Thread: Keitorin's Workbook

My Dream Journal is here.

Sleep schedule: I lay down at 11-11:20pm and have my alarm set to 8:30am.

A few days ago I had it set to 9:45am, but I kept waking up early and I was worried about oversleeping, so I was going to gradually lower it to 8:45am and see how that went...but then I started waking up at 8:30am and decided to just go with that. So my body is still adjusting.

I don't get to sleep easily, my thoughts pretty much takeover until I pass out (after an hour or so?) Oftentimes if I wake up earlier than usual, I won't be able to get back to sleep because thoughts of the day ahead start popping up, plus it's always hot and I can't stand that, and my nose starts acting up... >.>

I know meditating or setting aside time during the day to think might help with overthinking. I do have a few techniques that help to calm my thoughts some, I just need more practice with them.

Night-time routine:
Get off computer at 8:45pm.
Read book until 9:45pm.
Relax on bed with laptop (it's set to low brightness) and read Dream Journals/listen to music until 10:45pm.
Get ready for bed and lay down.

I use a laptop to type up my dreams, because when I used a notebook, I often couldn't read my handwriting the next day, and I would use keywords and not be able to remember anything. Plus, I rarely write anything besides notes IWL, and when I write anything longer than that my hand hurts and starts cramping (I have carpal tunnel syndrome).

Lucid dream reason: Pretty much all the reasons I've seen elsewhere. To explore what my mind can come up with, to do things I can't in real life, to try out things I want to do (like singing on a stage), to have fun, to explore ideas (story-like), not wasting sleep time when I could be dreaming...

It'd be cool to participate in the TotM thread for sure. And I'm always open to flying, lucid or not. <3

Dream signs:

Vehicles (particularly accidents)
Children
Animals
Stores
School/old classmates
Fandom-related stuff
Immorality (stealing mainly)
Old places or people (school, residences, family I don't see often)

Lately I've been dreaming a lot of water and of (more) dreams of getting into fights with my mom.

Reality checks: I really don't want to be one to obsessively RC all day every day. If I can just increase my awareness and RC when I come across dream signs or weird occurrences, I'd be happy with that. I really like the ideas in sivason's dream yoga class.

That said, nose-pinch is the one I think most to do, and finger in hand after. I know in the past I've used flying to test my state and became lucid.

Short-term goal: Increase my recall/work out any kinks in my sleep schedule.
Long-term goal: Find a technique that works for me to become lucid.

I can be a bit long-winded, so I apologize! Hope I didn't forget anything though. XD

I use a program called Scrivener to edit and archive my dreams in, plus to have pages for dream signs, goals etc. I also have one to record the times I naturally wake up every night (since August anyway). The most I've woken up in a night since July is 4 times. 3 is more common. Currently I may wake up twice a night. Most dreams in a night is 7 (including fragments). Overall is 13 I believe.

Overall, between 6-8am was when I'd wake up the most, but 8-9:45am was when I'd have the best/most recall.

I use autosuggestion every night/when I wake up. It used to be 'I will remember my dreams', but it got to the point where it seemed liked I was just saying it by rote. I already had the confidence and experience to know I would anyway. What I ended up doing was combining that mantra with another about waking up after my dreams.

"I will wake up after my dreams and remember them."

From what I've been able to tell, it's working, despite the sleep schedule change issue. I still wake up sometimes even if I'm too tired to type up anything.

Lesson II, techniques overview.

I'm going to put down my biggest problem before I go into how I feel about the techniques based on it.

If I wake up too much after a night awakening, it takes me what feels like forever to get back to asleep. Even just waking up for five-ten minutes can put my sleep in danger. The later it is the worse off. I have to just give up and get up thirty minutes to an hour earlier than usual sometimes. If I toss and turn for a couple hours (and it's early enough) sometimes I can get back to sleep.

DILD: This is how I got the 10 lucid dreams I have. I don't think anything in particular caught my attention, maybe the feel of the dream, but I'd just suddenly realize "I'm dreaming!". Definitely would want to keep this one handy. Already am good at autosuggestion and visualization as well. I'd like to get better at dream incubation for sure.

MILD: Ditto. A problem I can perceive is staying focused on it as I fall asleep. And if I am too awake, I have lots of thoughts vying for attention that might pull my focus away. I can just work on my meditation techniques to calm my thoughts and refocus though?

WILD: I'd worry about getting too awake. The easiest way for me to fall asleep is to just let go of everything, but I worry that with this, I'd focus too much and just end up laying there forever until I give up...

DEILD: I've actually done this with normal dreams, and I like the idea of it, as long as my recall doesn't suffer too much.

