TheWatcher
Is this thing on?

Morning 4:
This morning I decided to give it another go. My wife was getting up early to go to work so I figured that would be a good time to try again to see if I get better results while in bed alone. She got up about 5:30am so I took the 2 pills of Lucid Dreamer and 1 pill of L-Theanine. I laid in bed sorta snoozing until she left around 6:00am. I am successfully keeping calm-ish instead of being too excited like usual. Falling asleep actually takes a long time still, even though I feel relaxed and calm. The dog jumps up on the bed but is pretty quiet so I let her stay. I put in ear-plugs to block out the jets and the traffic of the morning. They are uncomfortable (I need to buy different ones) so I end up taking them out. I kind of roll around and snooze a bit but no actual sleep until 7am....

Before, while I'm attempting to go to sleep, about an hour into it (6:30am) I am messing around with shifting my awareness, as mentioned in this book: Amazon.com: Astral Projection And the Nature of Reality: Exploring the Out-of-body State (9781571744470): John Magnus: Books. It is actually working pretty good and is helping me remove focus away from my breathing and my body. I kind of make my awareness wander around the house, which I think was pretty easy due to the pills being at their peak.

At some point I do fall asleep and dream about having to blow up some mountain. It's all kinda fuzzy like my dreams are normally, but then I kind of stop and look at this mountain. I notice that it looks familiar and realize I'm laying down and looking at this mountain (which is more like a hill with a steep face). The hill had a couple buildings on top, sort of like an observatory but I don't recognize them as that in the dream. I start scanning the hill with my vision from right to left. As I look towards the left, the hill keeps going further than it was supposed to and I see a lone oak tree at the top. I try to focus on the tree, much like mentioned in "The Art of Dreaming" (at least that's what I was thinking). As I'm scanning the hill from right to left, everything starts coming into focus. As I look at the tree, I get the feeling that I want to fly towards it or teleport to it, but as I'm thinking that, the whole seen get's super vivid and in-focus. As I mentioned, my head is laying down so as I'm looking at this tree, it all fades away and I wake up. That was maybe at an 8 for vividness, which is pretty awesome compared to normal.

I look at the clock and it's almost 7. I roll over and try to get back to sleep for another hour before having to wake up for work. Now starts the sleep paralysis, finally! It happens almost exactly as last time, loud noise and colors in front of my eyes. Same thing happens, it sorta slows down but then I force it ahead so it gets more intense. Then it stops and I start trying to get up. (Side-tangent note: my dad mentioned to me last week that he doesn't really feel anything in the house except in my back guest bedroom. Nothing negative but something none the less. This is in my mind as something to investigate next time I am able to "get up") As a means to combat the SP fear, since my wife isn't there, I'm not sure what I will see, so I start picturing myself as Neo from The Matrix. So when I get up, I sort of lift myself up and roll over the dog off the side of the bed. It's getting light outside so my room is actually light and I can see, which is different than the last couple times I was in SP. I have a samurai sword in my hand, so I am not affraid. I don't see or hear anything in my room, so I go to investigate the other room. When I get in the other room, it looks kind of like my bed is in there but with a lot of crap piled around (this is more of a storage room anyway so there is crap, but there is more of it now). The room is a lot lighter than my room so I can see better. I don't see anything bad but for some reason I just start hacking stuff up with my sword (whatever was there is probably scared or pissed off now, great!). I see on the bedspread that there is dust and debris from the stuff I hacked up. As I look at it, I am able to focus on it and the whole scene suddenly becomes really vivid. Then it fades and I am back in bed.

I don't think that was the first time I got up but that is by far the one that sticks out. I think I walked around the house a bit before that one but don't remember the details. Anyway, after that I thought I woke up but it was a false-awakening. I get up again but don't remember what I did, I think I went into the room again. Then I was back in bed again. I opened my eyes and looked at my dog because it felt like she was shaking a little bit. As I looked at her, I noticed she was facing a different way, and she wasn't shaking but the whole room was, pretty violently. I thought I was awake and there was an earthquake (I like in California, so it could've been), but I close my eyes and it subsides and I have another false-awakening. As I was laying there about to "get up" again, suddenly I felt and heard someone directly behind me. It made me jump and suddenly I was paralysed and panicking again. It wasn't as bad as last time, I was actually trying to "get up" in the dream so I could face whatever it was, the problem being that I couldn't move and this person was talking directly behind my ear. Same thing happened as last time and all I could do is grunt and then finally woke up.

