This week is gonna be the week. (1 week challenge)

Hello, my name is Spencer, I'm 16 and 2 months away from 17. I'm heavily involved with playing video games and I do so at the very least 20 hours a week. I can guarantee that 99% of that is on the PC (Steam - supersn), with the other 1% being Dungeon Raid on my iPhone when I'm in a restaurant or something. I'm also interested in writing, and I'm currently writing my first short story, basically a buddy cop adventure in space. Lastly, I just stared doing Zazen meditation this week. It's really nice, even if I have a hard time keeping my mind focused.

I've been interested in lucid dreaming for quite a while now. My best friend introduced me to the concept back when we were in 6th grade, and I was fascinated by it. He wasn't very successful, and I assume he dropped the endeavor shortly after. It's possible that he's tried again, but I haven't talked with him about LDs for a while now. Years down the line, probably in freshman year, I stumbled across the /r/LucidDreaming subreddit, and it rekindled my desire to obtain an LD. I began fervently researching LDs, what techniques there are, other's success stories, etc. The thing is, I lack discipline. I have a rather hard time following through with and finishing things, and so I never got an LD. And then I tried again. Same thing. I forgot to do regular RCs (counting fingers, finger through hand, breathing through closed nose), I didn't consistently write in my dream journal, and I gave up. This cycle of getting really excited, trying, and failing has gone through probably 5 times by now. That would make this the 6th attempt. I'm hoping that by joining Dream Views, participating in discussions, and browsing regularly, I can finally, finally get an LD.

I read about the 1 week challenge and decided to try it out. Obviously, I missed the date by about 3 days, but that's okay, since I'm not going for points or whatnot. I'm doing this so that I can fulfill my years-long goal of getting an LD. That being said, last night I felt was a very good precursor to the beginning of the challenge week. You can read the dream I had in my dream journal (I would link, but I don't have permissions). This afternoon has been pretty good for me remembering to do RCs. Unlike my previous RCs, this has the added reinforcement of asking "Am I dreaming?", something that I haven't done before. After asking the question out loud, I survey my surroundings and make sure they make sense, ask myself where I came from, and finally proceed with my aforementioned RCs. Hopefully that'll be enough safety nets should one element of the sequence fail.

Tonight I'll be trying an LD through DILD, WBTB, and MILD. I'll report back on this thread tomorrow to give you all the scoop. Thanks for reading!

I've read your entire post with interest, in some ways you remind me a lot like me :D

*While writing, Zoth is opening a new tab to find what Dungeon Raid is, as he never played any games in his Iphone*

Welcome! One day you could give us a bit of text of your story, drop by the Artists' Corner (hmm, isn't this bad spelled?) if you want to share experiences ;)

That's a great initiative in order to keep focused on lucid dreaming. Other things you can do is keeping a diary. I like to simply take 10 minutes off my day to open a specific notebook I have (not my DJ, but you can use yours if you want) where I post all the things I learn and research regarding lucid dreaming, and my ideas. I also use it to report my progress in the last days. Trust me, it's incredibly helpful, you end up with loads of ideas and experiences other than your dreams. Try to motivate yourself, that's the best way to stay engaged!

Good luck on your journey, just post away if you have any questions ;)

Dungeon Raid, by the way, is an absolutely fantastic game, and I highly recommend buying it if you like matching stuff. As far as I'm concerned, it's the best iOS game I own.

As far as the short story goes, it's probably not that great. Seeing as it is my first actual story, it's probably very unpolished with a lot of things I could improve on.

And the journal is a pretty good idea, thanks for suggesting it.

Glad to get to know you a bit more! Good luck with the challenge, and good luck staying disciplined! I find it easy to remember to RC because I am so determined to LD haha. I hope your sixth time is successful. You and I will have to keep each other focused and determined!

~Raven

Can do, Raven.

DAY 1:

Wow. This first night was, to put it nicely, a complete disaster. Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong.

So first up, I usually sleep from about 1 AM - 11 AM. I have an odd sleeping schedule, I know, but at least I've gotten it to be fairly consistent. So when I went to bed after unwillingly leaving #fun, I started out by saying my chosen mantra, "I lucid dream", and it was working fine. After about 30 repetitions, I started thinking of scary shit. We're talking White Face from imscared standing in the crack of my bedroom door, turning around to see bug-eyed monsters hanging on my bed, Jeff the Killer (scarred by screamer of days past), etc. etc. you get the point.

