How do I get it back?

**Kmac321** · 09-06-2012 06:56 PM

Hi,

I'm Kelly, and I'm very interested in getting back to a place where I can have lucid dreams. When I was a kid, and into my 20's, I had a reoccurring dream every single night. It was very real feeling, but I had absolutely no control in it and every night I would go through the motions of this dream knowing how it would end but not being able to do anything about it. This led me to become interested in lucid dreaming, and I found a book at a garage sale called Creative Dreaming that had some insight into how to approach beginning a lucid dream state while awake. I tried it, and it worked the very first time and I found that I could do this and have success every single time I tried, and have complete control of my surroundings and "plot" if you will every single time as well. I notice also that I started becoming lucid while asleep and dreaming quite often as well, but without the same degree of control as I found that things were more muddled coming from a dream I was already in the middle of and I'd just sort of have to follow it through with a lesser degree of being able to manipulate my surroundings. After a while, when I'd lay down to take a nap...or even when I'd lay down and just close my eyes for a minute, I'd enter a lucid dream without going through the steps I'd take to do it on purpose. It got the the point where all of my muscles would tense up and I'd go stiff as a board without being able to stop it, and then I'd shift right into a lucid dream. This would happen most every single time I'd lay down and close my eyes. When I'd wake up, my muscles would be sore as hell from being so tense in a lucid dream state. This was completely different than what I was doing to achieve this state on my own. In the beginning, when I'd lay down for the purpose of achieving a lucid dream state, I'd wake up relaxed and without the muscle strain that I noticed when it would happen on it's own without my intending to lucid dream. When I began to lose the control of starting a lucid dream, I also began to lose control within my lucid dream whereas before I could control everything. Like a lot of other people, I started feeling the outside presence and it was pretty horrible, actually. It got so bad that within a dream, I stated "no more" and crushed the object I used to attain the dreams in the first place. Since then, I haven't been able to lucid dream at all, not even through sleeping dreams. Help! I'd love to get the lucid dreams back, but try as I might it isn't working.

Here is what I would do to enter a lucid dream state:

I would lay down and put a pillow over my eyes, because for some reason the pressure and the complete darkness really helped. I'd imagine myself breathing out bad energy and breathing in a bright light. Then I'd relax all of my muscles starting with my toes and continuing up through the top of my head. I'd then imagine a ball spinning, right behind my eyes. To gain the perspective of the ball spinning, I'd imagine a pinprick hole in the ball, with light coming out. As the ball came back around, I'd watch the light. While I was doing this, I'd imagine a sound spinning with it. It would be loud in one ear as the ball came around, and then in the other in correlation with the spinning. The sound would be much like a ringing in my ears as well as a buzzing. This sound would become real to the point where I could actually hear it without trying to imagine it. At that point I'd concentrate on just sort of slipping deeper. When I did that the sound would be loud and instead of rotating it would be right in front of me and then a static would sort of fill in from my peripheral vision and become central as well until I could only see this static and hear the loud buzzing. Then I'd just sort of push through into a lucid dream that would be pretty much completely in my control. This worked for me every single time I'd try to do it, and it led to lucid dreams while I was sleeping as well, through triggers that I used.

When I would not intend to have a lucid dream but would lay down, in less than a minute I'd involuntarily tense all of my muscles to the point where I literally couldn't move, and the static would be in front of me and I'd just go. No preparation. I'd literally just lay down and zip, off I'd go. Honestly this really started to freak me out. The dreams started to freak me out. Then there was a time when I was having an unusually horrible experience in my dream and I visualized breaking the spinning ball that I'd always visualized to get into the dream state when I first started out. Since then it hasn't worked. I've tried other techniques and they haven't worked either. I have total dreamer's block and after having so many amazing experiences (along with the uncontrollable and the bad) I miss it terribly. Help! How do I get over whatever it is that I need to figure out so that I can lucid dream again?

**Kmac321** · 09-06-2012 10:45 PM

I should add that it's been years since I've had a lucid dream, but now I'm actually willing to try whatever I need to try to get it back. Now and then over the years I'd try, but nothing. I didn't really pay it much attention and just went on with life. I still had very vivid dreams on occasion, but the reoccurring dream ended when the lucid dreams began and I could never really make the jump to lucidity when I've had realistic dreams. I'm at a point now where for some reason I'm wanting it back very badly, to no avail. I'm sure it's some sort of mental block, but I don't know how to get rid of it. And yes, I am completely aware that it sounds crazy. Any and all advice would be appreciated.

