I’ll be giving this a try in my next lucid dream. It sounds very calming and may help bring clarity and control to my LDs.
The last 9 of my lucid dreams have ended within 15 seconds of starting. I will try your method.
Sounds interesting. I’m usually in a rush to do stuff in LD’s, so I’ll try this out. I’ll report back.
The first time I tried this I woke up after the 2nd breath. I was also concentraiting hard on an object in my dream, thinking the additional focus and attention would also help.
What are you you concentraiting on while breathing? Should I just focus on the breathing process itself? Because I felt that without any visual stimulus, the dream might fade.
I have read practically everything there is to read from credible sources on the practice of lucid dreaming and I still feel that I am at a loss when it comes to information on prolonging an LD. While I am practically a novice at lucid dreaming I have had my fair share of willed LDs but very few of them… and I do mean very few of them… have seemed to exceed 5+ minutes. If they did exceed 5+ minutes it was a natural occurance and not the result of rubbing my hands. I know that it is pretty much proven that an LD can last up to an hour.
I had an LD last night and decided to practice dream physics manipulation. I flew around every once in a while rubbing my hands (probably every 30 seconds) and after a while I stopped. I stopped because I was under the general impression that you only have to prolong the dream if its beginning to fade or is unstable. Anyways, I started talking to a DC (and I know for a fact I didn’t think the DC was real or even consider it because I gave her one of my LD gadgets). All of a sudden I got kicked out of the LD. I didn’t close my eyes at any point in the LD, I didn’t fall back into an ND, the dream didn’t fade (well it did but it was almost instantaneous), and I didn’t get excited at any point when I was lucid. When I woke up there was no prevalent sound or anything (as far as I know) that awoke me.
To prevent me or anyone else on this forum from any future frustrations with this subject, I have some questions on prolonging. Please refrain from answering unless you have 100+ posts. (I don’t want to take advice from potential pathelogical liars)
-
What is your favorite method for prolonging an LD?
-
About how often/when do you have to use the method to keep the dream stabalized?
-
What is the longest LD you have had that you believe is a result of your method?
-
For those who have LDs everynight: Do you still need to use the method or do LDs become more stable as a result of practicing lucid dreaming?
-
Were there any mental blocks that you had to overcome concerning prolonging LDs?
-
On exciting activities (such as dream sex, exciting scenarios etc.): how does one prevent premature awakening?
-
Is there a sort of cognitive stamina that builds as you have more and more LDs?
Pathologically suspicious, he? 
Staring at my hands from time to time.
At the beginning of the dream, then when I feel the dream fade or I’m losing lucidity. Theorically, it would be every 30 seconds but either I don’t write this in my DJ or I don’t practice it in the way I supposed to.
30 minutes. By the way, I used in this dream 3 stabilizing techniques : staring at my hands, moving systematically my eyes from right to left and vice versa, taking the dream for granted (as you would do in reality).
I don’t have LD’s everynight.
I had no mental block to overcome concerning prolonging LD’s.
I don’t know.
I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean by cognitive stamina. 
I would add that prolonging techniques seem to work cause my average LD duration is about 2 minutes but my average prolonged LD duration is 5 minutes.
Thank you so very much for the info. I have never tried looking from left to right. I will definitely take note of that.
-
Erm. Grabbing on to something, usually, and rubbing it.
-
I usually do this if I feel that the dream is fading.
-
Mm. Probably around 2 minutes… I’ve had longer without stabilizing…
-
I don’t have LD’s everynight, but I’ll stab this anyway. LD’s occur more to me, everything seems clearer, and I think clearer, but it still has no bearing on how long my LD’s are…
-
Remembering to do it…
-
I usually just keep myself from getting too excited…
-
Erm… I… don’t think so… But I didn’t understand the question, either…
100+ posts? I have had 3 names on here. 2 of which I’m not proud of their behavior… I have over 1000 + accumulatively. Believe me if you want, but I have a good deal of experience, especially in problems with lucidity.
