Where to go from here?

[sammy3612]

So I've started keeping a dream diary. Started waking up about 5-6 hours hours after falling asleep, I then have a multi-vitamin and a chocolate milk, wait 30 minutes go back to sleep and find that makes my dreams very vivid, and easy to record in my dream diary. Every now and then while I'm awake I look at my hands and ask myself if I'm dreaming. But I am never aware or even suspicious I'm dreaming in my dreams. Where should I go from here? What's the next step towards lucidity?

[Kona]

Just keep doing what you are doing pretty much, it's just going to take time to get lucid. It could take maybe a week or possibly a month. It just depends on your effort. But also you can do the MILD before bed to focus your intent on lucid dreaming which combining that with DILD will increase your chances. But really once you know how to do the techniques and get them down it's just a matter of effort and time. You will get lucid eventually and let me tell you, it is worth it. I apologize for the short answer, I am a bit tired right now. Happy dreaming! Click here for a good MILD tutorial

[fOrceez]

Hi there. How long have you been practicing from lucid dreaming? From what i see, you're doing everything fine. Just keep at it. Lucid dreaming, along with every other skill, takes time to learn. Once your habits of questioning reality and reality checking cross over into your dreams - it's just pure fun from there Once you become lucid, make sure you do some stabilization techniques of your 5 senses of your dream body (touch something, take a wiff of the air, munch a mouthful of the wall, listen to your surroundings and take a good moment just to look around). This will prevent your dreams from ending prematurely. You'll be surprised the things you'll notice in your dreams. There are often some subtle but hilarious things your subconscious puts in Good luck!

[dreamst8]

Solid advice from Kona and fOrceez. Just keep doing what you're doing and it will happen. The frustration is totally normal. I didn't have a LD for more than two weeks after joining DV. It was frustrating as hell because I was so excited to get my first one. Finally, my questioning of reality crossed over into my dream (as fOrceez said) and I had my first. Keep reading the forum posts. Keep logging your dreams. And keep RC'ing. When you surround yourself with information about ANYTHING, your mind can't help but to eventually manifest something about it in your dreams. All of this information on lucid dreaming is no different. As long as you keep thinking, talking, reading and writing about LD, you WILL manifest it in your dreams. Good luck!! DreamSt8

[sammy3612]

thanks for the advice, really helpful. Just another thing... sometimes in my dreams I will question the dream "am I dreaming? is this real?" and answer "no I'm not dreaming... this seems real" even if it's completely unrealistic

[fOrceez]

That's totally normal, when we're sleeping, the "logic centre" of our brain is shut down.

[sammy3612]

but how do I restart that "logic centre" in a dream

[Stirred]

The most important aspect of lucid dreaming is awareness, so you should try to become more aware of your surroundings. Think for a moment about where you are, why you are here, how you got here, what's around you, why some of the things around you are where they are, what are you doing at the moment, just try to get into the habit of questioning your surroundings every so often. This awareness will also help in your waking life.

[ShadowOfSelf]

What Stirred said ^ You need to become more aware in waking life, take a minute to think every now and then, (i started off with an alarm that beeped every hour, when it beeped i done a reality check) really question yourself and your surroundings, dont just think, well no im not dreaming, think well how do i know that? in a dream i wouldnt know! look around to find something that looks 'wrong' then do an RC, if nothing looks wrong, do an RC to make sure That plus meditation, will increase your overall awareness to the point of lucidity

[Pops715]

Lots of good advice on here! I've had (and still do have) the same problem with not questioning the reality of the dream. The key is doing the reality checks during the day. It took me a while but my reality checks have only just begun manifesting themselves during my dreams. (I've had 3 lucids in the last month.) Another thing that helped me was by incorporating Puffin's Sporadic Awareness Technique (SAT) into my reality checks. The more you do it, the sooner it will likely happen. It's kind of like that old saying, "If you think about something enough, you'll dream about it." I like ShadowOfSelf's idea of doing a reality check in conjunction with a watch alarm. I'm going to start doing that because it's easy for me to get caught up in my day and forget to do RC's altogether.

[sammy3612]

thanks heaps for your advice guys. guess what? last night I had my first lucid dream! my dad was eating chunks out of his hand and I looked at him and said "I know this is a dream, this is completely a dream" and his hand went back to normal and he just stared at me. Then I could feel myself waking up from the lucidity so I remembered to try the 'spin around in circles thing' but it didn't work and I woke up

[fOrceez]

Congratulations on your first lucid dream I'm sure there'll be many to come, just keep with your technique and try not to slack off If you ever lack motivation, check out Mancon's Guide to Staying Motivated

[ShadowOfSelf]

haha congrats!!! did you enjoy it? as for the spinning, try spinning slower or even use a different method, looking at the hands/pluggin your nose good luck!

[Pops715]

Congrats!!! My first lucid dream actually lasted for what felt like 10 minutes or so but the last two were really short as well, which was frustrating. But practice makes perfect! Hope you have your next LD really soon!!!

[Kona]

Wow! Congrats! May I suggest when you're in the dream and you want to stabilize, you can feel everything up in the dream scene. Like go just rub the walls and the floor, This is what I have found to be very effective. But try any method you want! Have fun lucid dreaming!

[sammy3612]

I've had a bit of a problem. After having that lucid dream I haven't been able to even have vivid dreams that I remember anymore, let a lone come close to lucidity. I wake up 5 hours after I fall asleep, have a vitamin and a chocolate milk, wait a bit, go back to sleep. But nothing! Just very vague memories of dreams.

[fOrceez]

What has your sleeping pattern been like? The main factors that drop your dream recall are stress and sleeping pattern. If you're feeling tired throughout the day, you're probably not getting enough sleep (on a regular basis).