I’ve been a long time reader of this forum and used to heavily practice dream recall and lucid techniques. I’ve had around 10-15 lucid dreams in my 6 or so years of practicing and was able to keep a solid journal every night for a year and a half of that time. I’ve been really lazy with it for a long time now and am ready to get back into it full force.
I had a lot of trouble remembering dreams and when i did was too lazy to write anything down. I wasn’t hyped to write down the fragments like i should have and just woke up too tired to do anything. I’ve been having girl troubles lately in that i can’t find a girl that i like that is available or likes me too. This has become progressively more taxing on my mental state as time progresses, which brings me to the “odd” most likely-to-be controversial topic of masturbation as its frequency seriously affects my dream recall and content.
I would usually do it before bed every night as it is stress relieving and my body just seems to expect it as a daily event. But lately I don’t feel the urge so much, as it sadly has become slightly depressing to me to continue to do it so frequently.
so when i hold off on it and go to bed without that release and relief that my body is used to, my dreams are much more vivid and involving. i’m of course using autosuggestion as i fall asleep as well. simple things like “i will remember my dreams” “i will have great/vivid/important dreams”. but it is clear that holding off on it gives my brain yearning for something throughout the night.
and no, the dreams have no really been sexual at all, they’ve been long funny engaging stories with crazy characters and beasts and funny twists and it’s been great. although two times in the past month or so wet dreams have occured not from sexual acts but from intense emotions, in fact. and food once. really weird stuff.
i know this is a weird topic but i’ve never read anything about it on this forum and i found it to be a pretty interesting discovery and hope it isn’t breaking any codes of conduct or anything. ehhhh… that’s it just doing my best to get a handle on my dreams again. and start contributing to the forum more. love those dreams.
it’s personal stuff but i’m also annonymous riiiiiight. 
I was about to quote you… but I kind of changed my mind 
What you need to do is STOP practising lucid dreaming for a while. Just stop doing AS and everything (RC’s are allowed). And from recent “studies” and own experiences I am happy to inform you that masturbation does not affect your chances of having a lucid dream at all, as a matter of fact, masturbation improves your chances of having a lucid dream since you are more relaxed. I rarely have lucid dreams, and the more recent ones I have had after masturbating.
The only “downside” is that masturbation might (note might) shorten your REM sleep making your lucid dreams a bit shorter, but it has no negative effect on your chances of having a LD.
So, from what I’ve understood from your text, you’re a bit stressed out on the fact that your “sexual tention” is getting in the way of your chances of having a lucid dream, correct?
So my advice is;
Stop practising lucid dreaming for a while (Two weeks?)
Change the position of your bed or change the direction you are sleeping in (This is kind of a trick I read about for people who are having wet dreams… Not that I’ve… had… wet dreams… uhm…).
I disagree. While masturbation indeed doesn’t have a huge effect on lucid dreaming, it seems to have a common effect on dream recall, as Son_Of_Lethargy points out. Maybe it’s the shortening of REM sleep that MovieMe points out, or maybe it’s because the relaxation acquired causes a tremendous decrease in focusing. The explanation is obviously not known, but that’s beside the point.
As many, including myself, have suggested, masturbation can lead to different things for different people. Some people claimed that they had an increase in vividness with more masturbation, while others said they felt like they never dreamed at all. Regardless, knowing the effects on you allows for you to better plan out your sleep schedule. So here’s my recommendation:
I personally recommend that you don’t take a break from lucid dreaming. If you’re quitting the whole masturbate every night thing and it’s making your dream recall / dream vividness improve, then stay on it! If you feel the need to masturbate, then do it at least 3 to 4 hours before going to sleep (just to be safe). Try any and all techniques that you’re most comfortable with and think will give you the most lucid dreams. Once you’ve found the perfect technique, stick to it and continue on. If you ever find your dreams becoming more and more like they were before you quit masturbation, then I suggest maybe picking up masturbation again and doing it right before you go to bed for a week or two, and then quit again. It’s either that or you could even try Autosuggestion on your vividness and such, which you did mention that you were already doing.
This topic is indeed personal, and I think it’s that very fact that makes it so undiscovered. A lot more real research needs to be done on masturbation. However, until then, we just have to stick to what we each experience. Anyway, I hope this was the advice you were looking for. Best of luck!
Yeah thanks much for the responses. I wasn’t looking for anything specific in posting that, just going over what I found recently but everything you guys say makes a lot of sense. As for the break from lucid dreaming, I haven’t even really started up again; still working on the recall and I plan on moving as slowly as possible really, taking into account how well i can recall on what ammount of sleep and when I masturbate or not. I’m probably going to stick to once every three or four days because of the increased recall it seems to give me. It had nothing to do with lucid dreaming directly, but definitely switches up the norm and gets the recall moving.
Just a suggestion, if you were to masturbate earlier in the day I suspect it would not have such an effect on what happens in your sleep, because the chemicals released in your brain would have long broken down. If you were to masturbate in the morning, I think you could to it everyday (to avoid wet dreams) and still recall your dreams well.
I’d experiment to find out if I could find any good techniques, but I couldn’t stop masturbating… no way.
Maybe for a night or two, but that’s about it.
So i’ll try it for a night. But not tonight… 
Hmm, that doesn’t seem a lot for six years of practicing. I still don’t understand why it is that LDing comes so much easier to some people than it does to others.
As for masturbation, my first thought was that I’d tend to agree with you. However, thinking about it more thoroughly, I’m not really convinced it is that simple. I’d rather say at times where I do not feel a great urge to masturbate, I have more vivid dreams. But yes, it’s probably just a rough impression and would require much more research.
It’s an odd topic for sure, but an interesting one, too. I never really thought about it, actually. Glad you brought it up. 
Why’s that? 