Work is stopping me from being lucid

[Washwaver]

Hello dreamers, This post is more of a scream for help so let me get it started. I started working intensively a month ago and since i work 15 hours a day i lose A TON of sleep, i mostly can get 7 to 7:30 hours of sleep and dream recall worsened. On my free days on the other hand I have all the time in the world but recently they've been a rare ocasion. But there's a pattern in my dreams that I noticed and most of the time i'm dreaming of working and being at work (70%) so im asking you if there is any way to exploit that, im doing my reality checks in work and im meditating before and after sleep, dream journaling has been a little meh but recall is still there. WBTB seems like a scuicide with my 7 hours of sleep WILD im not experienced enough MILD thats a good one and im practicing it

[mBULXfhgBBwO]

How I did it back when i was in school was I followed a loose discipline of going to bed when i was sleepy, little to no blue light during the night, and meditation before bed. I'd wake up naturally through out the night (hopefully you do, if not you can use MILD to do this btw) and do a WBTB. For the WBTB i'd just try to keep conscious as my body falls asleep doing a WILD. WILD isn't hard, but it's hard to describe, but if i were to put it into simpler terms, it would just be meditating in bed. You seem to know how to meditate so just try to let go of the concepts of WILD and just do it Also right before school, i'd have spontaneous lucidity, and man when it happened, it really set my day to a new height! but these usually happened at around 6 AM, where i would become lucid via DILD, idk why, perhaps i was in a more natural state of mind. But I digress getting lucid this way was EXTREMELY hard, because well, i was a student, and school and social life really did impact my ability to get lucid. I don't know how your schedule works, but the best advice I can possibly give you with this situation is to find time to really devote yourself to inner worlds and inner peace/awareness for lucidity. As when I left school, I was really able to focus on this and my lucidity skyrocketed, and i mean SKYROCKETED. I see lucid dreaming as more of a lifestyle now instead of a mere hobby or fun time. It's just wow.. beautiful. I became a natural lucid dreamer after a while (there isn't a night where im not lucid or semi lucid!) BUT don't loose hope here! As I've said before, it's definitely possible even with your schedule as it was with mine. Really it's the same thing as being alone and finding yourself, but broken up immensely between working, school, social life, ect. ect. It's simply just gonna take a lot longer, it's not impossible, just longer, and maybe this makes it harder? I don't know can't really tell. Just keep working on your inner sanctuary and more and more realizations come and it will lead you to the water you've been searching for so long for. IF you can manage to get a freer schedule for lucidity, great, if not, then it's still as much possible, just different

[Washwaver]

Thank you for your time, definatelly helped me, I will try some new aproaches in the upcomming weeks. As you said its not impossible its just different and I need to find what's the way to go this time. Thank you again.

[Washwaver]

Also thank you for making WILD simpler for me, I can imagine doing it now. I think I will do everything I used to exept that i will try to get my schedule fixed so it doesn't compensate my sleep.

[lenscaper]

Perhaps you can find ways to incorporate more daytime training exercises into your day. I work a 10 or 11 hour day in an office and I spend as much of that time as possible practicing awareness and other types of lucidity developing techniques while I work. This has had a very definite effect on my nighttime lucidity as what happens in the day tends to start to also happen at night. Lucid days definitely lead to lucid nights. DILD seems to be the best overall approach for folks like us for whom sleep time is at a premium.

[Sageous]