I told myself to start thinking of non-scary awesome things. I did. Angels taking me away from my bed... AND THEN DEVOURING MY FACE. Lying in a field of soft grass... AND THEN IT SUCKING ME IN AND KILLING ME. After a while of trying my hardest to dispel these unpleasant machinations of my mind, I succeeded. I thought about petting my dog, wonderful nice things, billiards pockets, interestingly enough. Scary thoughts = gone. "Good job, Spencer," I told myself. Now I could resume MILD. Cool, cool. Only now, I had a mixture of Waltz Op. 34, No. 1 (Chopin), Hungarian Dance No. 4 (Brahms), and Farandole (Bizet) stuck in my head. I had been playing a simplified version of all those songs for the piano that day. I had no choice but to try to match my mantra with the songs. As such, completing a full saying took much longer than previously. I don't think I pulled of the MILD portion of tonight very well. I fell asleep, 30 minutes after I was supposed to. Off to a bad start.

Remember those scary thoughts I was having? That never happens. Never. I also pretty much never have nightmares, or at least no more than once a year. So tonight of all nights, both had to happen. Since I can't link to my DJ, I'll just paraphrase my Counter Strike House of Horrors dream. I was playing real life CTF in giant pyramids, and crazy shit started to happen. Spooky school hallways, 30-year-old-men with no pupils, burlap shadow monsters, and generally freaky stuff. So I woke up at around 3:30 in the morning. I fell asleep again.

Next time I wake up, It's to my dog freakin out to her own dream in between my legs. She's breathing hard, her chest is pumping, I get a little worried, so I try to wake her up. Crisis averted.

I'm pretty sure I woke up at least one more time during the night, but I'll just skip to my alarm. I read that the best times to wake up for WBTB is either 4.5 hours into your sleep, or 6, so I set my alarm for 4:30 in the morning. I woke up to the alarm, as I had planned. I wrote down some notes for my CS Horror dream and replied to Raven's Intro thread. I again tried for MILD, but by this point I knew i had shattered all my chances for getting an LD tonight. I had my Target Antique Liquidation dream, and woke up this morning around 11:30.

Summary:

Tonight was a disastrous night for getting an LD. Scary thoughts kept me up for far longer than I had anticipated when I first tried to fall asleep. Those scary thoughts caused a subsequent nightmare. Several other times where I woke up during the night pretty much obliterated success for WBTB. I'd like to make an important note that I typically have long, uninterrupted nights of sleep. What happened tonight was an anomaly, and I'm a little upset that of all nights this had to happen, it had to be last night.

YA BLEW IT, BRAIN.

Oh well, better luck tonight, I suppose.

I wouldn't call it a disaster, you had some recall at least which was good - even if the dreams you had weren't what you were hoping for. Personally I like Nightmarish dreams, they're intense and I usually dream of pretty mundane things.

How did you shatter your chances for getting a lucid? It sounds like you made a pretty solid attempt. Make sure when you are using your mantra as you go to sleep that it isn't just hollow words you're repeating to yourself - i think this was one of my first mistakes. Get yourself stoked on something you want to do if you get lucid and feel the excitement when you're trying to go to sleep.

The first few weeks that I tried to induce lucids I had some trouble falling asleep, after some of the excitement and novelty wore off it became much easier for me. Don't get discouraged and stick with it. I almost stopped twice not too long ago because I felt like I wasn't getting the success I wanted -- But I ended up sticking with it and I seem to be getting the hang of things recently.

Lastly, another thing I would recommend because I feel like it helped me A LOT when I began doing it -- Write down goals for yourself in your journal. Nothing too intense at first, my first few weeks were just "Remember 5 dreams this week" or something of that nature. Think about your goals throughout the day and before you go to bed, a lot of lucid dreaming is intention.

Good luck, and welcome to Dreamviews :cloud:

Dream recall is the least of my problems, unfortunately. If I make sure to think about what I dreamed about that night before I get out of bed, I can recall a fairly vivid dream almost every day. MILD, however, and the empty words thing you mentioned, I probably need work on. I have a hard time just keeping my mind focused on the mantra and the dream I want to have. I'll have to keep in mind that advice tonight.

