It's finally happened!!!

10 November 2010

Sorry for the long hiatus, but I guess life happens.

I have found a way to unclutter/declutter my mind in any event, and it works for me anyway. And I think it has helped in being able to help control what happens in dream-time. I had my first lucid dream.

For the past month or so, I have been going to bed around 1000PM and get up at midnight (via alarm) to kill the computer that plays in my ear. Then I wake up around 300AM naturally (don’t know why), then drift off to sleep until my alarm goes off at 430AM. From there on I hit the snooze until 515AM (5 snoozes – 9 minutes apiece).

During those 9 minute snoozes, I have had some of the most intense dreams (too bad they’re only so short),though some seem like they take a lifetime.

Anyway, this morning, during one of my dreams…

…I’m playing chess with my brother (he white – I black). And I find he has a passed pawn which I can’t readily deal with, but in looking at the situation I see his queen within striking distance of one of my knights. When I go to move the knight to set up the attack, I find that my move suddenly doesn’t put his queen in any danger whatsoever – and I know I had figured out the strategy perfectly. I’m scratching my head thinking, “What the hell happened here?” I retake the move (which normally you can’t do, but I argue that something isn’t right). When I put the knight back. I look away just for a split second, and my entire position is changed. In fact, now suddenly I’m playing white – and ALL the pieces are white (both players). Well, now I really scratch my head, I mean what’s going on here? I look at my brother and I take and turn the board around and viola the board is back to normal again (black and white – in the correct position).

This is starting to get ridiculous. I go to turn the board again and as I start to turn the board the black pieces start to turn white again. I then say out loud, “Something here just isn’t right. I must be dreaming.” And then I think, “Wait, I MUST be dreaming.”

Then I say aloud, “I’m dreaming.” So, I start to pull my hand out from underneath my pillow – which seems weird, since I was just sitting down while playing chess. But as I pull my hand out from under my pillow to pinch my nose for a breathing reality check, my brother says to me, “No, you’re not dreaming,” and he goes to pull my hand from my nose. I pinch off my nose and the reality check fails – I can’t breathe, but I was also thinking of not wanting to blow out my eardrums by breathing to hard. So I try again, the whole while my brother keeps telling me that I’m not dreaming and to stop this silliness. And to my amazement, I could breathe – I COULD BREATHE!!

I guess I was too excited about the whole experience, because I found myself experiencing sleep paralysis – the dream had faded to whiteness, and everything was tingly. I didn’t try the spin thing, I was just too elated in realizing what I had just accomplished: I was aware, I remembered to test, and the test came back positive. I’m happy enough for that right now. The rest will come. The thing I have trouble doing is trying to record those 9 minute dreams. I know I have at least 3 dreams within those 5 snooze cycles. But it’s already taken me 15 minutes typing this. If I wound up doing this each time, I’d get one snooze in and spend the rest of the time typing. And I’d be too awake by then to try getting back to sleep.

Is it worth not having the other dreams, just to record the one? I’m open to suggestions. I can conjecture that I suppose I could give up a couple weeks worth of snoozing, just to get a realistic dream journal started, and start locating dream signs, or getting my conscious self to program my subconscious to ‘be aware’ of the signs. I don’t know. Again, any comments would be welcome.

But I’m still happy with what happened. I know – there was no flying or walking through doors or super human powers. But I’ll take it for a step in the right direction.

Scott

Hi Scott.

Wow - it's sounds really cool! I'm very new to this, and haven't tried attaining lucidity within a dream yet, so my advice isn't based on much experience... But I personally find it helpful to write down my dream in keywords or simple notes, before I write it out full-length. The key-words are enough for me to remember it all, IF I write down the dream soon after. I do this if I wake up in the middle of the night and remember a dream, I write down keywords in the dark in an open notebook nearby, and then I write out the dream in the morning. My advice is to do this, if you remember multiple dreams when you wake up. That way you can write them all from the keywords.

But of course, you could also just write down the best dreams - the lucid ones and the interesting ones... After all, that's the juicy ones, right?

I hope that helped.

- Jonahsoma.

wow, that sounds unimaginable for me, I'd like to know more details...

Awesome.

I'm doing the same technique as you. I go to sleep at 10, wake up 2:30, then sleep. then wake up 4:30, then sleep then wake up 5:30. Before i did this never recalled dreams, now i recall 3 dreams a night.
I just haven't had a Lucid dream yet. but hopefully i will just like you