Things that are BAD for dreaming

[Odd_Nonposter]

I keep seeing threads that say what is good for dreaming, but we never say what specifically is bad for it. We all know what we should take to enhance the dreaming experience. But I've noticed that no matter what, if I take something negative, nothing will ever help. So, I ask you, what do you notice that absolutely wrecks your recall, lucidity, vividness, etc.? I few things I know that don't help me at all: Alcohol Even one drink for me several hours before bed makes me lose my recall entirely. Several drinks make me wake up several times during the night, and I can't remember anything. One thing that I do notice is that the next night is usually better. Diphenhydramine (Brand names: Benadryl, Simply Sleep, Tylenol PM, many OTC allergy/sleep preparations) While it induces drowsiness in most people, diphenhydramine is an anticholinergic, meaning that it supresses the action of acetylcholine, the brain chemical that galantamine, choline, EGCG, and B-vitamins try to boost. Like alcohol, I find that the next night is better than normal. Doxylamine (Active ingredient in Nyquil, some sleep aids.) This works similar to diphenhydramne, and also has an anticholinergic effect. I'd like others to add to this list as much as they can, so that maybe we can create a list worthy to be stickied.

[Higurashi]

Fear of the unknown. Kept me from WILDing for a while, and ruined many potentially great lucids.

[Frishert]

An irregular sleep-schedule? (guilty!)

[Reality_is_a_Dream]

Weed, I hear. Like Frishert said, little sleep and too much is not good. If you watch a scary movie and are afraid of them, that is not good either. Heavy sleep means no dream, and music playing while you sleep. These I have gathered from this site.

[Awhislyle]

Hmmm, Half of the things listed so far actually work as lucid/vivid dream aids for me, so yeah, this thread definitely doesn't apply to everyone

[SKA]

And Hash, a purified resin of the Marijuana Plant, more often stimulates vivid dreams than surpress them in my experience. I find it hard to tell wether it has a negative or positive effect on dreaming. Weed most always knocks me out at night and has me wake up with very little to no recall of my dreams.

[starzandstripes]

Fear of the unknown. Kept me from WILDing for a while, and ruined many potentially great lucids. Bingo this is a huge one. Many people dont even realize its an issue for them.

[Pride]

I have Ld'ed after taking tylenol pm, smoking weed, caffeine etc but i noticed significant recall reduction after smoking weed.

[bewareofit1505]

I keep seeing threads that say what is good for dreaming, but we never say what specifically is bad for it. We all know what we should take to enhance the dreaming experience. But I've noticed that no matter what, if I take something negative, nothing will ever help. So, I ask you, what do you notice that absolutely wrecks your recall, lucidity, vividness, etc.? I few things I know that don't help me at all: Alcohol Even one drink for me several hours before bed makes me lose my recall entirely. Several drinks make me wake up several times during the night, and I can't remember anything. One thing that I do notice is that the next night is usually better. Diphenhydramine (Brand names: Benadryl, Simply Sleep, Tylenol PM, many OTC allergy/sleep preparations) While it induces drowsiness in most people, diphenhydramine is an anticholinergic, meaning that it supresses the action of acetylcholine, the brain chemical that galantamine, choline, EGCG, and B-vitamins try to boost. Like alcohol, I find that the next night is better than normal. Doxylamine (Active ingredient in Nyquil, some sleep aids.) This works similar to diphenhydramne, and also has an anticholinergic effect. I'd like others to add to this list as much as they can, so that maybe we can create a list worthy to be stickied. Benadryl at high doses affects your short term and some long term memory pretty badly. I'm slowly beating my addiction to diphenydramine, but I've gone to bed after being fucked up off of 20 or so and sometimes I can remember my dreams and sometimes I can't. I've also found that the REM-rebound is great. One time the day after benadryl, I had a 30-minute long LD with a pretty high level of lucidity within an hour and a half of falling asleep for the night.

[ShutterHoe]

Alcohol Even one drink for me several hours before bed makes me lose my recall entirely. Several drinks make me wake up several times during the night, and I can't remember anything. One thing that I do notice is that the next night is usually better. I drank alcohol before bed once, i remberd all my dreams. Werid.

