New here :D (Introduction and Question)

Hello!

I am excited to have joined you all here, in hopes that I can attain lucidity in my dreams, hopefully tonight!

My name is Chris, and I'm a Film and Media Arts major at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. I'm 18 years old.

I ultimately joined this website because I've been having difficulty attaining lucidity in my dreams. Ever since i downloaded iDoser several years ago and saw "Lucid" as one of the doses, I started to research, and attempt lucid dreaming. However, i sort of gave up on that.

Now, since watching Inception, and reading that Christopher Nolan (director) lucid dreams and received his ideas from lucid dreams, I've decided to give it a go again. I understand that I can't share my dreams, although that'd be pretty darn awesome, but i have heard of the possibilities and the creativity i can release through them, and, being a writer, would like to experience that.

I recently downloaded some MP3s for induction and hypnosis that is supposed to aid me in achieving lucidity, however, it has failed. But i have noticed that my ability to recall my dreams has greatly increased, and the amount of dreams i'm having seems to have gone up as well.

For example, last night i woke up at around 3 a.m. from a dream, i stayed awake for a few minutes to recall the dream, then decided to go to sleep again, telling myself that i would become lucid once i begin dreaming. that didn't happen, and i awoke again, only to fall asleep, dream some more, and wake up for good disappointed that another night had gone by without lucid dreaming.

hopefully some of you kind souls could help me in my lucid journey :)

Hi Chris, welcome to Dreamviews! :boogie:

I tend to be more on the skeptical side when it comes to electronic and MP3 induction techniques, and because of this I focus almost entirely on awareness (but that's just me). I stop at least five times a day, at completely random times, and ask myself if I'm dreaming.

"I could be dreaming right now," I say with some conviction, and then do a reality check.

Some products like the NovaDreamer emit lights as you sleep, directly into your eyes, and these lights appear in the dream. But you have to be aware enough in the first place to detect them.

I happen to agree with Puffin MP3, Binaural beats, etc. don't seem to be effective, just a pain.

Try drinking apple juice every night, taking Fish Oil supplement (improves dream recall), and Vitamin B6 (helps with vividness). Also, keep a journal.

Also, Puffin is giving your GREAT advice. Stop several times a day, and seriously ask yourself if you are dreaming. Look at your hands while you are doing this. The purpose is to make this such a habit, that you will do it by habit in your dream, and that will remind you of why you are doing it, and suddenly you will become lucid.

My best advice: DON'T GIVE UP! It WILL happen, and when it does, that will motivate you further.

Good Luck!

Puffin:

How do you get your stats to show on the bottom of your post? I really find this cool...

You have to edit your signature which appears at the bottom of every post.

At the top of the forum page, go to Forum Actions > Edit Profile > Edit Signature on the left sidebar.

If you are interested in Lucid Dreaming because of Pop culture, then you seek it for the wrong reasons.

It takes a great deal of desire. The more right your desire, the more progress you will make.

What I would suggest, to see if you can attain to right motive from the start, is use the question "Does Lucid Dreaming have any real value." As your focus for entering the lucid dreamstate.

Record the the response. You will need to remember it.

I respectfully disagree with Philo.

You only need to desire to LD, follow the right techniques, and it will happen. I am new as well, also motivated by the movie "Inception", and have had 2 LDs now. I have employed several techniques that I have found here and other places. It has taken me one week. Do I have a "great desire". Well, I don't know. How do you measure that? I find Lucid dreaming of real value because it is entertaining. If I continue to explore, my motivation may change to a deeper reason. The point is, I got what I wanted, a Lucid Dream.

My point is that you do no need to spend a whole lot of time justifying why you want to Lucid Dream to make it happen. Just try it using the techniques on this site, and see what happens. If you find you cannot do it, then you must decide whether to go further. You don't have to decide that now.

Here is what I have done. I'm not claiming anything, just stating what I have done:

1. I keep a dream journal beside my bed and write in it every day, whether I recall or not. If I don't recall. I right 'No recall".
2. I stop what I'm doing at least 5 times a day, look at my hands, count my fingers, and ask myself, "Am I dreaming"? I do this intently for at least 30 seconds to a minute or more.
3. Before I fall asleep each night, I say to myself over and over "I am going to have a Lucid Dream tonight, and I am going to remember it".
4. I take Omega 3 Fish oil supplements, Vitamin B6, and apple juice (lots). Motivation later...
5. I listen to Binaural beats in the 4-7 hz beat range with a 95 hz Base frequency, covered slightly by Pink Noise via headphones at a low volume level(I don't think this does diddly, but I'm going to keep trying).
6. I read books on philosophy or Lucid Dreaming before I go to bed.
7. If everything works out, I'll have to get up and pee at about 6 to 7 am.

After that, I go back to sleep, and that is when I have my LDs. After doing this for about a week, I had a really awewome LD last night. The deciding factor in my dream that made me realize that I was in an LD was looking at my hands. They had the wrong number of fingers, and some where only half there. BOOM, I'm in. Now that I'm in, I stabilized my LD by spinning around in my dream (like you would do to make yourself dizzy). Once stabilized, I had a pretty long dream, looking at my hands occasionally to see they were distorted. Once in, I could interact and do things in my dream (like breath underwater in a pool I found in the dream, or kiss the pretty girl I saw standing in my path while I was running through a field of something akin to colored grass but with a carpeted feel). Lots of other stuff happened but that is unimportant.

That's it. It was mind blowing. How long did it last in the real world? Probably only a minute or two (if that). But it was enough.

My desire now has changed. Now I am wondering how much I can alter my dreams, and how much I can learn from LD. For that, I will need to go deeper into the philosophical aspects.

However, if all you desire is to have an entertaining experience, you can do it. I did.

Best of Luck!

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Are you dreaming now?

LDs since 7/16/2010: 2

Fairly impressive answer for someone with a LD count of 2. I started in the late 50's. When there was no LD pop culture in existence.