# Lucid Dreaming > DV Academy > Current Courses > Intro Class >  >  Bharmo's Workbook

## Bharmo

Hi everyone!
Here is my workbook, I'm a 34 year old married man, never knew anything about LDing 'til three years ago. Want to LD for entertainment and creativity, maybe practice skills (languages?) I've had a few LDs already.
I've been hesitant about signing up here at the DVA for like a year because I wasn't sure I would be able to keep committed to it because of my schedule. Just decided I'd never know if I didn't try.


*Reality Checks:*
- Nose pinch
- Finger through hand
- Digital watch (never used it in a dream)

*Dream Signs:*
- Conventions and other indoor crowded places
- My hometown / neighborhood / parents' home 
- Wrath / Losing temper (I'm actually a quiet guy who never -almost- gets angry)
- Fictional characters (from comics, games, etc)

*Short-Term Goals:*
- LD once a week
- Exploring the dreamworld
- Float/Glide/Super-jump
- Find specific person/object

*Long-Term Goals:*
- LD almost daily
- Fly superman style
- Phasing
- Teleporting

*Lucid/Dream Recall History:*
- One, maybe two, dreams recalled per night if I put in some intention. One per week with no intention.
- LD count: 15 LDs (that I remember and journaled)
  Year 2010 - 1 LD (when first found about LDing)
  Year 2012 - 8 LDs (did some DJing and RCing)
  Year 2013 - 6 LDs (from January to July)
- LD history: No LD more than 10 min long, very small control, but my main worry is lack of the Wow! feeling in most of them, in fact I still remember better my first pre-lucid than most of my lucids, don't know if the problem is low clarity, awareness, memory, or a combination of those. This is making me wonder if LDing is worth all the effort needed, and therefore not helping to keep me motivated, as my problem is I'm quite busy and on top of that I'm the kind of person that always tries to get too many things/projects/ideas working at once (and often not finishing them)
- Sleep background: My sleep schedule is like 9pm-10pm to 5am-6am depending on... many things. I've always been a deep sleeper, I pass out as soon as my head touches the pillow (more or less) and rarely wake up at night unless I'm very focused to do it. On the other hand my wife is just the opposite, so when I get up in the middle of the night (like, once in a month) she is like "Oh, woe, what happens? Are you ok? What's the problem?", "Love, I'm just peeing, go back to sleep" and then she won't be able to sleep for 30 or 45 minutes. Summarizing, proper WBTB it's difficult for me.

*Current Technique:*
- Short: DILD. 
- Long: I'm a fan of LaBerge's works, and I believe that LaBerge's MILD, the one based in prospective memory, is a scientifically tested technique that has to work, but the truth is it's so difficult for me to do the proper "WBTB 60' + MILD" that LaB recommends, and it looks like all my LDs have been just random DILDs and I didn't feel they were linked to my MILD efforts (maybe I'm wrong) but rather they seemed spontaneous or backed by daytime RCs (until now I've been doing RCs for a week and then forgetting about LDing for a time, and so on) Lately, I've also tried auto suggestion, what most people call MILD (Mantra-induced) with no success.

Ok, I'll leave it here for now, and will check what I've missed from Lesson I when I can.


*Tl;dr:* Deep sleeper, want to have regular DILDs. Seems all my 15 lucids were spontaneous DILDs. Busy life-style + low level lucids (and/or bad memory) = lack of motivation and commitment.

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## Bharmo

Tonight I remember one dream, I was in a pizza restaurant and then went to an airport, so I missed my #1 dreamsign: crowded places (I was born and raised in a 200,000 population city, but last few years I've been living in rural areas) When I woke up told myself "Next time I dream about a crowded place I will remember to realize I'm dreaming" I think I learned that at the DV Podcast.

About lesson I:
1: Ok (Workbook)
2: Ok (DJ moved back to Springpad, was using Dreamboard for a time, both have smartphone apps)
3: Ok (Sleep schedule)
4: Ok (Hope having signed up at DVA keeps me motivated with RCs)
5: Ok (Why I want to LD) Also, changed my avatar to remind me of a childhood fantasy, the peregrine falcon, fastest being on earth, evokes flying, freedom and thrill to me.
6: Need to keep improving my night time routine. This week I started to imagine myself dreaming, recognizing a dreamsign, stabilizing, and doing task of the month basic 1  I think, hugging someone (also a similar quick thing when RC during the day)
7: DV's DJ started some time ago, I will get my new lucids there. I might translate my other lucids from my digital DJ and put them there, will see.
8: No interesting dream to post at snippets yet.
9: I've done that in the past, but I need to work in getting regular at it (Awareness)
10: Ok (Dreamsigns)

Therefore, I need to work at:
a) RC consistently
b) Practice Awareness regularly
c) Consolidate a night-time routine and then work to improve it
d) Study Lesson II
e) Any suggestion is welcome!

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## Bharmo

Wow!! Got lucid last night! The second night enrolled at DVA, ending a 2 month dryspell. This DVA is really awesome!!
 :Awesome Dance: 
Before I post the dream, and analyze it, I need to try something. I suck at drawing. But there was some cheecky dancing touchscreen evil robots in my dream that at least I need to try to sketch. I don't think I can get it right, but I need to try.

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## CanisLucidus

> Wow!! Got lucid last night! The second night enrolled at DVA, ending a 2 month dryspell. This DVA is really awesome!!
> 
> Before I post the dream, and analyze it, I need to try something. I suck at drawing. But there was some cheecky dancing touchscreen evil robots in my dream that at least I need to try to sketch. I don't think I can get it right, but I need to try.



Congratulations!!  Great job getting lucid!  You know, the same thing happened to me when I enrolled here last year.  Something about this place.   :smiley: 

I can't wait to hear more about this one.  I mean, dancing touchscreen evil robots?  With illustrations?   ::goodjob2::

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## Bharmo

> Congratulations!!  Great job getting lucid!  You know, the same thing happened to me when I enrolled here last year.  Something about this place.  
> 
> I can't wait to hear more about this one.  I mean, dancing touchscreen evil robots?  With illustrations?



Thank you CannisLucidus!!
I've read half through your workbook, and it's really inspiring. Can't wait to experience a lucid flying with war cry and epic soundtrack  :wink2: 
That dream of yours and now mine made me wonder how much tv and movies mold our dream schemata. How different are our dreams from those of pre-tv people?
 ::hrm:: 
On the other hand, I'm sorry to say that I could not sketch the cheeky dancing touchscreen evil robots properly, I tried but came out childish, and did not look like a smartphone screen at all, which was the main point.
Anyways, I'm going to go on with posting my dream and my reflexions on it.

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## Bharmo

So as I said tonight had my first LD since I joined the DVA, the second night actually, after almost 3 months of dryspell, and it was quite interesting.
Cheeky fight with evil alien touchscreen robots

I'm obviously very happy about it, but there are a few things I'm wondering about**:
1- Had nothing to do with what I had planned/incubated. I try to incubate first stabilizing the dream and then remembering a goal (right now: hugging someone) at night-time routine and in many daytime RCs, but those didn't show up at all at the dream. I have to improve these routines, I guess, or maybe that happened because of the low-level lucidity.
2- Low-level lucidity. From the very beginning I was so distracted with the dream plot, I did not even RC. I didn't feel like making real decisions most of the time. And my lucidity was wearing down progressively to the point that, well, a scene change blew it all up and ended the dream. Tricky subconscious!! ::?: 
3- Short lucidity. That is not very important for me, right now high-level lucidity is what concerns me most.
4- Because of how I felt in the dream (low lucidity/conciousness) I cannot count my goal of flying as done, I don't know, I don't feel like I consciously did it, but more like I watched me doing it.  ::?: 

Any suggestions, specially on increasing lucidity?

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## Bharmo

Zero dream recall tonight. And I've been having trouble falling asleep, for the last three nights in fact, had something to do with drinking coke one of the days and noisy neighbors another, but I guess also need to be careful not get overly excited and wanting a LD too much.

