Caenis' Workbook

Short term goals:
Increase awareness
Use mantras more effectively
Successfully use WBTB
Increase awareness/lucidity in dreams
Stabilize next lucid dream

Long term goals:
Be aware all day (ADA)
Have a lucid dream once a week
Experiment with dream sharing
Experiment with time dilation

RC: I completed 4-6 reality checks today, poking my palm with my finger and then counting my fingers. A couple times throughout the day I also tried to become more aware of my surroundings, noticing the sights, sounds, and my own movements.

Hello and welcome :) What method do you plan on focusing on?

Thanks for the reminder, fOrceez.

I'm currently using MILD/DILD. I'm trying to remember to use mantras while I'm falling asleep. I've also been easing into using ADA.

While I'm in this class, I'll focus on:
DILD/MILD (including mantras)
ADA
WBTB

I've had one LD with my current method, so I'll be focusing on improving my awareness and using WBTB.

As for today's update, I did about 6 RCs, finger in the palm and counting my fingers. I have been double and triple checking clocks. Continued attempts at ADA. I had two dreams today, but had very poor recall for both of them.

I woke up this morning after about 4.5 hours of sleep, my dream had just ended. It was a perfect opportunity to try WBTB, so I wrote down the dream I just had and went on DV for a while. I wound up staying up for about two hours, and couldn't fall asleep after that. Whoops. Probably didn't help that I slept about 10-11 hours yesterday. I'll try WBTB again tonight if I'm not too tired.

I questioned the events in my dream twice this morning, which is an improvement. If I question my dream at all, it's usually only once a dream.
1. I was a transgendered lady in my dream, but I had a child. I questioned if it was possible for me to give birth, when my original sex was male. Then I decided if it was not my child, it must have been my sister's that I was raising as my own.
2. I was with my family, but I didn't recognize them physically. I knew it was weird, but the dream continued on and I forgot about my skepticism.

I did about a dozen RCs today. Poking my palm with my finger and counting my fingers, then triple checking clock times.
To increase my awareness, I have been reminding myself of what I am doing currently and why. I have also been thinking about the sequence of events in my day.

Excellent! Questioning things in your dreams is a great improvement, that daily awareness WILL be very beneficial to your lucid dreaming. Once you keep it up for a long amount of time, even sporadically (but frequently), it is going to get you lots and lot of lucid dreams. Keep it up, mate!
Also, if you decide to do a WBTB, instead of doing general awareness, RC, question your reality, RC, etc etc. That will almost guarantee you a DILD/MILD if you are in the right mindset. :)

Thanks fOrceez. I'll remember to RC and question my reality more later today when I do WBTB again. I need to remember to question reality and RC more when I first wake up.

I managed to do my WBTB earlier, I used my alarm to wake me up this time. I slept for about six hours though, so I think tonight I'll try to get four and a half or five hours of sleep instead of six. I stayed up for about 40 minutes, and performed a few RCs. Went back to bed, trying the mantras again. I couldn't remember any full dreams, just dream fragments.

I performed about a dozen RCs again today. I focus on poking my hand and counting my fingers, but I have started to do the nose plug and flipping light switches as well. I had some multivitamins laying around, so I took one earlier this evening. I'll see if that helps make my dream more vivid tonight.

I have kept a physical dream journal since early March, so in the past two months, I have noticed these dream signs. I am classifying major dream signs as DCs/objects that are seen in almost every dream. I define minor dream signs as being seen once every week or two on average. Items are listed according to to the frequency I have seen them.

Major Dream Signs:

• House/Family - Most commonly seen relatives are my sister and father
• School/Friends - Most commonly seen are college friends

Minor Dream Signs:

• Water - Often pools, waterfalls, or rain
• Fiancé
• Driving, or being in a car
• Non-fiancé intimacy - May be emotional or sexual, my fiancé does not exist in these dreams
• My pet pig, or a group of pigs
• Bathrooms
• Computer Screen - Usually no more than a screen, I can interact with the screen without touching anything. There is no keyboard, and I can usually see nothing but the screen.

