Thread: rcarter's workbook

OK, people, you know the drill. New week, new post, will update the next seven days.
Just a quick recap of the last week: a lot of small steps, new experiences, increased vividness, somewhat muddy recall (a lot of scribbling nevertheless), noticing natural awakenings after REM phases but not awake enough to do anything beyond thinking "I should probably write something down - in a minute". I still haven't reached the big TADAAA moment I've been hoping for ever since I first read about LDing, but I'm trying hard to convince myself I'm not waiting for it.
In case you're wondering why I haven't started a dream journal here, I don't really feel comfortable with sharing all the personal stuff from my dreams, plus translating and streamlining my morning scribbles takes a lot of time I'd rather invest in other things. However, I'm thinking about sharing some of the more interesting (and SFW) dreams on weekends. Let's see what the week brings. Maybe I'll do it, probably not.

Monday, October 26
Went to sleep at 10:00pm, woke up shortly from my roommate coming home, went back to sleep, then woke up from the alarm at 5:00am with not-so-great recall.
Number of dreams: Several fragments.
Time spent sleeping: ~7 hours
Dream signs: Acquaintances, unusually winding rooms.

Something I noticed today - awareness practice is great. I walk to work, and since there's much to see and little to do but putting one foot in front of the other, it's a good time to notice everything around me. Even though I always go roughly the same way, there has not been one day I haven't noticed something new. I work in a part of town that has been bombed into oblivion and rebuilt a few decades ago, so it's all ugly post-war "architecture", but just this morning I noticed that on one of those houses that has a flat roof used as a garden replacement there is a children's playhouse. Just wedged there between four-lane streets, the local train station's hobo population, shady mobile phone shops and cheap pubs. Now, I'm super not into the idea of having family and children, but this tiny detail was so fucking beautiful I wanted to cry. Weird, huh?

Tuesday, October 27
Went to sleep at 10:00pm, woke up from the alarm at 5:00am without a shred of recall. Today it's early bedtime. No distractions, no excuses.
Number of dreams: jack
Time spent sleeping: 7 hours
Dream signs: squat

Wednesday, October 28
Went to sleep at 8:30pm, woke up naturally at 4:52am with so-so recall. Just one dream, quite hazy, but also extremely long. Wrote down a lot. I think I'll go to bed early again this night.
Number of dreams: 1
Time spent sleeping: ~8 hours 30 minutes
Dream signs: old acquaintances, nice girls (actually the only one I remember of the three there were was an old flame of mine)

I noticed that my dreams often center on one or more women I'm physically or emotionally attracted to, usually both. If it's someone I know from real life, I'll usually find them more attractive in waking life afterwards, and the feelings of familiarity and innocent sexuality (innocent because it's free of any cultural baggage, intrusive thoughts or similar things) will stay with me for a few days. I really like those dreams. Also, another dream sign to note.

Thursday, October 29
Went to sleep at 8:30pm, woke up I don't know when and actually remembered to write something down, but when I had the journal open nothing came to mind. Maybe I need to stay awake a few minutes longer, recall tends to flood in gradually for me. Went back to sleep and woke up from the alarm at 5:00am with so-so recall. One dream, pretty hazy.
Number of dreams: 1
Time spent sleeping: ~8 hours 30 minutes
Dream signs: my ex

Friday, October 30
Went to sleep at 11:00pm, woke from the alarm at 5:00am practically without recall. Meh, I won't get used to working in the morning, I'm just a night owl by nature. On the way to work I realized I may have become lucid during the night. I remember having one of those random, unprovoked "Wait, am I dreaming?" moments that usually trigger RCs in waking life and glancing at my wrist tattoo to find it distorted. Then the dream crumbled around me and I tried to stabilize it by rubbing my hands to no avail. A few seconds later I had a false awakening. Now, because it's so hazy, it's quite possible that it was an ordinary dream which just featured LDing, but whichever it was, it's another small step in the right direction.
Number of dreams: fragments
Time spent sleeping: 6 hours
Dream signs: failed RC

Saturday, October 31
Went to sleep at 11:30pm, woke from the alarm at 4:20am (subconscious stoner indoctrination?) practically without recall. Did some reading and stuff, went back to sleep at 5:00am. Woke up from my roommate preparing for his early shift and angrily decided to get earplugs to shut out the constant noise once and for all (spoiler: later that day I walked into the store and got a lot of things, but forgot the earplugs). Went back to sleep and woke up naturally (though exhausted) at 7:30 with absolutely awesome recall. I'll even start an official dream journal and share the link once I'm done writing. Edit: Here it is!
Number of dreams: 1 long-ass vivid dream
Time spent sleeping: ~7 hours
Dream signs: a nice girl, some genuine doubt that sadly didn't result in lucidity

So, I went to my local cosmetics store, originally to buy earplugs, but forgot what it was I wanted to get. That chain of stores doubles as a feelgood-witchcraft vendor, so I remembered that I wanted to try supplements. As you might have guessed from my other posts, I'm skeptical of everything that smells remotely of woo, but I need some way to squander what little wealth I have on things that won't clutter up my room. My favorite was melatonin, but like practically anything else in this shithole country it's a controlled substance, so I went for some Doppelherz (an old people brand) supplement with choline and B vitamins (along with ginkgo and zinc, but what the hell). Will report back with results.

Sunday, November 1
God damn, WBTB is exhausting. Went to sleep at midnight, woke from the alarm at 5:15am without recall. Did some reading and stuff, took my old people's supplement, went back to sleep at 5:30am. The day before I actually went to the store a second time to pick up earplugs, and they worked like a charm. My roommate had no chance. Woke up naturally (exhausted, like the day before) at about 8:20am with pretty muddy recall. Had a few pseudo-lucid experiences, but not the real thing as far as I can tell. It was all pretty confusing and labyrinthine (for lack of a less pretentious word), much like a fever dream.
Number of dreams: 1 dream plus fragments
Time spent sleeping: ~8 hours
Dream signs: punched a guy in the face a dozen times without really incapacitating him