Well, Washwaver, you can always quit your job! Just kidding, of course, though I must admit that I was in the same boat for about a decade, and did come to a point where I had to choose between taking the next step in my dream work and my job... and I did indeed quit my job! But that was me, and I was looking at advancing my work, not just maintaining it, so I got two things for you: First, in my mind about 90% of successful LDing lies not in actually trying to have them, but in putting your mind in the sort of state that makes them come easily -- building a lucid mindset. Building that mindset is something you can do all day during waking-life, regardless of how busy you might be. Sure, a demanding job can make it harder to do RC's, stay focused on your presence in reality, or entertaining thoughts about dreaming (i.e., anything from imagining your surroundings to be a dream to planning your next LD to having fantasies about where LD'ing will take you), etc., but with a little practice and a lot of discipline you can keep LD'ing a priority during waking-life, and that priority might just be enough to build a lucid mindset that will bring on the lucids even during the shortest of sleep cycles (for instance, my best nights' sleep during my "heavy work" era were about 5 hrs per night, and I was lucid regularly). It seems as though you're already on this path, but try not to let work devour your grip on a lucid mindset. Second, as Lenscaper mentioned, DILD might be the transition for you. Though I think 7 hrs' sleep is plenty for doing a WILD, what surrounds that sleep (i.e., a hard day's work, the need to get up early for the next day, anticipation of the next day's tasks) may well be too distracting to ever welcome a WBTB with focus and positive feelings. Instead, save your WBTB/WILD's for the weekend, and instead work on inducing DILD's during the week instead, with -- as you already noted -- MILD being the go-to technique, since it's built for folks who often dream of specific things, like work. This way you will be helping yourself both by maintaining a lucid mindset during a period of your life when LD'ing is impractical while also developing new opportunities to insert, through DILD, LD's into your busy lifestyle. So I guess the tl;dr here is simple: Keep up your daywork, which in my mind should be the priority anyway, and move to practicing DILD transitions, with MILD as your technique. Save the WILD's for the weekend. 15 hour days aren't forever, but lucidity can be!

[lenscaper]

15 hour days aren't forever, but lucidity can be!

[Sivason]

Well, Washwaver, you can always quit your job! Just kidding, of course, though I must admit that I was in the same boat for about a decade, and did come to a point where I had to choose between taking the next step in my dream work and my job... and I did indeed quit my job! But that was me, and I was looking at advancing my work, not just maintaining it, so I got two things for you: First, in my mind about 90% of successful LDing lies not in actually trying to have them, but in putting your mind in the sort of state that makes them come easily -- building a lucid mindset. Building that mindset is something you can do all day during waking-life, regardless of how busy you might be. Sure, a demanding job can make it harder to do RC's, stay focused on your presence in reality, or entertaining thoughts about dreaming (i.e., anything from imagining your surroundings to be a dream to planning your next LD to having fantasies about where LD'ing will take you), etc., but with a little practice and a lot of discipline you can keep LD'ing a priority during waking-life, and that priority might just be enough to build a lucid mindset that will bring on the lucids even during the shortest of sleep cycles (for instance, my best nights' sleep during my "heavy work" era were about 5 hrs per night, and I was lucid regularly). It seems as though you're already on this path, but try not to let work devour your grip on a lucid mindset. Second, as Lenscaper mentioned, DILD might be the transition for you. Though I think 7 hrs' sleep is plenty for doing a WILD, what surrounds that sleep (i.e., a hard day's work, the need to get up early for the next day, anticipation of the next day's tasks) may well be too distracting to ever welcome a WBTB with focus and positive feelings. Instead, save your WBTB/WILD's for the weekend, and instead work on inducing DILD's during the week instead, with -- as you already noted -- MILD being the go-to technique, since it's built for folks who often dream of specific things, like work. This way you will be helping yourself both by maintaining a lucid mindset during a period of your life when LD'ing is impractical while also developing new opportunities to insert, through DILD, LD's into your busy lifestyle. So I guess the tl;dr here is simple: Keep up your daywork, which in my mind should be the priority anyway, and move to practicing DILD transitions, with MILD as your technique. Save the WILD's for the weekend. 15 hour days aren't forever, but lucidity can be! Let me see. In my learned opinion what you should do is, wait, look at that, Sageous nailed it and anything I say should just be really honestly think about his post. Hi Sageous! Good to see you are taking the time to help people. You are pretty awesome. Lenscaper, you are fairly new. Welcome to the family! Pay attention to Sageous.

