Thread: Xanous' Workbook

Originally Posted by Xanous

Yeah its just the SP has been throwing me off lately. But I guess I am learning to get around it.

Ahh, I don't think I've had true SP during my WILDs lately. But I do get really loud auditory hallucinations. All the banging and screaming and dragging soun are really creepy, but kinda cool too. :3 It's really hard to convince myself they're not real.

Originally Posted by paigeyemps

Ahh, I don't think I've had true SP during my WILDs lately. But I do get really loud auditory hallucinations. All the banging and screaming and dragging soun are really creepy, but kinda cool too. :3 It's really hard to convince myself they're not real.

Good God! What? lol. Bad neighborhood?

Nooo haha I meant the banging and screaming ARE the auditory hallucinations hehe

I am posting from my phone so I hope this looks right. I just had some thoughts.

VILD

VILD is having and effect on my dreaming. The first part is blank but I remember walking into my bedroom and seeing many family mostly my wife's side. They were all there but didn't give me a lucid party. My dead grandfather was there as well but I didn't DILD. I later wanted to sleep and tried to WILD in the dream and had really odd SP. It felt like my whole body was jerking and twitching. I got up because I thought everyone could see me and I was embarrassed.

Attention focus

I DILD but let it go because I was so focused on a task. In waking life I hate interruptions so it carried over in my dream. I should work on this in waking life. Perhaps interprions can be useful.

I didn't have the greatest of nights last night. My recall was fairly low for some reason and my awareness was way off. I just felt too mentally tired to even make myself record dreams during the night. I attempted VILD and a DEILD but I had no focus. Maybe a night off was a good thing.

Short goals for next lucid:

Make black fire in my hands.
Speak to my higher self.
Headless TOTM.

Xanous,
The VILD technique seems to be working somewhat with my dreams. It didnt work the way I expected but I think it could work as a really effective tool for incubation. I will be using it in the coming days so ill keep you posted.

Originally Posted by Chimpertainment

Xanous,
The VILD technique seems to be working somewhat with my dreams. It didnt work the way I expected but I think it could work as a really effective tool for incubation. I will be using it in the coming days so ill keep you posted.

Very cool. I was briefly lucid the 3 nights I really concentrated on it. And got the basic TOTM the first night. Although, I should mention I had a moderate amounts of alcohol those nights so that might be a factor. It didn't turn out the way it was in my VILD but I did get some elements in my non lucids. How many times do you go through the dream? I only do it like 3 or 4 times and then I get bored. I am going to try and make an effort to double that tonight. Though I am not sure if counting would be a distraction. Also, how much detail do you put into it? I think of it like I am recalling a dream so I try to put act much detail without trying too hard.

Yeah for sure let me know if you get any new results. I'll keep you updated on my progress and we can compare notes.

I try to go through a couple times, fleshing things out each time. Ya know, adding detail and such. Doing it some more will give me the opportunity to exercise that passive creation as well. I think that will really help.
Awesomeness!

I don't have much DV time tonight but I wanted to update a bit. I am getting bored with VILD. Last night my mind wanted to wonder too much. Face come easily during HI so I always end up just picturing all the faces of friends and family telling me that I am dreaming. Also, I kept day dreaming about what I want to do in my next lucid, conjuring dark black fire. I had a dream about a sword like this awhile back and I have been fascinated with the concept ever since. I can't even find a google image to do it justice. Anyway, VILD gets so boring after a while that I kind of reluctantly do it. I figure that's not helpful.

So tonight I will give it a break and focus on DEILD and hope that SP does not excite me like a teenage boy in a Victoria's Secret store. Usually I mantra at bed time and WBTB to wake up after a dream and hold still. I usually remember but almost always lose recall. I am ok with that if I gain a lucid. At any rate I need to get my DEILDing back on track and I figure its worth the practice. I always feel DILDs are just to chancy. I feel like I roll dice each night hoping for snake eyes.

Anyways, I'm done for the night. I got my girls to spend time with then it's bed time.

Good luck with the DEILD, Xanous! Or whichever way gets you lucid.

(don't forget the PB! I got mine out and ready to go )

So I had a few ideas while cycling today. BTW that does wonders for a bad mood.

Firstly, I get really bored with constant RCs and RRC Awareness. I decided to add to the mix. I am sure someone does it already but I thought about practicing dream control during waking life and see it anything happens. I quickly found that it's a great way to use my imagination and be a more entertaining RC.

Second, I was thinking about the "uphill meditation" I mentioned in an earlier post. I realized that I do better staying calm under stressful, frightning and/or difficult situations better than I do with things that excite me in a more positive way. I need to learn to curb my emotions in all things.

