fogelbise
Dream Guide - DVA Teacher

About fogelbise

LD Count:

1090+ sncFeb'13

Biography:

I was able to LD in childhood starting at around 5-7 years old until sometime in my pre-teen years after my father told me about it as a way to fight off nightmare creatures (before asking my father what age he thinks I started, I was guessing I started a little later/older) . I can remember defeating a creature (as my father suggested) in that 1st LD and flying among other things in other LDs, but I stopped paying attention to my dreams at some point. Over the years I got away from recalling dreams, recalling very few, much less LDing. I am currently wondering if I developed a sense of semi-lucidity from those early days because I am almost never fearful in any of my dreams and often seem to have a "I got this" or "no harm can come to me" mindset in many dream scenarios that would be considered dangerous if they were occurring IWL . In February 2013 I started researching how to get back into it. I think researching sleep paralysis around July 2012 after a scary SP experience (1st, and only actual, SP experience) got me back on this track by keeping LDs in the back of my mind until I started researching them 8 months later. I guess I can thank some of the faulty connections between SP and LDing, that I read about back then, for bringing me back to LDing. I also heard about an eye mask for inducing lucid dreams probably over 10 years or so before all of this but it wasn't in my budget at the time but I did start keeping a dream journal before dropping that after a few weeks. The eye mask was probably one of Laberge's previous eye masks.

I naturally wake up to go to the bathroom nightly so in my adult practice I started out by latching on to WBTB paired with SSILD and still do this, sometimes mixing in MILD. I am currently focusing on DILDs through awareness. Most of my focus towards induction attempts have been on the weekend but I am starting to mix in more during the week.

As far as sharing my strategy, this may sound corny but, I think that it comes down to "journeys." There is my journey to understand what is really helping me to lucid dream. There is my journey of relatively steady practice (with some short periods of waning practice but never stopping completely and not really waning for more than a week or so). And then there is my overall journey from childhood to now with a huge decades long gap where I paid almost no attention to dreams at all. Again, I had some LDs as a child and I think that helps me now - not really with induction - but with dream control and knowing that things like flying doesn't have to be hard if you don't believe it to be. That is one advantage of not going into something with any pre-conceived negative notions I guess.

My relatively steady practice has been evolving over the last 3 years but has almost always been towards Sageous' brand of self-awareness work with RCs and RRCs. One thread on this is here: http://www.dreamviews.com/wild/125579-lucid-dreaming-fundamentals-q.html . I think the shift to really understanding that I should really stop and look around in wonder when doing these "check-ins" was one of my first epiphanies. Another was being able to visualize "seeing myself" from various vantages (inspired by Lidybug's Clearlight thread: http://www.dreamviews.com/beyond-dreaming/124884-clear-light-perspective.html ). And more recently a kind of odd stepped-up realization of the fact that "I am he who is aware." If you get a kind of paradigm shift when really looking around in wonder (while perhaps touching your nose so part of you is visible while looking around) it can give you an idea of what I mean. I then honed awareness of "I am he who is aware of the awareness" which is harder to explain.

It seems that some of my favorite LD's start off from the point when I find myself (my dream body) in a calm ocean after the previous dream scene had faded into the void.

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LD count:

My LD count is from my adult practice only (see first paragraph).

LD Count Total at each anniversary + % increase to rate of LDs
2/1/14 @103
2/1/15 @274 +66% rate of LDs by end of year two
2/1/16 @441 -2% temporary plateau through year three
2/1/17 @655 +28% improving LD rate again through year four
2/1/18 @810 -28% slacking, relying on previous work too much
2/1/19 @934 same reason^

I would say I kept up a rather diligent practice until early 2017. The results didn't come easily to me. The results come more easily to me now, but obviously with that significant drop off shown 2/1/18, I still need to keep better practices to get back to my peak levels.

