Steph´s Workbook

Hey, it sounds like you were getting close indeed! :banana: I'm pretty sure you will surprise us with a cool wild experience sometime soon. For me when I get close to the ld state, it helps to have a mix of strong determination combined with lack of interest. This usually keeps the excitement down. I try to make wilding a very casual (in terms of attitude) process, where I don't worry so much about the transition and the noise, but simply concentrate on having a lucid.

What's the app that you are using by the way? There has been so much talk about this, I may give it a try as an alternative to normal wbtbs. I used one app a long time ago where it would play a song (chose Piav's famous song), but it was always too loud for me and I had to wake up to turn it off. :P

:yddd:

It wooohoorked!!

My First Alarm DEILD!! - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views


I will link you up to the app, like benni did - it is soo worth it - that was the easiest thing in the world!
Edit - there: Alarm Clock Bud Pro for IPhone
And not like the two LD-LD DEILDs I had - it felt more like a WILD - no noise - but I was completely out of the previous dream - and had this phenomenon of looking through my eyelids like through a camera-seeker and then it made wuusch - not acoustically - somehow bodily - and I was there!

And - I found two new "victims":

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Originally Posted by Steph next door

I was out last night - watching the première of a movie the husband of a friend is the director of - was great - aand - both were fascinated, when later I told them about LD.
He even told me, he would have some lucidity - but only for the very last moments in a dream - and he would always wake up almost with or from the realization.
Since the movies he not only directs, but also writes, are a lot about psychological stuff - for example how people deal with violence in the family - I guess, he could really bite.
Dreaming big, the me - maybe he makes a movie on it one day, if he happens to learn and love it properly!!
Now that would be something!!
But his wife - my friend - she did indeed already know, what LD is, and has read about it - just never had one/remembers none.
So it sort of must be something about Germany - and/or my "intellectual" circle of friends..

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Well done Steph! :banana: So when the alarm went on that first dream you had interrupted and you found yourself in bed or were you just floating in the dark until this next scene - the ground appeared?

Your dream sounds really cool, I love dreams where you go around and explore and the villa must have been an awesome place. Nicely done enhancing dream vividness and the toilet experiment.

Lol about finding new victims. Maybe the word really is spreading and with more well made movies out there it will become more popular (and neighbors won't be making so much noise because they will want to ld too!) Ok, now I'm dreaming :D.

Hehehe - thank you!
I was really awake, lying in my bed and waiting out the 5 sec. alarm.
That's why I felt, it was a sort of WILD, while my other two supposed DEILDs were loosing LD - something - back in LD - or my memory deceives me - just read my DJ anew - and found inconsistencies with my memories now.
Not much or far - but some stuff morphs in memory always.

It might really be, that this director gets into it - just a hunch - since he already had a notion of it, shortly before awaking - and lately.
Plus has now some new info from me - and I believe also read something himself before.
Would be great!

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That's why I felt, it was a sort of WILD, while my other two supposed DEILDs were loosing LD - something - back in LD - or my memory deceives me - just read my DJ anew - and found inconsistencies with my memories now.
Not much or far - but some stuff morphs in memory always.

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I also sometimes forget the exact post ld transition, especially if I continue sleepying after the next ld/deild or engage in additional chaining. Sometimes I touch on my body for such a short period of time, I can't be sure it even happened, i.e. not being sure if it was a DEILD or in-dream chain. :?

Again!!
This time I had for the first time after joining up and still not having an LD - taken RRCing seriously in the day.
Every time I went to a toilet - noticing to my slight embarrassment, that I encounter dream-toilets regularly - and some more for good measure - around 20.
Plus mantraing, when going to bed.