Other:

WBTB: Again, I fear becoming too awake. I feel like I'd only be be able to wake up long enough to type down any dreams so that I am able to get back to sleep at all.

Dream Yoga: Been practicing the basic skill from sivason's class, where you pay attention to the noises around you.

SSILD: I quite like this technique...but I actually use it to calm my thoughts as I try to sleep, and it's been helping me. I'll focus on one sense until my thoughts start crowding in, before moving on to another. I worry if I actually tried to use it to induce an LD, the same problems as with other techniques would crop up. I know that you can actually focus too much on something, and the minute you give up, you fall asleep... So I guess it's about finding the right level of focus?

In any case, I do think the best technique for me for now would be DILD. Maybe I can combine it with WBTB once I'm sure I'll wake up more easily. Will consider MILD/WBTB as well.

DILD Attempt Day 1: I decided to start with practicing the nose-plug RC when I sleep/wake, and stopping to be mindful at random during the day.

I went to bed an hour late because it was my friend’s birthday and she asked me to stay.

I had trouble getting to sleep, trying to use my technique wasn’t helping because I couldn’t concentrate enough through the thoughts.

I did my usual autosuggestion when I thought I was sleepy enough, and added in one about having a lucid dream. (It was kind of awkward sounding though, “I will wake up and remember my dreams. I will have a lucid dream tonight.”

Also remembered to RC before bed, and when I woke up once during the night, as well as a few minutes after I woke, after remembering about it.

I woke up thirty minutes early again (at 8am). I never know if I should just lay there until it’s time to get up or just go ahead and get up, because I know I won’t get back to sleep.

I did have one dream recall but no LD that I remember. It had one of my dream signs, 'grandma's house'.

Next step is to work on awareness throughout the day. =)

DILD Attempt Day 2 (Sunday):

Practiced awareness/RC throughout the day (at least 5 times).

Since I’ve been having more ‘fights with mom’ dreams, when I felt annoyed with her a few times, I made sure to ask myself if I could be dreaming and do an RC.

I was so tired that I kept dozing on the couch sitting up, at one point startling awake from HI or a dream scene. I hate feeling that way, staying up even one hour late messes more than one day up. :/

As for my dreams that night, I remember waking up once thinking of a dream, but was too tired to even be much aware of it. It may be the same dream I woke up remembering later though, with the loss of some details.

I did an RC before bed and after sitting up upon wakening.

I’ve been listening to the DV podcast today (Monday) and learned a few things to try, like making a bigger deal out of failures. “When I saw I was at grandma’s house, I should have realized I was dreaming since it’s such a big dream sign! Next time, I will realize it and become lucid.”

I’ve decided not to crosspost my dreams here until I start having more significant dreams.

Question: Am I MILDing rather then DILD’ing? After listening to one of the podcasts about it, I realized that I pretty much do all the stuff described, except for visualizing myself becoming lucid.

DILD Attempt Day 2 (Monday):

I realized while thinking about DILD that I actually didn’t have any goals in my head to try for if I did become lucid. Besides flying, of course. 8D So I looked at my ‘general’ list and picked a couple of the simpler ones to try.

-Jump really high (like Killua & Gon from Hunter x Hunter)
-Sing a Wiccan chant/song (The Earth, the Air, the Fire, the Water, Return)

I switched from the finger-in-palm RC to counting fingers, more comfortable to me.

I decided to try having a different attitude about how long it takes me to get to sleep. Thanks to the podcast! I’ll fill the time with autosuggestion, some visualization and meditation to keep my thoughts as calm as possible so that I’m ready to slip into sleep when time.

Night: Have done well doing RC’s during the night. I might have forgotten to AS when I woke up at 3? It took ten minutes to type up my dreams at that time too, so I know I can stay up for at least that long and get back to sleep. I did wake up thirty minutes early again, I’m still tired even though I was really happy about my recall.

Oh yeah, I fell asleep earlier than usual (may be because I was so tired already though), but I I did AS/AC and meditation and fell asleep just before going over my dream goals to remember for if I became lucid.

DILD Attempt Day 3 (Tuesday):

Been doing more solid reading on MILD and WBTB. I’m good at visualization. I definitely have plenty of opportunity to wake back to bed, but right now I think I’m just too tired. I feel like I’ll never feel good and be more productive again.

I need to work on awareness when I play my MMORPG (Dragon Nest). I play it on the weekdays from the time I wake up to 3:30pm (though sometimes I get off earlier), and it really hard to lose focus on anything but it.

I looked through my old DJ and saw that I did attempt to induce lucid dreams in 2008~09. In two that I could find, I became lucid because I was looking for something to write my dreams down on. XD And I had a lot of missed opportunities, where lucid dreaming would be mentioned or even the theme of the dream but I didn’t become lucid.

