Hi There

[DTQ]

New to the forum, Ive been aware of knowing within a dream I was dreaming and taking control of dreams since probably around the age of 8, but didnt learn the term Lucid dreaming until I was about 16. In my single days I would tend to lucid dream a lot, on purpose and unintentionally. Sometimes with a greater degree of success at control than others. (damned flying a foot of the ground). Ive now got 3 kids and one on the way, and am having some issues with sleeping, (other than the child induced lack of sleep). Basically I can go to sleep just fine but I wake up one heck of a lot through the night. Sometimes as many as 8 times in the night for no reason I can tell off. Whilst looking up sleeping problem I came across lucid dreaming, and followed that branch of investigation, and came up with the idea that by raising my level of awareness whilst sleeping I might be able to pin down whats causing me to wake up, or bring it more under control. (I remember I used to be able to tell myself to wake up in a dream, and the spinning idea to keep yourself in a lucid dream sounds really interesting) With having the young children and all I havent really had much dream recall at all over the last couple of years, my first thought upon waking is normally "sleep more" I found this site yesterday and decided to give it a go to have more asleep control again. Im not sure quite what definitions my techniques of inducing lucid dreaming come under as they were quite varied. Anyway after a year or so with very limited dream recall, last night I set myself the goal of remembering my dreams again and not throwing myself straight back to sleep asap, originally my intention was to write them down as I had them, that worked with the first dream but the next 3 I was just too tired to make the effort to write them down as soon as I awoke, but I did manage to record 4 dreams by the morning. there were at least another 2 that I have only glimpses remaining off. I think I attained lucidity on two occaisions, once I lost the dream and woke myself up by trying too hard to control the dream again straight away, the second time I managed to obtain control for a few seconds, nearly lost the dream, managed to spin to keep the dream, but somehow conjured up some highly distracting elements to the dream (ridiculously fast flooding rain) that distracted me from my awareness it was all a dream, and then played out as a normal dream till I was woken up. Anyway thats me and why I'm here, no new age beliefs just insearch of a better nights sleep, and if I cant have that I might as well have a fun dream to remember when I do wake up.

[irishcream]

New to the forum, Ive been aware of knowing within a dream I was dreaming and taking control of dreams since probably around the age of 8, but didnt learn the term Lucid dreaming until I was about 16. In my single days I would tend to lucid dream a lot, on purpose and unintentionally. Sometimes with a greater degree of success at control than others. (damned flying a foot of the ground). Ive now got 3 kids and one on the way, and am having some issues with sleeping, (other than the child induced lack of sleep). Basically I can go to sleep just fine but I wake up one heck of a lot through the night. Sometimes as many as 8 times in the night for no reason I can tell off. Whilst looking up sleeping problem I came across lucid dreaming, and followed that branch of investigation, and came up with the idea that by raising my level of awareness whilst sleeping I might be able to pin down whats causing me to wake up, or bring it more under control. (I remember I used to be able to tell myself to wake up in a dream, and the spinning idea to keep yourself in a lucid dream sounds really interesting) With having the young children and all I havent really had much dream recall at all over the last couple of years, my first thought upon waking is normally "sleep more" I found this site yesterday and decided to give it a go to have more asleep control again. Im not sure quite what definitions my techniques of inducing lucid dreaming come under as they were quite varied. Anyway after a year or so with very limited dream recall, last night I set myself the goal of remembering my dreams again and not throwing myself straight back to sleep asap, originally my intention was to write them down as I had them, that worked with the first dream but the next 3 I was just too tired to make the effort to write them down as soon as I awoke, but I did manage to record 4 dreams by the morning. there were at least another 2 that I have only glimpses remaining off. I think I attained lucidity on two occaisions, once I lost the dream and woke myself up by trying too hard to control the dream again straight away, the second time I managed to obtain control for a few seconds, nearly lost the dream, managed to spin to keep the dream, but somehow conjured up some highly distracting elements to the dream (ridiculously fast flooding rain) that distracted me from my awareness it was all a dream, and then played out as a normal dream till I was woken up. Anyway thats me and why I'm here, no new age beliefs just insearch of a better nights sleep, and if I cant have that I might as well have a fun dream to remember when I do wake up. [/b] Hi, welcome to the forum! Well, with all the experience you had as a youngster, getting back into lucid dreaming shouldn't be that much of a problem, it sounds to me like you're a bit of a natural. It can be hard at first, when you are writing your dreams down to motivate yourself, especially in the middle of the night. Harder too i would imagine when you are expecting a baby and that is keeping you awake. Hmm...waking up a lot in the night may well enable you to have a lucid dream, because when you go back to sleep, you are likely to be closer to your REM cycle. It might also go some way to bringing your recall back. well, hope you enjoy the forum, Pm one of us if there's anything you need!

[DTQ]

The sites providing some very usefull information, including explaining that horrible levitation \ out of body feeling when entering some lucid dreams, that used to scare the crap out of me. Hopefully if I start to experience that again I will be more able to go with the flow. and not be instinctively freaked out by something that feels so weird. I also seem to remember experiences of "falling onto my bed" and waking up as well. There were some very "dark" parts to dreaming that have seemed VERY scarey at the time, perhaps you guys know something of these sorts of experiences? Sometimes Ive had dreams generally where Ive attained lucidity but not control, where I suddenly get an overpowering urge to "get out" to wake up, something bad will happen if I dont, at which point im suddenly cut out from the visual dream and start trying to thrash my limbs to wake myself up and attempting to scream, eventually Ive normally managed to emit a sound and get someone to wake me up, I assume its related to sleep paralasys, but its always scared me a bit, never sure quite what to trust when it comes to mind and soul in such a weird state. Another one that hits me from time to time, is a locked vocal state. I will encounter something in a dream sometimes terrifying sometimes something I am scared of but able to confront, but at the point of confrontation I lock up, for example I will say something like "gotcha" but instead of being just a dream sound My body locks up making a monosylbic sound sometimes screaming but other times like its stuck halfway through a word until im shaken awake (Ive always been woken up after a couple of seconds of this locked state so no idea how long it would last) But it can be a bit embarassing being a grown man and all. Another one is when I am exceptionally tired I find my mind "runs away" follows bizarre trains of illogical thought where words that make no sense buzz around, and concepts become totally illogical and although they are meant to follow on from one another they dont, and if I become partially aware of whats happeneing I cant follow the train of thought and often lose the weird thought and memory of anything but having thought a weird thought. Not so much scarey as just plain weird. sometimes when REALLY tired my mind will completely run away with itself and I lose the ability to control my thoughts at all, as happened to me during a very long drive and managed to wake up at 80mph on the central reservation of a motorway Sure I will remember other things that have given me cause for concern as I go through the site. You guys have already allayed some of my concerns over the levitation state, thanks guys that alone will make all the difference. another thing you guys have pointed out to me is that its natural for writing to rearrange itself in a dream , used to have lots of dreams of reading books where either the page would turn to quickly or I tried to reread something and it all changed . My dreams can be a very weird place ineed