Thread: CosmicVision's Workbook

Hey, I'm CosmicVision. I'm a 17-year-old male, and I'm very interested in lucid dreaming, although I'm pretty new to it.

Lucid Dreams so far: 0


Reality Checks:
- Nose pinch
- Pushing finger through palm of hand

Dream Signs:
- Escalators
- Elevators
- Public Restrooms
- Seeing people from my 8th grade class

Short-Term Goals:
- Have a lucid dream
- Recall several dreams per night
- Have real-life-like vividness in dreams
- Do cool stuff in LDs e.g. superpowers, exploring places, interacting w/ DCs, etc.

Long-Term Goals:
- Lucid dream(s) every night.
- Self-exploration and artistic inspiration in LDs.
- Attempt shared dreaming (if it's possible)

Lucid/Dream Recall History:
- No lucids yet, but recall is improving from what it once was (on average, 2 dreams at 50% vividness)

Current Technique:
- CANWILD with multiple alarms
- Drawing a red star on my hand and reality-checking every time I see it.
- (btw, i've only been doing these 2 days since the time i made this post)

Sleeping Schedule:
-Go to bed btwn 10:30 and 11:00 and wake up btwn 7:30 and 8:00 usually.
- This will change when school comes around in a month

Reasons why I want to LD:
- Exploring and doing things I can't do in real life
- Artistic inspiration for music
- Practicing skills for real life
- Learning more about myself
- more when i think of them

Nighttime routine:
- Set alarms for WBTB
- Read DJ
- Repeat mantra

Well, that's about it. See you in dreamland!

*I will keep a dream journal for dreamviews, but it will only contain lucids and particularly interesting/detailed non-lucids. All my humdrum dreams will go in a handwritten notebook.

Hi, CosmicVision. Sounds like a good start. I would suggest though doing more than one reality check because any reality check can fail at times (indicate that you are awake when you are actually dreaming), and if you do more than one reality check on after the other, chances are higher that you won't get fooled by wrong result.

Thanks for the advice. I'll start doing the push-through-the-palm one as well.

BTW, a little fun fact about me: anything involving reading text is not going to work as a reality check for me. I have never had a problem reading text in dreams, both on paper and on a screen. Same goes for looking at clocks; I have successfully comprehended time in my dreams before. It's weird; i dunno what to make of it.

Oh, I can read in dreams as well no problem, and I think most people can. I think there is a misunderstanding of reading as a reality check. It's not that one can't read in dreams, one can. However, if you read something or look at a digital clock, and then you look away, and while you are looking away think to yourself "I expect that when I look back at the writing or the clock it will have changed" - if you truly expect it to change, in a dream it likely will change. I tend to look at digital watches, and as long as it is not 5 o'clock or 4:59 , I look away and will the clock to change to 5:00. Also while I can read in dreams and have had dreams that were all about reading DreamViews for example, but in a reality check, I can change the writing according to my expectations when it is a dream. I once years ago had a note on a refrigerator change into a calendar during a reality check, and it had definitely not been a calendar before I looked away! I hope this helps explain how the reading reality checks work. However, of course you do not have to do reading reality checks if you don't want to, the nose plug and hand through palm are fine reality checks.

Hi! I'm a fellow student.
It's funny that experts say the best RC is looking at a text or digital clock, looking away, looking back and checking for any changes.
For some reason I never have done this in a dream, that I remember, even though I do it in waking life. But I have done a couple of times the nose pinch and finger-through-palm, and they did work!
I'm not saying that the Look-twice-to-a-text RC does not work, but for some reason I never seem to remember it while dreaming I have little experience yet, anyways.
Nice workbook and good luck!

What experts say that the read text is the best RC? I have never seen anyone say that it is. It's just one of several possible RCs. I think the best RCs are ones that do not require one to have anything with one, so hand through palm and nose pinch are better than re-read text. However, it is always a good idea to do two or three RCs in a row, and re-reading text is an ok one to do as one of several.

I heard that the nose-pinch was the one most recommended by experts because it had an almost 100% rate of success, so I figured that would be the only one necessary. But, i guess it can't hurt to have a backup.

