LukeSid
Member

Because I started trying to lucid dream late in life it took prodigious effort to achieve the relatively few LD’s I have so far managed…and I’m struggling to get back on it. Although I haven’t got Alzheimers there’s a definite deterioration in my lower mental functions.

But still I’m trying. Why?

Because LD’ing triggered an interest (directly and indirectly) in Buddhism, meditation, NDE (Near Death Experience) and reincarnation.

Why?

Because I’m increasingly convinced there’s a form of afterlife. Not the religious meeting with a (male?) God and somehow ascending to heaven…although there’s a whole raft of professing religious people who wouldn’t have a chance in hell of getting there.

I think the Buddhists may be nearer to the answer. Why?

Because of DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine)…an amazingly potent pyschedelic apparently.


Britain’s NHS and Imperial College London found a link between DMT and NDE.

One link I’ve found between LD, NDE and the Buddhist Book of the Dead, us lucid dreamers know only too well.

Forgetting the dream or not realising we are dreaming. DMT users say the same thing. Dead practicing Buddhists have to be read to after death else they don’t notice the all important dawning of the radiant light that occurs and gives them the chance to achieve Nivarna.

Why?

Like us there needs to be increased awareness in sleep, trip or death…or the chance is missed.

It’s all linked folks

PS What do American Indians call death? Dream time.

It’s been a while...and nothing much has happened. I’ve had 2 years of angst with moving home and breathing issues and currently the dreams have gone.

But I met a guy today, a handyman of mixed race and we got talking and he’s got me motivated again. He’s basically interested in LD, meditation etc but he’s young and a family man and that will hold him back a bit. (oldies like me have all the time that nature has left us)

So I’ll hopefully pick up the threads again. I know some neurons are still on standby because a few muttered mantras still get a slight response.
I’m supposed to be book writing again but I’m time-wasting on Minecraft at the moment so I need to balance between LD, writing, games and life itself...we’ll have to see what happens won't we...

From writing a story where I dragged in a loose connection to lucid dreaming (about which I then knew zilch) to spending, considering my age, a lot of energy learning about (and self- conditioning for) lucid dreams, I finally achieved my first one in September 2013.

Looking through the childlike scrawl of my journals it's clear that my dreams in the first 2 years were longer, more substantial, and far more vivid (and I was often close to more potential LD's than the dozen or so I've actually achieved.) I can see from my entries that I monitored my eating habits, the moon cycles, approximate times, and any other data I thought might be useful.

Nowadays, dream recall is thin, the dreams are weird and lacking punch and Ld's are even rarer than in the early times. So, have I got too old to dream? (if you'll pardon the musical pun) Personally, I don't think so.

My brain is generally good. I have problems recalling names on quizzes (but I've always been like that to a certain degree) But I'm still red hot on general knowledge (except sport, don't ask me about sport) I definitely eat the right things, plenty of fruit, chick peas, shellfish, loads of the right veg, etc etc. Supplements like melatonin, choline, B6 have never worked for me. I've taken choline before retiring, then topped-up with a melatonin tab before WBTB and slept for 8 hours plus and still not even got close to an LD.

I think I could get back to the old days if I worked as hard at it as I did before but I don't want that. I've done it, bought the t shirt, dreamed the dream, wakened in the dream, fell out of the dream, failed to get back into the dream and now I have other priorities. I've branched out into so many side issues and interests, McKenna, Adyashanti, Sam Harris, DMT, psilocybes, meditation, awareness, the brain (and I know that's going to be the tip of the iceberg in years to come.)

I will never abandon all attempts at LD. I'm always looking for shortcuts. I instinctively know that they exist. There's probably a magic combination of set, setting, and helpers. Maybe it's VR. Maybe it's VR plus helpers (I've always felt that intensive game-playing has somehow altered my perception)

Further confirmation last night that you can dream about LD issues without necessarily LDing. I had a dream where I was packing away a bedroll on a campsite and the bedroll disappeared. I explained to my wife that things disappearing was one of my strongest dream signs.

So, on the LD front things can only get better. If they do I'll likely tell you about it here. There may be quite a gap...there may not. If there's a very long gap it may well be that I've died, although you'll never know if I have...unless I find a way...

As per usual nowadays, this all happened at the top of the morning. It cannot be because I only then manage to accrue enough melatonin, because I've taken supplementary melatonin at various points of the night before and merely slept dreamless sleeps.

I'm in a very large office building (DS) and I hear someone talking about office decorations (Christmas?) But I can only see a very large and brightly coloured plastic dildo, on a wall inside one section. (what??!!) I suddenly realise that I'm wearing pyjamas (and my sleeping mask) and think "I'm asleep!"

I move outside the section that I'm in and immediately feel that I'm waking up This time I start to spin but to no avail (usual story lately). I lay there, musing about what had happened, then realise that I'm at my desk explaining to my (DC) fellow employees that I've just had an lucid dream. The penny drops...I'm back asleep...and then I wake up again.

It happens once more, but this time I'm telling my wife (who's asleep in our other bedroom)...and then I'm awake again. If they were all false awakenings, then the plot definitely thickens. Can I really dream that complicated scenario? If it had happened tomorrow I would have pondered on the fact that it is April fools Day and the brain apparently has independently-functioning sections (and maybe there's a joker in the pack)

Aside from that little farce, things have been quiet, with just one recent "sweet spot" in my mediation/sleeping routine. I managed to conjure up a "video" (I can never make out any clear content...maybe it's always just a typical dreamlike jumble.) It was playing very fast and I tried to instruct my brain to slow it down.

Whenever I manage to create the basic "square shape" I merely have to think "a red square" and it instantly in-fills in red. But I could not get the "video" to slow down. Maybe there are 2 separate brain departments "video" and "wire-frame shapes" and the latter one is run by a few simple-minded neurons. Maybe the "video" dept has a bunch of techie-neurons who are far too busy to listen to a noob like me. Just a thought (if you could call it that)

I'm not claiming this as a lucid (I think it would be bad form to do so) Frustrating, but never boring for long, is how I view my current dream/brain/meditation/falling asleep research. IMO we really have to show the brain respect, because there's no guarantee that we are in complete control of it. (if at all)

As I've already said, it's been a disappointing Winter...cold and pretty uninspiring on the dream front, with fairly poor dream-recall, only 2 short lucids and generally drab dreams (some almost unfathomable.)

But on other fronts, it's been interesting. My discovery that I can sometimes meditate/fall asleep and conjure up images and schemas. But, even that comes and goes. I recently watched a Youtube vid of a guy called Koi Fresco (something fishy about him) and he recites "I'm awake" twice every hour.

I've often done the mantra thing, but with me, it's always been "I'm dreaming...it's a dream." So, I decided to try his method. For 4 days I diligently worked though that mantra at least 3 times every hour, aware of every bodily sensation and my surroundings. Nothing so far....zilch.

But, other things crop up. I've noticed an improvement in dream recall if I WBTB after watching one of David Eagleman's brain documentaries (it gets me thinking about the function of the brain maybe). But, more interestingly, on 2 occasions (one was just now) I've laid down for a while and maybe, when I start to drift, a vivid image starts to form.

It's always green (that's my preferred location, a meadow or a wood) I get the "rush" and my heart rate speeds up (I can control that...always been able to) but I find breathing difficult and I have to breath deeply and that's distracting. But again I managed to hold the image for quite a while before it gradually died away.

Of course, I need such an experience after a few hours sleep and a WBTB (so we're all told) and I'm alert and thinking so I had to get up and write this to get it out of my system. Then I'm back to bed (with maybe some melatonin...if it only helps me off to sleep that's something.)

Still trying.