Generally the same RCs today as yesterday. I woke up this morning to do WBTB, but I was sleepy and lazy and fell back asleep soon after. Before waking up for my WBTB my dreams were fragmented, but after the WBTB I had a relatively clear dream. No moments of awareness or control though. The multivitamin also did not seem to help, though I wound up taking it three hours before I went to sleep. I'll probably eat a banana tonight if I get the chance.

I'll be offline/scarce until Saturday, but I'll post my updates and dreams when I return.

Well hurry up and return already.. it's Saturday!! :P

Okay, so I'm posting Sunday instead of Saturday. Whoops!

So let's see. The 26th and 27th my RCs were generally the same. I did about 8 each day. I've been utilizing the nose plug RC more frequently lately after poking my palm and counting my fingers. Being in the car is a dream sign I see about twice a week, so I have been trying to have more moments of awareness while driving, and questioning reality while being the passenger. I have been placing a dot on the back of my hand to remind me to RC when I'm around friends/family as well. In addition, while on my laptop, I am diverting my eyes away from the screen more often to look at the machine as a whole, since I only ever see computer screens in dreams.

WBTBs have been unsuccessful for the past three nights. The first two nights I was not in my house and had a little difficulty sleeping, and last night I was very tired from the prior nights of unsound sleep. I woke up two of the three nights naturally, but was too tired to remain awake for long. I had a mix of dream fragments and non-lucid dreams in the past few days. I expect my dream recall to become better again now that I am home.

RCs and questioning reality has been a little lax today, but I still did it about 6 times, mostly when with my family.

I ate half of a banana about half an hour ago. I'll be going to bed soon, so hopefully that will improve my dreams vividness.

Sunday instead of Saturday? Unforgivable - 10 points from Slytherin. As for WBTBs, I would recommend questioning your reality as soon as you wake up until the very end of your WBTB. Good luck with your recall! By the way, i'm not sure how you sleep; but make sure you keep all worries aside. "Let sleep take you" as if you're in a meditation. Don't be thinking about 10,000 things at once while going to sleep, it really screws recall/lucidity for me.

Hooray for bananas! :banana::banana::banana:

apple juice>banana

..it tastes better!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Caenis

I have kept a physical dream journal since early March, so in the past two months, I have noticed these dream signs. I am classifying major dream signs as DCs/objects that are seen in almost every dream. I define minor dream signs as being seen once every week or two on average. Items are listed according to to the frequency I have seen them.

Major Dream Signs:

• House/Family - Most commonly seen relatives are my sister and father
• School/Friends - Most commonly seen are college friends

Minor Dream Signs:

• Water - Often pools, waterfalls, or rain
• Fiancé
• Driving, or being in a car
• Non-fiancé intimacy - May be emotional or sexual, my fiancé does not exist in these dreams
• My pet pig, or a group of pigs
• Bathrooms
• Computer Screen - Usually no more than a screen, I can interact with the screen without touching anything. There is no keyboard, and I can usually see nothing but the screen.

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You have a pet pig? How cool is that :D What kind of pig is it?

I got my fingers crossed for you killer :)

Opheliablue:
Thanks for the encouragement. :)

fOrceez:
I much prefer the taste of apple juice, but drinking before bed either keeps me up, or makes me wake up three or four times to take a piss. I take about 20 minutes to fall asleep, and somehow that's enough time for beverages to run into my bladder.

I've been trying to use the mantras as a sort of meditation, but it's difficult to focus only on the mantras. I can't help but think. Being exhausted helps cut down on the amount of thoughts. Dream recall seems pretty stable currently: I remembered one dream and a dream fragment yesterday, and two full dreams today. After eating the banana, I didn't notice a significant difference in dream vividness. I'll be eating half a banana tonight too to continue the experiment. I will also try to maintain my awareness during my next WBTB.

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Originally Posted by Chicken

You have a pet pig? How cool is that What kind of pig is it?