Thanks Joanna for clarifying the reading/clock thing

Sorry, I was just pointing out what some well respected authors say, like Stephen LaBerge at Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming, chapter 3: "In my experience, the best test is the following: find some writing, read it (if you can), look away, then reread it, checking to see if it stays the same"
But I fully agree with JoannaB, if we rely on an external object we may not find it at the dreamworld when we need it, and it's better to do more than on RC.
You listen to JoannaB, she has lots of experience!!

Originally Posted by dreambh

Sorry, I was just pointing out what some well respected authors say, like Stephen LaBerge at Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming, chapter 3: "In my experience, the best test is the following: find some writing, read it (if you can), look away, then reread it, checking to see if it stays the same"
But I fully agree with JoannaB, if we rely on an external object we may not find it at the dreamworld when we need it, and it's better to do more than on RC.
You listen to JoannaB, she has lots of experience!!

Thank you, though got to correct you on that one: I do not have a lot of experience. I am an interesting mixture between experienced and newbie, neither one nor the other, with one foot in both worlds.

Originally Posted by dreambh

Sorry, I was just pointing out what some well respected authors say, like Stephen LaBerge at Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming, chapter 3: "In my experience, the best test is the following: find some writing, read it (if you can), look away, then reread it, checking to see if it stays the same"
But I fully agree with JoannaB, if we rely on an external object we may not find it at the dreamworld when we need it, and it's better to do more than on RC.
You listen to JoannaB, she has lots of experience!!

No need to be sorry to anyone, I had no idea that LaBerge himself favored the reading technique. different methods work for different people; I'm perfectly happy w/ my own RCs.

I'll be posting my attempts at lucid dreaming as much as I can (that's what the workbook is for, right?). Last night was my 3rd attempt at my current technique, which is CANWILD. I set 3 alarms that turned off automatically after a few seconds at 6 hours, 6 3/4 hours, and 7 1/2 hours after I went to sleep.

Unfortunately, I messed up on all of them. I slept through the first one, and I forgot to stay still on the second. On the last alarm, I woke up from a dream and stayed still, but I was in a horrendous position, so I had to move and lost it.

Also, my recall last night was the worst it's been in weeks; only 1 dream fragment oh well, i'll try again tomorrow night

past 2 nights, still no luck. I keep waking up for my technique in an uncomfortable position and wanting to move to be on my back, but I can't move or i disrupt the technique. suggestions?

I almost had a lucid dream last night! I woke up naturally in the middle of the night, and i was really tired. I spaced out in a half-asleep state for a while, not exactly sure how long, but at 3:15, I had a sudden burst of alertness. I suddenly remembered about lucid dreaming. I rolled over onto my back using as little energy as I could and immediately began moving my fingers for the FILD technique. Within seconds I had a tingling sensation over my body, which was followed by a startling buzzing noise in my ears, like a cicada was there in my bedroom. (No visual HI though) I thought "Yes! This must be sleep paralysis! That means I'm close to a lucid dream!" I was excited, but I kept my cool and did kept doing my technique.

After about 15-30 seconds the tingling and buzzing eased. I decided to be on the safe side and wait a few more minutes until I was certain I was out of the transition stage and in the dream. I moved my fingers for another 3 minutes or so. Then I sat up slowly and did several reality checks, all of which succeeded. Crap. And what's worse, I couldn't get back to sleep for another couple hours after that. :/

Ok, so I'm mad that I was so close and let a dream slip away. I think my mistake was waiting too long after the tingling/buzzing faded; I should have RC'd right after they were done. I am happy though b/c that was my first time experiencing sleep paralysis, so I know I'm getting somewhere. Oh well. I'm sure I'll have one tonight

Ugh haven't had it yet. i'm getting so close every night it seems, but there's always something out of place. Last night, i had a non-lucid dream that I woke up from suddenly and wanted to continue, so I focused and got back in the dream. So, essentially I DEILDed without even trying, but I wasn't even thinking about lucidity. I did this maybe 3 times. I also had the perfect FILD oppurtunity, but it didn't work because I guess I wasn't relaxed enough. And on top of that, I considered the possibility that it was a dream in 2 of the dreams I had last night, and didn't RC in either of them. Wtf is wrong with me here?

Stopped trying for a long time because of school, but I'm back again ready to go. I made it my New Years resolution to write down my dreams and practice lucidity every day.