Soo - and this is what I got: LD Even Before The Alarms!! Well - Lucid Fragments In Another Dream - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Excerpt from the first LD-episode of two in that normal dream:

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But what came to my mind this time wasn't darts or TOTMs - but dutchraptors 5 lucid criteria.
I knew that I was dreaming - I remembered these criteria - and decided to break through a closed window.
First I touched the glass - and then I just pushed my lower arms through.
What happened when I broke through was, that this window behaved, as if it had been a thin plastic foil with some metal-foil mimicking a mirror then.
So then I was outside and hovering like 2 m over the ground - and wanted to make sure, I know there are no consequences to what I do.
There was a group of people standing about - and I took a long stick from a tree - and poked them.
I know..:roll:
At least I didn't care, what they thought of me. They looked a bit afraid, asked what that was all about - but didn't leave.
Well yeah - and I was on the one hand able to contemplate, that it constituted a failure not to do more - on the other hand - I couldn't bring myself to seriously hurt or kill somebody.
With that I lost lucidity.

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Congrats on the early lds, Steph! Very good recognizing the enclosed space and doors as dream sign. :goodjob2: It was funny how you recalled the 5 ld friteria and went on poking DCs. Do you plan on continuing the tests? :lol:

Heheeh - nope actually not.
In the end effect - I did really have an understanding of there being no consequences if I had killed one of them - except me having a nasty dream.
To completely free myself from such an effect then - is maybe not on the platter right now.
What I rather got to do - and didn't last night, what I think I should do is prepare myself for making a pause and think about my options - not have an idea and rush to follow it.
I didn't really expect an LD out of the blue - I should always be prepared.
I had promised myself to try and dart at the next best opportunity - but the criteria had come to my mind - and I forgot to consider further.
And not get disappointed by something like this next time - I could have just flown away and done something else instead of loosing lucidity.

What I take from it is planning my next alarm-night with an onset after 3 hours of sleep, and see how that goes.
And - I guess I can say, I fulfilled the criteria - I did not refrain from hurting somebody, because I thought they were actually alive other beings - but rather because I didn't want to dream of gore, screaming and dying.

Oh well - edit:
As an aside - nice I did the window thing on the one hand - on the other - I didn't really phase through - but rather made a transformation of the window into something penetrable irl.
So - once I got nothing better to do - I will work on that further. And I guess - once in a while - probably for a TOTM - I also will get myself into some gore and screaming and dying one day.
I think, Ophelia will reliably present some opportunities for that further on..

Attachment 6475

I did it!!!

I played lucid daaarts!
Soo great - I used the lately often mentioned pretend-remember-technique - being in a house - I "remembered" that there was a dart-board and arrows next door - and they were!!

Yupp - need stabilization stuff now for sure - it was a bit blurry - also metaphorically speaking - I can't remember, what I hit - I think I just threw at the board, to see, if I really can, and if they really fly naturally - and they did!!
I mean - not a wonder, that my unconscious knows about how darts fly, did that enough often - but it really felt natural - and even the oche-length - I was worried, that it wouldn't be dreamt correctly - but it felt all right!!

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Copy-paste - sorry - but that's exactly what I want to brag about today ...Attachment 6486

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And - I guess I can say, I fulfilled the criteria - I did not refrain from hurting somebody, because I thought they were actually alive other beings - but rather because I didn't want to dream of gore, screaming and dying

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I totally understand this. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we have to do it. It's just another option.

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I did it!!!

I played lucid daaarts!
Soo great - I used the lately often mentioned pretend-remember-technique - being in a house - I "remembered" that there was a dart-board and arrows next door - and they were!!

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That's awesome Steph! It's really cool you managed to get such a real life proximity of the experience too! Why do I have the feeling that this won't be the last time you play lucid darts? :D

I mean this really seriously - I want to "prove", that it can have an effect on performance - for that I needed quite some rise in mean 3-dart average - good question, what would be credible as anecdotal evidence?

Darts is something, people usually play for years on end, before they really feel, they got their personal technique pinned down.
I have started a thread on my forum a while ago on these plans and LD in general - shame I can't link up - and I also told them the news today.
Soo - sort of I freely put myself under observation.

Got to play some darts on the internet with statistics now* - as a sort of control - been inactive there for several months - only privately, and I have a bit of a rise already over that time - without dreaming. Also I will keep up real-life practice of course.
I should think about these things - because I should expect the lucid darting coming in every night now, shouldn't I? :shadewink:
Hm, hm..

If I get this going now - maybe I should even go to the research-section on here - and ask for help with setting it up..?
Dreaming big is allowed, after all!

