Thread: Yes! LD#3...and NyxCC gave me the key

Originally Posted by NyxCC

I've got an idea you may want to incorporate in your scientific approach. To play with a different wbtb duration (and maybe timing) and see how that goes. For example, week 1 wbtb duration 10 mins, results: more/less awareness in dreams, more/less dreams, etc. week 2, wbtb duration 15 min, results. Obviously, you can structure this as you like.

WBTB really works like a charm. For good or bad, when I get too awake and have trouble falling asleep, I get a very high chance of ld. If you could make the wbtb at 4-6 o'clock it may not be too loud outside yet.

That sentence was the key. I thought about it…I’m not usually able to go quickly to sleep (particularly if I have something on my mind) So I welcomed going back to bed feeling still even slightly tired. What if I did trade off having to take longer to get to sleep against going to sleep with more awareness?

I set the alarm for 4.15 AM and refrained from “pantomiming” (i.e. falling asleep then dreaming, then waking up immediately after a dream ended.) Sure enough Ed took it as a hint not to disturb me before the alarm.

I stayed up for 1¼ hours and felt wide-awake when I went back to bed. Fortunately, I had nothing to brood about or plan but I still lay there for what seemed quite a while but, eventually I hit paydirt. My wakeup time from the LD was 7.10 AM and I don’t recall any other dream. I don’t even clearly recall the beginning of the LD...only the sudden triumphant realisation “this is a dream!”

There’s no mistaking the difference in awareness…I just knew. You switch from observing/reacting to thinking/planning. I think this was at a lower level of lucidity than the other two Ld’s…it remained cluttered and pretty “muddy” throughout and I still sometimes seemed to “jump” to another scene.

I blame myself. I suffer from what I call “blackberry bush syndrome” I always have. Whenever the family went gathering wild blackberries I was always charging off ahead…over the hills and far away…looking for the ultimate blackberry bush with loads of massive unpicked blackberries…and I’m like that in LD’s

I must RC for God’s sake!...for 2 reasons. To dispel that 0.01% of doubt that an insecure person like me carries, that I’m actually lucid at my age!...and just for the novelty of seeing my thumb go through the palm of my hand. Also I must pause, look slowly around and take in everything around me...maybe that will "up" the lucidity as well. The dream started to fall apart and I immediately began to spin…but I realised I wasn't doing it as well as before…”spin like a ballet dancer with outstretched arms” I instructed myself and I did (for longer this time) and the dream stabilised

I sensed that I was maybe in urban USA perhaps (but decidedly Bronx rather than Manhattan) I was swimming around in some kind of communal pool (very muddy water though) Then I saw a row of women and I thought “God! I hope my dreams aren’t full of women like the two in that other dream.”

Sure enough these all had very ugly features…their noses were terribly disfigured and I thought “No! This isn’t right!”…and the disfigurements disappeared as if by magic...was that my very first dream-control? I do hope I don’t become women-fixated. I’m a man and, even at my age, I like pretty women…but I’m not a predator and I’d much sooner by flying around the moon than indulging in sexual fantasies

The dream seemed to cut to me walking down a very cluttered and dreamlike corridor and suddenly I just woke up…no breaking-up of the dream…I just seemed to walk out of it. I immediately tried to get back in but, with no success...is it my inability to visualise? I felt trembly but this was more a Wow! Yes! trembly feeling rather than the after-effects of SP (maybe REM had simply ended) Of course, I tried to get back to sleep again but in vain…I was too excited and constantly drifted back to thinking about the LD and trying to analyse it.

I'm deliberately refraining from adding these dreams to my LD count...as a punishment to myself for not RC'ing and looking around more.

Conclusions – I’ve pulled the LD’s back by 2 hours…definitely trade-off sleepiness against awareness…probably try for 1½ hours WBTB next time…to see if that increases the lucidity…MUST REALITY CHECK AND LOOK CAREFULLY AROUND…work on ideas to help fall asleep easier (maybe a lobotomy)...Read-up on DEILD....I think I may be OK with dream control within the dream…and try and stay off thinking about women…mind on higher things please (I can’t absolutely promise though)…and LD#4 where art thou?...

Oh…and NyxCC?...Thank you…