Thread: Densetsu's Workbook

What did you mean by 'writing them down between naps'? Did you mean that long waking period in between sleeps (like you wake up in the morning, and nap in the afternoon) or do you mean that time when you wake many times during your sleep?

I made a post last night, but it looks like it didn't stick :\

Yesterday afternoon, I learned something the hard way; if I try doing a WBTB, I will not be able to remember any of the dreams if I don't write them down quickly. Three dreams scatter into brief memories. I think one of them even cleared one of October's task (going trick-or-treating and seeing members of DV), but I can't say for sure any more...

Oh I'm sorry to hear that. The upside to this is that you now know, so you will be able to change up your approach!

A thought just occurred to me though. How long do you stay up? Because that could play a role in this. Maybe a different amount of staying up will have a different effect?

Originally Posted by paigeyemps

Oh I'm sorry to hear that. The upside to this is that you now know, so you will be able to change up your approach!

A thought just occurred to me though. How long do you stay up? Because that could play a role in this. Maybe a different amount of staying up will have a different effect?

Lately I've been cutting back and getting to sleep around 2 to 3 am (which is still awful, but a lot better than what my schedule used to be).

Let's see...my dream stability and clarity has been going up, but my dream control is ridiculously bad right now. It is literally to the point where if I try to make something happen, or even just try to actively stabilize the dream, it falls apart and everything goes black. One step forward in one aspect, one step back in another. Hurray.

Hey, it's also alright if you don't stabilize. like opheliablue said, it's only necessary if you make it necessary. even i dont stabilize much anymore. and to be honest, it's been so much better because i dont need to do anything because if i dont think about stabilization the dream doesnt destabilize. PLUS you get to conserve lucid moments for doing other stuff. just a thought.

as for dream control, maybe you should practice slowly, say.... first try to look at something and change its color..and not do anything overly extreme. then you can move up and summon small objects..etc

good luck

Today I forgot what my dream was about before I even woke up. :\ Maybe I'll dust off my radio and listen to adult contemporary while I sleep; from doing that, I can still vaguely remember how Russian politics work.

Remember where you were, and where you want to go. Then let it be...Forget it all, and keep going.

Once again I've been called away for an extended amount of time. This time, however, I have been keeping track of my goals.

Recently I found an old archived thread on this site that discussed manipulating visual snow and its application in dream control. Having a moderately strong case of visual snow, I read the thread over several times and have been doing the exercises daily and they've been working. Not having a reliable internet connection has been a huge damper on my dream blog, but everything is being written (and put into coherent sentences when needed) down in a word document.

Two days ago, I bought a bottle of valerian root extract. The past two nights have been the best rest that I've had in a long time, and I'm not as drowsy when I wake up. It's a really good feeling

Welcome back Densetsu! Great to hear it's been going good for you. Have you had any interesting dreams on your time away?

I do, I do!

My blog will be used to keep track of general dreams, and I've found a use for the dream journal! I'd like to use it o keep track of more specific dream-related matters that are part of an incubation project that I've been working on for about a week. I suppose you can say that it will be my training journal.

Reviewing my dream notes I've seen that I tend to have a lot of dreams involving school, to the point where people in the dream note that I've been missing a lot of class lately. In one case (which is about to be posted in the dream snippets thread), a teacher returned graded work and I received a significantly higher amount of paper back than everybody else in the "class".

On days that I can't remember my current dreams well, I tend to recall past dreams more easily. One of these dreams in particular was fairly interesting to me, so I'm going to be using the situation that dream put me in as a dream exercise.

So far, taking valerian root before bed has little effect when I'm awake. Sometimes I wonder if it really works, but the quality of sleep that I've had so far says that it does. Alternating between taking two pills (a small dose) and three pills (a standard dose) has been very good for getting rest but hasn't really done anything noticeable to the vividness of my dreams or for the quality of my dream recall. Last night I considered taking a higher dosage but ultimately decided to speak with my doctor before doing so, just to be safe.

All in all, things have been a bit rocky but I have had some definite progress over time.

Today (quite some time ago), I finished the first day of classes for my new semester. With both school and work, I will be following a much more rigid schedule that will hopefully hammer some discipline into me. The mere fact that I'm up at 3 am on a school night is a testament to my procrastination.

Nevertheless, I will wake up at 9 am like I'm supposed to, go to school, and update my dream journal between classes. After coming this far, through all the setbacks and progress, I can't do anything but see this through. Wish me luck everybody, for I'd like to have as much of it as possible on the road ahead. I'm far too wordy for my own good.

Good luck! I am going through the same stuff as well, what with classes and all. And yep, I try to journal my dreams in my spare time, especially when the class is boring! Hahaha

As expected, things didn't go too well last night. However, I did sleep pretty well.

Also, Dreams of a Lofty Tower is up today. Yes, last night I linked to a page that didn't exist.

Looks like the text file that had my more recent dreams in it somehow became corrupted, so I've lost a good amount of private entries.

It's not that big of a deal, though, since most of it was almost unreadable sentence fragments. Since I'm in school all day and at work right after, I've decided to switch my advanced vision control exercises for ADA. The sight control has led to some pretty vivid dreams in the past but with my lack of dream control I figure that something that leads to more tactile results might do the trick.

Because of having to get up earlier to get to school, I've been taking less valerian and melatonin. Hopefully this means that their effects will be more pronounced when I do get around to taking them.


