Hello everyone, I am new.

[DEFSLAMMER]

You can call me Matt. I'm 14 years old. I'm trying to master lucid dreaming, and I have a dream journal. I've been doing the routine for a couple months, and have had a couple lucid dreams here and there. My biggest problem is I usually wake up a couple seconds after I become lucid. Any tips on how to improve on that? Also, how long did it take you guys to get the hang of lucid dreaming?

[zebrah]

Moved to newbie zone.

[Burke]

Welcome to the forums, DEFSLAMMER! It's great that you have already started a dream journal and have had a few lucids! As for your question, most people wake up shortly after they realize they are dremaing because they get very excited. What you need to do is calm down, take a few deep breaths, and focus on your surroundings. Stabalize the dream, rub your hands together and focus on how it feels. That should help you anchor yourself into the dream more and allow your lucids to last longer. However, it still takes time to get longer LDs, so don't get too upset if you can't get past a few minutes. As for myself it took me a little under a month until i had my first lucid, and then about 6 months before i could consistently have lucid dreams. (grented, i did take a long break during school) Good luck on your future lucid dreams and remember, don't give up!

[Erii]

Welcome to DV with your waking up problem, its pretty common. Try to DEILD from awakening, you can re-enter the dream lucid control is pretty hard in the beginning though. for me personally, it wasn't hard really to have LDs, just have confidence if you have any other questions feel free to ask~

[slurry]

Welcome! Great to hear you've had a few LDs already. As for your problem--I've had a few like that. I had one like that last night, actually--it's really frustrating! All I can give for advice is to keep having more LDs and hopefully you'll have more LDs in which you are free to do as you wish, and less where you wake up quickly. You could try spinning, or try different ways to stabilize your dream. Rubbing your hands works really well, as the sensation of touching helps to cement you into your dream. You could also try a command like "stabilize dream now" or something. Rubbing my hands definitely helps a lot to both stabilize my dream if it seems to be fading, as well as increase the overall clarity of the dreamworld. Stimulating your senses (not only touch--anything!) helps to accomplish this as well. Paying attention to smells (if you can smell in your dreams--most of the time I can't ), sounds, or really focus in on your environment work similarly, though I've had the most success with simply rubbing my hands, or touching nearby objects. My best advice is to just keep trying, and soon you'll get the hang of it! As for me, I'd say it took 3 LDs since I learned about LDs (I had had a few as a kid, but never knew what a LD was until earlier this year) before I got the hang of everything. My first one was really weird, my second was lacking in dream control, but my third was the real deal--clarity, control, and it lasted a pretty long time. Good luck!

[Mancon]

Hey Matt, Welcome to Dreamviews! Dream journals help your recall a lot and with lucid dreaming in general, so it's great you already have one! My biggest problem is I usually wake up a couple seconds after I become lucid. Any tips on how to improve on that? When you realize your dreaming, try not to get so excited, and just calm yourself down. You also need to stabilize the dream when you become lucid. You can read about dream stabilization here. If you still wake up you can always attempt a DEILD, which you can read about here. It took me about 4 months to get the hang of lucid dreaming. Anyway good luck, I hope to see you posting around more! If you have any questions feel free to message me!

[DEFSLAMMER]

Well thank you zebrah, Erii, slurry, and Mancon for the welcome. You all gave me helpful hints which will be very useful in the near future.