This is something I posted on another LD site… This community has helped me a great deal, and I want to help other people increase their lucid rate, but have no clue how exactly to do this. It’s not like I have a special technique to share, except possibly some alternatives to visualisation, since that is not possible for me…
My thoughts on lucid dreaming can be summed up as an unwavering belief that anything a child can learn, an adult can too, but at a slower rate. So my major goal, essentially, is to become lucid so frequently it is equivalent to being a ‘natural lucid dreamer’.
Age: 33
Age when you started LDing: 30
How long have you been LDing: 2 years 10 months
How many LDs have you had: 500+ (Counting chained LDs or (L)DEILDs as a single long LD)
How often do you LD: 3-4+ nights a week, 6-7 LDs a week on average
Average LD length: 10 mins
Longest LD: 30-40 mins?
Longest it felt: 1 hour? I was starting to forget things, and woke myself up intentionally.
dreams per night: Average 2-3+
Longest dream: 1 hour?
Longest a dream felt: 1 hour
Spiritual beliefs in regards to LD (physical, metaphysical, spiritual): purely something that occurs within the mind of the dreamer
DILD or WILD: Both, but mostly DILD
How do you WILD: Normally by accident, as I have Aphantasia and cannot visualise when awake. So I start to feel shaking/spinning sensations or can finally ‘see’ images with my eyes closed, and know a dream is forming.
How often do you attempt to WILD: Not intentionally, I am just trying to fall back asleep.
How often do you WILD: 1-2 times a week.
How much time per day do you spend on LDing: A lot! Normally takes at least 30 mins to write my dreams from the previous night. I will think about dreams and periodically raise awareness throughout the day, but not constantly.
How much do you sleep per night: 7-8 hours
How much time do you spend on LDing at night: As long as it takes to make recall notes during an awakening, or go to the loo.
How do you meditate: Walking/awareness meditations. Riding a motorbike is very ‘zen’ - you have to be relaxed-focused, reading the road and the other traffic, being aware and reacting to what is happening right now. It’s the perfect activity for cultivating awareness.
Do you use ADA (All Day Awareness): All Day - no. Awareness, yes.
Thoughts on ADA: For me, keeping awareness up all day is not a natural thing. I get distracted by work, absorbed into a TV program or film or game or book. But frequently I will ‘become aware’ during the day and focus on my awareness and surroundings for a while.
Thoughts on ADA-RC: I guess in a way, that is what my heightened-awareness moments would be considered.
How do you stabilize: Rubbing hands, touching things.
How often do you need to stabilize: Not often.
How many breaks have you taken from LDing and how long were they: Longest break was 2 weeks while on holiday in China. I take a break from journalling when travelling, but never really intentionally stop trying to have lucid dreams, they just don’t get written down.
Time Dilation thoughts: Have done a couple of experiments, but wasn’t impressed.
WBTB thoughts: Yes. Essential. Frequent. Recall earlier dreams, take notes, focus and return to bed.
Coolest thing you have done in a lucid dream: All sorts of cool stuff. Turning into a dragon, flying into space, piloting an X-wing, doing impossible motorbike stunts.
So… yeah. If you want to share your own answers to the above questions, go ahead. If anyone has questions for me, feel free.
Thanks - I was really interested to hear that you have aphantasia. You’re one of the “statistical outliers” for LD frequency in most of the challenges, and an obvious research question would be — does high LD rate correlate with any other psychological characteristic we can measure? (If we only have a data point of just one person it could be a co-incidence, of course).
(Alternatively, maybe the aphantasia has nothing to do with it and you have higher LD rate because you’re spending more time on trying to do it.)
Susan_Y:
Thanks - I was really interested to hear that you have aphantasia. You’re one of the “statistical outliers” for LD frequency in most of the challenges, and an obvious research question would be — does high LD rate correlate with any other psychological characteristic we can measure? (If we only have a data point of just one person it could be a co-incidence, of course).
Yes unfortunately, the intersect between lucid dreamers and people with aphantasia is probably tiny - too tiny for a proper statistical analysis. Also many people with the condition claim to have no dreams, or dreams with no images, but this could be just poorly developed recall or a lack of interest in dreams.
You are quite right. It probably has nothing to do with it. Since I discovered it quite late, after spending (wasting?) countless hours trying to visualise, it is almost certainly not the reason for my high LD rate. As you say, it is more likely due to spending more time trying, or maybe my ongoing research for alternatives to visualisation has lead me to other methods to experiment with, that suit me better.
