Thread: bliddyo's workbook

Alright, let's start on this.

I've only taken a more formal approach to Lucid Dreaming recently, and ot do that I've set a couple things up to help: I've started a dream journal to get my recall up, I occasionally listen to Subliminals (been doing Subliminals for years, but it didn't necessarily work )
I have two Reality checks: putting my finger through my palm, and breathing through my nose whilst clamping it down. The problem is remembering to do the things: I'm thinking of putting a set of alarms on my phone so I do more regular checks.

I normally go to bed around 10PM.

My goals at present are to boost my dream recall, have longer dreams, and ultimately move toward lucidity.

If I do have a Lucid dream, I wish to swim underwater for a while, explore the Solar System, and visit a fantasy world.

Hey blyddio! Welcome to the Intro Class!

You mentioned that you go to bed at 10pm. So I'm just curious, what time do you wake up ordinarily?

Hi there.

to the class!

I know how you feel bout reality checks. You can try putting a rubber band on your wrist, and RC everytime you see it. It might work for you?

Good luck, and see ya around

Thanks guys.

I'm not absolutely certain as to when I get up, but I'm normally an early riser (dead on 6:30AM for argument's sake). Do you reckon I should go earlier (REM cycles and that)?

No that's pretty good, 8 hours. If you wanted to try a WBTB after 4 or 6 hours and you don't wake up naturally after that amount of time, you could set your alarm for about 4am or so.

I might be making progress. Not much, but still some progress. I'm beginning to remember dreams better. I think the time may come where I'll choose a technique to practice. If it's WBTB, I'll need to put effort into getting up at the time. If it's DILD, I need to be more observant in my dreams.

The frustrating thing is that even with weird dreams (crosses between worms and squirrels, and other oddities), I fail to notice that it can only occur in dreams Maybe it's to do with my reality-check routine. I'll have to see.

Remember that when you practice WBTB that it's not a technique by itself and won't have an affect if all you do is wake up for a while and go back to sleep. It needs to be coupled with either MILD or WILD.

Also, I've found that for me personally and a lot of other people I've spoken to that becoming lucid in the really whacky dreams is rare. I'm going to assume it's something to do with how involved you get in the story. One way to try and combat this is attach some self-awareness onto your reality checks. Simply question "What was I doing 10 minutes?" and recount all your actions. Another good method is whenever you experience a scene transition in waking life, like walking through a door, you can ask yourself "Is the scene I've transitioned into logical?".

A couple quirks to my approach to lucid dreams coming up: when I use a particular subliminal programme, one to Increase Dream Remembering, it's mostly effective, as in that when I go to bed, having listened to it, I remember a couple more dream fragments (if I'm lucky, a whole dream). Normally, every week, I remember two dreams/fragments. Four, at best.

I've decided that I'd like to try MILD (Mnemonically Induced Lucid Dream), after watching a particular video by slash112 (brilliant tutorial)

Yeah slash's tutorials are awesome. Let us know how the MILD works for you!

Looks like it's time for an update, guys.

It's not going well: dream recall doesn't improve unless I use the subliminal (I'm afraid of becoming dependent on it), the sub. recording I use that's supposed to help LD doesn't work (might be something to do with the fact I've only listened to it before going to bed. Should I listen throughout the day, to incubate?), and whenever I try MILD, I lose determination after about 25+ reps of "I will remember to do a reality check" (also done before bed. I think it's supposed to be combined with a WBTB).

I will not lose my determination to have a Lucid Dream. I just need advice, peeps.

I'll continue MILD for a while longer (couple weeks at the most). If that doesn't work, I'll move on to another technique (just trying to keep my College work in line as well, which is easier said than done). Cheers, folks

Should I listen throughout the day, to incubate?

Hmm up to you. You can give it a try for a few days and note any differences in your sleep.

and whenever I try MILD, I lose determination after about 25+ reps of "I will remember to do a reality check" (also done before bed. I think it's supposed to be combined with a WBTB).

Yep, it works best if you combine it with MILD. Also, when you do the repetitions, don't focus on the quantity. If you start drifting off to sleep, that's it! Repeat your mantras until you fall asleep, you don't have to be super awake when you're doing them

Have you also tried doing mantras for dream recall? Like "I will remember my dreams", or something like that.


Good luck!

