My journey

Hey guys. This is my first post here and I just wanted to share my experience with others.

I'm one of those who once had an awesome lucid dream without trying and hence got interested in the art of lucid dreaming. I tried to induce a lucid dream without any results for over a half year. I tried many methods, such as binaural beats and different WILD techniques.

About 2 weeks ago, I decided to start to do reality checks because WILDing was certainly not for me. I also tried to keep a dream journal but it seemed near to impossible because of my study and sleeping schedules. About 1.5 weeks after I started reality checking I had a dream where I was at my friends house and someone rang the doorbell. I went to open the door and there was a little girl. I kneeled down to talk to her and her eyes suddenly changed from green to blue. At this point I questioned if I was dreaming and looked down at my left hand. I had 6 fingers and I realized it was a dream.. But as soon as I did - the dream collapsed.

At the time I was frustrated but also glad because I had improved.. In reality, this dream was an amazing stepping stone for me. After it I have been doing reality checks in all the dreams I can remember.. Which I'm very thrilled about.

Last night, I remember waking up atleast 5 times and having atleast 5 different dreams where I did reality checks by either holding my nose and breathing through it or looking at my hands and noticing extra or missing fingers. The problem for me right now is that I can't seem to keep the dream up after becoming lucid. I can remember 3 dreams where the dream almost instantly collapsed after doing so. One of the dreams that didn't collapse straight away was a false awakening (if I have understood the term right) where I thought it was morning and I had just woken up to get ready for the day. Somehow the surroundings seemed foggy and dark which induced a reality check. After doing a reality check and realizing it was a dream, I recalled a method to keep the dream alive by rubbing my hands together ..but my hands felt sticky and I couldn't really do that ..so I tried to turn in a circle really fast ..which helped and the dreamworld was still within my reach so now I tried to imagine a beautiful beach where I wanted to be. It didn't work at all so instead I tried to imagine a big spider (I have no idea why) walking in from my door to prove myself I had the control over my dream. That didn't work either so I walked into the kitchen and my mom was there. I walked to her and she said something to me ..and I instantly woke up again..

Atleast I have time and opportunities to practice dream control now that I seem to become lucid almost every time I sleep. And an advice to those who are yet to become lucid in their dreams: Don't give up so easily. I suggest you try various techniques and give them some time before trying another. What works best for someone else might not work for you at all.

Also if anyone has any suggestions/experiences or even guidance for dream control, I would be pleased to hear about it.

Thanks to anyone reading and sorry if the grammar of my english is bad. It's not my native language.

Wow, do you still do RC in every dream? Is it still getting you lucid? That would be awesome. For control, check out the Dream control forum and Wiki for some tutorials. If you don't find your answer there, just ask.

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Originally Posted by gab

Wow, do you still do RC in every dream? Is it still getting you lucid? That would be awesome. For control, check out the Dream control forum and Wiki for some tutorials. If you don't find your answer there, just ask.

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Hi there and thanks for responding!

As ironic as it sounds.. I haven't been getting lucid dreams after writing my first post here.. Beginners luck I guess, ha ha.

I'm not sure what has influenced the lack of awareness in my recent dreams but I have still been seeing dreams related to lucid dreaming - so at least I know that my subconscious still has it. After having my first lucid dream induced by a RC, the experience relentlessly wandered in my head and that may have been the reason why I kept becoming aware in my dreams for the next few days.

I will continue to do reality checks and hope for the best.

I shall report back when I succeed again. :)

I suggest you add some awareness training and mantras. Collection of techniques for DILD.
Awareness (sageous)

Just stay positive, set your intent and remember your excitement from LD when doing your awareness question and RCs. Happy dreams:alien:

While I'm by no means an expert (check out my awesome 4 lucids), this might help.

