New Member Introduction from Leo

Hi all!

My name is Leo. I'm a college student and writer. I've been extremely interested in lucid dreaming for much of the past decade but have, so far, not been able to go lucid myself.

When I was in elementary school I had something that is technically a lucid dream, but not one according to the definition as it is commonly understood. I was aware I was dreaming, but, having no knowledge of lucid dreaming, it never occurred to me that I had any potential to control anything but my own actions in the dream, or that I could wake myself up by force of will. That dream was nightmarish and involved me being barred from entering any familiar buildings, such as my elementary school and home, attempting to shock myself into waking by getting a bus to run over me, and a variety of other surreal and unpleasant things. In the end I was woken up by the sound of rain outside my house in waking life, while in the dream the sun shone down from a weird, gray sky. A night or two later I had a similar but somewhat less intense experience that I don't remember as well.

Years later, when I discovered lucid dreaming and its potential, I regretted that what was almost a full-on lucid dream had to wind up a literal and figurative nightmare instead of a real lucid dream. Once, in high school, when I began to attempt lucid dreaming sporadically, I had a near-miss moment of lucidity; I was sky-diving, and in mid-air I went lucid for an incredibly brief moment. During that moment of lucidity, I tried to move, possibly fly, and instantly I woke up, frustrated. That's the closest I've come to a real lucid dream since discovering the concept of lucid dreaming itself.

Besides the general desire to explore the possibilities within a lucid dream, there are a number of fantasies I've always wanted to live out, the primary one being the ability to put myself into the fictional stories I write, with the hope that it may improve my writing as a result of essentially "living out" the stories in my dreams.

Having gone this long without success, I'm well-aware of the hard work and challenge of attaining the ability to lucid dream. Lately, I've reflected on my bad habits, one of which, a major obstacle to my attempts at lucid dreaming, is a really irregular sleep pattern, and another one of which is a lack of focus and motivation, even to get things I want, and to get things accomplished. In regards to lucid dreaming, I decided to research it once again and I've joined Dreamviews in the hopes of keeping myself motivated and focused and more likely to finally have lucid dreams. Hopefully this will be a first step to a success I've waited on for years!

All the best and pleasant dreams!
Leo

Hi and welcome to the forum. I've only been a member for a bit over a week, so I don't really feel like I have the right to welcome anyone, but time on the internet always seems to go by more slowly.

As far as I know, a lucid dream is simply a dream in which you know you're dreaming. Both the dream you had in elementary school and the sky-diving one were technically lucid dreams. It's sometimes very difficult to remain dreaming once you realize you're dreaming. A few years ago, when I used to have them often, at least once a night, my biggest problem was waking up too quickly. The average amount of time I was able to stay in a lucid dream was about 10 seconds. Most lucid dreamers, I'm guessing, have experienced a lucid dream in which they know that they're dreaming, but don't fully realize what that implies, and are only partially aware. Some people would not consider this to be 'full lucidity', but I think it is technically considered a lucid dream.

If you aren't already, It's essential that you start keeping a dream journal in which you record your dreams in the morning. This will help inform your subconscious that your dreams are important to you, that you want to remember them, and will help with your dream recall ability if it isn't up already. Frequent this forum and read lucid dreaming articles or watch lucid dreaming videos. You'll hear a lot of advice, and you might have heard all of this already if you've been trying to lucid dream for a while. But the most important thing is the dream journal. I've never heard of a lucid dreamer who doesn't keep one.

Regardless of the time you've spent here yourself, thanks for the welcome! It's much appreciated.

I've read, in some of my recent readings, that a dream you don't control isn't considered a "real" lucid dream, so despite my awareness in those dreams I had as a child I didn't think they were considered full lucid dreams as per the way most people define the term. I was certainly fully conscious of being in a dream, though, even if I couldn't control anything and had no awareness of that control even being possible. The sky-diving dream would fit the usual definition though; unfortunately it was, as I said, pretty much as brief as it could be. I would estimate the time between my flash of lucidity and then waking up to be about 2 seconds.

