Welcome from this strange little slice of conscious experience I call me!

[AcidicBeing]

Hi everyone! I'm so excited to finally be a member of this forum. I'm deeply fascinated by LDing and have been ever since I first properly found out about it--oh, I don't know--it must be 15 years ago or so by now. It's such a mind blowing experience with such potential that if I ran the education system we'd all be taught about it as kids. There are quite a lot of things that should be taught but aren't but I guess it's all about nurturing a good little worker drone. Anyway best not to say more on that right now--I've barely introduced myself and I'm already ranting, where are my manners? Other interests include science, philosophy of mind, computers, nature. It took me about a year to finally get signed up on here. I'm an old timer and don't like modern social media so I was a bit desperate to get on an old school web forum about LD but at the time neither this site or Mortal Mist would activate my account so I couldn't believe my luck when I got activated a few days ago. As for the LDs, I can count them on one hand so far. I've gone through bursts of trying to be consistent with my reality checks and then much more of the time seem to slide into not doing them. It's funny though that a lot of the more structured and simple reality checks haven't always seemed to work that well for me, at least not at the time (they might have helped many months later). I've had a bit more luck by just being incredibly analytical (which I love doing anyway, I often over-analyse things) and starting to spot patterns in my recurring dreams so that I start to recognise them quickly as dream signs. I also think if I start reading and posting on here regularly it will help get me in the right mindset to get lucid more often. Looking forward to getting to know you guys and gals. I really don't get out much, even less since this awful pandemic, so the chance to connect with some like-minded souls across space here is very much appreciated.

[DarkestDarkness]

Hey, welcome to the forum. It took me about a year to finally get signed up on here. I'm an old timer and don't like modern social media so I was a bit desperate to get on an old school web forum about LD but at the time neither this site or Mortal Mist would activate my account so I couldn't believe my luck when I got activated a few days ago. Not having all the ins and outs of it myself, I think part of this is that there's only a couple of people currently that can go through new accounts requesting activation; a lot of potential new accounts tend to be spammers or bots so that probably adds to the workload of getting through to real potential users. It's a pain to wait for an account activation though, I get that. I imagine it puts some people off. Can't remember how long my activation took but I do recall contacting someone about it for some reason. Anyway, I also like to be around the forum to keep my mind more on dreaming, especially at times like this when I'm too busy and tired to even bother with writing down recall. It helps to keep intent alive for me to be in and around the subject. It's funny you should mention reality checks slipping away from focus or even not helping much while dreaming; just today after getting up I was thinking about how most of my lucid dreaming experiences have come not from reality-checking but from simply realising/noticing I was dreaming. In most cases I have still done reality checks after realising, to further confirm the status, and for me it's been rare that the check itself is what makes me lucid anyway, as I think that's something that only happened a couple of times. Especially early on when I first started getting into lucid dreaming and reality checks, I did get them to cross over into dreaming more often than I do now, though they were often dismissed easily and sometimes just didn't spend enough time on them. Perhaps subconsciously I've come not to rely on them for such reasons and (now) I rarely find myself doing them both in waking and dream life unless something really was quite odd or out of place. Either way, I find non-lucid dreams to be of interest and without the interest in lucid dreaming I might not have grabbed on to that either. Looking forward to getting to know you guys and gals. I really don't get out much, even less since this awful pandemic, so the chance to connect with some like-minded souls across space here is very much appreciated. Same for me, can definitely relate. In a dream this morning, I was outdoors and worried about Covid for a second when this random dream character started interacting with me and someone else. The dream character was a little bit socially inept and didn't have a grasp of personal space.

[AcidicBeing]

Hey, welcome to the forum. Thanks. Can't remember how long my activation took but I do recall contacting someone about it for some reason. Yeah this was my third attempt at choosing a username and registering. I tried e-mailing an admin gmail address listed on this site a year ago begging to be activated but I don't know if that address is even active anymore. In the end I posted about it on reddit and someone replied to my post many months later saying they were activating accounts again so I count myself really lucky! Anyway I appreciate with a lot of these old forums it's a struggle to keep up with the admin, it seems common to be short on staff and short on time. I actually feel like pressures in the world are increasing on almost everyone and reducing everyone's free time and energy. So, yeah, it's great this place is up and running. Anyway, I also like to be around the forum to keep my mind more on dreaming, especially at times like this when I'm too busy and tired to even bother with writing down recall. It helps to keep intent alive for me to be in and around the subject. Yeah we have similar thoughts it seems. It's funny you should mention reality checks slipping away from focus or even not helping much while dreaming; just today after getting up I was thinking about how most of my lucid dreaming experiences have come not from reality-checking but from simply realising/noticing I was dreaming. In most cases I have still done reality checks after realising, to further confirm the status, and for me it's been rare that the check itself is what makes me lucid anyway, as I think that's something that only happened a couple of times. Especially early on when I first started getting into lucid dreaming and reality checks, I did get them to cross over into dreaming more often than I do now, though they were often dismissed easily and sometimes just didn't spend enough time on them. Perhaps subconsciously I've come not to rely on them for such reasons and (now) I rarely find myself doing them both in waking and dream life unless something really was quite odd or out of place. I wish I kept written notes on my first LD experiences years ago but from what I can remember I too had sort of beginner's luck where the techniques quite quickly led to a LD the first one or two times. Funnily enough I also watched the film Inception and that put LD in my mind and the one useful gem in that film for me was the technique of asking yourself "How did I get here?" which did make me lucid at least once. Either way, I find non-lucid dreams to be of interest and without the interest in lucid dreaming I might not have grabbed on to that either. Me too. I love dreams and some of mine are seriously weird. I like weird. Same for me, can definitely relate. In a dream this morning, I was outdoors and worried about Covid for a second when this random dream character started interacting with me and someone else. The dream character was a little bit socially inept and didn't have a grasp of personal space. I've had a couple where I'm in a crowd or large group of people and suddenly realise I should've worn a mask (for my own protection as much as theirs).

[Lang]

Thanks. Yeah this was my third attempt at choosing a username and registering. I tried e-mailing an admin gmail address listed on this site a year ago begging to be activated but I don't know if that address is even active anymore. In the end I posted about it on reddit and someone replied to my post many months later saying they were activating accounts again so I count myself really lucky! Anyway I appreciate with a lot of these old forums it's a struggle to keep up with the admin, it seems common to be short on staff and short on time. I actually feel like pressures in the world are increasing on almost everyone and reducing everyone's free time and energy. So, yeah, it's great this place is up and running. Yeah, I'm not big on social Media either. Sorry it took about a year. Welcome to the forum!! I'm Lang!! Yeah, I think my activation was about a day make in 2015. We also have to deal with Alt accounts and stuff like that who like to sneak on here. The stuff about the alt accounts is in the Rules thread. I'm glad you were able to get through.

[AcidicBeing]

Yeah, I'm not big on social Media either. Sorry it took about a year. No problem at all. I was a little worried there might be other legitimate users unable to join but I see there's a healthy number of new members in this intro thread so it's all good.

[NyxCC]

Welcome! Happy to have you here! Sorry it took forever to get you registered. With that kind of patience you can surely bank on developing a good lucid dreaming practice. I hear you about teaching lucid dreaming in schools, imagine the benefits we could all reap if we learn it that early on and do it everyday. Good luck on your journey!

[FryingMan]

Welcome! From one old timer to another, dreaming is a fascinating and rewarding practice!