I used to wake myself up after I got lucid. My problem was more excitement than fogginess, I kept waking myself up. So I tried this: as soon as I realized it was a dream I set off to do something. Focusing on what you are going to do rather than the fact that you are dreaming might dull excitement and pull some of the concentration off manipulating your surroundings, which is another problem I was having. I was trying to force every part of my environment to be a certain way rather than just letting it be, which collapsed my dreams. Whenever I tried to force an object, it didn't work, but if I just expected something to be there or expected something to happen, I didn't have any problems.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gab

I suggest you add some awareness training and mantras. Collection of techniques for DILD.
Awareness (sageous)

Just stay positive, set your intent and remember your excitement from LD when doing your awareness question and RCs. Happy dreams:alien:

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I will certainly look into these. Thanks a lot for your help and suggestions. :)

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Originally Posted by NewArtemis

While I'm by no means an expert (check out my awesome 4 lucids), this might help.

I used to wake myself up after I got lucid. My problem was more excitement than fogginess, I kept waking myself up. So I tried this: as soon as I realized it was a dream I set off to do something. Focusing on what you are going to do rather than the fact that you are dreaming might dull excitement and pull some of the concentration off manipulating your surroundings, which is another problem I was having. I was trying to force every part of my environment to be a certain way rather than just letting it be, which collapsed my dreams. Whenever I tried to force an object, it didn't work, but if I just expected something to be there or expected something to happen, I didn't have any problems.

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This might actually be very helpful for my future LDs. Very nice insight.

For me the problem is actually not the excitement but more than that understanding that nothing I see and feel is real and that I'm laying in my bed right now. This usually makes my dream collapse in a matter of seconds.

Next time I will certainly set my intent to do and expect rather than try to force and think too much.

Success.. again.

So yesterday I took the advice and added mantras to my training. Every time that I looked at my hands and counted my fingers I said to myself "Next time I'm dreaming, I will look at my hands and realize that I'm dreaming."

I kept telling myself that I would look at my hands in a dream tonight as I was falling asleep. So I fell asleep and saw a few dreams and woke up at about 7-8 am. I fell asleep again and saw some dreams and thought I woke up again. So I did my routine RC after waking up. But for my surprise I counted 6 fingers and it was so weird because the dream felt so real and I was almost sure that I was awake. But after confirming that I was asleep by plugging my nose and breathing through it the usual happened again.. I felt my dream just collapsing and I tried to rub my hands together as fast as I could.. But before I even noticed I was awake in my real bed.

As usual, I forgot Atremis' advice in the dream. So next time when I get a successful DILD should I just try to pay attention to the details of the dream and do things as soon as I become lucid since I do not feel like stabilizing the dream right away is helping me at all.. It just makes me think about waking up and everything around me just collapses.

Any thoughts? And thanks for all the help I have received so far. :)

The difficulty with being in a dream is you need to be able to let go of some of the thoughts like waking up. Also, it's pretty important that you do not just focus on one thing within the dream, but focus on the dream as a whole. That is not to say you can't start doing anything, doing reality checks and whatnot, but you should not start thinking about waking up or whatever, 'cause that'll usually happen if you think about it.

What you're experiencing is probably one of the more difficult things to get right in a lucid dream - the state of mind. Have you tried doing visualization? Basically what you can do is: Before you go to bed, visualize yourself in a previous dream (one that you enjoyed preferrably). Now, visualize yourself being lucid in the dream, doing exactly what you want to. Resolve to have a dream tonight in which you will be lucid. Even though this exercise could get you lucid, at first it's not the most important thing. The important thing in this exercise is that you learn to "let go" of all other thoughts and learn to focus on "the dream". If you're not used to meditation or visualization, it can be quite difficult. The first few nights I did it, I had so much difficulty keeping my thoughts on just the dream, but I've slowly gotten better at it. I am no master, but it's certainly helped me retain lucidity in my dreams because I am now able to "let go" and just go with the dream.