A bit of progress has been made As paigeyeps suggested, I started using a dream-recall mantra, and it worked!

When I say "it worked", I mean that it improved my recall so I could remember 1.2 dreams (the decimal being that I think I dreamt something, but can't really pin it down) in far higher quality (I'm talking about smells, and miniature nuances like the spry of the sea). The main dream was about me crossing the English channel in a storm with 7m high waves (?) then finding my house in France (which makes it surprising, therefore, that I didn't check myself: I only live in UK. The good news is that I got as far as thinking "This is a bit odd", but didn't realize that it wasn't odd: it was WEIRD!!!! FACEPALM!!!!!! )

Anyway, I'm going to continue doing the ground-work for now: more dream recall, and slowly approaching proper efforts to Lucid Dream. A quick question: when doing Mantras for things, how do you ideally go about it? Do you repeat it vocally or just in your head? Any states of mind you specifically have to be in?

Originally Posted by bliddyo

A quick question: when doing Mantras for things, how do you ideally go about it? Do you repeat it vocally or just in your head? Any states of mind you specifically have to be in?

Personally I do it vocally a couple times (3-5) for conviction, then I do it mentally from then on. I keep doing it like that until I start to drift off. If I catch myself drifting off, I continue doing my mantra until I fall asleep. If I do it verbally too many times, it will keep me awake, which is contrary to the aim of MILDing (which is to do mantras until you drift off).

Great job on the recall, keep it up!

Ok, I've got to the stage where I could remember, clearly, at least one snippet per sleep. On my better nights, I could remember a whole dream, and a snippet.

Question: what standard does my recall need to be in order to attempt to progress onward to the next level - actually attempting to Lucid Dream via MILD, etc?

Originally Posted by bliddyo

Question: what standard does my recall need to be in order to attempt to progress onward to the next level - actually attempting to Lucid Dream via MILD, etc?

That's a really good question, and the short answer is: it's different for everyone. I notice with myself, that when my recall is up, I LD more frequently, and that's probably the same across the board. But I doubt that people with less frequent recalled dreams can't have a lucid at all. Something else I've noticed overall with folks on this site however, is when members first join dreamviews, the most common thing I notice is a spike in dream recall, then a spike in lucidity. Hope my answers were helpful.

Heads up: It's almost October! I suggest making a new list of monthly goals you want to achieve, as well as reevaluate your DJ for possible new dream signs or any realizations

Hello peeps-of-great-lucid-prowess I haven't updated for a while, so I'll quickly run through the situation. It's got worse I wonder if Dream Recall as stronger/weaker cycles, because I seem to be at a low point at the moment: my recall has basically bombed I'm going through AS levels, and I haven't had much opportunity to exercise the whole Reality Check + Mantra routine.

Do you find any coping techniques to deal with rises in work, yet still attempt lucid dreaming?

I think my new monthly goal is to try to write down at least one dream snippet per night. Looks like Lucid Dreaming is still a long way off, for now...

Awww that's alright! You might have some surprises. I find that sometimes when it gets really rough and I stop trying for a bit, I get surprise lucids! As for the coping technique, I used DEILD when I had a hectic schedule. My classes and weekends were reall swamped and sometimes I wouldn't have time at all to write down my dreams or recall them or try induction techniques. Luckily I got some DEILDs in there, in the middle of the night when I'd wake up multiple times. I also made sure to do a couple reality checks a day whenever I'd remember– even a simple "am i dreaming" would do it for me.

Good luck! I hope you get your recall up and get some lucids!

Hey guys. Another update incoming...

I've been able to get my recall up a little bit, which has obviously helped me a little with my confidence There is something new that I've noticed, which might be of value. Basically, on days in which I don't need to get up really early, I sometimes awake for a couple moments, but am barely conscious, and then I drift off again. Once I'm asleep, I have a dream which I can remember, and it's very highly detailed. Today, in the morning, I reckon I had one dream in the night itself, and two further dreams in the mini-WBTB (I call it this because I don't register it, really). Is there any way I could use these incidents as a way to catapult an LD in there?

I've been thinking of printing off some reminders for me to reality check/do stuff etc. Do you guys reckon that'll be helpful, if at all?

Cheers

Oh for sure! Those brief waking moments can be definitely used for a DEILD! Try to remain still (or if you have to move, do it as little as possible). Imagine the previous dream, or imagine a new one, and try reenter it.

