Back at it after 10 years!

[MikaelK]

Hi all, Wrote a long introduction last night which apparently got lost. So I'll try again, I'm a Swedish guy living in Switzerland (which is sometimes confusing to people!). I learned about lucid dreaming about 10 years ago, as I was struggling with recurring nightmares. Actually, I pretty much only dream nightmares and have been doing this all of my life. After a short period of documenting my dreams, I can really recall the thrill as I touched a wall and felt my hands go through it! I had one other lucid dream where I looked at my face in a mirror, truly the weirdest and most thrilling experience! However, as I mentioned I pretty much only have nightmares and remembering more and more about them in combination with depression made me stop writing my dreams down as I couldn't take the vivid imagery. Subconsciously I have since somehow repressed my dreams and have most often not remembered anything about the dreams when waking up. Now I am really excited to have started this journey again! I have only written down my dreams for a few nights now but am astonished how powerful writing down one's dreams are! It really transform dreams into memories! I still vividly remember a part of a dream I had the first night where I joined my sister to a concert. I can still recall the concert hall, the rows of chairs, people in it, the general atmosphere. I realise that I have a long way to go before becoming lucid since I only remember fragments of dreams at the moment. Usually I will remember the last part of a dream and backtrack my way from there, which can be quite frustrating. But I'm hanging in there! My ultimate goal for doing this is getting to know myself better and of course having loads of fun! Looking forward to getting to know others and talking about our experiences.

[MikaelK]

Just an addition to this, I've noticed that the best time for me to have vivid dreams is after waking up in the morning. Now when I've been off work for a while I've been able to wake up, jot down whatever I could remember, sleep for an hour more for even more vivid dreams, wake up, jot more things down, then repeat this once again. I've also started to notice signs of me falling asleep (I usually have a real hard time falling asleep), how the imagery in my head changes, random weird thoughts and images popping up.

[Aeolar]

Hi there! Welcome to Dreamviews! Glad to have you with us, it's a friendly and awesome community

[gab]

to Dreamviews! Nice to see people getting back to dreaming and lucid dreaming. If you need any help, just let us know. Btw, if you close or navigate away from a post you are typing, you can get it back. Simply open another window and go to Quick reply as if you were to start a new reply. Then you should see on the left bottom of that text window "restore saved text". Just click on that and whatever was saved, will be shown. It autosaves whatever you typing every minute. This works for dream journal entries as well. Also don't forget to click "remember me" when you are signing in. Otherwise it will log you out at the most inopportune moments : (

[~Dreamer~]

Welcome to DV, MikaelK! Lucid dreaming is actually a great way to overcome nightmares! I used to have frequent, recurring nightmares myself, but I managed to overcome them using lucid dreaming. I know it can be hard to write down nightmares since you'd really rather just forget about them, but it can be helpful to identify the themes in your nightmares, eg. any people, places, or situations that keep coming up. For example, if you're often being chased in your nightmares, you can use that as a "dream sign". You can tell yourself that whenever you're being chased, you'll remember that you're dreaming. If you repeat this enough, you can start to become lucid in the middle of nightmares, and choose how you want to change the dream. You could try making the scary situation/characters disappear, you could fly away, or (my personal favourite) you can face your fears, knowing that it's just a dream, and ask the scary things why they keep bothering you. I find that projecting a calm, friendly energy can neutralise the situation, because I'm not fuelling it with my fear anymore. Once I started doing this, my nightmares stopped happening by themselves. Just an addition to this, I've noticed that the best time for me to have vivid dreams is after waking up in the morning. Now when I've been off work for a while I've been able to wake up, jot down whatever I could remember, sleep for an hour more for even more vivid dreams, wake up, jot more things down, then repeat this once again. I've also started to notice signs of me falling asleep (I usually have a real hard time falling asleep), how the imagery in my head changes, random weird thoughts and images popping up. Our REM cycles get longer throughout the night, lasting the longest time in our last hours of sleep, so most people have the same experience with more vivid morning dreams. If you're starting to notice the signs of yourself falling asleep, you might like to check out Sageous' WILD class - it could be an induction method that suits you well. Good luck on your lucid journey, and let me know if you need any more advice about nightmares!

[MikaelK]

Thanks all, I have actually already started to see a few frequent occuring themes. For some reason I often dream of broken toilets (!) and/or that I have to use one but it's in clear sight for everyone. Also, water and dark clouds theme to be a recurring theme!

[~Dreamer~]

Thanks all, I have actually already started to see a few frequent occuring themes. For some reason I often dream of broken toilets (!) and/or that I have to use one but it's in clear sight for everyone. Also, water and dark clouds theme to be a recurring theme! Toilet disasters are actually my most common dream sign! A great way to use this to your advantage is by doing realty checks (RCs) every time you use the toilet while you're awake. Once this becomes a habit, you will hopefully remember to do it during a dream! I have become lucid in many toilet dreams this way. Make sure you ask yourself, "Am I dreaming?" as you perform the RC, and genuinely consider it. I personally like to tell myself, "This is a dream!" instead of phrasing it as a question, and really imagine that it is a dream, to get in the right mindset. There is a great tutorial on reality checks here (my personal favourites are the nose plug and the hand check): http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...hecks-rcs.html

[MikaelK]

Soooo.... Back again after two years! I don't know what made me lose interest this time. I think it might have been that actually remembering the dreams became too much for me, as they do feel like real memories to me it got harder and harder to go on the more I remembered. A recap of what's happened: I moved to a new country for a new job without knowing what it was like there, found out that the job I was promised was nothing at all like I was promised, had several nasty experiences with not so nice people and ended up physically sick. Now I managed to stop it all just before a complete burnout and here I am! Don't worry, everyone, I will be fine! This whole ordeal has really made me start to think about many things again. The nightmares aside, I have another use for the lucid dreams. Creativity! I am studying to become a music producer, my true calling in life. However, I have some severe mental barriers when it comes to creativity. The lucid dreams would be a great way to get in touch with my subconscious and explore this a bit further, as I'm often feeling quite lost. Anyway, I am thrilled to be back and am motivated to stick with it this time!

[Lang]

Welcome Back!!

[Cobalt Storm]

You will succeed this time.

[NyxCC]

Welcome back! Good to hear you've found your way out of this period of nasty events. Let a new postive era begin, full of creativity and lucidity!

[MikaelK]

Thanks all for the warm welcome back! It's so funny, as soon as I decide to start writing my dreams down, I don't remember a single thing when I wake up!