New to the forum but not to the dream world.

[DreamOutLoud]

Hello there, fellow dreamers! After years and years of being interested in the dream world (even writing short stories based on dream experiences) I came to a conclusion that perhaps it was time to reach out to others with the passion as myself. Since I was about fifteen or sixteen years old I've been struggling to find the answers to dreams, whether they be lucid or not. Actually, I should have read into the forum more before I joined because I now see that this is almost most in defiantly dedicated to the art of Lucid Dreaming. I am not entirely interested in the formation of Lucid Dreams. However! I did look into a few years back because my oldest brother once told me a story about how he was Lucid Dreaming one night and that he spoke to his Anima in the back of a subway. She had told him that he would eventually meet a woman and that he would be purely happy one day. This drove me to try LD so I went a hunt and found some exercises to trigger the LD state. I succeeded twice in one night, though they only lasted no more than an hour or so both times (I kept a clock next to me). I woke up the next morning feel groggy and exhausted so I gave up LD from then on. That was about four or five years ago. Although I'm not against LD, I just don't know if it's the type of dreaming for me. Maybe this forum will change my perspective or maybe it will help me to better understand what my very stubborn unconscious is trying to tell me. I've had some very...interesting dreams to say the least. When my current boyfriend and I first started dating I would have dreams of us getting into arguments and the next day those arguments would happen, it started to become a warning in some sense. Now after three years of being with him, it only happens occasionally anymore. I have dreams about my brother whenever he's in trouble (we have a very strong sibling connection as it is) and I've had dreams that have helped me unlock fears and troubles that I had blocked out completely in my subconscious. Now that I've blabbered on enough, I'm really looking forward to starting a whole new dream experience, connecting with others and finding my answers. Some people question the existence of God; I question the existence of Dreams. I'm a very laid back, Zen being so feel free to offer any suggestions or thoughts and I'm hoping to have lots of fun here!

[SillyDreamer]

to DV!!!! Being a natural dreamer, learning to LD might be a curve of your path. Take the deviation before the path ends, read signs, reach your destination. Good Luck.

[DreamOutLoud]

Thanks so much! See, the problem is, I've always kind of never personally believed in LD. Not in the sense that it can't happen-I know it can happen. But my philosophy is that our unconscious is there to tell us so many things that even we don't know about ourselves. I guess i just think that if you control your own dreams, you will never learn anything. Then again, that's kind of a open-mouth-insert-foot on my half because of what I said about my brother and him meeting is Anima. Again, I'm still researching to see how other people's experiences have went. If I can't learn anything about myself in LD, I don't think I will continue to do it unless I find that it like it more than normal dreaming. Which I might...

[SillyDreamer]

I partially agree to your philosphical statements. But, remember, learning and doing LD help you to remember the things you learned!!! Dream Recall is a vital part of LD. What is the use if you are not remembering your learnings. To be in LD is swimming against the flow, not being a plank on the flow.

[DreamOutLoud]

Point taken. I've been doing loads of research and just realized that I've been doing quite a bit of WILD throughout my life without even realizing it. I've done so much research on dreams and now that I'm here I see that I'm missing out on so many adventures! And with that said, I'm going to go to bed now and try an attempt at a LD...again. After four years. XD Thanks for everything! Nice talking to you.

[SillyDreamer]

Thanks so much! Much easier and fairer is to press the "Thanks" button :=)

[DreamOutLoud]

... sorry about that.

