Introduction/ Asking for Beginner's Advice

Hey all! I'm relatively new to the Lucid Dreaming community. I've known about it for a long while now, but it wasn't until recently I began to put some effort into it. One of my favorite movies for years has been Waking Life (cheers if you've seen it!), and I've finally decided to put the effort into Lucid Dreaming.

So here's my status. Right now, my dream recall isn't the hottest. In fact, it's very shallow. My remembrance of most dreams is very blurry, cut up, fast paced, and short. My dream journal consists of short entries of simple things I remember happening, or simple people I remember talking to yet don't remember the topic of conversation. And then I'll remember general plots to my dreams, which usually involve familiar yet seemingly random people or places interacting with very abstract situations (such as, a seemingly random group of friends and I will be at another friend's wedding - she's getting married to someone none of us know and it's very awkward and abstract because she's a teenager). What I can remember of my dreams never really makes much sense, and never seems to have any deep or relating concepts behind them. :?

Anyways, as eager as I am to delve into Lucid Dreaming, I'm open and willing to be very patient. Heh, I mean, I'm asking for the experience to do anything I want - how can I not be open to patience? :cheeky: But what I'm asking is for any advice anyone has as to what I can be doing better or practicing more, or any techniques/methods to put to use. Right now, I guess I'm banking on eventually having a DILD, but I've read into WILDing and I'd love to be able to do that.

Thanks!

Well just keep writing in your dream journal and you will start remebering more of your dreams. I would say stick with trying to dild, but if you want to try and wild, then go for it. Wild can be tough and frustrating but it might work well for you. My first LD joining this site came from a wild. Welcome to DV.

Yeah keep a DJ, this will really help your recall. Write in it as soon as you wake up and right as much detail as possible. Also, start to WBTB, they help ALOT. Get up after about 5-7 hours (you'll need to find out what suits you) and stay up for about 30 minutes (again, trail and error here. I stay up for about 20 minutes) and think about lucid dreaming alot. Do reality checks often and read over your DJ. I don't recommend coming onto DV because your laptop/computer will make it harder to fall asleep :)

And of course you could try WILDing during this time too :D

Thanks, actually after re-looking through some of the WBTB material, I think I may have already had a similar experience. Simply waking up to my alarm in the morning, then dreaming between snoozes alarms. I've one of the dreams from that written down which turned into a false awakening, in which I decided to go get breakfast before class. After the next alarm woke me up, I realized if I still wanted to make class on time, breakfast wouldn't be an option. :cheeky:
Question on WBTB though, how do I know what time to wake up? Like, when to set the alarm for? Should I try to predict what time I'll fall asleep, then approximate?
Thanks again!

Yeah that's what I do. Sometimes if I'm having trouble falling asleep I'll just change the time to later. I usually wbtb after about 5-6 hours asleep. Sometimes I'll do 4.5 hours. But I don't stay up long because I have trouble getting back to sleep, but everyones different. So experiment what works for you.

If you wake up after a dream at around 6:00 or something like that, subtract 30 min or 45 min and set an alarm for 5 minutes after that time. Go into the dream, and you should be lucid (if not, you should have decent recall). I should be posting a method that elaborates on that later on (when I actually bother to do it). The whole method is not as simple as that, but that should help you have a long, decent lucid dream.

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Originally Posted by Stratos

Question on WBTB though, how do I know what time to wake up? Like, when to set the alarm for? Should I try to predict what time I'll fall asleep, then approximate?
Thanks again!

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Yes, I usually give myself 30 minutes to get to sleep and then set my alarm for about 6 hours after that. Start at about 5, and if you struggle to stay awake then make it 5:30, 6 hours etc. Just keep changing the time until you find one that works best for you :)

Thanks for the advice, guys. I tried it last night, but to no avail. I woke up, and stayed awake for around twenty/thirty minutes - it almost felt like I wouldn't be able to fall asleep again. But I did drift back to sleep struggling to keep lucid dreaming on mind, but it was a no-go. :? Something else that I've been having a problem with is I'm finding my dream recall to be falling, or maybe it's that I don't get up to consciousness fast enough to write it down before it slips. Any ideas?

As soon as you wake up, keep still and try really hard to remember what you were dreaming about. Sometimes it's like you kind of know, but you still don't remember it. For some reason, moving seems to make you forget your dreams quickly. Then reach to get your DJ and write it in once you remember :)

Either that, or you're just going through a dry spell. They're annoying but it'll come back soon :) I heard apple juice helps make dreams more vivid. Haven't tried it, but try drinking a little during you WBTB.

If you like it of course... :D I also heard vitamin B helps too. There's info in the lucid aids section, I think. Hope it comes back soon :)

Alright, so the past two nights I've tried WBTB, and have fell short both times. In fact, I wake up and maybe wake up too much, because both times I found I couldn't fall back asleep for another good hour and a half. :? My dream recall has slipped back a little, and waking up in midsleep has helped jot down a few more dreams. Though I've had a terrible problem falling back to sleep - my mind gets distracted, my body becomes genuinely uncomfortable/irritated, and a general headache develops. I've tried keeping still for a WILD, but couldn't keep focus. Any ideas? Thanks again!

Try to fall back to sleep quicker for WBTBs. Ignore previous dreams you might have had (if you REALLY want to keep a DJ, then you don't have to do this every time) and just go back to sleep quickly with the idea "I will LD" in your head.