Thread: Time to say hello

Hi everyone! After lurking here off an on for a few years I have decided to introduce my self. My lucid dreaming practice is currently in a fragile state and I am hoping that interaction with others can help me stay on track and not get discouraged.

A little background: I frequently had lucid dreams as a child for the sole purpose of waking myself up when my dreams became boring or scary. This kept my dreams a happy place and I have always loved and paid attention to the dreamworld. I've kept a dream journal for most of my adult life and have good, vivid recall. I began practicing lucid dreaming about eight years ago, and since then have actively practiced on and off for brief but intense periods. My usual process is to focus on it for a couple weeks and have multiple lucid dreams in the first month, after which they stop for weeks or months with no evident progress. During this dry spell I get discouraged and stop the practice for months or years at a time.

Currently I am in one of the lulls after an initial few weeks of active lucidity. This time I am determined to make it through the dry spell and hopefully find a more consistent practice on the other side of it. I have had a daily meditation practice for 20+ years, and maintaining awareness in my dreams is the next logical step in my meditation work. I have noticed that talking about dreams helps the practice of awareness in waking and sleeping life. Unfortunately I don't know many people in my waking life who care about dreams, much less lucid dreaming.

I am interested in the buddy program, but it looks to be closed for this month. Hopefully I can join next month and find a good dream buddy to help with motivation and persistence.

Big thanks to everyone for the plethora of posts and information contained on this forum.