Little update:

*Dream Signs:*
- Conventions and other indoor crowded places
- My hometown / neighborhood / parents' home 
- Losing temper / Sense of shame or regret
- Fictional characters (from comics, games, etc)
- Going back to high school or similar

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## CanisLucidus

> Thank you CannisLucidus!!
> I've read half through your workbook, and it's really inspiring. Can't wait to experience a lucid flying with war cry and epic soundtrack 
> That dream of yours and now mine made me wonder how much tv and movies mold our dream schemata. How different are our dreams from those of pre-tv people?



Thanks, that's very nice of you to say!  And I definitely think that the media we consume has a big influence on our dream content.

In fact, I went through a "boring dream content" phase and I appealed for help to people that were having more interesting dream content at the time (like NewArtemis, RareCola, and others.)  One piece of advice that really worked was to consume more interesting media.  Watch more interesting TV, play more video games, and just allow yourself to play and get into fiction.  The impact on dream content was very significant, so I've got to believe that media influences us in all kinds of ways.

I do hope that our ancestors got soundtracks, though, because those are awesome.   ::D: 





> I'm obviously very happy about it, but there are a few things I'm wondering about**:
> 1- Had nothing to do with what I had planned/incubated. I try to incubate first stabilizing the dream and then remembering a goal (right now: hugging someone) at night-time routine and in many daytime RCs, but those didn't show up at all at the dream. I have to improve these routines, I guess, or maybe that happened because of the low-level lucidity.
> 2- Low-level lucidity. From the very beginning I was so distracted with the dream plot, I did not even RC. I didn't feel like making real decisions most of the time. And my lucidity was wearing down progressively to the point that, well, a scene change blew it all up and ended the dream. Tricky subconscious!!
> 3- Short lucidity. That is not very important for me, right now high-level lucidity is what concerns me most.
> 4- Because of how I felt in the dream (low lucidity/conciousness) I cannot count my goal of flying as done, I don't know, I don't feel like I consciously did it, but more like I watched me doing it. 
> 
> Any suggestions, specially on increasing lucidity?



As I said in the DJ entry, great dream!  Dream incubation is something I'm working on but it's very hit or miss for me.  It's kind of a work in progress, but I know that some people are very good at this, particularly when they incubate pre-nap or during a WBTB.  (My mother can actually do this.)  I wish that I had better tips, but this is a skill I'm still trying to build!

As for increasing lucidity, I'm a big fan of soaking in the details of the dream scene as much as possible.  Hit a good nose pinch RC, the shock of which tends to focus your mind.  Then start touching the dream scene, look at your hands, marvel at the detail, and challenge your brain to produce as much detail as possible.  This usually increases vividness for me and sometimes gets my brain working a bit better.

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## Bharmo

> Thanks, that's very nice of you to say!  And I definitely think that the media we consume has a big influence on our dream content.
> 
> In fact, I went through a "boring dream content" phase and I appealed for help to people that were having more interesting dream content at the time (like NewArtemis, RareCola, and others.)  One piece of advice that really worked was to consume more interesting media.  Watch more interesting TV, play more video games, and just allow yourself to play and get into fiction.  The impact on dream content was very significant, so I've got to believe that media influences us in all kinds of ways.
> 
> I do hope that our ancestors got soundtracks, though, because those are awesome.



Cannot wait to get a dream with soundtrack!  ::lol:: 

My wife loves tv series, and we usually see one or two episodes before bed, and it's true it has soaked into my dreams from time to time, like in a dream where we were chased by the evil computer genious from 'Bones'. We usually see those crime investigation series (Bones, The Mentalist, etc) but I'm pulling her slowly to more "interesting" genres (Fringe, Arrow, Batman and Iron Man movies) Need to keep working on that, as you say, because my dreams are usually much more "ordinary" than this lucid.

On the other hand, let me share a thought here: I've been wondering lately if seeing tv fiction before bed could have a negative effect on lucidity. As I've noticed how easily one goes through the weirdest dreams in "spectator mode" I've been thinking on the concept of "Suspension of Disbelief" that refers to the fact that while we consume works of fiction we turn off our critical thinking (we stop disbelieving) in order to enjoy 100% what we see, as long as it's properly done (when it's not, it's when we say "OH C'MON!!!") Therefore, I've been thinking if we might be carrying on 'suspension of disbelief' to our dreams. Actually, I've set as a goal to reality check at least once at every piece of fiction I see on tv, and it's really difficult to remember!!  ::disconcerted:: 





> As I said in the DJ entry, great dream!  Dream incubation is something I'm working on but it's very hit or miss for me.  It's kind of a work in progress, but I know that some people are very good at this, particularly when they incubate pre-nap or during a WBTB.  (My mother can actually do this.)  I wish that I had better tips, but this is a skill I'm still trying to build!
> 
> As for increasing lucidity, I'm a big fan of soaking in the details of the dream scene as much as possible.  Hit a good nose pinch RC, the shock of which tends to focus your mind.  Then start touching the dream scene, look at your hands, marvel at the detail, and challenge your brain to produce as much detail as possible.  This usually increases vividness for me and sometimes gets my brain working a bit better.



Thank you very much for your good suggestions! I think understand what you say, one might rush to perform any fantasy one may have instead of enjoying the dream state and its detail to increase clarity. I take note of that!  ::thumbup::

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## CanisLucidus

> On the other hand, let me share a thought here: I've been wondering lately if seeing tv fiction before bed could have a negative effect on lucidity. As I've noticed how easily one goes through the weirdest dreams in "spectator mode" I've been thinking on the concept of "Suspension of Disbelief" that refers to the fact that while we consume works of fiction we turn off our critical thinking (we stop disbelieving) in order to enjoy 100% what we see, as long as it's properly done (when it's not, it's when we say "OH C'MON!!!") Therefore, I've been thinking if we might be carrying on 'suspension of disbelief' to our dreams. Actually, I've set as a goal to reality check at least once at every piece of fiction I see on tv, and it's really difficult to remember!!



That's a very good point!  Great thoughts.  I like the idea of taking the time to remind yourself that you're experiencing a work of fiction when you watch TV or see a movie.

When you think about it, this is really just an extension of self-awareness.  If, at every conscious moment, you were aware of your own mental state, all dreams would be lucid.  That's not realistic, of course, but we don't have to meet that high of a standard.  All we have to do is get in the habit of being aware of what we are experiencing and considering the possibility that it is a dream.

So in that sense, your approach will _enhance_ your LD practices by giving you more opportunity to practice that kind of self-awareness.

There's something else about the suspension of disbelief.  It's very important for dream control powers!  Believing that your dream control attempts will work is the single most crucial piece of the puzzle.  Fiction expands our minds with awesome concepts like flight, the holodeck, stargates, you name it!






> Thank you very much for your good suggestions! I think understand what you say, one might rush to perform any fantasy one may have instead of enjoying the dream state and its detail to increase clarity. I take note of that!



You're welcome!  I think you'll love the experience of seeing how much incredible detail your mind can produce, even if it's not something you try regularly.  I believe you're going to be very impressed!

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## Bharmo

I'm not having very good recall lately. Yesterday I used LaBerge's mantra "I wake up completely after every dream" and I woke up once and could remember one dream, but next morning I could only remember that one.
I thing I will focus only in dream recall and DILDing.
BTW, I see many people signing up for the Intro Class, and I have some little experience already. What do you thing guys, should I move to the DILD class?

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## Bharmo

Ok, today my recall improved, two dreams and one fragment. I'll keep working at it.
This weekend (starting tonight) I'm visiting some friends and staying with them. Don't know If they have an internet connection. I hope staying with them means extra alertness at night, but not extra forgetfulness during the day  ::chuckle::

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## CanisLucidus

> I'm not having very good recall lately. Yesterday I used LaBerge's mantra "I wake up completely after every dream" and I woke up once and could remember one dream, but next morning I could only remember that one.
> I thing I will focus only in dream recall and DILDing.
> BTW, I see many people signing up for the Intro Class, and I have some little experience already. What do you thing guys, should I move to the DILD class?



