Last night got off to a good start (or so I thought), but in the end things went poorly.

On the way home from work, I started listening to the DV Podcast. Hearing the excitement and passion in OpheliaBlue's and RareCola's voices ... I actually felt rather giddy. Over the course of the evening, I was trying to be extra-aware (though, frankly, I don't think I did a great job). I was also regularly repeating "I remember my dreams" and "I have lucid dreams" to myself.

I went to bed just after 10, drinking a bunch of water first. I woke up 2.5 hours later - less than I expected, though not unheard of. I need to take better notes about sleep/wake times, but I think my cycles are about 75-80 minutes, not the median 90. My dream recall was terrible: I only got a tiny fragment. I wrote it down, used the bathroom, took a B multivitamin, ran through some more MILD mantras, visualized a dream I wanted to have. and went to sleep.

At least, I tried to sleep. Like I said in my first post, if I don't fall asleep within a couple of minutes, it's not going to happen. I laid there trying every physical and mental relaxation technique I know, and sleep still eluded me. I laid still; I moved any time I got the slightest desire to; I focused on the white blobs behind my eyelids; I played music through my pillow speakers ("Subliminal Lucid" as found elsewhere on DV) and tried to focus on that; I ran through a rough 61-point relaxation technique; I listened to my self-hypnosis recording; I counted sheep. At times, my mind would start to wander, but it never lasted long.

After about 2 hours of this, I think the last thing I tried was to ignore sleep and start planning out what I needed to do today. Next thing I remember, my alarm is going off. Dream recall was very stubborn - I thought I wasn't going to get anything - but in the end I got a couple of moderately detailed dreams.

I don't know for sure, but I suspect I actually got myself too excited about it yesterday evening. I had set myself such high expectations that I WOULD have a lucid dream that it kept my mind too busy to actually fall back asleep. I seem to have a lot of trouble finding balances: staying aware vs falling asleep with WILDs, or convincing myself that I'll have a lucid dream without actually causing myself sleep problems.