Looong dry spell! Please help!

What I need in this theard is actually someone who has gone through something like This:

I started working on lucid dreaming about 3 months ago (keeping a journal, RCing, trying induction techniques...).

After the first month I had the first lucid dream. During the second month I had 15 lucid dreams, most of them very short.

For the current month I have had 3 LDs, and only one in the last 2 weeks.

The method I use (and I haven't switched because I want to try hard before discarding) is waking up ~6h after bed, stay up 5 minutes, and then back to bed. I lie on my back and focus on MILD (I actually repeat a 3 mantra cycle and go through previous dream's dreamsigns) for 10 minutes. Then I lie on my side and fall sleep in about 5-10 minutes (depends on the day).

This used to work wonders, but now it doesn't work. I tried waking up earlier but then I just black-out most of the times, and my focus is too vague, I feel very tired. If I wake up later I most likely won't fall asleep anymore.

I need tips of any kind, concerning the method, or maybe just need hearing this will just pass. I need a lot of effort to just keep the journal lately, it takes 30-60 minutes each day to type my dreams (because I think I have good recall)

Thank you in advance!

Cheers

Quick advice:

If you wake up and don't remember, allow yourself to be grateful for the dreams you knew you did have anyway. Appreciate those experiences and that it is OK to lose them. Take it as an opportunity to revisit past dreams in your dream journal or mind. Continue your disciplined practice. Focus on waking life.

Good luck!
Dry spells are beautiful. It is a reminder that no matter how good your recall is, there will always be experiences that you will lose every day/night. That's OK. There's enough we keep. :)

Thanks for the reply!

I thought a dry spell was when you don’t have lucid dreams, not when you don’t recall any dreams.

After posting I decided to change the strategy, instead of doing MILDs I tried WILD. I found out that putting attention to hipopagnogia causes me to induce DILDs which is amazing.

Haha, oops. Now, you are making me question myself... I think dry spell can be for both? But, I guess same advice for both.

I'm glad you found something that works well for you! :)

Lol, sorry, not to laugh at your plight, but you've been LDing for only about 3 months and you've hit a "long" dryspell? Back when I first started I'd regularly go 3 to 6 months without having any LDs at times. Honestly, the fact you had 15 LDs during your second month means you've had a rather irregularly high rate of success for a beginner. Don't let your abnormally great early success give you the wrong impression. Not counting natural LDers, for people to have LDs just about every night and even several a night on top of that is typically something only highly experienced LDers who've been doing it for at least a decade, if not decades, are capable of. Many who've put in 3-5 years still only find they have about 3-6 every 2 or 3 months at regular intervals, with the occasional LD spurt of 15 to 20 in a month or two's time here and there.

Really, try not to worry so much about dry spells. Focusing/dwelling on them only seems to lengthen their duration or at the very least emphasize how long they feel. The more you dwell and stress out over something as common, cyclical, and regularly experienced as a little old dry spell, the more you guide your expectations in such a way that you unconsciously presuppose your failure and associate it with the assumed failure of any particular techniques you've recently been using. In doing so, you create a self-fulfilling prophecy that winds up determining your failure before you ever even begin your attempts on a given night.

Dry spells are like colds, troubles and woes, joys and victories, and all the other myriad experiences life has to offer; they come and they go. Why they come isn't always known, and when they'll happen next or eventually end is a mystery that remains to be seen. There's a rhythm and harmony in life, and during such times of uncertainty it is best to let go and let yourself flow with the pulse of the rhythm rather than to attempt swimming upstream trying to fight a battle that you only ever end up losing anyway. Without periods of dreaming in a state of non-lucidity, there can be no lucid dreaming.


This last part is a bit TL;DR so feel free to skip over it, as it's just a more in-depth way of understanding and contextualizing the occurrence of things like dry spells and why there isn't any real point in being concerned over them or lamenting that you are experiencing one
Think of it this way, to help understand things in a broader context (as this applies to all things that exist and all systems that govern their existence, including but not limited to the human mind and perception). When a pendulum swings in a given direction, a counter-swing of equal measure in the opposite direction must follow as a consequence. That cause and effect is what maintains the equilibrium of the system responsible for driving the pendulum's movement and existence. The pendulum cannot exist without the system guiding the ever progressing motion of its swing, no matter the degree the of swinging that is occurring (imperceptible swings still occur on a microscopic level even despite it at times potentially appearing still). We do not feel or express concern, protest, or surprise over the fact that there is a counter-swing of equal measure that follows in response to the swing that preceded it. Likewise, we should not become overly concerned with, protest against, or be surprised when we have negative experiences given we have positive ones, or that we experience times where the outcome we'd prefer is exactly the opposite of what actually happens. It just means that it is only a matter of time, then, that the counter-counter-swing happens, where the outcome we want actually occurs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by snoop

Lol, sorry, not to laugh at your plight, but you've been LDing for only about 3 months and you've hit a "long" dryspell? Back when I first started I'd regularly go 3 to 6 months without having any LDs at times. Honestly, the fact you had 15 LDs during your second month means you've had a rather irregularly high rate of success for a beginner. Don't let your abnormally great early success give you the wrong impression. Not counting natural LDers, for people to have LDs just about every night and even several a night on top of that is typically something only highly experienced LDers who've been doing it for at least a decade, if not decades, are capable of. Many who've put in 3-5 years still only find they have about 3-6 every 2 or 3 months at regular intervals, with the occasional LD spurt of 15 to 20 in a month or two's time here and there.

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Hahah. I had no idea of how long does it take to consider a dry spell. In my defense I'll argue that those 15 LDs were super short and I had to work hard to achieve them (with long WBTBs and so). But happily I have entered again into a good rate of success!

I have a difficulty recalling my dreams the last couple of days, this is such a great comment that I wanted to thank you for the inspiring words! :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

Quick advice:

If you wake up and don't remember, allow yourself to be grateful for the dreams you knew you did have anyway. Appreciate those experiences and that it is OK to lose them. Take it as an opportunity to revisit past dreams in your dream journal or mind. Continue your disciplined practice. Focus on waking life.

Good luck!
Dry spells are beautiful. It is a reminder that no matter how good your recall is, there will always be experiences that you will lose every day/night. That's OK. There's enough we keep. :)

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I have a difficulty recalling my dreams the last couple of days, this is such a great comment that I wanted to thank you for the inspiring words! :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sparksman

The method I use (and I haven't switched because I want to try hard before discarding) is waking up ~6h after bed, stay up 5 minutes, and then back to bed. I lie on my back and focus on MILD (I actually repeat a 3 mantra cycle and go through previous dream's dreamsigns) for 10 minutes. Then I lie on my side and fall sleep in about 5-10 minutes (depends on the day). Cheers

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Hey, hope you don’t mind me chiming in here but noticed your WBTB method is almost identical to mine! Ive been going for 8 months now and I’ve had decent success with the method and have at least 1 lucid a week. As someone who has been doing this longer then me I’m just curious If it’s still working for you or did you have to add more into your practice to improve? Thanks

I've been lucid dreaming for 20 years or more at this point (have lost count of how many LDs I've had) and yet I've had dry spells last as long as 6-12 months. They happen so often that it's not unusual for me to simply stop trying to have them, that is, until something comes around and rekindles my interest.

Try not to worry about it, sometimes good things come from a little time away. I'm always revitalized, have greater perspective, and new/better goals.