Thread: No progress...

Hey DV, I have a statement/question sorta thing. For 2 months now I have been doing constant RC's. DJ'ing everyday, questioning my surroundings, Staying motivated, ect ect. But after all of that stuff (daily) I have had 1 LD, and my recall has improved little to none, I am losing motivation. I guess I am trying to ask, is if there is anything else I can be doing or should be doing? Right now I have been working on the DILD technique, I have tried the WILD but fail every time.

I can offer no help, but i have the same Problem.

I restarted my attempts in January and have been constantly DCing and journaling.
My Recall is quite good, although i have some nights where i dont remember anything, the bigger part is about 4 dreams per night.

Nonetheless i just had 4 lucid experiences. They cant be called dreams cause they were to short and only shallow-conscious.

Is it possible that some parts of your subconsciousness dont want you to lucid dream?
Thats not well expressed, i know.
What i mean is that my main goal in lucid dreaming is to find out more about myself (not in a esoteric way) and probably these ambitions would touch parts that were better untouched.
I say this because i was a time in therapy due to something i cant remeber by myself anymore.

Dont want to cadge pity or something, just if somebody experienced something similiar.

Don't give up! It can be difficult to practice these routines when no reward is immediately forthcoming. I've been through these same problems with LDing in the past. To regain your motivation, just remember why you're doing this in the first place. The benefits come in the LONG term, and disciplined training is the only sure way to reap them. It takes time to reprogram your mind out of its old habits.

It's just hard for me when I RC to "truly" question my reality because I subconsciously know that I am awake, my RC's seem kind of mindless, maybe I just need to try and question my reality and my surroundings more.

Try to not just RC ''truly questioning'' a lot of times, but when something strange or unusual happens - it can happen a lot of times during the day or just a couple.
Thats it: Do a RC when something unusual happens.

Brunor, I appreciate your advice, I have heard that before, but for me, nothing unusual ever happens...

Originally Posted by rynkrt3

Brunor, I appreciate your advice, I have heard that before, but for me, nothing unusual ever happens...

It don't have to be anything big. For example: You woke up, and instead of going to change clothes like you always do, you've gone get a breakfast.

And, what kind of RCs are you performing ? Might you want to change the type.
Try other techiniques too, you might find some exciting things.

And like Amethyst said, don't give up.

I count my fingers, make sure my hands look normal, plug my nose and try to breathe.

Similar to you, rynkrt3 I have been practicing RCing for a couple of month and in some cases, doing them every day at least 20 times, once every 20min in some cases, but, I haven't had any dreams where I have RC'd. Most of my lucids have been due to awareness, so, I think RCs don't work for me. As for the WILD method, I wouldn't give up on that, just keep on trying it. DILD which uses RCs works well if you have dreamsigns that you can RC to, in my case, it's fear and since I'm pretty careful IRL, I don't have much to fear Whatever you do, just don't give up. When you finally get more LDs, you'll feel that all that work was worth it. You can also train your awareness by trying to find a certain object and keeping track of how many you found and where, which will raise your awareness and likely help in lucidity. Good luck

As others have said, don't give up Everyone progresses differently and honestly, if you're putting effort into this, you will see results.

Perhaps try focusing on different things when practicing RCs, mix it up a little. Yes, you should seriously question what's going on and ask things like "Where am I?" and "What am I doing?" and "How did I get here?" but perhaps start looking for other things. For example, RC when you walk through a door or when you see the color purple or when you see something related to the number three. It may be a little difficult to get yourself to look for those things, but it will help give you a different perspective and might change things up a bit.

If you're getting frustrated, just take a break from anything LD related for a few days or so and then go back to it. Stress kills recall, so if you need to take a break, take it You should enjoy your dreams. Just keep it up.

-Amé

Rynkrt3,

As all have said so far, don't give up. Frustration of the hard work will make the fun of recall or lucidity that much more rewarding (and I've yet to really have a LD, but I enjoy the recall part as of now - for me the other will come).

The reality check thingy I had trouble with in the beginning. Right now, I have trouble just doing them. Before, I didn't take them seriously, because like you I knew I wasn't dreaming, so I felt what was the point. In short I took the RCing rather glibly. Can't do that! You're trying to program your subconscious to do that while your asleep, because consciously, you won't be able to.

And as Amethyst stated, stress will hamper you, so take a 'short' break. Kind of like when I wrote programs. I'd spend so many hours trying to debug a program, and then have someone come up, look over my shoulder, and say, "Hey, did you mean for that comma to be there?". Viola, the program's fixed. We get so wrapped up in what we're doing, that we miss the little things.

Something else that I read recently in a post, haven't located the follow-up to it yet, but there seemed to be a lot success from what I had read. It dealt with 'recall'. I forget who suggested it and was doing it, but they actually started writing a waking journal as well (i.e. a short diary of their day-to-day goings on). And tried making it as detailed as they could remember of the day. They took maybe ten minutes to do this before going to bed. It seemed to help her recall, and possibly a few others as well. I have yet to try this, but it makes sense, because you're training your conscious mind to be more aware (albeit after the fact) of what you've experienced in real life, and that in turn affects what we see consiously in our dreams and therefor helps on the recall.

I know I'm not an experienced dreamer, just an experienced person. Hope this helps - and don't give up.

Scott