Thanks, Penny. You seem like a pretty cool dude.

Hey, welcome to DreamViews! ^o^

I just recently got back into lucid dreaming after about five months, so I'm also hoping to have a lucid dream soon. Like PennyRoyal said, keep at it and don't let yourself get discouraged.

Hope you have an LD soon!

DAY 2:

Last night was much better than Day 1 in pretty much all respects, meaning there's not a whole lot to report on. I went to bed at 1:10 or so, and set my WBTB timer to 5 AM to compensate for the time it'd take me to fall asleep. Taking Penny's advice, I tried my hardest to really believe I was going to have an LD tonight, and I tried visualizing what the LD would entail, that being flying. For the time it took me to fall asleep, I imagined me soaring in the sky, doing all sorts of flips and tricks and having a great time. I tried to feel how I was going to do it to, imagining wind blasting out of my feet.

I woke up at 5, got a drink of water, checked my Twitter feed, and promptly fell asleep, again trying what I did at 1:10. Alas, no success, but at least I had wonderful dreams about flying in a plane.

I wonder if I should try another method tonight.

(((Edit: i was using theta meditation, beats to help me so it might of been that))) you where trying to hard from my prespective, do this it helped me getting my third lucid dream before your going to bed tell yourself what your doing for instance yesterday i said in my mind I im in my bed and i repeated that a couple times and i then said i im falling asleep in my bed, i dont know i guess its the awarness of you falling asleep in your bed and when i entered my dream i instantly knew i was dreaming and my results was great just my memory was fuzzy a little AND I GOT A LONG lucid dream awarness works

Hey SuperSN! I know we've met in chat but I wanted to greet you here anyway. Welcome to DV!

DAY 3:

Yesterday I felt like I was doing a pretty good job of remembering to do RCs, there isn't much to do in WBTB besides just that, and my dream recall is pretty okay, so I figure the one weak link in my method is probably MILD (If you haven't guessed by now, I didn't get an LD last night). I think the primary issue is most likely that after about 10 min to the rest of time it takes to fall asleep my mind drifts off and I forget to say the mantra and visualize.

I don't suppose anyone has any suggestions or alternate things I could do to help me on my way to success? I don't think MILD is working all that well for me. And there's no way I'm going to try ADA, even if it may have an extremely high success rate, because I don't have that much sustained concentration in my life. WILD, maybe, but I've never tried it and I have a sneaking suspicion that if I can't maintain attention to do MILD and much less ADA, I certainly wont be able to maintain attention for WILD.

sigh

Also, I forgot to mention yesterday that the dream I had with the green wooden plane inspired me to change my plans for when I (eventually) get an LD. Instead of just simply flying, I'm going to summon my green plane companion and fly around in him/her. Maybe even have a dogfight! That being said, I need some suggestions as to what his/her name would be. Charlotte has already been offered as a name, but I want to hear what you guys think.

Quote:

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Yesterday I felt like I was doing a pretty good job of remembering to do RCs, there isn't much to do in WBTB besides just that, and my dream recall is pretty okay, so I figure the one weak link in my method is probably MILD (If you haven't guessed by now, I didn't get an LD last night). I think the primary issue is most likely that after about 10 min to the rest of time it takes to fall asleep my mind drifts off and I forget to say the mantra and visualize.

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If you're having trouble staying focused during your WBTB try staying up for a bit longer before you lay back down. I like to get up and use the bathroom, drink some water, maybe read a little if I'm feeling especially tired. When I go to sleep on a normal night, I relax, set my intention (mantra/visualization) for about 10-15 minutes then roll over and go to sleep like normal. I wouldn't get discouraged if your mind starts to wander. If you notice yourself losing focus just gently urge your mind back to your intention.

I think it's way too soon to say whether or not MILD is working for you after 3 days. I'd recommend sticking to one thing for a few weeks.

Well here's the thing, I have trouble with my mind wandering both before WBTB and after, meaning that me being tired is probably not the problem.

But you're right, I'll should stick with MILD for a while longer before I dismiss it out of hand. Maybe instead of trying to say the mantra in the process of falling asleep, I should say the mantra in bed for a while, then let my brain calm down as to fall asleep as fast as possible. Perhaps that will provide better results. We'll see tonight!