Thread: Dragonworkz's Workbook

Hey, all. Dragonworkz here. Some of you know me, some don't. I've been on the forums for a while, though mostly on and off. I've got a nasty habit of pursuing my lucid dreaming practice for a month or two, only to stop for even longer. Thus, I've had a mixed history with LDing. I've had 11 LDs (that I can remember), and my recall tends to fluctuate often. I've stumbled into here and this seems like an interesting way to record my progress, as well as get pointers. Thanks, everyone!


Reality Checks:
-Nose pinch, primarily
-Finger check
-Checking the time

Dream Signs:
-My girlfriend
-My girlfriend's mom
-Killers (possibly)

Short-term Goals:
-Remember at least one dream every night.
-Have at least one lucid every week.

Long-Term Goals:
-Have a lucid every night or every other night.
-Better myself in all aspects of LDing.

Lucid/Dream Recall History:
-I've had 11 LDs, with most being relatively short, but my latest ones have been longer. My recall, as mentioned, fluctuates a lot, and usually varies each day, between 0 to 2 dreams recalled.

Current Techniques:
-DILD
-I have yet to try other techniques.

Headed to bed around 11:00 tonight, and waking up at 5:00-5:30 to get ready for work.

No dreams recalled this morning. Woke up briefly around 3:00, only to go back to sleep, wake up at 5:00 and stayed awake. Hopefully I'll have better luck as the later half of the week proceeds.

Welcome to Intro class, Dragonworkz!

Indeed, starting a workbook can be a really nice way to organise one's lding practices and keep track of progress.

Wish you lots of cool lds! Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions.

Thanks! That's primarily what I think it's going to be helpful to me for, is keeping everything organized and more focused.
Do you have any recommendations on boosting dream recall further? At my current state, it's on and off, though I've been trying some other things to help like lying still when waking up or practicing awareness.

If nothing comes to mind when you wake up, try jogging your memory by thinking about typical dream items and try to feel if something may have been in the dream before. Some dream signs appear quite often so you may recall you actually dreamed of this particular thing and then recall parts or even the whole dream.

Another thing would be not to rush out of bed and concentrate on day activities immediately. Try waking up 5-10 mins before your final wake time, to allow yourself to calmly recall and record your dreams.

Finally, you may consider having small pre bed snacks to give your brain a boost.

Originally Posted by NyxCC

If nothing comes to mind when you wake up, try jogging your memory by thinking about typical dream items and try to feel if something may have been in the dream before. Some dream signs appear quite often so you may recall you actually dreamed of this particular thing and then recall parts or even the whole dream.

Another thing would be not to rush out of bed and concentrate on day activities immediately. Try waking up 5-10 mins before your final wake time, to allow yourself to calmly recall and record your dreams.

Finally, you may consider having small pre bed snacks to give your brain a boost.

Seems your advice worked like a charm. I recalled a dream this morning after a few days of no recall. I followed your tips with the pre-bedtime snack and thinking about my typical dream items/people.

However, I had a very bad day yesterday, and was in a very depressive mood for almost the entire day and night. This seems to have influenced my dreams over the night; I had a dream where it started off quite peaceful, and I was swimming at a beautiful beach at nighttime with a bunch of people I don't know IRL. Went to work in the dream after swimming, and brought my girlfriend with me, but we got into a car accident and she was killed.
We prepared arrangements for the funeral and I thought about what I would do and where I would go without her around, and then woke up.

The dream journal entry for it is here.

We'll see how my recall does over the weekend!

Glad to hear about the improvements in recall.

Sorry you had such a negative ending to the dream. Indeed, I can relate that sometimes day time events stir additional emotions that manifest during sleep.

Wish you better dreams during the weekend!

Been a little bit! Want to update my results.
A lot of said results can be seen in my dream journal. My recall has been steadily improving slightly, bit by bit, with occasional blackout periods of two to three days. But as for the past few days, I've been recalling at least one dream a night, sometimes more, and have encountered some interesting situations too, such as last night's dream where I literally had a dream within a dream. Would've been a good chance in that false awakening situation to reality check, but it never occurred to me, sadly. But, the recall is improving!
I'm trying to test out various things I do throughout the day differently to see what may be affecting my recall. Do any of you guys have any ideas or suggestions as to what waking-life activities or things can affect dream recall?

Lucky enough, I had another lucid dream last night. It was a straight up DILD; saw something weird, felt weird, recognized dream sign, did a failed reality check, and went lucid.
It lasted a little under 5 minutes, which is one of my longest yet. Some other firsts with this lucid include: teleporting, stabilizing via examining my hands.
As soon as I went lucid, my vision became drastically clearer and more vivid, but I also heard a loud roaring noise and the dream seemed a little shaky and unstable. I'm guessing that was due to my excitement?