Salutations, Fellow Deviants.

[DeviantThinker]

I hope I am welcome here. I have been a lurker on and off on your fine forum for many years now and my relationship with lucid dreaming has been much the same. Recently I have decided to give it a serious go and be diligent in following this art and science to it's logical end, the total mastery of the dreamscape. I have had a few lucid dreams in the past with my first being from a WILD that I did from the beginning of my sleep cycle (I was a bit of a noob as you can surely acertain). However I had soon grown lax with my practice and fell out of the craft for a few years. I intend to recover lost ground but with fewer mistakes. I am currently following a regimen of King Yoshi's ADA with Zoth's randomised MILD list to help build my prospective memory. I am keeping a waking journal as per MasterMind's suggestion and just before nodding off, I type out a chosen mantra 30 times for the more brute force approach used by jblb2424. I have only begun this practice since yesterday so I will need to wait a week to be able to see if the improvements are definite but I am reasonably confidant that I will get results relatively shortly with this approach. After a few weeks of this, I will begin working on approaches for WILD's and DEILD's as well. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to start writing up that next waking journal entry. -DT

[Zoth]

Welcome DeviantThinker! Nice to you sticking to your intention of lucid dreaming: many people forget it's just like any other habit...the hardest thing about it is the beginning! You seem to already chosen your path towards how to achieve lucidity, so allow me to give you some tips on keeping yourself on track: - Do things you can sustain: there's no purpose or interest on overfeeding your routine with too many exercises. Lucid Dreaming takes time, so it's better that you practice over a long period of time, than to burn yourself within a week; - Keep it easy: some people like to use 5 techniques at the same time, which not only involves more effort, but also makes things complicated: if they can't reach a lucid dream after a few weeks, they are left wondering which technique is holding them back. Keep it simple! - Treat it seriously...: sometimes it's easy to say to yourself "I'll do it tomorrow", especially when it comes to Dream Journaling, but this attitude might soften our determination...overachievers don't wait for inspiration to get what they want: they take it like a job, and keep it high priority. - but cut yourself some slack: missing one day won't kill your routine. It's more important that face lucid dreaming practice not as a goal to something, but as a system that allow you keep yourself on the verge of lucidity. Make it fun, and don't it drag like a chore: it's translated into a set of habits you'll keep for a very long time If everyone stuck to the basics, even the "worse" dreamer would eventually experience regular lucidity: fall in love with the method, the routine, and you'll progress in no time

[~Dreamer~]

Very sound advice from Zoth! The process has to be something you can enjoy and get excited about, because the dreaming itself takes up a smaller percentage of time than the preparation. It's absolutely worth the effort, but you need to be consistent and stick with it, and not get too disappointed if it doesn't come to you straight away. Good things come to those who wait. Welcome to DV, and good luck on your journey!

[OneUp]

Just remember man, whatever you do, make sure you stick to it for a while so you can really know what works for you. With many awareness methods- it may take up to a month or a little more at the most to start seeing results. Its good that your including Yoshi's ADA technique, though it is one of the more demanding methods, it does pay off in the long run. Regular practice of ADA eventually brings consistent and frequent lucid dreams, and personally I favor most awareness techniques. Progress with awareness will come gradually and after some time it will become second nature both in waking life and in dreams. One thing though man, keep that dream journal! Good Dream Recall not only brings you closer to the dream world, but it also lets you remember everything that happens so that when you have a lucid dream you won't forget it! Great advice from Zoth and Dreamer by the way, two very talented Onieronauts!

[DeviantThinker]

Thank you for your welcomes. I decided to leave typing out the lines from my regimen unless if I am not getting any results at all after two weeks of MILD work. The dangers of overloading a routine are very real but hopefully I can manage both ADA and randomised reality checks. I was unfortunately unable to sleep at all last night for some reason so I was unable to recall any dreams. I might have watched too much anime close to my bedtime hour under the misguided rationalization that this would make my dreams more obviously fantastical. I plan on putting away all nonsense early on tonight though to avoid that mistake.

[~Dreamer~]

Sounds like a good plan! A previous DVA professor, PercyLucid, recommends avoiding all TV/videos half an hour before bed, so you don't go to sleep in a mind state that's receptive to accepting/believing in fictional scenarios. You can certainly get some interesting dream content from watching movies, but awareness is the more important factor for attaining lucidity, as well as getting to sleep in the first place! The blue light of a screen/monitor can also suppress your natural melatonin production and prevent you from having a good night's sleep. Hope you get some rest tonight!

[DeviantThinker]

That's definitely what got me. I don't know if this has been linked before but the f.lux app really helps reduce the blue screen effect and is useful when using the computer after sunset. I can't link it directly since I've still not been a member long enough but googling 'f.lux' should help you find it. Last night, I only managed to recall one dream but it had a lot more detail and coherence compared to the ones recorded before which is a promising sign. Hope this is a positive sign. I'm noticing that I can sustain ADA for longer today so I may even get lucky and have a DILD tonight!

[~Dreamer~]

Yes, f.lux is great! I have it installed on both my computer and phone. Some people like to use blue-blocking glasses/goggles too, for walking around the house at night. I'm glad to hear you're making progress with your recall! Keep up the good work!

