Thread: How to stay motivated?

Are you having results? Why do you lack motivation?

If it's your goals then you need better goals.

I'm lazy, that's the whole reason. It's not just with lucid dreaming it's with all my other interests.

So you know the answer! How can anybody else than you solve the problem? Stay lazy and you'll get nowhere...

Have you ever reached a goal? Think back, what was it that kept you going?

Well, if you need help with motivation, then what is your motivation for LDing?

I think a lot of people think that motivation is your "excitement for doing something" and that is going to come and go no matter what. Motivation is actually your "reason for doing something". So what is your reason for LDing?

Have you listened to this thread?
http://www.dreamviews.com/dreamviews...e-told-me.html

It is about having a realistic understanding of what LDing on a day to day basis is going to be like and what it will look like if you keep at it for a long amount of time. My reasoning for it is that frustration is the gap between your expectations and your experience, so you need to manage expectations, while still pushing forward. You will never be persistent at LDing, until you persistently practice. You can't persistently practice, until you can practice, even when you don't feel like it.

I set a certain amount of time for myself. June 12. I can quit on June 12 if I want to, it is the day I started, and when I started I said that I would continue until June 12 no matter how I felt, so if I wanted to quit, I would have to wait until then. Usually around Christmas I really feel like quitting, it is super hard to LD, and results are not shown, I can't seem to even hit my normal amounts no matter how hard I try, but I don't quit. Of course, March rolls around and I feel great, dreams everywhere, lucid dreams popping out the seams. June I am usually hitting some of my best months ever, so I don't feel like quitting at all!

Originally Posted by Hirondelle

So you know the answer! How can anybody else than you solve the problem? Stay lazy and you'll get nowhere...

Have you ever reached a goal? Think back, what was it that kept you going?

I can't think, I've tried lots of things and in the end run I give up.

You don't play video games or haven't done any extracurricular activities like drawing or school or anything?

P.S. don't forget to read my previous thread.

Originally Posted by Sensei

You don't play video games or haven't done any extracurricular activities like drawing or school or anything?

P.S. don't forget to read my previous thread.

I play videos games now and again. Been to school, failed my exams though and I'll read it.

Optimism is all you need to stay motivated.

Sensei's answer #5 is a very good one!

Things that excite me are random wild ideas of things to do in a lucid dream. I get these while playing a game or watching an animated movie or cartoon or sometimes without apparent reason just while my mind wanders.

Hey /joshmcnaught - Hopefully you can gain some motivation here coz everyone on the thread is so very helpful and kind with their words that make a lot of sense. It seems you have to make a little effort to decide you are gonna see it through ( I call it developing a positive mindset ) ... Whatever it is that we decide we want to do or need todo in life it's like that ...If things feel so very impossible you may need to find some help in your WL ...a good friend or someone you trust and look up to get some feed back

Good luck - you can do it

Even though I feel like giving up today, I really can't be be bothered doing it, I'm going to do it anyway!

Maybe it will help to tell us why you want to have lucid dreams. Often I have something in mind, some view/opinion about something, but only when I try to communicate it to other people do I think about it more clearly and more elaborately and with more depth. Maybe you have the same characteristic, and if that is true, you might get excited by articulating your feelings.

On the other hand, maybe it's okay to relax for a few weeks or months. There's no need to beat yourself up about not working hard enough

Originally Posted by Ginsan

Maybe it will help to tell us why you want to have lucid dreams. Often I have something in mind, some view/opinion about something, but only when I try to communicate it to other people do I think about it more clearly and more elaborately and with more depth. Maybe you have the same characteristic, and if that is true, you might get excited by articulating your feelings.

On the other hand, maybe it's okay to relax for a few weeks or months. There's no need to beat yourself up about not working hard enough

Many reasons.

To have fun.
Since I do not see or communicate with my family, I want to recreate the memories I had with them.
Spiritual development / know more about myself.

Originally Posted by JoshMcNaught

To have fun.

To have fun is my biggest reason. I often fantasize about a particular adventure (each time something different) and it's in the form of me narrating my dream or telling about it to someone I know or an imaginary person. And sometimes it's not a particular adventure or activity but I'm having an imaginary conversation about all the crazy and awesome things I do in my lucid dreams. I don't do them yet, but I imagine doing them in the future and then telling people about it. And ofcourse I make up the story and edit it and retell it as I go Sometimes I'm having an imaginary conversation for 15-30 minutes.

Hi Josh. Thanks for posting.

I have been trying to lucid dream for ages, I'm talking months and months, and not a single lucid dream yet. I have questionned reality a grand total of once in a dream, although I failed to get lucid, and at that point I thought I was expecting to do it again and get lucid so tried harder than ever and nothing happened so I gave up about a week ago to take a break. It's difficult to put all the effort in and get nothing in return.

Reading this has made me remember all the reasons that I want to do this and I'm going to start trying again now. I also have big problems in my relationship with my family and want to do this for some spiritual reasons, as well as have some fun. Perhaps some of us just find it more difficult than others, I wish I knew why or could find the magic key to make it possible.

I assume by you comments you have yet to have a lucid dream. Because having one is motivation enough! But heres what I do...when i am sitting somewhere out in public just observing people in a new location (like I am right now in a restaurant...I am out of town...) I think "this could really be a dream I am seeing!". Because the reality is, It really could be. Most of my dreams are not in places I am familiar with. Just telling you this I did an RC because it feels a little dream like. Although...I am typing successfully on my phone so I am probably in reality...but you are never sure. Question your reality at times like this, and eventually you will in your dreams too. But it is fun just questioning the reality...and ESPECIALLY when you are fooled and discover it is a dream. Remember...you really THINK for sure you are in reality even in a dream, and especially when starting out.