**~~MasterMind~~** · 09-07-2012 10:24 AM

That was a long post.. But I read it all

Interesting method but I don't understand what made you stop. Was it when you imagined this lucidity trigger (Dream?) object getting crushed and suddenly you just can't get lucid? Can't you just try to recreate that object again?
I am sorry if I am totally off but I don't understand how that object helepd you attain lucidity in the first place o. O

You seem to be much more experienced when it comes to induce wake initiated lucid dreams than me, but maybe this advice can help anyway.

Have you heard about the DEILD method? You basically wake up from sleep and then re-enter the dream again, and for you I imagine it would be very easy, because you can just use the buzzing sound as a tool to enter the dream. So you wake up, then listen for that buzzing sound or even inducing it yourself (because based on your description it sounds like you can do that!) and then just do your thing and that should be enough to enter a dream, crushed lucidity object or not

As for dream control and different awareness etc. I suggest that you watch Reece Jones "Five Layers of Lucidity" to easier keep track of where you're at and what you can do about it. I use his Layers for the same purpose in my Dream Journal and it have helped me a great deal.

Good luck!

**Kmac321** · 09-07-2012 07:11 PM

I don't think it has anything to do with the object at all. I don't think a pretend object is the point. I think it was the action, not the object. I think I somehow just put up some sort of barrier. I was having lucid dreams that I didn't instigate, and the dreams were not even remotely the same as the ones I'd be in control of. They were like two totally different sorts of experiences. In the ones that would just happen, it was always a bad experience. I'd always just be sort of floating there not being able to do anything about it...and there was always a presence. The ones I initiated through the above technique were always just normal lucid dreams where I'd go places, fly, etc...I had control. The dreams where I would literally be awake, close my eyes for just a regular nap (I was a college student at the time and slept during the day for a few hours pretty regularly), get the buzzing and static almost immediately, tense up completely, and then push through and just be sort of floating. The first time, when I couldn't move or do much of anything but float there...I heard footsteps and had the overwhelming fear that someone was there...and here I was totally stuck. The second time, this presence would just be there staring at me. That happened a lot. Then it started to escalate to where this presence would sit on my chest and stare at me...and I literally couldn't do anything about it. He would infer that he would "push me out" as if this person was trying to literally get me out of my body and take it. Yes. I am aware that it sounds crazy, but when I was in it, it was so incredibly real and terrifying. These dreams got to the point where they were completely overwhelming and I knew I'd be going into one (because they were always the same) but could not back out. I will not get into the details, but that last one escalated, and again I couldn't move so that's why I tried breaking the ball. It worked. I woke up. I know it was proverbial. I know there isn't actually a ball. It was a defense mechanism of sorts to cope with the experience. Now though, I can't get there anymore try as I might. At all. Nothing. For a long time after that happened, I didn't even bother to try. I was just happy to not be having this happen every time I'd lay down to nap. Then I started to miss the good dreams. I tried. Nothing worked. I let it go. I'd try every so often. Didn't work. I'm feeling like I have this barrier up, because what happened was so horrible and seemingly out of my control...the going to this state without wanting to or having the control to stop it. I've never actually heard of something like this happening in regards to lucid dreaming. I don't actually know what was going on there. When I started with the lucid dreaming I honestly didn't really know much about it. It just seemed to work and it was pretty amazing. I did it all the time. Literally, twice a day if I had the time. When this secondary experience started, in the beginning I'd still initiate lucid dreams and they were still great. When this secondary thing escalated, I stopped initiating lucid dreams hoping the whole thing would just stop. It didn't stop. This probably lasted at least a month. Then I feel like I just shut it all off in that last dream. Not literally, of course...but lucid dreaming isn't terribly literal in the first place. Am I just scared? I don't feel that way at all. What I do know is that it's, *poof*, gone. I can get to the point of pushing through to a lucid dream...and then it always just sort of backs out. I'm in a good place in my life. I'm fairly well adjusted. I have the feeling like if something like that happened again, I'd be more comfortable in handling it and learning from it. I literally know what I would have done differently now to handle it, looking back. I honestly have no idea what is keeping me from getting there again. Trying too hard? Not trying hard enough? I would even be more than happy to get back to the horrible dream, just to finish it off properly. I have absolutely no clue.