Stopped dreaming (my progress and my current problem)

Quest for Lucidity
1

LONG POST, jumbled up.
(I know that I will still be dreaming, but I don’t even remember having had a dream, and except for some which I will talk about, I haven’t registered dreams in a very very long time)

I have been trying to lucid dream for about 3 months, and the first thing I tried was MILD. Right at the beginning, I managed to remember about 3 dreams in the space of a few days, getting less vivid and memorable.

  1. (most vivid) In my kitchen with some random blonde woman, she breaks a plate in the sink, I try to clear it up in the waste disposal, but my sink is absolutely full of shards of plates, and I can’t clear it, although I’m shoving them with my hands. I woke up and wrote it down.
  2. I am being driven back from a childhood friend’s house by their father (a few others are in the car), and am talking about the band primus. I tell them I can’t stay, I have something at 5.00, but I don’t remember what it was. I woke up, DJ.
  3. Walking home in the village I grew up in, singing another primus song. Woke up, DJ.

After that, I started trying to WILD, because I thought that MILD was just random mysticism (I am not into any of the astral projection etc), and started getting close to SP, with the tingling, racing heart etc, but no HI or sounds, and never quite got there.
For the last month or so, I haven’t been able to get anywhere near SP when trying to WILD, and MILD does nothing for me, I don’t remember dreams or having them. WBTB doesn’t do anything either. I have tried waking at 3 and 5, and then waiting, WILDing, MILDing, whatever, but no dreams.

Some background on my sleeping patterns and my MILDing:
I live in university halls, so spend most of my time in my bedroom. I do lots of sports, but all in the late evening (8-10.00) I go to bed at 11.00, having read for a bit. I take anywhere from 1 to 5 hours to get to sleep, and last night got to sleep at 4.00. I find it difficult to calm my mind at night, and tend to be thinking about random things for a very long time. I have difficulty finding a comfortable position, and tend to swap between front, back and side sleeping positions throughout the night. I also keep becoming fixated on my eye movement, swallowing and breathing, and can’t just let them happen. I tend to only feel tired in the mornings. I wake at 7.30 every day, and get out of bed within a few minutes. (unless I lose track of time)
I cannot change this schedule.

MILDing:
I tried writing down “I will remember my dreams”, filling an entire A4 sheet, and this worked for the first night, but I have tried to do it again and nothing has happened. I try to repeat it and similar in my head when I go to bed, but just get sidetracked. I have woken in a dream ONCE, and told myself that I am dreaming (I could feel my body in bed), and everything went white and I messed up by opening my eyes, but nothing else lucid.
I don’t do RC much, I have spent a few days with A on my hand, pinching my nose, checking my hands and watch when I notice it, but nothing habitual.

I’m sorry for how jumbled this is, and I’m not honestly sure what I am even asking, but is there any advice on this? I get not to lose confidence, but I can’t force myself to believe that “I will remember my dreams” if I have pretty much proved to myself I can’t.

2

Hy Cantor!

Ok first of all don’t do sports or and higher physical activity that late at night or that close to your sleeping time because that caused all this:

It’s well known that physical activity at late night won’t help you to get a good night sleep. If possible do that in the morning or afternoon then you will benefit from this… Because you have to easily prepare yourself for sleeping: not drinking coffee, or watching TV or physical activity!

You second problem is obviously DR. Which is problematic sometimes but I do believe if you get your sleep cycle more continuous your DR will improve. I would suggest to have constant sleep cycle. Say from 10 to 6 or even better if you can sleep longer but constancy will help you with DR. I know that being on college can be stressful and believe me, stress is something that will mess your DR. So you expect ups and downs in DR, but don’t let that to discourage you.

Now how to continue? I would suggest to work on DR: Constant sleep pattern and no physical activity before sleep. When you get decent DR then you can start with tech for inducing lucid dreams…

3

I can’t not do the sports, because I compete for the university.
Regarding changing my sleep schedule, whenever I try to go to sleep earlier than normal, I end up staying awake for longer. I could try and change it by doing the whole not sleeping/eating thing, I already did that once to try and change my schedule from sleeping at 1.00.

4

I’m not saying to stop doing sports but only to move it in your schedule a little bit earlier. Like I said you need to be constant in your sleep schedule that means adjusting to it at least a week or 2 maybe 3 before you get normal feeling about it…

5

Is it possible to get used to going to sleep at different times on different days?
for example: I do sport until 10 on thursdays, fridays and sundays (and I can’t move them, it’s a club), could I get used to sleeping at 11 then, and go to sleep at 10 on the other days of the week?

6

Oh, I think it’s better if you go to sleep every day at 11 then so those days when you’ll have sports you still have 1 hour to calm down and to relax from sports and you won’t change you’re sleep schedule either!