Hello, I am a beginner to lucid dreaming. I’ve had just a few such experiences, a couple as a child and three (known) in the past few months since I started trying to intentionally do it.
My problem is that I do not seem to be very much like other people, and it turns out this applies to dreaming as well. But surely I can’t be that unique and was hoping perhaps others experienced the same thing and might have some advice how to proceed, since all the standard advice isn’t very useful to me.
I seem to live two quite different lives; one in reality and one in dreams. So all the habits and hobbies I do in reality NEVER appear in my dreams, and so this also applies to my reality checks. While I have only recently made serious efforts to induce lucid dreams I have been doing reality checks for YEARS, and along with questioning my reality constantly this has become a standard habit or hobby that I do. Instead my dreams are completely random, and take place with locations, situations and people from many many years ago. Only extremely rarely will one single more recent element from weeks or months ago appear in a dream.
Since starting a dream journal I have become more aware of dream existence and have been remembering a handful of dreams each week, but the dream journal effect seems to be wearing off and I am remembering less dreams. I am going to try a dream recall booster shortly to see if that helps (Calea Zacatechichi). The few times I became lucid just happened randomly or by noticing some oddity while in the dream.
So as well as reality checks doing nothing, attempting any other technique in reality, either throughout the day or as I try to sleep also has no effect. And any attempt to remain conscious while falling asleep doesn’t work. Either I will remain awake or else I will eventually lose consciousness and fall asleep. Whether I try this before sleeping or after a mid-dream awakening makes no difference, and being extremely tired from not sleeping also makes no difference. I am not sure whether I have ever experienced this “hypnagogic imagery” people keep talking about: All I have ever seen is purple lights moving around, but they go away after a short time.
So what do people like me do? All the people teaching about lucid dreams seem to be giving the exact same advice as each other which does not apply to me. Or do I just try to get more dream recall and more experience in the dream world and let it happen naturally?
This does sound quite familiar. Don’t worry that you don’t find your answers on the internet. Dreaming is a very individual experience and the way the internet works these days you usually just get the same mainstream answers many times instead of a bouquet of different opinions and ideas. I don’t claim to have useful answers for you either, but maybe we can try talking about it.
I would like to ask a few questions if that’s ok. This will help us learn about your dreaming habitats and maybe also help you to learn about yourself.
You mentioned couple of dreams per week. Dream recall really is the number one ingredient to lucid dreaming. Having solid recall is indispensable. How long and detailed are the dreams you are remembering? Do you know from which time in the night they are (deep in the night or rather immediately before waking up)? Could you please write down 1 or 2 of your dreams?
How do your dreams feel to you? Compare it to waking life. And also what did your lucid dreams feel like? When did you become lucid (relative to your sleeping time and relative to the duration of the dream)?
The answer is probably somewhere in your last paragraph.
Yes, “Loomwolf” is OK, after all I am a different person in the dream world. For example I have been a smoker most of my life, but in the dream world I am a non smoker.
I remember one or two dreams each night three or four times per week, which was slightly higher when I first started, but never more than two. It’s random, but immediately waking from a dream I usually remember that one, but if it was earlier I remember nothing at first until I TRY to remember in order to write it down, at which point I remember one, two or no dreams at all.
The dreams are usually quite clear with decent detail, but there is a lot more detail to them than I remember, which is just a summary. Yet sometimes they are vague and confusing and I have absolutely no idea what was happening. The longer ones seem to last for no longer than half an hour maybe, with many being around ten minutes or less.
Non lucid dream (last dream of morning)…
I was at an old workplace, a large motor garage and showroom with many different parts like a body shop which I worked at many years ago (but the locations were quite different to how it used to be, and some of the people working there were from other places). I needed to get things including a giant stepladder to do the job, but as I went to get it somebody else said they needed to use it, so I told them I would wait, and went off to get other things I needed, and ended up walking outside on the streets. At one point I had gone the wrong way and had to go back and at another point I saw an ernormous rat the size of a dog walking down the street. It started running so I chased it but it sped up and disappeared in the distance. I eventually found my way back to work and arrived at the car rental section, looking for more things for the job I had to do. There were two women working there and I talked to one of them, but she thought I was a customer and took a small notepad and started writing things on it. Then she gave it to me and she had written “car rental” on it. Shortly after that I woke up.
Lucid dream (first dream of night)…
I was sitting on a couch in a holiday chalet from when I was a child, and my old dog was there with me. It was completely dark and I heard a neighbour making noise in the room. It was a loud rustling sound like paper or plastic wrapping (but I later identified this sound as being heavy rain hitting my window in reality). Then I heard the door open and close and decided to turn on a lamp to see what was happening. The lamp wasn’t working so I followed the cable to the plug socket to make sure it was plugged in and switched on, but the lamp still didn’t work. I questioned why and realised it was because I was dreaming. So I went outside looking for someone to interact with and was on a balcony. There were no lights anywhere but it was a bit lighter outside (at night). I got to the staircase at the end and suddenly found myself at a football stadium full of people. The first person I came to was sitting upside down on the ceiling, and I considered this for a moment, but decided it was too complicated to deal with and continued. Shortly after this the dream ended. I wanted to immediately return but I had woken up because I was extremely hot and had to move.
In the dreams I am in a state where I am not hungry nor thirsty, nor need to smoke, a state of total contentment. It is very much like reality but once I become lucid it is very obvious to me that it is a dream, and any reality checks are just a formality.
Note, after I realised I had heard noise from reality in my dream (which I only heard for a short time) I experimented with making a long recording of silence with a voice telling me I was dreaming after a long time, and occasionally again about every 45 minutes after that. But hearing it immediately woke me up like a shocking alarm. I might try this again in the future with a gentle whisper or perhaps something else, but it would have to be something that would be obvious to me or like in the dream it might seem to be made by something else.