I had an FA last night. I don’t think I started out in my bedroom, or I slept-walked downstairs. I wonder if I would have RC’ed had I started with sitting up in bed?

Originally Posted by Keitorin

It'd be cool to participate in the TotM thread for sure. And I'm always open to flying, lucid or not. <3

Highly recommended! I was less experienced than you are now when I tried for my first Task of the Month. Did I succeed? Absolutely not, but it was great for focusing me in lucid dreams and training the prospective memory... building that connection between waking life and dream life, you know?

Originally Posted by Keitorin

Question: Am I MILDing rather then DILD’ing? After listening to one of the podcasts about it, I realized that I pretty much do all the stuff described, except for visualizing myself becoming lucid.

Heh, yeah it can be hard to label these things sometimes. I like to think of DILD and WILD as broad categories with lots of induction techniques under them. So MILD is a technique designed to make DILDs more likely. Autosuggestion is the same way.

I like to throw in an element of visualization and nearly-desperate autosuggestion with my MILD. You mentioned that you're a strong visualizer, so if you're most of the way there, maybe try throwing in some visualization of yourself becoming lucid?

What I like to do when visualizing is continually reminding myself that "this is all a dream" and kind of simulate that sense of wonder you get in a DILD. Often that feeling will return in those late-morning dreams and kick up a nice DILD.

Originally Posted by Keitorin

Been doing more solid reading on MILD and WBTB. I’m good at visualization. I definitely have plenty of opportunity to wake back to bed, but right now I think I’m just too tired. I feel like I’ll never feel good and be more productive again.

I need to work on awareness when I play my MMORPG (Dragon Nest). I play it on the weekdays from the time I wake up to 3:30pm (though sometimes I get off earlier), and it really hard to lose focus on anything but it.

You mentioned that you sometimes have trouble falling asleep, dealing with racing thoughts. This was a tendency I had to stomp out a while back. NewArtemis invented an effective technique for using visualization to get to sleep, and you may find it handy, too. You just visualize yourself doing something serene but immersive like running through an endless forest. If waking life concerns arise, just gently set them aside and return to your visualization. Don't work too hard at pushing them away, just placidly return to the visualization.

If you do ultimately give WBTB a try, the practice at getting yourself back to sleep will pay off there.

As for video games... this is tough! When I get really into a game, I try to mentally "come up for air" every now and then, thinking about the fact that I'm playing a game, where I'm sitting, my current state of mind, and then mentally check myself to be sure that I'm not just dreaming about playing a game. (Something I do very very regularly!)

Looking forward to seeing your progress! Good luck!

DILD Attempt Day 4 (Wednesday):

Tried sitting up and running through goals first (as read about in a tutorial), since I seem to fall asleep before I get there. Will keep doing that and see how it goes.

Had a dream where I kept rewinding a scene to ‘fix’ things, that was interesting.

I’m totally failing to RC at dream sign stuff. To be fair, it’s not like I encounter that stuff IWL often anyway. I don’t go out much so I don’t see vehicles/stores/children often, even in the stuff I watch. Err just realized I watched a movie with a bunch in it. And my grandma came over today (Friday).

I do have enough bathroom-setting dreams that I think I’ll RC every time I’m in one.

Still practicing awareness and doing RCs, so I guess I need cement my dream signs in my head to where I can’t forget them when I see them around.

I wonder if the phrase “You need a reality check.” came from lucid dreaming. =P Actually it probably came from daydreams/fantasies.

Also, thanks for the likes, OpheliaBlue. ^_^

DILD Attempt Day 5 (Thursday):

I had a dream where I became more aware of my surroundings. :O

I was in a part of a neighborhood of where I used to live about ten years ago IWL, I’d only been there once or twice. I’m walking away from a house, and suddenly slow down to take in things around me. Things come more into focus. I look down beside the sidewalk and see some yellow(?) and purple tulips growing.

I hope it happens again soon so I can be sure that my practicing awareness is what's causing it.

After reading this tutorial more carefully, I think I'll just follow the steps and imagine my dream signs instead of waiting for them to show up in my day to day activities.

A few nights ago, I had this cool HI where I was looking at the stars in a night sky as if it was wallpaper. I have HI fairly often before bed (and I don't know for sure if this is still HI), but I find I can get it going too by relaxing and bringing up one random image/thought, and let it turn into more, like a fast slideshow of random thoughts and images. Sometimes this can turn into a more solid scene, but I always 'snap out of it' even if I don't look too closely/affect it.

Last night, I stayed sitting up in bed and visualized what I would do if I became lucid. I even combined dream signs with goals. Then when I laid down, I seemed to fall asleep much easier after I got comfortable. Meditating also seems to help me relax and focus.