Check this out: http://www.dreamviews.com/f49/dutchr...ld-god-134760/

Also, you can print out some reminders or even just simple post-its and put them around your house to remind you :3

Good luck!

Hiya guys

I think I'm edging a little closer to maintaining lucidity. I may be wrong, of course, but the sign that I'm going on is the fact that I occasionally feel "suspicious" about my surroundings in a dream. The Print-outs are actually helping, which is great
Thanks for the tutorial paigeyemps

However, I did spy something that made me doubt a little. On the forum, I saw something that said "If you have some sort of mental condition, then I guess you can't really LD". Now, here's my situation: I have been treated for Anxiety/Panic attacks (Fluoxetine being taken), and I have High Functioning Autism. In your wider experience on the world of Lucid Dreaming, do you know of any cases where either of the afore-mentioned conditions could affect one's ability to Lucid Dreaming?

Originally Posted by bliddyo

However, I did spy something that made me doubt a little. On the forum, I saw something that said "If you have some sort of mental condition, then I guess you can't really LD". Now, here's my situation: I have been treated for Anxiety/Panic attacks (Fluoxetine being taken), and I have High Functioning Autism. In your wider experience on the world of Lucid Dreaming, do you know of any cases where either of the afore-mentioned conditions could affect one's ability to Lucid Dreaming?

Don't know if this is helpful bliddyo, but I know a person with Asperger's who has lucid dreams. I also knew another person with schizophrenia who took anti-anxiety drugs (don't remember which one, sorry), who also had lucid dreams. So I'd wager that neither the anxiety or the autism would inhibit your ability to have lucid dreams. The only drawback I could think of woul be if the anxiety caused you to have insomnia, and of course too little sleep would make it harder to have/recall dreams. And some medicines can interfere with sleep and dreams too, making it harder to dream or recall dreams. But I'm talking about interference with sleep, not ability to attain lucidity. I'm no expert, but I'd guess that since you are not only recalling dreams, but you are beginning to question your surroundings means you're a hop and a skip away from having your first lucid dream.

Originally Posted by bliddyo

Hiya guys

I think I'm edging a little closer to maintaining lucidity. I may be wrong, of course, but the sign that I'm going on is the fact that I occasionally feel "suspicious" about my surroundings in a dream. The Print-outs are actually helping, which is great
Thanks for the tutorial paigeyemps

However, I did spy something that made me doubt a little. On the forum, I saw something that said "If you have some sort of mental condition, then I guess you can't really LD". Now, here's my situation: I have been treated for Anxiety/Panic attacks (Fluoxetine being taken), and I have High Functioning Autism. In your wider experience on the world of Lucid Dreaming, do you know of any cases where either of the afore-mentioned conditions could affect one's ability to Lucid Dreaming?

Hi Bliddyo, its great to have you here!
One bit of advice: Its always good to bring your expectations before bed back to zero. No positive, no negative, just expect to accept the experience.

Also, there is so little known about LDing in scientific fields, I highly doubt anyone could say with certainty that mental conditions would inhibit LDing. On the other hand, there are certain conditions that eliminate one's ability to experience dreams altogether. Since you already have been having dreams, that doesn't seem to be your situation.
The only mental condition I can think of that would permanently block LDing is chronic doubt. That is something I struggle with on a daily basis. Your mind's expectations tend to follow through into dreams and they can have a huge impact on the LDing experience.
LDing is natural, and so letting it happen naturally is the best way.
good luck!

Hiya guys I have some good news, and I've got some bad news. The good news is that I'm still alive. The bad news is that due to recent stress college (about a couple months worth...), that has more or less mucked up some of the progress that I've made

Well, I still have vivid dreams, and one thing I've noticed is that my dream recall has gone up slightly, even without me using the dream journal. I do need to go back to using it and all that. Oh well, "so lebt der jugend"...I occasionally have suspicions in my dreams, but it's a very far off "background" feeling...

I'm not really sure it's the best idea to go through attempting to dream Lucidly while in times like these, unless it is possible to deal with both things at one time...

the good thing about breaks is that you still have all that previous experience combined with a fresh start. The thing that has helped me the most is producing positive feelings before sleep and expecting to recall dreams and become lucid...keep up the good work!