RareCola's Workbook

[RareCola]

Hello! I'm Jason aka RareCola. I'm new to this forum as you may have gathered, thought I'd take advantage of this great service you guys offer I've been writing in a dream journal since January, on and off, but only over the last week or so made serious attempts at recalling my dreams and lucid dreaming. I have been recalling at least one dream per night recently, and even three one night. I had my first lucid dream Friday 4th May, induced by using WBTB and SSILD and cannot wait to have more, it was such an incredible experience. Though I lost consciousness half way through it and it fell back into a normal dream. I would post a link to a more detailed description of this dream for you teachers to read, except I haven't been signed up for more than 7 days yet. I'll repost it here if you're interested. I'm not particularly into taking nutritional supplements to achieve lucidity, I'd prefer to go the more natural route. Though I am a pretty big apple juice and banana lover. My reality checks consist of: - Checking my hands, counting fingers. - Testing to see if my thumb goes through my palm - Attempting to breathe through blocked nose - If possible, checking a digital clock or reading a sign Short Term Goals: Improve dream recall, I have some issues remembering dreams unless I WBTB. Read through my dream journal and gather a list of my dream signs. Copy my dream journal over to Dream Views Have more lucid dreams, and keep consciousness throughout them. Successfully perform a WILD. Long Term Goals: Achieve at least 3 lucid dreams per week. Be able to utilise lucid dreams as inspiration for my work as an artist. Use lucid dreams to conquer my fears.

[fOrceez]

Hey matey, welcome to the class We've met in IRC before, my name was fOrwhopz.. it got changed, ha! Keep up your dream journalling, it is very important (if not the most important thing) to lucid dreaming. There'll be no point attempting to lucid dream without being able to remember the experience. Try and aim for an average of 3 dreams per night. Upon wakening, try not to move too much and/or think about the day to come. Just relax and try and empty your mind of thoughts. You'll most likely have a flush of images from the last (or last few) dreams come back As for your reality checking, make sure you do not do these half-heartedly. Reality checks should be done frequently, consistently and being fully aware each time. Half hearted reality checks may result in you performing a reality check within a dream but the reality check not working.. and trust me, that sucks Congrats on your first lucid dream and welcome to the class!

[RareCola]

Hey matey, welcome to the class We've met in IRC before, my name was fOrwhopz.. it got changed, ha! Keep up your dream journalling, it is very important (if not the most important thing) to lucid dreaming. There'll be no point attempting to lucid dream without being able to remember the experience. Try and aim for an average of 3 dreams per night. Upon wakening, try not to move too much and/or think about the day to come. Just relax and try and empty your mind of thoughts. You'll most likely have a flush of images from the last (or last few) dreams come back As for your reality checking, make sure you do not do these half-heartedly. Reality checks should be done frequently, consistently and being fully aware each time. Half hearted reality checks may result in you performing a reality check within a dream but the reality check not working.. and trust me, that sucks Congrats on your first lucid dream and welcome to the class! Yes, I remember you from the IRC I try my best to record my dreams, and tend to be able to get 1-2 after a WBTB but I just cannot seem to grasp remembering dreams from before a WBTB, and if I do they're never as detailed as with WBTB. Not quite sure why, it's very frustrating. I'm consistently trying a "Tonight, I will wake after each dream and recall it perfectly" mantra at the moment, without much luck, but I'm going to keep it up for a while to see if I see any change. As for my reality checks, I tend to do fall into the half-hearted trap at times, where I remember to do them but I don't become fully aware of everything around. That said though, when I ever see something odd or somewhat suspicious, I make sure to do a thorough reality check. Thanks for the tips, though! Can't wait to progress more

[OpheliaBlue]

Welcome RareCola! I just cannot seem to grasp remembering dreams from before a WBTB, and if I do they're never as detailed as with WBTB. Not quite sure why, it's very frustrating. I'm totally the same way. My best recall, and most lucids, are after a WBTB. I'm cool with scrapping the dreams from before the WBTB. I just consider those dreams to be necessary brain garbage removal, and I don't count them as missed opportunities for attaining lucidity. After my WBTB is prime lucid time in my opinion. Although I mostly DEILD and not WILD, just fyi.

[RareCola]

Welcome RareCola! I'm totally the same way. My best recall, and most lucids, are after a WBTB. I'm cool with scrapping the dreams from before the WBTB. I just consider those dreams to be necessary brain garbage removal, and I don't count them as missed opportunities for attaining lucidity. After my WBTB is prime lucid time in my opinion. Although I mostly DEILD and not WILD, just fyi. Makes me feel a lot better knowing someone else experiences the same thing! I can probably stop stressing with trying to remember the dreams before my WBTB now. I haven't tried DEILD nor WILD yet, only MILD/DILD and SSILD, obviously my most success being with SSILD as that's what triggered my first LD.

[RareCola]

Done a lot better tonight! I was able to wake up with just the use of a mantra, without an alarm, only about 4hrs-4hrs30m into my sleeping and then proceeded to wake up twice more before my usual wake up time. I was also able to remember 2 pretty detailed dreams and a fragment of a third. Not quite as detailed as some of my dreams last week though, but I think that's because I was overly tired after my lack of sleep over the weekend. No lucidity though, dream self still seems to fail to remember to reality check.

[RareCola]

Yay for triple post. Just read through all my dreams from the last 12 days, gathered as many single-word tags from the descriptions of the dreams as possible and then saw how many duplicates I got so I could figure out my dream signs. This is what I discovered: My most popular reoccurrence was a female character of some kind, in 6 of my dreams I had interactions with a female who would either help me out or simply just follow along as a companion in the dream. I also noticed I tend to not follow dream stories alone, In 5 of my dreams I have had a friend with me of some sort, though this is not always exclusively female. Other less common dream signs included: - Young children (4 occurrences) - Dream taking place in a video game-esque environment (4 occurrences) - Transforming into a female, or possessing a female (4 occurrences) - Shopping (3 occurrences) - Rooms with lots of the same furniture, for example lots of beds or sofas in one room (2 occurrences)

[fOrceez]

Good job on the tag finding Perhaps you should try and remember to reality check whenever you're around others. After all, most dreams are about when we're participating in some activity of sort. If you are a gamer, try and be aware of the possibility that you may be dreaming whilst gaming. Don't worry about it, it may take a little while. However, if you're really eager, you could make a big deal about the reality checks. Be really aware of the fact you may be dreaming.. it helps

[RareCola]

Recalled 2 more dreams last night, and one of which was before my WBTB! I think the apple juice I drank before bed might have helped with that. Still no progress with lucidity though. Interestingly, both my dreams featured my sister and in the first with exclusively my nephew and in the second, exclusively my niece. Further adding to my "young children" dream sign. I've also noticed that since my first lucid dream on Friday, almost every dream (besides one, which had a very slight supernatural element to it) have been "real life" dreams, where I've been hanging out with family or just generally doing normal stuff. As apposed to all last week where I was going on epic adventures in zombie apocalypses, giant turtles and being eaten alive by humanoid spider creatures. Think I'm going to give up with SSILD, don't seem to be getting along with it now and I'm having a hard time getting to sleep afterwards. Going to stick with MILD/DILD and possibly try out DEILD if I can manage to stay still upon awakening. I would like to try out WILD because the whole experience sounds interesting, but I don't think I could manage to lay still for long enough.

[OpheliaBlue]

I've also noticed that since my first lucid dream on Friday, almost every dream (besides one, which had a very slight supernatural element to it) have been "real life" dreams, where I've been hanging out with family or just generally doing normal stuff. As apposed to all last week where I was going on epic adventures in zombie apocalypses, giant turtles and being eaten alive by humanoid spider creatures. I'm the same way actually. In fact, the majority of my lucids stem from real life type dreams. Either I have a real life type dream and have a spontaneous DILD, or I DEILD and nearly always start the lucid from my plain old bed, in my plain old room. Whenever I have crazy supernatural dreams, I almost never get lucid and I think it's because I have that 3rd person feeling, as if I wasn't dreaming but rather watching a movie. That's one reason I'm making myself RC when I watch TV

[RareCola]

No lucid dream, but I came so close multiple times! It looks like WBTB + MILD is the way to go. I recalled 2 dreams last night, could have recalled 4 but stupid me forgot to write them down in my sleepy dazed state, I thought I had but apparently not, lots of rage when I realised. In the first dream, I had a moment where I saw my neighbours and as my neighbours show up in my dreams every now and again I performed a reality check, although, my hands looked perfectly normal so I kind of shrugged it off without performing any other reality checks. Damn dream self. In the second, I had been riding my bike up this hill, and left it there while I went inside this restaurant at the top. There seemed to be some kind of "jump" in the dream where suddenly I was back in my house. I realised in the dream that my bike was still up on the hill so as I was going to check I thought to myself "Wait, I cycled my bike up there only in my dream so it won't have gone anywhere" and then had another realisation that I didn't remember waking up and that I could still be dreaming, but straight after that woke up anyway. Feel like I'm getting closer, with any luck I should have a lucid tonight!

[paigeyemps]

Woohoo! WBTB+MILD =))) Good luck! Banana.

