The Cry Of A Noob

I've been lurking in this forum for a few days, but this the first time I've had a topic of my own, so incase you haven's seen me around—I was likely trying to steal other people's thunder or giving advice about things I'm no good at—hi!

My name is Matt, I go by M@ when syntax will allow, but you can call me anything you wish. I mean it, anything, feel free to be creative.

A few months ago I stumbled on a podcast about lucid dreaming, I started a dream journal and after a measly 2 weeks stopped writing in it. Over those 2 weeks I got a whopping 4 dreams down (though I probably actually remembered 6 or so, but found myself too lazy to write). After having a rather stimulating conversation about it with a co-worker about the topic I bought a new journal (the old one had become home to some math notes), and some books:

• Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life
• Lucid Dreams in 30 Days: The Creative Sleep Program
• The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep

The first two of these start with a few words on dream recall, but the body of the books are about lucid dream induction, control, etc...

The latter, which is twice or more as long, starts with an introduction to the buddhist spirituality regarding dreams, I've thumbed ahead to find things that will probably be useful for aiding dream recall but it is apparent that the book wasn't meant to be used as a quick refrence.

Every night, or before naps, I'll flip my dream journal to the appropriate page (the first one for now) date the entry, and go to sleep trying to keep telling myself that I will wake from and remember each dream that I have. I find that it is very hard to keep focused on this goal, my mind gets away from me and I start running a list of the bills that need paying or which classes I have tomorrow. I think that my dream-self is ADD.

• If I am lucky enough to be woken by the sun (which I find to be much more pleasant than any alarm) or on my own I can usually remember a feeling and maybe a topic.
• If my cd alarm clock wakes me (this is most of the time) I always have it set to something that picks up gradually, Tool - 10000 days (wings pt 2) is this week's wake-up song, but I always end up with lyrics in my head instead of my dreams.
• If the actual alarm wakes me up I leap out of bed to shut it off, that sound is the most annoying in the world, and any remnants of dreams are long gone by then.

Because of this my longest entry all week looks like this:
"I think I was helping someone with something, I also remember that an old lady was around, but I don't have a mental picture of her."

I think/hope that practicing some of the meditation found in the last book that I mentioned, as well as on a web site about the same topic, might help calm the perpetual chatter that distracts me (avoiding caffeine helps too), both from affirming my desire to remember my dreams and during my first/only WILD attempt. I also plan to use something non-lyrical to wake up to (Linkin Park - Session, maybe) though if I can give myself enough time to wake before the alarm I'll do that. Even in the perfect sun-inspired well-rested mornings I rarely remember that I want to work on my dreams until a few minutes after I've woken up.

Now that you know my situation (sorry for the length, but it seems that undetailed questions usually get undetailed answers) I was hoping for any ideas you might have. Things I should add/change/remove from my routine. Specifically I want to work on remembering to remember, both before bed and in the morning, but any info would be awesome.
Thanks!

note: I don't actually expect everyone to go check out the links on this topic, but whenever I have a problem I usually look for posts like this one for answers. Hopefully some of my reserch will be helpful for another lost noob like myself.

Welcome to the forum.

I would have to say that the most important thing is just sticking to it. It will take time and 4-6 dreams over a 2 week period is nothing to be ashamed of for just starting out. More will come with practice but the important thing, especially in the early stages, is to just keep trying.

I know how easy it is to just roll over and go back to sleep, or to just start with your day and think that you will write down your dreams later. You need to just get something written down or at least talk to someone about your dreams.

I am not sure, but if you are using drugs or alcohol you may want to consider stopping for a while until your dream recall improves.

I think you are on the right track with the meditation. Ulitmately, dream recall, lucid dreaming, control of your lucid dreams all require a lot of mental discipline and focus. Only the true naturals are able to do it without a lot of work. Meditation is a good way to go. Some people (such as myself) are not sure where to start with meditation, so some mp3's of guided meditation are a good resource.

All in all though, it sounds like you are on the right track and my highest reccomendation would be to simply keep up with what you are already doing and sooner or later it will come. Improvement will not happen over night, but if you are consistant it will happen.

Good luck. Feel free to reply to this or PM me if you have any other questions.

