Lost the Ability

Hello, everyone! It's good to be here... lucid dreaming is a fun topic.

The real purpose of my post is this: Back when I was a young child, perhaps age 5 - 8, I had terrible nightmares constantly. I had a phobia of growing old and dying, and this was reflected in my dreams. After about a year or two of this, at age 6 or 7, I had mastered a technique to wake myself up. Without any knowledge of the concept or what I could use it for, I had mastered a form of lucid dreaming. About 80% of the time I was having a nightmare, I was able to become lucid partway through. At this point, if I placed my index and middle fingers on my eyes, and opened my eyes very wide (in my dream), I would wake up instantly. This technique was not foolproof, but it worked about 90% of the time.

Anyhow, this now amazes me. The fact that I attained and used lucid dreaming at such a young age without thinking it odd at all is neat. Sadly, I lost this ability after my nightmares went away. I would make an attempt to try lucid dreaming again, but my frequency of dream recall is terrible. I used to have dreams alot, but now I almost never remember any dreams that I've had, even right away when I wake up in the morning. I do not recall 'having' any dreams for at least 3 or 4 months, if not more.

The last dream I remember having was about half a year ago, and it was an incredible dream, indeed. Usually, my dreams take place in somewhere that really exists; occasionally in a small area created by my mind. In this dream, my mind created a whole city and the surrounding suburbs, most of which I visited at some point during the dream. The scenery was incredible and vivid. Sadly, this was not a lucid dream.

Shortly before that, now that I think about it, I had a minorly-lucid dream. There were tortoises rampaging around the forest killing people, and I needed to get a tranquelizer gun to stop them. I had some darts, so I walked to my friend Kevin's house to see if they would fit in his paintball gun. On the way to his house, the dream became lucid. I found myself holding two shirts (one in each hand), so I flapped them like wings and rose into the air. The dream then faded.

So apparently I've had a very occasional lucid dream in the past few years. However, I somehow need to increase my dream frequency and recall to begin attempts at lucid dreaming. Concentrating on subjects before I sleep doesn't seem to help. Any ideas?[/b]

I have a similar story, great recall as a kid, mostly dreamed nightmares, which in turn became lucids.
Though my nightmares were probably influenced by all the horror movies i watched.
At becoming lucid i closed my eyes and then stretched my eyelids, and then opened them...
that technique always worked for me then, effectively changing the dream setting or waking me up.
At the age of 13-14 i had lost almost all of my recall.
A few months ago i wanted it all back, and i got what i wished for.
I started a Dream Journal and did regular Reality Checks and autosuggestion, MILDs when going to bed and WBTBs when i felt like it.
My recall slowly became better... now, i have atleast 1 dream per night and frequent LDs.
It's important to not rush it, stay focused, calm and positive.

Sweet Dreams, Kamickalo.

Welcome to the forum, Kamickalo! :)

I think a lot of people start off the way you did, including myself. LDing was a great defense against nightmares as a kid, then we seem to "lose" the ability when we get older. Warlock gave some good advice - your dream journal is your most important tool in LDing, which will increase your recall and help you to recognize common dreamsigns. Check out the Dream Recall tutorial for more info about improving your recall.

And like Warlock said, MILD and WBTB are great techniques for beginners. Just try different things and see what works for you. Everyone is different, so you may need to tweak certain techniques to better suit you and your lifestyle.

See you around the forum! :D

this is very interesting, I just noticed that as a kid, I was able to wake myself from nightmares too. very interesting...