Newb Here :P

**YoungBlood** · 11-12-2010 04:03 AM

Well I'm not really new anymore, but so far I've just been really a lurker so I decided I'd put my name out here.

I'm Drea and I am from Canada. I found out about lucid dreaming after I saw Inception at a drive-in during the summer. It was kind of weird, really, because I searched up subliminal advertising because my dad said they used to use it at drive-ins to make people buy more popcorn or Coke or whatever. So I searched it up, and I came across the idea that lucid dreaming was actually real (subliminal advertising to LDing? I don't know). What a surprise, because I had thought the movie was cool, but never thought that something even related to that could ever really happen.

So I'm here now, and my question is, how can you manage to focus on lucid dreaming and total awareness during the year. I'm so busy with school that I don't know how I'll remember to reality check often and question my state of awareness. Any tips?

Thanks a bunch!
~YB

**Serenity** · 11-12-2010 04:37 AM

You have a drive-in, in your city?!! I'm jealous!

Although I haven't looked it up extensively, I'm fairly certain advertisers are not allowed to use subliminals anymore. Not even to make you buy more coke. Could be wrong though.

Tips on awareness: Well, it's hard to remember at first, especially if your day is busy, but here's how I built mine up:

In Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, LaBerge gives you an exercise used to train your prospective memory. What he suggests, is to choose one or two different "targets" to remind yourself to reality check to. When you see your target throughout your day, do a RC.

A target can be anything, like, walking through a door... Seeing long hair... the colour blue... really, anything you can think of.

To help me remember my targets, I often repeated a mantra a few times over in the morning to help ingrain it into my head. At the end of the day, I would recount my successes (RC's remembered) and failures. Each day gets a little better than the last.

Anyways, I suggest to use reality checks, because those are essentially the doorway into becoming more aware of your surroundings/state of awareness.

**YoungBlood** · 11-12-2010 05:39 PM

The drive-in is actually near my cottage, but, yeah, it's pretty cool.

Oh I know that subliminal ads are illegal, but I was curious to see if there was one on Youtube or something that I could test on myself.

I just had my first lucid last night! It was only a few seconds long, but it's a start.
Once I became lucid, I was in a setting that was just flashes of light and colours, no tangible objects or anything. I tried dream spinning, but because my surroundings were so strange, I couldn't tell if I was spinning or not. Has this ever happened to anybody? I am wondering if it's just because it was my first time and I was excited, or because it was just a really unstable dream, or something else.

Thanks so much for your help, Serenity! I will definitely try that out.

**elucid** · 11-12-2010 06:03 PM

Congrats on your first lucid YoungBlood. Dont worry about the quality of the lucid dream as it was your first. As you move up, you will notice better clarity, vividness, control and longer length of stay in a lucid dream. Your first dream should be unstable, so dont worry.

As for the reality checking and your school being done together should not be a problem. Just give it your best try in remembering to do a reality check, it only takes about 2 sec. so I wouldnt consider school stopping you from it.

Good luck

**Serenity** · 11-13-2010 09:51 PM

Grats on the first lucid!!

I had a bit of "placebo effect" luck with a subliminal messaging program I downloaded. It's called "Subliminal Blaster 2.0." It has some standardized message for dream control (including realizing your dreaming), so you could work with that.

Another idea that would be really awesome to try is to have someone else write you some "afformations." Afformations are like affirmations. They are a statement that is designed to change or incubate a thought process or behaviour change. Only, an afformation raises it as a question. So, it is like asking your sub-conscious, "How can I realize I'm dreaming every night?" "How can I have more control or focus when I realize I'm dreaming?"

This plays upon the idea of the subconscious being a problem solver. Which is true. The subconscious LOVES solving problems.

I think I might actually try this myself, after all. Give me a couple of days (possibly shorter, but I won't have time to write anything until I get to work tonight, in 6 hours)... I'll write up a few afformations.