Bronia's Workbook

[Bronia]

Hey folks, I keep writing out ridiculously long intro's so shall try to keep this short and sweet I'm using lucid dreaming as a tool to handle the effects of Borderline Personality Disorder (overwhelming negative feelings, distorted sense of self, substance abuse etc). Simply learning about it has totally changed my attitude towards sleep, which used to be HUGELY negative due to insomnia and nightmares. I treated sleep as a way to knock myself out from the pains of everyday life but always knew I risked torturing myself for hours in my nightmares (I was forever running after people I had loved and lost, trying to convince them to stay, or to help me). Lucid dreaming has totally changed all of that. Even though I haven't actually managed a successful session yet, I'm actually LOOKING FORWARD to sleeping now. I never thought that day would come. It's greatly improved my sense of inner well-being, even my relationship with my partner. I feel like I've been given a second life, twice as much time on this earth... and in a realm of magic at that... Anyways! Moving on to the notebook... Reality Checks: - Nose pinch (can I breathe?) - Clocks/text (is it distorted/the same after looking away?) - Simple "Am I dreaming?" Dream Signs: - No edges to my dreams, only the people are in focus. - I'm always talking to people I can't or shouldn't in real life, trying to resolve things. - I tend to end dreams with "Heck with this, I'm waking up" as if I knew I was dreaming the entire time but chose to act as if it's real life and not in my control... (would reflect the way I feel about RL tbh!) Short-Term Goals: - Considering the poor relationship I've had with sleep until now, I was thinking I'm just going to focus on keeping a dream journal for now to improve my dream recall - To become lucid earlier on in my dreams and maintain it. Long-Term Goals: - To stop acting out painful scripts in my dreams and use them to create beautiful scenarios instead. - Most importantly, to FEEL this beauty as an emotion (happiness, freedom etc.) - To use my dreams as a way to PROCESS and RESOLVE but not DWELL on painful Real Life problems and events also. Lucid/Dream Recall History: - Many of my dreams are painful and I don't 'want' to recall them but I'll have to remind myself the point to all of this is to tackle that problem! Current Technique: - I'm setting my alarm to snooze when I have the time to do so and have reminders set for me to stay lucid. This is when I'd have the most vivid/lucid-like dreams in the past so I thought I'd start there? - Reality checks Sleep schedule: - Completely erratic. Trying to get into a nice 10pm-6am routine as I actually like being up before sunrise, it's a lovely feeling, and it allows plenty of time for a dream journal too! But I've lived so long as someone who (like others on here) feels knocked out by the sun that it's extremely hard. I'm really looking forward to starting this journey into lucid dreaming. TTFN folks! Bron