Thread: Vaiaphraim's workbook

Hi! Let me introduce myself a bit - I'm an IT student, and most of my hobbies are related to computers aswell; I also make music and do some sports for a change. I'm a huge fan of sci-fi... be it books, movies or games. I love the concept of discovering superpowers, but that's not even my main motivation.

My Lucid Dreaming history is short, but reaches way back... As a kid, I used to have very vivid dreams, flying, walking through walls, all the cool stuff. Most of them were non lucid, but I do recall that I wanted to test a theory. I thought that if I would hold an object in my dream and wake up in that moment, I'd retain it after waking up. One day, I dreamed about a gameboy, and forced myself to wake up, so I definitely was lucid in this dream. (However, I had to wait for my birthday to get my gameboy)
I totally loved dreams, I enjoyed them a lot and wondered, if they were controllable somehow, or just random. I didn't have any sources about the topic at home that time, so I just tried my own methods, such as thinking only about a certain thing/event in order to dream about it. I wasn't really successful, and then... I started to grow up.

Skipping time ahead for 10 or 15 years, I finished highschool and started to study around that time. I started researching stuff like relaxation techniques, autogenic training, self-hypnosis, things like that. It was quite fun to try these things, but they never lead to any really interesting results. Then one day... probably a month from now, I spent a while on YouTube to watch a few of these TED:Talks. Naturally, I started off with computer science, hopped over to music production, CGI artwork, and whatever stuff I loved to do in my free time. I clicked through the related list, trying to expand my horizon, and ended up watching a talk about Lucid Dreaming. It totally sucked me in. Memories came flowing back, my old plans from my childhood were resurrected... Many of the used terms and techniques were unknown to me, so I continued my search from this point. After reading a couple of tutorials, I ended up here.

My main motivation is that I'm quite overloaded from PC games, programming and spending so much time staring at the screen. I want to rebalance my sleeping cycles. In theory, it's a positive feedback loop. I'll reduce my gaming times, get to bed earlier, have my share of awesomeness while dreaming, without the limits set by games, wake up fully refreshed and powered up for the day, and even have more time left to spend with my friends.

So this is it... my workbook. My research lab. A collection of my skills, failures, and improvement. Hello, Dream Views!


Reality Checks:
- Nose pinching / breathing under usually impossible conditions (under water, in space, ...)
- In progress: Creating a "totem", as recommended by a friend

Dream Signs:
- Inaccurate size ratios (giant people, ...)
- Long, high hallways. Tall rooms, with dark wooden walls.

Short-Term Goals:
- 'Learn to talk' in a LD [OK]
- 'Learn to walk' in a LD [OK]
- Determine REM phases [Pending]
- Stabilize a LD [OK]
- Change a LD environment [Partial success - Teleportation]
- Improve dream recall in general [Improving every day ]


Long-Term Goals:
- Experience a successful WILD, total control, total recall
- Use LDs for adventure and self-exploration, reduce PC gaming

Regular sleeping times
Usually around midnight, but I'd rather aim for 22:00 or 23:00, in order to try WBTB while it's still dark outside

Lucid/Dream Recall History:
Dream recall to me is random, I might see an advertisement, talk about a topic, and suddenly I'm hit by a total recall from one second to the other.
If something is missing, I can usually "backtrack" to fill in the gaps. However, most of the times, I don't have a single clue about any dreams I had at all.
I recently started a dream journal on my smartphone... I lead myself to believe that it helped already, at least a bit.
If I'm woken up during a dream, I usually remember everything - at least it feels that way.

Current Technique:
- WILD / WBTB


I already read the WILD and WBTB tutorials here, and I know that I'm probably moving way to fast. I can say that I've tried to WILD for about each day of the last two weeks, without any real success. In the last two weeks, I also tried WBTB a couple of times... Times like 3 or 4 AM were not really ideal, since I can't really completely darken my room. I tried that without success.
However, I got it to work twice: Getting up in the morning (7-8 AM), staying up for an hour, going back to bed lead to almost a stream of LDs.

Spoiler for Summary of my first LDs after a decade:

Last week, I covered my eyes with a makeshift sleep mask, and tried the recommended techniques as well as I could. Getting into a comfortable position, letting the thoughts go by, counting each breath, resetting the count after each time I swallowed. I then encountered some of the mentioned "noise", which gradually increased in volume. (To me, it sounded like some whitenoise with reduced sample rate, not sure if that's relevant)
In any case, the next moment I remember, my sleep mask became transparent. I knew that I was dreaming immediately. I got up from bed, and saw that my computer was turned on. This was annoying, because I wanted to do something different for a change. I couldn't leave my room, the door was locked - probably because I also locked it IRL - and I had trouble moving. It was a mixture of levitating and walking, but I could hardly choose the direction I went to... moments later, I snapped out and woke up.

This week, probably two days ago, I had a sequence of three LDs through the same method. WBTB in the morning, this time, with a real sleeping mask. The effect was exactly the same as last time... Getting into a comfortable position, counting down from 100, letting all the thoughts go one after another. Bitcrush effect, and my sleeping mask faded. Again, I was in my room, and again, I faced my PC monitor - only this time, I decided to touch it. I could see my hand passing through, and the surface of the monitor appeared to be like water. Seconds later, I could see my own head - extremely distorted in the screen, moving with the ripples of the surface. After that, something very strange happened. I felt the need to swallow - but I knew it was in reality, rather than my dream. I woke up swallowing... I can't recall, how long it took, but I dived back in, probably only seconds later. This time, I was in my room again - without my PC - my girlfriend was next to me, but her hair color was off. It was pitch black, rather than a light brunette. Again, the dream lasted only seconds, before I woke up for the second time. I'm not sure how I did it, but I managed to get back a third and final time that day. I was at a trainstation this time, with huge security guys wandering around. For some reason, there were a couple of hoverboards travelling over the tracks. I tried to use one, but it was very hard to move. I couldn't see my dream-feet either (looking back, I think I never did so far), and barely made it to one of the boards. Then, reality started to fracture the dream. I could hear construction noise, and I knew it was "real", because all the dream trains were standing still, and there was no sign of any construction machine. After a total of 30 seconds, I woke up again.

I also noticed a pattern, and recalled that it was quite similar in the past. Moving in my LDs is hard. Extremely hard. It's more as if I was on rails than walking freely. Another thing - I couldn't talk in my dreams. Ever. I can open my mouth, but no sound would come out. Trying to yell wakes me up.

My short term goals are to get this under control. I want to be able to control my dream body properly, and I'd like to stabilize my LDs so that they last longer than 10-30 seconds. I'd also love to get rid of these "reality" influences, such as the need to swallow, knowing that it's the reality-me.

Any feedback and tips would be appreciated! Good night