My Obstacle That Needs to Be Defeated

[Techno]

I wasn't sure which board this should fit in, so I'll just post it in here for now. Anyway, this question of mine deals with pretty much everything else in this entire category, so I doubt it'll get moved anywhere for the time being. Well, since you can' diagnose the problem without looking at the symptoms, let me explain to you what I usually do when it comes to lucid dreams and dreaming in general. Everyday, for the past few days, I've been doing reality checks +15 times a day. Even the most average events that occur everyday will make me do a reality check; I even do an RC when I catch myself spacing out. During these past couple days, I've been doing this and this technique, except I don't use an alarm clock and I replace the B6 tablets from the second technique with a banana. When I go to sleep, I lay in bed for generally 30 minutes, waiting for sleep paralysis to take over. When it starts to happen, I don't usually do anything to break it, but an occasional yawn with come and go, making it stop at a certain point, than start again later. It's usually around the 40-minute that I look at the clock, move my body to break the paralysis, then relax again. In a few minutes, I'm out. When I dream, I'll dream some pretty surreal scenes, but they generally don't occur in locations that are beyond our current age unless I do something about it (there are few exceptions though). The problem is, I catch glimpses of lucidity during these first dreams, and then lose it again a couple minutes later. It's always after I lose lucidity that I doing cool things, like superpowers and whatnot. I wake up probably one or two times a night (because of my lucid dream), and then fall back asleep in a few minutes again. A few dreams here and there, then I wake up to start my day. I think that my numerous reality checks during my waking life are dulling my sense of lucidity in my dream life. I've come to the conclusion that because of this factor, I quickly catch lucidity in my dreams, than lose it again later. What I want to know is how to attain lucidity on my own, keep it for as long as I can (as long as I'd like is much better!), and practice my ability to display dream control while remaining lucid. Can anybody help me with this? If there's anything wrong with what I'm doing (consciously or subconsciously), can someone tell me? I'd like to get better at lucid dreaming, and help is appreciated. EDIT: I have a generally consistent sleeping pattern, and I am not a light sleeper of any sort. My dreams are quite vivid, and I remember them fairly well (I know more than just the bottom line of what happened). So, I doubt those are problems for me. Anyway, I just wanted to mention those quick facts. Also, I have been trying to get better at lucid dreaming for a little under a week now, and before then I had never had lucid dreams consistently for years. Hell, I couldn't even remember dreams from two nights in a row!

[Redrivertears]

Hey there, When I read my post, I cannot help but immediately think of three things: - You're too impatient - You're too eager - You're too hyper-sensitive Maybe I'm wrong, but going over your post, it seems to me like you want the skyrocket to instant lucidity, and everything else isn't good enough. In my experience it doesn't work like that. Lucid dreaming is about exploring your dreaming life. It takes time, it requires you to take an active interest in your *entire* dreaming life, and above all it requires you to find a good balance. Give it some time, a week is really nothing at all when it comes to lucid dreaming. Learn to appreciate and pay attention to all the dreamsensations. Ideally, you should be able to go to bed with a sort of 'yay, I can go dream again', mindset. Not with a 'ahh, now I have to lucid dream or it's a failure!' mindset. Find a balance between waking and dreaming. Don't exhaust your waking hours with so many different techniques and reality checks and what not that it becomes a chore. Don't be fooled by the myriad of posts here that promise instant garantued succes. Learning to lucid dream is a lifelong process. Just my 2 cents, -Redrivertears-

[polmc]

I agree with Redrivetears. Im not a great lucid dreamer, but I like to take my time and not force things, because this usually brings frustration. Stick to one or to techniques that suit you and the rest will come by itself in its due time.

[charlila]

i have no experience with your method of mastering lucidity - i used castaneda's (starting by finding my hands) so i don't know how it is - but i'm quite sure that all this relity checks induce sleeo paralysis. also: in my case, i'm seldom really lucid, and sometimes keep it for very short periods and go back to un-lucid dream - for security reasons: un-lucid dreams are far less dangerous. DCs - present or absent - (like "the old hugg") can't do much to you as long you are not lucid... look at your dreams and see: are there severe dangers awaiting you? your body knows the answer. if it's yes - don't try to be more lucid! but i do recomend you abandom the reality checks. instead make a very accurate affirmation to say aloud before you go to sleep. "i am a dreamer", (CCs sugestion) "i want to dream fully aware" (my own's) - whatever, put it in positive terms. do you know the 7 gates of dreaming (cc, "the art of dreaming"?) try those. good luck.

[Techno]

Redrivertears, wow. I never thought of it that way. Thanks for the good advice! But what I do wonder about is why I started to remember my dreams at such an incredible rate all of a sudden, but why lucidity happened at the most random of times. Actually, when I was lucid it didn't actually FEEL like I was lucid. I felt like I was stuck between lucidity and non-lucidity (sort of like you're drugged or something?). Polmc, thanks for the tip. Rushing = bad. why do you think that only one or two techniques are better than more? Charlila, I guess I might be doing too many reality checks. But too be honest I don't catch myself doing a reality check soon after I just did one. I seem to space them out a bit during the day.

[lucy]

I don't know if this is any help, but it sounds from your post that you are very into dream-control. Now, this is no bad thing of course, but from my experience, a much better way to prolong and stabilise lucidity once you gain it is to actually be very passive. Rather than trying to make things happen in the dream, just stop, control your excitement, maybe look at your hands or rub them together to calm yourself, then look round at the dream-world. Try to focus in on small details, and touch things, feel all the different textures, see if you can hear any sounds, etc. Once you have done all this, you should be much calmer, and then you can start trying to make things happen in the dream. Also, when you say you think perhaps your constant RCs may be dulling your sense of dreaming lucidity... maybe you should experiment with different RCs. What I try to do (and this perhaps isn't strictly an RC but I think of it as such) is to emulate a sense of 'waking lucidity' whenever it occurs to me to RC. It's hard to explain, but I deliberately bring on that peculiar feeling you get when you become lucid in a dream. I try to make myself feel that way, and then I look at the environment around me in a super-critical way, not just trying to see whether I'm dreaming or not but actually pretending that I'm dreaming. Then I try to make things happen, e.g. if I'm walking down the street and see someone, I try to make them vanish with sheer thought. Or I try to make things appear, or I will myself to fly (I do this all in my mind, no physical action, because if I was dreaming, no physical action would be required to do these things). When none of these things happen, I know I'm not dreaming, and I let go of the peculiar lucid feeling and go back to real life. I hope that makes sense. Basically, I do a RC where I assume that I am dreaming, and then try to prove that I'm not, rather than assuming that I'm awake and trying to prove that I'm dreaming. Hope some of that helps.