Thread: Hello again

I am not new to this board but I kind of wanted to re-introduce myself. It's been probably two years since I have been here, but I wanted to make an appearance because I've been putting a lot of thought into becoming lucid again (and dreaming in general). I've been reading my old journals and remembering how fun it was! If you remember me, you know I tend to ramble; if not I won't be terribly offended if you don't read my posts in their entirety. Basically, some things I was going through in life made it so that I had a hard time getting online or remembering / writing down my dreams for that matter and even after that was over it was just so hard to get back into the swing of things it was discouraging. Sometimes I'd get fragments, many times nothing at all. I'm ashamed to say I have some gaps in my dream journal now that last for a couple months at a time.

My main advantage coming into lucid dreaming a few years ago was that I had been keeping a dream journal religiously for years before I even knew what lucidity was, so my dream recall was great. At one point I regularly remembered 2-3 separate detailed dreams in a night, which was a big accomplishment for me. Without that recall I am nothing though, and that's the main thing I need to work on. I think I am at a point now where I can once again properly devote the time and energy to this, and I'm excited about it. I was never an "experienced" lucid dreamer by any means, but I felt like I was making progress with my dream control. I realize I'm going to have an uphill battle since I've been away for so long but I haven't lost all hope. Like riding a bike though, right? haha

So my goals... I'm hoping that between coming here and making an effort to remember my dreams it will help get my recall back to something useful. I still have the occasional lucid or partially lucid dream but I get frustrated when I can only remember fragments. I've normalized my sleep schedule for the most part and I'd like to start getting up a little early so I don't have to rush off and start my day, that way I can sit down and relax for a little while and write down my dreams. I may set an alarm that says "write your dreams down!!" lol. Just in case, I just got an app for my phone to record them since I always forget to later retrieve them from my regular note app. I also want to start using Lightened Dream again. I had a few problems with it the last couple times I tried it out and got discouraged, but of course it's a newer version now so I hope some of the bugs I was having were worked out or maybe it was just my old computer. I was always impressed with the stats and graphs in that program as opposed to just writing things down in a text file or a "regular" journal. Just for kicks, I have been playing with some sleep apps on my new Android tablet. After trying a few (Sleep As Droid, SleepBot, something else I can't remember), I think I settled on the "Lucid Dreaming App" and I've been playing with that to help analyze my sleep and maybe throw a useful reminder at me during the night.

If anyone has any tips for getting back into dreaming / LD after going through a huge dry spell or suggestions for a sleep app (or settings) for Android, I'd welcome the input. I hope to see some familiar names and meet some new people as well. I miss all the interesting discussions that go on around here.

Thanks for reading! I will return tomorrow, but for now it's time for bed and hopefully an encouraging dream.