Focusing on dream recall is often a profitable thing to do.  Good recall just makes dream work more fun in general because even when you don't get lucid you've got all that great non-lucid material when you wake up in the morning.  And it really helps you keep in touch with what your dreams are like in a given time period and, I believe, significantly raises your chance of a DILD.  Things will more easily remind you of a recent dream that way.

Well, both classes are great!  I'm still an Intro Class student to this day, ha ha... Ophelia and gab are both excellent instructors and accomplished lucid dreams so you cannot go wrong here.  Check out the course materials for each one and see what you think!

Enjoy your visit with your friends!  The novel stimuli of staying in a new place can make for great dream fuel, too, so bring your dream journal.   ::D:

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## Bharmo

No lucids this weekend, so I'm close to 10 days without lucidity. My recall was good enough , and I did have one of those vivid, crazy dreams full of dreamsigns that I failed to recognize, but at least it was funny... I may post it later. BTW, how do you get that nice link ("Dreamviews - Dream Journal - Username - Dream Title") to the DJ? Is there a link/menu that I'm missing?


I've decided to go back to MILD because of two or three reasons:
- With all the excitement I did not seriously consider how I got my first lucid here at the DVA: It was a proper MILD, I had been doing it for two or three days in a row when signing up here.
- The technique I was using when I had that LD was exactly the kind of MILD/visualization that OpheliaBlue said she is doing (at the new podcast), and she is obviously someone to learn from.
- I've found I'm going to be very busy during a couple of weeks, which means less energy to keep up with daily LDing practices to induce DILDs.  ::whyohwhy:: 





> Well, both classes are great! I'm still an Intro Class student to this day, ha ha... Ophelia and gab are both excellent instructors and accomplished lucid dreams so you cannot go wrong here. Check out the course materials for each one and see what you think!



I've decided to stay at Intro Class for now. I'm enjoying your feedback very much, CanisLucidus, and I was concerned about the Intro Class having too many students but I see by your answer you don't mind about that. On top of that I'm probably going to be too busy IRL to start over at the other class, although I checked and the guys at the DILD Class are really good, just as you said.

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## CanisLucidus

> No lucids this weekend, so I'm close to 10 days without lucidity. My recall was good enough , and I did have one of those vivid, crazy dreams full of dreamsigns that I failed to recognize, but at least it was funny... I may post it later. BTW, how do you get that nice link ("Dreamviews - Dream Journal - Username - Dream Title") to the DJ? Is there a link/menu that I'm missing?



What I do is just paste the URL right into the editing window and usually (but not 100% of the time), the forum software changes it to have the fancy-schmancy title.  I wish that I could explain those few times when it doesn't work, but it usually does the nice replacement.





> I've decided to go back to MILD because of two or three reasons:
> - With all the excitement I did not seriously consider how I got my first lucid here at the DVA: It was a proper MILD, I had been doing it for two or three days in a row when signing up here.
> - The technique I was using when I had that LD was exactly the kind of MILD/visualization that OpheliaBlue said she is doing (at the new podcast), and she is obviously someone to learn from.
> - I've found I'm going to be very busy during a couple of weeks, which means less energy to keep up with daily LDing practices to induce DILDs.



This sounds like a great approach!  MILD is a solid technique.  MILD w/ a WBTB is what I rely on for most of my lucids recently, so I like this approach a lot.  OpheliaBlue's way with lots of visualization is also what I try to do.  It's quite effective and makes the whole process very fun.  Takes the pressure off of falling asleep because it's just your job to have fun and daydream.  No waking life cares or worries allowed.





> I've decided to stay at Intro Class for now. I'm enjoying your feedback very much, CanisLucidus, and I was concerned about the Intro Class having too many students but I see by your answer you don't mind about that. On top of that I'm probably going to be too busy IRL to start over at the other class, although I checked and the guys at the DILD Class are really good, just as you said.



Great, we are very happy to have you here!   :smiley:

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## Bharmo

Thank you very much CL.
Let me try with the crazy dream I mentioned:
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...ter-bbq-49357/
Tried even editing several times, and could not make it work. Nevermind, I'll leave it like this  ::chuckle::

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## CanisLucidus

Ha ha, I tried, too!  I completely failed.  I wish that I knew when DreamViews does and doesn't change the URL around like that.  Funny how mysterious that is.

But cool dream either way!   ::D: 

This one, I mean:
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...ter-bbq-49357/

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## Bharmo

Tonight I had a quite long dream about having Superman-like superpowers, although the dream was more about my frustration, as a super-villain / terrorist was setting up explosives in a building where I was with my wife and I could not figure out how to save everybody there. I suppose it's related to the fact that this weekend I met IRL a guy who lost his wife at 11S, a really nice person who fortunately nowadays is happy again.
I remember being lucid at one point in the dream, but the emotional content made me quickly go back to non-lucid. I suppose I'm in the right track with MILD as this was my first night of doing MILD again (I was very tired yesterday, so I could not focus on it as I was doing it, and fell asleep quickly)

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## Bharmo

My duties and concerns are distracting me a lot from my daily LDing practices, so here I am, reviewing my workbook for motivation.

On the other hand I remember having what it seems to be a FA, I don't know if it's my being a newbie, but I find FA's somehow fascinating:
I woke up and check time 3:15am, I though I still had plenty of time 'til 5:30am... Then said to me if I'm taking LDing seriously I need to WBTB from time to time, I resisted but finally decided to make the effort to fully wake up to do a proper WBTB, checked time and it was 5:10am  ::lol::

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## CanisLucidus

> My duties and concerns are distracting me a lot from my daily LDing practices, so here I am, reviewing my workbook for motivation.
> 
> On the other hand I remember having what it seems to be a FA, I don't know if it's my being a newbie, but I find FA's somehow fascinating:
> I woke up and check time 3:15am, I though I still had plenty of time 'til 5:30am... Then said to me if I'm taking LDing seriously I need to WBTB from time to time, I resisted but finally decided to make the effort to fully wake up to do a proper WBTB, checked time and it was 5:10am



I'm with you on false awakenings, man.  Totally fascinating.  The first time that I had one post-LD where I actually tried to write in my dream journal... holy crap!!   ::o:   It just blew my mind.

Shows just what a formidable engine of creation the brain really is.  It's cool that we get to have some fun with it.   ::D: 

I totally duffed my WBTB this morning, too.  Stayed up a little too late playing video games, I guess, and I was overall just a bit behind on sleep.   :smiley:   Your heart is in the right place and you'll get one put together!  I'm going to make a serious WBTB push tonight as well.  We'll get it.   ::goodjob2::

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## Bharmo

> I'm with you on false awakenings, man.  Totally fascinating.  The first time that I had one post-LD where I actually tried to write in my dream journal... holy crap!!    It just blew my mind.
> 
> Shows just what a formidable engine of creation the brain really is.  It's cool that we get to have some fun with it.  
> 
> I totally duffed my WBTB this morning, too.  Stayed up a little too late playing video games, I guess, and I was overall just a bit behind on sleep.    Your heart is in the right place and you'll get one put together!  I'm going to make a serious WBTB push tonight as well.  We'll get it.



Thank you for your encouragement CL!
Actually I have some stuff related to WBTB and FAs from last night...

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## Bharmo

Ok, so second LD since I joined the DVA and first TotM (a very basic one) accomplished last night.
 ::banana:: 
BTW, changed my LD count to "15 + x", 15=number of LDs before the DVA, x=number of LDs after enrolling at the  DVA.
Here's the dream: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...k-month-49434/
Last night I went to bed at 10.00pm and some dogs were barking at the neighborhood, so they (or my wife complaining about them) kept waking me up until around 11.30pm when I got up to check on my parakeets (the dogs were near their cage sometimes.) Anyways, every time I woke up and tried to go back to sleep I performed a full MILD (mantras+visualizations) Then I woke up from this LD at 4:30am. Can we call that a WBTB?? Wether WBTB or not it worked!!! A BBTB, Barking Back To Bed!  ::lol:: 

On the other hand, I also remembered this fragment: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...ragment-49446/
It's not what you said, CL, but it's interesting because I was writing and I don't remember writing in my dreams, and then I was writing a dream. It felt crazy when I woke up so I cannot imagine how it would feel DJing your LD in a FA (this acronym thing is going insane  ::chuckle:: )

It's also interesting I feel most of the time both in the dream and the dream fragment a part of me knew it was a dream, but only became lucid and acted accordingly for a brief period.

