Thread: I Want To Start This Again But Have A ? To Ask

I can relate to the journal question. I hate being away from an unfinished journal, wondering whether to not write for a while, or create discontinuity in my journals. Maybe you could do an abbreviated dream journal on loose paper until you get home? By abbreviated, I mean bullet points from dreams, not whole stories. It will build your recall back up, without being a whole lot of writing. It's a good habit as well for periods of time where we don't want to write a whole lot about our dreams. Those periods certainly come up if you're going to pay attention to your dreams over a period of years.

As far as the roommate question, that's always a funny thing to figure out. My freshman roommate was a volunteer firefighter, and his pager would go off at all hours of the night. I got him back, though, I joined the crew team and set my alarm for 4:45 every morning.

It would be frustrating to do any of the more involved methods of inducing LD's if there's a significant chance you'll be interrupted. But you can always be ready for DILD's. Keep doing reality checks, keep paying attention to your dreams, and you will probably realize you're dreaming in the normal sleep that you get. Then when you have a more stable environment, you can play with other techniques.

Personally, I only practice DILD's, because I don't want to structure my sleep habits around dreaming. I also believe that focused attention on DILD may lead to consistent lucidity. However, I like being aware of other techniques, so that when I find myself drifting off again after being unexpectedly awoken in the night, I can recognize sleep paralysis when it comes and find myself doing an "accidental WILD". So your roommate waking you up briefly in the middle of the night may not actually be a bad thing for LD'ing!

Of course I remember you - your avatar is very colorful and sticks in my memory. Welcome back!

I'd just go ahead and start a new journal. Think of your old one as a pre-college journal, and this one as during-college. Go ahead and record your dreams as you normally would. I don't think doing bullet points would be very useful. If you're not going to record the dream in full detail, don't bother. Sometimes the details you record at the time may seem meaningful, but they may have meaning to you later.

Originally Posted by JaphyR

It would be frustrating to do any of the more involved methods of inducing LD's if there's a significant chance you'll be interrupted. But you can always be ready for DILD's. Keep doing reality checks, keep paying attention to your dreams, and you will probably realize you're dreaming in the normal sleep that you get. Then when you have a more stable environment, you can play with other techniques.[/b]

^^ Good advice - this is also what I'd recommend.

I don't think doing bullet points would be very useful. If you're not going to record the dream in full detail, don't bother. Sometimes the details you record at the time may seem meaningful, but they may have meaning to you later.[/b]

I agree that recording dreams in full detail etches the dream in our memory more strongly than jotting a few quick notes about the dream. But when we are pressed for time and have only two options, write a few brief notes or nothing at all, I think there is value in the notes.

When I had poor dream recall, writing out my dreams in detail trained me to remember my dreams beyond the immediate waking period. After building reasonable recall, I find that writing brief comments jogs my memory so that later I can recall the dream itself. Recalling the dream itself allows me to recall details of the dream. Does this make sense? If it didn't work this way, we'd all be slaves to our detailed dream journals. As illustrated nicely by smilies! (The yellow guy is writing, not reading.)