Newbie advice: Helpful hints for aspiring Lucid Dreamers III

Quest for Lucidity
1

[mod]This topic is made in order to collect the tips and hints you find useful for beginners. Thus feel free to add your own tips!

It means that all posts like : Do you have any tips on how to get started? will be locked and directed to this one.
It means too that it’s not the place for beginners general questions and they will be splitted from this topic.

Part I of this topic can be found in the archive, here!
Part II
[/mod]

Hello,

I am quite new to lucid dreaming. I just started my “Quest for Lucidity”. From what I’ve read writing my dreams into a dream journal is the first step. I’ve already done that in the middle of last year but eventually gave it up. Now I want to start it again but I have the following problem:

I’m a student and have to get up at 6 o’clock every day (except for the weekend, of course). An alarm clock wakes me and the first thing I do is switching it off. But then I almost always have forgotten my dream(s).

Does anybody know how to improve my dream recalling skills despite the obstacle the alarm clock poses.

Thanks.

2

You may want to setup a light on a timer that will go off before your alarm that will gradually increase in luminosity. This will gently stimulate your senses and allow you to wake up without the panic of the alarm clock. As an added benefit, you will be able see what you are writing in your dream journal. Good Luck!

3

Thank you very much. That’s a cool idea. I’ll try to find equipment and set this up.

4

Hi… I’ve been wishing to have a LD for a while now and I am hoping that VILD will work for me. So far it hasn’t, but I got really close once. My legs felt heavy and numb and I felt tired and awake at the same time. I saw flashing blue lights and I was aware of them but I lost focus there and opened my eyes.

I want a technique to do a LD that is gradual with no strange side-effects like voices or choking sensations. I’m considering WBTS (cause I wake up in the morning real groggy and go back to sleep on the couch) but I only have about 5 minutes to nap. Do you think I should stay with VILD or try another method and what things should I take into consideration?

5

I have been having LD’s since I was a little kid and the WILD technique is very hard for me so don’t get discouraged. I suspect it is difficult for most LD’ers also. I would recommend a combination of using a dream journal, performing reality checks during the day, and WBTB. I would slightly revise the WBTB technique and say go right back to sleep once you wake yourself up. I have found that once I am up, I am up, and the dream world waits until my next sleep. Good luck and remember not to try and force it.

Also, if your dream recall starts to improve with your journal, you may want to focus on the abstract memories and ask yourself why you didn’t find the experiences out of the ordinary at the time. In other words, the things that seem out of place can clue you in that you are dreaming. A reality check in your dream can confirm this and then you have the awakening moment or epiphany - “I am dreaming!” You will most likely wake yourself up right after you have your first experience, but remember this is a process and you have plenty of sleeps left in your life to experience it. Hope this helps.

6

I’m not a calm person at all, and i get mad/confused/impatient easily. Anyway i was/am alittle (and sniffles…sick)tired so i decided hey why not try phoensnd.com/LucidRemix.mp3 that out and within 5 minutes my body goes completly numb as i have the music real low but enough to hear the voice and sleep and had my headphones on, with my ears in the pillow so 1 side of me is sunk in the pillow with the sound alittle more easier to hear on 1 side. Anyway i felt a bone on my back go slowly down…like it was all tense and relaxing down, almost fell alittle off me bed too. :neutral:

I’m guess that is normal, right?

7

Yea, probably just SP.

8

This is what I wish I told myself when I started trying to LD:

  • Keeping a dream diary is essential
  • WBTB + MILD (Thank you Internet explorer for telling me that typing in all capital letters is mean and 'generally not a good idea) is a good combination technique
  • If lucid dreaming is causing you to become an insomniac, stop trying a while
  • An easy technique to fall asleep is to imagine yourself already asleep, envision yourself floating above your body, this quiets your thoughts.
  • Get on the IRC chatroom here and start talking about Lucid dreaming! Seriously!
  • BELIEVE you can. You can. Not having this ability must mean you cant read what Im typing at this moment.
  • When you first wake up, stay in your position and try to remember your dream for several seconds then right down big keywords as fast as possible, THEN write out the details as you see fit.
  • Try to be creative, the lucid dreaming universe is unlimited.
  • Dont do illegal things in ““real life”” that mess up your dream recall.
    <3

Hopefully this helps SOMEONE, sorry If i repeated anything, yall crazy if you think Im gonna read 19 million pages of stickys.

9

Hi i’m new here. I hadn’t remembered a dream in ages, probably more than a year. and after trying auto-suggestion i remembered the first dream i had :cool: . Can anyone give me tips on how to remember my dreams more vividly when i try to remember i get some thins but they are all blurry and faded aroud the edges :confused: (in my mind).

10

THX Xplosive, this sounds like very good advices!

Since March the 20th, I had 1.5 LD and I can’t wait for the next one but it seems like hard work (even if I hear and heard it should not be, since everyone can learn to lucid dream).

This chat room seems a great idea, because when I want to talk about LD with friends, most of them look at me big big eyes, as if I were a freak… putting so much attention on dreams…

So, I will put “more conviction” in the “I believe I can”. I know confidence and motivation is SO important to LD.

Thx again for your advices !! Pretty sure it will help many of us “beginner”.

11

I was getting less confidence and thinking that maybe remembering my dream before had just been a fluke and then last night i managed to remember 2 and wrote them both in my DJ :boogie:

12

I just tried last night to get my first Lucid Dream, I think I failed because I can’t remember a Lucid Dream, but strangely I waked up 2 times a night.

1st time I woke at 4:57 and I was thinking all actively and had a fast heartbeat but couldn’t remember the dream.

