So Frustrating!

Oh yeah, just this morning I had what was perhaps the closest I have ever come to having a LD: I woke up and got out of bed to find my living room floor covered in wet snow and one of my cats eating a bucket of KFC chicken. I sat down to eat some chicken when I suddenly said, 'Hey, I’m dreaming…" Then, right after taking a bite of the chicken (delicous) the whole thing went black and I was lying awake and incredibly tired (I slept in more then I planned).
Is this a good thing? Because it felt like I was teetering on the border between awareness and non-awareness, like I couldn’t decide weather or not I wanted to control this dream.

I asked because maybe you have had some LDs, but you can’t remember them. When my DR was better, I remembered some pre-lucid dreams when I thought I was making no progress at all, so maybe both of us are having LDs that we don’t remember.

StantheGarbageMan i think in your last dream when you said

thats was a LD it was a short one but anytime you know your dreaming if even it was only a second it is a LD

Well, that’s good… At least I’m making progress.

HatedGremlin was completely right; if you figured out you were dreaming, even if you woke up immediately afterward, you did attain lucidity. Technically, that’s all lucidity is; control is, in one sense, a seperate entity that lucidity is merely the gateway to. The fact that you became lucid does show, indeed, that you’ve made considerable progress. Congratulations!

The advice people have given in this topic thus far is mostly quite valid. It is common for someone to try techniques for months with no avail, only to have their first lucid after they stop trying; or, to have their first lucid after they go back to techniques when their few-week break is over. Keep this in mind, as well; if you haven’t done anything for weeks, and still haven’t had a decent LD, try going back to techs again. A balance must be struck. :content:

Also, WBTB is extremely helpful, especially if you’re doing WILD (WILDing is extremely difficult to do without doing WBTB in conjunction; though it is possible, and some members of the forum have done it, they are more often then not very skilled and experienced LDers); because of the way your sleep cycles work, you don’t hit REM sleep until about five hours from going to bed, which is when you normally dream. In some cases, the body will skip its non-REM cycles and go straight to REM, but this is only in special circumstances (such as intense sleep deprivation), or when induced, which is very difficult and probably not something you’d want to start out with. It also drastically increases the effectiveness of MILD, as many dreamers here will attest to; MILD and WBTB used together is often considered the most effective/popular technique around.

Good luck, and may you continue to attain lucidity! :content:

“you don’t hit REM sleep until about five hours from going to bed”
I thought it was around 1.5 hours

Yup, 1.5 hours is about right :smile: