Spock's lucid journey

[Spock]

I decided to start this thread to help me keep track of my overall practice of LDing. Will be posting here updates about my "lucid journey" hopefully monthly. Since this is the first post - I sum up everything up to this point. Natural rate: about 1 short LD per two months. During teenage practice: on average ~10 mid length lucids per month (plus many short / very short ones) - my current "goal". During winter 2014-2015 practice: on average ~3 lucids per month (including short ones) Current practice (started dec 2015): (the duration, in minutes, refers to the estimated lucid part of a dream) (HH, HI, etc, aren't considered lucid dreams) Dec 2015 - 1 DILDs - 1 short: biting dream [lost lucidity and woke up, ~8] 2 WILDs - 2 very short: [1 lost lucidity, <1]; [1 woke up, <1] Jan 2016 - 8 DILDs - 3 very short: while driving [lost lucidity, <5]; plants from snails #2 [woke up, <1]; in dad's car back from cacti reserve [woke up, <1] | 4 medium: back'n'forth fireball dream [nested, ended in waking up, ~15]; posthumanism dream [very low level, ended in waking up, ~10]; "shared dream" w/ cooleymd [dream -> void -> new dream -> woke up, ~15]; "shared dream" w/ auburn DV woman [ended in falsely waking up, ~15] | 1 long: port dream [ended in waking up, ~25] 3 WILDs - 2 very short: [1 lost lucidity, <1]; [1 woke up, <1] | 1 medium: sexual dream [ended in waking up, ~15] Conclusion - Fairly close to my current "goal" in amount of mid length or longer LDs (6 vs 10). Need to stay consistent. Also, need to focus on FAs - in Jan 2016 occur on average once per night (up to 3-4 times per night). Also, recall is good - in Jan 2016 an average of 4 dreams per night, most of them vivid and detailed, up to 8 per night + fragments. Dream recall mostly negatively effected by going too late to bed - decreasing the vividness and detail but usually not the amount of dreams recalled.

[Clidu]

Can i ask....what are the main things you practise in order to have LDs....i like to ask this to people who seem.like they have more LDs than me.....i stopped.LDing for a while.but iv picked it back up again....im mainly keeping up2 date with my dream.recall and practising ADA as much as i can

[Spock]

Can i ask....what are the main things you practise in order to have LDs....i like to ask this to people who seem.like they have more LDs than me.....i stopped.LDing for a while.but iv picked it back up again....im mainly keeping up2 date with my dream.recall and practising ADA as much as i can Well, I practice a bit of everything... I record the dreams on my phone, usually in the morning or during night awakenings. If I don't have time for that I just memorize them until I do. Usually also take a few minutes to just lay in bed and recall as much as I can. For the awakenings - the first awakening is induce by the need to pee (drink water before bed), the other 1-4 are either natural or with a custom alarm (I usually feel before going to bed if I'll wake up naturally or not). I do my day practice here-and-there, usually around 3 times a day. But more importantly every time that - 1. something unusual happens; 2. one of my dream signs happens; 3. at awakening; 4. as I fall asleep. The "day practice" starts with awareness check and then 2-3 RCs (usually from my preferred list of checks, but I do sometimes use random ones). While doing the RCs I try to really imagine how it would be like in a dream, say a mantra or something, and / or try suggestion (so basically the "day practice" covers some kind of combo of awareness, reality questioning, mantras, (self)suggestion and idea incubation. But it's not as time consuming as it might sound, like 2-3 minutes, randomly 3 times a day, plus the four unique occasions listed above [1.-4.]) As I said, at waking up or falling asleep I also do the "day practice" - but the version of it varies based on the circumstances (let's say I try to DEILD - obviously wouldn't start looking at my hands or imagining things). During an awakening I usually do one of the various WILDs based on what I feel like in terms of sleepiness-wakefulness balance. Also, nowadays I mostly use WILDs to induce FAs, so I don't really try to maintain awareness - because I feel like I need to be able to identify FAs, so I'm practicing on that... But I do all sorts of WILDs, based on the particular circumstances, including DEILD, FILD, SSILD, regular WILD, VILD, IILD and the WILD variation of MILD (the only one I can think of I never done is the WILD variation of HILD [HILD being hypnosis / self-suggestion induced]). As a teenager, used to focus sometimes on OBEs, but not doing it for now until the FA thing is sorted out Also, to keep the motivation up as well as to keep LDing on my mind, I lurk around DV and post if I think I can help (when I have free time). It's a mutualistic relationship - helps me as much as I hope I can help the person I'm responding to. Well, that's about it, I guess.