A last thought from that dream:
From the very beginning of the dream I knew it to be a repeating story, that is, I remembered I had already gone through what was about to happen, and I felt that I had to do all the same steps so that the story ended properly, just as I remembered. But I also knew I could be getting a different result if by mistake or by choice I did differently to what I remembered.
This has happened to me several times through my life, and when I wake up I always realize that the original story I was repeating in the dream and I could remember to perfection, was spontaneously created by my mind at the very beginning of the dream.
By the way, I usually feel like I'm in a movie or something like that when having this particular kind of dream.
I wonder if that is something that other people get or if it's a particularity of my dreaming mind... I may start a thread to know other people's thought on that.

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## Bharmo

No luck last night, although I had a good opportunity.
I remember a quite long dream in which I was at some kind of convention, and then I had some "privacy issues" at the bathroom as people was moving the walls and doors around (I might have to include bathrooms in my dreamsign list) and also losing temper with someone and regretting it straight away, among other things. So many dreamsigns missed!  :Sad: 
I'm still working hard on MILDing, but only like 50% of the RCs I was doing one week ago, and have forgotten to review DJ and DS for a few days now, and I'm not writing many dreams even thought my recall is not too bad.
Looking at the positive side, with all the stuff that is going on IWL lately I probably would have forgotten about LDing at this point if I was not here at the DVA, and hey! my short term goals are one LD per week, which I have accomplished already.
But I need to keep up the work, at least the basics!
 ::reading::

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## CanisLucidus

> Ok, so second LD since I joined the DVA and first TotM (a very basic one) accomplished last night.
> 
> BTW, changed my LD count to "15 + x", 15=number of LDs before the DVA, x=number of LDs after enrolling at the  DVA.
> Here's the dream: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...k-month-49434/



All right!!  Congratulations on the lucid, dreambh!  AND the basic wings!   ::goodjob:: 





> Last night I went to bed at 10.00pm and some dogs were barking at the neighborhood, so they (or my wife complaining about them) kept waking me up until around 11.30pm when I got up to check on my parakeets (the dogs were near their cage sometimes.) Anyways, every time I woke up and tried to go back to sleep I performed a full MILD (mantras+visualizations) Then I woke up from this LD at 4:30am. Can we call that a WBTB?? Wether WBTB or not it worked!!! A BBTB, Barking Back To Bed!



That's right, WBTBs can come all kinds of ways!  After two months of trying, I finally got my second lucid because I had an accidental wake back to bed.  That was when I finally admitted to myself that I needed to get serious about WBTB if I was going to maximize my chances of having a lucid.  I really, really resisted it, too.

So yeah, accidental WBTBs can do the trick too.   :smiley:   It's a good way to make the most of a frustrating situation!





> On the other hand, I also remembered this fragment: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...ragment-49446/
> It's not what you said, CL, but it's interesting because I was writing and I don't remember writing in my dreams, and then I was writing a dream. It felt crazy when I woke up so I cannot imagine how it would feel DJing your LD in a FA (this acronym thing is going insane )



Cool!  Very similar experience.  You keep at this for long enough and you are bound to have a false awakening where you try to journal your previous dream.  It's happened to me a number of times, including quite recently!  You get into the habit of DJing when you wake up and it becomes a natural part of your FAs.





> From the very beginning of the dream I knew it to be a repeating story, that is, I remembered I had already gone through what was about to happen, and I felt that I had to do all the same steps so that the story ended properly, just as I remembered. But I also knew I could be getting a different result if by mistake or by choice I did differently to what I remembered.
> This has happened to me several times through my life, and when I wake up I always realize that the original story I was repeating in the dream and I could remember to perfection, was spontaneously created by my mind at the very beginning of the dream.
> By the way, I usually feel like I'm in a movie or something like that when having this particular kind of dream.
> I wonder if that is something that other people get or if it's a particularity of my dreaming mind... I may start a thread to know other people's thought on that.



That's a cool dream structure.  Very _Groundhog Day_.  I haven't had that experience myself that I can remember but it sounds cool.

----------


## Bharmo

No LDs, no recall. Friday is the most stressing day of the week for me, so I wonder sometimes if I should just take it as a day off my dreaming practices. I had trouble falling asleep (stress+hot weather) Usually I fall sleep while visualizing, today I had to finish my MILD repeating my mantra synced with my breathing for relaxation.





> That's right, WBTBs can come all kinds of ways!  After two months of trying, I finally got my second lucid because I had an accidental wake back to bed.  That was when I finally admitted to myself that I needed to get serious about WBTB if I was going to maximize my chances of having a lucid.  I really, really resisted it, too.



Last night I performed MILD both at the beginning of the night and in a WBTB an awakening of 1-2 minutes I had. I guess should not call it Wake *Back* To Bed if one doesn't get out of bed at all... What can I say, still resisting  ::?:

----------


## Bharmo

This should be the first post of page two, so let's see how things are going:

- Enrolled at the DVA since July 25th, so that's… two weeks and a half!!! So I'm quite close to my goal of one LD per week!!  ::D:  Well, the truth is very little time has passed since I started, but hey! let's keep positive!!
- Both LDs where MILDs, one with an accidental WBTB.
- My dream recall averages one per night, which is the bare minimum for a LDer.
- As many other times my motivation was really high when I started LDing again and then went down in around a week, but this time looks like I'm keeping it at a satisfactory-enough level throughout the second and third weeks. Thanks DVA!!  ::thumbup:: 

*Updated "checklist":*

*Reality Checks:*
- Nose pinch
- Finger through hand
- Digital watch (never used this RC in a dream)

*Dream Signs:*
- Conventions and other indoor crowded places
- Public bathrooms

*Dream Signs (Only in dreams):*
- My hometown / neighborhood / parents' home 
- Wrath / Losing temper / Regret-Shame
- Fictional characters (from comics, games, etc)
- High school / seminars

*Short-Term Goals:*
- Consolidate a good night-time routine (review DJ, daydream journal, MILD including dream stabilization rehearsal)
- DJing everyday, even if it's only outlines (let's make it easy for now)
- Practice Awareness/RC regularly (including dream stabilization rehearsal)
- WBTB once per week minimum (this is a difficult one)
- Exploring the dreamworld

*Longer Term Goals:*
- LD once per week
- Improve awareness, memory, and length of dreams (some of this may come with experience, I guess)
- Flying
- Phasing
- Summoning objects
- Summoning people
- Teleporting
- DEILD
- Two LDs per week

----------


## Bharmo

To CanisLucidus and/or anyone else reading this:
Do you have any thoughts on...
1- What do you do with DS that happen only in dreams and those that happen also in real life? I would appreciate your personal experience with this.
2- When to start working in DEILDing? I mean, I've started trying DEILDing in the past but it did not work, in part because I was confused as to what to do when waking up in the middle of the night: RC for FAs, WBTB, DEILD? Probably I should wait a little bit before trying DEILD, until I get the basics and have more experience, right?
3- Any suggestions that come to mind after reading the previous post?
Thank you in advance!

----------


## CanisLucidus

First of all, great job keeping up with your workbook!  You are a very good student!   ::goodjob2:: 





> 1- What do you do with DS that happen only in dreams and those that happen also in real life? I would appreciate your personal experience with this.



For dreamsigns that happen in real life, I recommend the basic step of making sure that you're not dreaming.  Immediately and seriously consider the possibility that you might be dreaming.  Reality check if that's practical.  Allow yourself to feel happy and pleased with yourself for remembering.  Mentally reward yourself for noticing this dreamsign.

