Nihal, a Lucid dreaming newbie

Hi everybody!

My name is Nihal (at least, on the internet ;]) and I'm ... quite new to lucid dreaming. I have been having the same nightmare for 7 years now, and it's the only dream that's lucid for me.

In that nightmare I am always in the same environment as where I fell asleep - my bed, in my own room, even in the same pyjamas I was wearing. A monster (sometimes a real monster, sometimes a strange dead thing, sometimes a dead girl) haunts me either next to my bed, or sometimes it even crawls into my bed. I am paralysed and cannot do anything. I woke up screaming every night.
It was necessary for me to become aware that it was only a dream. So I started pinching myself and now I am perfectly aware that the monster is not real, that I am dreaming and sometimes I'm even able to manipulate the dream in such a way that I can move a little bit and that I can defeat the monster.

My other dreams are crystal clear: I remember about 3-5 dreams each night without even trying. But I am not able to manipulate those dreams, and I'm not actively aware that I am dreaming. I want those dreams to become lucid as well and I would love to get some help with that :) I have kept a dream diary for over a week now and it doesn't seem to improve.
I'd love to hear your opinions! =)

Kind regards,
Nihal

Hi there, Nihal!
I'm very new to this forum too, I joined yesterday. I think I've seen you on the chat :)
It's very interesting to hear that lucid dreaming has helped you with your nightmares. The key to stop the nightmares is to fully believe in the fact that you can conquer them (and to try it as well). As I can see you're actually pretty experienced with recalling your dreamsl, sadly I can only remember 1 dream per night. If you already have a good dream recall, you don't have to focus much on your recall ability and your diary. It's better to follow a technique like MILD and to concentrate on the other steps, such as developing a habit to do some reality checks every day and to make some affirmations for your dreams. And also, do not expect any improvements within a week. My first improvements in lucid dreaming came after 3 months of trying :D
I would say that MILD would be a great technique for you, but you might try out different techniques, for example FILD, like I do.
Anyways I hope you'll enjoy this forum as much as I do, and I wish you good luck with your dreams :)

Hello, EasternSand! :D
Well, welcome to this forum ^^ We have indeed seen each other on chat. I know I wasn't very talkative, but I was already learning more about lucid drearming!
You are right about the recall ability. For now, I'm just gonna keep doing the diary-stuff to learn to recognize dream-signs. :) I've already discovered a few patterns that keep repeating in multiple dreams! Thank you for your advice, I will try the MILD-technique for sure. I will also try the DEILD technique (dream re-entry) as I wake up multiple times a night.
Hehe, I guess I'm just a little bit impatient. Never had much patience :embarrassed: I will try to be more patient, though!
I wish you the best of luck with your dream-recalling (I guess a diary really DOES help) and with lucid dreaming! Thanks for replying, that's very sweet! ^^
Nihal

It's great to see your motivation. You're going to need to be patient. It's a long process to start becoming aware in our dreams, but I'm sure you'll get there. It sounds like you're on the right track identifying dream signs. Keep on it, don't get discouraged by the nights that you recall nothing. In the beggining, you may want to even set your alarm a bit earlier than you normally would to interrupt your (REM) dreaming sleep & immediately write any bit you recall, even a feeling- so you have better recall. But that's up to you.

Experimentation, patience, and enjoying the process (including non lucid dreams) will all work in your favor. I would read/print out some of the tutorials MILD/WILD/DEILD, and have a look through them. The more exposure you have, the more likely you are to get lucid.

Best of luck

Thanks, bro!
I'm sorry, somehow I didn't really get a notification of your answer - or I'm just too new to the forum to figure out where to see them :D
My recall is getting better every day, even though it was already very good before. Now I remember more and more fragments of extra dreams! Tonight I was able to remember 5 dreams again :) So dream recall isn't really the problem.
Meanwhile I've been lucid twice, right after each other. The lucidity was very high and I was able to control and manipulate my dream-environment. Now that I've been lucid, I really want to experience that again... Lack of patience is probably my greatest mistake, because I get frustrated when trying the techniques such as WILD. Should learn to have more patience!
Thanks for your answer, I really appreciate it! ^^