[Spock]

February 2016 Update: 6 DILDs - 3 very short: FA with ladies dream [woke up into SP, <1]; nephew dream pt.1 [ended in void, see DEILD, ~3]; terrorists dream [woke up, <1] | 1 short: superhero dream [lost lucidity, <5] | 2 medium: french nursery dream [ended in waking up, ~15]; Jaws dream [ended in FA, momentary lucidity, waking up, ~15] 1 WILDs - 1 short: nephew dream pt.2 [DEILD, ended in waking up, ~5] Conclusion - Had less time to practice and my routine wasn't very consistent. It shows in the decrease to only 2 mid length or longer LDs (vs 6 last month). But the 2 short ones were also great, and surprisingly in nearly half of the lucids this month I remembered tasks and so on. Didn't practice WILDs that much, unless was given the opportunity to DEILD. Dream recall fluctuated between frags of 1-2 dreams up to 5 full dreams with frags. Some of the decrease in success is probably related to not practicing much WILDs or being missing from the forum.

[Spock]

March 2016 Update: 10 DILDs - 5 very short: discussing news story dream [woke up, <1]; dragon & cannibalism dream [woke up, <1]; melted electronics [ended in void, then FA, <2]; oversleeping dream pt.1 [ended in FA, ~2]; oversleeping dream pt.2 [ended in waking up, ~3] 2 short: tiger dream pt.1 [proceeded to DEILD, ~7]; penguin tornado [ended in waking up, ~5] 3 medium: python DG [ended in FA, ~10]; sex / flying in house [ended in waking up, ~17]; Rhett and Link dream [ended in waking up, ~10] 3 WILDs - 1 very short: NCIS rewrite dream [WILD, lost lucidity, <2] 2 medium: tiger dream pt. 2 [DEILD, proceeded to DEILD, ~10]; tiger dream pt. 3 [DEILD, proceeded to DEILD, ~10] Night counter: 7 lucid nights Conclusion - Had a total of 13 LDs, 5 of which were mid length or longer - so it was a good month of practice (the best of the current practice). Remembered to do some of the tasks. Dream recall fluctuated between 1-2 dreams up to 8 full dreams with frags. Still need to work on being able to prolong the lucids and stop procrastinating thru the whole dream (be more active and do my goals instead of usually going with the flow), as well as practice more WILDing to get better success rate with it... Also, decided to keep a "night counter" = the number of nights in which I was lucid at least once (to better reflect LD frequency).

[Spock]

April 2016 Update: 17 DILDs - 11 very short: bedroom FA [woke up, <1]; garden collection [woke up, <1]; mind control virus pt. 2 [ended in DEILD, ~1]; endless urination [ended in waking up, ~1]; watching TV in childhood home pt. 1 [ended in FA, ~1]; FA in bed [lost lucidity, ~1]; stairs dream [ended in DEILD, ~3]; wife and kids [woke up due to outside noise, ~3]; watching TV in childhood home pt. 2 [ended in FA, ~3]; highway running / old friends [ended in waking up, ~3]; dunes and car collision [ended in waking up, ~3] 4 short: watching TV in childhood home pt. 3 [ended in real awakening, ~5]; levitation and telekinesis [lost lucidity, ~5]; time travel [lost lucidity, ~7]; mind control virus pt. 1 [ended in FA, ~7] 2 medium: mind control virus pt. 4 [ended in waking up, ~10]; insurance / superhero, pt. 3 [lost lucidity, ~15] 6 WILDs - 1 very short: wall climbing dream [DEILD, lost lucidity, ~3] 2 short: running in fog dream [WILD, woke up, ~5] 2 medium: serial killer, pt. 2 [DEILD, lost lucidity, ~10]; insurance / superhero, pt. 2 [DEILD, lost lucidity, ~10] 1 long: mind control virus pt. 3 [DEILD, ended in FA, 25-30] Night counter: 11 lucid nights Conclusion - April was an amazing month of LDing for me despite a lot of RL limitations and stress. Probably the involvement in a competition had to do with increased motivation. Had a total of 23 LDs, 5 of which were mid length or longer, including one super long lucid which was longer and more stable than most of my lucids since ever. Remembered to do some of the tasks and did many goals and dream control for the comp. Dream recall fluctuated between 1-2 dreams up to 11 full dreams with frags - with an average of ~5-6 full dreams. Still need to work on being able to prolong the lucids and stop procrastinating thru some of them, although it occurs to me that my current definition for LD duration is ridiculous (with 7 minute long lucids considered "short"). Will probably change it eventually... Overall, April felt very close to my original goal at lucid dreaming of getting lucid every 2-3 days at least with the occasional super long and stable dreams. Will see if I managed to keep it consistent thru May as well... If I do, will probably have to update my overall goals sooner than I thought.