Originally Posted by JoshMcNaught

I feel like I can't stay motivated to Lucid Dreaming. I gain interest and then loose it and it drives me insane! How can i be motivated? How can i stick to up! It feels impossible for me too!

you don't have to box yourself in and consider yourself an unmotivated, lazy person. Just approach personal improvement as doing one thing better each day.

so set a goal of spending 5 minutes a day focusing on lucid dreaming and recalling your dreams. Then after a week or two, make it 10 minutes a day. The moral of the story is you can't just wake up one day and become super motivated, you just have to start incorporating tiny bits of motivation as you go through your day. As you start to meet your goals of spending 5 minutes a day, you'll start to build confidence that your meeting your daily goals, no matter that they are small goals.

This is my advice to be motivated in anything. You want to lose 20 pounds? spend the first week replacing 1 or 2 junk meals with a salad. Just meet that super tiny goal and then turn it up to 3 salads once you've found you can meet your goals, you can improve. But you have to keep living and enjoying your life while you make small improvements. Just know you can't get it all done at once.

It is similar to the end of etwold having "willpower exercises". ^^ don't think of yourself as a failure, just a work in progress. Be better today than you were yesterday. Remember that there is no such thing as staying perfectly still, so every day, you are getting better or worse at everything, so pick which things you need to do better at. Some things do have a limit to how many days a week or weeks a month you can do it, and those things I would recommend putting in a different box. I can do minute reality checks every single day, but it gives me a headache, and it makes my time with my kids less valuable, so I don't do those, even though they made me lucid like mad.
Minute reality checks are also not exactly what they sound like. My goal is to always have dream and awake in my mind. Remembering the two states is a key to awareness, so a minute RC is trying to keep my mind and all of its wanderings focused on dreams all day. The alarm goes off every minute just in case, to refocus you, and the goal is to change the reality check to further and further apart and still think about dreams 100% of the time. Even if you do it, I consider it to be a tech that shouldn't be used for life, but for small periods of time. It would be something to try if you have a vacation or something of the such. Funny enough, reading a book about dreams would also have this effect, which is why I think that a lot of people have their first intended lucid dreams during the first lding book that they read.

Darn... I have moved way off topic. Haha. I guess if you are willing to do anything to LD, you should try this. I might write up a tutorial for it soon. I personally have been phasing out as much day work as possible and building up night work, which is why night meditation and 4+ wbtbs is part of my schedule. I want to be aware all night of dreams and aware all day of waking. I am finally at a place where I can actually do 99% night work and 1% day work and still have LDs rather consistently, but if they start to fade I throw some of my effective day work in and bring it back up. The reason this is possible, is because everything pales in comparison to experience, and I have enough now that I can get away with this, but improving this way is hard night work. Haha. But it's alright, I would just be sleeping anyways.

It depends, have you ever had a lucid dream or are you trying to achieve lucidity for the first time?
While I can imagine that people who have never experienced that can lose their motivation, it is hard for me to understand how one can get unmotivated once they know how amazing it feels.
In the first case you can start with very small goals that still give you a chance to have your first LD. All I ever needed were reality checks and this takes literally a minute or two every day. You can set a few reminders and if someone is too lazy to plug their nose a few times a day then wow, it's bad. And it's coming from a very unmotivated person
You can add watching a video about lucid dreaming a day to make your chances better (sometimes just thinking about it can get you a lucid dream). 1-15 minutes a day, I'd say it's worth a try.

I have had a really long break lately - probably about 6 months or something - and I am not even sure why this is.
I have some great memories of becoming lucid, and a few times I have been lucky and become lucid 5-6 times in one month without too much problems, but then I randomly lose interest and stop caring about it for weeks or months, and this of course makes my LD frequency drop quite a lot.

I believe that the greatest way to motivate yourself is to make a list of things that you have always really wanted to experience, and then aim for one of them at a time.
Also, it can really help to watch a bunch of professional lucid dreaming videos on YouTube, like for example the ones by Stephen LaBerge and Robert Waggoner - great guys!
Actually, my signature contains the link to what I personally think is one of THE best lucid dreaming videos on YouTube, simply because it is a seminar with Stephen LaBerge that lasts for about 5 hours.
Granted, about half of that video consists of translations by a Russian interpreter, but she seems quite likeable.

Originally Posted by salsashark

It depends, have you ever had a lucid dream or are you trying to achieve lucidity for the first time?
While I can imagine that people who have never experienced that can lose their motivation, it is hard for me to understand how one can get unmotivated once they know how amazing it feels.
In the first case you can start with very small goals that still give you a chance to have your first LD. All I ever needed were reality checks and this takes literally a minute or two every day. You can set a few reminders and if someone is too lazy to plug their nose a few times a day then wow, it's bad. And it's coming from a very unmotivated person
You can add watching a video about lucid dreaming a day to make your chances better (sometimes just thinking about it can get you a lucid dream). 1-15 minutes a day, I'd say it's worth a try.

Thank you, it's been a few weeks since I properly started doing it.

My practice contains of doing ADA and roughly around 24 RCs per day. I'm going to stick with it and hope for the best!

Originally Posted by JoshMcNaught

Thank you, it's been a few weeks since I properly started doing it.

My practice contains of doing ADA and roughly around 24 RCs per day. I'm going to stick with it and hope for the best!

i am really interested in ADA since nothing has worked for me so far...if you have any good results please let me know

One tip for reality checks that I find really essential: don't just do them mechanically, this way they not only may not work but can also lose their purpose.
Try to really question the reality while you are performing RC. Look around, try to imagine that this might be a dream and then ask yourself if it is.
I like to remind myself of this surreal feeling of dreams and kind of look for it in my surroundings just to make sure that it's not.
I hope it helps you and you soon get your LD. All the best.