For the ones that are exclusive to dreams, perform the same steps as above any time you think about them during the day.  Give yourself a little jolt, thinking, _I'm dreaming.  I have to remember that I'm dreaming when I see/encounter <dreamsign x>._  Also consider rolling these into your MILD practice.  If your MILD includes any kind of visualization, try placing one of these dreamsigns into the scene you produce and imagine yourself noticing it and becoming lucid.





> 2- When to start working in DEILDing? I mean, I've started trying DEILDing in the past but it did not work, in part because I was confused as to what to do when waking up in the middle of the night: RC for FAs, WBTB, DEILD? Probably I should wait a little bit before trying DEILD, until I get the basics and have more experience, right?



There are several approaches that work.  If you have a very short lucid dream that kicks you immediately back out into wakefulness, always try to DEILD.  Convertin micro-lucids into full lucid dreams is something that DEILD is awesome for and the primary way that I use it.  Start here!  Those short little lucid dreams are sometimes just the beginning!

Beyond that, perhaps consider only performing DEILD after you have completed your WBTB.  One common result of a failed DEILD is to just fall asleep.  That can of course make you miss your WBTB.   :smiley:

----------


## Bharmo

> For dreamsigns that happen in real life, I recommend the basic step of making sure that you're not dreaming.  Immediately and seriously consider the possibility that you might be dreaming.  Reality check if that's practical.  Allow yourself to feel happy and pleased with yourself for remembering.  Mentally reward yourself for noticing this dreamsign.
> For the ones that are exclusive to dreams, perform the same steps as above any time you think about them during the day.  Give yourself a little jolt, thinking, _I'm dreaming.  I have to remember that I'm dreaming when I see/encounter <dreamsign x>._  Also consider rolling these into your MILD practice.  If your MILD includes any kind of visualization, try placing one of these dreamsigns into the scene you produce and imagine yourself noticing it and becoming lucid.
> 
> There are several approaches that work.  If you have a very short lucid dream that kicks you immediately back out into wakefulness, always try to DEILD.  Convertin micro-lucids into full lucid dreams is something that DEILD is awesome for and the primary way that I use it.  Start here!  Those short little lucid dreams are sometimes just the beginning!
> Beyond that, perhaps consider only performing DEILD after you have completed your WBTB.  One common result of a failed DEILD is to just fall asleep.  That can of course make you miss your WBTB.



Thanks, Canis! I've read quite a lot about lucid dreaming, but you are able to bring new light even on basic stuff like dream signs. I take good note of that advise!!  ::goodjob2:: 

Regarding DEILD, I think I will keep it in mind for short lucids, as you said.
It is hard when you are learning to LD, and are craving for more lucids, to stick to a method and not grow impatient and jump around trying every acronym at the forum!  ::nono::

----------


## Bharmo

For the past three or four days I've been waking up naturally or accidentally during the night, and performing MILD at bedtime and at the WBTB, without leaving bed. No lucids, of course.
I've been having poor dream recall, as well. I believe this is caused some days because of stress, and some days because of having gone to bed later, and woke up later using a lot of "snooze" which kills my dream recall (6.00am? 10 more minutes, 6.10am? 10 more minutes, etc) Need to be more disciplined.
 ::embarrassed:: 
From today on, things should go back to normal, more or less.

----------


## Bharmo

Another bad night...  ::disconcerted:: 
No lucids, no recall. Went to bed doing MILD, fell asleep quite fast. I remember waking up because my wife was having trouble sleeping, but didn't want to contribute to her problem getting up for a "proper" WBTB so I just turned around and tried to do MILD but I guess I just fell sleep straight away. This morning I did again the snooze thing for 20 minutes, so got up with zero recall. I feel so LAZY!!  ::embarrassed:: 
ok, looking for causes/solutions:
- I wonder if my sleep cycles are messed up because of having altered my schedule on the weekend, althought it was not really a big change. Maybe my wife is having more problem sleeping than I remember and I'm not resting properly.
- My wake up alarm is Inception's song "Time" which used to wake me up gently and remind me of my intention to DJ, but these days I feel like I don't wake up completely before hitting the snooze, so I may have to try another alarm that wakes me up at once, so I dont fall to temptation of snoozing and lose my recall.
- I have to try to get up before my wife does (she has no problem with that, actually she likes it because even though she wakes up, she can go back to sleep straight away because she feels like she is sleeping in) This way I can use this time that I'm alone to focus in remembering my dreams. But this means reducing my amount of sleep, obviously, as I usually cannot go to bed earlier at night.
I'll keep thinking what else I can do. BTW, I'm not doing bad on the RC day practice, 5 to 10 per day.

----------


## Bharmo

No lucids, but I feel better today.
I woke up remembering a long dream, with some interesting personal stuff in it, after 7 hours of sleep. Did the silent ninja trick and it worked: moved silently and swiftly to the toilet, and could use 10 minutes to take note of the dream. Realized I had only 30 more minutes to sleep, so had to go back to sleep wondering if my wife would notice if I stayed longer (it as happened in the past, I believe her subconscious knows I woke up to go to the toilet and if I stay too long it wakes her up) I considered if I could have a DILD in less than 30 minutes, but I was excited about the dream so I decided I wouldn't have time to fall sleep, start dreaming and notice something weird. As I have been reading "Are you dreaming?" decided to do the 'Impossible Movement Practice' until I either passed out or had an LD... I passed out after like 20 minutes.
This night I had set up my alarm 30 minutes earlier and with a more powerful alarm, so I avoided the snoozing thing.

SLEEP CYCLES
If I woke up after 7 hours of sleep having just had a long dream, that means my sleep cycles were not the typical 90 minutes cycles (which by what I know is a big generalization anyways). From now on I'm taking note in an excel sheet of when I wake up from my dreams to gain some insight on my dream cycles.
Something different I did last night was having a big glass of milk before bed, I wonder if that could affect my cycles, like producing some mild REM rebound or something.

----------


## CanisLucidus

> I woke up remembering a long dream, with some interesting personal stuff in it, after 7 hours of sleep. Did the silent ninja trick and it worked: moved silently and swiftly to the toilet, and could use 10 minutes to take note of the dream. Realized I had only 30 more minutes to sleep, so had to go back to sleep wondering if my wife would notice if I stayed longer (it as happened in the past, I believe her subconscious knows I woke up to go to the toilet and if I stay too long it wakes her up) I considered if I could have a DILD in less than 30 minutes, but I was excited about the dream so I decided I wouldn't have time to fall sleep, start dreaming and notice something weird. As I have been reading "Are you dreaming?" decided to do the 'Impossible Movement Practice' until I either passed out or had an LD... I passed out after like 20 minutes.



Ha ha, nice... here's dreambh from this morning:   ::ninja:: 

I'm glad that this worked out without causing your wife to visibly wake up.  As you've probably gathered, it sounds like this WBTB time is a little on the late side for you.  If you can manage to gradually scale it back into the earlier morning, hopefully you will find your personal sweet spot.

By the way, I enjoyed "Are you Dreaming"!  I thought there was a lot of good material in there.  I remember the "Impossible Movement Practice" sounding interesting.  I've done WILDs and DEILDs with repetitive motion before but the idea of using some impossible motion was an interesting twist.  Let us know if that works for you!

----------


## Bharmo

Last night was quite similar to yesterday. Woke up at same time, with good recall of one dream, sneaked out to the bathroom like 15 minutes, took note of the dream, did some RCs, and went back to bed. Automatically my wife got up to the toilet as well, so if I stayed longer probably I'd had problems.  :Oh noes:  Today I was waking up a bit later so I did MILD when going back to sleep. Woke up one hour later with no recall.

There was one good thing: While doing WBTB I remembered that at some point during the night I wake up (don't know if it was real or FA) and I was evaluating if a dream I remembered had been a proper lucid or not, and concluding it was not and going back to sleep. Maybe I was lucid and I have forgotten, but most probably I wasn't. But the important thing here is I'm getting close again!!  ::D: 
I've been working on awareness as well, so I'll get another LD soon.

