First, i’ll admit I haven’t reviewed all the resources here yet. I didn’t even know what I wanted to ask was call lucid dreaming until 5 minutes ago. I was just talking about dreams the other day, googled it, and here I am. Any way…
Until recently, as long as I can remember, I could control my dreams. I knew I was in a dream. If they got scary, I could fly away. In fact, I flew A LOT, regardless. If things got ‘sexy’, I knew it was a dream and some interesting situations were created. I couldn’t control the start but I could go from there.
In the past year, I realized I’ve lost it. Completely. I never fly, I don’t know i’m dreaming, and I’ve even stopped some actions saying things (in dream) like “sorry i’m married”, etc.
Is this common? Are there typical events or stress, etc that cause it? I’m not necessarily trying to get it back, I just didn’t realize it wasn’t ‘normal’ until I lost it and now i’m curious what happened.
Thanks,
Did anyone that is close to you died?
Did you started smoking, drinking or taking drugs?
Did you change your diet in any way?
Did you change your job (or did it become more ‘working-memory’ consuming or stressful)?
Did you move?
Did you change position of your bed?
Did you change the room your sleeping in any way (meaning you paint the walls, changed the lights, started closing/opening the windows during night)?
Did you started taking any medications?
Have you’ve been noticing less details in reality than before?
There are number of other things that cause to stop having lucid dreams. Think about what has changed since then and try to get it the way it was before. It should help because your a natural. If it doesn’t work, start mastering LD induction techniques.
For most of the questions, no. I don’t exactly remember when things changed. It just occurred to me one day. But, a few years ago we had another child who had/has several medical issues. That caused money and marriage stress, probably increased drinking so life has definitely changed. It just seems like there is always work related stress, etc that has always been there so i’m not sure it’s really that different. Just another layer added. Recently, everything’s been much better but I realized the dreams (or lucid aspect) haven’t come back. Do some have to re-learn what happened naturally before? I’ll definitely look at the links here and see how to help induce it. Unfortunately I can’t really change some of it back to how it was before. Still wrapping my head around it’s something that can be learned/tried. It just ‘was’ before.This is an interesting site/forum. Thanks.
Alcochol kills lucid dreams. And dreams that aren’t lucid at all. This is because you sleep more deeply when you go drunk (or dazed) in bed, so you don’t have that much awareness. That mixed with stress (child’s medical issues and work) is perfect for loosing any kind of dreams.
I think, what happened here is that your mind and your body got use to the unaware state during the night. You could start by writing a DJ (get your mouse over inicials like this to see the meaning), and using MILD technique, and WILD later on.
The important thing is to make it all suitable and effective for you. So experiment with techniques.
You could firstly read through this
Then, this.
And this.
If you have any problems, you could join the LD4all IRC (chat). Click here.
Thanks. makes sense. i’ll check out the links and see what happens. One more question. might seem strange. Is there any connection with dreams, lucid dreams, and grinding teeth while sleeping? I’ve always had a problem grinding teeth. I’ve never looked for reasons… my son does too so I figure it’s genetic. A few years ago I finally decided to do something and got a guard. I stopped using it after a couple weeks but make an effort before bed to think about not grinding and relaxing my jaw. It worked. Probably not perfect but enough to keep the wife happy. I was thinking about ‘what changed’ and remembered that so I figured I’d mention it. Thanks,
Well, I think it does not relate to lucid dreaming at all. Maybe grinding your teeth can even lower the possibility to have a lucid dream. But again, I always say that anything that relates to dreaming differs from person to person.
You could read this article. Sorry for throwing bunch of articles in front of you, but I think thoes could help a lot.
Im in the same boat, ive lost it. I dont feel the enjoyment that much like before, i dont fly anymore, its like i dont care about LD anymore. I think i have to eat healthier.
In fact, I believe alcohol actually reduces REM sleep.
But I agree with what Beat Doctor said. One more thing is, perhaps over the years, together with the stress, job, etc. it just faded away because you didn’t give it “enough” attention? I say this without knowing, of course 
but since you didn’t know what lucid dreaming was, and didn’t even know that your dreams were different than most people’s normal dreams… well, what I mean is, for us that haven’t had LD’s naturally since childhood, if we stop putting effort and attention on our dreams they tend to fade away. Like any skill, really.
Hmm, don’t know if any of that makes sense But I’m sure with just a little effort you’ll get it back. You know very well what it feels like to be in a dream so it should be easy.