2nd time I woke at 5:02 and remembered every detail of the dream.

And then I woke up at the normal time my alarm clock goes off (7.00) and don’t remember anything.

This may seem small but I always stay asleep at night until morning and never remember any of my dreams. Never.

Is this a good sign? A Bad Sign?

(I used WBTB unintentionally and MILD purposly)

13

Just keep a journal and before you go to bed make sure you have the intent to remeber your dream. When you wake up the first thing you should do is try and remeber your dream and write down any tiny little bit of it even if it’s just an object you remeber or a random thought. Doing this means that your mind will recognise remebering your dreams as an important thing to do and you’ll think of them when you wake up.

If that doesn’t work you could always set an alarm for a time you’re likely to be dreaming and then you’ll wake up abruptly in the middle of a dream and probably remeber it that way.

14

Recall varies for me quite abit. I actually havent been using a DD for about 2 months and was recalling 2 or so but I would forget them later in the day. Yesterday I brought a new DD and recorded my dreams this morning which was 4 :wink: . Aurgh I find dream recording so difficult to motivate myself for though :yawn:

15

Well, you don’t have to write every dream down, Unless you’re looking for dream signs. As long as you can remember most of the dreams in the night, that’s fine (and writing some notes in your Dream diary, as reading your previous dreams before going to sleep increases dream recall for me), It’s just incase you have a Lucid Dream, then you can write all of that out.

16

I am brand new to LDing and I was wondering if there is possibly a way to have an excelerated LD. Such that is there something or some steps that I can take to have a LD sooner than going a regular way? Any advice will help.

17

There are all sorts of stuff you can do to increase your chances of having an LD, though there are no techniques that will help you have an LD sooner than the regular way, cause if there where, everyone’d use it, and eventually turn that technique into the “Regular” technique.
Write a DJ, make sure you eat alot of vitamin B6, stay focused - yet relaxed, don’t push yourself, do RC’s regular, in bed - imagine yourself asleep and floating doing RC’s.

If you start to feel fed up about this whole LD thingy, take a break for a month or so - Some “Non-successive” LD’ers who have taken a break before have had an LD almost immediately afterwards.

18

So, I am an involuntary summer lucid dreamer. (involuntary as in i LD only in the summer, rather than all year, which i would like) Last summer was my first time doing it, and i got about 6 lucid dreams, a lot of them came towards the end of summer (perhaps because i was getting better?). But now I find myself stuck in a spot where I know i can LD, i know how lucid dreaming feels, yet i still can not get back into it. I also used to have really good dream recall last summer (about 3-4 a night), and that too kind of fell apart throughout the year. The techniques I used were a mixture of reality checks, and MILD, but i tend to just realize that something is weird in my dream, and do a RC after that. Any tips on getting back into LDing, and stuff?

19

I was only focused on dreaming, nut lucidity. I knew it would came when the time was ripe. :content:

20

I am writing this to help myself, and anyone else wanting to start Lucid Dreaming.

First, work on remembering your dreams
Technique #1
Before you go to bed say over and over again “I will remember my dreams”, it is important you actually MEAN it, and aren’t just saying it.
Technique #2
Set your alarm for 4.5 hours, 6 hours, and 7.5 hours after going to sleep. Each time it wakes you up, write down as much as you can about remembering your dreams.

TIPS
Use both techniques for the best result

You also want to get in the habit of doing reality checks. A reality check is something you do to see if you are dreaming or not. I use these two techniques: I hold my nose, and see if I can breath, I also look at some text, turn away, and look at it.

If you can breath while you are holding your nose, you are dreaming, if the text has changed, you are dreaming.

Try and do a reality check as much as possible, here are some situations you should do a reality check in:

  1. If something seems strange
  2. When you go to the bathroom
  3. When you wake up
  4. When your watch bleeps on the hour
  5. When you see a mirror

You can use these, or make up your own, what you want to happen is get into the habit, and eventually you will do it in a dream and say, “Cool, I’m Dreaming!”

Now you need to choose one of these techniques:
MILD – Telling yourself before you go to sleep to realise you are dreaming
WILD – Keeping your mind awake while your body falls asleep
WBTB – Wake Back To Bed, you wake up and go back to bed again
Auto suggestion – Kinda like MILD, you tell yourself you are going to realise you are dreaming.

For the best results use WBTB with MILD or WILD

Lastly keep experimenting, try MILD in different ways, then try WILD in different ways, eg: count differently, wake yourself up at a different time, visualise something different.

If nothing seems to work, don’t give up! keep experimenting with different techniques until it finally works!

TIP FOR WILD:
Wake yourself up 1.5, 3, 4.5, 6, or 7.5 hours after going to bed, this will leave you close to the REM cycle.
Also, try using different techniques to keep yourself awake, here are some ideas:

  1. Focus on the coloured dots you see when your eyes are shut, and make them dance around and change colour.
  2. Keep switching what you are thinking about every 1-2 seconds, but still keep aware, this will simulate your thinking pattern of when you dream normally. You will start to see images and hear sounds, and you will eventually enter a dream. This is called Hypnogogic Imagery
  3. Count from 1-100 and say “I’m dreaming” in between each number.
  4. Focus on the Tinnitus (ringing) in your ears, it will get louder and you will eventually enter a dram
  5. Make yourself slightly uncomfortable, so you don’t fall asleep too easily. Try on of the following:
    i) Stack Pillows so you are sitting up in bed, and not in a normal sleeping position
    ii) Lie down on a hard floor
    iii) Lifting your forearm upwards, with the rest of your arm resting on the bed.
    iv) Sit in a hard chair