Thread: An Old Newbie

Originally posted by Dust Mote
This is my first post which, technically, makes me a newbie.

However, I am an old hand at Lucid Dreaming. Had my first one in the mid 70's after reading a book by Carlos Castaneda. Since then I've probably had a couple dozen LDs, read up on a couple hundred techniques (joking) (kind of). Maybe it just seems like there are hundreds of techniques.

I don't know if I am the original, but I coined the term \"Lucid Living\" back in early 2002 and I had been using it just to myself before that. Lucid Living is near and dear to my heart, and will be the subject of a research project that I will be starting here (just as soon as my \"newbieness\" wears off).

Nice to be here. I see you have a fine collection of smileys

Hey there, & welcome to the forum!!

You seem to be a natural at LDing. That is excellent!! Naturals seem to be hard to come by these days!
Lucid Living? That is an excellent name for LDing, since you are fully conscious when you are LDing in the first place.

lucid living eh? i like you...

And we thought we were early practicer of this So what was it like Lucid Dreaming all the way back then, did you talk to anyone about it? Nowadays we have so many people to talk to and discuss about it.

Thanks for the welcomes.

A “Natural” LDer? I don’t think so. They usually have a couple dozen LDs a week. I have been very luck in responding to suggestions though. The night I read Castaneda’s book that said: “in your dreams, look at your hands,” I went to sleep, had a dream, looked at my hands, became lucid, and woke up 2 seconds later. It was the most wonderful experience of my life. (Since then I’ve had a few other wonderful experiences.)

When I read LaBerge’s book it said we have 90 minute sleep cycles and wake up very briefly at the end of each cycle. That night I woke up 5 times, very briefly. It was as if I was confirming what the book had said.

The first time I read about the WILD technique I sat down in a chair, went to sleep and immediately entered an LD. That was fun, but I’ve never been able to do it again.

Yes, I’m also an “OLD” newbie in that I’m 58 years old. Way back in the prehistoric days Lucid Dreaming wasn’t widely known. LaBerge’s book didn’t come out ‘til 1990. So I was working on Castaneda’s system which he called Dreaming. That really is just lucid dreaming but he like to give it a special twist and claimed vehemently to the end of his days that the two were not the same. He does have an interesting system of classification of achievements in lucid dreaming that I haven’t seen anywhere else, but very little of that system has actually been verified by other lucid dreamers.


Asher: I read your comments in the Waking Life thread about “cultivating constant awareness”. Yeah, I like you too.