I’m on a sort of “LD training away weekend” by myself now in a very quiet calm location. I’ve been working at LD training effortfully for 10 days, and last night was my most awesome dream-filled night yet. After flirting around with WILD (FILD, counting, SSILD) and WBTB, I’ve discovered that even when I’m tired I have a hard time getting back to sleep in the middle of the night sometimes. Even just going to the bathroom and writing in my DJ can result in alertness that keeps me awake. Perhaps it’s just “new to LD” excitement, but that’s what I’ve noticed, so I used a night-pot and tried to write quick DJ notes and get right back to sleep.
Last night I resolved and wrote in my DJ that “I will remember my dreams” and “I will wake up after my dreams and write them down”, because I’ve had a few disappointing low recall nights recently, and the MILD mantra “The next time I’m dreaming I will remember to recognize that I’m dreaming.” I’ve decided to for now just stick with the LaBerge ACILD MILD curriculum as closely as I can because I can see results already using that system and I think it got me my awesome dream of last night!
Bedtime was 23:30
wake up: 03:41
Summaries :1) Fantasy (magic/monsters) battle on my parent’s back lawn, my team against faceless blobbly monsters. I dove into the battle with a two-handed overhead strike, landed in the middle of the melee, found a friend’s sword in the mix picked it up and threw it back to him. Found a gold jewelled encrusted egg (ostrich egg sized, even a bit bigger), and knew it was a magic, tried to return it to our mage but he said he was busy doing something like “banishing the dragons.”
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At a concert rehersal my best friend from junior high was sick I wasn’t listening to the conductor so I didn’t hear where the concert was going to be. Moving through crowded corridors shouting “hold the elevator!” we eventually get on.
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Something about Japan and bongo-style drums. “These are real drums” I think to myself.
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I’m in a car in a line with other cars all around me, apparently waiting for car testing, an attendant approaches, I see test machine, it is printing giant (meter square) reports on carbon copy paper
wake 06:27
Flying! (I love my flying dreams and treasure them, they are all too rare, mostly in my childhood. I remember barely more than a dozen in my life. I have always had a flying block with power lines preventing me from passing up in to the sky when launching from ground. (I’ve had gliding dreams where I take off in a clear sky with no problems but they’re unpowered gliding. Exhilarating and
maneuverable but “powered” flying is better ).)
I was in my parent’s living room. (Almost every flying dream starts at my parents house. Major dreamsign, I dream about that place a lot.)
Superman style take off (two arms ahead) but really more Peter-Pan style flight (controlled floating). Before taking off I get a huge grin and say to my self “Here we go!” I knew I was going to fly. Brief thought of falling as passing outside the window but my confidence was overwhelming and I flew!
I saw power lines up ahead, my old nemesis. No fear, no nervousness, I knew I could fly right through them (I’ve been working on this visualization in WL, it’s paid off!) I grinned wickedly, headed right for them, saw myself fly among them…and then I was passed them and they were below me!
I was not lucid but I felt very close to it and felt in control of my flying, I remember thinking how vivid and bright everything looked, I flew over the ocean, saw the bright glittering ocean green color, the white foam and the waves. I willed myself to go faster but my speed didn’t change, “I’m working on speed control” I think to myself.
I think I eventually speed up / scene changes to city again, I’m hovering in the air looking at a tree. Dream sort of turned into a superhero plot, I was next walking through the hallways of my arch nemesis’s house, who forced me to take a monitor placed in a black large “crunchy” (woman’s elastic wavy hair band), I feel like I must take it for some reason. We work together on trying to figure out where can put it, fingers and wrists don’t work, too visible, putting it in my hair won’t work he says, I end up putting it on my right arm just past my elbow underneath something else that I’m wearing. I did not hate him even though he was my enemy. I asked him about a device I suddently held, thinking it was a time machine, if he knew how it worked. He didn’t want to tell me, but I think he new how it worked. I flew home with great excitement to tell my dad that I had finally learned how to fly!
WOOT!
I didn’t remember all this immediately at first wake, but I stayed calm and asked myself “What was I dreaming about?” and it all came flooding back. How many more awesome dreams have been lost to just forgetting them? It’s depressing to think about it…
Before this flying dream I did alot of MILD visualization after the first wakening, it felt on and off like about an hour, even though I started out pretty tired I just focused on getting back to sleep.
wake up: 09:07
- doctor talking about having a baby, he prefers the “shock” technique, I’m confused at first think he’s talking about electricity, instead he clarifies that he means using centrifugal force (!). I think “well, doesn’t matter anyway since I’m not a female.”
- I’m at a murky pond and I know I’m on my property. I walk through it, very shallow, I think about cleaning it. The water clears a bit, looks black and white, I see tiles like rectangles and crescents in it. I shine a light in the water and where the light shines the color is yellow. At end of pond I see fish, kind of lumpy ugly small fish, there is garbage floating in the water, I pick up big plastic bottles (office-water-cooler sized), my brother in law helps with those I can’t carry myself.
Well this is a long post but I just wanted to share my excitement with my first flying dream in a long time, and a dream that seemed very near lucid in terms of its experience. Overcoming the powerlines is a major achievement, and even though it wasn’t lucid it showed me that confidence is all it takes to do what you want to!
I’ve almost earned my nickname (pun on Heroes if you didn’t get it yet), lucid flight is my next goal!
Visualization really works, it just takes a while to sink in to the subconcious. In some sense I think MILD is more powerful than WILD, because we always dream, and if our memory and awareness is trained enough, we’ll notice we’re dreaming. I like it because it involves falling asleep unconciously, maybe I’ll learn WILD someday but practicing it a lot makes me tired.