“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.” ...

[Kairos]

... is one of my favorite quotes about dreaming. It is a quote by Henry David Thoreau. Hi everyone, I am AJ. I have been looking for an active forum for lucid dreaming for some time now. From what I see here this forum is buzzing with 'dream-activity'. There is so much to read, so many threads to explore. I have been an avid dreamer ever since I was a kid. When I was about 16 yrs old I 'got hooked' on dream exploration. I read anything I could find on dream symbols and started my first dream journal. At that point I already had experience lucid dreams on a regular basis but I didn't know that they were in a way special. I didn’t know I had a natural knack for lucid dreaming until I learned from books that such things as lucid dreams existed. Then I read The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which I found was a fascinating read. After that I began practicing lucid dreaming in a more planned manner. It was most exhilarating. There used to be a time when I had up to three or four lucid dreams per week. Unfortunately, after I moved and had to go to a different school my natural ability for LD kind of withered and waned due to stress and inner tension. After school I moved on to college (graduating next summer). And again I got so caught up in studying that I couldn’t get back into the habit of exercising lucid dreaming. Throughout the past few years I have had many 'semi-lucid dreams' and other interesting (dream) experiences in connection with meditation and contemplation. And in general my dream life is as vivid as it gets. I just didn't have that many lucid dreams. As of late this seems to be changing. Especially since my schedule at school’s been lightening up. I have set out to get back into practicing my lucid dreaming abilities. I am very much looking forward to learning from other fellow lucid dreamers here. Best lucid wishes, AJ

[JadeGreen]

Welcome. I used to be a natural like you, but had the whole thing beaten out of me during middle school. It can be something of a pain to 're-learn' what you used to be able to do naturally, but that's why we're here to help.

[Kairos]

Welcome. I used to be a natural like you, but had the whole thing beaten out of me during middle school. It can be something of a pain to 're-learn' what you used to be able to do naturally, but that's why we're here to help. Thanks for the warm welcome. What you describe is exactly what happened to me. High school was gruesome (in many regards). I am glad I found this community. I will take all the help I can get to get my LD abilities back. I know it may take some time but I also know with patience and perseverance I can get there.

[CHiLLEN]

Welcome Kairos, you've found the right forum to join. This place is my favorite by far. I know the feeling of life and stresses getting in the way of lucid dreaming, but it seems to always find its way back in my life, as of yours I'm gathering too. Great thing is, you're never too old or missed your prime opportunity in lucid dreaming, you can always get back into it and become an even better lucid dreamer. What techniques did you focus on when you were actively becoming lucid?

[Verre]

I found that Thoreau quote at the top of your post so striking that I looked it up to see if I could find the context. Was he a lucid dreamer? Hard to tell for sure from this passage, but he certainly had a nineteenth-century pre-occupation with virtue! Dreams are the touchstones of our characters. We are scarcely less afflicted when we remember some unworthiness in our conduct in a dream, than if it had been actual, and the intensity of our grief, which is our atonement, measures the degrees by which this is separated from an actual unworthiness. For in dreams we but act a part which must have been learned and rehearsed in our waking hours, and no doubt could discover some waking consent thereto. If this meanness had not its foundation in us, why are we grieved at it? In dreams we see ourselves naked and acting out our real characters, even more clearly than we see others awake. But an unwaving and commanding virtue would compel even its most fantastic and faintest dreams to respect its ever-wakeful authority; as we are accustomed to say carelessly, we should never have dreamed such a thing. Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake. Source: "At the end of the 'Wednesday' chapter in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers," 1852, quoted in I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 170.

[Kairos]

Hi! Sorry for the late response. @CHiLLEN Great thing is, you're never too old or missed your prime opportunity in lucid dreaming, you can always get back into it and become an even better lucid dreamer. Yes, that's the absolute beauty of it. If you are willing to put (night-)time and effort into it, you can start over practicing any time. I love dreaming. I always have. You could say it is a life long hobby/passion. Anything that has something to do with the exploration/expansion of consciousness and altered states of awareness is to me what honey is to bees. What techniques did you focus on when you were actively becoming lucid? Back in the day when I was still untouched by the stresses of college life I did not actively try to become lucid. It just would happen to me. I went to bed and awakened in a dream reality. Falling asleep was like getting on a bus or train. Darkness would come over me, but not for long. It was like riding the train trough a tunnel. And then at the next stop, so to speak, there was an exciting non-physical world which I entered as the door opened. This part of the experience was rather semi-/pre-lucid though. But it never would take long until I found something in my environment that struck me as odd (dreamy, otherworldly) which then would almost right away trigger lucidity. I guess this is pretty much what DILD is about. I have been experimenting with WILDing for a while. But until now I haven't had much success with it. That is why I have decided to go back to DILD. Especially the past few days I have started examining recurring dream symbols that are particularly "dream-like" and which had helped me become lucid in the past. When it comes to prolonging lucidity the non-blinking/non-blinking technique has worked for me numerous times so far. I am curious. What techniques work best for you?

[Kairos]

I found that Thoreau quote at the top of your post so striking that I looked it up to see if I could find the context. Was he a lucid dreamer? Hard to tell for sure from this passage, but he certainly had a nineteenth-century pre-occupation with virtue! Source: "At the end of the 'Wednesday' chapter in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers," 1852, quoted in I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 170. @Verre Gee, thanks for the research. (And sorry for the late response.) I must admit tho, I do not know much about Thoreau at all. I came across this quote only recently. It immediately appealed to me. However, I couldn't find the time yet to find out more about the man. As for the passage above it sounds more like he is talking/writing about regular dreams there. It would take some more research to find out if he was a lucid dreamer.