Thread: progress and questions

Hello again

To sum up, I've been keeping a dream journal regularly for about six weeks (with one week absent due to the rigors of travel). My dream recall was fairly good to begin with, and it is now much better. I recall between one and six dreams each night. On the nights where I recall five or more, they tend to be much briefer, more like snippets, or else they might represent shifts in scene from within the same dream. On the nights where I recall fewer, say three or less, they tend to be more detailed, with 1-2 pages of detail. I am fairly consistent about reality checks throughout the day, although it varies depending on the demands of work. Throughout this period, I have had only one lucid dream (although before the journal, I did have two brief LDs just from being interested in the topic).

Here are my questions based on my current status and practice:

2. Dream Signs. I've filled so many pages in my dream journal, one would think I'd have an abundance of obvious dream signs, but that does not seem to be the case. I've learned that I dream about my family every night (unknown to me before the journaling), but other than that, there are not many other recurring figures or situations. I've done the categorization into action, context, form, and awareness. Context ever so slightly beats out form, so I do pay attention to oddness in context in my waking life (but see below for issues with stable context). Also, I do have some of the trippier dreams - hybrid animals, morphing characters, unusually colored items - but these are not frequent or consistent enough for me to go "ah ha, there's yet another sky fish, I must be dreaming." So, is there a way to parse out, or to think about, how to find dream signs within more "normal" dreams and then utilze them in waking life reality checks?

2. On that topic, I am struggling with reality testing for a number of reasons. First, I work from home, so I have a very constant, stable environment for most of the day. Thus, there are not many opportunities for finding dream signs during the day (I almost never dream of being at home). Nor is there ever anything "strange" or slightly odd at home that would prompt me to do a reality check, whereas when I am out and about in the world outside the apartment, there is almost always some oddness to prompt a check, or at least one of the signs I've set for myself (animals, men I find to be attractive, doors). I do make every effort to go out during the day and at night, but work being what it is, that is not always possible. Are there ways I might incorporate genuine reality checks during the day within this stable environment? I know some people set alarms to check on the hour, etc., but I can see where this would get routine to the point of training one's mind to typically conclude one is awake, or becoming a superficial matter of simply turning a light switch on or glancing at a digital clock, then going back to work.

3. Induction techniques. To date, I have been attempting to practice MILD. The one lucid dream I had over the past six weeks, however, was not on a night where I practiced it. It just kind of happened (I just noticed the planet Earth in the sky, figured I couldn't be on it if I was looking at it, and voila, lovely lucidity). In reading the thread on this message board about people's first lucid experience, this seems to be the case for most people (or else people just had innate abilities from a young age). In other words, the first experience of lucidity doesn't seem to be tied to an induction technique. Since MILD has not yet been successful for me, I'm wondering if either I'm doing it incorrectly or incompletely, have not practiced long enough, or if I need to move on to try something else. The MILD tutorial on this web site suggests writing each dream down in the middle of the night prior to begin the visualization/auto-suggestion exercise. I've found this difficult primarily because of being sleepy, but also because the key words written down in the middle of the night don't produce detailed recall for me (I seem to do better with details by just remembering the last few dreams of the night). Also, I almost always fall back asleep before I can visualize myself back in the dream I just left, etc. Should I try to more actively rouse myself in order to write more in the night? Yet it seems if I really rouse myself, falling back asleep and keeping my mind on the task will be harder. Have others found ways to tweak MILD? Other methods like WILD seem too intense/complex for beginners such as myself.

Finally, I appreciate all the encouragement members of this board show to new people. As motivated as I am, and as much as I have confidence in my ability to learn generally, it is hard not to get disappointed or experience frustration when efforts don't yield results. Thanks for any and all suggestions and advice.

Barbara