Hey Everyone!

My name is Alan, 20 years old, and a student at the University of Idaho.

I first heard of Lucid Dreaming my senior year of high school and thought I'd give it a try. Needless to say, with all the stuff going on my senior year, I hardly got a couple dream journal entries in before it was put on the backburner and later forgotten about. I've decided that I'm going to get into it for real this time around.

I've always been able to dream, or recall my dreams, pretty easily. At least for the first 15 minutes or so from when I wake up. I can usually get started on dream journal entries, but as I write the dream fades more and more from memory and I usually can't finish the entry. Anyone have any good tips to keep dreams fresh while you record them in your journal?

My biggest challenge with dreaming, or say, controlling my dreams, is knowing that I can take control when I think that I'm dreaming. Often times, if I'm having a bad dream I can try to just wake up. I'd say 95% of the time I'm able to actually wake myself up out of my dream. The odd part though, is while I can wake myself up, I can't actually convince myself that what's happening is actually a dream. Basically, I just believe that what's happening in the dream is real. I'm having a tough time jumping that hurdle.

I've been experimenting with what different kinds of things I can do before I sleep to have more vivid and recallable dreams. Lately I've been doing a 20 minute full body workout and downing 20 ounces of water right before I go to sleep. It seems to be helping out. It makes me sleep harder, which apparently helps me get deeper into my dreams. Anyone else try this, or have other things they do before bed to help them dream?

Also, I've noticed that sleeping in different positions seem to help me dream deeper. Typically I sleep either on my stomach or on my side, but if I can manage to fall asleep on my back, I end up having deeper and more recallable dreams. Anyone else experience something similar?

Well, that's a little more than I had planned on putting in my opening post, but there you have it.

-Alan

Actually, a little about me personally. . . I live for the outdoors. Hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, and anything else outdoors. You name it, I do it. I'm a die hard Boston Red Sox fan, as well as a San Diego Chargers fan on the NFL side. I'm a student at the University of Idaho right now, majoring in Forest Products, and am nearly midway through my sophomore year. Anddddd, I think that's it for now.