[Bobblehat]

Being ill. On some occasions I've gone to bed with the flu or a cold and thought that repeatedly waking (to cough, sneeze etc.) would help me LD but in my experience it doesn't.

[innerspacecadet]

Things that reduce my LD odds: -anxiety -frustration with failure to LD or just the thought of being frustrated with failure to LD -going to sleep and getting up early - it's easier to have memorable, and lucid, dreams later in the day -B-vitamins - B-6 has been touted here as a lucid aid, but in my experiments with it, it made it too hard to sleep at all. I also recently took a B-vitamin-containing multi before bed and it seemed to screw with my sleep/dream quality. For proper LDing I need to be sleeping shallowly enough to get the beta-waves of REM sleep, but deeply enough that I can reach REM sleep in the first place and stay in it once I'm there. -colds/flu. Being sick tends to shift the balance too much toward non-REM sleep, especially Stages 1 and 2 'cause it's kinda hard to sleep deeply if you've got a stuffed nose or are in pain. Although one time I was sick, I slept like a log for 13 hours and felt excellent afterwards, so some cases or stages of being ill might help with deep sleep.

[Dextrochris]

http://www.entertonement.com/clips/v...ape-Fear-Theme

[utexas313]

While alcohol is harmful to my dream recall most of the time, about half of all the LDs I have ever had were because I went to sleep wasted. What often happens to me when I go to sleep drunk is that I wake up after five to six hours because I'm dehydrated, drink water, and then go back to sleep. Sometimes I have trouble falling back asleep but when I do I often have a WBTB. I'm not sure if any of y'all have experienced this too but going to bed drunk, when done correctly, has been the single most effective method for me when it comes to inducing LD's.

[JesterKK]

Maaan I've been having drowsy allergy tablets for the last couple of weeks before bed. The number of dreams I could recall fell in correlation with this. I'll take them in the morning from now on and see what happens.

[PercyLucid]

While alcohol is harmful to my dream recall most of the time, about half of all the LDs I have ever had were because I went to sleep wasted. What often happens to me when I go to sleep drunk is that I wake up after five to six hours because I'm dehydrated, drink water, and then go back to sleep. Sometimes I have trouble falling back asleep but when I do I often have a WBTB. I'm not sure if any of y'all have experienced this too but going to bed drunk, when done correctly, has been the single most effective method for me when it comes to inducing LD's. I think so... In some hours I have a party with Mexican people. Is my closest neighbor's birthday, so I will drink 5-6 beers and then announce I'm leaving, then I will drink like 8-9 "last beers" with the excuse we are door to door neighbors and just walk 20 feet and fall in bed So drunk lucidity for me tonight, for sure However, when I go drunk to bed, usually my lucidity is drunk to. So, I'm basically drunk in the dream world. Is like I have the same effects of being drunk but in a different place instead of my neighbor's garage so I become lucid... But it's like if I decide to have a magic duel in my lucid dream, I try to throw a beam or fireball and I have terrible accurancy... or evering in my dream moves... or if I have to fly or run... I do it like a drunk would do (running though) in waking life.

[Smileyguy597]

Pot makes DR almost impossible for me. however, NyQuil has given me many lucid dreams and they tend to be very vivid. I suppose this probably differs from person to person. When I am sick I almost never LD but I have very strange vivid dreams that are almost as enjoyable as a lucid

[Dextrochris]

Alcohol - makes dreams less clear, but I still dream Weed - no recall what so ever Dextromethorphan - no dreams that are lucid, after the effects wear off i have very cool dreams

[theyung888]

anybody knows how xanex affects lucid dreams?

[jdogGA15]

About weed:If i smoke in the morning and not at night,Very vivid dreams.If i smoke at night cant remember dreams.So smoke in the morning-noon only.

[Jacq]

That's not a 100% stopper for me . I've had different outcomes of dreaming with alcohol . I remember having a 3-4day fest of drinking and loosing the recall completely , but there were also times when after some amount of drinks my dreams just went crazy . Not only so vivid but i don't know how even to describe them . They seemed to be beyond my fantasy(which i believe is really wide) . So alco overall is not so good for dreaming , but you may have different outcomes.