I am aware of the importance of a dream journal; I've kept them off and on for a few years. Usually what happens is that I fill a notebook and then procrastinate before buying a new one and thus don't keep them as regularly as I should. I filled one last fall, it made for a rather rich collection, but then I failed to keep one from around mid-November until around mid-January, this month. I am keeping one again though and just now finished adding the latest entry. From my revived lucid dreaming efforts in the fall I've successfully pinpointed at least two major reoccurring elements of my dreams. Before that I was never able to notice anything reoccurring from one dream to another, so this was a big step for me. One of those recurring images, after not appearing for a few months, appeared in the dream I had just last night; I have a theory as to why but I'll save that for later. I hope to start adding dream journal entries here on Dreamviews as well. As you said, the more reading, writing, viewing done here and other online locations focused on lucid dreaming should be helpful for me!

Thanks again!
Leo

Hi Leo, I'm new to DV too - just joined 3 days ago.

I'm also a writer/soon-to-be-author (hopefully), I've had a few of my poems published but I'm currently working on my first novel. As you figured, it would be helpful to actually put yourself in the fictional settings of your stories, that's also one of the things that motivated me. You can just search for your characters in your LDs and get to know them more! This stuff is genius.

I began dream journaling last summer when I was advised by some people that dreams would give me good material for my novel. However my non-lucid dreams (not that I was having any lucids back then) were mostly mundane (and still are), revolving around my everyday activities. So eventually I lost interest in writing them down only to start again recently when I discovered lucid dreaming was not so out of reach.

As for the people telling you that just being aware in dreams is not a "real" lucid dream, they are real lucids because the definition of a lucid dream is simply to be aware you are dreaming. Controlling it is a different matter. In fact most of the dreams in my LD count in the sidebar were hardly controlled! I'm very desperate to learn to stabilise my dreams properly before I set off on my adventures. The higher the clarity of the dream, the clearer your mind is too so you can think right. If you're familiar with the WILD (Wake Induced Lucid Dream) technique I think that's the best way to become lucid since you get in the dreamworld consciously from being awake. Unfortunately, I have a whole load of other problems that are preventing me a lot from doing what I want to do.
And congratulations on finding the recurring element (or dreamsign) in your dreams. I was also able to make a decision on mine last month. However as soon as I found this out, I haven't recalled a dream with the dreamsign since! :panic:

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck in conquering the dreamworld.

Regards,

BlueWalls

Thanks for the welcome, BlueWalls!

I've rarely ever used dreams as inspiration for my own writing; usually mine come from daydreams, random things that pop into my head while awake and present themselves already formed in a story structure. Much like you, many of my dreams are mundane, and if not mundane, surreal, but so far none of the surreal stuff has appealed to me for use in writing. Still, the thought of lucid dreaming my way into my own stories seems like it would be a huge help and just a fantastic experience regardless!

I'm trying to do the WILD technique. I have a really hard time waking myself up and staying awake long enough to really focus on much of anything, let alone lucid dreaming. If I set an alarm, I tend to get up, turn it off, maybe use the bathroom, but all in a dreamlike state of awareness, and I can't seem to get enough awareness going to remember why I set the alarm early in the first place. I'm up for 5 minutes tops and when I go back to bed I tend to go back to sleep quickly and with no more intention or awareness than I had at the beginning of the night. I'm hoping that Sunday soon, however, I'll get it right and the technique will pay off.

One problem I've noticed is that when attempting to WILD it is recommended that you stay as still as possible and do visualization/conceptualization to get your brain thinking that it is already asleep and dreaming. I am totally unable to fall asleep unless I'm on my side, and I can't fall asleep without a lot of tossing and turning from one side to the other, so I'm never still long enough to get that part of the technique right.

As for my dream signs, just for fun I'll mention them: the first is the appearance of giant, maze-like bathrooms with bizarrely shaped toilets and urinals (usually in some luxurious, clean setting) and the second is the scenario of being chased by a Tank, not the military vehicle but the hulking, muscular zombies from the "Left 4 Dead" videogames. I actually had another one with a Tank chase in it last night, and wrote about it in my first Dream Journal entry here on DV. I should point out that while sort of tense, the Tank chases are rarely if ever truly terrifying, and I think that's because I'm used to them as a video-game menace and not something that could actually be harmful. The maze bathrooms have appeared in many dreams I've had since last fall as well.