Around my one year anniversary of adult LD practice, 2/1/2014, I was at 103 LD's. I did 66% better for my 2nd year versus my first year in terms of my LD count (bringing the grand total to 274 LD's at 2 year mark @274). Looking at old records it looks like my first adult LD was morning of 2/14/13 or approximately 2 weeks into my adult practice and by 5/8/13 I had 9 LD's logged on one record I found.
2/1/16 3 year anniversary of adult LD practice: adult LD count @441, or 167 LD's for the prior 12 months=about same pace as year 2 with some easing off of the throttle.
3/8/16 @471motivated to pick up the pace after realizing that the last 12 months had no growth in LD frequency and went on to have 30 LD's in the last 37 days.
8/19/16 @561, not averaging 30 in 37 days but definitely continuing a nice uptick from last year's levels. About 200 in the last 12 months and 120 LDs in the last 6.5 months. Challenges: league sports twice a week where I normally don't try to LD the night before a game (simply focus on regular sleep) and I have a harder time LD'ing after my vigorous games, which is most of games...so up to 4 nights a week where it is tougher than usual. I normally get at least 8 hours of sleep though.
10/31/16 @610 Already surpassed LD count of year 3 of adult practice with 3 months still to go. I had stopped using SSILD after about 3 years of using before most of my LD's and switched to MILD because I was enjoying MILD more. The last 3 nights I switched back to SSILD as MILD was getting rote and I have had LD's each of these last 3 nights I used SSILD. Mixing in a little throat chakra for the tactile sense/cycle (the feeling of the air moving through my throat, so not a traditional dream yoga throat chakra meditation).
5/31/17 @717 LD's, averaging higher rate than years 1-3 but lower than year 4 as I find myself in a very busy waking life patch and also admit I am coasting a bit on past residual lucid dreaming work but definitely keeping up some LD practices.

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Additional notes:

Pre-DEILD: https://www.dreamviews.com/dream-control-stabilization/158933-fogelbises-dream-control-stabilization-workbook.html#post2177229 (see post#1 & #9)

**5/31/17 I recently (re)connected some of my favorite lucid dreams to the period in which I was going through some excellent "Open Beta" exercises. I highly recommend the exercises found in days 1-4 at the very least. I had a nice flurry of success a few weeks ago, despite being super busy, by simply revisiting these exercises. You can find the posts and exercises by going to "latest started threads" for this DV member:
http://www.dreamviews.com/members/cvdmehden/

3/28/15 Tried galantamine+choline combo for first time after reaching adult LD#300. Plan to use no more than once a week. Haven't tried 2nd time yet. (as of 4/4/15)

5/29/15 Having great results with the above g+c combo (8mg g via amazon 2x 4mg tabs, relentless improvement brand + 500mg choline bitartrate, nature's way brand) extending my lucid adventures significantly! I don't think the effect would have been the same without first putting in the fundamentals work that I have been over the last 2+ years.

2016: have gotten away from supplements since late 2015 but plan to mix them in every once in a while when the timing feels right but as of yet still haven't.

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Evolution of my in-dream RC's: http://www.dreamviews.com/lucid-experiences/157191-tell-me-about-successful-reality-chechs-youve-done.html#post2160107

Self-Awareness/Mindfulness posts that are currently speaking to me:
https://www.dreamviews.com/wild/125579-lucid-dreaming-fundamentals-q-22.html#post2238059 (*& longer quote in post above the above post)
http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-lucidity/160741-lucidity-internal-external.html#post2193957
http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-techniques/61802-naiyas-dild-wild-secrets.html#post850577
http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-lucidity/160598-mindfulness-lifestyle.html#post2193498

Great succinct MILD explanation:
http://www.dreamviews.com/lucid-experiences/157284-review-dreaming-awakening-2015-stephen-laberge.html#post2160952

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How I perform SSILD:

"My variation with the cycles is to do two breaths focusing on the backs of my eyelids, two breaths focusing on hearing and then two breaths focusing a tactile feeling (I use the pressure that I can feel in my sternum area when laying on my back). This "warm-up" reminds me of how to focus on each of the 3 senses that make up SSILD and takes however long it takes to take 6 total breaths unless I start over due to feeling too sleepy to get the three points of focus correct. Then I combine the 3 senses into each breath. I focus on vision as I start to breathe in. I focus on hearing as I am at the transition from breathing in to breathing out. I focus on feeling as I am breathing out. When I am trying to DILD I will do this for 2-3 minutes and then attempt to fall asleep. Not being able to fall asleep on occasion is when I started experimenting with WILDs, sometimes with my sole intention being just to get to sleep but then when noticing the HH's I would remember various things I read about WILDing and experiment with them. Sometimes I would just fall asleep but more and more I was starting to succeed at WILDs. I found that my SSILD variation helps my WILDs in two ways. The first is that it does seem to create a bit of a trance like state which seems to help keep my mind from getting too active with "the noise" as Sageous says. The other way I feel it helps is like a WILD anchor, it is something to keep my intention in place while helping to create the fine line between just enough consciousness needed to become lucid and not so much consciousness that you stay awake. When trying to WILD I will do more repetitions of the combined cycles in each breath than when trying to DILD, but I may stop for a while especially if HHs occur. I may go back and do the combined cycles a few more breaths depending on if it feels right or if nothing seems to be happening. A few times I gave up, rolled over and only then did I quickly start to transition into a dream."

