A Reborn Dreamer's Progress Towards Lucid Dreaming

[Raedrob]

Hey, ya'll! I made my introduction thread on the forum some weeks ago, and some stuff have happened since then. First off, I got my second awareness of dreaming little over a week ago. It started with me waking up, cause of nosebleed. This is very usual for me, I've lived with it since I was very young. As always I raise myself up into a sitting position, attempting to see wether I bled in the bed or not. It seemed okay, but I started bleeding more. In fact, so much that I had to cover my nose with my hands to prevent the blood from hitting the bed. I quickly get up and leg it towards the bathroom, and lean my head over the toilet to let the bleeding do it's thing. I mess up in the hurry and drag a roll of toilet paper into the toilet. I start to curse, and as I try to quickly pick up the roll before it's soaked, I notice the blood on my hands. It's very shiny and reflective, resembling liquid mercury pretty well. I pondered for a second, and concluded that this was impossible. I knew I was dreaming. I could feel that the dream was collapsing very quickly, despite me doing whatever I could to keep it stable. I woke up.. The most recent, and by far most exciting, self awareness happened two nights ago. This night I had a couple of dreams, but it is the following that has any importance (this same dream actually took place at least two times this night). I was in the house of my grandparents, but the house was a mirror of what it actually looks like. I could tell due to the location of the rooms etc. My dad and grandmother was there aswell. Dad was acting really weird and ruining stuff by tearing pictures etc off the walls and slamming them into the walls. He seemed very cheery about the whole thing, while my grandmother was very upset. She acted like I've never seen before, being very strict and angry, telling dad to stop it. He didn't, and went into the kitchen to continue the carnage. I went in after him, and by then I realized he would never act like that. I am dreaming. The following is what truly makes this special to me. I felt once again that the dream was falling apart and that I would awake, but before falling asleep I had told myself that I would lay completly still when I woke up from my dreams. You could say it was a mantra to help me out with DEILD, as my efforts to achieve a WILD have been fruitless thus far. In my dream I decided to throw myself backwards and lay on my back. Right there something happened. The next I know, I'm laying there with these sensations I've never felt before. I could hear a very loud and high pitched ringing noise, that went down in pitch in short regular intervals. Images flashed before my eyes in very quick succesion, so quick that I only recognized one image. Last, but not least, I could hear screaming on top of it all. I'm PRETTY sure this was sleep paralysis, and it confirmed that I've never ever been close to it before. It really made an impact on me, because once I'd written down everything i could remember I decided to just sleep through the rest of the night without any extravaganzas. I didn't get any further than that though, as it went away shortly after I swallowed and focused on the swallowing. It did rekindle my willpower to keep going though, I even bought a proper leatherbound book to keep track of my progress. Next up: Everytime I realize I'm dreaming, I end up waking up regardless of how hard I try to maintain the dreamingstate. However, I DO realize that I'm dreaming on occasion, and the most recent time ended in a SP (afaik). I may not be very succesful at WILDs, but if I can use the realization stage as a sign, I may be able to DEILD. By sign, I mean the fact that I feel myself sucked out of the dream once it becomes apparant to me that I'm dreaming. By preparing myself to just lay still at this stage, I may be able to consistently get into SP with this method, and into a LD from there. I had to vent that out, sorry 'bout the walls. They would scare the huns for sure. Also, plenty typos are there for sure. I'll report back once there's more to report!

[paigeyemps]

Hey Raedrob, I remember you! Congrats on the lucids! However, I do not believe what you experienced after the second lucid was sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis completely immobilizes you and gives you that dread feeling. I believe what you experienced were normal body sensations that happen as you maintain awareness while your body falls asleep. Please do check this out: http://www.dreamviews.com/f79/sensat...y-wild-137332/ As for the thing where you wake up no matter what you do: sometimes you get lucid right at the end of a sleep cycle, and it is inevitable to wake up. It can even be the reason why you get lucid in the first place. Instead of getting lucid then waking up, you could be waking up THEN get lucid. This is because you are starting to wake up and gain awareness, so you have a big chance of knowing you're dreaming right as you're waking up for real. I do agree with you though about practicing to lay still upon your awakenings. That is a great way to get back into the dream and achieve lucidity. Good luck!

[Raedrob]

Thanks for the advice, it's been a while now. It seems my dreaming has it's on and off periods. The last 4ish days I haven't had any recalls at all, but before that I had some occasionally. The last two nights I've recalled two dreams combined, though. Most recently, I had another happening where I awoke just as I got lucid (or opposite, I'm still not sure about that part). I managed to lay still, but I think my eyes where slightly open, as I could see part of my bedroom. On "top" of of that image I had images flashing in a similar manner to the first time, expect this time they all were of the same hue and I couldn't hear any noise at all. After a few seconds I had to swallow, and it all stopped. I've read some tips on how to figure out the swallowing issue, but they don't work well because of me sleeping on my stomach. I can't remember the last time I managed to sleep on my back, it just doesn't work. It's very obvious to me that this dreaming business isn't my forte, but I'll keep on trying until I manage to achieve longer controllable lucids. That's it for now, I'm tired and need a little snooze, Sweet dreams to all of ya =)

[Raedrob]

I wanted to put in an edit on my last post, but it didn't work.. Edit: just tried to WILD when I went to snooze. After a while I could see this tiny image, and it regularly faded away and came back closer, bigger and clearer. Shortly before this it felt like I unwillingly threw my hand up in the air, off the bed. The image was pretty abstract, just a bright yellow-green with some dark spatter marks. As the image came closer I could feel my eyes move about at very high speed, to the point where they somewhat peeled my eyes open. I had to use some force to keep them shut, I assumed everything would be wasted if I opened 'em. At this point I tried/wanted to enter the/a dream, but I didn't manage to do so. I tried to convince myself that I was in a forest, as that's the scene I felt was most convincing with the colours I saw. Nothing really happened, and eventually the image faded away completly. I just kept on staying still, but the exact same thing happened two more times. Each time the image got a little closer and bigger, but nothing more than that. I have to find a way to get into these dreams, I've been fruitless thus far XD