DreamingNow's Workbook

Hi Everyone!

I am so happy this site exists. I have been trying to LD off and on for almost a year. The most I have accomplished is a few, second-long LDs that fade away the moment I realize I am lucid. I believe my biggest problem is lack of motivation. It is hard for me to put in effort without feeling like I am getting any results. I hope keeping a workbook and talking with others who share my interest in lucid dreaming will help me accomplish my goals and become proficient at LDing.

Reality Checks
-Pinch Nose
-Fingers through Palm
-Reverse Reality Check

Dream Signs
I categorize my dreams into the 4 categories LaBerge talks about in his book. I have realized that most of my dreams involve being in strange or impossible situations. For example, one time I had a dream that I was standing on a platform in the middle of the sky. I cannot believe I did not recognize the absurdness of that :doh:

Short-Term Goals
Have a lucid dream that lasts more than a few minutes
Stabilize LD
Meditate Daily

Long-Term Goals
Be able to have lucid dreams on demand (not just spontaneously)
Summon DCs
Teleport

Lucid/ Dream Recall History
I almost always remember one dream upon waking in the morning, although sometimes it is very short (under 50 words). Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night remembering dreams but instead of writing them down I try to reenter the dream and fall back asleep. I have not had a real LD yet that has lasted more than a few seconds. The closest I have come to having a WILD was when I woke up in the middle of the night, stayed up for around 20 minutes, and went back to bed. I lay on my back for what felt like over an hour, and then suddenly I felt like I was floating and this loud buzzing and vibration started shooting through my body. After a few seconds, it suddenly stopped and I was back in my room lying on my bed. I was disappointed that I was not in a dream, and I rolled over and went back to sleep. Looking back, however, I wonder if I was actually in a dram at this point and did not realize it.

Techniques
Reality Checks
Dream Journal
WBTB/ WILD (I feel that I get closer to a successful WILD with each attempt)
I will try to meditate daily (some silently and possibly some guided mediation if anyone has any suggestions about that)
I also have an REM Dreamer (Europe's version of the NovaDreamer), but I have not used it much because I never remember seeing the cues in my dreams. I may give that a try though.

My Sleep Times
During the week, I am usually pretty structured. I will usually go to bed around 10:30, and my alarm wakes me up at quarter to 6, so I usually get a little over 7 hours a night. During the weekend, I go to bed between 11 and midnight, and I sleep until around 10.

Reasons for Wanting to LD
The main reason I have for wanting to do this is the sheer joy. Being able to do the impossible (flying, teleporting, exploring space, etc.) are all things I am really excited to attempt when I become lucid in a dream. I also think it would be interesting to look into communicating with my subconscious, and the other sorts of things Robert Waggoner talks about.

I know that lucid dreaming is something I am capable of. I can't wait until I become lucid!

April 14th
Yesterday I tried to meditate silently, but I was only ten minutes into it before I was interrupted by my extremely loud family returning home, and I did not have another chance to return to quiet meditation after that. I went to bed around 11:30, and I recall waking up sometime in the middle of the night, but I immediately fell back to sleep. I woke up again at 7:40. I think I vaguely remembered a dream,but it slipped away too quickly for me to write it down. I have an REM Dreamer (similar to NovaDreamer) that I put on at this point. It woke me up by flashing lights and emitting sounds at 8:20, at which point I remembered a very short nonlucid dream and wrote it down. I went back to sleep and woke up again at 9:50. I remembered another fragment and wrote it down, and then I knew I was up for the day. It will take some time to calibrate the REM Dreamer to the point where it is being incorporated into my dreams but not waking me up. I had wanted to try a WBTB/ WILD, but I did not set an alarm as I have done in the past and instead tried to wake up naturally.

Welcome to Intro class dreamingnow! What a great choice of name! :D

So, I gather you have recently gotten the REM Dreamer mask? Never tried one of those myself, but I think they can be of some help to lding, whether by making us expect lds or by triggering them via stimuli.