If you want to see some of the back and forth clarification regarding this style of SSILD that I went through in a member's workbook you can find it by using control-f (find) with the search term "cycle" on the following page:

http://www.dreamviews.com/dild/147639-steph%B4s-dild-workbook-3.html

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Past Life Regression ideas I want to try:
http://www.dreamviews.com/lucid-experiences/163257-past-life.html#post2216516
Thread started by AmicusSomniatus (in case it gets moved)

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My common LD related practices as of 6/14/17:
http://www.dreamviews.com/intro-class/155006-nyxccs-workbook-3.html#post2216841

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Techniques/Dreamsigns/Stacking:

Dream signs that have been the most successful at making me lucid are:
weird sky/stars
deceased father in law
dream only solutions (floating up over a crowd or obstruction)

There are quite a few other dream "signs" that show up more frequently but are not very good at making me lucid.

If there is no awareness, even the best dream signs fail. But my 3 best dream signs above are quite effective at spiking my awareness even when it seems I had very little awareness before I came across one of those 3 dream signs.

You could think of it like collecting crates that you can stack up to look over the wall to lucidity:

(Very rough and maybe very personal estimates)
Daywork ~2 to 3 crates
Wake back to bed +SSILD or MILD ~2 crates
Night work right before first going to sleep ~0.5 to 2 crates
Powerful dream sign ~2 to 3 crates
Galantamine+Choline ~3 crates
Normal dream sign ~0.5 crates
other things like diet, sleep pattern ~0.5 crates
(I believe superior self-awareness would give you all the crates you would need, but I am not there yet, so I can't speak from experience like I can in the above examples. Above, self-awareness is part of my daytime work.)

You might need 4 crates to be able to peer over the wall to lucidity. Update: I realize the day work on self awareness deserves more weight (edited) after starting to run on the fumes of that work after thinking I didn't need it as much.

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Personal Notes
~~!!falling asleep too fast!! Arm up - NEW: release (centers me) and set intention(s) ; I value my dreams and have vivid amazing dreams; dance-keep it going@any fade!! Incubate romance@GA with GF!! FLOW-er; release+little; MILD where? aha dream location!! Face2face, REM simul w/eyes, release:clear view ; +meditate!! ; focus space=beach+senses; (Beach+senses of beach scene I guess? Focus space: is that when focus on breathing becomes the focus on the space in front of me like space between me and wall and then redirecting to Beach kind of like that idea of taking the release technique and adding one or two exciting elements or minor joys to that clear view which feels joyous much like the feeling of realizing you're lucid in a dream.)

~~!! HSOP head, wait4tension+release+sink, awareness-out, pass into dream 1.Before bed mild that I notice dream fade/pre-DEILD focus+wiggle/; diff from poss waking to closed eyelids: glottal then eye clench; RRCIS; 2.wbtb + MILD and/or SSILD and RRCIS; 3.DEILD alarm experiment with time 705am now (after 1 week or so at 700am)~~

From older 6/4/2017 dj:
review/practice based on notes from grassy sea period=self awareness C RRC, add balance with environment awareness, open beta(didn't use tonight but it's offshoot- boldness MILD, weirdness induction used (+ mild and ssild in bed)

~~!!WBTB exercises: How is your awareness flowing from one point to the next? How often throughout the day are you aware of your awareness as well as your position in your surroundings? Centering!

ssild my normal then keep up loosely til sleep; ASMR, boldness/take control, other open beta??-childlike fascination, recognize dream scenarios, weirdness induction, self awareness crrcis , spinning. * Found nice awareness by going straight to: I am he who is aware of the awareness WITH awareness power rods coming down into my head. It's a WTF feeling! (Realize it is almost same feeling after release technique)

After a game, a common way I break through the post game fog is supercharged boldness!

I also have this quick release technique adapted from Chris von der Mehden which is harder to describe. You can try imagining a red square and then let go of the image of that red square and take a moment to notice what that feels like to let go of the image. Repeat until you are familiar with the sensation of letting go. Now very familiar with that feeling, I like to activate that feeling as I let go of my breath after a nice deep breath in. In fact, that may be an easier way for some people to become familiar with the feeling of letting go - by just taking a deep breath and then letting go of the breath. It is great also for becoming instantly aware and "in the moment."

RC tips: https://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-lucidity/164428-fun-rcs-making-reality-checks-fun-activity.html

FA's/Nice example of why it is always good to verify if you are awake in the blue and green text here: https://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/fogelbise/wild-basic-totm-camping-trip-1800s-mixed-modern-51624/

Country Flag:

USA

Location:

'Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.'

Interests:

Rec sports, dreamworld, lucid living & dreaming

Occupation:

Oneironaut

Gender:

Male

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