[RareCola]

Woohoo! WBTB+MILD =))) Good luck! Banana. You and your bananas. Had some pretty cool dreams last night, recalled 3 and they all seemed to chain together into one big story. I'm also noticing a "zombie" theme in one way or another in the last three days, I think I've been watching too much The Walking Dead. 6 days since my last lucid, thankfully the motivation from this website is amazing

[fOrceez]

Nice, man! @ continuous story line I love how some dreams seemingly fit together. Try not to think about how long it has been since your last lucid, just think of the present and focus on your dreaming.

[RareCola]

Seem to be solidly remembering 2 dreams per night now, been that way for a few days, besides one where I remembered 3. Goal for next week is to bump that up to 3 dreams per night. I've also finalised the technique I want to stick with, thanks to Ophelia in the IRC last night. I'm going to be MILD/DILDing, while also attempting DEILDs, as it seems no big issue to do them at the same time. Those techniques combined is how I obtained my first lucid dream, anyway. I also compiled a list of objectives I want to do in my lucid dreams, when I finally become lucid. Just so I'm not disorientated when I'm actually in the dream trying to figure out what to do. Dream Objectives: - Eat marmite on toast (I'm allergic to marmite in real life) - Find my mysterious white fox dream character - Fly with wings - Morph my appearance - Initiate a scene change - Experience different weather effects - Try magical powers, like conjuring water and such - Time travel - Go to another planet - Meet dream guides - Talk to my subconscious I'm sure there's a lot more I can add on to this list, but I have a base of things thought of from the top of my head.

[OpheliaBlue]

Cool, I've been wanting to try the alien planet thing too for a while. I think my recently overcome fear of flying had something to do with it though. At any rate, I've got my fingers crossed for you focusing on the technique that lead you to your first lucid dream.

[paigeyemps]

Nice goals In my dreams, I'm always a waterbender. Hooray for superpowers! Good luck RC! You will be lucid!

[RareCola]

Lacking progress this weekend, it's always the weekends that get me! Only remembered 2 fragments today. Determined to get back on track next week, I want something to report in this workbook :/ Seems to be 1 step forward 2 steps back at the moment, unsure what's causing it either. Oh well, hopefully it'll sort itself out.

[RareCola]

Went to bed all motivated to remember my dreams and maybe even lucid... couldn't even recall a fragment today, and then couldn't get back to sleep so woo for 5 hours sleep. So frustrating. Really need to figure out what's killing my recall/lucidity. I don't think I'm even doing anything differently, it's just going progressively downhill since my first lucid.

[OpheliaBlue]

Not being able to get back to sleep can definitely kill recall. But keep with it, eventually you'll get tired enough to fall back to sleep when you need to for WBTB. And don't worry, we all get dry spells.

[RareCola]

I'm so happy Was able to recall three pretty detailed dreams tonight! I've noticed I really need to start focusing on and detailing the people in my dreams though. I get a lot of random dream characters obviously pulled somewhere from my subconscious, but despite their general age and build, I usually have a hard time remembering what they looked like. I can usually never remember clothes, face, sometimes not even hair colour. I think I discovered the root of my lack of sleep after WBTB too. I tend to sleep on my side, and I read last night that the more common "roll over" signal for laying on your side starts in your legs, so you get the intense urge to move your legs (which I usually do). I stopped moving them last night when that urge came on and had no issues getting back to sleep

[OpheliaBlue]

Good! I'm so glad you had such great recall! I think I discovered the root of my lack of sleep after WBTB too. I tend to sleep on my side, and I read last night that the more common "roll over" signal for laying on your side starts in your legs, so you get the intense urge to move your legs (which I usually do). I stopped moving them last night when that urge came on and had no issues getting back to sleep Wait, are you referring to RLS (restless leg syndrome), or is this something we all get? The roll over signal that is? I'm super curious about this.

[RareCola]

Good! I'm so glad you had such great recall! Wait, are you referring to RLS (restless leg syndrome), or is this something we all get? The roll over signal that is? I'm super curious about this. Explained somewhat in the IRC, but hard to explain everything with so many people there. This video explains rollover signals in huge detail if you want to find out more: The Stop Drop & Roll Sleep Command To Fall Asleep Fast - Lucidology 101 Part 3/12 - YouTube

[RareCola]

So happy today! Recalled 4 really detailed dreams, and 2 fragments of other dreams. My best recall to date! Also tomorrow marks 3 weeks of writing in my dream journal and practicing LDing! Really quite amazed at my progress so far actually, considering I went from remembering no dreams at all, and I even have a lucid dream under my belt for such a short time Still no more luck with lucidity, despite dream incubation, attempts at DEILDing and mantras I never question my reality in dreams.

[OpheliaBlue]

You're a rockstar RareCola. I'm really proud of your progression, especially in such a short time!!