How does this apply to dreaming? I am still having issues with vibration excitement. I am getting better but its still a problem. The thing is this SP vibration used to spontaneously happen to me when I was a teenager and continued into adulthood. It was a frightening experience and I thought something evil had control over me. Which let to demonic posession dreams and things of that nature. Later, after discovering lucid dreaming, I learned that this noise, the paralysising vibrations, could actually be ridden out and become a gateway into a lucid dream. I quickly learned to just relax and let go. Over time I began to enjoy the experience and look forward to as I knew I could easily enter a dream. On top of that DEILDs could be done almost on command if I could time it right upon wakening. This was very exciting and I was WILDly successful (get the pun? eh never mind).

Because of this I have the exact problem with SP vibration but in reverse. Sageous tells me its just noise and I guess I am gradually learning that. But can I beat the excitement the same way I beat the fear? Sure, but the real question is how?

Lastly, my routine is changing with this line of thought. I will continue various awareness, rc, rrc, waking dream control and mix it up to keep in fun and interesting. I think I will drop the V/MILD and hope for the randon DILD. But my main focus will be WILD/DEILD until I beat this. It may take me few weeks/months/years whatever but I will do it. The quest for lucidity is a life long en devour and I will try to not rush things. I think once I get over this hurdle a door will open up to new and exciting things in the dream world and possibly the waking world.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that with everyone and also log it for my own records. And of course I am always open to constructive criticism and ideas.

Hmm, what things do you do specifically for the dream control RCs, if I may ask? That's a neat idea I do some "magic RCs". I try to shoot fireballs out of my hands, or make thinfs levitate for reality checks. You're right, they are way funner than normal physical RCs!

As for the WILD sensations (i got the pun btw ha-ha), Sageous is correct. I used to think of my vibrations as SP aspects too, but soon realized they were just..sensations as I'm falling asleep. I'm guessing the excitement during the vibrations wakes you up? Not sure if this will help, but when I start getting those sensations, I try to visualize and focus on the dream more than ever, because I find that if I focus on something mental, the physical is slowly drowned out. The more I think about how I feel about the sensations, the more I get "awake" so to speak.

Woopteedoo! I'd follow you on twitter, but I don't use it anymore haha c:

Originally Posted by paigeyemps

Hmm, what things do you do specifically for the dream control RCs, if I may ask? That's a neat idea I do some "magic RCs". I try to shoot fireballs out of my hands, or make thinfs levitate for reality checks. You're right, they are way funner than normal physical RCs!

More like expectation. I expect something or someone to appear behind a tree. Or I look into the sky and expect a UFO to fly out of the clouds. Mostly just things I know work because it has happened in a dream before.

Originally Posted by paigeyemps

As for the WILD sensations (i got the pun btw ha-ha), Sageous is correct. I used to think of my vibrations as SP aspects too, but soon realized they were just..sensations as I'm falling asleep. I'm guessing the excitement during the vibrations wakes you up? Not sure if this will help, but when I start getting those sensations, I try to visualize and focus on the dream more than ever, because I find that if I focus on something mental, the physical is slowly drowned out. The more I think about how I feel about the sensations, the more I get "awake" so to speak.

Woopteedoo! I'd follow you on twitter, but I don't use it anymore haha c:

Yes it wakes me up. I haven't had strong vibrations in awhile but when I get there I plan to do what you suggest. Then again sometimes I get no vibrations and that really throws me off. This morning I re-entered a dream but was non-lucid because first of all everything went white instead of black and then there were no vibes at all. I was really trying to stabilize the LD but I lost my focus really fast. I guess you have to be ready for anything! Like Mad Eye always said, "Constant Vigilance!"

Alright, so I am getting back to normal. Chimpertainment and I talked about incubating the sky dream sign last night in chat. So during my WBTB I wanted to WILD but I sort of turned it into M/WILD. Sageous' class teaches about mantras in WILD and I usually exclude it but this time I thought about the sky for a while and used the mantra "Look at the sky" then I went to counting (thanks paigey). I got to 10 on the third time. I guess I failed the WILD part but I found myself doing a water color painting of the sky. Of course the paint didn't cooperate but it was a really cool and vivid abstract painting in the begining. A dim memory sprang up that I was WILDing and now "I am looking at the sky" I hit SP and thank God I was calm for once. I transitioned out of my body and became lucid. It wasn't the best of lucids but I did get to try some dream control methods I read about. I will do a proper blog in my DJ later today.

Hot damn, that is one exciting post! There's a whole bunch of good stuff in here that I want to unpack.

First of all, of course congratulations on the lucid via M/V/WILD/whatever you did there! You kind of had elements of everything going on and the whole thing sounds like it worked great. I know that VILD was partially working for you to incubate bits and pieces in your dreams but it seems like this technique got you the closest yet. Do you think it's because you incubated something that is a usual dream sign for you? Or do you think it's down to something else mechanical that you did here vs. when you were using VILD? Edit: You mentioned that Chimpertainment had the idea of incubating the dream sign and I know that he's been having good results with dream incubation lately. I'd love to hear his thoughts.