Hey Xnyper,

I own the first and third books on that list. I'd have to say that the Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep is more about the philosophy then the techniques. The book by Stephan LaBerge is excellent for techniques, although it doesn't go into any great detail. I didn't buy the other book on that list because it sounded like more of the same. (I already own quite a few books on the subject)

Now, I'd give you my normal dream journal speech, or perhaps the check out my blog post about it, if you're into reading blogs. However, I think your situation is a little different. I saw that you linked your blog of polyphasic sleep experiences on that blog carnival thread. I'm not sure, but I bet the polyphasic sleep changes all of the normal variables for dream recall. I'm not sure about how REM works for that method of sleep. I'm unsure if it is like taking a bunch of naps where you enter REM quickly, or if it's just a shorter amount of REM sleep. Either way, if you've just switched over to polyphasic sleep, I remember reading that steve pavlina said that it took him a few weeks to adjust and stop feeling tired. So if you've just switched, perhaps that's the reason for the bad recall.

Main thing to remember though: Keeping a dream journal always helps recall to some extent.

-Hatter

carlhungis:

Thanks, glad to be here. I'll certainly be patient with it, if you have any links or other resources you'd reccomend for the guided mp3 thing... That would be awesome.

The Mad Hatter:

Cool, I'll check the blog out. I nap in the afternoons sometimes, but I haven't really been polyphasic since october. The theories are mixed, some say the entire sleep cycle is compressed proportionately after enough adjustment, others say that you go straight to REM for some naps, and stay in slow wave sleep for others... Whatever the case may be, I suspect that I am pretty much recovered from that endeavor. If I ever get a job that doesn't fluctuate so much (I am at the mercy of a mad woman, the schedule is different—vastly so—each week) I think I'll go back because I did enjoy the altered concept of time, but that's material for another topic for another day.

Speaking of work, something that just came to me, I've been working 8-10 hr shifts all week ranging from as early 5:45am to as late as 11:00pm and trying to fit the hw for all of my classes around it (I should be doing calculus as we speak in fact). Next week's schedule is much more regular, so we'll see if that doesn't help.

Irregular sleep messes with REM, to be sure. That might be one of the things damaging your recall. Just keep up with it and it'll get better.

-Hatter

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Originally Posted by Xnyper

carlhungis:

Thanks, glad to be here. I'll certainly be patient with it, if you have any links or other resources you'd reccomend for the guided mp3 thing... That would be awesome.

The Mad Hatter:

Cool, I'll check the blog out. I nap in the afternoons sometimes, but I haven't really been polyphasic since october. The theories are mixed, some say the entire sleep cycle is compressed proportionately after enough adjustment, others say that you go straight to REM for some naps, and stay in slow wave sleep for others... Whatever the case may be, I suspect that I am pretty much recovered from that endeavor. If I ever get a job that doesn't fluctuate so much (I am at the mercy of a mad woman, the schedule is different—vastly so—each week) I think I'll go back because I did enjoy the altered concept of time, but that's material for another topic for another day.

Speaking of work, something that just came to me, I've been working 8-10 hr shifts all week ranging from as early 5:45am to as late as 11:00pm and trying to fit the hw for all of my classes around it (I should be doing calculus as we speak in fact). Next week's schedule is much more regular, so we'll see if that doesn't help.
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I work 12 hour shifts, 7:40pm - 8:00am. I am also married with a daughter, and I flip back to day shift on my days off, so I know about irregular sleep. It is hard on my recall as well and what usually hurts the recall the most is when I am startled awake (alarm, wife... whatever). I do fully understand where you are coming from.

I have recently found a program by the Monroe Institute called the "Gateway Experience" that is a series of guided MP3's. I am not sure where you stand on the whole "astral projection" thing, because that is what this is geared to. My own personal opinion is that the same methods are used to achieve both Lucid Dreams and AP. It just comes down to what you want to call it. Some people are completely turned off if the words astral projection are even mentioned because it is too.... out there. I guess it just depends on how you want to look at things.

Anyways, the "gateway experience" can be purchased online for about 400.00. But I am sure that there are other ways of getting it ;). PM me if you would like me to point you in the right direction. There is a lot of other stuff out there as well.

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I am sure that there are other ways of getting it ;) [/b]

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Bit Torrent for the WIN! not like I would ever... but it is nice to know the option is available. Really...

