How much do you think about dreams during the day?

Quest for Lucidity
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Hello! Here again with new questions to ask to help me get a Lucid Dream during this holiday season.

As you know, one of the way to train to have ld is to make reality checks during the day. It is about awareness and try to know if you are in a dream or not. Personally, I think I’m doing just the right amount of reality check (about approximatively 15 per day) without for it feeling less than it should (for me to think like I’m not doing enough and I let my guard down a lot during the day), or too much (I think I already did like 30/40 a day and it ended me so hard I gave up for a few days.)

I am talking about that because I am currently speculating about why I don’t do LD at all this times (the last one I made was in June 2021, and the one before was in February), even with the fact that I am constently training for it and I was doing pretty alright before this February drought (was about 3 in 3 months).

One of my speculation is the fact that I am not that aware in my dreams, even if they are really vivid (wich are the one I noticed the most). I don’t know why, but even though I’m pretty aware when I’m awake, I seem to never be when I’m dreaming. Idk why, but I never get the idea that I’m dreaming while I’m sleeping. So, I asked myself: am I really that aware when I’m awake?
And after analysing my life on this subject, I came to the conclusion that: Yes, I am often aware of my surrounding (by just thinking about dreams, by doing reality check and by checking if my senses are at the same intensity as reality because I never feel like my dreams are reality level precision). But this awareness is completely turned off in specific moments when my brain is completely directed by other things like a wild and funny discussion with friends or when my mind drift off during a long class session… I think it is pretty normal to be like that and I think I would rather think less about dreams during my days, but I feel like this is what is preventing me to LD.

So I want to know about your experience. During the day, do you think often about dreams? How many reality check do you do during the day? Do you think it is right to think a lot about dreams during the day? Or do you think I must chill on this? ^^’

Thanks for reading.

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I suspect this may be key if you’re using DILD methods, you need to be able to have moments of awareness in the middle of things happening. I think for me, I have very few dreams were I’m idling with time to daydream, there’s always something like a task or activity requiring attention.
Therefore, I need to be able to do a RC while doing a task; how did I get here? Why am I doing what I’m doing? Does this situation make sense?

This can be a challenge, since it’s quite easy to get caught up in whatever you’re doing, which is why I, (As a MILDer) often recommend identifying your dream signs and trying to connect those to doing a RC. Much easier to do an RC while holding a bunch of snakes when I have connected in my mind that snakes = dream, opposed to worrying about holding a bunch of snakes. I often say that a good RC is one you remember to do, but a better one is one that’s triggered by a situation or emotion you encounter in your dreams (I also try to do RCs when I’m confused, discontent with my situation, or frustrated).

That being said, I do often have LDs that seem somewhat spontaneous, like there’s no trigger, it just feels like something clicks and I know it’s a dream. Or I end up doing a somewhat passive/habitual RC with no trigger that sparks lucidity.

To better address your question, I am almost always thinking about my dreams when I have time to think (I work part time in a garden and often have thinking time when I’m working), but this is not usually thinking about my dreams in a chore type way of needing awareness and doing RCs or even being lucid.

I think about dreams I’ve had that are meaningful to me. I think about the dream I had last night (lucid or non lucid), and what it might say about my life (interpretation). I think about my dream characters and their perspectives and how that’s a part of me. I think about what I might like to do in my future dreams (intention). I think about what emotional growth and personal reflection I need to explore in my dreams (incubation). I think about how I might tell the stories my dreams tell me (art).

Focusing on my dreams doesn’t feel like a chore. I’m an introspective person and my dreams help me rationalize my WL experience as odd as that may sound. Focusing on my dreams feels like love.

However, I think what you meant for your question is more about the time spent on RCs/lucidity training and techniques:
I don’t really know how many RCs I do during the day, I don’t count. I try to focus on quality over quantity (the situation awareness, as I mentioned). I would say I’m pretty inconsistent across the time span of a week. Over the course of the day I think I tend to do best in the hours closest to dreaming, in the morning or right before bed. I focus on awareness more in that time with lucidity in mind.

I would scale back how much you focus on dreams if that is something that feels like work or if it’s unenjoyable for you. I think making it a chore could be counter productive? If you’re burned out take a break for a few days! Weeks! Months?
I think a lot of people get stressed about loosing things by taking a break, but your dreams will be there when you want to focus on them. I do think consistency is important for lucid dreaming,
but even if you have to rebuild dream recall and work on awareness again, taking a break can be beneficial to restore your motivation and energy.

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Splash already explains everything very well. So the only thing left for me to do is writing a report about my own situation and lament about the difficulties. I was actually on the verge of opening a similar discussion before.

I have periods when I’m very aware throughout the day and especially at certain peak moments (call them reality checks if you want). And when things get busy sometimes days go by without me really paying any attention. Then when I’m going idle my awareness suddenly rises and full of disappointment I’m asking myself when I really questioned reality the last time. Normally the answer should be at most an hour ago, but sometimes it becomes several days :sigh:

And then there’s the phenomenon that you described:

There are these moments of utter focus on a specific topic that prevents any stimulus from outside dragging your concentration away. It’s like the “zone“ or “flow“, as these are sometimes described. They feel somewhat counter productive to awareness and I’m questioning if we really have to be aware and mindful every day and all the time. If we don’t find a balance then we are not productive and maybe also not creative anymore. I wish to find a way ultimately to bring both into harmony, a synergy of broad awareness and focused concentration. But I’m not sure if it’s cognitively possible.

