What was your experience when first starting out?

Of course I was psyched when I had a lucid dream about 4 days ago (before I joined these forums) but since then I've done tons of "dream checks" over the past couple days... I've been reading about LDing tons... I started a dream journal last night...

Not a single dream remembered! When I woke up this morning, the only thing I found written in my journal was this:

"Was afraid it was 12 O'clock, and I had overslept for classes. - 8:35AM"

Does that even count as a dream? O_o With all the dream checks and such I've been doing... You would think that I'd at least remember a dream or something!

It almost seems like attempting to LD has disrupted my sleep patterns... and that I wake up more during the night.

I VAGUELY remember falling into sleep repeating the "Am I dreaming?" Mantra and starting to visualize what was turning into dreams... but then I lost focus/consciousness and don't remember a thing.

Thoughts?... Advice?.... What was your experience when you first started out? I've gotten 7-10 hours of sleep for the past 4 days.

You say that you wake up more during the night. For most people, that means waking immediately after (or during) a dream, and you can usually remember it best right then -- that's when you want to recall as much as possible and write it down in your journal.

And in fact, I think that waking up during the night is helpful to lucid dreaming. The "WBTB" method is the only one that I've had much success with. The trick is getting yourself relaxed enough to go back to sleep after you've had some sleep and then been up for a bit.

Also, remember that other things in your life will affect your ability to sleep, dream, and lucid dream. If you've had a stressful day, sometimes it's better to just try to get some sleep rather than trying to lucid dream -- there's always tomorrow.

Keep at it, I'm sure your recall will improve. One thing that seems to be common among newcomers here is impatience -- it takes time and practice to get this stuff right. Don't allow yourself to get frustrated. You've already had a LD, so you know that you can do it -- it's just a matter of training yourself to do it when you want to. I've been practicing this stuff for several months, and although my LDs are getting more frequent, they're still rather sporadic and my dream control is usually only fair.

I am definately dedicated to this for a while.

I'm going to try it before I pass judgement on the thing, it just seems like trying to do something when I'm barely conscious anyway would be hard.

This is the guy that remembers like 6 dreams from his entire life.... and only because of how vivid/frightening/awesome they were (and probably because of how I woke up)... I remember I didn't have a single dream recall all of my senior year in highschool. Granted I didn't get a lot of sleep... but MAN... not one? I wish I could remember them easlily like some people on here. It makes it all that much harder since I have 2 friends that naturally lucid dream on a nightly basis and think nothing of it.

Well, it definitely comes easier for some than others. I guess I fall in the in-between category -- some nights my recall is awesome without really trying, other nights I'll tell myself over and over that I'll wake up after my dream and remember it, and I'll get almost nothing. But I will say that the more I practice and journal, the better my recall gets. I just tend to let life get in the way and get lazy about journaling.

Granted, it can be difficult to shake the cobwebs out of your head at 2am (enough to write something down) without forgetting your dream, but again I find that the more I try to do it the better I get.

And remember, your longest and most vivid dreams will happen after you've had enough sleep to really rest your mind, usually 4-6 hours, so if you weren't getting enough sleep in your senior year, that could go a long way toward explaining the lack of recall.

Yeah.. I suppose. I really hope it works!

For example, I just took a 20 minute power nap to re-energize me befoer I go to workout. I don't know if I was dreaming or just beginning to dream, but I remember my mind was at least rolling over something generally interesting and somewhat vivid... When my alarm went of it's like BAM, I get up, then I quickly laid back down to try to recall the thoughts I was having.... But it was as if they were wiped from my mind the moment the alarm woke me up.

I think it could have something to do with the fact that I use a music alarm.... but I have to. If I use the beeper alarm... I just turn it off and go back to sleep. With a music alarm, I sort of enjoy it and wake up slowly and I guess my brain listens to the words...

Do any of you use music alarms and still recall your dreams?... I'm ADD so maybe that could have something to do with my forgetting so easily.

I do use a music alarm for waking up in the morning, but I don't just lie there and listen to it. I either hit snooze, or get up. And anyway, my best recall occurs when I wake up on my own, without any external stimulus. That's why, if I'm intent on journaling, I will repeat to myself as I'm first going to bed at night "I am going to wake up following a dream, and I'm going to remember the dream". This almost always causes me to awaken after a sleep cycle or two (whether I remember anything or not). Then I can journal my dream, have something to drink, use the restroom, maybe read DV a little bit, and be ready to go back to bed, this time repeating "I am going to become lucid in my dream, and have control over my dream". I've been able to have 1-3 LDs per week doing this, if I do it consistently -- but like I said, I do tend to slack off, especially when things are getting stressful in real life.

Quote:

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Originally posted by TygrHawk
And anyway, my best recall occurs when I wake up on my own, without any external stimulus.

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I totally agree.. waking up on my own and laying quietly in place helps me to remember most of my dreams. When I awake via an alarm, it's as though the shock of the sound erases all dream memories.

REmember, try to remember the exact details of the dream when you wake - before you even move.