Adams Workbook

Workbook

Hello, my name is Adam and i'm 15 years old. I have had maybe 40 lucid dreams in my life. For a year ago or so i was really into lucid dreaming, and i had atleast one a week.
But it wasen't easy, it took me like a month getting my first ld and then maybe 2 months to make my lucid dreams not end immediatly.

And now i want to lucid dream again.

Reality Checks:
- Nose plug
- Finger through hand
- Read something

Dream Signs:
- i'm thinking about doing something, but i never do it.
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Short-Term Goals:
- Get back into Lucid dreaming
- Better dream recall
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Long-Term Goals:
- Talk to my subconscious
- Get rid of my fears
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Lucid/Dream Recall History:
- Right now i remember atleast one dream, often more.

Current Technique:
- I'm using the MILD technique right now.

Welcome, Adam! Great to have you with us, and great to know you're getting back into lucid dreaming! With your lucid dreaming history it should be easier to return to it :D

Looking forward to reading your experiences, seeya!

Bringing back my recall

Right now, i am just focusing on getting my dream recall better. And to do that you
Need to write down your dreams. The only problem is that i don't remember anything from my dreams.
Any tips?

The most consistent way is simply practice, every time you wake up (even in the middle of the night) note down anything you remember, even feelings. I also recommend you set your intention to recall your dreams before you go to bed. You just need to get your mind to classify dreams as important again and once you've done that you should have no problem with recall.

So last night i dreamt 3 dreams that i remember some of. While writing about it in my dream journal it came to me that i almost got lucid at one point!

The dream was about a bear that was stalking me while i was jogging, so i ran even faster. In a while i realized that i don't need to fear the bear because it is only a dream! But then my dream logic took over and i continued to flee from the bear :/

Lol at the bear :D

Don't worry, it'll be better with practice. That is a good sign though. Great job :3

Tonight i remember one dream, and it was about Bruce Springsteen.

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Originally Posted by Frequent22

The dream was about a bear that was stalking me while i was jogging, so i ran even faster. In a while i realized that i don't need to fear the bear because it is only a dream! But then my dream logic took over and i continued to flee from the bear :/

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Hey, congratulations! That means you actually achieved a very low level of lucidity. That's great! This is how it begins for you!

Lucid dreamers generally aren't born flying around Neptune shooting bolts of lightning from their eyes. :) What you're doing now is growing accustomed to what dreams feel like and building good habits of awareness and skepticism.

Think often of that moment when you realized that "it was all a dream". If you can, run through the memory in your head at bedtime. Remember how you felt and resolve to feel that same recognition again. It's truly just a matter of time and effort now.

Great stuff -- you are right where you need to be!

Edit: I'd thought that your old LDs were from many years ago, but I see now that you're 15. Your LD habits are probably much fresher than I'd been thinking. You are going to be back in the saddle in no time! :goodjob:

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Originally Posted by CanisLucidus

Hey, congratulations! That means you actually achieved a very low level of lucidity. That's great! This is how it begins for you!

Lucid dreamers generally aren't born flying around Neptune shooting bolts of lightning from their eyes. :) What you're doing now is growing accustomed to what dreams feel like and building good habits of awareness and skepticism.

Think often of that moment when you realized that "it was all a dream". If you can, run through the memory in your head at bedtime. Remember how you felt and resolve to feel that same recognition again. It's truly just a matter of time and effort now.

Great stuff -- you are right where you need to be!

Edit: I'd thought that your old LDs were from many years ago, but I see now that you're 15. Your LD habits are probably much fresher than I'd been thinking. You are going to be back in the saddle in no time! :goodjob:

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Thanks for the awesome feedback! So last night i tried to simply remember my dreams, instead of trying to have a lucid. Well guess what, i got lucid :D I was in greece at a hotel i stayed at one week ago. And i started thinking, this aint right i'm not here anymore. And i did a couple of failed reality checks. But i didin't give up, so i eventually got lucid. It was a fun dream althought it got a little scary in the end. So what do i do when the dream changes to something else?

EDIT: it was a medium level lucidity dream, i've had much clearer.

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Originally Posted by Frequent22

So what do i do when the dream changes to something else?

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What do you mean exactly? Sometimes you just got to be patient and ride things out even if it is scary. In the beginning you may find that it is helpful to constantly remind yourself that you are dreaming so you don't fall non-lucid.

Well it's kind of like i am flying, having a good time eating pie when BAM! A zombie pops up... I have tried once to think like, this is just a dream you can't hurt me. It did help, but in this dream i wasen't lucid enough to think logic.

Awesome, congratulations on the lucid! This is great. Just the effort to remember your dreams seems to have gotten your awareness right where you need.