I'll also need to re-read what paigeyemps suggested about counting during WILD. I've been using counting to try to fall asleep as fast as possible with my MILD mantra still going. It's interesting that the same technique can work both for going to sleep and maintaining awareness during WILD.

I also like that even though awareness wasn't perfectly preserved during WILD, enough of you was still there to hit the mnemonic trigger you needed to regain your lucidity. This seems like a great way to get the best of the numbers game we're playing in trying to give ourselves as many opportunities as possible to become lucid.

Looking forward to hearing more about this LD!

Well Thanks! I don't have time right now. We got church, but I will answer that later today when I get a chance to make a proper DJ entry. I just got notes on my phone for now. I will have to digest everything that happened and get back to your question.

Anyway, I wanted to add that I was able to do the exact same thing for the second time this morning. While I was posting my son woke up and I was up with him about 3 hours or so. It took me awhile to go back to sleep. My wife interrupted me once. I was able to go back into SP using the same tech but I don't remember and non lucid incubation I feel like something triggered it though. I had an ass ton of vivid HI all the time I was just going through scenes of the sky until something got "REAL" then it threw me into SP. I DEILD chained a few times and was able to avoid a FA. The LD was weak but I was trying new things so it wasn't a waste. When I woke up for real I smiled at her like an idiot and she looked at me like I was crazy. I had to explain myself. We got to talking and she said it was only 20min that I was laying there since she talked me. I think that is a good sign that it was WILDish at least.

I just now posted a very thorough account in my dream journal if you want to check it out.

Read your DJ, you're kickin ass.

So true. HAHA!

I put more detailed comments on your DJ entry, but I want to say again this was some great DEILD work! What a night.

I am going to give some serious thought to your "jiu-jitsu" style of using DEILD to just roll with awakenings without wasting a bunch of energy resisting. I fight awakenings like I'm wrestling a bear and then when I do wake up, I have the heart rate and breathing of... a dude that's been in a wrestling match with a bear.

I'm more convinced than ever that you have to keep DEILD in your repertoire. The mindset you've been searching for is back. Very good!!

Thanks. Yeah, I will try to stabilize with all my might, but sometimes you just know you are waking up and you can't stop it. Its best to relax and wait it out. Those FA's are damn convincing though. Anyway, whatever I did, I am very pleased I can get through the SP vibrations again. I think I just kept telling myself that it wasn't a big deal and it finally sunk in.

So my recall is way down. Seems like when I wake up and start remembering the dream I get too sleepy and fall back to sleep before I can record anything. For some reason I have been really struggling to recall my NLDs. I have to think backwards from the last thought, emotion, or image and really dig at it. I should probably start up the waking journal again. It's really effective, but I don't like taking the time because it can get boring.

Also my WBTB have been getting up, going to the bathroom, maybe a B6 and/or glass of water. I lay down and do my mantra incubation a few times with minimal visualization and the next thing I know its alarm clock time.

I think I am just too tired. I didn't exactly get enough sleep last weekend. The baby is sleeping through the night now with is awesome, but I haven't been getting to bed early enough; plus we are up an hour early now. 10PM - 5AM when we are used to 9PM-6AM Hopefully I can adjust or just get to bed earlier.

It's good for me to pinpoint problem areas or I start thinking that I am losing my dream abilities. HA! Nope its just lack of sleep, but it's all good.

Ahh yes probably just sleep deprivation. If it persists any further, I suggest taking a day off from any dreaming-related attempts. It's always good to let the body adjust and do its thing when it needs to. Also, most people get instant lucids on the most unexpected times!

Yeah, I think you're exactly right. I've been under 7 hours for a few nights in a row and like you, I can feel it catching up to me. I don't know what your experiences are like, but virtually all of my lucid dreams are during the longest stretch of REM during the 8th or 9th hour of sleep. If I miss those, my chances of lucidity and vivid recall are much lower.

If you can't quite face the waking journal right now, one substitute that works all right for me is to frequently review the previous hour or two during the day. Whenever it occurs to me, I'll quickly run through an ultra-fast daydream of what I did the last couple of hours. This has tended to help my dream recall a bit and it has the added bonus of potential getting you lucid if the habit occurs to you in-dream.

Another happy thought that melanieb mentioned to me once is that when you go through a time where your sleep schedule is irregular, when you finally get that good night's sleep, you might experience some sweet REM rebound. She actually considers her irregular sleep schedule an asset for her lucid dreaming, a positive attitude that I found remarkably comforting.