Just wanted to join and discover other journeys and share mine as time goes by. I’ve been journaling for a few months and have a decent collection to start looking for dream signs. One thing that I’m noticing on reflecting on the dreams is that there are usually obvious absurd situations yet in my dreams (so far) I continue along as if it’s normal. I’m hopeful that the process of journaling and examining will bring awareness to these so that I can become Lucid but so far that has eluded me.
Welcome to the forum! Hope you find helpful information on here and we look forward to hearing about your experience if you choose to share!
I think this is a quite common frustration or observation, even for experienced lucid dreamers.
Thinking in waking life follows through in dreams. If you go through your daily life without questioning your experience and actually acknowledging the real possibility that you could be dreaming at any time, you’re much less likely to consider it in a dream, no matter how absurd.
It may seem a bit extreme to sacrifice the idea that you can be certain that you’re experiencing waking life, but doing so is likely to benefit your dream reasoning.
You’re already on the right path by identifying dream signs. They can help cue you in to question reality (and do a reality check) but only if you let them trigger reality checks regardless of if you think you’re dreaming or not.
You may already be aware of what I’ve suggested here, and if so, stay on course and give it time to sink in. It will eventually follow through in your dreams.
That is to say, continuing as normal in these absurd dreams will become questioning reality if you make that your normal.
I think you’re on a good way, based on what you have reported in your initial post. Make sure you keep a journaling habit throughout. Dream recall is the very base upon which you can build lucid dreams. Because LDs are almost nothing if you don’t remember having them.
That said looking for dream signs and patterns is the next step, as pointed out by Splash. If you found them, look how you can utilize them. If they are related to your daily life, make sure you develop heightened awareness during such situations while awake (actually it’s helpful In general to be more aware of the here and now during waking life in general). If they are not really appearing in real life but only in dreams, like riding a spaceship for example, you can still utilize the dream sign by building up your intent along the lines of „the next time I am near a spaceship I will do an RC and question the situation“. Pretty much how MILD works at its core, in case you are familiar with that technique in theory already.
It is also helpful to engage more in dreams and lucid dreams in general during your daily life. For example you can read a few minutes on this forum every day, maybe before going to sleep or during WBTB. Or you could watch some related YouTube Videos. Or listen to Podcasts. Or spend some time investigating which very individual notebook and pen you want to use for journaling. Or….
My advise is to not overdo it though. Just a little bit every day consistently will sink in better in the long run and avoid losing motivation after sprints of activity. So the final and ultimate tip I can give to anyone beginning with lucid dreaming is simply: Have fun!
Thank you both for the advice. I am prepared for this to be a process and that it may or may not take awhile but I am committed to sticking with it. I’ve started adding reality checks to the normal day activities as well.
It seems like, so far anyway, that most of my dreams come after the bulk of sleep and after the first snooze on the alarm clock I think at some point this might be an opportunity for one of the induction methods but for now I’m just journaling and adding reality checks. (WBTB seems appropriate for the snooze cycle)
I just hit 12 dreams in the journal so today I’ll go through and really look for recurring signs.
Wanted to post an update - no lucid dreams yet BUT I had a dream where a dream figure was asking about some topics that could be addressed potentially with Lucid dreaming and then I started explaining the process of lucid dreaming to the dream figure.
That’s a great sign! Many people who invest into lucid dreaming have these kind of dreams. It definitely means you’re getting closer. The next step is to make sure you question reality whenever you’re doing something related to dreams. For example when reading this post!
I think at some point this might be an opportunity for one of the induction methods but for now I’m just journaling and adding reality checks. (WBTB seems appropriate for the snooze cycle)