I just woke up from a FA, because this is how all my lucid dreams have begun ever since I started getting them 3 weeks ago.
Anyway, I’m starting to feel that it’s about time to actually do something constructive in them, because they haven’t been that eventful yet.
They start with me “waking up” and then I get out of bed and start looking around - I do some stabilization techniques (in this last dream I rubbed my hands several times and shouted “increase vividness!”, and fair enough, everything did become more vivid everytime I did it).
However, it’s always fairly dark, just enough for me to see things but not much brigher than that (I doubt it has anything to do with my mood whatsoever since I’m a very happy person), and I always walk kind of slowly (not THAT slowly though, it’s not really an issue, at least I move with reasonable speed).
I check out the surroundings, I test a light switch (they never work) and then go outside, and then I’m able to stay outside for a few seconds (my best is about two minutes), where I try to affect the surroundings (but I can’t) and then I wake up.
To sum up, these are the problems what I would like some help with:
*It’s always dark
*I probably walk too slowly
*I lose the dream too easily, usually because I close my eyes without really meaning to
*I can’t affect the surroundings
These lucids are obviously still nice to have (they are lucid dreams, after all), but I want to take them to the next step, so to speak.
Here’s a few suggestions that come to mind while reading about your issue:
Change it to be brighter - i.e. close your eyes and wish for it or even better, say it out loud, then re-open your eyes. That should do the trick.
I think it is possible that it is not you who is walking too slow, but your dream body. In dreams, you don’t walk. You will yourself to move. You’ll get the hang of it with some practice. And don’t worry too much - your dream body knows, how to move, it just needs to remember.
When you close your eyes, you probably don’t lose the dream, rather it changes according to your (subconscious) expectations. Try willing yourself to stay in the dream even when you close your eyes and re-open them later. This is called practicing your dreaming attention.
In order to affect the surroundings one is required to have enough energy and faith in oneself. If you believe you can do it, you can, otherwise, you can’t. But at this stage I would suggest that instead of trying to change your environment, you should try to keep it as stable as possible. This will allow you to keep the dream for as long as you want without shifting you all around DreamScape.
-Always dark
Meaning genuinely dark, or just really fuzzy and difficult to see? Spinning should solve the problem if it’s the latter, while EXPECTING the scene to get brighter should help with the former.
-I probably walk too slowly
Try flying/hovering. Once again, you have to expect it to work. If that’s too difficult on its own, try finding a vehicle and believe that it’s super fast and dangerous or something. Expecting things works even better if you’re worrying.
-I lose the dream too easily, usually because I close my eyes without really meaning to
Eat things, listen for things, don’t concentrate on one spot, keep moving, observe everything. Stimulate all your senses so that you don’t wake up. Also, rubbing your hands together, spinning and constantly reminding yourself that you’re dreaming will help, spinning especially.
-I can’t affect the surroundings
Once again, rather than trying to force something (although that does work once you get some experience with altering things), you need to EXPECT things to happen, key word right there. It’ll help if you’re not looking at what you want to change, but it’s not necessary.
To sum it up, EXPECT that what you want to happen will happen and spin in your dreams to focus everything and stay dreaming. You can spin with your eyes open or closed, I usually do it with them open because as soon as I close my eyes I wake up.
Thanks, guys.
Yeah I think I’m getting the hang of it, I have noticed slight improvements with every lucid dream I’ve had since my first one.
It’s bright enough to make things fairly easy to spot, it’s kinda like the light you would get in your house during the first minutes of sunrise;
I guess the brightness you get while video recording a dark room with Night Vision is also fairly close - not bright, but still enough to easily spot things even when they’re far away.
The sharpness is also quite fine, not actually “blurry” or “fuzzy” or anything.
I’m actually quite amazed at how realistic everything looks, it’s almost exactly like walking around in real life - sometimes I even find myself having doubts about whether or not I’m really dreaming.