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Vietnamese Pot-bellied pig. His name is Hamlet. He doesn't live with us anymore, my parents are paying for him to stay at a farm currently. So...I guess he's not really ours anymore, but I still consider him family. He was our pet for 14 or 15 years. We visit him sometimes. He's an angry pig, but I wouldn't want him any other way.

As for today's update, I was very good about RCing while with my family, and having moments of awareness. Lots of hand poking, finger counting and nose plugging. Maybe about a dozen times, I should really start counting these things. I also flip switches from time to time and notice the effects. I did a WBTB last night, I wrote down my dream, did some more RCs and tried to be a little aware. I was up for about 40 minutes overall.

Fortunately, so long as I'm not exhausted, WBTBs seem pretty easy for me, even natural. I set an alarm just in case, but since my dream recall has improved, I usually wake up after 4-5 hours with a dream fresh in my head. It also gives me an excuse to write down my first dream before going back to sleep, so it becomes much more likely for me to remember two dreams in one night.

I have written all of my dreams from the past few nights. I've been busy, so it's hard to type them all up. I'll put them all in my DJ tomorrow though. Thanks for the patience.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Caenis

I've been trying to use the mantras as a sort of meditation, but it's difficult to focus only on the mantras. I can't help but think. Being exhausted helps cut down on the amount of thoughts. Dream recall seems pretty stable currently: I remembered one dream and a dream fragment yesterday, and two full dreams today. After eating the banana, I didn't notice a significant difference in dream vividness. I'll be eating half a banana tonight too to continue the experiment. I will also try to maintain my awareness during my next WBTB.

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Yeah, it is surprising how hard it can be to just focus on one thing. The "trick" is to not give up. You'll definitely get better at it, and i'm sure you'll be happy with the progress :D

That is sooo cool :D I have a pet sheep myself, she lives at a petting zoo where I work every wednesday. She is hand raised because her mother didn't want her so she is really used to people, espacially the people who fed her and plays with her. She is 7 months old now and really big (she is a large breed) but when I let her out of her stable she will run after me and do the silliest jumps like she is a baby lamb. As you probably can tell, I love her very much!

I won't give up, fOrceez! I see encouraging signs every now and then, so at least I can see some progress.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chicken

That is sooo cool :D I have a pet sheep myself, she lives at a petting zoo where I work every wednesday. She is hand raised because her mother didn't want her so she is really used to people, espacially the people who fed her and plays with her. She is 7 months old now and really big (she is a large breed) but when I let her out of her stable she will run after me and do the silliest jumps like she is a baby lamb. As you probably can tell, I love her very much!

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:) That's nice. You're lucky that your sheep is affectionate and playful. Must be cool to work at a petting zoo. I have a great admiration for fat animals, so it wouldn't be good for me to work at a place like that. I'd overfeed all the animals.

I've been trying to maintain awareness for longer periods of time today. I performed about 10 RCs again today. I'll be experimenting with VILD this week, as I think it will be easier for me to do the mantras while visualizing a scene. My first LD was from mantas and a VILD, so I want to see if the VILD had helped me, or if it was a coincidence. I had been trying to incubate a dream that incorporated a RC, but didn't realize it was considered a VILD.

I ate half a banana yesterday, and I didn't notice a big change in vividness. Once we have ripe bananas, I'll try a full one before bed. I did a WBTB, but I didn't stay up for very long. I was too tired to stay out of bed for long. I didn't bother writing my dream down either, but I thought about it for a while. I remembered most of it later in the morning, so I was still able to write it down. I shouldn't be so lazy.

I noticed something in my dream from a few nights ago. I had difficulty doing a math problem in my head. Granted, it was something like 178/1253, but I didn't even try to estimate the percentage. I just gave up. In prior dreams, I've found it difficult or impossible to visualize and count. I contemplating include visualization and math as part of my RC/awareness routine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Caenis

I won't give up, fOrceez! I see encouraging signs every now and then, so at least I can see some progress.


:) That's nice. You're lucky that your sheep is affectionate and playful. Must be cool to work at a petting zoo. I have a great admiration for fat animals, so it wouldn't be good for me to work at a place like that. I'd overfeed all the animals.