@Letaali - Interesting answers. You wrote that you attempt WILD daily - is that through visualisation or mindfulness? And is it that you just fall asleep normally during the attempt? Have you tried experimenting with timing and length of your WBTBs?
I do clear my mind when I want to fall asleep, so yeah, mindfulness and having the intention of becoming lucid clear on my mind. Yep, I fall asleep normally during my WILD attempts. I have tested my wbtb timings two years ago and found waking up after 5.5-6h of sleep to be the best time for lucid dreams. In the past months I’ve had trouble sleeping and I haven’t gotten back to a good sleep schedule, so that is slowing my progress a bit.
I should probably test different wbtb timings again. Maybe I should stay awake a bit longer too, dunno.
I thought I might join in.
Name: DTDownUnder
Age: 19
Age when you started LDing: about 5 or 6
How long have you been LDing: about 13 years
How many LDs have you had: 58?
How often do you LD: once or twice a week
Longest LD: About 10 minutes
Longest it felt: About 10 minutes. ( indeed a redundant question )
dreams per night: 5- 10
Longest dream: 2 months
Longest a dream felt: 2-3 hours
Spiritual beliefs in regards to LD (physical, metaphysical, spiritual): I don’t believe LDs are a spiritual process. Although there may be spiritual aspects, i don’t think they are spiritual themselfs.
DILD or WILD: I’ve never had a real WILD. I am also an aphant, and have no ability to create mental images. I also never see HI. I did see HI once, but it was only an outline of the number 4. I can, however, DEILD. But only when i can be bothered.
How do you WILD: I don’t
How often do you attempt to WILD: Once a month or so. (I have had periods where i have tried several times a night for a few months)
How often do you WILD: See above three questions.
How much time per day do you spend on LDing: If i write comprehensive DJ entries, i spend about 2-3hours writing them out. I don’t do this very often anymore. My normal, condensed DJ entries take about half an hour. And I usually spend about 2-3 hours a night on the forums and chat, while doing a couple other things, like making maps.
How much do you sleep per night: If I stay up too late on the forums and chat, and then have work i the morning, i can get as little as 5 hours. If i have nothing on in the morning, i will get about 9-10 hours solid sleep. If i am doing a few WBTBs through the night, it extends the total time asleep.
The longest I have ever slept naturally is 19 hours.
How much time do you spend on LDing at night: About 5 - 10 minutes for each WBTB. Maybe 2 or 3 times a night.
How do you meditate: I don’t do what i would consider deliberate meditation. But i have a few things i do in everyday life that i consider to have the same kind of effect. One of the main ones would have to be driving. I often drive up to the state capital, Perth, for work and other things, sometimes just for fun. It is about a 500km drive. I always feel great after that drive. (I have been up and down to Perth every weekend for the last month)
I also drove home from Queensland this month, a 5500 km drive that we completed in 3 days, not stopping for more than 15 minutes at a time.
While i am driving i feel at peace.
Do you use ADA (All Day Awareness): what?
Thoughts on ADA: im not sure if i have never heard of it, have never heard it called this, or have just forgotten what it is. Whichever one it is, I have no idea
Thoughts on ADA-RC: ^^^^
How do you stabilize: Rub my hands together/ use a clarity shout.
How often do you need to stabilize: I need to stabilize pretty much every LD. Whether or not i can be bothered is another story. If i don’t bother stabilizing, i will still get a few minutes of LD.
How many breaks have you taken from LDing and how long were they: Well, i’ve been LDing since i was a kid, but i only recently found out it was a thing. I have been deliberately LDing for a little over a year now, and haven’t taken any real breaks.
Time Dilation thoughts: Never done anything deliberate, But I was once at the stage where THIS was the dream, and the other thing was reality.
WBTB thoughts: DO IT!
Coolest thing you have done in a lucid dream: Destroyed the entire universe with a single, spoken word.
And that, fairly well sums up my story.
O M G ! Now I want to try that too, haha!
Well im going to do this too, let´s see…
Name: Lady Yomi
Age: 27
Age when you started LDing: 5 years old (Without doing it on purpose), 25 y/o (purposely!)
How long have you been LDing: As I said, all my life… but it has been almost three years of doing it with intention~
How many LDs have you had: 270~275!
How often do you LD: 3/4 times by week!
Longest LD: Hmmm, like an hour?
Longest it felt: ???
Dreams per night: 2-3 sometimes 4.
