The End of a Lond Dry Spell

I had my first Lucid Dream in the mid 1970s. Since then I’ve had a couple dozen more, but none within roughly the past 5 years. Around the end of January I re-dedicated myself to practicing a technique I call “Lucid Living.” I first noticed that my dream recall had increased, but after 5 weeks I still hadn’t had a Lucid Dream. However, I wasn’t discouraged. Just as I believe that Lucid Dreaming is the best way to dream, I believe that Lucid Living is the best way to live.

Then, three nights ago I had a brief LD. I had entered a house that I was familiar with and noticed a wall with badly pealing wallpaper. I entered another room and saw more wall paper and realized that not only was there no wallpaper in the real house; there was no wall. I said to myself: “This must be a dream” and I became lucid. I tried to hold on to my lucidity but it only lasted 2 seconds and then I woke up.

Brief as that dream was I was encouraged. It had been a long time since my last LD and I figured I was back at the beginning and it would just take time to build up the length of my Lucid Dreams. Nothing happened for the next two nights, but on the third night all hell broke loose (in a good way).

In my dream I was again in another house of a friend. The room I was standing was somewhat similar to the real house, but I realized that I couldn’t be in that house because I was on the other side of the country. I became lucid. I started looking around, again trying to hold onto lucidity. I managed to stay lucid for 15 seconds or so. Then as I was walking into another room I lost it, and immediately woke up. I briefly reviewed the dream and made of note of the fact that I should pay more attention to dream signs involving locations and people that shouldn’t be there. Then I immediately went back to sleep.

It seemed like very little time had passed before I noticed I was dreaming again in the same house as the previous LD and I became lucid. I again looked around for a few moments and started to walk into another room. As I did that I lost lucidity. After a few moments of a normal dream (in the same house in another room) I again noticed I was in the same house and again became lucid. I did a little casual flying up to the ceiling, came down, and started to walk into another room when I again lost lucidity.

And again after a few seconds of a normal dream I realized that I was dreaming and became lucid. After once again looking around the room I decided to try some techniques to help maintain my lucidity. The first thing I did was look at my hands. I really really looked at them. Then I would briefly look at the room, then look at my hands again. This worked well, so I decided to try spinning. I stuck my arms out started going round and round. The first thing I noticed was how slowly I was spinning, but the room became a blur. And I noticed an increase in the weight of my hands. I most definitely enjoyed the feeling of spinning and did not loose lucidity. When I stopped I was still in the same room, but felt more stable. At the other end of the room were 3 people: one sitting on the floor, one standing, and one floating about six feet off the ground. I floated into the air and then over to the person floating off the floor. As I approached I asked her if she was having an LD or just a normal dream. She started explaining why this wasn’t a dream and I decided to stop listening to her. I landed and walked into another room. I looked around a bit, then went outside. Looked around some more, did a little flying, then went back in the house. In another room were several people and one of them said to me: “Sleep well.” I said back to him: “I am.” Then I walked into another room. The dream was feeling so stable that I decided I should do something, but I couldn’t think what to do. As I was walking down a hall I decided to do some exercises to strengthen my stomach. I actually did one stomach crunch by pulling my feet off the floor and then entered another room where I intended to continue exercising. At that moment Arnold Schwarzenegger was also entering the room with the idea of doing a work out. He was wearing a pair of boxer shorts and didn’t look to bad but he said he wanted to “bulk up”. I also noticed he had two wires sticking out of his neck which I knew were there to jump start his heart if it stopped. He started talking to me the moment I saw him; about his health, his operations, problems with his veins, etc. In real life I am much more of a listener than a talker, and normally in a situation like this I would just stand there and listen ‘til it was over. But I didn’t want to work out with Arnold and I didn’t want to listen to his story. I knew this was a dream so I told him I wasn’t going to listen to him, and I walked out of the room.

Now I’m in another room with a few people and a couple of dogs. I started to fly, and floated up to the ceiling where I spread out like I was lying on the floor. The dogs start to jump up and try to get a hold of my shoes; not in a mean way, but just for fun. As I was plastered on the ceiling watching the dogs, I woke up.

In the past my longest LD was only a couple of minutes. This was by far the longest LD I have ever had.


I have been reviewing this experience and I noticed that the pattern of this dream very much followed the pattern of my exercise with Lucid Living. In real life I try to get the feeling of being lucid and hold it as long as possible. Sometime that may only be for a few seconds. And I may go for hours before remembering to “get lucid”. I did the same thing in my dream; getting lucid, losing it, and getting back again. I also noticed that I made several transitions from one room to another but I wasn’t aware of actually going from one room to the other. I would get the idea I wanted to go to another room, and I would start to walk that way. The next thing I knew I was in the next room. Sometimes I lost lucidity making the transition other times I remained lucid.

During the day when I’m trying to maintain a lucid state of mind I will look around the environment but I kind of take it for granted. If I see a tree I think: “OK, that’s a tree”, but I don’t pay close attention to it. So my everyday perception lacks detail. My LD was the same. I would know I was in a room, but I didn’t notice the color of the walls, or if the floors were carpeted, or any other details. I do remember that all the rooms had doors, but none of them had windows. Realizing this I will now put more attention on the details of everyday life.

Over the years I have been pretty lazy about practicing Lucid Living. I will go for years without thinking about it or Lucid Dreaming. But every time I get serious about it (and I only practice Lucid Living) I will always have a Lucid Dream within a short period of time. Because of my success with this technique I have started the [url=http://www.dreamviews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26868]“Lucid Living Research Project” in the Team Forums/Research Team.