Thread: Steph´s Workbook

Woohoo, nice! Congratulations on the lucids, Steph!

Yeah, that's a pretty amazing melatonin dose. As you obviously found out in your research, that stuff is very hard to overdose on (in fact it has no known LD50 in mice... meaning that scientists were unable to find a high enough dose to kill mice with it), but I definitely found it can make you very drowsy. I did a 12 mg mega-dose once and dragging myself out of bed the next morning wasn't so easy. Definitely best to only do something like this when you don't need to be doing any driving any time soon.

Keep up the great work!

^^ Those mice must have had a hell of trip then.

Thank you CanisLucidus!!
I agree - my 17 mg would not have been a good idea with something to do the next day.
I was sick last week and just simply felt bad and weak anyway - didn't want to add up on that yet.
Maybe middle ground next weekend - or maybe not.

Been saying it next door - if I would go down the supp route - I had to really study it - gather lots of information, and then truly play with different substances and mixtures and concentrations systematically - and that would cost quite some money and time, too.
We can't even get melatonin in the pharmacy over here let alone the other stuff by the way.
Which is soo bizarre - melatonin's tons of positive effects are beyond doubt - so why is it sort of outlawed here - that somebody should try explaining to me..?

Well - anyway - I've been moaning about not meeting my main dream-sign irl - but a bit of activity almost two weeks back, with mantraing and visualisations on our old house - like recommended - gave me two further detections!!
Its sort of receding - I'm not living there any more meanwhile, it is about to get destroyed.
First time while being sick and not motivated in any way - I just slipped out of lucidity after taking a look around and dreamt on with my story.

Then last night was some weird back and forth reasoning:
The house - I dream!
Then - no, it's getting ripped down this day - that's why I want to get something out of the empty building.
Then - noo - it has already been, so I can't stand in front of it!

The normal dream, which I forgot by now - was something nice and I wanted to go on with it actually.
But the TOTMs came out just on time for this - since there were two DCs standing behind me - I thought take the first task in stride - and so I found out, that a woman with really beautiful long black hair - has as middle name Niniana!
Groundbreaking, earthshaking news!!

Shortly thought of the aliens - I have to and I will get abducted by aliens this month!!
But somehow I reckoned, I wouldn't have enough dream quality or control - and without so much as trying - I slipped back in non-lucidity.

So I guess I should concentrate on keeping up the motivation to do something lucidly - waking up seems not so much the problem atm.
My real life darting has a dip in the moment - so that went to the back of my mind lately - but this whole alien thing with space-ship tourism - I have to!!

All this talk about dream signs is so motivating. It presents a wonderful opportunity for us that is right in front of our sleeping face. I also tend to dream of past places a lot, but have been slacking with the place as a DS mantra recently. Still, there are lots of times when I ld straight into my old room. It is a very familiar location, so my mind easily builds the place. I've had tons of dreams there over the years. Hopefully, with more ld events there, it should start getting bookmarked as an ld location. Also, I think in the long term, it will be really cool to see how much of my DS list I can turn into lucidity. My wbtb routine gets me lazy about DS lists during the day, but then I need to have a non-wbtb plan too. Sorry about the rambling, you really got me thinking and determined to do this at some point.

Congrats on TOTM too! That's a very interesting name, maybe she was alien?

Looking forward to reading about your alien abduction!

Yeah - dream-signs are a fine thing - while missing out on a bucket-load like usual, but having a lot of recall because of relatively light sleep - I even caught myself two more little instances with lucidity just like that the last three nights.
Niniana - yupp - quite alien a name - but she was just a pretty woman - actually I didn't really see her face - her hair was wonderful, though - and she was not green.
I'll avoid going into the details of my problems once more - but if you find the time and look at the last two DJ entries - illusory urinary urges are out to get me - such a stupid thing. Real ones - okay - tough luck - but this is silly.

But - the second one was not so bad - proud on opening a huge hangar door with my mind only - but it wasn't the desired spaceship outside - only a military tank in green, which brought me into trouble later on..

Very happy with my recall - also last night - if I had put them down in between - I had four really exciting and long and cohesive dreams at memory, while waking up after them - they were all there.
Guess, I could even reconstruct a lot of it now.
Too lazy though to write - tomorrow the comp - sparing my typing powers..
But it was with rocket-base and adventure and and - hope it goes on so interesting.

Good luck you with the dream-signs - I really feel, I got number one pinned down - now I just hope, it's not going to disappear because of me having "solved" something in that department..?!


Edit: Actually - I wouldn't complain in a way if I did solve this thing with me still being sad and sort of angry with my mother for what she did - would probably be a healthy thing, if I had to switch to the next sign.
The past being over and all.

Well, first of all congrats on the lucidity!

I don't know why you have a peeing spree but hopefully won't get schema infected. I'm not even sure I want to write this but...well I was reading one of CL's entries and he had an issue with a certain thing (omitting it so that you won't get to dream about it), and then I've had three dreams lucid where I bumped into the problem item. It is absolutely ridiculous, and I would tell myself that it doesn't exist and everything, but I could still...anyways...just wanted to say this happens to all of us...whether it's pee or other stuff.

Best advice, try to ignore it as much as possible. It's just an urge, if it's a real one 2 mins of more sleep probably won't be fatal and if it's illusory, then, it's just a distraction.

Good luck you with the dream-signs - I really feel, I got number one pinned down - now I just hope, it's not going to disappear because of me having "solved" something in that department..?!

Thanks! What I've found is that they do require some maintenance work. Some months ago I was very aggressive with DS review and had more DS catch DILDs. But once I started relying on the wbtb, DS reviews would slack and catching them diminished. Hope to manage things better this time. Good luck to you too!

I have such great news - my husband managed his first LD and by doing a WILD dive at bedtime!!
Soo typical - first he knows nothing about it, and never had an LD - then he starts out with mastering the most advanced technique at first shot.
I brought him to play Go with me, too, he had only played some several games at uni before - and now - after looking some things up on the net as well, but anyway - he smashes me to shreds every single game - even if I get stones up front.
He lost interest in in darts, hitting a 180 and three red bulls after an extraordinary short time, compared to normal humans, as well.

I can see it coming - him going in and out of lucidity at a whim and his leisure - throwing snowy mountains at hordes of alien dragons and melting into the blissful void of insight - or whatever - and me looking on enviously..
He's a sort of natural genius with almost everything he touches - I love him for it - but it's not so easy to take the comparison at times.

Ahhh, that is great news indeed! I think it has been the dream for many here to try to get our partner interested in the topic, and him having an ld is super accomplishment!

My bf has been rather uninterested in the whole topic of lding in general, but recently I got a pleasant surprise from him. I had previously questioned him about having lds and he seems to have no memory of having one. But then a week ago ago or so, we happened to be discussing sensations when falling asleep and I talked about some of my unintentional first wilds (which by the way were bedtime too), but I didn't label them lds when talking about it. And then he tells me he has had similar experiences - the transition and dream entry.

I guess a lot of people have no clue what's going on sometimes. I would see through my eyelids when falling asleep many times in the past but always came up with an explanation for it - maybe my eyes were half open.

Do you still do bedtime WILDs?
I'm a bit at a lucid loss in the comp at the moment - but I have a great plan, for if I manage at least!

Not now - either too tired or insomnia prone, but have plans for the future. I think I need more practice and hopefully one day will be able to maintain awareness through the earlier sleep stages and for larger chunks of time.

Good luck with the competition! You are already quite skilled with induction, so I know you just have to set your mind on it and the lds and awesome task execution will follow.

Yeah - baah - don't know what it is - again left out my WBTB for being too lazy and cosy..
Quite unsatisfying.
Na well - a bit of time is left, and if I manage to do, what I plan, once I get there - that would be some points-bomb indeed.
With aliens.

Soo - got lucid again last night from expecting to be able to drive my bicycle on water - not because it worked.
But I feel I smashed it up with trying to activate all senses - patting myself down and touching stuff - maybe because I didn't first of all concentrate on vision.
Do you "stabilize your senses" at all?
From the podcast - I got my doubts again - Ophelia said, she just takes the dream as it is, since she already had believed it was real before lucidity - no need to stabilize anything.
I think, to activate my touch might drag me back to bed, could that be?

Congrats on the ld! Well, I don't usually start with stabilizing, but rather go on doing whatever I had planned to do. However, there are moments when I feel the dream dangerously thinning, so I go into a bit of a panic mode, grabbing on to objects. This has been effective but not always. I also like to do brisk walking - have no idea how but this works pretty well for me. Now, examining and paying attention to detail should generally work for anchoring in the dream. But be careful not to stare too much - idleness has exactly the opposite effect. Also, if you begin to lose sight of the dream, don't give up on it - keep walking around as it may actually return.

Ha - there is a pattern - thank you!
Will walk about and don't worry - I hope, I get a WILD tonight - very determined to stay at it for longer - I only maximally waited for 30 min. and Sageous says, he needs an hour sometimes - need to keep at it!

Soo - here is the last LD-report, which I forgot putting in here - so copy-paste and sorry:

Originally Posted by StephL

Last night (28.03.14) I took a different approach than usual and I'm quite happy with how it went.
I recognized one of my dreamsigns - and without RC or any stabilization activities - I just went with the flow of the dream.
First off I took flight and airswam about in the house - to the admiration of the people there.
Maybe first time I told somebody, that I was dreaming - they were like - really? What is with us then, though??
I let the topic slip immediately, because I wanted them to feel real..
There was a story going on and DCs from real life - somehow I slipped in and out of dreaming it lucidly.
For example I got handed a toddler, and it was so nice and cuddly - I forgot myself - but not for long.
I guess, I got lucid in the same dream about three times - and it was a really long one - much more lucid time than the last many instances. People whom I didn't see for long - so my main aim was being happy and having fun with them.
It was very enjoyable - not according to plan, exactly - I wanted to walk about briskly and look at things and call out commands - completely forgot about that. But no stability issues whatsoever except in terms of intermittently loosing lucidity from getting too involved.
Bit stupid, I didn't journal it - after waking up from it I simply turned over and slept on.
So the memory is a bit patchy - but I felt very good upon waking up for the day - it's such a nice mood-enhancer!
And really motivating to not only have the realization strike and panic about and loose it, but some real solid dream-time.
Hard to gauge the time - I'd say more than 15 min.

This was quite nice as an approach to the problem of stabilization, I used to have.
My main effort was to leave the dream be and take it as it is and comes - it was unstable towards nonlucidity - but not towards waking - and I was very thankful for that. One day, I'll have the balance thing figured out.

Being stupid last night:
I found myself in my old school, having to take an obscure course, supposedly belonging to my professional training.
And I thought (correctly) - I have been dreaming about exactly this before!

My marvellous conclusion: That must have been a precognitive dream!!

I even went as far as beginning to tentatively pull on loose strings in my world-view - like - how can I integrate this?
Most silly of all - I thought shortly - why not do, what you would do, if it was a dream - jump in the air a bit and start hovering?
Answer - naa - if I really do hover then - that might disquiet my conversation-partner...rolleyes.gif

Nose pinch baby next time!!

Thanks for posting Steph and congrats on the ld! That was a clever way to achieve stability. I have found something similar to be true, if you manage to maintain a minimal level of lucidity and allow the dream to flow as it is, you may find yourself sleeping for longer. There is indeed such a balance as the one you are referring to. Mostly, I find the trade off between lucidity and stability with wbtb lds.

If I do have a dream immediately following a wbtb (wild or from scratch dild), my awareness is extremely high and I'm able to recall goals and be quite functional, yet I have to exert an extra effort to stay in the dream (especially in the early moments), possibly because I'm technically so awake. If I catch a dild mid-REM, I might lose lucidity at some point and possibly regain it later and may not recall tasks so well, but the dream would be more stable. And finally there's the end of rem catch where it seems that your awareness is becoming higher gradually only to find out that this was the end of the dream. That does not mean, however, that we can't extend it a bit. If your mind is focused on task completion, even a min of extra dream time can accomplish a lot. I guess in the long term it would come in handy to be ready for any of these situations.

Thanks for this month's contribution by the way and wishing you lots of lucidity and awareness in the days to come.

Ah - I enrolled in an experiment:

http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...d-dreamer.html
http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...r-day-0-a.html

Looking forward to how that goes!

Soo - I have decided to watch the beta-testing for a while, since the first few chapters were rather a disappointment - now I know, it's going to be 20 in all - maybe it has got something in it still - maybe I'll take it up again later.

For now - I started with self-hypnosis yesterday.
Got this link from Sibyline: Instant Self-Hypnosis - How To Hypnotize Yourself With Your Eyes Wide Open
LDing is the last script in this - rest of the book is missing.
Linkzelda said in another context, that he successfully used these scripts as well.

I am hopeful - it says it usually takes some 3-5 sessions, and then it should show effects - and I did react to it quite clearly already.
The intro contains how you feel your body being heated up by the sun - and my blood-vessels knew exactly what to do - I got an almost burning feeling on my face, really like from the sun, and my rest body became so warm in no time at all - it's also really relaxing. So I'm definitively not immune to it.

I'll translate it into German and adapt the LDing script a bit - my new pet-hope hurrah!

That sounds like a great idea! Looking forward to seeing how that goes. So this self-hypnosis thing you read it out before bedtime I guess or do you make a recording? I don't know if I mentioned but after talking with your guys about dream signs and catching more of them, I made a recording with my DS to make it even easier to just listen. But I still don't play it often enough. I think it will be best for me to make a progress tracking thread, that way I'll be forced to do it.

It's great you guys keep coming with new stuff to try, I love all the enthusiasm.

It's something you read to yourself - I did it twice, and the general effects - like getting warm and really relaxed - they worked.
No LDs yet - but there are factors hindering me and they say it takes like 3/5 sessions.
I will translate it into German and adapt it - put a WILD section in - and start out tomorrow again.
Going to report back!

Ha - notice to my dear teachers:

I translated only a third of it - but I did it the third time in English just now, and I felt seriously hypnotised this time.
Been hypnotised before.
It felt, as if I knew it by heart partly - much more fluent than I sometimes read.
And if you would have recorded me - that would have sounded hypnotised, believe me.
Veery interesting - lovely - so it seems the more I do it the more fascinating - if only on spot yet.
So Steph in hope, once more - and it's even a form, and a powerful one - of the "new acronym" - PM - prospective memory!

Thanks for the update!

Well, that is exciting and a little bit creepy.

Not really - hypnosis is something natural and we are always in some sort of hypnosis, but you can induce a state of deep hypnosis and even see it happening on the EEG. A certain characteristic pattern - there was a study done on this some years ago at Charite Berlin.

Naja - and if you tell yourself to slow down for example - you really do that.
Not like just reading: Now my reading slows down - and then somehow artificially and consciously slowing down.
No - you slow down period, as Sageous might say.
That seems the only thing to do then - that's not normal consciousness - and such it also comes to sound eerie, because it's different.
But it didn't work yet. Not in English. But it worked in as far as I hypnotized myself - just the suggestion didn't go through properly.
Maybe I just translate that specific part? Or at least first and then one more try..

I had a little lucid dream last night!
With scaring a girl by partial bear-mutation (unconsciously) and I got ignored by not so interesting plants.
Veery happy - that was quite a long dry period.
Finally A Little Lucid Dream - Scaring A Girl To Tears - Unwilling Plants - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views


And I have something more to share - thanks to Mismagius posting a link to Hyu's DJ, I believe I finally understand the biggest riddle of my LDing journey:

Originally Posted by Hyu

This is important.
If you want to experience an entire world or setting (Hogwarts, Middle-Earth...), never try to create it right in front of you.
There will be inconsistencies, DCs will go out of character, forget what they're supposed to do...
In my experience, it just doesn't work right.
Instead try to go there.
Don't create Hogwarts, instead go to the real Hogwarts.

I do this by leaving my dream bubble (just a bubble containing my current dream), and going to an entirely new place.
Doing so I have an easier time believing that I am in a real place, and not in a dream controlled by my own sub-conscious,
which renders dreams much more realistic.

I have mentioned it again and again - my very first LD was so extraordinarily realistic and stable and I consciously tested all senses and the surroundings with never a shred of doubt about the tangibility of it all.
Completely like being teleported to another world.
It never was like this again.

Now I think I know what it was - I got there by following Castaneda's lessons, and I wanted to believe in the woo, so when I got lucid, I really seriously thought, I am in an actual different realm.
A supernatural world, but a real and consistent one, and not a dream.
And so that's what it felt like. Total immersion.

Oh - if only I could get that on purpose - no wishy-washy changy things and this horrible stability problem of mine.
That dream back then was so stable, that I had to really force myself into waking intensely - and at first it didn't work, even.