I'm new here but not new to the idea of lucid dreaming. I started my dream journal Saturday May 13th 1995. I was reading the Carlos Castaneda book The Teachings Of Don Juan and when I read about "when next you're dreaming, just look at your hands" I was so very curious. Then along came Queensr˙che with the song Silent Lucidity and I was drawn in yet again. Well over the years I have had the most trouble with the "sustain all efforts" part of the deal, I get all worked up briefly but then my attention wanes and it's back to not thinking about it anymore. A few months ago I started to have very good dream recall so I thought I'd take up the quest yet again, only to almost immediately stop remembering my dreams again, only THIS time I'm sticking with it. I'm super-serious this time. I have been recording all of my dreams in my journal and slowly but surely I'm getting more and more entries every day. I've read all the LaBerge books, I've done the Lucid Dreaming In 7 Days course, I'm sleeping with headphones (with binaural beats) every night now and I'm starting to see some results.
Last Wednesday I had the closest thing to lucidity so far. I was walking around with a friend and everything was "weird", just not normal somehow. I said to my buddy "this is just too weird, it must be a dream!" then I am screaming at him at the top of my lungs: "This is a dream!!!" and then I wake up. No reality check but damn, I was so close. I KNOW that I'm right on the brink of a big breakthrough. I even went out and bought the only Castaneda book that I didn't have, The Art Of Dreaming, hoping that it might jump-start my lucidity.
I just tonight downloaded the I-dose lucid dreaming .mp3 (read about it on here) to try out tonight while I sleep. I have been using the "lucid remix" file (and a few others) up until now, I attribute my almost-success last week to that playing in the background while I sleep. I found that turning it up almost "too loud" was helpfull in keeping my attention floating above the passed-out-cold mark. The digital watch chime method might work if I was ever to hear the beep in my sleep, problem is I never "hear" anything while I'm out cold.
A few things I've found some results with: completely quit smoking any/every thing (after 20-ish years of chronic pot-smoking), when I told my online buddies about my lucidity quest most of them said "you gotta kick the habit" so sadly I did. No looking back. (Told you I was serious this time!). Also, getting "too much" sleep seems to help a lot. Whenever I'm getting entirely too much sleep I remember a LOT more of my dreams. Tried melatonin, seemed to have the opposite effect I was looking for, even at minimal doses. Now it's just one multi-vitamin a day.
My #1 reason for trying to become lucid is to fly. I used to fly all the time when I was a kid in my dreams, then I grew out of it, I want that back. But first... I just need to look at my hands....
