Hello LD4all, I am new to your community and come in search of answers and help. I am not exactly new to the concept of lucid dreaming, but it is only recently that I’ve been looking into trying it for myself. I’ve read a pretty good deal on this matter, but it seems my problems begin as early as remembering dreams and keeping a dream journal.
Now, I have looked around for similar threads on this forum but I couldn’t seem to find any that matches my case exactly. Still, apologies if I’ve missed it, and apologies in advance if this post should ramble on.
So what exactly is my issue? Well, quite simply, it is almost as if I don’t dream at all, on most nights. And I know what you might be thinking, “oh that’s what most people say, in reality you just can’t remember most of it”. That very well may be the case. However, even waking up with the express intention of “I’m going to remember what I dreamt last night, go!” nothing comes up. Nothing at all. Blank. Some people might say “oh I was with these people I don’t really know and we were in this vague place and that’s about it”. Me? I got nothing, no image, no picture, no sound, no sort of information or idea or anything really.
And it’s quite strange, because the dreams that I do have, I am fairly aware of during them, and also in the morning upon waking up I can remember at least some vague images or events. But I’ll get to those in a bit.
So essentially, the vast majority of my sleep, if I had to give a ballpark estimation I’d say maybe 70-75%, essentially feels like a being passed out or in a coma. It really does, between not being aware of any sort of “dreaming” and not remembering even the tiniest, most general thing. It’s like I go to bed, and my thoughts slowly fade into nothingness. It’s just… void. And then I wake up and life resumes normally.
So what about the dreams I am aware of, and can sort of remember? Well, it seems I have absolutely no control whatsoever during them. At any point, really. They almost always feel as though I’m watching a movie, half-paying attention, from a distance. This “distance” is key because even though I don’t really see myself from a 3rd person outside perspective, I don’t feel at all connected with the “character” that’s supposed to be myself, and I can’t control what I’m supposedly doing during these dreams. Which is why it’s just a little bit frustrating to read about such things as reality checks (which don’t get me wrong, make perfect sense), so I go “Well bloody hell, how am I supposed to look at my palm or pinch my nose or whatever when I can’t even control where I’m bloody looking at or really anything else about my supposed body in these dreams?”
Beyond that, it’s also quite frustrating to see obvious tells like clocks showing weird symbols or text changing in real-time or falling off a page or people shapeshifting under my eyes, but me somehow not realizing that that’s not normal and that I’m dreaming. Even though it becomes blindingly obvious the very moment I wake up and remember these sequences of events.
So that’s basically it, the vast majority of my dreams might as well not exist for all I can tell, and those that I am aware of, I have absolutely no control over, to any degree, at any point, almost ever. (exceptions are extremely few and far between and I can’t bloody figure out how to make them happen)
Thank you for reading and I look forward to reading your insight on this, hopefully this lovely community will help me overcome or at least better understand this problem that I’m facing.
Awareness is important in LDing. I try to focus on all my senses more every now and then. I also do SSILD every now and then, during WBTB.