Nice To Meet Everyone, Also A Quick Question

[PratticusX]

Hey everyone; nice to meet you. I'm really glad I found Dream Views by randomly surfing stuff via Google. Anyways, I've been trying to induce lucid dreams for about half a year, on and off. It all started once when I spent the night at one of my good friends' house. His mom, being an English major and a professor, had this one room with books lining all the walls, spilling from shelves, all over the place. There was a bed tucked into a corner, surrounded by books. One of those books happened to be called The Art of Dreaming. See where this story goes? Nothing happened the first night, and for many nights afterwards until I simply stopped trying. Then, many months later, I tried again, just for the hell of it, and so this pattern brings us to where we are today. I would have nights where I would be awake, aware, but my body was falling asleep. My hands would go numb and my breathing would become shallower, my eyes fluttering like something akin to REM. Once, I felt like I was spinning in large circles, like on a fast moving carousel. And that's where it ended. I couldn't go any further, for whatever reason. I tried to make myself relax, and counted in my head, did relaxing techniques, etc. but nothing would happen. I just stayed like that and had nothing but eyes sore from fluttering up and down to play testimony to nights' events. Did I just need to relax further? Let myself slip away? Has anyone else had this problem? How far did I get in the process of becoming lucid? Thanks in advance.

[The Blue Meanie]

Hi there, welcome to DV Pratticus! First off, the technique you seem to be using sounds like WILD... Just a suggestion, it may be best to start with something slightly less hit and miss. In my experience WILD is a long process of trial and error. You might want to try improving your non-lucid recall and do reality checks, and maybe try MILD (Mnemonic-induced lucid dream) first, before focussing on WILD. If you want more info on these techniques, you might want to take a look-see in our Tutorials Forum. Hope that helps some. BTW, the book you were reading, The Art of Dreaming, is that the one by Castaneda?

[PratticusX]

Oh, I'm not actually reading it. I just happened to pick it up and read it for an hour/hour and a half before I fell asleep. But yes, I'm almost certain it was by Castenada, or however his name is spelled. And thanks, it did help. I'm going to go on over to the Tutorials part and start some research.

[Taiji X]

actually i think WILD is less hit and miss. you wilfully decide when you want to enter it. MILD seems more like it just kind of has to happen while you're in a normal dream.. it happens at random with me, but 3 nights in a row that i've tried to WILD i've gotten it.