- What is your favorite method for prolonging an LD?
Touching something close to me and relaxing while focusing on awareness. Just chill, and observe for a moment.
- About how often/when do you have to use the method to keep the dream stabalized?
once or twice. Once at the beginning, and then another time if the dream starts to fade
- What is the longest LD you have had that you believe is a result of your method?
30 minutes.
- Were there any mental blocks that you had to overcome concerning prolonging LDs?
I used to get really, wildly excited. Also, sex and running usually woke me up. I’m good now, though.
- On exciting activities (such as dream sex, exciting scenarios etc.): how does one prevent premature awakening?
sex: foreplay. Don’t jump right into it. Warm up to it, like IRL. This applies to other exciting activities also.
- Is there a sort of cognitive stamina that builds as you have more and more LDs?
yes and no. It’s just that you get really used to the lucid state, and this allows you to retain the sphere longer and longer. Stamina improves with experience.
hope I’ve helped a bit 
Thanks for the info everyone. I greatly appreciate it. By 100+ posts I just mean pretty much anyone who has proven they know what the hell they are talking about. When I read the forums I READ them. I’ve found a few new people, who I will not name because it won’t do anything, that have contradictory posts (checking post history) and just say stuff that even I know for a fact, is simply not true. Basically I didn’t want some guy with less than 10 posts to come onto this thread and tell me he can LD for up to 5000 years via a prolonging method in which he touches his toes while shooting fire out of his butt. I take lucid dreaming very seriously, that means when I see something like that, not only am I insulted, but I worry for upcomming lucid dreamers that will read it. It might discourage them or just promote misconceptions that this community does not need. Sorry if I sounded elitest.
Haha it confused the hell out of me
Hi, this is my first post in a very long time, I’m not going to touch on everything. I’ve reached LDing goals, got a G/F and pretty much stopped coming here. Well, anyway…
There really is no way to stop premature awakening, at least for me. Rubbing the hands or staring at them works for me.
Also, I do find that after constantly doing Lucid Dreams really does extend the length of dreams. You know how to keep your self calm in the exciting situations and you do it, but despite being able to do this I find my self falling out of dreams because I get too caught up in the moment and I forget to calm my self down.
Quite a simple question…
How to make a dream last longer?
Obviously this would apply only to LD’s because only in them we have the power to change something.
Would saying something like “Increase dream length!” in a dream prolong the dream?
[color=darkblue]I have extended a dream before. I see it fading and I concentrate on staying. Simple as that really, you have to want to stay and make sure you maintain the vividness of the dream.
Some people say spin round on the spot or concentrate on your dream hands, but those don’t seem to work as well for me as simply concentrating on staying.
Sometimes you irrationally think you must leave and get paranoid as your control fades. The dream itself, can also start to actually fade- the images getting less intense. Sometimes there is nothing you can do to stop it.
Try each method and see which works best, just don’t blame me if you’re late for work! 
[/color]
imwhoim01, it depends on your problem. Two problems may occur: 1)your dream fades; 2) you lose lucidity. The solutions are different. What is your problem?
Good point there, Basilus.
The problem was the dream fading.
Thanks in advance 
Dream fading is due to loss of visual sensations. Then you have to stimulate other sensations. That why it’s said that rubbing your hands, grasping an object, spinning, falling, are good tips in order to make the dream reappear.
Also, if you lay completely still when you awaken, you can re-enter a lucid dream super easy. Don’t open your eyes or anything, just wait for the dream to come back to you.
It happens to me quite a lot that as I wake up normaly, I start to become lucid. This morning I was kinda in limbo, stuck between a dream and reality, unable to fall back alseep 
. By the time i’m awake enough and realise it’s a dream i wake up.
relax and get your bearings. look around and focus on some object near you. Think something like “this is all a dream”
this relaxed awareness should make the dream world more vivid, and prolong it a good deal. The focus is key. You don’t have to be in a meditative state or anything, just keep in mind that it’s a dream, and this’ll add a good deal onto the time span.