Dream memories blocking LD?

Quest for Lucidity
1

Hm. I’m still not sure why I can’t LD. It seems no amount of mantras or relaxation or will power helps either trying to remember dreams or to LD. Kinda getting really annoying…
Anyway, I kinda came up with a weird theory. Dream me seems to have major troubles discerning memories. Example:

The other night I had a dream and somewhere in the dream I was asked to go with a head priest (one I know irl) and uncle (a deacon of the same church, and technically the priests brother in law) to do something. I follow them, then my uncle has to do something so goes off to do said thing. And I’m really nervous standing here alone with the priest. Then the priest wants me to follow him something (now you’re thinking, oh yeah it’s a priest, trust him). So then I’m about to and a car pulls up on the side with a man in it. And dream me realizes that this has happened before, and remembers that if I were to go with the priest, the man would follow, and then I -know- bad things would happen (well, I couldn’t quiet remember what but I knew it was rather bad). And so, dream me starts retaliating at the priest and just want to get as far away from him as possible. I even said something like I would make it so I would never be allowed in a house of god again. And he said something like he runs the house of god, and would be able to make it so that would never happen. After finally getting away, I try and force myself to wake (for some odd reason, dream me actually knows that when something bad happens, she needs to wake) and eventually wake.

It was only after the dream that I realised both the memory and what had happened were -both- dreams. And while I never really liked the high priest irl to begin with, I kinda hate him more now. But see what I mean? Dream Me has really weird memory issues. She always seems to remember something triggered by a daja vu moment, but it’s something that happened in a previous dream. But not only that, but she has all my real memories, as well. Meaning if someone familiar turns up in my dream (as in this one) she knows who they are and how I feel about them. So when I wake, I have to discern which parts were memories from real me and which from dream me. Not only that, but I’m starting to wonder how dream me knows to wake. I mean, anytime Dream Me is in some life threatening danger, she always knows she can wake but for some reason I can’t lucid dream. And I’m getting the feeling that the problem with my memories in dreams is the reason I can’t lucid dream. Because, while I’m aware of the fact I can awake, it’s more like “Need to wake, need to get out of here” as if I was walking through a solid wall or something, not as if I was going back to the real world or something.

I dunno. Just posting my theory. Any ideas? I still can’t improve remembering, and nothing on LDing yet. Neither from WILD nor MILD. >_> I have fail issues.

2

It’s frustrating when that happens, but I could never figure out how to untangle it. Sorry. Maybe you’ll just get a straightforward dream sometime, or even get spontaneous lucidity that just wriggles through the memory-maze-- it can happen! :content:

3

It’s actually a pretty common occurance, which is why false memories are so darn tricky. While in the dream its feels like it’s actually happened before, but in RL you can clearly tell the difference. As for the awakening, that’s more of your SC trying to find a way out of a threatening situation. It’s why a lot of people will wake up from particularly frightening nightmares when they actually fear for their life. You can use this to your advantage, but it will take some practice. It’s all about setting the intent to remember this specific dream sign.

4

Hm. Though, I don’t get the feeling I can wake in my nightmares. I do end up waking when something happens that I’ll end up feeling when I wake. (once, I got my neck cut off and woke feeling like a deep blade had been against my neck)
It’s only been in this weird bout of “bad” dreams. o.o

5

You are the dream-you.

Do you keep a dream diary? Write this stuff down, even when it’s tangled up with your ‘waking’ memories. When you have better dream recall, it’ll become easier to indentify which memory belongs where.

And dont’t feel like your’e failing. Going from nothing to LD’ing is a big step, a goal that is too high. Make a goal for yourself, like remembering 1 dream every night. Set a date when you want to have accomplished this: november 1, for instance. Then raise your goal to 2 dreams and so on.

Make little goals, little steps. And be proud of your accomplishments.

6

yeah, stop saying you are failing and that you can’t LD. One thing I found can really help is, as dutchthor said, be proud of every success. If you wake up and remember a dream that was more vivid than normal just be happy about that! focus on all the positives, even the tiny ones, and they’ll grow a lot. As you may know, confidence is really important to lucid dream, so that will help. There is no such thing as failing.

I have that memory problem sometimes too. Even in LD’s I’ve had it :lol: Once in a LD I looked at a book in my room and thought “oh, that book” but only after I woke up I realized I’ve never seen it before!

Maybe you can also try to face situations IWL diferently (not that I know how you face them :tongue:) In moments when you get afraid and tend to run away from it (public speaking, job interview, spiders? anything…) try to be more active, try to at least stop and think. See if you can do something else about it. Maybe that attitude will change in the dream too, instead of waking up you’re “unconscious dream you” will remember that you can get lucid and face it head on… (Just a crazy idea xD)

Anyway, don’t worry too much about finding A reason why you aren’t having a LD. Just don’t give up and you’ll, even if slowly and in subtle ways, experience what you need to experience to go forward. :smile: