whats happening to me :(

I’ve been questing lucidity for a little over 2 weeks now, and at the beginning I was making some really good progress. The dreams I was having each night were many, and extremely vivid, as if they were a second life I was living whilst asleep. I really felt like it was possible to influence them as I felt so connected to them, even though I didn’t manage to achieve lucidity.

Now, I don’t quite know what’s happened. After a spell of completely dead nights where it felt like I hadn’t dreamed at all, I’ve had a few nights were I know I’ve had dreams but can only remember tiny fragments of one or two. These dreams also seem so very distant to me, as if they are old memories from years back, and not something present that I can influence.

Does any of that make sense?

Its weird, because on one of these nights where I couldn’t remember much at all, I’d awaken and feel like I’d literally slept like a log, with the brain capacity of a log to match, I realised a few minutes after awakening that I could remember something. This one thing I could remember was the most realistic thing I’ve ever dreamed. Is a little strange, it was someone kissing me, but it felt so real. That was right in the middle of this dry spell I’m having at the moment. Its very frustrating because I thought I was getting so close - I’m doing RCs everyday, and these past few days I’ve also been exercising a lot, so I’m very tired when I go to bed.

I don’t know what to put it down to, the only difference is that I’m currently on holiday and sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, but I doubt that’s the culprit.

Nothing’s happening to you ! :smile:

It’s sound pretty familiar to me. You must understand something. Mastering the dream world isn’t like every other skill. This is a mental skill which is very different from the “usual” skills we practice almost everyday: cooking, cleaning, doing sports etc. These “normal” skills are developed while you do them. If you take cleaning or cooking classes, you’ll get better at it in no time.

Now, this mental skill, about dreaming, is not influenced by “dreaming”. When you dream you don’t get better at dreaming, but when you cook you get better at cooking. This mental skill is developed by recalling the dreams, having a positive attitude about them, saying to yourself “I will do, and I will have etc.” (autosuggestion) is very necessary if you want to master this skill.

Sometimes you can recall dreams, sometimes you feel like everything works right, and other-times you can’t recall anything and you feel like you are under a “spell” (in your case) and you can’t progress anymore.

What to do ? Don’t give up hope. I know this sounds like… impossible. But, these moments of feeling like “I can’t do this !” are stages of the progress. Now you should have a DJ near your bed and every time you wake up immediately write down your dreams. If you don’t remember go back to sleep and do a RC :wink:. Just continue building up this skill even if it seems hopeless.

Now I’m telling you a big secret which you should find out yourself, but oh well…

[spoiler]When you feel like you can’t keep it up that way, because it’s hopeless, right then you are very close of it. Your mind stops letting you to continue it because it rests a bit, and once it is fully rested, it will 90% reward you with a LD or with something similar to it, depending on you attitude while you were in those moments when you taught you couldn’t.

How do I know this ? If you are dying to know it, PM me… I’d suggest that you find it out by yourself thou, through personal experiences…[/spoiler]

Remember, don’t give up, and good luck with that !

Thank you very much for replying, your post is wonderful reassurance. Maybe I feel so downtrodden about this because I don’t have anyone to talk to in my family about it, they wouldn’t understand, so I’m very alone. But actually I always feel better when I post here, it feels like I’m being supported :happy:

What you said about skills makes a lot of sense - I do see how the mind is very different to anything practical or physical.

I forgot to mention originally that I am writing a DJ religiously everyday, so I hope that will pay of. :smile: so far I have managed to see some connections between my dreams, and hopefully I will pick up on these signs one day whilst dreaming.

I will PM you about what you wrote at the bottom, I probably should figure it out for myself but you’ve intrigued me now haha :happy:

Thanks again x

Don’t mention it, it was my pleasure. :woo:

There is one thing I keep wondering about… why didn’t anybody else suggest you something, when so many people read this thread ? Link here ! :content:

This is a hard part of LD’ing which, I think, every LD Master has been through. If not, he will :wink:

I have had the same problem, Ocean. Every time I start my DJ up again, the first week is great. I remember a ton of dreams and many of them are vivid. However, the week or two after that seem like failures in comparison to the first because I remember few dreams and the dreams I do remember are relatively hazy.

Like Don said, the trick is to get passed that first dry spell. After that your dream recall and vividness should improve steadily until you were back to where you were when you began. It’s all a matter of patience and practice.

It takes patience and practice, but once you reached that moment when all goes wrong it means that you are really close to achieving a LD. Like said above in my first post on this thread, the mind rests a bit. Once it is fully rested after all that practicing (dream recall, WBTB, WILD, MILD etc.) it will gather it’s strength together and reward you with something… it might be a LD, or a very vivid ND or SP etc. etc.

:hugs: We’re a big happy family here!

I’ve had that too. In fact, I’ve been into LD’s for 2 and a half years and I usually remember at least a fragment of a dream every night. Last week I had 3 or 4 days straight with ZERO recall! If there’s one thing I learned in the past years is that becoming to frustrated/sad/worried about this will only make things worse. It’s a lot better to just relax and enjoy your day, maybe put in a bit more effort the next time (effort, not stress!)

In our crazy society (although I guess it’s natural…) we tend to think in terms of actions->results. So when we keep doing the same thing and start getting less results we go :confused: and just because we are doing RC’s and keeping a DJ and get no apparent results we feel like we aren’t doing something wrong or that we are wasting our time. So many things affect our dreams that it’s impossible to keep track of them all, so it’s a lot better to just relax and enjoy where we’re at :smile: If you keep up the work your recall will come back, I’m sure of it!

PS: after my 3-4 day without recall came the weekend and I had 2 LD’s :grin: sometimes it feels like it builds up! :tongue: