What does your current daytime and night time practice look like?
What does your current lucid dreaming practice look like? What areas do you think you're doing well in, and what areas do you think you could improve on?
Awesome to see the forum revived (a little). I'LL write down what i do, if anyone has some feedback I would love to hear it.
It's always nice to hold yourself accountable so here we go:
Sorry for the wall of text, but it felt good to put my thoughts into words and structure, maybe somebody finds it interesting :)
I am not a proficient Lucid Dreamer yet, I currently mostly aim for DILDs because I want to be able to have LDs without interrupting my sleep too much.
That's why I have been focusing on Reality Checks and Dream Journaling, although I haven't written down a list of Dream Signs. I want to choose something good looking (not just writing it on a piece of paper), so I'll probably do a spreadsheet in Excel so I can analyze the frequency of different signs and see a monthly summary etc.
I have a few dreamsigns that have appeared several times in my dreams (displays at public transport stations or lakes/oceans/pools I am in [before waking up to go to the bathroom] for example), but I haven't come up with a grouping system that works for me yet -> that's the biggest goal for me atm. Also I need to dig deeper and search for emotional states in my dreams because so far the signs I remember are only the obvious visual signs.
When I have the time to sleep in and wake at a favorable time, I'LL aim for a WILD (Journey/Dreamwalker/IMP/Anchor are the techniques I've tried but haven't focused on a singular one because I've not really done the daytime practice for them due to my focus on DILDs. For Dreamwalker/general RCs I have placed some magnets and other lucid stuff in different rooms.
I also try to make some practices I do a little symbolic:
I have a little Lucid Talisman coin I wear in a small leather pouch around my neck (partly because I like the way it looks also) which has a day and night side. At night I put it down next to my bed with the night-side up and in the morning I flip it and meditate 10 minutes on it (only started that last week, sometimes I also meditate in the evening but I am still forming the habit). During the day I incorporate it into my RCs, so theoretically in a dream when I habitualy check if it's there it a) won't because my mind thinks it's next to my bed or b) will look different.
Another thing I do at night is wearing an nice looking t-shirt with some symbols my girlfriend embroidered on there (moon, stars etc.).
There is a small painting of a tree with a door in a magical forest in my room, so that's what I normally imagine during Guided Visualization videos as my door into my Dream World and when I get lucid more reliably and longer I can use it as a way from any door to get there.
So my thinking with this is that during the day I have the talisman and during the night the t-shirt, now I have to find a way to hammer it into my brain that those are set things and are always like this, if not -> RC.
I powered up my old Smartwatch to give me the digital watch test (plus the stepcount) and found a little pocket mirror in a old cupboard with the words "IMAGINE REALITY" on it, so I keep that in my coat pocket to check when I'm outside.
So, to summarize:
- main goal DILDs
- Focus on DJ (especially the categorizing and underlining of dreamsigns)
- incorporate the many RC opportunities better into my day (I already have a solid foundation imo, just need to put them into a structure)
- WILD attempts when I have the time to sleep in (Dreamwalker + daytime)
- write down a list of dream goals
If anyone got to the end of this brain dump I hope to hear some more inspiration😊
Hey Flo, thanks for the detailed description. I have a question; Which techniques / practice have given you an LD? Can you link your LDs to that particular days work?
At least 10 good quality reality tests, I either spontaneously make them when my brain just reminds me to, or I use dream signs to trigger them. I've started to add more to the dream signs (hotels and driving currently) so that I imagine ghosts in the windows of hotels, telling me to RT and car steering wheels as coiled snakes that do the same, seems to help with my remembering to RT. I also try to imagine I'm a visitor and have just been plonked into this world and situation to help me get the feeling of 'strangeness' and the chance I may actually be dreaming. Then it's a nose pinch and a digital watch check, reminding myself I will be able to breath if I'm dreaming and willing my watch to look all messed up.
Night time:
I write down my day in the dream journal before bed with meals, when I ate, any supplements and what practices I hope to be using that night.
I say to myself that I'll remember my dreams in the morning and I am currently alternating between SSILD and DReamwalker in my natural awakenings, as I tend to get a few. I've just started a new way of occupying my time when going to and back to sleep as suggested by Daniel which is tricky to explain and Daniel is currently working on it. I'm hoping that makes a difference to my results.