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*I am a novice with less than three years all together - but I have my days, where it starts to really click - and then on others - it seems, like I forgot everything and throw a load of crap.

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I mean this really seriously - I want to "prove", that it can have an effect on performance - for that I needed quite some rise in mean 3-dart average - good question, what would be credible as anecdotal evidence?

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You mean conducting an experiment that may show that ld practice improves real practice? I have read in an article somewhere that musicians and athletes often visualize performing before important events, and possibly those who can ld may do this in dreams too. I know from practice that solving exercises in a dream (even a non-lucid one) can indeed help solidify knowledge and improve skills. :P

Good luck with the experiment. It would be cool to have it in the research section.:goodjob2:

Actually - yupp!
I mean - if it really works - why not on me?
There is at least one study, which shows, that training for throwing coins in buckets trained only in LD is more effective, than the already established effects of visualization - and I'm not sure - but really close to physical practice alone, I believe it was.
MelSchaedlich, the German sports psychology researcher, who is sporadically on here, was involved with a TV-docu aired last month, which featured an athlete, too.
And now she - believe it or not - does a sleep lab study on throwing darts!!
But for beginners in darts rather - she mailed me about it - you got to be there, though - and I do not know the details.
Maybe distance to the bulls-eye?
Can't wait for the results of this of course!

Oh, there is a study! That is so exciting indeed! :D

Yeah - but the only thing, I could do would be my very own stab at a piece of anecdotal evidence.
But cool they really do it in the sleep-lab.

I needed to take a good measure of where I am right now - and then see, if I can raise performance in a way, that transgresses my pretty well documented rate of slow improvement over the last year by a convincing amount.
It had to be a big effect, to make it less probable, that it is down to the phase of learning, I am in.

How to go about defining a result, even if it is only so that I personally would be really convinced of it?

And there are several other problems - first of all - I am pretty lazy with darts at the moment, and I definitively have to keep up with my usual daytime practice.
That was very often an hour a day - sometimes more, but definitively every single day.
And these days I go through several days without throwing. The only thing, still really up and going are my Fridays - a lot of hours then - but otherwise just some here and there.
So if now I do less than I used to irl and some LDing - I might drop, even.

But it combines the two and I hope, with being able to lucid dart - my real life darting motivation will come back up.
Next Friday a couple from England comes joining us for darting, while they are in Berlin - knowing them over the forum - and on the 9th is a tourney..

Wow, you have an underground darts organization going on there. Have fun and good luck on the tourney! :D

Two mini lucidities!
I had again - but only shortly - tried to WILD - and in the following dream, twice it came to me, that I could simply fly where I wanted to go, because it was a dream.
As if that were insignificant - I flew there and good was..:roll:
Can't hurt, though either - and was nice!

Sounds like you made the most of these mini lds! Congrats! :)

Congratulation on your bonus-adventure!!

You saw it already in the TOTM thread - but I wanted to make a few remarks on this latest LD of mine from two nights back.
I've long been moaning about less than realistic - or lets say reduced sensory environment in my LDs.
Like I didn't have all-round in depths surroundings - only where my concentration was, did stuff get, at times, very clear and vivid.
But all overall I had problems stabilizing and with vividness over the last weeks.

This one was different - the world felt stable and was full of intricate details, the colours were vivid, all came together highly harmonically.
That's why I held back on dream-control a bit, fearing a loss of quality, after not having it for so long.

What did it?
I don't know - but I have done for three days now very simple meditation efforts. Just lying down comfortably and observing my breathing and try to detach myself from all else concerning thoughts, perceptions etc.
Maybe 5 min. each time - always directing myself back, when I started to wander.
I like it a lot, and it is almost wondrous, how good it makes me feel, just trying for such a small amount of time.
I really hope, that is what did it - would be easy enough to keep up!

I have also a new appetite rearing up towards going out and sampling reality - it helps that spring breaks out round here at the moment!
Like - searching for beautiful, vivid detail-rich reality impressions for my unconscious to play with at night!
One could say this is mad - dreaming is for living, not the other way round - but I don't care - it will be good for me no matter.