Enjoy the journey to lucidity and let us know if you have any questions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NyxCC

Welcome to Intro class dreamingnow! What a great choice of name! :D

So, I gather you have recently gotten the REM Dreamer mask? Never tried one of those myself, but I think they can be of some help to lding, whether by making us expect lds or by triggering them via stimuli.

Enjoy the journey to lucidity and let us know if you have any questions.

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Thanks NyxCC! I have only used it a few times, and I still need to figure out the best setting because so far it has only succeeded in waking me up. I am hopeful once I get it right it may help me to become lucid in a dream though.

April 17th

I know I have not posted in a few days. I will not let something like that happen again. Both days I planned to post at the end of the day then forgot.

Last night was quite strange by my standards. I went to bed around 11. I was too tired to really try any technique. I then proceeded to wake up at 3:50, 4:50, 6:40, 8:10, and 9:40, all completely naturally. I do not normally wake up this much during the night. Each time I woke up I remembered a dream, some being shorter than others, and wrote them down.

The most interesting thing about last night was the dream I had before I woke up at 6:40. At one point in this dream, I notice something strange and realize I must be dreaming. Upon this realization, my body immediately starts floating. I do not remember closing my eyes but now they are closed and all I see is black. I feel vibrations throughout my whole body. I tell myself to ignore them, as they are not important. They last for what I would guess to be about a minute, and then I am back in my bed. I am hopeful I might be dreaming at this point, but after a series of RCs I am forced to conclude that I am indeed awake.

Has anyone else experienced something like this, only to be woken up? I was very disappointed when I realized I was awake.:whyohwhy: I will keep trying though! :D

Ahh, sounds like you were in the dream initially, then back to bed and possibly was about to have a wild/deild, but somehow the process went towards wake state instead of dream. Still, a really good sign! You are becoming more aware and expecting an ld, your body is almost doing it by itself! :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NyxCC

Ahh, sounds like you were in the dream initially, then back to bed and possibly was about to have a wild/deild, but somehow the process went towards wake state instead of dream. Still, a really good sign! You are becoming more aware and expecting an ld, your body is almost doing it by itself! :)

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Thank you for helping me understand it. I think I need to pay attention to when I am falling back asleep after waking from a dream. I usually feel like I am not falling asleep and will be laying there for a while, and the next thing I know I am waking up from a dream.:shakehead: Also, I have another question. When I wake up in the middle of the night, I will usually just jot down the main ideas of the dream I remember, providing it is not very significant. Will this hurt my dream recall in the long run? Should I be writing down all the details I can remember of all my dreams as a beginner to help boost my recall?

April 18th
Last night, I went to bed around 1 AM. I woke up around 8:40 remembering a decently long dream, although it was not a very significant one. Instead of writing down all the details, I just wrote the main ideas of it so I could go back to bed. I am not sure if this is the best thing to improve my recall, but I was too sleepy to think about that. I woke up again at 11:20 remembering a very short dream/ fragment. I have not been very good about day practice for LD (RCs, meditation, etc.), but I know that is something I need to start putting in the effort to do if I want to see results.

April 19th
I made the horrible mistake yesterday of drinking caffeine too late in the day. I went to bed around 11, and I thought I was going to sleep. I laid in bed until past 2 AM, when I finally drifted off. I woke up for the day at 7:30. I'll have to remember never to repeat THAT mistake :bang:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dreamingnow

Thank you for helping me understand it. I think I need to pay attention to when I am falling back asleep after waking from a dream. I usually feel like I am not falling asleep and will be laying there for a while, and the next thing I know I am waking up from a dream.:shakehead: Also, I have another question. When I wake up in the middle of the night, I will usually just jot down the main ideas of the dream I remember, providing it is not very significant. Will this hurt my dream recall in the long run? Should I be writing down all the details I can remember of all my dreams as a beginner to help boost my recall?

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I think it's ok to jot down some key points, especially if you don't think the dream was something very special. It's difficult to wake up and write every detail as this can take forever in the least. My journalling strategy is to write down key sentences that will help recall the main plot later on, while at the same time I make sure I mentally tell myself the story in some detail (again the level of detail will depend on the importance of the dream or timing considerations). When you mentally tell a story to yourself the dream is more easily remembered. I especially use this when I have no time to write the ld or cool dream right away, but will add details later during the day or even next day. Anyways, try to find a journalling scheme that gives you personally a good level of recall and understanding of the dreams while not disturbing your other activites too much.