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## Bharmo

Another bad night, no lucids, no recall, in spite of having done another ninja mini WBTB as usual.
I was going to write a post wondering if I'm working too hard and getting a dryspell because of that, and how I may need a rest, etc, etc, then realized it's only one week since my last LD  ::chuckle::  so it's not that bad, actually.
This night I could not go back to sleep after the mini WBTB, so I've lost some sleep. I might forget about WBTB for the weekend.

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## JoannaB

Well, I am almost hesitant to mention this, given how you have been only a week without an LD, and thus will likely do better than me! But have you considered joining the competition: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...read-14-a.html - it's fun, and if you are at all competitive, it can be a very effective way to improve LDing.

----------


## Bharmo

> Well, I am almost hesitant to mention this, given how you have been only a week without an LD, and thus will likely do better than me! But have you considered joining the competition: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...read-14-a.html - it's fun, and if you are at all competitive, it can be a very effective way to improve LDing.



Thanks for the suggestion JoannaB! I'm just leaving home now, I'll check later in the day!

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## Bharmo

> This looks like lots of fun and motivation!!
> Sign me in for the lower league, please!



I'm in for Competition #14!!

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## JoannaB

Yay! So I saw. I bet you will enjoy it. This will be my third time participating in the competition, and I really look forward to it.  :smiley:

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## Bharmo

Thanks for letting me know, JoannaB.
I heard about it in the past, but did not understand very well what it was, and did not know there was a lower league so that newbies could participate!

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## CanisLucidus

Awesome!  Good luck in the competition, dreambh!   ::goodjob2::

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## Bharmo

After a weekend "rest" (only kept up with RCs) and bad recall I gotta get back on track with LDing. This week is going to, wait... My wife just smashed a finger on a wall, and was telling me about going to the hospital, not to check the finger but why she is always smashing accidentally walls and furniture so so hard, she said she wants to check if she has super-human strength or something. Just had to check my reality  ::chuckle:: 
Ok, so this week is going to be very very busy for me, and the other one much more calm.
Anyways, I can only remember one fragment from last night, but it's very vivid: A big communal bathroom, which includes my lots-of-people and public bathrooms dream signs. Obviously then, if I work harder on my dream signs following CL's suggestions, I can get lots of LDs.
Let's keep that in my mind: DJ and DS!!

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## CanisLucidus

Owww!!  I hope your wife's finger is okay, although that super strength sounds like it will come in handy!

Just spend the next few days constantly considering your reality and asking yourself the question of whether or not you might be dreaming.  Train yourself to have it occur to you all throughout the day.  As you build this habit, you _will_ have it occur to you during dream time as well.  And when you do, you are headed for a lucid dream!   ::goodjob2::

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## Bharmo

::banana:: 
Just woke up from what felt like a 20 minute LD! Got it outlined in my smartphone, later I'll type it here.
 ::banana::

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## Bharmo

And seems like I performed some kind of DEILD at the end of the dream as well!!
 ::banana::

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## Bharmo

So yesterday I went to bed a bit later than usual, and feeling I would not LD as was concerned by some personal issues. Anyway I performed MILD and fell asleep.
I woke up 5 hours later, I remember something fell down (a toothbrush in the bathroom) and woke me and my wife up, I know I didn't get up immediately, but not sure if I fell asleep before getting up or not. Well, I got up, went to bathroom, wrote a title of a dream fragment I remembered, RCed and looked for odd things (as I did through the day, thanx CL!) and MILDed to sleep reminding myself of the importance of intent and confidence. So another silent ninja mini WBTB + MILD  ::ninja:: 
Woke up one hour later, after a quite long LD!! So happy and excited, took note of it, and decided to repeat mini WBTB + MILD, where I remembered another non-lucid prior to the lucid, and maybe related. The second WBTB+MILD did not work but I woke up this morning with headache because of (mild) sleep deprivation  ::chuckle::  Oh, and had a dream about helping Will Smith and his family, who were lost in Spain  ::lol:: 
I'll try to get the LD here in my dream journal at noon, and share about a weird DEILD at the end of the dream, which I don't know if was for real or just dreamed that I did it.

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## CanisLucidus

> So yesterday I went to bed a bit later than usual, and feeling I would not LD as was concerned by some personal issues. Anyway I performed MILD and fell asleep.
> I woke up 5 hours later, I remember something fell down (a toothbrush in the bathroom) and woke me and my wife up, I know I didn't get up immediately, but not sure if I fell asleep before getting up or not. Well, I got up, went to bathroom, wrote a title of a dream fragment I remembered, RCed and looked for odd things (as I did through the day, thanx CL!) and MILDed to sleep reminding myself of the importance of intent and confidence. So another silent ninja mini WBTB + MILD 
> Woke up one hour later, after a quite long LD!! So happy and excited, took note of it, and decided to repeat mini WBTB + MILD, where I remembered another non-lucid prior to the lucid, and maybe related. The second WBTB+MILD did not work but I woke up this morning with headache because of (mild) sleep deprivation  Oh, and had a dream about helping Will Smith and his family, who were lost in Spain 
> I'll try to get the LD here in my dream journal at noon, and share about a weird DEILD at the end of the dream, which I don't know if was for real or just dreamed that I did it.



Awesome, dreambh!!  Congrats on the lucid!   ::breakitdown::   It sounds like you did everything right... a nice chunk of sleep, ninja WBTB  ::ninja:: , then MILD.  You mix that with good daytime practices (constantly reminding yourself that you have to be sure that you're not dreaming) and you get yourself a lucid dream!

20 minutes is a nice length, too, man!  Mine have been a little shorter the last couple of times, so I can appreciate one that's got a little more heft to it.  I'm going to be working on length, myself, so hopefully you'll inspire me.

Great work!

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## Bharmo

> Awesome, dreambh!!  Congrats on the lucid!    It sounds like you did everything right... a nice chunk of sleep, ninja WBTB , then MILD.  You mix that with good daytime practices (constantly reminding yourself that you have to be sure that you're not dreaming) and you get yourself a lucid dream!
> 
> 20 minutes is a nice length, too, man!  Mine have been a little shorter the last couple of times, so I can appreciate one that's got a little more heft to it.  I'm going to be working on length, myself, so hopefully you'll inspire me.
> 
> Great work!



Thanks CL, you know, had this lucid right after your advise!!
Actually it felt 20 minutes but a half that time was wasted walking around and I don't remember it well, but anyways, for me is an achievment.
Here's the lucid: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...-museum-49958/
I don't want to think how many points this night was worth for the Competition#14 as it has not started yet  :Bang head:

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## CanisLucidus

> Thanks CL, you know, had this lucid right after your advise!!
> Actually it felt 20 minutes but a half that time was wasted walking around and I don't remember it well, but anyways, for me is an achievment.
> Here's the lucid: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...-museum-49958/
> I don't want to think how many points this night was worth for the Competition#14 as it has not started yet



Cool, man, I'll be sure to check it out!  I'm really happy for you!   ::happy:: 

As for the competition, yeah, I guess it started with last night's dreams...?  Double check just to be sure!  Anyway, you'll just have to have a bunch more!   ::goodjob2::

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## Bharmo

The Competition has motivated me to try hard on my practices, and I've set some personal goals for the competition that can be seen at my signature. I don't not what it will do with my lucids, but is already helping me with my recall.

On the other hand, I'm taking 3 or 4 days off for some rest on some "cabañas" by the sea, so may not be posting during that time. Lets see what happens, I hope I don't relax too much and lose my critical thinking / awareness!