[WakataDreamer]

Hello... SillyDreamer has already extended our collective welcome to you, but I'm not one to be afraid of being superfluous, so welcome to DreamViews! If you're unsure of your stance on lucid dreaming, then try it for yourself and see how you feel about it. IMHO I think you'll love it (since pretty much everyone does ), but I could be wrong, everyone feels differently about things, so... try it and see! Everyone's first few lucid dreams are usually confusing, boring and ultimately unrewarding. It takes a bit of experience to make something out of them. Also, did you remember them? If you lucid dreamed but woke up "groggy" and gave it up as a result, perhaps you actually had a fantastic dream but forgot in in the morning (did you fail to write it down, maybe?), and then reflected that nothing interesting had happened and that it wasn't worth it (because that's all you remembered). Most people actually report better sleep and waking up from a lucid dream feeling better-rested and more clear headed than they do when waking from a normal dream / sleep cycle. My advice is to start right now and try it again. Go over the basics again, start from the beginning... Read this: http://www.dreamviews.com/f20/what-lucid-dream-93983/ ...And then get a blank journal, put it next to your bedside with a pen, and dedicate it to writing down descriptions of your dreams in the morning (they can be fun to read and remember in the future, and also it improves your dream recall ability by a lot if you do this consistently for a while)... ...And then read this: http://www.dreamviews.com/f20/lucid-...hniques-69883/ And have fun. It's all about exploring. Also, if I may ask, what's an "Anima?" I've never heard such a term before.

[DreamOutLoud]

Wow, I really appreciate the introduction, WakataDreamer! The links and information will defiantly be helpful on my new journey into the LD world. As I said before, I'm not against LD whatsoever, I just always thought that I never had the right..."energy" for such a thing. I think "energy" is the word I'm looking for. Anyways, I did, however, attempt it last night for the first time in years. I did some research on here and decided to try the chanting method. So while I was lying in bed I kept repeating to myself "I will lucid dream..." over and over again. As I'm drifting off, I could tell that my mind was struggling to accomplish it. I know my sleeping habits quite well, I've always been very in touch with my normal dreaming and can usually, about 90% of the time, remember them fully even after hours of being awake, especially if they're trying to tell me something. I woke up about three or four times throughout the night, which never happens. So I'm thinking that maybe I was trying too hard. About two of the times I woke up naturally and the other two was when the alarm went out for my boyfriend to go to work and then the second time was a few hours later when I had to go to work. Funny thing is, as I woke up all those times, my mind was still chanting, "I will lucid dream..." I mean, it was the very first thing that popped into my head. I don't remember much of the dreams, but I can tell that they were the same, or so I'm inferring. The first couple times I woke up I had a feeling that I was out in the sun all day. The third time I woke up, I remembered a lot of sunlight and a lot of green trees. The third time I still remembered a lot of sunlight, green, cornfields and a breeze. So I'm thinking that I'm off to a good start. And, as I'm reminding myself, there is always tonight! As for the "Anima." It's a philosophy created by Carl Jung. "Anima" is the female qualities within a male and "Animus" is the male qualities within a female. Here's what it says in Wiki: The anima and animus in Carl Jung's school of analytical psychology, are the two primary anthropomorphic archetypes of the unconscious mind, as opposed to both the theriomorphic and inferior-function of the shadow archetypes, as well as the abstract symbol sets that formulate the archetype of the Self. The anima and animus are described by Jung as elements of his theory of the collective unconscious, a domain of the unconscious that transcends the personal psyche. In the unconscious of the male, it finds expression as a feminine inner personality: anima; equivalently, in the unconscious of the female, it is expressed as a masculine inner personality: animus. It can be identified as the totality of the unconscious feminine psychological qualities that a male possesses; or the masculine ones possessed by the female. The anima is an archetype of the collective unconscious and not an aggregate of a man's mother, sisters, aunts, and teachers though these aspects of the personal unconscious can influence for good or ill the person. Because sensitivity is often repressed, the anima is one of the most significant autonomous complexes of all. It manifests itself by appearing as figures in dreams as well as by influencing a man's interactions with women and his attitudes toward them, and vice versa for females and the animus. Jung said that "the encounter with the shadow is the 'apprentice-piece' in the individual's development...that with the anima is the 'masterpiece'"[1]. Jung viewed the anima process as being one of the sources of creative ability. I've been following Jung for a long time. Not much of Freud gal. Once again, I really appreciate everything!