April 20th
I went to bed around 9 last night, and did not officially "try" any techniques. I woke up to my alarm at 5:50, remembering a decently detailed dream, and wrote it down. I know I probably should be entering my dreams here, but it already takes a while to copy them down the first time and I don't have the time or willpower to type them all up again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NyxCC

I think it's ok to jot down some key points, especially if you don't think the dream was something very special. It's difficult to wake up and write every detail as this can take forever in the least. My journalling strategy is to write down key sentences that will help recall the main plot later on, while at the same time I make sure I mentally tell myself the story in some detail (again the level of detail will depend on the importance of the dream or timing considerations). When you mentally tell a story to yourself the dream is more easily remembered. I especially use this when I have no time to write the ld or cool dream right away, but will add details later during the day or even next day. Anyways, try to find a journalling scheme that gives you personally a good level of recall and understanding of the dreams while not disturbing your other activites too much.

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OK thank you I will try different things to see what works.

April 21
Went to bed around 10:30 woke up to alarm at 5:50. I remembered two different dreams. In the first, I was sitting in a room talking to my friend. I notice that while I can recall most of the conversation, I cannot recall the slightest details of the room we were in or our surroundings. I think this might have to do with what I focused on in the dream. I was focused on the conversation, so that is what stuck in my mind when I woke up in the morning. In the second dream, I am battling a character from an anime I have been watching. At one point I start shooting lasers at him out of my watch. I can't believe I missed the lucidity trigger in that one.

April 22
Went to bed 11:30, woke up 5:45 (alarm). I only remembered a fragment of a dream. I think this may be at least partially due to the fact that I got less sleep than I would have liked.

April 23
I went to bed at 11:30, and woke up to alarm at 5:45. I remembered a dream immediately upon waking, but it quickly slipped away before I could recall it and write it down. I tried recalling it while still lying in bed, but I couldn't "find it" in my head (if this makes any sense at all). It is very unusual for me to have nothing to write down. I think more sleep would be helpful, as I was up late last night studying. I will make a better effort tonight.

April 28th
I have not posted in several days since I have been extremely busy. My recall the past few days as been horrible, with no dream journal entries on multiple nights. I would wake up with at least a fleeting image of the dream, but it seemed to be instantly replaced with thoughts of the upcoming day. I think this is at least partially due to the fact that I have gotten very little sleep (usually under 7 hours) the last few nights, so when my alarm wakes me up in the morning I am very tired and not focused. I will try to do better, starting tonight. I hope I can get out of this quickly, because I have been on a good streak, remembering at least one dream a night for the last month or so before this.

Hope this period passes quickly and you're able to catch up on sleep!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NyxCC

Hope this period passes quickly and you're able to catch up on sleep!

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Thanks NyxCC :D Your comment helped. I finally remembered a decent dream when I woke up this morning and I wrote it down. I am hoping to sleep later once the weekend comes.

April 30th
I went to bed around 11, woke up at 6 (finally) remembering a decent length dream that I wrote in my dream journal.

May 1
Went to bed around 9. I listened to some type of "brainwave entrainment" for LDing while falling asleep. I woke up again at midnight but drifted back to sleep. My alarm woke me up at 6, and I remembered two different scenes. The most interesting thing was that in the second, I shouted "Fly!" and I lifted off the ground and started flying through the air. I have the strong feeling that there was more to this dream, but I only recalled enough details to form a coherent entry from this scene. Although I was able to fly, I do not think I was lucid.

Sounds like there was some potential in that dream for an ld maybe even a micro lucid moment. Do you fly often in dreams?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NyxCC

Sounds like there was some potential in that dream for an ld maybe even a micro lucid moment. Do you fly often in dreams?

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Now that you mention it, it is a recurring theme in some of my dreams. I'd say around one in twelve. I never seem to realize the importance or impossibility of what I am doing though.

