Hello from Lally

[oolally]

Hi guys, I joined a week or so ago but never actually made an official hello post. I think I might be among the older of the community at the ripe age of 32! Still, hoping I have many many years left of enjoying this new skill (and mastering it). I am new to LDs and had my first one after reading about their existence briefly in the book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. That was to date my longest LD (a total of 4 seconds maybe). I've since been implementing MILD techniques: RCs throughout the day - stop, look around, genuinely believe I'm dreaming, ask myself a Who What Where analysis to see if that makes sense, then try and poke thumb through palm. Before bed meditation to calm my mind, followed by a mantra that I will have an LD tonight - this is mainly to psyche myself up and give myself a positive outlook In bed - tell myself "I will remember my dreams" and visualise myself writing them down. Waking up at 4:30 - 6:30am - write down any dreams in bullets, then repeat to myself 'Remember I'm dreaming" while visualising my previous dream and me becoming lucid and my goal (currently just being lucid long enough to touch the ground and look around) On waking, don't move, run through my dream recall then write it down. I actually kept a dream diary before even knowing what Lucid Dreaming was, so my recall isn't too bad. I used to just write down the funny/interesting ones though so now I'm doing it consistently every day! I've basically noticed that my dream signs are: finding myself at school again or with old school friends (people I haven't seen in 17 years!) being on some kind of transport like a train, plane or coach being in my childhood home again being flirtatious with some complete stranger (I have a bf so this is quite strange but happens often!) Because of this, I try extra hard to do RCs when I'm around people - I might take a moment to look at everyone around me and ask myself 'do I know you from school? Are we at school? How do I know you? Does this situation make sense'? I've not been great at remembering to do this in the moment, mainly because I'm engaged with the conversation and being present with people - anyone else have this problem? I've had a total of 5 LDs since Jan 24th. They have all been from DILD. But I have woken up every time after realising I'm lucid. Mostly because I'm really scared that I'm in a dream, even though it isn't a scary dream, it's just the realisation overwhelms me and I choose to wake up! Ironic because I want so badly to have an LD where I can relax enough to stabilise myself and then have a wander about! This is an enormous intro post, so thank you if you've actually made it this far! I did have a few questions to ask if anyone can help: I've seen people say they have a mentor here - what is the process of getting one? Should I be visualising a more exciting goal than being able to stay lucid long enough to walk about? How have people dealt with dream signs that don't happen IWL - such as old friends & childhood home? Any tips on not getting scared and wanting to leave the lucid dream as soon as I become lucid ha! Excited to have found this thriving community and excited about developing my LDs!

[Darkmatters]

32? ~~~ Whippersnapper!! Welcome to our little community! A few years ago, when this was a far more well populated site, the majority of people were probably in their early 20's or even late teens, but these days the average seems to be a bit older. As for using old friends and childhood home as dream signs, try doing reality checks every time you think about them or something reminds you of them. And don't worry about waking up immediately on becoming lucid - that's very common for the first few lucids and is exactly how it happened for me several times in a row. It's because the easiest time to get lucid is at the very end of your last REM period, just as you're starting to wake up. That's when the conscious mind is coming online as the dream is fading, for a moment they can overlap. This is the easiest time to reach lucidity – think of it sort of as your lucid training wheels – and as your mind gets used to recognizing dreams and 'waking up' within them, you'll be able to do it at other times, giving you more time to explore.

[zelcrow]

Welcome to Dreamviews, oolally! It sounds like your journey is going well so far. I started just a few months ago. My first LDs were pretty short too, like you described yours. You could check out Stephen Laberge's Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming. By general consensus, it seems a good reference book for lucid dreaming.

[oolally]

Thanks guys! Thanks for the encouragement, advice and the warm welcome. I have started reading ETWOLD which has helped a lot. Although doing the 4 prospective memory tasks every day just resulted in feeling a bit deflated because I was so bad at it. I decided to stop for now and just focus on RCs related to my dream signs. And yes I'd noticed that a lot of the sub forums haven't been posted in in a while so was wondering if there are actually many active users on here still.... Still great to have though even with a smaller group!

[Lang]

welcome to the community! Either small steps or giant leaps! Good luck with your many lucid endeavors!!

[lenscaper]

Hey oolally, welcome from one newbie to another! I have only been at this for a month. I researched everything I could about lucid dreaming and in the process was fortunate to land here at Dream Views. The advice and encouragement I have received here has been invaluable! You could check out Stephen Laberge's Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming. By general consensus, it seems a good reference book for lucid dreaming. I received my copy a few days ago. After all of the deep research I have done I expected this book to be a bit redundant to me but instead I am realizing that it contains the real kernel of information that we need to make this connection. Best of luck on your journey.

[oolally]

Welcome to you too lenscaper! What a great forum this is. I have just started reading Daniel Love's 'Are You Dreaming?' which is brilliant! I'd recommend that. Good luck with your journey - I'm liking the sound of giant leaps that you mention Ic161

[ZenLD]

Hey welcome Lally. Yeah I just joined recently and felt like the forum isn't that active anyme but I'll try to be pretty active here either way. Good luck on ur goal