I see you’re having difficulties with this WILD. I’m no expert myself (yet!) but perhaps I could be of some help by sharing the way I do WILD.

I seldom do WILD on its own, as in waking up in the middle night and trying to focus my way into a LD. My previous experiences have caused me to give up on doing WILDs like that as I easily lose concentration and fall back asleep. Consequently I combine WILD with the WBTB technique. So I wake up by alarm around 5 or 6 hours upon first sleeping, recall any dreams and write them down, wait until I’ve been awake for about 15-30mins then go back to bed (I don’t recommend just 5 minutes out of bed, unless you’re very awake already). However, my visualisation skills are often not the best at this time and so I use what I call “visual aids”. By visual aids I don’t mean anything fancy. They are simply PowerPoint presentations containing pictures I’ve collected over time of where I want to go in my dreams. So I look over those for about 5mins before I go back to bed hoping they will burn into my mind (the screen shouldn’t be too bright btw, that might ruin things). I found this usually helps me with visualising dream scenes as I lie in bed waiting to be in them (some people call this VILD).

Ah now tossing and turning is no good. If it is really difficult for you to stay still (as in near impossible) then maybe WILD is pointless for you and you may want to focus on MILDs or DILDs instead. Otherwise you could look into meditation - I hardly practice what I’m preaching here but I definitely will be doing so regularly asap! Meditation is good because it will help you focus of course and ignore unnecessary distractions, perfect for lucid dreaming. All you need is some ambient music to practice breathing and clearing your mind of clutter.

By the way, your dream signs seem very exciting compared to mine. I’d rather not bore you with what mine are, lol.

Thanks for the tips, BlueWalls. You may be right about the WILD technique not working for me due to the constant turning. Admittedly focus and concentration are things I could use more of, and so meditation is definitely something I need to focus on. I'm not sure if that would actually stop the tossing-turning problem, though, as that's more of a comfort thing than a concentration problem. Still, I think I could benefit a lot from meditation as, tossing/turning aside, I do need more focus and concentration and time to go into a more relaxed state.

Before giving up totally on WILD, though, I may try the Powerpoint trick you mentioned; that sounds very promising to me.

I did do the WILD/WBTB techniques this morning, waking about 5 hours after initially going to sleep. I focused on staying up longer to build up more awareness and so I got up, drank some water, and then got back into bed and listening to "Lucid Remix" on my iPod, and that lasted 30 minutes. I ended up having more dream recall than usual, probably the most I've had in a single night in well over a year. I was able to recall about 6-7 dreams after finally waking up for real, even though most of those dreams sort of interconnected and some referenced previous ones. At least one, actually, ended with a false awakening, and the increasingly surreal dreams after that referenced the false awakening numerous times, but despite doing semi-regular reality checks in waking life it never occurred to me to do one in the dream. Frustrating, but I'll keep trying. The increased dream recall alone last night is enough for some added motivation.

Also, I did try eating a banana before bed, as I'd heard that it can increase dream vividness. I also went to bed much earlier than usual, as I was sleepy much earlier for some reason. I ended up sleeping way longer than I should have as a result. It seems like I either don't get enough sleep or I oversleep way too long when I have the chance.

One more thing I noticed: Where I spend a lot of time watching TV and/or movies and playing video-games (and I'm sure I'm not the only one here with that issue) it seems like my dreams shift perspective more often than not. In last night's dreams I was, at one point, driving, and feared running out of gas. I suddenly realized that I didn't need to worry about it, though, because I was "actually" playing either "Grand Theft Auto IV" or "Just Cause 2" and in the dream I even questioned which I was playing without questioning how I could be playing a game and not remember which it was. It shifted directly from first person POV to a third person, over-the-top unrealistic video-game and I never thought to question it. Perhaps I would benefit from increased focus on awareness during video-game play or movie viewing or whatever.