Because I definitely need the latter. And I need it a lot! I’m a software engineer. So I need to spend a lot of my brain capacity working on very abstract concepts that do not benefit from awareness. On the contrary, it may even be counter productive and make me lose my finely spun thread of thought more easily. In general my brain seems to be much better at dwelling in its virtual world and daydreaming of intangible matters rather than processing the real world around it. In personality types this is called “intuitive“ as opposed to the more RL grounded “observant“ feature.

So where do we go from here? I think trying to be more aware is still a desirable trait in general. How much time do we spend on auto pilot each day or just mindlessly staring at our phones? Too much probably and we better convert at least some of this time into more aware moments in our lives. But I’m convinced that both being very focused and letting your mind wander on its own in diffuse thoughts have their relevance in achieving maximum cognitive and creative performance.

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That’s totally it. Every one of those rare time when I had a LD, it was always at the middle of the events of the dream, by doing involontary RC or by figuring out this is a dream by my own feelings. This is an exercice I am making since some month ago: try to stay aware during moments when it is difficult to stay. I simply try to stare at my hand to see if they are normal, and, more rarely (but to be extra sure when I know I’m not conentrated) put a finger in the middle of my hand to see if it go through.

This is probably one of the main steps to LD I just don’t ever do. Idk why, but all of my dreams are pretty randoms in their story, characters, locations, pov, etc… And I just can’t interpret them and link them to my WL… I’ve read some entry of your journal (mainly the snakes one XD) and it looks really cool, having elements from both WL and DL that link together, but it doesn’t work like that with me. There was some rare time where I was stressed for an exam and I was doing a lot of dreams about school and a specific teacher, the theme and the character was here (even tho everything else was different) and it was pretty recurrent before my actual test… But other than that, I just fill like my imagination is in auto-pilot and do everything on random. It is still entertaining but I didn’t find recurrent themes or elements.

It was essentially that for me. I realised I was dreaming by noticing things like “My senses feels reduced, my vision is blurried” and it instantally sparks into lucidity. Actual RC were more rare.

Do you think it is good to think about things you want to do in your dreams? Every aspects of my dreams are different each night (or each dream if I do many in a single night) and I don’t have like “dream character” development or reflexion, so I don’t have any landmark to refer to. Thinking about my dream goal, or even roleplaying them, like feeling about the sensations I could have or doing some gesture I imagine while doing all this (shapeshift, explore fantastic environment, self-therapy session) helps me get in the mood. Do you think it can do as well as thinking about dreams I had?

That’s a thing I do, thanks for confirming it’s beneficial ^w^

Your whole message sums up everything. I think if we want to, we must try to remember why we are doing this, but indeed, I think we are not forced to do that, as Splash said, doing too much could be counter productive. I think it is to us to find the right balance without being detrimental to ourselves. We have to be brave, my guy ^^’

Recently, I am trying to test new way to make myself aware by doing some unusuall stuff. I’ve created some kind of imaginary friend themed about dream which I try to recall my LD intention and who I can communicate with once in a lucid state (no, I’m not schyzophrenic XD). I want to try the things that could help me to get close to my DL.

And I also try to elaborate more hypotesis on why I just doesn’t seems to enter Lucid state…
This night, one part of my dreams was about little kids prononcing racial speech, in RL, I think it would have triggered some kind of suspicion, but in that dream, I just rolled with it. And it is like that for a lot of things including surreal ones. So, I feel like I’m not doing it because I’m just tired and want to rest by not thinking about this kind of things? Maybe… Maybe not…

Again, thanks for your responses ^w^

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Ah, yes, then what I have suggested for strengthening MILD may not work for you. It took me a while to identify my dream signs, and they change over time, but I suppose some people don’t have them.

Oh, I’m not suggesting one think about dreams as often as I do or in the ways that I do, I’m just…obsessed? With my dreams? :lol:
I do think it’s good to think about what you want to do in your dreams, like setting intentions and goals as you say, that way you have a plan for when you’re lucid and have something to strive for.

Thinking about dreams I’ve had is important in my relationship with my dreams because I am into dream interpretation. If you want to interpret your dreams then obviously I’d recommend reviewing your past dreams.
I can think of a few other reasons to revisit past dreams though. You can reread dreams you enjoyed or ones you’re proud of to boost motivation. You could dig through and look for dream signs. You can read dreams in which you missed lucid opportunities and think of how you might have responded to become lucid (challenge your mindset).

This sounds like a CALD? It’s a fun technique.

I hope you reach your goals! :yay:

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I clicked on the link you send and it is pretty much this. It’s funny because I have never heard about this technique before and I thougt it was just a funny and weird experiment of mine XD Well if this is a true technique, then I must maybe develop on this and see if it benefits me. ^^

How kind of you ^w^ Well then I hope you continue your dream life! And merry christmas to everyone!

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You really don’t need to worry about true or false. If something works for you then it doesn’t matter if it works for anybody else or if it has a name. Lucid dreaming is not a very strict discipline, I would say on the contrary. Pretty much anything goes :lol:
Having some self control and intrinsic motivation can help though. But experiments are always allowed. Fortunately it’s also a very safe hobby. It’s very hard to do something wrong and harmful to yourself or others.

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