Vizualising as a Child

[Chizu]

Did anyone else use to do this as a child? Living situations weren't the best as a kid and when sleeping, I would often hear the squeaks of mice/rats (which has led to my fear of rats lol) but anyways, what I used to do as a kid would be imagine my self in situations as I fell asleep. etc one night, I would be a dinosaur. I feel like this would be pretty common for us here to do as children, especially with how creative our imaginations would've been. Another interesting thing I noticed was that one night, I imagined my self as a shark. Subsequently, I had a dream about sharks, where I was a shark. These dreams weren't scary by any means, nor was I scared by sharks but for some reason I had categorized it as a nightmare. Then, when I tried it again the next night, I had an actual nightmare, and the next night. Imagining my self as a shark before I slept, would induce a nightmare, everytime. Me imaginining my self in these scenarioes as a shark dragon dinosaur etc gave me enough distraction to fall asleep. I've remembered this after reading Naiya's Simple Mild technique (https://www.dreamviews.com/attaining...technique.html) wherein the "Another variation of this is to use a movie, video game or book. You can make up a completely imaginary environment, perhaps something from your daydreams. Imagine yourself lucid in the environment, doing whatever you want to do. It helps if you see yourself doing fun or interesting things, because it keeps you motivated" heavily reminded me of my childhood and ignited these forgotten memories. I wonder if I can tap into this power again lol, I havent' had a nightmare for a very very long time but I wonder if the shark method would work for me again as it did in my childhood. Moreso because a nightmare every night would be, I think an incredibly easy path to lucidity. Let me know what you think, and if you share any similar experiences. I've begun to dream journal for the past 5 days and my dream recall has increased greatly. On the first night I could remember 2 dreams just based on the intent of remembering my dreams and by last night, the fifth night, I have been able to remember 4 dreams (with varying levels of recollection)

[DarkestDarkness]

I did have this and didn't really realise it until later on when I started to read about the topic of dreaming years later. I have probably already written about this in my introduction post on the forum. Daydreaming as well in general is something that until recently I didn't quite realise I had happen when I was younger, and though I guess that still happens a bit for me, it's not really the same as when I was younger. Unfortunately this type of visualisation stopped happening on its own for me after a certain age, and it's something I'd like to willingly return to myself. Aside from some sleep-related issues, these days my routines and daily worries aren't allowing for much of anything relating to dreaming so I don't quite see a return to this happening so soon for me, although it's nice to try every so often and in the last year or two I have actually found myself having more interesting things happen before falling asleep. Edit: Link to my introduction post, assuming it's of any interest https://www.dreamviews.com/introduct...-everyone.html

[Lang]

Yes, I did as a child. However, not everyone can visualize as an dreamer. Some can learn other ways to lucid dream besides Visualizations.