Help with getting a DILD

I just started trying to LD last night, and I discovered that whenever I realize that I'm dreaming, the dream starts to fade to black, although not completely, and it feels like I'm trying to imagine my dream, so its not very vivid. And then I wake up, and then I fall asleep back into a different dream.

Is this normal? I keep waking up even though I'm not getting excited about it. It's more of a "Wait a minute. This can't be real" experience for me.

Is it possible that it could be a false awakening?

Any help please? And I can't WILD because I have summer school Mon-Fri

Well you're a newbie (as am I), it's totally natural to not have much control when you begin with. Practice remember! :)

To get vivid, there are many techniques. Some people rub there hands together, spin, shout "Increase vividness!" or just go along with it and find that the vividness increases as they progress. I think the best suggestion is to engage your senses. Feel something, glance around you, listen, taste something, and sniff stuff. This helps your mind choose between your dream body and your waking body.

Remember, alot of things in LDing is trial and error, you need to find what works for you :) Keep a dream journal (this is a MUST DO!) so that you can increase dream recall, dream awareness and dream vividness. It's working wonders for me already :) RCing is also a must do. There's no set time to go about this, whenever you see or feel something odd (e.g. deja vu, there's something in your pocket you don't remember putting there, someone's acting strange...) do a reality check :D

WILDing is for more experienced LDers. Make sure you get a decent DILD first, so you know what it's like to LD :)

Hope that helps :wink:

Yeah. I'll try spinning or rubbing or just looking around at the scenery, but the dream degrades really quickly, and once I fall back asleep I completely forget about me dreaming and everything not being real.

And I can never remember to RC, even though I have some really weird dreams (yesterday I was in the American Revolutionary).

I'll try to keep reminding myself to RC even when I'm not dreaming though, just to get in the habit so maybe it'll become second nature.

Yup, good luck :)