Another thing - I have identified tons of dream-signs of which I keep dreaming over and over and then some.
Only in the rarest cases do I recognize them to get lucid.
I caught up with the toilets only by doing RCs almost every time irl. But almost all other dreamsigns don't occur in my actual life (any more).

Soo - and this last time, I recognized one, which I had dreamt of only once (knowingly) before: Digging a bit in the ground and finding a lot of finger rings buried there.
It instantly made me lucid, that I remembered having dreamt it before - so comprehensively, that I didn't need any RCs and as said - it was a great LD compared to my latest ones.
Not only long, but vivid and stable.

How come?
What can I do to pin down the others?
If I got lucid from lets say the most persistent 5 signs - I would be lucid every night and often in several dreams per night!
As said - I can't RC on them..

I tried it with mantraing over the day and in bed - when ever I see x I know that I am dreaming, and I visualize x with it - but it doesn't really work. Sometimes I wonder if this is because unconsciously I want to dream of these things - mostly the place I grew up at and some people I really miss irl, because they are geographically far away and contact is sparse.
Maybe I want them simulated realistically??

Thanks! :)

Congrats on your awesome ld and the totm! I really liked how you made that simple task so interesting. :goodjob2:

I went back and read the entire entry - it felt magical! It's quite possible that mediation is helping. I have been doing on a regular basis a kind of visualization/meditation exercise, quite similar to yours actually, but the focus being an image or a thought. So I would relax for 10-20 mins and choose a simple object, background, or color, focus on the image of it for as long as possible or the thought of it. Then I would go to another one and so on. I think this has been very helpful for enhancing ld length and for summoning.

Very good you recalled this rare dream sign and that triggered lucidity. It's quite interesting that there are some weird DS like these that pop up from time to time. I remember I used to dream of finding ancient coins long time ago and it recently occurred again and twice! No lucidity though, but I am on the lookout now! :D

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I tried it with mantraing over the day and in bed - when ever I see x I know that I am dreaming, and I visualize x with it - but it doesn't really work

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I thought about it recently again. From my experience, if you repeat this mantra list over and over, you are bound to catch the dream signs sooner or later. But we always get so disappointed when we miss. I have found out that some of these old dream signs - place, people tend to pop up more often while we are more deeply asleep, hence our logical thinking is at minimum then. Therefore it might be slightly more difficult to catch them sometimes, which is why we use the mantra. It will eventually reach the subcon, so this association that a DC is DS will be formed. Another thing one might try - is to actually program this during the dream. Let's say your first grade teacher is your DS, then you can summon her in an ld, talk to her, and emphasize this fact. If you repeat this a number of times, it will become a stronger association and memory.

Oooh - thank you!!
First of all - you are surely right and so is fogelbise - this mantraing will work - just I need to keep at it!
And I really like your idea of summoning a DS DC in an LD - will try that out!
The dream was great, really was.
Was lazy with my meditation yesterday - tse - don't understand myself sometimes - just 5 min. and if only for how good it makes me feel directly - one should think, I wouldn't let it slip..
Today more!

I had two lucid moments again - directly when a dream was about to end - wasn't prepared to DEILD mentally unfortunately - but it's great to know, I just get lucid like that from time to time - out of nothing.

Aand - mantraing on some dreamsigns of mine did start to work maybe - it's from Stupidest Way You Missed Becoming Lucid - but anyway:

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It happened again.
Sunbathing with my mother on the balcony of the house, she sold and which is ripped down.
I turn to her and said - you know - for a while I have only dreamt of this house a whole lot. But since we are really here, and all the time (I dream of it a lot) - how can that be?

She said - yeah - she sold the ground, and didn't tell me, that it would still stand - behind the two big apartment houses, I had seen, when I had been coming here to look.
Somehow I was sceptic, because we didn't own that much ground and there was a hill in it - but I thought - ah - that's the earth from where they built the new ones.
And then of course I got into a tirade how maximally unfair this would have been of my mother, to for years have this secret, and I can only dream of it.
While she sunbaths etc.

But it was muuch closer than just dreaming of it! Mantraing on it starts to work maybe?

