Thread: Camdave's Workbook

Originally Posted by NyxCC

Not bad, Camdave! You broke the dry spell!

One never knows when one will be woken up by externals but it's best not to think about them. Let's hope there will be less of distractions when the right ld moment comes.

Indeed! Hoping to get a more consistent bed time / wake-up time to get more sleep and align the body clock. I made a slight mistake before - the gaining of awareness to me feels like the Dolly zoom effect; your focus stays in the same place but it feels like the background "catches up" with you and is no longer blurred or distant.

I've had a few goes at WILD without much success recently, falling asleep quickly. Is it worth staying up a little more during the WBTB beforehand? At the moment I stay up for a couple of minutes, write down any dream fragments and maybe pop to the bathroom. I think that if I stay up a little longer or have some water then I may wake myself up a little more so I should be able to not fall asleep straight away. I also find myself visualising dream scenarios and then getting lost in thoughts as they come forward; I think that mantra repetition is probably better than dream visualisation at the start. When should you start visualisation - when you can feel the onset of REM atonia? (When I successfully did a WILD before, I don't seem to get any of the weird symptoms in the paralysis stage; I seem to get a fast-beating heartbeat that feels like I'm excited and then I "wake up", but in the dream)

Well I'm glad to report another success on the weekend! I wanted to lie in to get some more REM time but I find it hard to get back to sleep when I wake up at about 7-8 am (I usually wake up at about 6.30 for work) - on Saturday I got up at 7 so I could write down my LD.

I woke up in the night and got up to go to the bathroom, then tried to WILD but fell asleep. As before, the mentality of repeating the mantra appears to have woken my senses a little. I am sitting at a dining table eating a meal with my grandparents, but I begin to question this as my Grandma talks to me, as I remember that she passed away a few months ago, and so this must be a dream. I then excuse myself from the table (no need for bad manners . . . !) and perform a nose-pinch RC to verify that I'm dreaming. I decide to go outside to find my DG so I can ask her questions, as that was one of my lucid goals; I can't see any door or way outside, so I decide to walk through the window instead with a leap of faith. The window appears to disappear from its frame as I pass through it.

I wander outside and try to focus on my DG but can't find her, so I think that I'll try to teleport to where she is instead by doing a spin. The first time I spin (never done this before in a LD) I feel the landscape tearing a little but nothing happens; the second time I try I shut my eyes and focus on my DG and end up in a small house. I ask someone in the house (who is a friend in reality with a similar-sounding name to my DG) and she points me to my DG. One thing I notice is that my DG's room is pretty cold (I don't usually "feel" warmth or cold in dreams, like if it's a sunny / snowy day) and that there is a sense of sadness/weakness; my DG has a few plasters on. I comfort her and then get slightly caught up in the moment and find myself in total darkness.

At first I think I've woken up, but then I believe that I am still dreaming and again nose-pinch to check this. I figure that I'm still in the same room but the light has gone out; I try to "shoot" it back on with my hands as I know the switch doesn't work, and manage it on the second attempt. I woke up (properly!) not too long after this. I'd estimate my "perceived" time in the dream world as being around 10-15 minutes; this is also without performing any stabilisation (whoops) methods.

One thing I'm noticing at the moment is that I spend a while looking for my DG; this dream was the first time I decided to take matters more into my own hands. I've read about various teleportation methods; could you please recommend ones that I can work on and try out? I always want to "open a portal" but it feels a little complex for a total beginner!