Thread: A Newbie Saying Hello

Hi, I won't reveal my real name as I don't like the idea of people being able to google me. But I'm 18 and I live in New Zealand.
If you're interested in how I got here, read on (I always liked reading things like this when I was an elder member on another forum) but if not, skip this paragraph.
I was watching the film 'waking life' for the second time and thought "i wonder if i can do that... except without the whole dead thing". after googling around, I got some tutorial reading done. After trying the various tutorials for a few days I googled the same thing again for no particular reason and came across this board, which seems awesome! Looking forward to spending plenty of time on this site, getting helped and eventually giving help. I intend to research lots into the topic so I may give more help than I get (Yes, I know it's a buddhist philosophy. I stole it.)

My dream recall is pretty good. I remember >=2 dreams per night in fairly good detail and if I nap during the day I tend to remember everything (not to mention the day ones are far far more interesting and logical, but not lucid). However, my problem is realism. I can't see myself ever gaining useful lucidity(*) as almost all of my dreams are VERY surreal. My night dreams especially. They never make any sense whatsoever (the dreams I read about around here at least seem to have something binding like a plot or at least a decent amount of consciousness) and I'm only barely conscious. This isn't improving despite the dream journal and the relatively good recall. It's possible that I just need spend some more time on it, but wondered if there were some techniques I should be employing to improve realism (rather than waiting which might just be a waste of my time). I'd rather not take pills but if that works for some of you with the same problem, please detail.

*: I have gained lucidity many times. I am often aware that I am dreaming. However, even with lucidity the dream never gets any more real. I havn't tried the spinning thing yet as I havn't had gained lucidity in the 1.5 weeks I've been doing this. This is on my to-do list and have been doing it every now and again in private to try and influence my actions within the dream.

Second, from warpmymind.com i got a file called dreamlucidity.mp3 which supposedly gives you lucid dreams if you listen to it. I'm wary of it as the site seems a little dodgy but I stayed well clear of the one marked 'curse' which is supposedly irreversible whereas if the effects of this are undesireable I can supposedly reverse the effect with degprogramall.mp3 which I also have. Bad idea?

Welcome and take advantage of this site.
And what do you mean by people googling you?

Welcome and take advantage of this site.
And what do you mean by people googling you?

Welcome and take advantage of this site.
And what do you mean by people googling you?

nice triple post there.
i mean like for instance, if my name was Elliot Smith:
someone goes to google.com and searches for 'Elliot Smith' looking for some information about me and a little way down the list this page appears (because it contains the text 'Elliot Smith&#39 and they get my username, which they can then search for and find a whole host of text i've written, probably revealing some stuff I wouldn't want people in my daily life to know about.

Originally Posted by Quartz

nice triple post there.
i mean like for instance, if my name was Elliot Smith:
someone goes to google.com and searches for 'Elliot Smith' looking for some information about me and a little way down the list this page appears (because it contains the text 'Elliot Smith&#39 and they get my username, which they can then search for and find a whole host of text i've written, probably revealing some stuff I wouldn't want people in my daily life to know about.
[/b]

Ok I know what you mean.
The triple post must have been a technical problem. It wasn't made on purpose...

WHOA!
Tonight was the very first time i've tried to have an LD. I went to sleep doing my normal 'i will remember my dreams' suggestion then i thought 'fuck it' and started suggesting to myself that i would be fully conscious during my dreams. So; after a few average dreams:
I was in a plane about to do a skydive (never done one) and just suddenly knew i was in a dream. I jumped out the plane with the rest of the people who were jumping (i had a feeling it was my family but i didn't bother looking around to check). My parachute failed the first time so i kept tugging it and tugging it because i thought i wouldn't be good enough at LD's to fly yet and i would just hit the ground and wake up or lose lucidity. But the parachute showed no signs of ever working so i chucked it away and just floated to the ground. I tried not to think about it so my conscious mind wouldn't intervene and contradict me on physics. i was pretty proud of myself cus it was a pretty decent floating. it kind of felt like i was gliding like in spyro the dragon. I landed and i vividly remember the first thing i thought was "whoa... this is really way more realistic than any dream i've ever had" but the thing is, when i look back on the dream, i don't remember it being realistic at all. it's just a blur. it's possible that the only blurred thing is the memory because the mind always tries to forget dreams... i dunno. Anyway so my surroundings were just crap. it was just a huge wheat field. very boring. so the first thing i thought i'd try and do was fly away to another place (I think the key here is i just expected it all to happen, there wasn't that much conscious thought about it) so i jumped up and started flying. I was able to fly pretty fast but not nearly fast enough to get out of the countryside before the dream ended or i lost lucidity (i was expecting to lose it pretty quickly based on the things i'd read around here about first LD's) so i decided that i was going to do a rocket powered fly. i put my hand out in front of me like superman and i heard a huge WHOOSH and suddenly i was on my ass feeling a little pain from a terrible landing. I was on a beach on the coast of what seemed to be a fairly small inlet from the sea. There was this guy standing here. He started talking on and on but i wasn't listening, i was just trying to regain the dream's realism which was wavering very fast. I started spinning but it was too late. I started feeling like i was in bed. the problem is i'm really not sure if it was an FA or real. I think what probably happened is i woke up properly for a few seconds then went straight back to sleep into another non-lucid dream.

The initial question i asked still stands; how do i make it more real? The one thing i am sure of about this dream is that all of my thoughts were very dreamy. i didn't really get to make many conscious decisions, i was just sort of flowing with my un-thought out will. if i was conscious enough to think stuff out i would've done something other than just fly in a random direction... but then maybe if i had too much conscious thinking i wouldn't be able to fly at all. or maybe LD's arn't supposed to have much conscious thought? i don't know, tell me.