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Originally Posted by Xnyper

Bit Torrent for the WIN! not like I would ever... but it is nice to know the option is available. Really...
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Bit Torrent?? I... have.. no idea... what you are talking about. :)

The gateway experience is amazing. (I have it) It was one of the first applications of binaural beat technology combined with suggestions. It's not astral projection, it's out of body experiences by the way. Well, if you consider that a difference. But Monroe takes his own spin on it. He has exercises that he developed himself that I've heard other people say are used for doing things like: Raising kundalini, making a psi shield, and the of course he just has a strait up remote viewing one. But I thought the distinction between OBE and AP is important because it shows where the person is coming from depending on how they label it.

-Hatter

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Originally Posted by The

The gateway experience is amazing. (I have it) It was one of the first applications of binaural beat technology combined with suggestions. It's not astral projection, it's out of body experiences by the way. Well, if you consider that a difference. But Monroe takes his own spin on it. He has exercises that he developed himself that I've heard other people say are used for doing things like: Raising kundalini, making a psi shield, and the of course he just has a strait up remote viewing one. But I thought the distinction between OBE and AP is important because it shows where the person is coming from depending on how they label it.

-Hatter
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Well, I for one think that OBE and AP are more or less the same thing. I am honestly not really sure at this point if there is even REALLY much of a difference between AP, OBE's or LD's. They all can be achieved through very similar induction methods. It would just seem to me that they are simply different versions of the same thing. The real difference being the significance attached to them by the people who are attempting them.

Anyways, all good stuff.

I don't know what did it, maybe it was the fact that I brought it up here, maybe it was the fact that this is the second night in a row that I could sleep more than 8 hours and I did so about the same time as last night, maybe it was the first part of the gateway experiance (I went to focus 3 and back about an hour before bed) but last night I had a really good dream, well i don't know if it was good, but it was vivid and I remembered much of it. Something to do with squid-like monsters attacking Washington DC, but it wasnt scary, it was just intense... like a good action movie.

Then, half way through writing this beast of a dream down (over a full page) I wondered why it wasn't scary and it reminded me of a dream I had that WAS scary about a week ago. Why I didn't remember it until then, who knows.

Then (yeah it gets better) After writing down both dreams I wondered about how that last one stayed in my head so long without coming out and I realized that an online conversation I had with my girlfriend was pretty hazy and dream-like, so I looked through my chat logs and sure enough, it never happened. It must have been a dream from, i'd say 3 days ago (which is when the notion of the conversation popped in my head).

When I have the opportunity to I stay in bed for way too long, wasting my day away. Sometimes I fall back asleep, sometimes I just wish I would, and I daydream. Since I was used to daydreaming I think my problem wasn't that I couldn't remember the dreams, I was just dismissing them as things I had thought up once awake. Once I make a concious effort it is pretty easy to recognise the things that are actually dreams.

I wouldn't say that the problem is solved, but I'd say there is light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks guys!!

Welcome to the forum. :)

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I have recently found a program by the Monroe Institute called the "Gateway Experience" that is a series of guided MP3's. I am not sure where you stand on the whole "astral projection" thing, because that is what this is geared to. My own personal opinion is that the same methods are used to achieve both Lucid Dreams and AP[/b]

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Now, I'm not sure if it's the same thing since I hadn't heard of the Gateway Experience before, but from your description it sounds like an induction technique in which you use binaural beats to influence brainwaive activity.

If you haven't heard of it yet, there is a program out there you can download (for free!) called BrainWave Generator which comes with not only presets for relaxing, meditation and lucid dreaming , but also the capabliity to customize your own MP3 track. I've used it before to generate a 4 hour program which I copied to my iPod and used as I went to bed. Since not everyone has the same sleep pattern, I really recommend it to anyone who would like to play around with binaural beats.

Congratz on the improved recall.

My recall has improved greatly in the last week or so. I have also had 2 lucids in the same time period. Like you, I don't know what the real reason is behind the improved progress but whatever it is, I like it. I have been working on the Gateway Experience for about a week as well, and I think that has really brought dreaming to the front of my mind. I would guess that I am just more focused on it now and that is why I am seeing improvement.

I am kind of stuck on the gateway experience now though... I am just not feeling it on track 3.

The gateway experience does that. I just kept going after a few run through. It's a VERY long program. I actually got halfway or so, then stopped. I should get back on that.