June 13th

Well, its been over a month since I last posted. I have not really progressed at all in terms of getting closer to lucid dreaming. I have started reading Love's book "Are You Dreaming?" and I am trying to stay diligent with reality checks, combing dreams for dreamsigns, and all that. I have not meditated at all in the past month unfortunately, something I am hoping to change.

Quote:

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Well, its been over a month since I last posted. I have not really progressed at all in terms of getting closer to lucid dreaming. I have started reading Love's book "Are You Dreaming?" and I am trying to stay diligent with reality checks, combing dreams for dreamsigns, and all that.

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Still, good that you have started reading an ld book and resumed the practices. LD books are great for inspiration and give plenty of induction ideas. I might follow your example and get something to read too. :)

June 29th
I have not been updating my workbook as regularly as I would have liked, but I have inproved. I have had a number of "almost lucid" dreams lately. There was one time where I acknowledged that I was in a dream to a DC but I still got caught up in the plot and emotions of the dream and did not do anything with this knowledge. I have also realized I am dreaming only to wake up almost immediately after. Furthermore, I have had multiple dreams where I am able to manipulate and control DCs, but I do not recall actively being aware that I was lucid. All of these would fall under the category of DILDs if they can even be counted as LDs. In a few of these, I suddenly realized I was dreaming and just knew it. I did not even think about performing RCs or anything of the sort. However, I was not able to recall a specific dream goal or thing I wanted to do (probably because I did not actually set one). I am still happy with the progress and hope to have a "real" lucid with better awareness soon. I am going to aim to do one of the TOTM.

Sounds like a great progress indeed. Congrats and good luck with the Totm! :)

Update

I'm not sure if my workbook thread is still active!

I haven't been posting in this workbook for a long time, just because I have been busy with school and other things. I've still been working on improving my LD practices during this time though.

I just about always remember at least one dream per night, sometimes even three or four if I wake up multiple times during the night. I record my dreams on my phone using the Awoken app each morning. I have had a handful of lucid dreams in the past several months, but they have all been very short. I usually wake up a few moments after attaining lucidity. In my most recent lucid dream (from a few days ago), I realized I was lucid and my vision started going dim. I tried focusing on my other senses to stabilize the dream (I know spinning is a technique many people use in a situation like this also). I ended up having a False Awakening, but I did not do a RC and did not realize I was dreaming!

I have been doing about 10 RCs each day diligently for the past few weeks now, but I seem to have difficulty with using techniques as I fall asleep. I have tried using the MILD technique and dream incubation and other similar techniques that require focus on a specific goal or intention or visualization, but I always seem to get distracted as I fall asleep. Sometimes it takes me a while to fall asleep when I am concentrating on something, including an intention like when using MILD, etc., and I think this makes it more difficult for me to focus.

Are there any day or night exercises/ practices to improve my focus so that I can concentrate on a technique fully as I fall asleep? Also, is there another class on DreamViews I should enroll in or anything like that?

Thanks so much! I really appreciate any advice!

Welcome back! As long as you're active, your workbook is also active :).

Regarding focus and execises, I would suggest doing small visualization sessions during the day and try to keep that up for, say, couple of weeks or a month at least. Your focus should improve. You can also try focusing on the input of one or more of your senses, for example, hearing and keep your attention on it for as long as you can.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NyxCC

Welcome back! As long as you're active, your workbook is also active :).

Regarding focus and execises, I would suggest doing small visualization sessions during the day and try to keep that up for, say, couple of weeks or a month at least. Your focus should improve. You can also try focusing on the input of one or more of your senses, for example, hearing and keep your attention on it for as long as you can.

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Thanks for the great advice NyxCC! I have been trying to practice the exercises that you described daily for the past week, and last night I had a LD! It was only a couple of minutes long, but that is probably the longest LD I have had to date. It is also the most vivid LD I have ever had- I can clearly remember one part where I was standing outside in my backyard. I could feel the breeze against my back and the warm sun on my face. I reached down and felt the grass, and I was amazed by the fact that everything around me really was just a dream.