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Originally Posted by Frequent22

Well it's kind of like i am flying, having a good time eating pie when BAM! A zombie pops up... I have tried once to think like, this is just a dream you can't hurt me. It did help, but in this dream i wasen't lucid enough to think logic.

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Like you said, lacking the presence of mind to formulate a plan does make this tougher. Dream control is always toughest when you a) encounter some novel situation and b) don't have the highest level of lucidity.

My primary dream control tip is to imagine in detail what you wish to happen. Don't just think that you want the zombie to go away. Imagine the sounds and sights of it collapsing into a tired heap of bones and fading into the ground. Generate every last detail you can think of in your mind. Fill every sense and every corner of your mind with the images of what you want.

Essentially, you are trying to drive out any thoughts of failure by focusing all of your energy on thoughts of success. You're the dreamer, so you the source of everything that you see and experience. If you overwhelm yourself with the details of your success, you'll have way less capacity to imagine failure.

My second tip is to try, whenever possible, to flow with the dream in any way that you can. I've often made the mistake of (unwittingly) going to war with the elements of the dream when I should have been using them to my advantage. An example is a windstorm that keeps me from flying where I want. Fighting against this storm with my own counterwind wound up creating a ruinous (though kind of awesome) hurricane-style storm that tore the dream apart. And ripped off my pants, incidentally, heh heh... A more successful tactic was to imagine that this new wind was trying to help me find where I was trying to go.

Anyway, those are my general observations about dream control. The tough part is gaining the experience and presence of mind to actually do these things, which is something I'm still feverishly working on. :)

Congrats again, and good luck!

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Originally Posted by CanisLucidus

Awesome, congratulations on the lucid! This is great. Just the effort to remember your dreams seems to have gotten your awareness right where you need.



Like you said, lacking the presence of mind to formulate a plan does make this tougher. Dream control is always toughest when you a) encounter some novel situation and b) don't have the highest level of lucidity.

My primary dream control tip is to imagine in detail what you wish to happen. Don't just think that you want the zombie to go away. Imagine the sounds and sights of it collapsing into a tired heap of bones and fading into the ground. Generate every last detail you can think of in your mind. Fill every sense and every corner of your mind with the images of what you want.

Essentially, you are trying to drive out any thoughts of failure by focusing all of your energy on thoughts of success. You're the dreamer, so you the source of everything that you see and experience. If you overwhelm yourself with the details of your success, you'll have way less capacity to imagine failure.

My second tip is to try, whenever possible, to flow with the dream in any way that you can. I've often made the mistake of (unwittingly) going to war with the elements of the dream when I should have been using them to my advantage. An example is a windstorm that keeps me from flying where I want. Fighting against this storm with my own counterwind wound up creating a ruinous (though kind of awesome) hurricane-style storm that tore the dream apart. And ripped off my pants, incidentally, heh heh... A more successful tactic was to imagine that this new wind was trying to help me find where I was trying to go.

Anyway, those are my general observations about dream control. The tough part is gaining the experience and presence of mind to actually do these things, which is something I'm still feverishly working on. :)

Congrats again, and good luck!

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That is actually really helpful, i have never thought about it like that. I didin't tell the whole story about the zombie situation thought.

-I got to a ruin of some sort, like ancient maya and in there i met a bunch of zombies. I kinda slashed them with my arm by some sort of invisible sword. Some i just punched to death, or shouted to death(kinda like skyrim) But then i met a zombie who would'nt die from any of my attacks, so he got me and the dream ended. I wish i'd had you there guiding me at the point , cause i could not focus enough to kill the zombie.

Cool, sounds like you can really handle yourself. :) Also -- I must try Skyrim. :D

Another approach you can try is to actually forego physical combat in favor of other alternatives. Sometimes, if you struggle against what you perceive to be a strong opponent, you will make them strong. Your focus on their strength can build their strength. For some people, more and more enemies can come pouring out as the early ones are vanquished.

This could actually be really, really fun if your goal is to have lots of physical combat in an LD, but if it's interfering with other goals, other approaches might work better.

OpheliaBlue posted a really excellent example of this sort of soft power in a recent Dream Journal entry. She'd been dealing with a series of hostile demonic figures that popped up every few LDs and physically pinned her down and fought with her, not allowing her to continue with her dream goals. In this latest encounter, she used a combination of a different, softer form of dream control and conversation to weaken and ultimately banish the demon from her dream. Very good stuff.