I feel it's going ok but I also think it'a not a great time in life for me to be attempting Lucid dreaming to expect many results with a new baby, stress of selling and buying a house and all the fun of this year for self employment, I'm low on good sleep I think hence why I'm using my many 'natural' awakenings to attempt WBTB, rather than alarms.
I think RTs can always be better, more vivid and convincing. I'm hoping things will settle down in the new year with personal and professional life and all this hard work will pay off. I'm going to try other supplements too I think.
My nighttime routine:
At the moment, I watch one of Daniels videos half an hour or so before going to sleep to get me into the right mindset.
I'm currently experimenting with different affirmations that I've recorded and that I use as my alarm clock sounds. Right before I go to sleep, I listen to a set of present tense affirmations like "I always remember my dreams" – I usually fall asleep while listening to them.
Five hours later, the alarm clock app wakes me up with a set of future tense affirmations like "I will remember my dreams" or "I will write down my dreams as soon as I wake up". Then comes a recording of "1, I am dreaming, 2, I am dreaming, 3, I am dreaming" and so on.
When it's time to wake up for good, the alarm clock plays "I will wake up now and remember my dreams"; "I will wake up now and write down my dreams", stuff like that, and then "Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP, remember your dreams".
It sort of works. Sort of, with a major problem.
Like this morning: I woke up, remembered a dream (not lucid)... and fell back asleep. When I woke up again, I just remembered that there was a dream, but had forgotten what it was about, other than a vague recall that it was an ordinary everyday scene. I'd hoped that writing in my dream journal would trigger some memories, but no such luck.
I always, always fall back asleep, and that always wipes out any dream memory. How do I stop that?! It's not that I'm not getting enough sleep!
Today, instead of trying to wake up enough to write in my dream journal, I just grabbed my phone, which was lying next to me to serve as my alarm clock anyway, and recorded myself speaking about the dream I remembered. That worked better. As usual, I fell back asleep within a minute, tops, but when I woke back up, I still remembered the dream, listened to the recording and wrote it down in my dream journal.
I'm still far away from lucid dreaming, but at least I might've found my method to at least remember my dreams.
EDIT: Aaaaaand of course, a few days after I wrote that, my dream recall went back to zero and has stayed like that.
Awesome to see the forum revived (a little). I'LL write down what i do, if anyone has some feedback I would love to hear it.
It's always nice to hold yourself accountable so here we go:
Sorry for the wall of text, but it felt good to put my thoughts into words and structure, maybe somebody finds it interesting :)
I am not a proficient Lucid Dreamer yet, I currently mostly aim for DILDs because I want to be able to have LDs without interrupting my sleep too much.
That's why I have been focusing on Reality Checks and Dream Journaling, although I haven't written down a list of Dream Signs. I want to choose something good looking (not just writing it on a piece of paper), so I'll probably do a spreadsheet in Excel so I can analyze the frequency of different signs and see a monthly summary etc.
I have a few dreamsigns that have appeared several times in my dreams (displays at public transport stations or lakes/oceans/pools I am in [before waking up to go to the bathroom] for example), but I haven't come up with a grouping system that works for me yet -> that's the biggest goal for me atm. Also I need to dig deeper and search for emotional states in my dreams because so far the signs I remember are only the obvious visual signs.
When I have the time to sleep in and wake at a favorable time, I'LL aim for a WILD (Journey/Dreamwalker/IMP/Anchor are the techniques I've tried but haven't focused on a singular one because I've not really done the daytime practice for them due to my focus on DILDs. For Dreamwalker/general RCs I have placed some magnets and other lucid stuff in different rooms.
I also try to make some practices I do a little symbolic:
I have a little Lucid Talisman coin I wear in a small leather pouch around my neck (partly because I like the way it looks also) which has a day and night side. At night I put it down next to my bed with the night-side up and in the morning I flip it and meditate 10 minutes on it (only started that last week, sometimes I also meditate in the evening but I am still forming the habit). During the day I incorporate it into my RCs, so theoretically in a dream when I habitualy check if it's there it a) won't because my mind thinks it's next to my bed or b) will look different.
Another thing I do at night is wearing an nice looking t-shirt with some symbols my girlfriend embroidered on there (moon, stars etc.).
There is a small painting of a tree with a door in a magical forest in my room, so that's what I normally imagine during Guided Visualization videos as my door into my Dream World and when I get lucid more reliably and longer I can use it as a way from any door to get there.
