Swimming against the current

What do you do when you begin a lucid dream feeling that it will be low quality?

For context, most of my lucid dreams are D(E)ILDs, and it seems to me that the highest quality ones come around 4-6 hours of sleep. These will be more established nonlucid dreams that get converted to lucid about halfway through. They often retain the story and environment as well as the "structural integrity" of the dream, while I assume some control and awareness. In these dreams, I find myself interacting with the world and characters vividly, usually doing some experimentation but only to further my goals in the dream. They are very satisfying experiences and I'd like to have more like this.

However, the vast majority of my lucid dreams occur closer to waking, usually in a chain (through DEILD or otherwise), and are short and usually focused heavily on experimentation and analysis. In these, I usually completely forgo story in order to attempt some ability, manipulate an object or character, etc. I'm not consciously driving towards these goals, it just seems that as I gain more awareness and wade in the shallow waters of light sleep, my subconscious goals change accordingly. I also tend to loop over a dream area for several cycles in the chain before changing scenes.

In these dreams of lesser quality, it can feel as if the dream is actively working against me. Dream control techniques don't work as expected. Dream characters ignore or sabotage me if I try to approach or interact with them. For instance, in my final dreams this morning, I found myself in a supermarket trying to approach dream figures. Before I became lucid, they were abundant, browsing the aisles in clusters, but after I became lucid, I had to search extensively to find even a few. When I did, they ignored my commands and interactions, and wouldn't make eye contact with me. The eeriest part was that as soon as the dream began to destabilize and end, they all looked straight at me.

Is this a common phenomenon? Please tell me about similar experiences, and what you do to try and tame these disobedient dreams.

Hi, I feel very identified with your words.
Turns out, on my experience, the worst and most unstable lucid dreams are definitely the ones were I get lucid say 1 min ir less previous to the dream ending, and sadly is when I get lucid the most. I don't really know why this happens, maybe you progresively raise your awareness previous to waking up, hence you are more prone to have a LD on your last dream minutes??
In any case, same thing happens to me, RC don't necesarrily work, dream characters dont interact or even run away from you, vision becomes blurry and the feeling and thought of waking up becomes progressively stronger. Stabilization techniques also do not work properly in this period, actually since I am feeling that I am really close to waking up I usually use those last seconds to do something interesting like flying or changing landscapes, which actually works negatively and rushes the waking up moment.
For me, no question the best LDs are the ones that take place somewhere in the middle of the night (say, 3-4 hours after normal sleeping time), in here there is no rush to wake up, stabilization works and dream characters do as I say and interact with me, so I try my best to aim at this time.
Anyway, you are not alone in this for sure.
Best,

1) Sometimes sleep cycle will be the issue. You can dream outside of REM and the quality will be very different.
2) sometimes you can make it shift to a more vivid stable dream.
3)Sometimes you can be on the verge of weird dimensional/astral stuff. The astral stuff is far less controlled by you. Other dreamers or astral being can be there and will not respond to intent or control, while others are fake dream images and are like any DC

Hi ZAD,

I had a lucid dream like that just a couple days ago. I realized I was dreaming, jumped through a window, and found myself floating in the dark without my senses functioning properly. It was a little like being underwater, which gave me the idea to treat the dream as if that was where I was, which meant that I could fix it if I swam upwards until I reached the surface. And after a minute or two of swimming, I surfaced in a lake – and in a fully-formed dream. I got 10 to 15 minutes of exploring and messing around before I woke up, which wasn’t bad for such an unpromising beginning.

What I find generally is that if you take the scenario the dream gives you and play along with it, you can often use it to find your way into a better one, letting the dream itself inspire the choice rather than having all the details planned out in advance. Of course, there’s a fine line between playing along and being swept along into a nonlucid dream.

I can’t speak to difficulties involving dream characters in particular, but it seems like a similar approach could be worth a try. Rather than just trying to apply willpower, improvise a solution that makes, if not waking life-sense, then at least dream-sense.

Some suggestions:

1. Once lucid, say "Increase clarity!" or "Increase consciousness to super conscious level!" I have tried this and it does affect the dream in a positive way. The key is practicing before hand and setting the intention so that you remember to do this once lucid.

2. I honestly believe that we get lower level lucid dreams on our way toward higher level ones. It's a spectrum of awareness. Editing.. after re-reading your post, I'm wondering how long you've been LDing. I would suggest this, but if you're someone who's not new, then this advice doesn't apply as much.

I hope that's helpful. Keep going!!

When it comes to increasing dream quality, what I've found works for me is stop what I'm doing and look very closely at something, like a wall, the floor, my hands -- as if I'm putting my face just a few inches away from it.

I then focus on the small details of that thing, it's color, material, and texture. I also feel it with my fingers to really try to give at all of my attention. You can even try smelling it and tasting it!

Doing this tends to bring that object into crisp focus, and with it, the rest of the dream once you decide to resume what you were doing. It's also a good way to keep from waking up, as well as materializing a dream from "the void" that can occur between DEILDs or during sleep paralysis.