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LOL :lol: Most off the animals are already too fat!

I have trouble with some basic cognitive skills in my LDs as well. In my dreams in general. I just kinda balled it up with device failure in general. Brains count as devices right?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Caenis

I have a great admiration for fat animals, so it wouldn't be good for me to work at a place like that. I'd overfeed all the animals.

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Haha when I first read that, I thought you were leading up to the fact that you wanted to eat them.

Quote:

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I had some multivitamins laying around, so I took one earlier this evening. I'll see if that helps make my dream more vivid tonight.

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If the vitamin didn't help much at first with your recall and vividness, I totally encourage you to take it every night before bed for a week, then make your decision to take it or not after 7-10 of taking it. I take a vitamin as well, and it took a week of taking it every night for it to really start working on my dreams, but it upped my recall from 1 dream a night to at least 3 or 4. On the bright side, skipping it a night every now and then there's no big change. It usually takes not taking it for three or four days for the effect to wear off. It may not work for you, but as long as it's not hurting anything, it's worth giving it a good try!

You're a lucky lady, Chicken. I hope you're enjoying the fat animals. Frankly, I like fat animals because they're cute. Round, squishy, and they waddle.

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Originally Posted by OpheliaBlue

I have trouble with some basic cognitive skills in my LDs as well. In my dreams in general. I just kinda balled it up with device failure in general. Brains count as devices right?

Haha when I first read that, I thought you were leading up to the fact that you wanted to eat them.

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Heh, nah, I enjoy eating all sorts of animals, but not friends.

You make a good point. It's not so much that the brain is a device, but that it doesn't work the way you'd expect it to work.

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Originally Posted by Mydera

If the vitamin didn't help much at first with your recall and vividness, I totally encourage you to take it every night before bed for a week, then make your decision to take it or not after 7-10 of taking it. I take a vitamin as well, and it took a week of taking it every night for it to really start working on my dreams, but it upped my recall from 1 dream a night to at least 3 or 4. On the bright side, skipping it a night every now and then there's no big change. It usually takes not taking it for three or four days for the effect to wear off. It may not work for you, but as long as it's not hurting anything, it's worth giving it a good try!

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Right, right, forgot about the vitamin. Thanks for the reminder, Mydera. I'll have to see if I can manage taking them, my current vitamins are huge. It's no wonder I didn't take them when I bought them. If these don't work out, I'll see if I can just find a smaller pill. Or stick with bananas. I'm glad that the vitamin worked so well for you. :)

As for today, not much to report on. I had a dream where I had breasts. I looked at them and thought they were out of place, but then continued with the dream. :roll: I woke up for WBTB, but fell back asleep immediately. I've been too lax about that.

VILD didn't work last night either, but I only started thinking about it before bed. Today I have been thinking about the scene I'm incubating throughout the day, so hopefully that'll improve my chances at succeeding with VILD tonight.

I used to miss lucidity opportunities when switching genders in my dreams too. Or sometimes, like you said, just a part of me became the opposite sex. And I just thought it was normal too. After several years though, it became so recurring in my dreams that it actually helped me get lucid.

Anyway, best of luck with the vitamins and VILDs Caenis!

Thanks Ophelia. I think the vitamin might be helping. I've been taking it the past three nights, and I had a dream this morning that was longer than usual and more vivid. Most of the colors were still subdued, but the dream was very detailed. Unfortunately, I decided to hop on Skype while writing my dream down, and forgot some of the details while chatting with my fiancée. I was very disappointed. I'll keep taking the vitamin though and see if I continue to have more vivid dreams. :)

Wednesday and Thursday mornings I did the WBTB and VILD, but I had a lot of dream fragments. This morning I forgot about VILD and WBTB, but I did remember a long detailed dream. Since I had a lot of dream fragments over the past few days, I didn't see much point in writing anything down in my DJ.

So not much to report on currently. I've been making a list of stuff I want to do in LDs to help my motivation--flying, owning a horde of pigs, creating epic facial hair--a lot of minor stuff that could be cool to do in a dream.