Hey RoBob,

I can certainly identify with not writing down the "boring" dreams. To rehabilitate this problem I decided to devote these moments of lapse to another important and benefitial dream practice: dream re-entry.

Shaman's (a very general and apparently offensive term, so sorry) used this technique extensively in their cultures as a means of dream travel (soul journeying). When their children had nightmares the elders would use monotonous drumming to help them re-enter the dream world with the intent of awareness. The drumming was about 4-6 beats per second which actually translates to a similar rhythm that the brain 'emits' as Theta and Delta waves (dreamy and deeply meditative).

I could never get anyone to drum for me to try this out so I took up listening to my heart beat and maintaining a strong focus of returning to the dream state. This was particularly effective after nightmares (and very challenging&#33. My heart would be racing and my attention was certainly not waving from the events of the dream. As I relaxed I would focus on the main turning point in the dream and listen to my heart slowly but surely slow down and calm. Sometimes you will re-enter the dream with no lucidity, but more often than not (particularly if you have been lucid before) you will be lucid (at some stage at least).

This technique is remarkable and works for normal boring dreams as well. So if you don't feel up to writing a dream down why not try re-entering it and spicing it up with a dash of lucidity?

Also, 3 months ago I cut the tendons in three of my fingers on my right hand. I write with my right hand so I could not keep a journal. This was agonising because I gave up weed (which had killed my dreamlife for years) straight afterward and as a result had an absolute flood of dreams. I felt lucidity around the corner (as I had done it a few times before) but I knew I had to keep a journal if I wanted them to come. I resolved the problem by buying a digital dictophone.

Now I wake up at any time and just talk the dream out (in present tense as if it were happening right then) which actually really helped. Hearing it, talking it, thinking it, visualising it, imagining it... it was like a lucid shortcut as I was soon having a lucid dream a week, often more. I know it sounds like possibly a greater chore to speak when one just wakes up, I certainjly thought so before I tried it, but I have not returned to writing since my hand has gotten better and I'm more lucid than I have ever been, in waking and sleeping. Also, because they are a digital audio format, I have actually turned the recordings into music, hypnosis and an aural dream journal, a personal way of "honouring my dreams"... all on the old computer.

Dae,

Rob.