So my thinking with this is that during the day I have the talisman and during the night the t-shirt, now I have to find a way to hammer it into my brain that those are set things and are always like this, if not -> RC.
I powered up my old Smartwatch to give me the digital watch test (plus the stepcount) and found a little pocket mirror in a old cupboard with the words "IMAGINE REALITY" on it, so I keep that in my coat pocket to check when I'm outside.
So, to summarize:
- main goal DILDs
- Focus on DJ (especially the categorizing and underlining of dreamsigns)
- incorporate the many RC opportunities better into my day (I already have a solid foundation imo, just need to put them into a structure)
- WILD attempts when I have the time to sleep in (Dreamwalker + daytime)
- write down a list of dream goals
If anyone got to the end of this brain dump I hope to hear some more inspiration😊
Hey Flo, thanks for the detailed description. I have a question; Which techniques / practice have given you an LD? Can you link your LDs to that particular days work?
My current daytime practices are:
At least 10 good quality reality tests, I either spontaneously make them when my brain just reminds me to, or I use dream signs to trigger them. I've started to add more to the dream signs (hotels and driving currently) so that I imagine ghosts in the windows of hotels, telling me to RT and car steering wheels as coiled snakes that do the same, seems to help with my remembering to RT. I also try to imagine I'm a visitor and have just been plonked into this world and situation to help me get the feeling of 'strangeness' and the chance I may actually be dreaming. Then it's a nose pinch and a digital watch check, reminding myself I will be able to breath if I'm dreaming and willing my watch to look all messed up.
Night time:
I write down my day in the dream journal before bed with meals, when I ate, any supplements and what practices I hope to be using that night.
I say to myself that I'll remember my dreams in the morning and I am currently alternating between SSILD and DReamwalker in my natural awakenings, as I tend to get a few. I've just started a new way of occupying my time when going to and back to sleep as suggested by Daniel which is tricky to explain and Daniel is currently working on it. I'm hoping that makes a difference to my results.
I feel it's going ok but I also think it'a not a great time in life for me to be attempting Lucid dreaming to expect many results with a new baby, stress of selling and buying a house and all the fun of this year for self employment, I'm low on good sleep I think hence why I'm using my many 'natural' awakenings to attempt WBTB, rather than alarms.
I think RTs can always be better, more vivid and convincing. I'm hoping things will settle down in the new year with personal and professional life and all this hard work will pay off. I'm going to try other supplements too I think.
Oh, all my Lucids are MILDs, I'm hoping I can initiate more through this practice but I'd really like to experience a WILD or two!
My nighttime routine: At the moment, I watch one of Daniels videos half an hour or so before going to sleep to get me into the right mindset. I'm currently experimenting with different affirmations that I've recorded and that I use as my alarm clock sounds. Right before I go to sleep, I listen to a set of present tense affirmations like "I always remember my dreams" – I usually fall asleep while listening to them. Five hours later, the alarm clock app wakes me up with a set of future tense affirmations like "I will remember my dreams" or "I will write down my dreams as soon as I wake up". Then comes a recording of "1, I am dreaming, 2, I am dreaming, 3, I am dreaming" and so on. When it's time to wake up for good, the alarm clock plays "I will wake up now and remember my dreams"; "I will wake up now and write down my dreams", stuff like that, and then "Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP, remember your dreams". It sort of works. Sort of, with a major problem. Like this morning: I woke up, remembered a dream (not lucid)... and fell back asleep. When I woke up again, I just remembered that there was a dream, but had forgotten what it was about, other than a vague recall that it was an ordinary everyday scene. I'd hoped that writing in my dream journal would trigger some memories, but no such luck. I always, always fall back asleep, and that always wipes out any dream memory. How do I stop that?! It's not that I'm not getting enough sleep!
Today, instead of trying to wake up enough to write in my dream journal, I just grabbed my phone, which was lying next to me to serve as my alarm clock anyway, and recorded myself speaking about the dream I remembered. That worked better. As usual, I fell back asleep within a minute, tops, but when I woke back up, I still remembered the dream, listened to the recording and wrote it down in my dream journal. I'm still far away from lucid dreaming, but at least I might've found my method to at least remember my dreams. EDIT: Aaaaaand of course, a few days after I wrote that, my dream recall went back to zero and has stayed like that.