Ok… here’s something that I feel is confusing … personally. REM is touted as the sleep cycle during which we dream but I know that I have slept for only maybe half an hour and had very clearly dreamed. Also, there are LD techniques in which you maintain consciousness from waking into the dream. If I recall correctly the first REM cycle doesn’t happen until like ninety minutes of sleep has passed. SO… we must dream during all cycles and REM is merely a period of increased activity. Is this wrong?
LostBoy:
Those LD techniques which allow you to maintain consciousness directly into a dream (WILD for example) are supposed to be done after you have already had around 3 or 4 hours of sleep.
This is because after waking up, people tend to go directly into REM sleep without having to wait for the first cycles again. There are no techniques that allow you to enter a LD the moment you go to sleep for the first time that night. Well, some extremely experienced Lucid Dreamers have claimed that they can bypass all other cycles of sleep, but for mere mortals it just dosn’t happen.
Check this out:
There was already discussion about this in another thread, but dreams do not occur in REM only.
You’re right Hypnodude.
I was reading the link that I posted above, and came across this:
To a completely different topic, apparently you only remember your dreams if you actually wake up from a REM period. Well, remember them clearly anyway. Going on this, I bet you would be able to set an alarm for a time where you are probably in REM sleep, and have a more vivid memory to write in your journals.
Just a thought.
There has been some research where subject where woken during NREM and remembered their dreams, so dreams can not only be remembered from REM.
But the same research found that REM dreams are remembered more vividly and detailed. This can have two causes:
- Dreams in REM are more vivid.
- Dreams from REM are better remembered. (Maybe because brainwaves dring REM are closer to ‘normal’ daytime brainwaves than NREM waves).
Since REM sleep occurs just below the edge of consiousness, my guess is that the major part of lucid dreams occur in REM.
I’ll try to dig up those NREM-dream research. Maybe you would like to read it 
Found it! 
It can be found here:
slagt.net/ld4all/viewtopic.p … ight=#4448
There is a good change I have some of the complete papers (pdf) of the research I mention in that topic. 
Oh… see… I have always tried going into a dream through hypnogogia as I first fall asleep. THAT is my whole trouble with that method! slaps head Most details on the method say that hypnogogia occurs as we are just falling asleep and I never thought to try it after having first been asleep. MAN!
LostBoy:
Heh, nice work! 
You never found out what the ‘W’ stood for in WILD? Seriously though, hypnagogic imagery occurs each time you fall asleep. The difference with WILD though is that when you go back to sleep after waking up, you don’t have to wait for the first few sleep cycles before you start dreaming.
This allows you to (in theory) remain conscious while entering a dream.
ugh… I’m really getting tired of this…
I MUST be doing something wrong… I’ve been trying for months… 
hmmm.m… anyone know of any ways to remember dreams better?
Sometimes I can’t remember a thing and then later on I remember something.
Like once I had a dream which involved our old computer, and then my brother said something about it and I remembered the dream…hooha.
Well, just try writing it down every time you remember something from a dream, and try to practise thinking of your dreams every time you wake up from sleep. Dream recall is not something you get in one day, it comes gradually…
And another thing: You keep saying that “I MUST be doing something wrong”. Not believing that you will manage to get any lucid dream might spoil it all. Just try new stuff, practise old stuff, and try to really believe you will make it sooner or later… As LaBerge (and Atheist) says (well now I have made it my point 
): “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, either way you’re right.”
“You keep saying that “I MUST be doing something wrong”. Not believing that you will manage to get any lucid dream might spoil it all”
hmmm… yeah I know what you mean…
maybe part of the problem is:
A. Part of me doesn’t want a lucid dream incase I get freaky nightmares.
and
B. Until you’ve had a lucid dream you probably can’t 100% believe that such a thing is possible…
Oh yeah, here’s a VERY weird dream I had recently:
Me and this guy from my school were in school and then went out (or we were already out) and then outside the entrance, there were 2 rows of stones and we’re looking for gold underneath them lol.
I think I remember that we actually found small circles of gold…
We weren’t just going “hey lets find gold” we knew there was gold there…
weird isn’t it?
Ok, what do YOU do EXACTLY when you want a lucid dream?
