Seriously.
I’m sure alot of people know me here, right? Well, I’m no newb, but I haven’t had a decent LD in my life, although I’ve had a few half decent.
Point being, I’ve got a couple questions.
How would ya’ll suggest helping me get back on my feet?
For some reason, I cannot get any dream recall going at all. Zero. Zilch. None. Nada. etc, etc. I try reminding myself, but its wasted.
I try WILD, but I can only get a leg to fall asleep, and then I get REALLY uncomfortable. How could I fix this.
I still can’t understand MILD. I can’t “mean it” or “know it” as easily as people imply. Also, I find visualization hard. Stuff like that, y’know?
Non-newb related question.
I know that there are limits to dream control. But I wanna ask-
has anyone ever tried (and possibly succeeded) in exaggerating time in LD’s? y’know, like make 5 real minutes feel like 5 dream hours? Eh? Eh? HAhaha. seriously though, I’d like to know that. And if no one has, I propose we find a way.
Lastly, what would you suggest as the best thing to do in your first couple lds, when they are really shaky?
I usually remember my dreams when I wake up while dreaming. May sound weird but meh. I usually dream of things I want to happen, so try to think of stuff you’d like to see and check if you’ve dreamed of it.
DON’T try WILD right after going to bed. Try it in random awakenings during the night. Don’t turn to the other side and fall back asleep. This may help: (I don’t know if spamming advice is bad, so if it is sorry)
MILD, from what I’ve understood, is “preparing” your mind to LD. Visualizing a previous dream and thinking of getting lucid (always in that dream) helped me a couple of times. I later realized I was dreaming right off the bat that way. I stopped visualizing HI when I was a kid because I had nightmares, and now I find it very hard too. Who knows…
The other two questions? I haven’t had a proper LD yet so I dunno.
The first thing you have to do is building again your dream recall. So I would advice to give up with LD’ing methods, and focus on dream recall.
If you’re awaken by an alarm clock, it’s possible that it awakes you on the wrong time. If you’re awaken during a n-REM sleep stage, your dream recall is generally bad, and the dreams are more confuse. Then set up your clock on a multiple of 1 and 1/2 hours (6, 7.5, 9 hours after the time you fall asleep), so that you’ll wake up in a REM sleep.
What is the main thing with dream recall is wanting to recall dreams. So if you’re stressed, or if you have more important things to do IRL, it commonly happens that your dream recall is very bad. Then you should wait for a while until all is more quiet.
Once you really want to recall dreams, the following techniques generally work (I suppose you already know them ):
have your dream journal and pen near your bed;
before falling asleep, repeat yourself “Tomorrow morning, I’ll remember my dreams”. If it doesn’t work, try a softer technique like “Tomorrow, my dream recall will be better”.
when you wake up, don’t move. The first thing you have to do is remembering you have to recall your dreams. If you don’t remember that and you begin to think about anything, it means that you are not selfsuggested enough.
if you don’t remember anything, think quickly about random words or about actions you could have done in dreams, like flying, until it reminds you a bit of your dream.
then build the dream in the reverse order, asking yourself: “what was I doing before?”
always write down your dreams on your DJ, even if it’s only a fragment or a confuse feeling.
If your dream recall is still bad, you could try B6 vitamine, there are even some fruit juices (in my country) with B6 inside. B6 is said to make your dreams clearer and enhance your dream recall.
I used to have this sort of problem. I have it no more. As far as I understand, it’s your mind that try to disturb you. Don’t worry and continue. It goes better and better with experience.
There are 2 parts in MILD (thank you Moogle for pointing this out yesterday ):
the easiest part is repeating mentally “Next time I’m dreaming, I will remember I’m dreaming” (or any mantra that suits you). You can do this 20 times for instance, the main thing is that you put real meaning into the words and focus on this idea alone.
the second part is: remember your last dream and relive it (that’s just like you do when you recall your dream). When you find something in it which should have made you lucid because it was so strange (a flying blue elefant for instance ) then instead of continuing with the dream story, you imagine that you say “He! I’m dreaming!” and that you do the action you planed to do in your next LD.
It’s just like when you make a stupid thing IRL and during the whole day, you can’t help imagining you should have done another thing instead.
Persistance is definitely a key factor in the whole learning process. I mean, you can only learn to ride a bike properly if you persist in your practice, right? Plus, you need to be patient. If it doesn’t work, keep trying, every day again.
Whether or not it’s counterproductive to do several techniques at once depends on several factors: firstly, it differs between each person, so that’s something you have to check out for yourself; I think it also depends on the experience you have so far, meaning it’s probably more beneficial for you to practice several specific combinations at once if you already know what it means to be lucid (this gives you a specific direction to work with). Thirdly, it also depends on the combination itself. The example you use (RCs and MILD) should work well, because this combination is well spread (RCs during the day; MILD during the night). Others, like MILD + WBTB might also work pretty well, but I’d practice this after you had at least a few LDs. But that’s my opinion. In your practice I think it’s important to make a steady progression in your techniques. Start with simple ones like extensive RCs, MILD, WBTB. Once they’re very well imprinted in your subconsciousness, you’re ready to try out some more difficult combinations (for instance WBTB + WILD, or Suneye + VILD).
However, all this is highly subjective, and really depends on your own experience. The two key principles however remain important for most LDers: patience and practice.
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) then instead of continuing with the dream story, you imagine that you say “He! I’m dreaming!” and that you do the action you planed to do in your next LD.