[DeviantThinker]

Ok, making an update. Due to a combination of both slacking off and inexplicably disturbed sleep, I have only recorded 7 dreams in the last 10 days with two days where I did not write on my waking journal. I am right now focusing on fixing my sleep first and foremost and putting dreams on the back burner. I have also missed ADA practice for the last two days but intend to remedy that problem starting today. However, all is not lost. The dreams that I have written down are definitely continuing to increase in detail and nuance. If I have my sleep fixed up, I am confident that I will be churning out long and detailed dream entries every night and then I can focus on lucidity techniques. This morning, I had a dream that took 4 long paragraphs to describe with a subjective time period of half a day.

[StephL]

Just popping in to let you know, how I'm happy you're here - reminding me of 'LessWrong' just made my evening! I'll have to re-think the way of expressing myself after reading the article you linked. Maybe you're interested in this little endeavour: http://www.dreamviews.com/religion-s...ists-here.html I would feel honoured - and all the best with your lucid journey! F.lux seems more popular than I thought - it's great. @Dreamer: interesting, completely new idea for me, avoiding visual fiction-consuming...

[CHiLLEN]

Welcome bro. Great advice given here. Good luck on your lucid journey

[DeviantThinker]

Just popping in to let you know, how I'm happy you're here - reminding me of 'LessWrong' just made my evening! I'll have to re-think the way of expressing myself after reading the article you linked. Maybe you're interested in this little endeavour: http://www.dreamviews.com/religion-s...ists-here.html I would feel honoured - and all the best with your lucid journey! Hey Steph, thanks! That thread has definitely catched my eye and I will be sure to put in my own two cents when I can better articulate myself. I've noticed both this morning and last night that I was unable to like posts anymore. Whenever I would click on the like button, it would just bring me to the top of the page and after scrolling down, I would see that nothing had happened. At first I thought this was because I was using the VimFx plugin for firefox but it was not working even when I clicked on it with the mouse pointer. Secondly, what do you think about the accusation that Lesswrong is in fact a cult headed by Eliezer Yudkowsky. I personally think such allegations are ridiculous but he has made some pretty stupid admin decisions in the past (like the infamous basilisk episode) and recently deleting a discussion post without consulting the other moderators. In Lesswrong's defense though, they don't exactly let Yudkowsky off the hook with any of those incidences and I have seen posts by him that have been downvoted quite a bit, not the kind of behaviour you would expect from cult members!

[StephL]

You're very welcome! With liking - I had that, too, some rare times and usually it is enough to reload the page, but I remember there was one instance where that also didn't work for an hour or so. If it stays so, you needed to ask a mod, it's not usual or often. On the topic of LessWrong - you literally reminded me of it, after I had years and years ago just read some singular articles. So I don't have an opinion on it's inner workings - I've been looking around yesternight, also peeking into the social aspects of it a tiny bit, but I really couldn't say. Been spending my time mainly in the sequences and had to force myself to stop reading in order to get to some sleep.. Shame, if it would indeed have developed into a person-centred cult - I find their materials incredibly valuable! That thread is more or less my first attempt at exchanging thoughts around the topic - after having been completely inexperienced and making a royal hash of participating in a thread on Christianity on here... By the way - one of the most important features of this forum for me in terms of motivation and not forgetting the fun of it always was this: http://www.dreamviews.com/tasks-mont...st-2014-a.html That's where the wings come from, in case you wondered. Besides - I can warmly recommend opening a personal workbook in the DV Academy - you'll be coached one on one by our dream-guides, this has been very fruitful for me.

[DeviantThinker]

I found out what the problem with the likes was. It was the plugin NoScript that I forgot to add dreamviews as an exception to.

[dutchraptor]

Welcome fellow Irishman. Just to let you know, it's just been proven recently (what was generally known already) that you do not properly take in information by typing it on a computer. The action of writing it in pen and paper focuses you on the mantra's and will surely be more effective even if you just do 10 of them. Good luck with the schedule, I couldn't handle such a busy one.

[DeviantThinker]

Thanks but I've heard that the situation is a bit more naunced than that: Handwriting helps you learn faster, but typing fast can give you an edge too (Science Alert) (I'm no Hollywood fantasy hacker but I can touch type with reasonable profeciency) In any case, I'm no longer really doing a lot from that schedule since I've realised that it was stupid to shoot for lucididy when I don't have decent sleep and dream recall. Those two are what I'm principly focusing on and thankfully, making strides. From which corner of the emerald isles do you hail from? I confess that I have not been living there for the past year. Have stuff to do in the UK atm.

[dutchraptor]

Indeed that's interesting, though handwriting still seems more applicable in terms of the prospective memory your aiming to build. Good, the foundations are indeed decent sleep and dream recall. Being acquainted with your dreams is usually enough to give you those few stray lucids, and will definitely help you recognize and map if certain objects or situations appear frequently in a dream. I started mapping out all my lucid routines, the number of RC's I do, my bed time, how often my RC trigger shows up in dreams and it's astounding how quickly I have managed to see an improvement. My sleep is by no means fantastic but in the past week the number of times I notice a door in my dream (this is my current dream sign) has gone from an average of 1 every 3 dreams to 4 in every dream. Despite the username I'm actually a connaught man born and raised

[DeviantThinker]

Jaysus, how do you handle being even more ignored by the Dáil than us Munsters? Well, as long as you're not a jackeen, you're fine by me.