I have trouble with Lucidity “strength” pretty often. I don’t know the reason behind it. I guess it’s just a lack of practice and/or confidence. Eventually you anticipate having little control over your LDs, which sometimes makes it worse. There are techniques to help you hold on to your control, but generally you should use these as a starting point and come up with ideas on your own.
-
Spin – When I first started LDing, I heard this was something that worked both as an RC and a lucidity enhancer. It worked quite well for me and the sensation of spinning in a dream is pretty indescribable. However, try to avoid spinning too fast as it could wake you up or make you “black out”. A simple pivot on your foot ought to do the trick. (Then again, we’re all different and maybe you can spin like a top and feel perfectly fine.)
-
Put something in your mouth – No really! I feel like doing this helps me remain “attached” to the current environment of my lucid dream. I got the idea from watching small children constantly putting things in their mouth. It’s just a natural way to explore (that is eventually conditioned out of us). You’ve got to be creative sometimes. If I were in your sunset environment, I’d have grabbed a strand or two of grass and set it on my tongue.
-
Command – Say something along the lines of “increase lucidity” or “lucidity x10,000”. I can’t vouch for this since it never worked for me and often times when I try to speak so forcefully in dreams, I cannot. I think it is a matter of confidence and how natural it is for you to have massive control over your dreams. I don’t have such control, so I don’t do this, but it might work for you if you give it a try. In hindsight, I guess I could say it didn’t work for me because I wasn’t “asking the dream” to be stronger, but simply just yelling words. I’ll have to test that sometime.
-
Ask a DC – This is my number one go-to technique for doing ANYTHING in lucid dreams. All DCs are dream guides. They are NPCs in an internal video game. They were randomly generated to be in that area and therefore will know it better than a Player Character who has to read guides and follow tutorials to learn how to play. If you are having trouble, politely ask a DC “Can you make my lucidity stronger please?” or if such an abstract question goes over their head, maybe try “Can you give me a pill that will make my lucidity stronger?” If you aren’t around any people or animals, remember that dream logic dictates that anything can be a character. Try asking an odd object for help if you’re alone. A rule of thumb is: ALWAYS BE POLITE.
-
Pass through a door – This one is fairly simple. Find a door, tell yourself that upon passing through it that your dream will be stronger, and go through. You MUST have this intent in your mind as you go through. This technique could work if you find yourself unable to speak.
-
Do a RC – Another simple one, but quick and easy. Doing a RC might be able to add a boost of strength to your dream without having to go through too much. Stick a finger in your ear, plug your nose, jump (lightly), count your fingers, count your toes, etc.
IF YOU “BLACK-OUT”
This happens to me in almost every single LD of mine. Sometimes I have great strength that fades fairly quickly because I lose my vision and suddenly find myself in total darkness. I’m going to take a WILD GUESS and say that this is MOMENTS before waking up. The most important thing to remember when this happens (and you are still lucid) is: DO NOT OPEN YOUR EYES. Naturally opening your eyes is a surefire way of causing yourself to wake-up. If you are in total darkness and are still dreaming, reach up to your face, and peel your eyes open with your fingertips. This usually works for me, but in the rare cases it doesn’t I point you back to #4: Ask a DC. I remember once being caught in complete darkness and peeling my eyes open didn’t work. I called out politely, “Can someone please turn on some lights?” and BOOM. Floodlights turned on like I was on a movie set.
DON’T GET FRUSTRATED
Recognize that you do not have 100% control over your dreams. I’ll go back to the video game metaphor: Your brain is generating the environment constantly along with DCs and physics. It is creating a basis on which your dream exists. Gravity does not exist in your dream and you most likely did not decide in your lucid dream that it was there. Your brain put it in there for you. (Though sometimes you DO have a massive amount of power in dreams and you should definitely recognize and cherish those moments. Perhaps find out how to replicate it and practice a method. I don’t have 100% control… probably 65%.)
So you are a player in your mind’s game. You are forced to follow the constraints set by your current environment and sometimes that comes with being unable to fly, being unable to speak, or even being unable to see. The sooner you recognize this, the easier things get. If you try to do something one way and it doesn’t work don’t get frustrated (because you’ll either wake up or lose control). Just try to overcome the problem with a different approach. Actually, problem is the wrong word here. Approach these hurdles positively as if they are fun puzzles to be solved.
Let’s say you’re caught in quicksand. You try to wriggle free, but you can’t move. You’re scared you’re going to lose control. What can you do? Well… It’s a dream. There’s no harm here. You won’t die. You won’t get hurt. So sink into the sand. Dive into it and promise to do a RC immediately afterward.
KNOW YOUR LIMITS; KNOW YOURSELF
This is what makes dream journals so important in the first place. You know what sorts of things you can do in ND s and LD s. In past LD s you know what works and what doesn’t work. I don’t know the reason why I can’t pass through glass windows in LD s, but I just know that I can’t. Therefore, I leave buildings in a different way (a DOOR perhaps? Pft). I don’t know why I can’t summon characters with the flick of the wrist, but I know I can’t. So I ask DC s to bring those characters to me. I don’t know why FA s more often than not result in nightmares, but I know they do. So I do my best to change the environment as quickly as possible.
In conclusion to this long post, the key is to be creative in solving obstacles, don’t get frustrated, be positive, and adapt to your dream’s environment.