[Washwaver]

Yup he couldn't've said it better. Actually because of his reply I started getting closer and closer (and well, I have more free time this week and less work) . As someone here said "Lucid days lead to lucid nights" And after I had my most aware day at work it immediately translated into my dream world and i had a layer 0 lucid dream!! And actually being in the same envoirement for 15 hours can make it easy to start noticing the monotony and easly staying awere of it. "15 hours aint forever... ...but lucidity can be!"

[Washwaver]

I am thankful for all the replys, goodnight and lucid dreams to you all

[Washwaver]

Any tips to improve dream recall while having less sleep, Or is it the same as having normal 7:30- 8 hours of sleep (practice it more and it will get better eventually)

[Sivason]

Any tips to improve dream recall while having less sleep, Or is it the same as having normal 7:30- 8 hours of sleep (practice it more and it will get better eventually) For 1 week you must write down one word from a dream. Day 2 it is 2 words until you get to 7 words on day 7. Try to make them key words like Hungry, snowing, Dad, but it is ok if the first time some words are filler. You are not trying to describe the dream, just recall that many key words. After that stick with 7 key words. On days you do not recall much pull words from vague dreams. Do not worry about other recall at this point but get to where recalling 7 key words is easy. Then you will be able to learn more advanced methods.

[Washwaver]

Should i do that only when i sleep less ? Cuz normally i feel like recalling the whole dreams

[Sivason]

Should i do that only when i sleep less ? Cuz normally i feel like recalling the whole dreams You can certainly journal and work any other training at the same time. I find it useful to pick very focused tasks to train your brain. This is just one example. It would be for every day until you have done it for a long while. When it comes natural even during very short sleep cycles, you then try to expand each key word later in the day. Write 7 key words. Think about them for only a few minutes. After you have had breakfast or exercise or bathing you will try to remember why you wrote the key word. It will be hard because you did not write anything else down. Try to get at least one sentence regarding the key word. Example. I wake and write down bark, fire, clover and so on. I go do something to fully enter the waking world. Later I try to remember what I was doing last knight. I think about the words and there is a memory there somewhere. Bark: something about pine trees out in the forest. Fire: Guys standing around camp fire. Clover: My mom's yard on Ruby street. You can do it in any way as long as it is a simple step by step exercise that makes sense. I find this kind of training good for the short sleep cycle. You can try to do your recall after you are at work and write the sentences. At the end of the shift you can write a journal if you want.

[Washwaver]

You can certainly journal and work any other training at the same time. I find it useful to pick very focused tasks to train your brain. This is just one example. It would be for every day until you have done it for a long while. When it comes natural even during very short sleep cycles, you then try to expand each key word later in the day. Write 7 key words. Think about them for only a few minutes. After you have had breakfast or exercise or bathing you will try to remember why you wrote the key word. It will be hard because you did not write anything else down. Try to get at least one sentence regarding the key word. Example. I wake and write down bark, fire, clover and so on. I go do something to fully enter the waking world. Later I try to remember what I was doing last knight. I think about the words and there is a memory there somewhere. Bark: something about pine trees out in the forest. Fire: Guys standing around camp fire. Clover: My mom's yard on Ruby street. You can do it in any way as long as it is a simple step by step exercise that makes sense. I find this kind of training good for the short sleep cycle. You can try to do your recall after you are at work and write the sentences. At the end of the shift you can write a journal if you want. Wow, i can actually implement that while trying to find my proper REM cycles (which im doing atm) so I get an extra benefit while still finding the cycles, also if im extra groggy or late for work i can also practice it. Thank you for the tip. LUCID DREAM IS COMMING SOON, I CAN SMELL IT !

[Sivason]

Wow, i can actually implement that while trying to find my proper REM cycles (which im doing atm) so I get an extra benefit while still finding the cycles, also if im extra groggy or late for work i can also practice it. Thank you for the tip. LUCID DREAM IS COMMING SOON, I CAN SMELL IT ! For me the perfect cycle is after I have slept enough that I am close to done sleeping. For me that is at about 7.5 hours. I wake up enough to use the restroom, and attempt WILD.

[Washwaver]

Yeah for me this is the best time too but its about 6:40-7 hours of sleep