As for you waking up, waking up in your first few lucids is pretty normal because it can all seem a bit overwhelming. Don't be disheartened and keep trying, some day it'll just work for you with enough practice :)

Last but not least, for the first few dreams you can try to just "go with the flow" of the dream, and focus solely on retaining the dreamscape instead of trying to change it. I feel like you may be setting out for too much at once (from a beginners point of view), so maybe try focusing solely on stabilizing the dream and having a prolonged experience, and once you've learnt to do that consistently you can then start doing changes. I'd start with changing one small thing, then slowly working your way out to changing bigger and bigger things. Or you can try the spinning technique (start spinning and imagine yourself in another place), but as I said though, I recommend you do this once you can successfully stabilize the dream and have a prolonged experience.

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Originally Posted by Kruse

The difficulty with being in a dream is you need to be able to let go of some of the thoughts like waking up. Also, it's pretty important that you do not just focus on one thing within the dream, but focus on the dream as a whole. That is not to say you can't start doing anything, doing reality checks and whatnot, but you should not start thinking about waking up or whatever, 'cause that'll usually happen if you think about it.

What you're experiencing is probably one of the more difficult things to get right in a lucid dream - the state of mind. Have you tried doing visualization? Basically what you can do is: Before you go to bed, visualize yourself in a previous dream (one that you enjoyed preferrably). Now, visualize yourself being lucid in the dream, doing exactly what you want to. Resolve to have a dream tonight in which you will be lucid. Even though this exercise could get you lucid, at first it's not the most important thing. The important thing in this exercise is that you learn to "let go" of all other thoughts and learn to focus on "the dream". If you're not used to meditation or visualization, it can be quite difficult. The first few nights I did it, I had so much difficulty keeping my thoughts on just the dream, but I've slowly gotten better at it. I am no master, but it's certainly helped me retain lucidity in my dreams because I am now able to "let go" and just go with the dream.

As for you waking up, waking up in your first few lucids is pretty normal because it can all seem a bit overwhelming. Don't be disheartened and keep trying, some day it'll just work for you with enough practice :)

Last but not least, for the first few dreams you can try to just "go with the flow" of the dream, and focus solely on retaining the dreamscape instead of trying to change it. I feel like you may be setting out for too much at once (from a beginners point of view), so maybe try focusing solely on stabilizing the dream and having a prolonged experience, and once you've learnt to do that consistently you can then start doing changes. I'd start with changing one small thing, then slowly working your way out to changing bigger and bigger things. Or you can try the spinning technique (start spinning and imagine yourself in another place), but as I said though, I recommend you do this once you can successfully stabilize the dream and have a prolonged experience.

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Hi mate and thanks a lot for your insight. I found it really helpful. :)

I will definitely try to adapt the things you suggested into my lucids. I will also look more into meditation and visualizing.

I will keep practicing and report back when I succeed again!

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Originally Posted by Causes

I will definitely try to adapt the things you suggested into my lucids. I will also look more into meditation and visualizing.

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If you don't feel like doing both, you can easily just do the visualization part. In my experience it's really simple to learn as all it comes down to is keeping your focus on one single thing instead of many :)

Looking forward to hearing how it goes! :)

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Originally Posted by Kruse

If you don't feel like doing both, you can easily just do the visualization part. In my experience it's really simple to learn as all it comes down to is keeping your focus on one single thing instead of many :)

Looking forward to hearing how it goes! :)

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Since my last post I've been trying the things you suggested. I still have the exact same problem as in the past - instantly waking up after becoming lucid. I just can't seem to help it..

Most of my lucid dreams begin by me "waking up" in my room and noticing something weird in the visuals. This always leads into checking my hands and as soon as I realize that I have less or too many fingers I get this weird feeling and I instantly wake up..

Guess I'll just need to keep practicing and trying to stabilize the dreams after becoming conscious - even though it feels almost impossible right now. Just wanted to update you on how it has gone so far.

On a positive side note .. I still keep checking my hands a lot in my dreams!