2017 Goals

Usually when it comes to goals, I make crazy goals, but I recently heard this quote:

Quote:

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when setting goals, set input goals, not output goals

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the reason being that we should feel good if we did everything we set out to do even if it doesn't reap as much reward as we want it to.

That being said, what are your goals for LDing this year?

instead of not having output goals, I am going to seperate mine, because that kind of thing does drive me.

input goals
DJ every day (I give myself 30 exceptions)
spend at least 30 LDs with my DG
Create a normal persistent realm inside of zödra

output goals
more lucid dreams than any other year

Lets hear your new year resolutions. :)

That's an excellent perspective on goal-setting. It's easy to get frustrated when lucidity doesn't pan out despite all your effort. So instead of setting goals on something that may be out of your control, it's best to strive for a goal that you have total control over and is a more accurate representation of your efforts.

Another thing that I can state from personal experience is to make sure you're setting the right goals. For the past two years, I've been setting a goal of 100 lucids, and keeping track of it in my signature. It was helpful when I first started, since I was only averaging about one lucid every week or two. But a couple weeks ago, I felt that, despite what my signature indicated, I wasn't making any progress from where I was a year or two ago. In fact of the 113 lucids this year (at the time of writing), only about 10-20 of them were what I'd call "quality" (lasting longer than 5 minutes, where I demonstrate decent awareness and/or control over the dream). I had become so driven by putting up good numbers on quantity, that I didn't bother to focus on stabilizing the dream, going to fascinating places, or doing fascinating things. And as an even worse side effect, I found I had lost enjoyment in lucid dreaming - rarely did I have those days described by Laberge or Waggoner where I would wake up at a total high from the lucid I just had.

Now I'm not saying setting quantity goals is bad - it definitely helped when I first started using it. But always be aware where your focus is, and if the goal is pulling your focus away from enjoying lucidity, maybe it's time to revamp that goal. Which is why in 2017 (spoiler alert, since I haven't officially put it up yet), my primary goal in my signature will be based on time spent lucid, instead of number of lucids. I feel this will help me see lucidity as less of a chore that I have to get right as often as I can, but as an event that I can take time to enjoy when it happens.

All that to say, here are my goals for 2017:

Input Goals
DJ at least 6 days of every week
Put a focus on extending lucid time in my RCs/awareness practice
Spend at least 30 LDs with my DG
Create a persistent realm

Output Goals
Accumulate 24 hours of lucid time during the year (max allowed per night - 1 hr)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sensei

Usually when it comes to goals, I make crazy goals, but I recently heard this quote:

the reason being that we should feel good if we did everything we set out to do even if it doesn't reap as much reward as we want it to.

That being said, what are your goals for LDing this year?

instead of not having output goals, I am going to seperate mine, because that kind of thing does drive me.

input goals
DJ every day (I give myself 30 exceptions)
spend at least 30 LDs with my DG
Create a normal persistent realm inside of zödra

output goals
more lucid dreams than any other year

Lets hear your new year resolutions. :)

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I finally found a dream guide. Turns out I got 2. 2 reoccurring dream characters from many years ago showed up and offered to be my dream guides, I'll post in the DJ blog. Long story short, I have a world to work with and already started building.

Input goals:
DJ whenever I get an interesting dream. Spend at least 2/3 of lucids with my dream guides. And spend every lucid in the in named world I created

Output: Not have my DGs die :.(
Not end up deleting my dream world :.(
Have at least 1 aware lucid a night on average.
Build more dream guardians to inhabit this world.
Gain more reoccurring items to help with complex dream manipulation.

I will focus mostly on dream control this year.
Input goals:
continue autosuggestion and catching false awakenings
get better at DEILD
establish a consistent routine for remembering dream goals
Output goals:
complete dream goals

Input:
DJ everyday, find a DG, meditate daily, and create a persistent realm.
Output:
Having quality lucid dreams at least 4 times a week.

