The first step on my goal to lucidity...

Quest for Lucidity
1

Having come across the idea of lucid dreaming as a possibility a few years ago, it is only recently I have actually tried to achieve this goal, by which I mean yesterday. After doing some research on how to become lucid on the interwebs, and running into a variety of different sites, I stumbled across this community and immediately began reading.

After browsing through the guide, I went into the forums and came across User Rathez’ guide to lucid dreaming through maintaining dream vividness via dream journal.

This sounded like the most appealing method to me because it made sense to document my dreams and that this would eventually help me reach lucidity, and the fact that having dream vividness whilst using other techniques mentioned on this site would not hurt at all.

So I began last night by using the techniques to entice dream memory in the guide, carrying out the breathing techniques and reciting the mantra etc. I left a little notebook and pencil by my bedside to document whatever I remembered in the morning.

Long story short, I woke up in the morning having woken up twice throughout the night and able to remember a dream I had just been having prior to that, and then remembering two more in the morning once fully awake. I was elated having been expecting to rather nothing, or having some extremely fussy recall, but instead I was delighted to have two strong memories and two or three hazy ones.

I definitely aim to keep up the dream journal as often as possible (hopefully this is every night) and begin incorporating RCs and other techniques to hopefully end up in a lucid dream. That makes me excited and nervous!

Peace,
S

2

Hello and welcome to the forum :smile:

Sorry, I am not sure if you want any replies to this post, but hopefully I can help you a bit.

In regards to the dream journal thing, it is definitely important for you to keep one for the first month, at least until you can recall about a paragraph worth of dream. You did well with being able to recall multiple dreams. Most of us beginners can only recall one a night!

It is important to keep a DJ because dream vividness IS important. Imagine if you had a spontaneous LD through the use of the MILD technique (that is basically what you did when you were reciting the mantra), but the dream was not vivid. That would be a waste of an LD, wouldn’t it?

When you are doing the MILD technique, it is important for you to really believe in what you are saying. If you are doing MILD, but you are not really expecting anything to happen (like what you said), it has less chance of working.

As your dream vividness increases, your mind, in the dream world, will have an easier time noticing things that are out of place. For example, if you have a dream that involves you walking around in your bedroom, but your bed is on the other side of the room, your mind will be able to notice it more easily since it is clearer. This will increase the chance of lucidity, therefore making you have more LDs!

In terms of RCs, if you do them regularly, it’s only going to increase your chances of doing one in a dream. Just make sure that when you do the RC, for example, the pinching nose one, you must really believe that you will be able to breathe through it. If you just pinch your nose and expect to not breathe, your dreaming body will do this reality check, and it will not be able to breathe through your nose, since you have conditioned it to think you won’t be able to breathe through your nose.

Do more than 1 RC each time you do one. In a dream, you might do an RC, but for some reason it could fail. If you are only doing one, then that means you won’t become lucid. I have a routine when I do my RCs. It goes:

  1. Question my surroundings. Think to myself: Am I just dreaming right now? I look around a bit and see if anything is out of place.

  2. Pinch my nose and see if I can breathe. I always believe that I will be able to breathe through it. I try to breathe through it 2 - 4 times before moving onto the next one.

  3. Count my fingers on both hands.

  4. Try to poke my right finger through my left hand, and vice-versa. I always believe that it will go through.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope I could help you :smile:

3

Hey liam12345677
You are right, I didn’t frame my post in a direct attempt to answer any particular questions or troubles I was having, but that does not mean that any insights or advice are not warranted or appreciated. My first thought was simply to share the beginnings of journey as a reflection of my excitement at accomplishing the first stage :smile:.

I think a large part of that excitement was due to the fact that I had remembered multiple dreams, and since I have started the DJ, I have been able to remember at least two dreams in substantial detail, with others hovering in the background with about a line or two worth of description.

You are right indeed; this is why my initial focus is to increase the vivid nature of my dreams, and if I happen to have a lucid dream in the process, that would be a blessing. Whilst I am able to recall multiple memories per night, and in a fair amount of detail, I wouldn’t describe those memories as being vivid. A good comparison would be to reciting a memory of something that actually happened to you in the distant past, or perhaps reciting a memory of something you haven’t directly experienced, but been informed about. I am confident about the factual nature of my dreams but after waking up, they seem to become a bit more distant and the experiences I am recalling do not feel like they involved my senses etc. Perhaps this will change with time and is something everyone experiences :smile:.

I think possibly where I have been going wrong so far is I am not carrying out enough reality checks on a regular basis, and when I do remember to carry one out, it is done in mere passing, rather than actually thinking for a second about whether I am really dreaming or not. So as you said, I need to spend more time on the RCs and really believe that what I am doing could be possible.

Your method for RCs sounds appealing so I think I might borrow it haha :smile:. That way, I am really thinking about whether I am dreaming and anything seems out of place.

You have definitely helped by making me realise that my RCs are not being done thoroughly and showing me your way of doing it which I will be using from now on.

Peace and infinite thanks,
S