So, my computer died on me suddenly and I couldn't fix it. I'm currently using my mom's crappy laptop which could also die at any time. Luckily I found backups of my dream journal project in Scrivener.

A fair amount has changed since I was last here so I'm sorting through things.

I'm storing dreams in my memory palace (which has produced some interesting results and has given me lucid ideas to try) and typing them up in Word now.

I haven't been having trouble sleeping lately. I go through my palace an hour before bed and fall asleep within 15-30 minutes after that. I started exercising in December which probably has helped, and have gotten into cooking more and cleaning, which makes me tired. I settle down for sleep at 11. I do wake up 1-2 times between 5-8 so far, storing dreams as I go. I usually get up at 8:23.

More later!

I added my current dream signs to a memory palace so I can have them at hand. I have a hard time keeping them all in mind at once, so I'm starting with 'water' to pay attention to. I need to get the basics down, mainly looking at my hands for an RC, and a few other RCs when I get that down. When I go through the dream sign palace before bed, I'll do an RC (I already do autosuggestion in my dream palace). Will work on doing it in the morning too. I have 2-4 dreams a night currently.

I'm doing an interview with mindarchitects on Tumblr about how I do my dream palace, wonder if anyone would be interested on DV. :B

By the way, I never thanked you for your advice, CanisLucidus. I love the idea of thinking about running, and the gaming advice made sense too, although I haven't gamed in a few months. Still counts for how wrapped up I get in the computer.

Had an FA where I woke up and was hurrying to type my stuff up. XD Good sign, I think. I’m so focused on recall when I first wake up though, I only do an RC after I’ve got it all straight in my head. I guess I can only wait and see how it develops from here.

Also, turning to lie on my back worked well for making sure I got the dreams in my palace (before I could fall asleep), because I can’t get to sleep on my back. After that I just had to keep my thoughts from wandering off so I could focus on putting the dreams in and then RC.

I haven’t had a dream with water (that I know of) since I started paying attention to it. I’m getting the hang of it, but there are a few times where I’m a little late, but I still RC when I realize I saw/thought of water. I also RC outside of that.

I’ve been waking up at least 2-4 times a night. It’s kind of frustrating for the earlier times, because the dreams are so fragment-y or I’m so tired it’s hard to piece together things enough to remember them/focus.

I do often remember to RC after I go through my dreams and sometimes to remind myself ‘I will wake up after my dreams and remember them’. Before bed I go through my dream signs list and point out that when I see them, I’ll realize I’m dreaming.

This morning, I had a dream where I questioned something!

I’m sitting down and petting Spice when I notice a patch on his back is on fire! I take the white pillow that’s usually on mom’s bed and pat it out.

I look at him and see no trace of it, and I suddenly feel confused and question what I saw. Is it really possible for something like that to happen?

But there’s a jump after that, so I didn’t get to try RCing. Next time, hopefully! I think the memory RC really helps so I’m looking forward to being able to do that in a dream soon and see how it goes.

Definitely going to go back through some tutorials to be prepared for induction soon. I love the idea of MIT and think it fits well with how I wake up.

I tried to MILD last night after reading the MIT article. I initially fell asleep fine.

When I woke up at three I was just going to do my usual recall/RC/sleep thing, but then realized it'd been about five hours since I layed down, so I decided to do the second mantra for MILD. But I found that I couldn't get back to sleep - the mantra seemed to be keeping me awake, and maybe I was overexcited. I decided to just go for a DILD. I did get some dream-thoughts. It was also a lot hotter than usual for that time of night.

I decided to try and get up for a few minutes, let the fan cool the bed down. I pet Smoke a bit, used the bathroom, got a drink of water. Didn't help. I ended up opening my window, which I guess helped enough that I could fall back asleep.

I'd been awake for a few hours, which seemed to affect the rest of my night (and day, so sleepy), as I woke up five times with only three recalled dreams (two of which had some vivid moments). And a wet window sill because it rained. x_x

Buuut I will absolutely try again tonight. I read some tips on how to cool down - apply a cold cloth to back of neck, run cold water over wrists, splash water on neck, cool sheets before bed, etc...

Went fine, did it multiple times although no lucids. Instead of saying the mantra over and over, I tried saying it with some time in between. I fell back asleep easier this time with my initial awakening, probably because I was a bit cooler.

Something I realized is that I'm not putting enough effort into turning on my back to get the best recall, and not doing enough awareness stuff. It's too easy to get caught up in things and forget some of the details. I'll make sure to read more guides on awareness.

I'm trying to figure out how to put some things in my lucid dream info palace, I think I need to do more research on remembering text things.