Hello

About 30 years ago when I was around 10 years old I used to get the usual nightmares that all kids probably had, but I had the ability to deliberately wake myself up if I got too scared by rolling over and bumping my head on the wall. I had one lucid dream in my youth which was an incredible flying experience accommodated with a feeling of euphoria so strong it is hard to describe.

A few years ago I practised LDing for about 3 months and I managed to briefly become lucid about 10 times but it only lasted a few seconds before waking up as I instantly tried to control the dream, I quit the practise as it was taking up an enormous amount of mental/emotional energy and I had very young children to care for. I have quite an addictive personality and I tend to overthink things a lot.

Upon reflection I realise that I was trying way too hard which caused me to burn out – I was doing RCs a few hundred times a day and so intensely that it gave me anxiety – I was almost trying to push my finger through my hand in waking life with the power of my mind and I would get frustrated easily. I tried to keep my mind awake whilst falling asleep but that would just keep me awake for hours.

I’m about a month in now on my second attempt and I’m trying a different strategy. All I’m doing is focusing on dream recall and casually practising all day awareness and guess what I already had an LD. Maybe it was “beginners luck” because the strange thing was that I had the LD after I had smoked Marijuana, everywhere I read that Marijuana deprives you of REM sleep. This gave me an idea – can you deliberately deprive yourself of REM sleep (e.g. smoking over the weekend but not during the week) in the hope that you have a REM rebound which will trigger lucidity?