I will keep practicing the exercise you suggested, and thanks again :D!

That's fantastic, congrats! Sounds like a really nice ld. :)

May 30

I have not had a LD in almost a month, but I feel that I am getting close. I have been maintaining the same daytime awareness techniques I have mentioned in my most recent entries (mainly RCs), but these past few weeks I have really made an effort to increase my awareness during each one, and I feel that this has made a big difference in my overall level of awareness during the day. NyxCC, thank you for the great advice you gave me about daytime visualizations. I have done that a few times and when I do I think it really makes a difference with my focus at night. Unfortunately, I have not been doing it as frequently as I would like. As school and exams will be over in a few (hopefully short!) weeks, I will have much more free time, which I plan to use to really focus more on LDing and visualization.

I have not made much progress during school weeks, which I believe is mainly due to the fact that I have to get up to an alarm and that I very rarely get a full 8 hours of sleep on weeknights. Because of this, most of my longer dreams have been on weekends. I also realized another issue that makes it more difficult for me to have LDs during the week is that my nighttime practices on those nights in particular are usually very poor. I usually finish homework very late, and by that time I am so mentally and physically exhausted that all I want to do is go to bed. Because I have not taken any time to think about dreaming, when I go to bed my thoughts are still very active and are centered around schoolwork and things like that. This really makes it difficult for me to focus on any technique.

On the weekends I am a little more calm, and this 3-day weekend was an extra treat. During the weekends my nighttime practices have been better. Last night, I listened to the DV podcast about DILD and MILD just before bed in order to get myself thinking about LDing. To the best of my memory, I think that all of my LDs have been DILDs or the result of using the MILD technique, but my level of lucidity was always very low. After I finished the podcast, I went to bed with a mantra and a desired dream scene in mind. I cannot recall now how much I was actually able to keep my attention on these, thought I most likely was not as attentive as I would have liked to have been. I woke up naturally about 6.5 hours later and decided to try a WBTB focusing on the same things that I had tried to focus on when falling asleep at the beginning of the night. I got out of bed, drank a little water, and walked around the house for a couple of minutes. At this point it was already pretty light out, which I think makes me feel more "awake" much more quickly than if I wake up and it is still dark out. I went back to bed on my back. I put my sleep mask on to block out the light, and I also put my headphones on and played an audio clip of white noise at a low volume that I often listen to as I fall asleep. I felt pretty awake for some reason though, so I decided to do the 61-point relaxation technique that LaBerge discusses in ETWOLD. I noticed several times while doing this that I had gotten distracted by random thoughts, but I was able to bring my mind back to the task at hand. I consider this a positive for me, because in the past, when I have gotten distracted, I may not notice at all and may completely forget about the task at hand. I finished the relaxation technique and then I began visualizing the scene I wanted to dream about. I have noticed recently that a frequently-appearing dreamsign of mine is the presence of a person whom I know but who recently moved further away. As a result, I do not see her nearly as often IWL anymore, but she is in my dreams quite often. I have told myself that I will do a RC everytime I see her, but this has not been very effective because I do not see her IWL that much.

As I was falling asleep during the WBTB, I imagined a dream scene that she was in. I imagined seeing her and realizing I was dreaming, and while I did this I kept reminding myself, "When I see her, I will realize I am dreaming and become lucid". I kept this visualization up for quite a while, but I had a significant amount of difficulty returning to sleep. I remained on my back trying to remain motionless for over an hour, but then this started to become very uncomfortable, so I took my headphones off and turned onto my side. Not long after doing so, I fell asleep.

When I woke up after that, I remembered two very long, detailed, but nonlucid dreams. In one of them, I was in a large, crowded building, and I was looking for the person whom I had been visualizing in the dream scene as I fell asleep during the WBTB. I had the feeling that I needed to find her for something important, but I could not recall what exactly. Unfortunately, I never found her and ended up getting distracted by something else, and I did not do a RC and did not become lucid. I wonder, had I found her, if that would have prompted me to do a RC and thus become lucid?