----------


## paigeyemps

Hi! I saw your post in the snippets thread. And yep, I believe that was a DEILD! Congratulations  :Party: 

Also, with DEILD, even if you move a bit or open your eyes or see something, it doesn't necessarily ruin your attempt. You can still DEILD as long as you don't focus on the movement, and keep your "im going to have a lucid" mindset.  :smiley:  if you're still in a dreamy phase, you can definitely still DEILD. Cheers~

----------


## Bharmo

> Hi! I saw your post in the snippets thread. And yep, I believe that was a DEILD! Congratulations 
> 
> Also, with DEILD, even if you move a bit or open your eyes or see something, it doesn't necessarily ruin your attempt. You can still DEILD as long as you don't focus on the movement, and keep your "im going to have a lucid" mindset.  if you're still in a dreamy phase, you can definitely still DEILD. Cheers~



Thank you very much for your answer Paigeyemps! I really feel I'm progressing with the help you all are providing here!  ::goodjob:: 
Actually I just had another interesting lucid dream!!
Let me just do another entry in my workbook for that...

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## Bharmo

Another lucid!!! Only five days from last one! I hope I'm in my way to increasing frequency.
There's a little story behind this one:
I've been thinking about my MILD skill, that is, I'm following LaBerge's Mnemonic Induction method, which is based on visualizing a dream to get your prospective memory remind you to ask yourself if your are dreaming. Now the truth is my dream recall detail is not good, and my memory neither, so I was telling me that LaBerge's MILD is a good technique but in my case was going to take a while to be as effective as I would like.
But I've been on a trip (that didn't work out well, logistic problems made us come back earlier than planned) and Saturday while traveling I read the chapter about inducing DILDs at ETWOLD. There he says something very interesting I didn't remember, with MILD you can use "intentional effort" but with Autosuggestion that's counterproductive. Taking that into account, this weekend I decided to stop commanding myself to lucid dream in my mantras, but rather remind myself that I can easily realize when I'm dreaming, and voila!
Obviously, this could all be a placebo... But it worked!
Something that I feel helped a lot was that I was reading some of CanisLucidus oldest lucids for inspiration, and it did boost my confidence!

Regarding the lucid dream itself, this is one I particularly enjoyed, because of several reasons: It's very close to my last one so I'm increasing frequency, I achieved my first personal goal at the competition (have a lucid within the first week), had my first moments of awareness regarding my voice and the end of the dream, and I could remember more things from WL than I expected, like names and faces. Oh, and first time CanisLucidus show up in my dreams somehow  ::chuckle:: 

http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...someone-50142/

----------


## CanisLucidus

> Another lucid!!! Only five days from last one! I hope I'm in my way to increasing frequency.
> There's a little story behind this one:
> I've been thinking about my MILD skill, that is, I'm following LaBerge's Mnemonic Induction method, which is based on visualizing a dream to get your prospective memory remind you to ask yourself if your are dreaming. Now the truth is my dream recall detail is not good, and my memory neither, so I was telling me that LaBerge's MILD is a good technique but in my case was going to take a while to be as effective as I would like.
> But I've been on a trip (that didn't work out well, logistic problems made us come back earlier than planned) and Saturday while traveling I read the chapter about inducing DILDs at ETWOLD. There he says something very interesting I didn't remember, with MILD you can use "intentional effort" but with Autosuggestion that's counterproductive. Taking that into account, this weekend I decided to stop commanding myself to lucid dream in my mantras, but rather remind myself that I can easily realize when I'm dreaming, and voila!
> Obviously, this could all be a placebo... But it worked!
> Something that I feel helped a lot was that I was reading some of CanisLucidus oldest lucids for inspiration, and it did boost my confidence!



Awesome, dreambh, congratulations on the lucid!!   ::goodjob::   I agree, it definitely seems like your frequency is picking up nicely.

Great observation about autosuggestions.  I'm really glad that you were able to pick up on that when you were reading Laberge and realize that it was something you could apply right away.  Your progress is inspirational!  And heh, I'm glad my old lucids came in handy, too!

Keep up the great work, man.  You are just doing great. I'll check out your DJ entry as well!

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## Bharmo

The Competition is making me realize *again* how much I need to improve my dream recall.
I need to renew my resolve to write down my dreams whenever I wake up, even if it's only an outline, in order to recognize when I'm dreaming more easily.

 ::listenup::  Write down my dreams! Write down my dreams!  ::listenup::

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## CanisLucidus

> The Competition is making me realize *again* how much I need to improve my dream recall.
> I need to renew my resolve to write down my dreams whenever I wake up, even if it's only an outline, in order to recognize when I'm dreaming more easily.
> 
>  Write down my dreams! Write down my dreams!



It's funny, but even not being in the competition, I just notice things like when I have an early micro-awakening with a dream in mind but I'm too lazy to get out of bed.  And by the time I do WBTB it's gone.  Even though the dream itself is more important than the abstract points in a competition, it's great for driving home the fact that something has been lost.

Makes for a great learning experience, which is what this is all about!

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## Bharmo

Well, I've forgotten my workbook a little bit with all the worries about Competition #14.

So first, about Competition 14: Excellent for motivation, lots of fun, and also a big help in goal setting (I was incubating my goals in my daily RCs, which I enjoyed, and it worked twice!!)
Only bad thing about the competition was I had to leave it two days before it ended because I travelled to an isolated area. So I properly fulfilled two of my goals within the competition, get over 30pts and one LD during the first week, and then fulfilled a lot more within the competition dates but could not report them on time: a second LD in the second week, two of my 3 step tasks, and get over 45pts.

About my trip: I had two lucids in six nights. My wife, some friends and I spent those nights on "different" circumstances to say the least: We stayed with a family of native central-americans, in an isolated village, in a wooden shack, my wife and I slept on an individual wooden bed with two mats stacked as a mattress, with no sound or thermal isolation at all. We enjoyed the experience very much, and as I said, I enjoyed two very close lucids.

About the lucids: I was away from the Competition and enjoying a very interesting experience, so I just forgot about LDing (well, not totally, I still RCed on some occasions), but as I have been doing a lot of incubation, I still had a LD related to the competition, and within the competition dates! Here it is:
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...me-shop-50723/
I believe that was the very first night, and then the fourth I had another, a lucid in which I was "distracted" by a woman... There I have learned to not go to bed without lucid goals or one risks to waste a precious lucid with non interesting stuff.  ::?:  On the other hand a lucid is a lucid, the fact that I had it makes me happy about my progress towards regular lucid dreaming!

After this intense week and the end of the competition, I've got to think about my lucid goals.

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## JoannaB

I thin it's wonderful that you had great lucids. While it is a shame that they did not get to officially count, but you know how much you truly accomplished, and isn't that the most important? And don't forget that these competitions happen roughly every month, and next time you will not need to go away before the competition end, right?

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## Bharmo

> I thin it's wonderful that you had great lucids. While it is a shame that they did not get to officially count, but you know how much you truly accomplished, and isn't that the most important? And don't forget that these competitions happen roughly every month, and next time you will not need to go away before the competition end, right?



You're totally right! Thank you for letting me know about the competition.

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## CanisLucidus

> About my trip: I had two lucids in six nights. My wife, some friends and I spent those nights on "different" circumstances to say the least: We stayed with a family of native central-americans, in an isolated village, in a wooden shack, my wife and I slept on an individual wooden bed with two mats stacked as a mattress, with no sound or thermal isolation at all. We enjoyed the experience very much, and as I said, I enjoyed two very close lucids.



Great job, dreambh, congratulations on the lucids!  I can't imagine a cooler-sounding setting for lucid dreaming than this!

I'm also glad to hear that you did so well on your competition goals and just generally had so much success.  I was noticing "phasing" on your last step of the 3-step task.  That's a great skill and once you get it down, you will do it all the time.  Well at least I do.   :smiley:   Very fun one and comes in handy constantly.

I've been away on vacation myself for a bit and I'm still getting caught up.  I had a fairly lucid vacation too, so high five there.   :smiley: 

I'll check out those dj entries too...

