GoonerDreams93's Workbook

Hello all! I'm just going to introduce myself a bit. I'm 21 years old from NJ, USA. I'm a student pilot in hopes of one day becoming an airline pilot. So not only do I hope to fly in my dreams, but in real life as well haha. I'm also a psychology major in college. Besides flying, some of my hobbies include, soccer, reading, writing, watching movies, and collecting things. I'm really really big on music as well.

As far as lucid dreaming, it's something I've been very interested in for quite some time now. Probably since my sophomore or junior year of high school, so about five or six years. Most of that time though I haven't been practicing actively. I've been very much on and off with lucid dreaming, but I'm hoping to change all of that. The only lucid dreams I've had so far have been where I basically tell myself that I'm dreaming and everything is a dream, but its all part of the dream. It's not my conscious mind actually saying any of these things. It's all just part of the dream. I had one of these just a week or two ago when I wasn't even trying to have lucid dreams and it got me back into it. I'm currently rereading Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge and I want to reread Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self by Robert Waggoner.

Dream Journal:
I have been keeping a DJ for the last week or so since I've gotten back into LD. My recall is pretty good, I remember at least one dream per night although I normally remember two or three. They've been getting longer and more vivid every day as well.

Reality Checks:
I've only started integrating RC into my routine for maybe three or four days now. What I do is take a very close look around me while asking myself if everything looks normal and as it should. I look at everything very closely. I listen to everything and feel everything closely as well. I try to recall the events of the last few minutes or last few hours. I ask myself how I got to where I am. I also take a look at my hands and look at a digital watch twice to see if it changes. Sometimes I plug my nose and try to read some text twice.

Dream Signs:
I don't really see that much in common in my dreams. The only thing really is perhaps that I dream a lot with family members. Sometimes its my immediate family members, sometimes it's more distant family members like my aunts, uncles, cousins, and even second cousins.

Short-Term Goals:
My goal is to have my first fully lucid dream by the time I go away for vacation on July 16th.
As far as goals within the dream:
-Flying (obviously)
-Converse with dream characters
-Explore my dream world

Long-Term Goals:
I want to be able to have 3-4 LD per week. I think that's a reasonable number. I also want to ask my subconscious several questions.

Lucid/Dream Recall History:
As mentioned before I've not yet had a truly lucid dream just yet. My dream recall is pretty good though and seems to be improving more and more every night.

Current Technique:
I'm pretty much only using DILD at the moment. I intend to attempt WBTB at some point soon as well to see how that works out for me.

I'm hoping to be able to experience a fully lucid dream soon. It's been something I've wanted so bad for so long now. I've been pretty busy and distracted for the last few years in my life, but I'm not going to allow that or anything else to stop me anymore. I really want to do this. I want lucid dreaming to be a part of my life. Any thoughts, questions, concerns or comments on my lucid dreaming journey or anything else are more than welcome. I would love to become more involved here on DreamViews. Thank You all!

I just want to tie a bit of an update and mention a few things that I feel are worth mentioning. I normally take two 3mg melatonin tablets before I go to sleep. I really have a hard time falling asleep at times and taking melatonin helps me quite a bit. Last night however, I'm not entirely sure why, but I decided not to take them. My recall went way down. I could only remember one little fragment of a dream. I'm assuming not taking the melatonin had to do with that. Another thing, being that I've not yet experienced a fully lucid dream yet, I can't really help but believe that it's something that is really difficult to achieve. I feel like there's something in my brain that kind of makes it so, just because I believe it to be that way. I even question if it actually is something that is possible at all despite having read books on the subject, having read people's experience with them here on DreamViews, watched countless YouTube videos, etc. Perhaps this is creating a mental block for me that's not allowing me to achieve lucidity? Either way, I intend to correct this. I'm trying to change my mentality as much as I can. Any sort of feedback is greatly appreciated.

Hello GoonerDreams, welcome to DV and intro class! :)

That's an interesting observation about melatonin. I have some possible explanations but don't want to jump to conclusions straight ahead as not to give any expectations at this stage. We can discuss dream recall and vividness in greater lenght if you want and when you gather a series of observations which will help determine what has an impact on your recall and so on. At any rate, it's good to hear that you have good recall on average, so this probably won't be something to worry about.

About you being sceptical about lucid dreams, I can understand it may be difficult to believe if you haven't experienced any for the moment. However, this should in no way prevent you from having lds. Some of the best lucid dreamers here have started with little dream recall and no lds and worked their way up to better recall, frequent lucid dreams and fantastic dream control. So, it's absolutely doable and if you ask me, it's kind of exciting too. It's absolutely amazing to discover that after doing some ld related day and night work, one night you will be able to experience this.

Enjoy the journey and feel free to ask if you have any questions. :)

Hey! Thanks for the response!

I do actually have a question. Am I perhaps taking on too much at once? As I mentioned, I have been on and off with LD for years now, but I've only come back to it about two weeks ago. The fact that I haven't yet experienced a LD has created a lot of frustration actually. I want it so bad!!!

I might actually have some good news. Saw your intro to DV and you mention that there are dreams where you conclude you are dreaming, but do nothing else to continue using the realization. It's quite possible those were low level lucids, yet since you hadn't officially gotten used to lding, you probably lost awareness right after. So, here is an important thing to remember - always be ready with a task that you want to do when becoming lucid. This is very helpful to keep the lucid awareness as well as to prolong the dream in general. Every night or at wbtb if you do one, think that you will become lucid and then you will complete your task. :)

The thing though is that in those dreams, I do actually burst off flying and do things like that, but I'm not consciously doing it. It's all just part of the dream. It's all just a regular, non lucid, foggy dream. Also, I've only had one of those in like the last few years and that was just a couple of weeks ago. There was no true awareness at all. That's what got me back into trying to achieve lucidity. I pretty much consider myself a beginner. I don't consider any of those dreams truly lucid dreams.

Well, stick to the induction practices and if possible incorporate wbtb in your routine (but not on days when you are flying!) and as I said, be ready with a task for your next dream. Persistence and patience and you will get that awesome ld! :)

Yeah I actually tried WBTB for the first time ever just last night. There was a nasty storm though that woke me up an hour before I had my alarm set. It was a crappy night overall to try WBTB, but I will absolutely try again tonight. What exactly should I do though when I awake? How long should I stay awake for?

Best to spend the time on dreaming related activities like writing down any dreams you recall, reviewing cool past entries or thinking about your goals for the next dream. Try experimenting with the awake time to find your what time frame works best for you.