WILDs on My Back - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Another example that shows the contrasting approaches concerns an obstacle that's popped up in my own LDs. I've occasionally hit a windstorm that will block my path when I'm trying to fly somewhere. When I tried to overpower one of these windstorms, it didn't work well at all: Pants Gone with the Wind - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

In another, earlier dream I had good luck with an approach where I simply flowed with the windstorm and turned it to my own purposes: Halloween in the Sky Fortress - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Just some ideas for you to mull over. The biggest thing, which seems to only come with time, is having the presence of mind to actually do this stuff. :)

Tonight i did not have any lucid dreams, altought i did have a very nice dream about me and my father exploring whats left of my town after it moves (it will move irl)

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Originally Posted by Frequent22

Tonight i did not have any lucid dreams, altought i did have a very nice dream about me and my father exploring whats left of my town after it moves (it will move irl)

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If I'm understanding you correctly, what you're saying is very interesting to me. Your town is actually going to change locations in some way? What does that mean?

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Originally Posted by CanisLucidus

If I'm understanding you correctly, what you're saying is very interesting to me. Your town is actually going to change locations in some way? What does that mean?

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Well, this town's economy is based on mining(iron) And after several years of mining, the ground where my city stands gets to unstable and there are several big cracks. So the city is being moved. Everything that is worth moving that is.

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Originally Posted by Frequent22

Well, this town's economy is based on mining(iron) And after several years of mining, the ground where my city stands gets to unstable and there are several big cracks. So the city is being moved. Everything that is worth moving that is.

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Wow, amazing stuff. Thanks for explaining it.

The literal uprooting of your town is something that is likely (IMO) to be on your mind a lot in the coming days. When you find yourself thinking of it, perhaps take the time to examine your reality and situation. How did you get where you are? Does what you're doing make sense? Is your rational mind buying what it sees? This may not be the last time this theme occurs to you in a dream.

Just a thought. Best of luck with your dreaming and all of the change going on for you.

Thanks, for the advices and i don't even think it was the first dream on the subject. The weird part is that it is not being moved right NOW , and i will probably not even live here when it does happen. So it seems so strange that it's even on my mind :/

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Originally Posted by Frequent22

Thanks, for the advices and i don't even think it was the first dream on the subject. The weird part is that it is not being moved right NOW , and i will probably not even live here when it does happen. So it seems so strange that it's even on my mind :/

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That's interesting, but it does seem pretty normal to me. I think that we become attached to the permanence of places, particularly the places that we've lived.

I remember visiting the house that my grandparents used to live in and finding that the house's barn had been burned up in a fire. Even though it wasn't a place that they or anyone I knew lived anymore, it felt like someone was gouging at the memories I had attached to that place. As if when the place burned, some small part of my past was lost with it. The truth, of course, is that the mind is the real caretaker of the past, not some old burned-out building. But it was an odd feeling.

I think it's partially because we base so much of our memory structure around geography. The "memory palace" or "method of Loci" is an excellent mnemonic technique that uses this principle:

Method of loci - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Originally Posted by Frequent22

Well, this town's economy is based on mining(iron) And after several years of mining, the ground where my city stands gets to unstable and there are several big cracks. So the city is being moved. Everything that is worth moving that is.

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WOW that's what happened to a town near here. Picher, Oklahoma, USA. They had too much lead and too many sinkholes. I never went there but it was all over the news. Actually this whole region was built over abandoned mines. I'd hate to live here if the New Madrid fault line ever gives us a big earthquake. Supposedly we are over due. Ah well that was a bit of topic.

The last time i haven't had time to lucid dream. I have had so much to do, because of homework and tests. Now i'm free thought so tonight i will try again.

So interesting about your town Adam O_O I wonder now, that your testing is done, if this will work its way into your dreams.

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Originally Posted by CanisLucidus

I think it's partially because we base so much of our memory structure around geography. The "memory palace" or "method of Loci" is an excellent mnemonic technique that uses this principle:

Method of loci - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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That's interesting CanisLucidus. I just had an LD this morning where I visited my parents' home. It ends up in my dreams alot. Even more so now that they're selling it.

Sounds good, Adam! Good luck tonight.

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Originally Posted by OpheliaBlue

That's interesting CanisLucidus. I just had an LD this morning where I visited my parents' home. It ends up in my dreams alot. Even more so now that they're selling it.

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Hey wow, very cool! On the 9th, I also had an LD that started out in my parents' house. I'll check it out in your DJ.

Those old maps in our brains may fade a little, but it seems like we carry them around forever.

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Originally Posted by OpheliaBlue

So interesting about your town Adam O_O I wonder now, that your testing is done, if this will work its way into your dreams.



That's interesting CanisLucidus. I just had an LD this morning where I visited my parents' home. It ends up in my dreams alot. Even more so now that they're selling it.

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It is weird how we tend to dream of particular places, even thought we haven't been there in a while :O I for an example often dream of my old school, that i haven't gone to in 4 years.

Lucid dream talk now! I had a medium low level lucidity tonight, where i even got the clarity to try and make it clearer by rubbing my palms. I don't exactly remember what i did after that... I remember that i had a sleep paralysis after that, and i tried to make it into a lucid dream. But the more i tried to get out of my physical body the more i felt pressure on my chest.