Longest dream: 1 hour too~!
Longest a dream felt:
Spiritual beliefs in regards to LD (physical, metaphysical, spiritual): Im a spiritual person but more of a secular/buddhist type, but I like Taoism a lot too!
DILD or WILD: Both. But WILD is a bit hard to achieve for me!
How do you WILD: First I relax deeply, then I start to visualize what I want to dream and when everything looks “real enough” I enter into the dream scene by interacting with it!
How often do you attempt to WILD: Everyday! But it only works like… 10% of the times I try!
How often do you WILD: 1-2 times by month~!
How much time per day do you spend on LDing: Hmmm a LOT! I like to paint dream scenes and to read about the topic sooo much. So I think that… like 6-7 hs by day ha ha!
How much do you sleep per night: Hmmm my sleep schedule is a mess!
Sometimes I can sleep 12 hours and sometimes only 3 without feeling tired at all! looool
How much time do you spend on LDing at night: Umm I don´t know … I guess all the time I sleep?
How do you meditate: I like to try to contemplate my thoughts and let them pass without paying them attention until Im completely blank & at peace.
Do you use ADA (All Day Awareness): Nope. But I try to stop and become aware of my surroundings from time to time!
Thoughts on ADA: I think it´s fine! it has helped me a lot to make RC s on my dreams wherever I found something strange around me!
Thoughts on ADA-RC: See question above!
How do you stabilize: I search for a DC & ask them for help! It always works for me!
How often do you need to stabilize: Rarely.
How many breaks have you taken from LDing and how long were they: I don´t know, I don´t try to take breaks from it because it´s a thing that I enjoy so much.
Time Dilation thoughts: ???
WBTB thoughts: ALWAYS WORKS!!
Coolest thing you have done in a lucid dream: The dream in which I met Ganesha, of course! (https://www.ld4all.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=50356 ) I went to a beach where I found that the God wanted to give me a hint about myself so he gave me a golden pergamino with his trunk & when I read it I saw the words “Soul healer” written on it. IT WAS GREAT…!
Nice idea, let’s do this !
Age: 37
Age when you started LDing: As a child I remember I was able to recognize I was dreaming, mostly during nightmares or when flying. On purpose, at 35
How long have you been LDing: 2 years +
How many LDs have you had: Never counted them, I’d say 200+
How often do you LD: 3-4 nights a week on average
Average LD length: 30 mins
Longest LD: 1 hour 5-10 mins
Longest it felt: Same
dreams per night: 1 ND in average
Longest dream: Not sure, 1 hour perhaps
Longest a dream felt: I remember long time ago some dream which felt like days
Spiritual beliefs in regards to LD (physical, metaphysical, spiritual): Purely something that occurs within the mind of the dreamer; Same for OBEs, after having experienced a few (~15)
DILD or WILD: Both. Definitely mostly WILD
How do you WILD: I usually start from a previous dream, and visualize continuing it, until it naturally flows into an LD. More info and details HERE
How often do you attempt to WILD: Almost every morning; but it works much better when I have an objective
How often do you WILD: 3-4 days a week
How much time per day do you spend on LDing: from 30 mins to 1 hour
How much do you sleep per night: 7-8 hours
How much time do you spend on LDing at night: Little, <5 mins at most
How do you meditate: Walking / senses awareness meditations lately; sometimes sitting. I’d definitely like to increase my meditation frequency
Do you use ADA (All Day Awareness): Nope, but I sometimes check my surroundings, question what I am doing, do a RC
Thoughts on ADA: It’s just too difficult for me. I think focus is a necessity for effectiveness when working, immersion is a necessity when reading a book, playing videogames, watching a movie.
Thoughts on ADA-RC: Not sure what it means…
How do you stabilize: Rubbing hands, touching things
How often do you need to stabilize: Not often
How many breaks have you taken from LDing and how long were they: One break was like several months long; I felt I had already achieved so much and lost interest; glad to say I was totally wrong !
Time Dilation thoughts: Never attempted on purpose; however, church clock bells were a perfect way to keep track of time while LDing, and dream time impression has always been same as waking time.
WBTB thoughts: Absolutely yes. Most effective for me is after 6-7 hours of sleep, and attempt WILD. I also get many more DILDs after WBTB and/or a failed WILD attempt
Coolest thing you have done in a lucid dream: Every kind of cool stuff. Became a giant dragon, commanded an army, became water, talked with Laozi, stopped time, created a tornado… Take a look at my DJ index HERE