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Originally Posted by Sensei

more lucid dreams than any other year

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And how much would that be, might I ask? :P

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Originally Posted by Spellbee

Another thing that I can state from personal experience is to make sure you're setting the right goals. For the past two years, I've been setting a goal of 100 lucids, and keeping track of it in my signature. It was helpful when I first started, since I was only averaging about one lucid every week or two. But a couple weeks ago, I felt that, despite what my signature indicated, I wasn't making any progress from where I was a year or two ago. In fact of the 113 lucids this year (at the time of writing), only about 10-20 of them were what I'd call "quality" (lasting longer than 5 minutes, where I demonstrate decent awareness and/or control over the dream). I had become so driven by putting up good numbers on quantity, that I didn't bother to focus on stabilizing the dream, going to fascinating places, or doing fascinating things. And as an even worse side effect, I found I had lost enjoyment in lucid dreaming - rarely did I have those days described by Laberge or Waggoner where I would wake up at a total high from the lucid I just had.

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I think there's definitely an effect in LDing of only meeting the goal set, say 100 LDs, after which your LDs suddenly dry up!

There's some great goals here. For my part, I think I need to focus on habit-forming as recently I have been falling into a trap of trying to become lucid "tonight" to the detriment of my actual LDing skills. So I'm mostly gonna focus on recall and on dream awareness.

Spoiler for 2017 Goals:

Input Goals

- Make a habit of my current LD practice: Every day in January DJ; alarm-assisted SAT; “strengthen intention” (before sleep recall the entire day and affirm that it is a dream); set up dream recall
- At least every other night use a mixture of intention and auto-shutoff alarms to prime dream recall and micro-awakenings; practise MILD returning to sleep
- WILD attempt at least once a week - don’t attach to the result of attempts as I will be having LDs from MILD - in the long term start having more WILDs a week, ideally alongside spontaneous DILDs
- Reset LD count
- Count only dreams in which I know I am dreaming, stabilise and remember my dream goal/task as lucid
- Never attempt LD induction without a specific goal to carry out in the dream in mind
- Build up characters and locations from within my dreams, rather than impose upon the dream world


Output Goals

- 100 (fully) lucid dreams
- 10 WILDs (this looks really small but as per the ethos of this thread of setting acheivable goals, I want to set a goal I know I can definitely reach - ambitious goals with WILD has always backfired big time for me in the past)
- Summon my dream guide regularly to teach me about the world of my dreams
- Start developing my dreams’ “mythos”
- Establish a persistent realm (yeah I know, like everybody else, right?)
- Gain dream powers through RPG-like “quests”
- Play around with the idea of a hub-world, with gates to different realms (like in Spyro, Mario 64 etc).

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Originally Posted by dolphin

I will focus mostly on dream control this year.
Input goals:
continue autosuggestion and catching false awakenings
get better at DEILD
establish a consistent routine for remembering dream goals
Output goals:
complete dream goals

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Same as Dolphin, + I want to achieve a number of Lucid Dreams in less time.

Really good goals everyone! i love it! Love the persistent realm wants. definitely a goal to strive for. :)

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Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

And how much would that be, might I ask? :P

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hard to say, since i was not as devoted to keeping a DJ as I am now, i just moved my count up. I have a good guess that 2014 was my best year with around 450. not 100% sure on that. earlier this year i had a weird fake breakthrough that might have my numbers for this year hitting higher than that (somewhere near 600) but it was something that was such deilded and faded and just lucid fragments that i am not counting them.
I really am looking for 600+, but i would be pretty happy with 500, but i dont want to set a solid number on it for now, I just want more and more! Also, this is the first time i have been able to do goals in the majority of my lucids, so I consider myself better than i have ever been. :)

