Thread: Booney's Workbook

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Welcome Booney! It looks like you have got things locked down and set. Your recall is really awesome as well. I have the same dream sign of strong emotions. Strange. Isn't it?

Don't hesitate to give one of us an electronic shout if you need anything. Good luck and good dreaming!

Hey Erik!

Hi Erik! Welcome to the class

Applause to you first of all for using awareness in general for your reality checks. I can't ever stress enough how important it is to maintain an increased level of awareness during the day, whether it is sustained or in short sporadic bursts. Awareness really is one of the biggest keys to lucidity, if not THE biggest.

Looks like you're off to a great start in terms of getting your recall back up. I'm like you, sometimes I remember the dream later in the day. Thank god for smartphones so I can last minute journal haha! Your dream signs are really interesting: anger, colors and ice! The unique signs are good, they'll help you later on.

Good luck on the DILD and DEILD, and I look forward to catching up on your progress!

We all have off nights, it's to be expected really. Shows how delicate the balance for good dream recall and lucidity can be! The best recommendation I can make is to find some motivation to get those dreams written down in the middle of the night, for me, it's one of the key things that increases my lucidity chances. Not only does writing it down help you boost your recall but the action of sitting up and writing a dream gives your mind just enough time to wake up and get into the mindset for lucidity.

It's great that your recognising your progress though, being aware of those small advances really helps with the motivation to continue. Keep it up!

DEILD is a tricky one, it's incredibly easy to achieve if you get it right and I think most people tend to have DEILDs just as flukes. My best DEILDs have been when I haven't even thought about it. The same principles of WILD can apply to DEILD too, as DEILD is simply just that except executed at a different time. When you're expecting to have a DEILD, that is, fading through from waking state into a dream, your adrenaline is going to shoot through the roof when the thing you're waiting for actually starts to happen and most of the time this completely kills the attempt. This could be why you're wanting to move so much also, the build up of adrenaline and anticipation will do that.

So, in short, I agree with Paige. Focus on the dream you just had or even a completely new one (but plan the new one before bed so you don't have to go through the mental practice of crafting a new dream scene on the spot) and then just go back to sleep while remaining still and ignoring any of the "noise" that occurs through the WILD transition. Your goal shouldn't be to have a DEILD because that subconsciously signals you to notice the "noise" that you shouldn't be noticing.

It's actually really good that you're being hard on yourself when it comes to classifying what a lucid dream actually is. Many people on this forum simply class a vague awareness, or even just vividness in their dreams as a lucid dream. This is fine, but it's not really being honest with yourself and makes it a lot harder to progress. Especially considering the actual definition of "lucid" is "Expressed clearly; easy to understand."

Lovin your post! So real quick question, sorry if I didn't get it right. You will keep the dice in your pocket when you go to bed, but no dice there in the day? This is interesting

I don't think there's anything wrong with focusing on the dice thing, or any other thing to help you get lucid. Recall sometimes gets better when some focus is taken off of it. Different for everyone of course.

I have to say, I rather love the idea of checking your pocket from time to time. If you ever feel dice there, you must be dreaming! Definitely let us know how that goes!

Week 02 Day 6 Lesson II:
After being awake for almost 24 hours I went to bed today at 09:00 AM
I woke up half an hour ago at 02:00 PM.

I have recalled one dream so far, lots of lucidity chances but none taken unfortunately.

After 5 hours of sleep doing a WBTB now would be a good idea, if it weren't for the construction site across the street.
I'll try to go to bed at 03:00 PM but I don't think I can get back to sleep.

I'll update on my progress today later tonight,

No worries on missing an opportunity here or there. Just take a little time to think about those opportunities and go over in your mind why you should have become lucid. Leave more mnemonic tripwires behind for yourself to stumble upon later.

With this construction going on (and your apparent late sleeping hours), perhaps some form of ear plug would be a good idea for you?

I love how you call them mnemonic tripwires. It's a good way of phrasing what I'm actually trying to achieve here.
And with that I'm almost finished, after this week I hope to have set up my way to lucid dreaming in all my sleeping circumstances.

I have thought about earplugs and mask/blindfolds but I think I will get used to it eventually. Having things in my ears just adds to the discomfort for me.

As for the dream I mentioned earlier, funny thing about that.

From todays DJ entry

I log on to a computer to see when my appointment with Mr. M is, 2:00 PM and I look on the clock which says 2:06.
To be sure I check the schedule again and it's indeed 2:06. Realizing I'm late I get stressed and wake up.

The time I wake up is 1:56.

Week 02 Day 7 Lesson II:

Went to bed at 03:00 AM 'till 09:00 AM
Recalled a bit about being in an office (watched 5 or 6 Madmen episodes in a row before bed so it was to be expected).

I noted the dreams, went to the bathroom and got back to bed to sleep again for 3 hours.
After that I woke up from a zombie adventure dream it was awesome.
I really wish I could have battled more of them with my weaponset.
I should mention having a bit of dreamcontrole in the last dream, making a mental note of that feeling.

End of Week 02 evaluation.
This week was strangely enough all about dreamcontrole.
The way I handel myself in dreamsituations is starting to change. I can tell even though I'm not lucid I take controle of the situation more, I behave more resourcefull in my dreams if that makes sense.
I'm also happy to have recalled something every day of the week, be it fragments or complete dreams.
And I guess the biggest step forward was the moment I realised I was dreaming and used the spinning technique to get out of a difficult situation.
Man, just thinking about that moment gets me excited again.
Can't forget the somewhat succesfull first try at DEILDing

You could say my dreaminstincts are finally kicking in, so lucidity is in my grasp I can feel it!