I kicked myself because once again, I felt like my subconscious was messing with me in the guise of my wife, because it was her voice that I heard. And I realized that after I woke up, she was literally saying "Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah." as if she was telling me something but it was all in "blah-blah". I laid there laughing and a little frustrated, thinking that my subconscious is really trying to hold me back.

I feel like I am making progress but wish I could do this without the pills. At least the pills are helping me to get used to the sensations and do a little exploring in the meantime while I work on the non-drug induced WILD's.

Morning 3:
My wife decided that she would rather just dream naturally and doesn't want to take the pills with me. That's cool, she has one of those minds that won't shutup so she enjoys her restful sleep.

For me, the excitement has been a real problem so I decided to get some L-Theanine as recommended on the DreamViews forums. I bought the 200mg pills from Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Source-Natural.../dp/B004K5CNUQ. I also decided to buy Piracetam to help get rid of the Galantamine from my system - http://www.amazon.com/Piracetam-800-...7069512&sr=1-2. Once these arrived I decided to give it a go.

I believe this was another Sunday (this was a couple weeks back). I woke up around 5:00am and took 2 Lucid Dreamer pills for 8mg Galantamine and 400mg Choline and took 1 pill of the L-Theanine. I still found difficulty going to sleep. I had no trouble relaxing but I started to worry about sleep paralysis and what if something scary happens. I usually have no fear of this but this time it was troubling me. Unfortunately this kinda set things back a bit, so it still took me about an hour and a half to go to sleep. However, this time I was able to do the normal WILD technique where you actually feel yourself go into sleep paralysis. This was my goal for a long time so this was pretty awesome. I heard rushing noises in my ears and saw a lot of the colors in front of my eyes (like you see when you shut your eyes too tight). It was weird because I recognized I was going into SP and when I did it let up, but then I thought harder about it and it seemed to bring it on instead of go away, which was my goal. I finally get through that and try to get up and check out my room...

I hear my wife again but it sounds like she got a text message and says: "ZNF is dead" (no idea who or what that is referring to, I think it's just random) and get's out of bed and leaves the room. When she is gone. I decide to try to move and see if I am really asleep. I try to roll over but instead start sliding across the bed - I can feel the fabric moving under my hand. I go a lot further than the edge of our bed but am still sliding. I come to a stop and decide to try the technique where you roll out of bed. I kind of tumble over the foot of the bed for some reason, the tumbling seems to be slow, as if I'm in low-gravity. Everything is really dark though but as I'm slowly tumbling off the edge of the bed, I decide to look at my hands. I do so and see them but it's too dark to really see much. As I'm tumbling, my wife comes back in the room crying and lays back down. This startles me and I realize I'm still laying in the position I did when I fell asleep. I'm trying desperately to roll over to see if she is ok but I can't move. Even though I know I'm in SP, I'm trying to wake up to help/save my wife. I hear her crying and I'm still trying to move; I try to yell but can't make any noise except a short grunt. I finally remember the trick to breath sharply out of your nose (I think that's what it was), I do this twice and I finally can move. As soon as I am actually awake, I sit up and hear my wife snoring. As soon as I realize everything is fine, I am flabbergasted and annoyed that I ended it all so quick to wake up and didn't realize it was just the normal SP "demons". (Funny that my wife seems to be a recurring theme to my SP obstacles.) After that I take a bit to go to sleep but it's been too long since I took the pills to notice much. I go back to sleep but only have normal dreams after that.

I'm beginning to think that I might need to go sleep in the other room when I am attempting to dream with the pills so that the snoring and stuff don't affect my attempt.

Morning 2:
After talking to my wife about what I experienced the first go-round, she wants to try it with me next time. She's a little nervous about it so I decide we should just take one pill for 4mg Galantamine and 200mg Choline. We do it on a Sunday so we have time in the morning to do it. I wake up at around 5am for the WBTB and we take one pill each. It still takes me a while to fall asleep but since I only took one pill, things don't seem to be as crazy as last time. I eventually go to sleep but don't really have any drastic changes to my dreaming (at least not that I remember at this point). My wife reports that it took her awhile to go back to sleep and I believe she had a vivid dream but I don't remember.