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Originally Posted by Sensei

Really good goals everyone! i love it! Love the persistent realm wants. definitely a goal to strive for. :)



hard to say, since i was not as devoted to keeping a DJ as I am now, i just moved my count up. I have a good guess that 2014 was my best year with around 450. not 100% sure on that. earlier this year i had a weird fake breakthrough that might have my numbers for this year hitting higher than that (somewhere near 600) but it was something that was such deilded and faded and just lucid fragments that i am not counting them.
I really am looking for 600+, but i would be pretty happy with 500, but i dont want to set a solid number on it for now, I just want more and more! Also, this is the first time i have been able to do goals in the majority of my lucids, so I consider myself better than i have ever been. :)

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Something you said in one of your lucid living podcasts struck me, about each 50 LDs being easier to induce than the last. I'm considering not having a set number as a goal, but to just induce 50 LDs, and again and again... And see how quickly I can induce 50 LDs each time. It seems like it might be a good way to avoid what Spellbee ran into, of simply meeting your target but seeing diminishing returns after that, by have a continually renewing target.

@SpellBee2

Good luck with the DJ, probably the hardest part. :P You got this. I am thinking about recanting my DG 30 times, since he shows up when I need him. :/
It seems like you are planning well with your goal setting.

@Him
Congrats on refinding your DGs! I was actually sad when you said that they had died, and I try to make sure not to be attached to DCs too much. haha. Good luck with your DC connections. :D
Also! Dream items are where it is at. I recommend a video game menu so that you can organize it all!

@Dolphin
Good luck with your dream goals man! You can do it, you are a beast at becoming lucid, have you thought about creating a DC to keep you stable?

@naturespirit
DJ every day is hard! Don't feel like you have failed if you miss a day or it might make you miss more days. :D

@Ctharlie

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- Count only dreams in which I know I am dreaming, stabilise and remember my dream goal/task as lucid

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That seems a little harsh, have you thought about maybe just dreams that you are completely present in? If you are not able to accept success when you have it, then you often might have success run away from you since you didn't enjoy it when it was there.

Attempt WILD once a week is also a very small amount. :P But I aint judging. :P

Start developing your dreams "Mythos" sounds awesome. :) I always say that Zödra is what I got from paying attention to my dream world and connecting things that probably weren't connected and I probably upset some "other gods" during the process, but I will deal with them when I get a chance.

Also! As far as the reset goes. I am trying to rush back to 1000, since that is kind of where I lost my steam. :/ I am going to just go to 1000 and reset again! Haha. I plan far ahead. I wouldn't mind getting 1000 next year, but for now I will just settle for "more"!

I am still glad to hear when people liked my old audios and everything. It makes me happy! I hope they are super helpful

Lately, DCs have been distracting me from remembering my dream goals. I think, for me, having a DC to keep me stable would be more distracting than helpful.

I am hoping that DEILDing and avoiding the expectation of the dream ending will help me lengthen dream time.

Hmm. I try to avoid setting goals because I have a bizarre unconscious habit of doing everything I can to see that they're not met, but what the hell:

Input:

* Dedicate two months to fully immersive dream work, since I managed to skip doing my usual one month this year.
* Work on one of the two LD'ing books I outlined last year, and managed to not touch at all this year.
* Rebuild my access to memory, which has been woefully weak this year.
* Leave this year behind, because apparently it was a tough one! ;)

Output:

* Tread that elusive "next step" in lucidity, even if just lightly.
* Publish one of those books.
* Remember.



[Ctharlhie: Good to see you posting again!]

It is quite enjoyable reading everyone's goals. We all have a unique way of approaching what we want :) This input/output thing is also a refreshing way to change the way you look at it, if only a little bit. I'm especially excited for this year because I have dropped some real life commitments, and this is going to make this year very accessible for lucid dreaming!

Input:
* Keep a consistent DJ
* Dedicate time to analyzing the most effective way to acheive whatever specifics are on my list at the time
* Keep working when the going gets tough/I get demotivated etc.
* Stay flexible to changing any of this as my goals and knowledge change :)

Output:
* Keep consistently good recall
* Learn the best strategy to reliably re-enter my dreams lucid
* All of this works towards the long term goal: Have nearly all of my dreams lucid