I should also say what happened last night, since it may indicate at least some form of progress. I came across a lucid dreaming technique I had never heard before called the “visualisation induced lucid dream”. This involves imagining yourself in a very simple room telling a person about different reality checks over and over again as you are falling asleep. Supposedly this will cause you to then dream about that exact same thing and perform a reality check. I’ve never dreamt about the things I thought about as I fell asleep but I thought I would give it a try anyway.
I imagined myself lying down in a small green tent and two of the reality checks involved my nose. The resulting dream was about as far from this simple scene as you could possibly imagine, and was one of the most bizarre dreams I have ever had (which kept cutting away to a film on another planet where I was the camera), but it DID involve my nose. Of course I was too involved in what was going on to stop for a moment and think clearly about it, and even the nature of the main situation, if I were thinking rationally, would have naturally caused me to perform all three of the reality checks I was thinking about. E.g. I should really have closed one eye so I could look at my nose, which supposedly would not be there. But I didn’t. I might try that one again…
Reading about your dreams, both your general description and your two journal entries, it seems to me that your dreaming habits are actually pretty normal. The good news is that your recall provides a solid foundation as it is. More is always better, but it seems like you’re definitely at a level where it makes sense to try and have lucid dreams.
I’m under the impression that you already know what you need in order to become lucid. If induction techniques and RCs aren’t for, then you should cultivate an „always conscious“ lifestyle. Try to switch to auto pilot as little as possible in life and question your surroundings regularly.
Yes, I think the key is that when I am in the midst of distractions like events and people demanding my immediate attention I need to be able to separate from it and be able to think about other things. One problem is I am autistic and can only focus on one thing at a time. For example if two people are talking to me at the same time I get overloaded and can’t function. In the majority of my dreams there are many people around, and the two times I have spontaneously become lucid have been when they have left me alone for a moment and have given me a chance to think about what is happening. The dream where I was at work and went off walking by myself through the streets should have been such a time, but I was too preoccupied with the job I had to do, which I hadn’t even managed to start yet, and the distractions like going the wrong way and seeing the giant rat.
I’m still waiting for the dream herb to help with dream awareness and recall, and haven’t tried any more experiments yet with the audio recordings while I sleep. It seems this is the only way I can create a connection between reality and dreams, assuming I can even hear it in my dreams and it doesn’t wake me up. Or maybe since my dreams are heavily influenced by the past they will eventually catch up with the point where I started doing reality checks, which I practiced all day while I was at work. But that could take many years, I haven’t even come close to that time period yet!
Here’s another dream which demonstrates how difficult it is to become lucid because of the nature of the dreams…
I went camping out in the wilderness all alone far from anyone else, but as I arrived there was a receptionist at the campsite, and also a dog. After dealing with them I put up my tent and got inside, finally all alone and able to relax. But at this point a security guard suddenly turned up and started harassing me, and then the land owner came, who lived in a mansion which was now right next to us. So now there were three people and a dog there. Then I looked up and noticed the sky was looking very strange and beautiful (it was night) and I was fascinated and tried to tell the group about it. But before I had a chance to think about how unusual it was the dream ended.
Since I can only deal with one thing at a time these constant distractions gave me no hope of ever thinking clearly and examining the (false) reality I was in. This is the way it usually is. There is nearly always at least one person there to occupy my mind. Or even if I am alone the situation I am in demands my attention so I am not able to think about anything else. And of course even beyond this, the dreams usually don’t go on for long enough for me to really live in them and get used to the world.
PROGRESS! I had another lucid dream, and dream recall also seems to have improved a little. First I had a standard non lucid dream, woke up, wrote it down and fell asleep again. At this point I had the lucid dream. As usual I was surrounded by people, a family gathering, but nothing unusual was happening and I wasn’t getting harassed so had a moment to think to myself and realised I was dreaming…
I went outside to explore. I wasn’t concerned about my family stopping me since when I am lucid people tend to ignore me and are very compliant, doing whatever I ask. As I was walking down the road I decided to do a couple of reality check tests I wanted to experience: I looked at my hands and at first they seemed completely normal, but as I continued to examine them suddenly they were wrapped in tape with colourful floral patterns on it, which became three dimensional. At this point two old friends were now walking along with me. Then I closed one eye and looked at my nose, and I WAS able to see it, slightly blurry. Again at first it seemed completely normal but as I continued to look A BLURRY DOG HEAD GREW OUT OF IT! It was totally bizarre and fascinating, but I think these bizarre elements may have destabilised the dream and I woke up.
I went straight back to sleep and back into the dream but was no longer lucid. I was now sat in a house talking to these same two friends who had appeared, and also now a third whom I couldn’t identify. I offered them food and drink and while we were getting it the dream ended anyway and I woke up again. At this point it was still the middle of the night, and I wasn’t very tired and couldn’t sleep. However two hours had passed since I woke up, which didn’t seem nearly that long so perhaps I fell asleep again, but I have no knowledge of that. So I decided to stay up for a while, do some things and share this experience. Apparently it is more natural for humans to have two shorter sleep periods anyway rather than one very long one.
I may continue to share some experiences which may help others who are similar to me and for whom the standard lucid dreaming advice doesn’t work. Still waiting for the dream herb to arrive but I did another experiment with the audio while sleeping telling me I am dreaming. I replaced the voice with a whisper and this was much less alarming, but still slightly so. Next I will try making the whisper fade in rather than going suddenly from silence to full sound…
Bad, bad, bad. This had the exact opposite effect than what is claimed: Instead of increasing dream recall it reduced it, and eventually blanked out all memory of dreams entirely. Now I have to wait for the effects to wear off before I can continue my journey…