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The second lucid moment was so - I had gotten a new short hair cut, and the second time of re-cutting - all was wrong with it - pony too short, sides too long and whatnot.
Then I started to see myself in 3rd person perspective and the haircut from all sides, and it turned blonde - that tipped me off.
But woke almost directly afterwards - had been a long dream before.

I find it remarkable, because I want to try out 3rd person perspective in a lucid - esp. for darting - but didn't ever try yet.
At least I can do it from non-lucidity!


Aand - something else - I read in 501's workbook, that he twice, I believe, or once, had a lucid when having taken Valerian.
Did that twice - and one time, I was lucid that night - forgot to mention that.
But I don't like it - very hard to get out of bed.
When I have a sleeping problem - rarely - I take Melatonin, which works, and I can get up fresh in the morning - no problem.
This Valerian (300 mg - half a "strong" tablet) - while sounding so harmless - is pretty strongly sedating.
So no further motivation to do pharmacological experiments with it - too strong for my taste - and didn't expect it.
But I guess, it is a sleeping-pill, which at least doesn't interfere negatively with lucidity.

Congrats on the lds! Nothing's really random - you are making it happen one way or another! :D

That dream about the house was so close! It looks like the mantras are starting to work. I know that feel when you miss a lucid, sometimes I would see that something's off, comment that it looks exactly like a dream and now is a good time to RC, then continue doing whatever I was doing. :doh:

Still, those are signs of real progress!

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I find it remarkable, because I want to try out 3rd person perspective in a lucid - esp. for darting - but didn't ever try yet.

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That would be so cool! I'm looking forward to seeing how that goes for you!

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Aand - something else - I read in 501's workbook, that he twice, I believe, or once, had a lucid when having taken Valerian.
Did that twice - and one time, I was lucid that night - forgot to mention that.
But I don't like it - very hard to get out of bed.

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For me valerian isn't contributing to lucidity per se, but helps me fall asleep and reduces wbtb insomnia. But my recall and dream control are worse off.

Luuuhuucid again!!
So much yet to write - I copy paste once more, sorry:

Attachment 6613

Why does nobody do this?
Upon reading up on overdosing Melatonin, and that I don't have to worry one bit with it - I took 15 mg - 5 small pills.
It is even a very potent and healthy antioxidant - like vitamin C and E...
And I didn't do nothing else - absolutely nothing in the day and in bed. Edit: Oh wait - I did about 5 min. meditation in the afternoon..
And yepp!!
There were even three instances that night - somewhere in the first 7 h hours of sleep.
What is a bit stupid, is that I didn't journal directly after the dreams - but went on to heavily oversleep afterwards - I guess I slept 12 h or so.
Side effect from the Melatonin, I guess - but I wasn't tired or feeling smashed after getting up.
I guess, I could have gotten up earlier without problems too.
I know, I forgot large parts of the lucidity like this.
Good that I remembered the TOTM and now also remember doing it - but not much else from these instances.

First off - I got lucid from realizing, that the old house cannot be real, because it has been ripped down!!
It was again a bit back and forth with - but it is soo real - but it can't be real - but it looks soo .. and then finally a RC.
If this would reliably work - as I said - I got a chance every night on that house - if I don't stop dreaming of it so much, once I register it isn't for real??
This time I really took my time with pondering the implications of lucidity - dutchraptor-like, unfortunately forgot to do a full-sensory inventory - but it was pretty stable anyway.

What didn't work was phasing through a big closed window - it broke and it hurt a bit - I also clearly remember this.
It's such a shame I forgot so much - that won't happen again - I promise myself to journal instantly after an LD!!

:yddd:






Edit: Just came to my mind: Since two days I use a sleeping mask - maybe this also was beneficial.

Congrats on the lds! Also, checked the journal entry as I think I kind of saw TOTM there. Yep, maybe you wanted to spare me the details of this particular task completion, lol! :lol: The ending was very funny!

Great you caught the old house DS too! Maybe with more cases like this, you will show us all that 100 percent lucidity is possible. :D

15 mg? That's a lot! I probably would have a mix of lucidity, nightmares and mega insomnia with such quantity. :roll: