Thread: Benni's Workbook

Awesome, Benni! Congrats!

It's super cool to see that all your practices are paying off giving you not just lucidity but high lucidity, stability and a great depth of detail. Well done!

Apparently there is absolutely NOTHING at all that I can report. My dream recall has dropped and nothing special has happened despite all my continous work on self-awareness... I'm a little desparate to be honest and don't quite know what to do and how to explain this lack of success after having started so well I was really stoked to keep you updated on an almost daily basis with really cool stories but there is absolutely nothing worth being mentioned except for blurry fragments and some vivid but rather boring dreams sitting in school and listening to former teacher...
Any ideas...?

Sorry to hear that.

Did you change anything during that time, diet maybe, daytime activities or lots of playing computer games by chance? (that's serious - it may affect recall if you do it too much or late!)

No I did not change anything. I always eat similar things, never drink any alcohol at all and don't play any computer games at all.

But apparently I have had 2 LDs in the last 3 nights! :O Seriously - I just kept going as always and suddenly: BAAM two nights, 2 LDs! That was really amazing and I start to think that once you are doing something which is even remotely right/effective, all that matters is consistency. No matter how discouraging a dryspell might be, the most important thing is to keep going I will just keep up my development of self-awareness and after having these 2 LDs I think I found my WBTB-sweetspot which is exactly 5 hours after going to bed. I fell really awake after exactly 5 hours and get up, drink some water and think a little about what I will achieve in my upcoming LD - and this seems to have been really effective! Before that I always did my WBTB after 6 hours of sleep, but 5 hours seems to be a lot better (not just in terms of initiating LDs but also in terms of feeling awake and determined to use this WBTB wisely!).

So all in all - I think everyone has some ups and downs at times, but I suppose that conistency will pay off. The two LDs really were worth all the effort! In one of them I flew to the ISS and after returning home I blew my house apart by using some sort of alchemy/earthbending and in the second LD I just met up with a girl and had some fun haha In my next LD I am finally planning to do some serious firebending! I have been looking forward to that for ages, but either did I forget about it in a LD or the dream was somehow unstable which makes firebeding quite a hard thing to do.

Anyway how are you doing? Everything alright?

PS: I thought about your post again and it came to my mind that you are totally right! Subtle changes can actually have devastating effects on the quality of your sleep and dreams! I remember barely recalling any dreams at all when I used those slippery sheets with the strange texture on my bedand after removing them everything returned back to normal... something you just have to pay close attention to what's going on and what things change and what stays constant. Thanks for that. I shall pay close attention to any changes in my routine in order to spot possible weekspots

Sweet dreams,
Benni

Ahh! Such a great turn of events! You are right the consistency is paying off! Well done Benni! This earthbending/alchemy sounds cool, what exactly did you do? (I know some dream things can be hard to describe )

something you just have to pay close attention to what's going on and what things change and what stays constant.

Exactly! That's why I asked if you changed anything. Sometimes the small things can have unexpected effects and it's a good idea to be on the lookout for them.

Really happy for the recent developments and I wish you more awesome lds! Sweet dreams!

Thanks!

This earthbending/alchemy sounds cool, what exactly did you do?

Oh I always change things a little This time I sort of floated to the ceiling of the apartment (probably I had some zeroG left from the ISS haha) and stuck to it like a spider with my feet and hands. I then put my hands together and it produced some sort of light. Then I put my palms on the ceiling again and it was as if this light had charged my hands and my palms just acted like dynamite and the whole ceiling just totally exploded and took me with it so I was able to see the house from above with all of the smashed ceiling being blasted away! Really cool!

Are you beding the elements as well at times and if yes, how do you do it?

update: no more LDs in the last few days, but some admittedly very vivid dreams. Even though my dream recall has dropped to 3-5 dreams/night, I am very happy to have some veryyyy strong, clear and vivid, long dreams instead of many little fragments. This is great and even makes up for not having a LD - but of course I'm still looking froward to more lucid adventures... the last two LDs sort of sparked the hope.

Oh I always change things a little This time I sort of floated to the ceiling of the apartment (probably I had some zeroG left from the ISS haha) and stuck to it like a spider with my feet and hands. I then put my hands together and it produced some sort of light. Then I put my palms on the ceiling again and it was as if this light had charged my hands and my palms just acted like dynamite and the whole ceiling just totally exploded and took me with it so I was able to see the house from above with all of the smashed ceiling being blasted away! Really cool!

Oh, that is really cool indeed! I mostly play around with water - making it appear here and there, make fountains or weird shapes or freeze it, etc. Got some practice with cloud manipulation too. It's very pleasant.

ohhh cloud manipulation sounds awesome! That would make weather manipulation a snap - I definitely have to add that to my goal list: creating my own weather (making snow, rain, etc)... thanks for that one!

btw I just finished school with GREAT results and I have 6 weeks of spare time now untill I'll start at uni - so some decent time to get cracking and increase my ability of following my routine consistently and including self-awareness and memory more into my waking life. So if all works out fine (of course it will ), I should have some brilliant lucid adventures very soon - especially after seeing once more how lovely my dream control was in the last two LDs last week. So for now it's ALL about working on consistency: MORE LDs in LESS time! any more advice that I could follow?
My schedule should look something like that:
- doing RCs, RRCs at least once an hour (úsing an app as a reminder)
- reading through my collection of stuff I found in Sageous' thread about the LDing fundamentals at least every second day (I always get so stoked after reading it and it always refreshes my understanding of how to approach LDing )
- doing some self-hypnosis that StephL suggested doing
- at night: doing MILD before going to bed (at 11pm)
- WBTB after 5 hours of sleep combined with MILD

soooo having finished school and having set up this new (actually not quite so new ) schedule, it's all about being consistent and motivated! I'm counting on that to give me many LDs starting tonight haha.

oh btw I am having some issues with dream recall - have you had recall-dryspells before? and if yes, what did you do to end them? Maybe it's just that I studied a lot for the final oral examinations lately which decreased my time spent on thinking about LDing, but I feel like having to do something to increase my recall again

Sweet dreams
Benni

Congrats on the great school results and looking forward to seeing all that dedication bring fantastic lds this summer!

oh btw I am having some issues with dream recall - have you had recall-dryspells before? and if yes, what did you do to end them?

As I said, I usually go with the checklist of things like diet, exposure to screens, light pre bed and also try to figure out if something has been different from when recall was great. Usually recall bounces back to its long term average, so usually it's a minor fluctuation, again, unless some drastic changes are not involved.

Edit: Oh, I also forgot to mention that recall can suffer if one's sleep schedule fluctuates too much.