Finally joined- been putting it off...

Hello like-minded community!
I've been reading these forums for over a year now and it never occurred to me to actually join : P This will be my first forum post ever- congratulations internet, you've finally won.

Anyways- I've been doing some "independent study" on lucid dreaming for 2 years now and have had some limited success, I think this is because I haven't really sat down and taken the time to immerse myself into the experience and culture behind it. However, I have be very adamant about keeping a dream journal over all of these years and I hold that book to be the most important item in my possession. I approach the recollection of dreams to be an exercise in making the most of the time that we have before we assume room temperature : )
Even though to the outsider my EXTREMELY poorly handwritten pages (I sometimes write a dream down in the dark, fall asleep and forget that I've even dreamt until I check my journal in the morning and hilariously translate and remember the dream) may seem like an exercise in 3rd grade calligraphy but I wouldn't trade them for anything.

So here is what I'm currently working on and would like some sagely advice:

How do you keep attempting lucids and get enough sleep to go to work/school?

During waking life, how can you emphasize a particular moment/piece of scenery to dream about?
I find that sometimes a thought I have had for maybe 2 seconds during the day is what I end up dreaming about when I try to dream about what I think for the 40 minutes until transitioning to sleep. What's up with that? Although I know you can't force yourself to dream about something, there's probably some way you can maybe make it more likely.

Getting past the "Waiting Room", the black nothingness after you get past the hypnogogic visuals/audio. I'm stuck in there for a long time and end up falling asleep after taking an hour to get to there : (

There's more, but I guess I should probably put the questions in the right threads. Just trying to get a good start and grab the attention of somebody who has pushed passed these problems. And thanks to everyone here at dreamviews for their endless supply of lucid dreaming motivation- whenever I wanted to get inspired for an attempt, I'd go here and read first : )

Welcome!!

I be DreamingDragon(DD) i only LD about being a dragon rider(eragon) and only DRAGONS! i'm a freak i know.

I rode a dragon before but it wasnt luicd so i don't count it.

Tell you dude! it's best feeling ever to fly so high in the sky, you can touch the cloudes and see people work on there farms and ect.(none luicid dream)

Hey Phiersen, welcome to DV You seem like a pretty funny and interesting person, I'm glad to see that you have finally joined! Forgive me for celebrating the Internet's triumph ;) I'll do my best to address the questions you've posted, and if you've got anymore ask away :D

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Originally Posted by Phiersen

I approach the recollection of dreams to be an exercise in making the most of the time that we have before we assume room temperature : )

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^haha, that's awesome :D I absolutely agree

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Originally Posted by Phiersen

How do you keep attempting lucids and get enough sleep to go to work/school?

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Depends. Right now I should be writing a paper that's due Tuesday morning, but I just can't stay away from DV :tongue: Kidding aside, though, my method for inducing lucidity is to reality check and to keep a dream journal. This takes very, very little time out of my day and no time whatsoever out of my nights. Just learning the proper RC techniques had enabled me to get a large number of lucid dreams without doing WBTBs or wasting time trying to WILD (I say waste, because I suck at it and nearly always fail). If I were to delete my account on DV, I probably wouldn't lose any time to lucid dreaming whatsoever. :cheeky:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phiersen

During waking life, how can you emphasize a particular moment/piece of scenery to dream about?
I find that sometimes a thought I have had for maybe 2 seconds during the day is what I end up dreaming about when I try to dream about what I think for the 40 minutes until transitioning to sleep. What's up with that? Although I know you can't force yourself to dream about something, there's probably some way you can maybe make it more likely.

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If you look up dream incubation, this should be able to give you some ideas. I personally have not had a lot of experience or read a lot about these things, but apparently dream incubation can be very effective. The best way, of course, is to just become lucid and steer the dream in the direction you want!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phiersen

Getting past the "Waiting Room", the black nothingness after you get past the hypnogogic visuals/audio. I'm stuck in there for a long time and end up falling asleep after taking an hour to get to there : (

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Again, I have a lot of trouble with WILDs myself. When are you doing these attempts? The very best time to WILD is immediately after awakening from a dream- using the DEILD technique. Other than that, guestimating (god I hate that word, but it's really all you can do) a REM period about 5 hours into your sleep for a brief WBTB is another better approach. You should be fairly tired but well through NREM sleep requirements. I have also read recently in a journal article that by napping about 8 hours before your nighttime sleep, you get a lot of NREM sleep out of the way and can get into your crazy REM periods earlier in the night.
Hopefully a more experienced WILDer will be able to give you some more advice. WILD is a pretty advanced technique, and I'm sure you've noticed that the majority of the questions on the site are regarding the WILD technique. Just read as much as you can, and try not to lose too much sleep! Good luck :D

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Shift! I've gotten WILDs to work only twice out of years of trying- I should probably work my way up to them again after trying some methods that would work for me.
Now I've tried the WILD method and find that mentally I'm still too active, not particularly racing thoughts per se but not being able to take that mental step back and letting the dream formulate.
I'll give WBTBs another shot once classes start up again, but I'm incredibly resistant to alarm clocks! Any suggestions about wake up methods for the 5 hour mark? Cause knowing me, I'd probably give some zombie moan, whack the snooze button and be back asleep within the second it goes off : )

As for whacking the snooze and continue sleeping, you should make it harder to stop the alarm. Put it across the room forces you to get up, very fast if you don't wanna wake people up too.
By the sounds of your last post you're trying to WILD straight into sleep, not necissarily using a WBTB each time? I do that too and I always thought of most of the time trying to WILD as sleeping anyway. You don't move and your nerves shutoff, plus you're not being mentally or physically stress in anyway. I am still trying to get my straight to sleep WILDs sorted out too but you may find the visualisation/tactile dream entry easier than flatout WILD.

Finally, maybe you could start up an online DJ for us too read too :) I love reading other people's dreams and with years worth at hand I'm sure you could pick out some really good ones!