As you can tell, this wasn't much of a success.

Background:
I have always been interested in dreaming because my dreams are usually a fun adventure all on their own. So my thought was that, wouldn't it be even better if I could gain some control over them? Over the past 10 years I have had it in the back of my mind and maybe had one or two experiences where I realized I was dreaming and immediately woke up. Otherwise not much success but I didn't really put much effort into it.

I decided to take it a bit more seriously over the past couple of years and have been trolling the DreamViews forums looking for any and all advice that I might be able to put to use to help get more control over my dreaming. Over the course of this time, I had only one time that I remember where I actually had lucid dream-like dreams or happenings. First time was an accidental WBTB where I suddenly was aware that I was dreaming even though everything was black. I knew to look at my hands so I did so and they looked like they were made up of small shimmering points of light in the shape of my hands and forearms. I decided to try to spin to see if I could change to an actual dream scene but only succeeded in spnning around in the bed so my head was where my feet were. I looked down at my feet at the head of the bed, but then woke up realizing I had a false-awakening. That was pretty cool but really was the only time I had any success.

On DreamViews I came across the discussion about supplements. I started with trying out B6, not much luck other than making it difficult to go to sleep. Then I came across the Galantamine/Choline combo. Sounded pretty interesting so I thought I would give it a try. (purchased Lucid Dreamer from Advanced Dream Nutrition: Dreamamins With Galantamine)

Morning 1:
First time taking it. I am normally super excited when I try to do anything lucid dreaming related so naturally it's always difficult to actually fall asleep (normally I have no problem sleeping and sleep quite well). Over the past couple weeks I have been waking up consistently at 4am to go to the bathroom so I thought this would be perfect for a WBTB. I had work in the morning but I figured it would give me enough time to check it out before having to get up around 7am. So I take two pills for a total of 8mg Galantamine and 400mg Choline and get back in bed. I'm excited so I lay there for awhile. Look at the clock, 4:30. Lay there longer, still excited, 5:00. Supposedly Galantamine peeks after an hour so I'm even more excited, still awake... 5:30. Since it has peeked, my normal day-dreams are starting to feel more like my normal dreams, more realistic and sort of take on a life of their own. No sleep paralysis that I am aware of (which has been my goal for a while, a WILD). Finally go to sleep around 6...

I have a series of dreams that are like my normal dreams (sort of hazy but involved). However, I am aware that I am dreaming but kind of in a hazy way. The first dream I am in some parking garage but I am aware. The second dream I am in a Wal-mart when suddenly everything slams into focus and I am completely aware. I decide to fly out through the roof. I break through the roof and there's sparks and electricity and it's all pretty vivid. But then I move on to the next one. Another hazy one but I'm aware so have sex with whoever was nearest. I think a couple more like that. Then the false awakenings start...

I sleep next to my wife who snores a bit. Normally it has zero impact on my sleeping. During the false awakenings though, it enters into it. I keep sitting up in bed and looking over at my wife. The first couple times she's laying down but is talking to me. The only way I know it's a FA is because I hear her snore. Then she is sitting up and talking to me, looking at me with a crooked smile. I realize she's not up when I hear her snore. Then she tells me someone is in the bathroom. I go in there and see a little girl sitting on the toilet. Since I'm still in rapist mode from my previous dreams, I try to have sex with her. I hear a snore and I'm actually back in bed. I'm laying there and hear my wife talking to me a couple more times but I don't look over. In between sentences I hear her snore. This is a really strange feeling. Then I wake up fully and am done dreaming. I get up and go to work, feeling a bit groggy/dazed from this whole experience. But I also feel good from actually making some progress after so long.

*Note on the FA's: since I've been doing a lot of research on WILDs, the sleep paralysis part has been slightly intimidating. I've always wondered what I will experience - old woman mumbling; demon at the foot of the bed; earthquake, etc. But it seems that what I experience is my wife, which is actually pretty cool.