being a pain in the neck, but I just want to make sure I have every tidbit of info I can get.

[xxPhoebusxx]

I just wanted to address the mental blocks that you have developed. If you had to be older to LD then how could you explain the naturals here that learned when they were children. It's not a magical thing that only a chosen few can do. If somethings not working you should change the plan never the goal. As far as others perceptions of you. There's nothing you can do about what they think of you. I think there's power in keeping your goals a secret that only you know. A lot of time opening yourself up to negativity is the wrong answer. Just do you, and don't advertise what you're doing if they will be judgmental.

[cooleymd]

I'm not much of a WILDer with only a few DEILD and no direct WILD, but I have heard it said that you need to become an observer of your thoughts let your mind roam a bit, like it isn't yours and you are just observing it and thinking of remaining aware. As for recall tho, I recalled like 5 dream sequences last night (of course I woke up many many times but then when I was at work, I was doing something and I thought if an earthquake hit right now I could be injured... then it came back to me remembering that I also dreamed of being in an earthquake and during the earthquake thinking it would last a long time and it became a double earthquake, and then thinking what if its a triple earthquake and so the dream gave me that too. This demonstrates the power of expectation is suppose, and also the stupidity of the dreamer as I never thought to question the triple earthquake, or my excitement at being in one, as opposed to fear. But I point it out because as soon as I thought of earthquake in waking life at least 1+minute of unremembered dream came back (and it had been at least 4hrs+ maybe even 8hrs+ from waking and remembering other stuff but not that. That is how the list is supposed to work, If I had gone thru a list like Tornado, Fire, Lightening, Flood, Earthquake... hey wait I dreamed of that That is how you can recall something, and when you first wake up if you ask yourself where was I just now, what was I doing just now, Who did I see, then run thru lists Mall, Church, School... Driving, Sking, Flying... Mom, Dad, Friends... etc Soon you can learn to focus and recall dreams and from them you can make lists of dream signs etc Like recently I have been dreaming of money, I usually dream of coins, but the other night I dreamed of piles of bills 2X in the night, I should have set an intention to RC when I see Money, or at least to question reality. Especially if you find like 2 stacks of 100 hundred dollar bills under cars, in the dream I thought well I am in a bank parking lot (yea right, as I said the dreamer is pretty stupid)

[dolphin]

All I see is just my the back of my eyelids, along with when I'm trying to imagine something, my brain will horribly distort it or make it seem much more different than it should be. That's fine if that's all you see. If you keep paying attention, you'll see more! For example, try looking at the back of your eyelids immediately after you wake up from a dream. If you see anything out of the ordinary, like letters, numbers, lights, stars, lines, ect. try to focus on them in order to make them more vivid. Once they become vivid enough, it's likely a dream could form in front of your closed eyelids. Instant LD! You don't have to imagine anything. I'm not good with imagining either. I apologize if I seem like I'm being a pain in the neck Don't worry about being a pain in the neck. We don't mind, we just want to help!

[Sageous]

I think, GreenSynergy, that Dolphin's offered the best advice so far: start over. This time, though, I suggest that you don't start again until after you've done a little homework. LD'ing can be very difficult if you leave out the important stuff, and, from what you've written, it seems you may have left out most of it. I highly recommend that you do a little reading, maybe get your hands on a copy of Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge, which is sort of the LD'ing Bible, and find time to read it. Also, Dreamviews offers some excellent tutorials that cover the basic techniques and processes, plus they have the DVA Academy, which offers classes that go more deeply into the LD'ing process. I suggest that you start your browsing by looking at the MILD tutorial, because MILD contains most of the tools you'll need to successfully DILD or WILD. Finally, but perhaps most importantly, I humbly suggest you look at the first few posts of my Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals thread, because I have a feeling it might help you to learn about real basics of LD'ing -- self-awareness, memory, and expectation/intention -- so that you can get your mind in the right place when you lay down to sleep, and dream. Lucidity is far more about mindset than it is techniques, and you really do need to ready your mind for LD'ing before those techniques will work properly. On top of all that, if you haven't started a dream journal, you should think about doing so. As I think Cooleymd said somewhere above, paying attention to your dreams and building recall is a very important first step, and writing down your dreams after you have them is key to making this happen. I know this sounds like a lot of stuff to do (though hopefully you've already been doing some and forgot to share), but taken one step at a time it's not all that much -- and besides, sometimes the really good things need a little extra effort, but they're worth it... and LD'ing is definitely one of those good things! tl;dr: Listen to Dolphin and start over. Leave behind what you've tried so far, learn the fundamentals, and do some research into the techniques before you start again... and then try those techniques one at a time, starting with MILD. Good luck!

[FryingMan]

Pay attention to anything you're conscious of. Attention span doesn't matter here. You pay attention for the entire time you're in bed because you never really know when you're going to start dreaming, so you want to always be paying attention as often as you can. Once you're paying attention well enough while sleeping you'll be paying attention during your dreams because you dream while you're sleeping. Once you're paying attention to your dreams, you'll at least remember you had a dream upon awakening which is the first step towards recall. Pay attention well enough, and you'll notice at least 3-4 dreams a night rather than 0. This will create a foundation on which to build a DILD practice. Pay attention even more, and you'll be paying attention during the transition from waking to dreaming, creating a foundation for a WILD practice. So, you need to pay attention in order to build any foundation of a lucid dreaming practice. Don't stress, though. Have fun! If you're stressing, you're not really paying attention to what's happening anymore, which you need to do. I love it, I love it, I love it, etc....one for each paying attention . In case you still aren't sure of where to start, just start paying attention!

[GreenSynergy]

Thanks for all your help guys! I noticed something going on when I was paying attention to my brain (not much was happening, just me thinking about what I need to do today and what I need to do tomorrow, I seemed like I was talking to myself in my head. It didn't look clear, maybe like static in front of the images maybe) and the strange thing was, it felt like I was loosing my body. I felt really numb or something until I freaked out (probably wasn't supposed to do that), I also caused a headache by straining my eyes for some reason. I'll have to try what Dolphin saying about waking up and seeing if I can see anything there. I am very optimistic that this will work.