Now! I'm Kicking Myself.....

[Dark Sentry]

Well I joined about a week ago now, not too long, but i've been taking vitaman B and keeing a dream journal to help with my dream recall and for the first time in years i'm remembering on average about 1-2 dreams a night in semi-detail, i've been training myself to do an RC about 25-30 times a day (nose pinch) and tonight I decided i'd try to go lucid for some fun..... I was gunna try a WILD but I think I need to experence an LD before I do that, besides, people who have been at this way longer than me are having trouble, anyway I decided i'd do a DILD by verbally reinforcing that i'd do an RC in my dream and become lucid....... Well I went to sleep and had my first couple of dreams which I generally remember very little of but then I had a dream in my room at night..... one in which I did an RC and you know what? my mind took in the fact that I was dreaming..... but just incorperated it into the dream I belive because I felt my heart rate go WAY up and I had a FA (I think it only went up in my dream because i'd been thinking alot about ways to not get too excited when I finnaly go lucid) so in that FA, as I normaly do whenever I wake at any time is I did an RC. About 2 seconds after that I had another FA almost instantly and once again woke in my bed at night and did ANOTHER RC, but this time it felt more real and I had to double take an do it again, I tried to do some stuff I think but I failed, I don't know if I went into a very shallow lucid dream or my mind was thinking this up around what I knew about the subject matter...... Anyway, moments later I was in another dream, my mother being in this one, I was just about to tell her what happened and I did an RC and realised I was in a dream and for some reason this upset me alot to see she seemed so real but was a dream. when I told her she was very calm about it and not caring (which I was surprised because in reality I would have kept it to myself). At that time I noticed I was actually in a castle and wondered how that slipped by as normal lol. Anyway i'll skip past all the boring stuff, I continued the dream with what seemed to be no control whatsoever, and later on in it a monster was chasing me and I did a spin in my dream which did NOTHING, thats really what seald the deal for me that it was not a lucid dream. So in short I had a Non-LD about having an LD AND missed 4 perfectly good chances to have a DILD..... what exactly do I do to make sure I gain lucidity and not shrug a failed RC off? Thanks *EDIT: just fixed some spelling.

[GeetarGod]

Hah... that sucks man. Reminds me of one i had not too long ago. I was sitting outside of my school on the curb and a bunch of weird stuff was happening and i thought i must be dreaming, so i decided to do the read stuff twice RC. So i looked up at this big sign for a burger place called Master Burger. When i looked up i saw these giant floating cubes above the store that kept changing what they said and i thought to myself "when did they get that cool sign?" and i kept on dreaming.

[Dark Sentry]

Lol it just ticks me off..... FOUR! Anyway, I spose i'll try again tonight -_-"

[Nutzilla]

You already know what you did wrong, so what you're looking for is obviously advice on how to avoid making the same mistake next time and that's easy: Don't mess up. :) No, seriously, you'll just have to practice doing RCs and learn to be consistent. And I know it's hard, but try to remind yourself that if you suspect, even for a second, that it's a dream, then it's DEFINITELY a dream! Don't worry about the excitement waking you up, that happens to many people in the beginning, you'll soon learn to relax and just enjoy it. :)

[gguru1]

I have some advice you might choose to try next time you become fully lucid. In your next LD, I'd experiment just doing a variety of reality checks just to gain experience of what a positive result looks/feels like. I dont know about others, but I deep down am always expecting RCs to turn up negative, and at least once that has caused me to get a false negative during an actual dream. Doing extra in dream RCs helped me a lot.

[Dark Sentry]

Damn now i'm forgeting to RC alltogether, gotta buy an alarm watch.... and I gotta stop going to sleep at 1:00am....... I never recall my dreams when I go to sleep at late times.....

[Phalangees]

I had something like this the other day. I was falling off a 7 story tall swingset and I decided I better get a slowmotion watch so I don't wake up when I hit the ground. (nope, still not lucid...) I look at my wrist, blinked, and it was there so I hit the slow motion button and gently descended to the ground. (still not realizing I could be lucid) I stood up and thought to myself good job for staying in the dream, but then I just kept going with the dream and nothing clicked that I could of became lucid. I woke up later and I was pissed off. But then I had my first lucid 2 days later so everything worked out.

[QwinsepiaSquared]

Tehehe I've had several dreams where someone came up to me and started talking about LDing, and I never caught on to the fact that I was dreaming. What I do, right after I do an RC, I just stop for one second and say, "I'm dreaming. This is a dream. I can do whatever I want." Then I rub my hands together. For me this improves my control, increases my lucidity, and hammers into my head that I really am dreaming. If the nose one keeps failing for you, try a different RC. Not every RC works for every person. Good luck on getting lucid!

[PenguinLord13]

So in short I had a Non-LD about having an LD AND missed 4 perfectly good chances to have a DILD..... what exactly do I do to make sure I gain lucidity and not shrug a failed RC off?[/b] Ummm...Congratulations! :bravo: Don't be so hard on yourself Dark Sentry, that was an LD. There is nothing in the term LDing that implies having control, all it means is that you know you are dreaming, so consider it a sucess. The more times you get Lucid the more control you will have; it takes time, but you did get lucid. You are forgetting to do RCs now for the simple reason that you have managed to discourage yourself even though you have absolutely no reason to be discouraged. Be proud that you got Lucid, and next time don't say a word or do anything when you first get Lucid, and instead take a moment to take in the situation; ground yourself in your lucid dream. Feel the breeze if there is one (or heat or cold, or whatever the situation is), listen to all the sounds around you, look at your scene carefully, trying to see every detail, smell the air and the subtle scents it carries (or not so subtle, whatever is in your dream), taste the air (almost the same as smelling really, just breathe in and see hoe it feels). Though I haven't had much more control than you had yet as I haven't been able to keep up a streak of LDs (which makes it a lot easier to improve), I have heard of this technique working wonders in terms of grounding you in the dream, and helping you stabilize so you don't FA or lose Lucidity.