My plan for the next few weeks is to focus on the same desired dream scene every night (and during WBTBs) and to remind myself during the day and at night "When I see her, I will realize that I am dreaming". I think that the repetition may help me to better focus on this goal. Also, I will play around with the timing of my WBTBs a little more to find a better balance where I can fall back asleep more quickly. I wonder if it would be better to use an alarm to wake me up when it is still dark out (maybe after 4.5-5 hours of sleep instead of 6.5) and do a WBTB at that time instead.

Great update dreamingnow. It looks like your practices are becoming really solid so keep up the good work! The non-lucid dream where you were on the verge of finding your dream sign was a very close call.

Best of luck on your final exams and looking forward to the next updates :).

June 11

Have not had a LD since my last update, and my dream recall this past week has been unusually poor. I think this is because I have averaged around 6 hours of sleep per night, and I woke up in the morning to an alarm clock and had to get up immediately. It got so bad that several days I woke up without having the faintest idea what I had been dreaming about, which is very frustrating for me.

I was able to sleep late today, though, and my dream recall was much better. I woke up early in the morning remembering a full dream, but I fell back asleep without writing it down. When I woke up a few hours later, I could still recall the general idea of the dream, but not in as much detail, and I also remembered another full dream.

I only have a few more days of finals, and then summer:D! I am hoping that I will have much more time to focus all of my efforts on LDing with exams out of the way, so that I can really improve my frequency and quality of LDs.

I have the same problem with school. My dream practice really came to screeching halt when I started graduate school. It just takes up so much mental space. One thing that helps me is not reading my textbooks in bed like I used to. I'm happy it's summer now! Good luck!

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Originally Posted by dreamingaze

I have the same problem with school. My dream practice really came to screeching halt when I started graduate school. It just takes up so much mental space. One thing that helps me is not reading my textbooks in bed like I used to. I'm happy it's summer now! Good luck!

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Another reason summer is so great!

I'm guilty of the same thing- I'm always reading in bed, and I think that sometimes this can make it more difficult for me to fall asleep at night. I'm going to try not doing anything I'm my bed except sleeping, so hopefully when I retire for the night I will be able to quickly fall asleep!

July 4

I believe that I am making progress in my journey as a lucid dreamer. The frequency of my LDs these past 3 weeks has been higher than in the past- I have had 4 LDs (all DILDs), including one just last night. I had not had a LD in the 6-week period before this.

It seems that I may have accidently acquired an unwanted schema that lucidity triggers either me waking up or a FA. In the earliest of these 4 recent LDs, I had a FA immediately upon realizing it was a dream, and I lost lucidity.

In the second, I became lucid, recalled my goal, but then had a FA before I had time to carry it out. I "woke up" in my bed, but I became lucid again because the mask I had been wearing over my eyes felt weird and I felt my body floating above the bed. I pulled off the mask, and then immediately woke up for real (did an RC to confirm it).

In the third LD, I became lucid and had a short period of time (maybe about a minute) where I was lucid and was attempting to carry out a preset goal. I somehow lost lucidity, because when I finally woke up for real I recalled the LD and then an unrelated non-lucid dream after it.

And, in the lucid I had last night, I had only a few moments (around 30-45 seconds) of lucidity, where I focused solely on taking in the details of the dream and increasing its vividness by engaging my senses. I then had a FA and lost lucidity.

I plan to combat this problem by doing a RC before I get out of bed upon waking up in the morning. Even if it is in the middle of the night and I am not recording a dream, I will still do a RC. I have been trying to do this the past few weeks, but not very diligently- I will often get out of bed and start my day because I do not want to be late, thinking "I'll do a RC later." From this point onward, I will not get out of bed until I have done a RC and reached a conclusion about whether or not I am dreaming.

My daytime practice these past two weeks up until yesterday has been very poor, with very little thought of LDing during the day. Starting today, I am getting back into my habit of doing a minimum of 10 mindful RCs each day.

Nice! Congrats on all the lds! :) The out-of-bed RCs are a great way to help catch more FAs and I think they can bring extra lds in general especially if you make them a habit.