Time to say hello

[Starla]

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.

[anderj101]

Hello and welcome aboard! Keep an eye on the buddy program. It should be open again soon.

[Burke]

Hey Starla, welcome to the forums! I'm also guilty of taking sudden intermittent breaks for lucid dreaming. I've done it for almost 15 years and have actively practiced it for 6, but these past 6 years have probably only been ~4 years of actually trying to lucid dream. I definitely still find myself visiting the forums often, though, even when I'm not actively practicing. It's just a great community and a great topic to discuss/read about. Glad to see you join us . And as Anderj said, the buddy program should be opening up soon. It happens every month and a new thread should pop up in the coming days. In the mean time, if you have any questions feel free to post a thread, message me or one of our dream guide members (those with green names and appropriate title), or just reply here . Happy dreaming! P.S. Wow, you signed up 8 years ago!? That's impressive!

[Starla]

Hi guys, thanks for the nice welcome. Yes I signed up eight years ago when I first started trying to lucid dream. Maybe if I'd become more involved way back then rather than being a passive observer, I'd be fully conscious every night by now. Oh well, one has to start from where they are and keep chugging along!

[gab]

back, starla! It's always so nice to see people returning, hearing about their lives what they have been up to and what brings them back. Happy dreams