I've been dedicated to this forum for many months now in my pursuit of the ever elusive lucid dream experience, and I am finally at my wit's end enough to post my story. Bare with me, please! I've had only ONE lucid experience in my 8+ months of obsession, and that little taste has given me enough inspiration to push on in my pursuit. But the more I read, the more I realize that at this point of reality checking and endless imagined scenarios I should be having a little more success.

What's especially odd is that I am a visual artist, and I LIVE to imagine dreamscapes, they come to me readily at a moment's notice and literally take my breath away in any waking state. My greatest strength is without a doubt my ability to manifest a visual reality out of a jumble of concepts and feelings, and to make it seamless- which seems to be the very nature of the dreamstate. So why is it that I cannot seem to master a task that is so inherently natural to me in my waking state?

Primary in my roadblocks is the current state of my brain chemistry, being that I am on anti-depressants to curb severe, lifelong depression/migraines and finding it literally impossible to hope for a normal life without them. On top of that, I am a daily marijuana user (small amounts using a vaporizer, if that matters) and have no desire to give up either of these "medications" at this time. Unfortunately, both of them seem to exhibit profound suppression of my REM sleep that I wish was somehow avoidable. Messing around with my doses to achieve more frequent REM sleep could have the unfortunate side effect of sending me into a complete emotional tailspin. On top of that, my ability to get to sleep and stay asleep has been deteriorating rapidly due to who knows what.

Thanks for letting me rant a little, I just want to be lucid SO BAD and I am sure you understand this desire. Especially when my reality is one I so desperately need to escape once in a while...