That's awesome, lucid dreaming really is all about patience and persistence. The more you do it the more your instincts builds and you come to understand how it feels to be inside of your own head. Make sure you keep hold of those feelings, even the small ones. They will really help you out.

One thing I like to do is keep a piece of paper in the back of my dream journal with the various ways my dreams have felt, both non-lucid, lucid and most importantly how it felt at the moment of realising that I'm dreaming. It's nice to refer to them.

Onto week 3, and good luck!

Week 03 Day 1 Lesson II:
Another graveyard shift, bedtime 08:00 AM

I find these shifts to be the hardest on LDing, they tire me out which makes me lose focus.
Had a good dream recall though.
After tonight I will get back into my prefered sleeping schedule so I expect to be fully back in the game by the end of this week.

Oh yeah, my focus is still on the MILD and DILD with trying to get some DEILDs here and there.

Week 03 Day 2 Lesson II:
Well that's it for now as the graveyard shifts are concerend.
Went to bed at 05:15 AM, woke up with a mind full of dreams and experiences but was to exhausted to write them down.
I'm sure some fragments will reach the surface during the day.

I also found some kind of meditation video on YouTube, but my tools to rip audio from YouTube have seemed to stop working. Which is a shame cause I would love to have the audio as an mp3 so I can listen to it in bed. As I don't want my computer to be on all night.

Now the graveyardshifts are over for a while I will get back to more awareness and better MILD attempts.

I think I can help you with the YouTube thing. If you have an Android device try tubemate. It won't be in the market you have to google search it. Also do you mind sharing the link? Id like to get it on mp3 myself. I like to occasionally experiment with those. I can even share the file in my box account if you prefer.

Originally Posted by Xanous

I think I can help you with the YouTube thing. If you have an Android device try tubemate. It won't be in the market you have to google search it. Also do you mind sharing the link? Id like to get it on mp3 myself. I like to occasionally experiment with those. I can even share the file in my box account if you prefer.

Thanks for the tip, I ended up using GetTube works great.
Here's the link: Sleep Hypnosis Easy Lucid Dreaming - YouTube

It didn't do much for me in the end, it got me relaxed but nothing more and I even question if my relaxation was because of this video.
These things never work for me, no matter how open I try to be to the idea. Oh well.

Week 03 Day 4 Lesson II:
It's been a busy weekend which is why I didn't update yesterday, but there wasn't much development anyway.
Yesterday was another pubnight went to bed pissed and still had the best recall ever!
Amazing dreams, kinda scary and surreal, even Salvador Dali popped in to say hi.
The main theme last night was the lack of time, a feeling of; I must hurry or else!
Also a blind man was chasing me, it was scary as hell.

New change in waking life, bought an electric guitar, so I'll have to look out for music related dreamsigns now.

Oh that one... Yeah. I found it to be annoying more than helpful.

Yeah, didn't do much for me either.

Week 04 Day 1 Lesson II:

Haven't been updating much these last few days. This is for one because there isn't much to update about since progress is slowing down.

But! This doesn't mean I'm not making any progress at all. I've been working on my recall this week. And succeeding!
I've had the most vivid dreams as of late.
And one thing that really stood out was me going to Australia.
For me, dreamwise, this is a big deal.
Ever since I started journaling my dreams there have been set locations in which the dreams take place.
And this year so far I've never recalled going to a new dreamlocation but tonight I did.
I remember feeling excited about this when I woke up in the morning. I felt fresh and new, change.

Also I've been noticing my awareness is growing inside the dreams. I've yet to make the real connection in the dream but it's coming.

Week 05:
It has been a slow week for me and recall made a drastic drop.
But I know why! Which I guess is a step in the right direction. I think I've finally found out what my ideal sleep schedule is.
At first I thought my inconsistent working schedule would cause my LD attempts to fail, I thought I needed routine and stability.
But for me, I found out this is not the case, what works best for me is to attempt LDs during a natural sleeping cycle.
I came to this conclusion after two weeks of stable working hours. I thought it was perfect, finally I could focus and adjust to my regular bedtimes but no. Recall dropped and so there is no way of knowing if I had any LDs these last two weeks.
I did have one very vivid flying dream and made a mental/physical note of how it felt for future reference.
Also after reading a thread here about bending the elements I ended up bending air I was a full fleshed airbender, again made notes of the sensations.

So even though at the end, the dream recall came back and my dreams became more vivid it didn't come as easy as it used to be.

Next week I'll be back into my prefered working schedule which fits my natural sleeping schedule.
I expect great things then. Because I know I can, I've done it once, almost achieved it two weeks ago. It's just a matter of time and that time is soon.

Thanks Paigeyemps!
It really is hard to explain isn't it. Especially if you want to describe the difference between non-lucids and lucids.
Sometimes I'll mention lucid dreaming with my friends but then it always ends up in telling stories of these crazy dreams they once had.
They're cool stories, but I can tell they don't have a complete understanding what lucid dreaming actually is.

I run into this a lot. I've given up on it. At least there's dreamviews!

Great to hear you'll be getting back to a better schedule. And even better to hear, airbending!

Yeah it was really fun controlling elements I'm definitely going to do some more of that in the future.
I was airbending one of those air spheres the ones Aang rides on sometimes. First I created a small airsphere between my hands which felt like the resistence you feel when you hold two magnets close to each other when the same magnetic poles point to each other.
The first few times it just blew up in my face, literally. Untill finally I was able to controle it, make it bigger and ride it for a bit. A great dream.