jzinser's workbook

[jzinser]

Jzinser's workbook intro Hello everyone! Im a 26 year old mexican guy, I became interested in LD about 3 months ago after I began reading Robert Waggoner's "Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the inner self". Before that I already had some notion about lucid dreaming, but I had no idea of its potential. In most cultures and religions we have this idea about dreams being unimportant and nothing more than recycled material, with no transcendence or impact in our waking lives. I used to share this belief and so I didn't pay much attention to my dreams, the only slight interest I had in LD was to have fun and fool around. However, about 10 months ago I had a spontaneous OBE and became interested in the topic. I've had my DJ for about 5 months now (as it is also recommended in OBE books, memory download from both phenomena seems to be very related) and my dream recall has increased drastically since. Now I am totally into LD... and here I am! By the way, just on a side note... I had one WILD and one DEILD before knowing these techniques existed. For the WILD part I was attempting to OBE but I ended up in the coolest lucid dream. The DEILD was about 2 weeks ago, I noticed my dream becoming blurry and I knew it was gonna disappear so I focused on it and managed to return lucid! I've had about 5 LD's and many more where I have been in a "semi-aware" state Thanks to everyone who started this forum and to everyone who keeps it running! Sleeping schedule: - About 12:00 to 7:00 every day. Between 6-8 hours per night (8-10 during weekends). Note: I actually found it very hard to sleep at night, it took me 1-2 hours of laying down before I could do it. After I started doing my OBE practice and changed my diet I now sleep much better and have a much more regular schedule. Reality Checks: I do them about every 20-30 minutes, the ones I am using right now are: 1- Look at my hands, count fingers, look away and back to see if anything changes 2- Try to push my index through the palm of my hand 3- Try to pull my finger and stretch it 4- Read something, look away and read again to see if it's still the same 5- Think about what Im doing / where I am and what I was doing / where I was before 6- Check if I know what time is it 7- Attempt to change an object or make something appear behind me 8- Look at myself in the mirror I normally do 2-3 every time, depend on availability I have been doing them consistently for about 9 days (4-Oct-2015) Dream Signs: - I am flying (or floating) a lot lately in my dreams, either by using a certain type of vehicle or by myself - I dream about dead relatives often... sometimes this feels extremely real and profound - My previous homes are also recurrent, especially my room I'll read my DJ tonight to find some other recurring elements Short-Term Goals: - To develop a more stable LD practice - To increase my LD occurrence - To increase the duration of my LDs - To plan my LDs and carry them out accordingly - To increase awareness during day and night Long-Term Goals: - To develop a dream yoga practice - To work out my fears and insecurities while LDing - To enhance my communication and bond with my inner self - To combine my LD practice with OBE practice - To help / teach others about lucid dreaming and spirituality Lucid/Dream Recall History: About 3 years ago I started having these recurring dreams about checking my cellphone for whats app messages. After a few similar dreams I started being more critical, I would read the messages and think about the sender and if it didn't make sense I would know it is a dream and I woke myself up right after. More recently I've had about 5-6 short LDs (one wasn't that short). One was WILD, one was DEILD and the rest DILD. The last one was about 10 days ago and before that I had like a 2 month period with no LD. I've been practicing dream control and was pretty successful at it. At the moment I want to familiarize more with the LD environment and dynamics before getting deeper into it, I want to develop a strong foundation before jumping to more advanced techniques. Current Technique: - DILD, Im relying on my RCs and dream signs at the moment. I also repeat my mantra every night - I will try DEILD when opportunities come - I will try to do at least one WILD session per week Thanks for reading!

[NyxCC]

Welcome to Intro class, jzinzer! I love your dream goals. Let us know if you have any questions.

[jzinser]

Day 1 report: Ok, so last night wasn't very successful to be honest... I didn't have any lucid dreams and I didn't remember any dream. However, failure teaches us even more than success.. I laid in bed and slept right away, I didn't pull out my DJ and place it besides my bed, I believe this had great impact on my dream recall. Its amazing how a simple action like writing a date and setting an intent before sleeping can alter the success rate. Lets see how I do tonight, I have a feeling in my gut that I will become lucid! NyxCC... thanks for the welcome! I like my goals as well haha, they are ambitious but definitely not impossible. If I have any questions I will let you know! Thanks!

[jzinser]

Day 2 & 3: I haven't been able to have a Lucid Dream yet (since I started the course)... the week has been kinda tough. I've noticed that repeating a mantra and doing a short awareness meditations before bed greatly increases the chances of lucid dreaming, I haven't done any of these lately. However the weekend is here! I will try WILD tonight so wish me good luck!

[jzinser]

Ok so its been a few days... I had a wedding on Saturday so it was hard to keep up. I don't have much to write about, I have kept doing my RCs and I don't need any reminders now... they are becoming part of my life which is good I guess. On Sunday I had a lucid dream, it was really great... one thing I want to highlight from this dream is the fact that I made the nose plug RC to check if I was dreaming... I don't recall ever using this before during a dream. It was really weird to feel the air coming into my nose while having it shut, cool experience! By the way, I am having a hard time waking up in the middle of the night... I need to put more effort into it, otherwise I fall right back to sleep

[NyxCC]

Nice! Congrats on the ld! Did the RC help you become lucid or did you do it after you knew you were dreaming?