I HAD A LUCID DREAM LAST NIGHT!!! WOO… 
here it is from my dream diary:
DATE:19th October 2002
LUCID DREAM:I don’t know how but I realised it was a dream (maybe because, since I’ve started trying to ld, I’ve been questioning reality sometimes). I think it was low lucidity (or I couldn’t remember it well, but I think I woke up RIGHT after it so it was probably low lucidity) because there were some things I tried to do but couldn’t. I was in my house, and I remember that sometime during the dream I checked and I had six fingers on one of my hands (the left one I think) and I looked at a clock in my room and it changed (both when I looked away and back, and when I was just looking at it). It’s green and at one point the second two digits even changed to red. I think I did these things just for fun though, I already knew I was in a dream, I just wanted to see were those things true.It’s cool that I got my first ld but it wasn’t really that good. I didn’t really have time to do anything it was mostly me checking if I was in a dream. I didn’t try spinning but I think I thought about it and at least I didn’t wake up right when I realised I was dreaming. I remember someone saying “If you believe it will happen, it does” so last night I satrted trying to believe I’d have one. I also remember the dissapointed feeling when I woke up before I’d really done anything. I’ve heard of people not being able to do things in dreams but I always thought it’d be easy to make things out of nothing but it’s not. I was going out of a rom and then saying something would be in it but when I went back in, it wasn’t there.
The thing is, I had this between I think 8 & 10:30. Maybe it was a WILD but I didn’t think about lding when I woke up at 8.
So tonight I think I might do something similar… only problem is, I get up at 8 for school… so maybe I’ll go to bed early and set an alarm for… 5 or something.
wait a sec… tomorrow’s sunday… don’t know how I thought it was monday…
BUMP
The harder you try the less you’ll achieve.
Just do a shitload of RC’s when awake, read a lot about lucidity before going to sleep and maybe… just maybe you’ll get lucky.
I’m not entirely sure about the theory that the harder you try, the less you’ll succeed.
The more you try, the more LDs as on your mind. So clearly, the more you think about lucid dreams, the more likely you are to dream about them. It’s on the same level as ‘any publicity is good publicity’.
I think there is a hidden danger here though. The more you try, the more you’re going to fail, and the more you might believe that you simply can’t do it.
Not many people can LD any time they try to, so from all of this the valuable point is not to be disapointed when you don’t succeed.
Sweet, Atheist, well said. I was thinking of writing the same thing until I got to your post. I think that trying is key! You just don’t want to A: wear your brain out trying and B: stay positive.
Sean, you’ve had an LD so you KNOW they are real… now just keep in mind that PROBABLY it will be a little while before your next one. Its possible you’ll just start having them every night… if you do I will be extremely jealous! Just stay positive and do whatever works best for you in order to foster that recognition when you’re dreaming.
Personally, I have never become lucid by any means other than spontaneous realization. Just wanting them, thinking about them and attempts at lucid living have made them occur for me. There is a certain feeling to my dreams that I always notice in looking back at them. Sometimes I just realize it when they’re happening.
My LDs came very far between at first but I think the frequency is rising just from practice. Its a skill your brain has to learn like anything else.
"Sweet, Atheist, well said. I was thinking of writing the same thing until I got to your post. I think that trying is key! You just don’t want to A: wear your brain out trying and B: stay positive.
Sean, you’ve had an LD so you KNOW they are real… now just keep in mind that PROBABLY it will be a little while before your next one. Its possible you’ll just start having them every night… if you do I will be extremely jealous! Just stay positive and do whatever works best for you in order to foster that recognition when you’re dreaming.
Personally, I have never become lucid by any means other than spontaneous realization. Just wanting them, thinking about them and attempts at lucid living have made them occur for me. There is a certain feeling to my dreams that I always notice in looking back at them. Sometimes I just realize it when they’re happening.
My LDs came very far between at first but I think the frequency is rising just from practice. Its a skill your brain has to learn like anything else."
Yeah… the thing is… it’s strange… the night I had an ld I really BELIEVED I was going to have one, I tried to believe I was going to have one because people say that if you believe stuff will happen in lucid dreams, they will…
it’s strange though… I can never seem to believe I’ll have one as much as that time…
Maybe I shouldn’t be repeating things in my head… no I DEFINETELY shouldn’t be, when I try that, my mouth goes dry (even when I’m not using it) and I can’t get to sleep, I didn’t repeat anything when I got the ld so I’ll try just believing it will happen…
And then there’s this really STRANGE thought that sometimes crosses my mind…it’s like…
what if, I was only DREAMING that I was having a lucid dream?
I know it’s strange but… hehe .
Hi Sean, nice you finally suceeded
And then there’s this really STRANGE thought that sometimes crosses >my mind…it’s like…
what if, I was only DREAMING that I was having a lucid dream?
I know it’s strange but… hehe .
Ahm, no, this thought isn´t strange. In fact, this happened to me several times.I think we even found a name for them:
False Lucid Dreams (am I right?)
Well, name or not, it can happen that you are only dreaming that you have a LD
But don´t worry, although noone ever can tell you if you had a real or a false one, I am very sure yours was a real one.Otherwise you would have recognized that you wasn´t really lucid.
Traumgänger
THE KEY IS TO ATTAIN CONSCIOUSNESS AFTER 5-6 HOURS OF SLEEP THEN GO BACK TO SLEEP WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT LD.