Trouble sleeping while trying to lucid dream

Thank you for reading.

I've been faithfully following the very clear methods on dreamviews.com about lucid dreaming, starting from step 1. My dream journal is thick with vivid dream accounts considering that I've started very recently, and my dream signs are numerous.

Basically, my dream recall is very healthy and I think I'm just on the verge to begin to regularly have lucid dreams.

But I discovered a major problem. As I lie to sleep, I do all the usual things like talk to myself about what I'm going to do during my dreams and what things I'm going to work on in order to get closer to lucid dreaming, and then I try very hard to really relax. But for some reason, ever since I've started this passage to lucid dreaming, it's become very very hard to actually fall asleep. This has never happened before; my sleeping habits are very normal and falling asleep is generally not a problem for me.

I've figured that maybe my new concentration before entering sleep is holding me back from true, deep relaxation. But now that it's hard to sleep, I just become frustrated with the whole situation, and then my priorities change from entering my dreams with a certain amount of alertness to now I just want to freakin' get to sleep in the first place! So I feel this frustration is definitely hindering my ability to bring in more consciousness during dreams.

I also followed the instructions on one of the sections of dreamviews.com where it said to picture your thoughts as floating clouds, going from one to the next. When that doesn't really work, I try to just picture myself in a place that's totally relaxing to me. That didn't work either. I'm running out of ideas.

Lucid dreamers, did you have this problem when you first began training? Am I doing something wrong? Am I truly concentrating too much? Do I really have to wait for two hours in bed with my eyes closed before I actually fall under while attempting to lucid dream?

Congrats on your first posting!

Your problem is not uncommon. Most have experienced it in the past. It got so bad with me for a while that I was losing some serious sleep.

What worked for me was to convince myself that it was OK for me to fall asleep at night and not have a lucid dream. This kind of "do not care" attitude allowed me to become more relaxed and removed the pressure to perform from me.

My sleep has been quite a bit better since then.

Welcome to dreamviews :D glad ur dreams are more vivid, dont have much advice but maybe u should just try doing some reality checks if going to sleep becomes even more hard, i usally dont do wilds or milds cause it usally takes me 2 hours to get to sleep anyways, have you had a lucid dream yet? maybe after u have one u might find it easyier to get to sleep.

Hello :)

As Seeker said, sometimes you've just got to not think about lucid dreaming. I've had the same circumstance, especially when trying to WILD. I can lay in bed for hours, not moving, eyes closed, and at times think I'm getting close, but I never can fall asleep. I even do reality checks during those times, but I'm still not dreaming.

Just try to focus more during the day and just remind yourself of your intentions before going to bed. Then leave it at that and go go sleep. That's all I can think of.

-Amé

Thank you all very much for the replies. It's very good to know that others have gone through exactly what I am.

Dream on.

Welcome :D

I've always had trouble sleeping. I actually started sleeping easier when I started trying to have LD's. After all the trouble I've had sleeping in the past, I've learned to be patient when waiting for sleep. So just try to be patient, I some times find myself awake after up to four hours of trying to sleep, or at least I used to.

I'm glad to hear of your progress. That's wonderful.

It's just odd that falling asleep is so easy for me until I start working on lucid dreaming. Oh well. Life moves on.