Current Reality Checks:
*Checking the time on my phone
*Going to my phone's home page
*Interlocking my fingers and counting them
*Looking out of one eye, the switching to the other eye

Today I woke up just as my alarm went off. Getting to sleep on time is still a bit difficult, but waking up early isn't as much of a problem as it used to be because I've been winding-down for a longer amount of time before bed.

My first session of ADA during class went pretty well. I can still picture my view of the classroom fairly easily and the notes that I took down were pretty detailed compared to what I usually do. Despite not doing my usual AVA exercises, I notice that I'm becoming more aware of my visual snow and eye floaters. They're cool to look at but they might end up being a distraction if my focus on them throughout the day increases too much.

The time here is 2:55 pm, and I am not dreaming.

Time to get organized.

Goals for February:

*Have 5 lucid dreams during the month
*Attempt Basic and Advanced Tasks of the Month
*Solidify dream state
*Inspire a pair of sigils
*Tame my sleeping schedule once and for all
*Document as many of my lost dreams from memory as possible
*Initiate Project Pax

"It is as if the dream reaches out towards itself, just before the dreamer awakens. This brief moment is of the utmost importance, as the-"

This was my first thought upon waking up today. Under my current schedule, Friday and Saturday are the only days during which I can stay up later than usual. During these days, and maybe once or twice throughout the week, I plan on trying WBTB by taking half of my extra strength melatonin before bed, followed by the other half before going back to sleep a few hours later. Work on my non-dream related goals for the month is progressing smoothly

Hey Densetsu, good to hear you're doing well. May I ask what technique, if any, do you use on normal days along with ADA?

Glad you asked. Recently I bought a pair of prescription glasses to help with my nearsightedness, so I've been paying a lot more attention to how everything looks in general. I've also been taking a more hands-on approach to handling my schoolwork, noting how the grips on my camera feel, the slight pressure required to adjust the focus, the murderously uncomfortable hardness of the chairs in my English class, etc. In retrospect it all sounds very distracting, but these small things seem to be helping.

The second "exercise" that I've been doing is one to work out my short and long term memory. If I find myself doing something that I've done before, I think back and try to remember as many times I was in a similar situation as I can. This has shown that I'm pretty good at remembering things that I've seen and how it felt to see/do these things, but I'm just terrible at recalling exact dates unless they were particularly memorable.

The time is 2:53 pm and I am not dreaming (though I wish I was).

Ooh, thanks! Those little exercises sound like really good practice. I do something similar, with noticing the little details in waking life that I never pay attention to. I also put a lot of attention on my sense of smell since it seems to be quite developed in my dreams. And strangely, because of tihis, my sense of smell in dreams increases exponentially x)

It looks like taking Valerian root extract less often is causing it to have a more pronounced effect. Even when I take less than the standard dosage, I find that I sleep much more peacefully throughout the night. To date, I have yet to take more than the recommended dosage nor have I taken Valerian in combination with any other pills other than zinc.

Progress on my goals for the month so far:
*My sleep schedule is as wily as ever, but it is slowly becoming more normal. if I can schedule it I want to have a biphasic sleep schedule
*My dream state is still fragmented, but working on the sigils is helping a bit
*Project Pax is under way, and the details will be posted in my dream journal later tonight (I'm writing and editing the outline and tying it into another workbook that I'll soon be starting in another subforum)

Schoolwork is getting in the way of me finishing my outline, but here's a quick overview of the first half of what I have planned so far.

Step 1: Resetting the sleep schedule.
Step 2: Dream control techniques
Step 3: Physical workout routine
Step 4: Sigil Inspiration

A brief explanation of Step 1: Resetting the sleep schedule.

Try as I might, I've ultimately failed at resetting my sleep schedule by simply going to sleep earlier. When I try that, the only thing that happens is waking up in the middle of the night exhausted and unable to get back to bed for a few hours. So my sleep deprived mind came up with another solution.

"If you can't tame the beast, slay it."

Step 1 consisted of sleeping only 3-4 hours a day for three days. It sounds awful, I know. It felt awful, too. Right now I'm just plain tired. The only thing left is to wait until my hopeful bedtime and sleep. There will be no further usage of sleep aids until this step is officially complete and my sleep schedule is once again at an acceptable rhythm.

Wow, good luck with fixing your sleep schedule. The sleep deprivation sounds rough, so be good to yourself for the next few days!

Something else that helps me when dealing with jet lag is to limit my exposure to artificial light once the sun goes down. Keeping the lights down is a good idea. If you tend to get a lot of screen time at night, I'd recommend a program like f.lux (available for free here) that tunes the color temperature of your screen so that you aren't overexposed to blue light. This should help you get your natural melatonin production back where it needs to be. It's only in the past couple of centuries that humans have ever experienced such high levels of blue light in the evenings. It's had some bad effects on sleep rhythms.

I also suggest forcing yourself to get up at your new planned wake-up time. Once you're up, try to get outside for some exercise in the sun. A good walk outdoors is just perfect. Now you want the blue light exposure you were trying to avoid at night. The combination of sun exposure and exercise will help signal to your body that it's time to be out on the hunt again.

The combination of these steps should help you get your Circadian rhythm where it needs to be. Good luck... this can be tough, but I know you'll get your sleep schedule sorted out!