Failed LD. Why?

[Ranger85]

I have been attempting to get back into lucid dreaming and last night I gave it my first real try but it didn't work. Here is a run down of how it went so maybe someone can tell me what I did wrong. Note: I'm a newb to this in general so I will not be suprised if I did several things wrong, or even everything wrong. Ok here it is... First when I started up again I worked on dream recall. My first night I remembered no dreams at all. The second night I gave myself heavy commands to remember all my dreams and to wake up after them. It worked, that night I remembered large parts of 4 dreams. So the next night (last night) I decided to try inducing (first mistake?) I used a technique I found in the tutorial section where you get 5-6 hours sleep and wake up, spend a few minutes on DV use the bathroom and go back to bed. Just like it said I did that went back to bed and imagined what i wanted my dream to be and telling myself that I would dream and remember it trying to make the image more real (had no real success making it more real) in total I laid there for about 40 minutes. While laying there several things happened that I think may have contributed to the fail. 1. After a while i found the way I was laying made it so had to swallow. 2. After a while my father got up to get ready for work and while he wasn't loud I could definatly hear him walking around and such. 3. The tutorial tells you too imagine your dream scene and make it more real. Could that be too much thinking the allow you to fall asleep? After my father came downstairsi figured it was ruined so I stopped, RCed, and rolled over to go to sleep. But I think for some reason I tried again and after a while i started to feel vibrations all over, then they stopped. I thought it was the onset of sp so I kept trying. And I felt it again, this time I could see a bright light through just my left eyelid that seemed like it was getting closer, then it was gone. One more time i felt the vibrations and then nothing. I woke up in the morning not even remembering a single dream to write down. So do you think I failed because it was too soon to try, I made a mistake while inducing, it was simply a night when it didn't work, or all of the above? Also on a sidenote, is it a viable tecnique too wake up in the night and just go back too sleep doing something like counting breaths to keep my mind up? Any and all input welcome! (sorry for typos, this is being typed on my iPhone)

[Ranger85]

Do I smell or something? :-(

[Jeff777]

Hey Ranger As far as where you went wrong, I would say that for WBTB's, I would stay up for 30 min - 1 hour with the lights OFF. Do not allow any lights to enter into your sight so that your eyes won't have a chance to re-adjust to the light. That makes it that much harder to keep them still as you're drifting back off asleep. The major thing though, is that you just need to practice, practice, and practice. It's not so much a matter of "where you went wrong" as much as it is "how often are you practicing" and "how long have you been practicing?" Consistency and flexibility reward the seeker.

[Ranger85]

Hey, thank you first of all for replying lol. But thanks for your advice too. I have a few questions though about how to improve. Does having to swallow interupt the process? When you start to feel the vibrations and such, what do you do? Remain still and just keep counting or whatever? Now also you said that I should stay up for 30min or an hour after getting up. I go to bed at midnight and get up at 8. What would be a good time? Also if I attempt it in the afternoon is there any length of time after which it becomes hard or does it matter when? Thanks for any advice you may have!

[Mancon]

"When you start to feel the vibrations and such, what do you do? Remain still and just keep counting or whatever?" Remain still. Your body is wanting you to move to test if your still awake. If you dont move your body will go to sleep and your mind will till be awake then you will fade into a dream. As for the other questions I don't know. Heres a thread to get you started: http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=42271