[jzinser]

I don't think I have ever become lucid with an RC... There is always a "click" before that makes me wonder and then the RC works as a confirmation. In this case what happened is that in my dream my perception changed without having to move, like a kind of "teleportation"... this was my dream sign. I was in NYC last week, working, it was pretty intense... I didn't even write in my diary but I did recall a few dreams. I've realized how critical the 1st 5 seconds after waking up are, it is usually very easy to remember dreams during this time, however if you don't stop for a second to recall it can get lost very fast. Yesterday I had another LD, I tried to summon a friend and different people started showing up but not him... I finally gave up and woke. I used nose plug as my verification RC again. This time I am not sure what my trigger was, I think it was when the dream started to form so I realized from the start. It felt funny, everything was shaking... like on an earthquake kind of thing, it felt like the dream was unstable. I looked at my hands and rubbed them together and the "shaking" stopped. This is also new for me After a few seconds of dreaming I always snap out because I am afraid of not remembering, but I think I should start staying a little bit longer!

[jzinser]

26 & 27 October No lucid dream but I have had great recall! 4 dreams each night which is pretty great for me. I have noticed these occur mostly after 5 hours of sleep... in the first few hours I hardly recall any dreams. Im going to bed earlier and this has helped a lot... I am currently trying to meditate for 30 minutes after 4-5 hours of sleep but it has been hard, I usually just decide not to and go back to sleep. I will keep trying though, once I do it for a few days in a row it will become easier I believe. On a side note... I've noticed increasing awareness and critical thinking in my dreams. Yesterday I was dreaming that I was going to get married to an ex-girlfriend because she was pregnant, but then I was like "Wait a second, we haven't been together for a while... that child can't be mine" but instead of realizing it was a dream I just assumed the father was not me (lol!). Similarly...today I dreamt about the Steelers playing a game, however it was odd for me to be watching an NFL game on Wednesday... but I didn't reach lucidity either. Good progress I guess though!

[jzinser]

28 October 4 more dream recalls today and the best part is that one of them was lucid! I caught myself starting to wake up from a dream and decided not to open my eyes. As I was being ejected from the dream I started to re focus on it, I focused on the sensations and my friend's face on the dream for about 30 seconds... trying as hard as I could to immerse myself in this landscape. Suddenly a new scene started appearing, I saw a night sky plagued with stars... as it became cleared I noticed that the stars were actually cartoon characters, with extremely bright colors! The dream seemed really unstable, I asked for clarity and got it right away. From here the dream went on... it was very short though. This was my second DEILD ever! I love this technique, it is so easy if you manage to do it at the right time!

[NyxCC]

Congrats on the lds! Excellent job with the DEILD - sounds like it went by very smoothly.

[jzinser]

It did! the only problem is the duration Tonight I had a WILD! I woke up at 5 am to do some meditation and then I listened to some binaural beats while falling asleep... it was funny, I kept drifting in and out of sleep and on some short dreams I was actually trying to WILD without realizing I was already dreaming. Then, when I felt relaxed enough I started recalling one dream I had 2 days ago and playing around with it... then the dream started! (not that scene but a new one... I haven't been able to recreate a scene) It was very short again... I need to make them longer!

[NyxCC]

Tonight I had a WILD! I woke up at 5 am to do some meditation and then I listened to some binaural beats while falling asleep... it was funny, I kept drifting in and out of sleep and on some short dreams I was actually trying to WILD without realizing I was already dreaming. Then, when I felt relaxed enough I started recalling one dream I had 2 days ago and playing around with it... then the dream started! (not that scene but a new one... I haven't been able to recreate a scene) That sounds really cool! Well done!

[jzinser]

2,3 November I had 2 weird experiences these last couple of nights: The first one was that I woke up at about 4 am with this really strong sensation of having a LD but I could only remember very small fragments... thats a 1st time for me The second one was this morning (at about 5:40 am), I woke up at 5 and then wanted to WILD... I ended up floating above my body and going around my house for a few seconds. This felt like an OBE but since I didn't feel the projection symptoms (which I usually do) it could also have been a LD. I did the nose plug RC and I could breathe but I guess this applies to OBE as well... so I can't tell for sure Im having trouble with prolonging my LDs, any recommendations NyxCC?

[NyxCC]

I find that the best way to prolong lds is to keep being active as much as possible. If you have any predetermined goals, waste no ld time but go ahead and try to accomplish them. For any ideas of things to do, be sure to check out our monthly tasks. Tasks of the Month & Year

[jzinser]

Thanks again! This weekend I had another LD, it was the first time that I actually became lucid thanks to the RC. I don't remember this part clearly but I was doing something with a piece of paper and when I ripped a little piece off it turned into something else (like a towel). This seemed a bit odd but I still assumed it was waking reality, however I decided to do a RC just in case... I did the nose plug and I could breathe! I became lucid from this moment. I've begin to notice that a great way to increase the "hit rate" of LD is just being resourceful... having various techniques and ways of becoming lucid can help a lot!

[jzinser]

16th November Yesterday I was really tired (slept 3 hours from Sunday to Monday), I had a nap at about 4pm... it took a while for me to sleep but I had a couple WILDs right after I did. It was different, all my LDs before had been after some hours of sleep, not right away. These dreams seemed a lot more "blurrier" and unstable... they weren't very long and I was so tired that I didn't wake up to write them right after so I lost a big part of the content

[NyxCC]

Congrats! You seemed to have caught a nice REM rebound.