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## Bharmo

Thank you very much, CL!
Lately I'm really busy and have several concerns in my head all the time, so I could not keep up with my workbook as I used to, well, I'm not keeping up the rhythm I used to in my lucid practices in general: My recall is keeping as it used to (one dream average) even thought I'm only journaling my (few) lucids, will see how that evolves. And I'm doing the bare minimum regarding night routine (I just do some short mantras) and regarding RC (and average of three per day, I think)
The truth is I was working very hard on lucidity, but I feel like one has to find a balance or will risk getting tired of all that hard work and quit. I imagine finding that balance is one of the harder things about LDing.
By the way, I had a lucid a couple of days ago, so looks like I'm reaching my main goal of one lucid per week.
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...-bikini-50931/

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## Bharmo

Last night was quite weird: I could do a WBTB + MILD because of a phone notification and had a lucid dream perfectly nested within a normal dream. I woke up like WTF?! Then  ::ninja:: went to the bathroom ::ninja::  and journaled the whole combo dream. Then when going back to bed got a superficial cut in my hand with my bed comforter  ::shock:: 
So weird that I had to RC and still don't know how that happened  ::chuckle:: 
Oh, here's the dream: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...n-dream-50953/ 
So another lucid (I think) really close to last one, yay!

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## CanisLucidus

Congratulations on the recent successes, dreambh!  You're exactly right that you want to avoid physically or mentally exhausting yourself in the pursuit of LD.

It's always important to keep in mind that what we do is about _fun_ and enjoying everything that life has to offer.  This should at all times remain a fun activity that enriches our lives and can't be a source of stress.

I have to say, man, I was shocked that you got a cut on your hand from your comforter!   :Oh noes:   What's that thing made of??

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## Bharmo

> It's always important to keep in mind that what we do is about _fun_ and enjoying everything that life has to offer.  This should at all times remain a fun activity that enriches our lives and can't be a source of stress.



Very good advise! I actually took very good note of that in Podcast QA3. You made me think that indeed sometimes I take it too seriously. I think it is related to the fact that you never now if your LDing practices will give you a LD tonight or in a week, so there is always a risk of overdoing it (or not doing enough)





> I have to say, man, I was shocked that you got a cut on your hand from your comforter!    What's that thing made of??



 ::lol::  It was a small cut, like 2 millimeters, but it's a feather comforter, so I don't know yet if that was a "feather root" (does that made sense in English?) that cut me or I already had an unnoticed cut and just realized as I scratched it against the comforter. But the important thing there is I RCed  ::chuckle:: 

Any way, thank you for the advise and encouragement.  :wink2:

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## Bharmo

Hi everyone! I'm back after taking a break of... wow, almost three months. Yes, a break from DV and LDing altogether  ::?: 
Got some circumstances that messed up with my nightly routine, and made impossible to perform WBTB. I'm also discussing some possible mental roadblocks with CanisLucidus.
So for now let me just state regarding my practice that I need to change my awareness practices, I mean I need to change how I was RCing or maybe even move to another kind of awareness practices. I'm keeping WBTB but I'm trying to decide if I go on with MILD or change it to SSILD... I've tried SSILD for a couple of nights now (didn't work), but I don't know, I felt better with MILD, it's like I know 100% how it works and trust it more.
Oh, and regarding lucids, I'm in a dryspell obviously. Well, I had just one in these months, and I just got "sidetracked" again  ::chuckle::  so nothing worth mentioning here.
BTW, I'm seriously considering singing up for Competition #16, need to make my mind up ASAP!!

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## JoannaB

Welcome back! Of course you should be in the competition. What do you have to loose, and it could be just what you need to get you back in shape.  :smiley:

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## Bharmo

> Welcome back! Of course you should be in the competition. What do you have to loose, and it could be just what you need to get you back in shape.



Yes, you're probably right... I'm just considering if I will give it the appropriate attention before I commit... I'll probably sign up later  :Thinking:

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## Bharmo

One of my problems (and probably most peoples') with LD is lack of feedback.
Some have compared learning LDing to learning to play an instrument. But it's not like "you cannot play a song until a few weeks of practicing the scales" which is understandable. Is more like learning to play an electric keyboard with no electricity, you just don't know what you're doing, and it can be demotivating indeed.
To increase my motivation I just signed up for Competition 16, and also have started journaling my LD practices here: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...ne-cage-53384/
The first thing I'm committed 100%, the second... Let's try, and will see how it goes.

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## bemistaken

> The first thing I'm committed 100%, the second... Let's try, and will see how it goes.



I believe you are on the right track.  I feel like I have been slacking myself...mainly because I truly don't know my full potential.  You are exactly right when you say, 



> Is more like learning to play an electric keyboard with no electricity, you just don't know what you're doing, and it can be demotivating indeed.



  I am committed to making sure I practice some type of technique everyday...no matter what  :wink2: .  Good luck to you!

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## Bharmo

> I believe you are on the right track.  I feel like I have been slacking myself...mainly because I truly don't know my full potential.  You are exactly right when you say,   I am committed to making sure I practice some type of technique everyday...no matter what .  Good luck to you!



Thank you for your encouragement and ideas, bemistaken!

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## Bharmo

Ok, so no lucids last night, although I tried harder: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...meeting-53406/
Let's take it easy. I'm working on my awareness/critical thinking, but I guess it requires a few days before it bleeds into my dreams.
 :Off to Bed:

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## Bharmo

Nothing last night: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/dreambh/nada-53438/

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## Bharmo

Last night (which was the second night of the Competition #16) I tried SSILD and I felt it was better than other times I've tried.
My problem with SSILD (the few times I've tried) is that I either lost focus completely and could not do the cycles or --usually-- I did the cycles properly but couldn't go back to sleep (no FAs, I tried RC) Then I realized that the instructions say one should do the cycles in a position that one usually does not sleep, so last night I did it right and felt that I was having that lazy state of mind in which you can do the cycles even when sometimes my mind started to wander and I brought it back to the cycles... I think I was still erring on the side of too much focus but I felt I would have a chance of falling sleep after the cycles. Then when I felt I needed to do just one last cycle my wife turn around in bed and dragged all the sheets totally waking me up  :Oh noes:  Although I tried a few more cycles I was too alert and couldn't sleep in a while  :Sad: 

I don't know, I want to give SSILD a chance, but I understand better how MILD works, so MILD will be my main technique for now, even if I try SSILD from time to time.

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## Bharmo

I've had a couple of bad nights where I went to bed tired and late, so my recall was bad and obviously didn't get lucid.
Last night was better, but I really struggle with keeping a good DJ... as always.

On the other hand, I have definitely decided to stop the kind of RCs I was doing when I started here at the DVA (not that anyone mislead me, it was my own way of doing them). They worked quite well, but I spent too much energy on each of them individually, so they were quite disrupting to my daily activities, which require a lot of attention sometimes.
I'm shuffling on different guides here (ADA, SAT, RRCs, etc) so my objective is to use maybe a simliar amount of energy but in order to be more aware during all the day, more mindful and aware in general terms, instead of what I was doing, which was something like MILDing every time I RC'ed.
(Thanks to CanisLucidus, for his advise on mindfulness, and using it to improve life in general)

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## Bharmo

Last night went to bed super motivated, did MILD, WBTB + MILD, and... nothing!  :Bang head: 
But I believe there is a lesson behind all this situation: Why three months ago I was using the same techniques and getting results (I was getting closer and closer to two LDs per week) and now nothing? It could be that my motivation is not exactly the same (difficult to measure) but what it is quite clear is that then I had been building up my awareness and critical thinking for a few months in a row, and now I'm just starting to get that back.
Is this theory correct? The only way to find out is keep steadly working to get my awareness to a similar level, although as I said in yesterday's post, I'm using a different approach.
Reviewing my DJ I see some other possibilities (longer WBTBs? more detaild DJ entries?) but awareness seems to me the most possible area to be affecting my lucidity, so I will "debug" the different possibilities little by little.
Consistent practice and patience  :SleepMeditate2:

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## Bharmo

I've been distracted by the Competition#16 and having friends staying, so forgot to update here  :Oops: 
And I actually missed to post something important, during the competition I achieved a milestone in my lucid training: Two lucids in one night!!  ::breakitdown:: 
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...believe-53864/

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## Bharmo

Regarding the competition, I got #6 position out of 16 in the lower league, which is pretty good.
I only got lucid one night in the competition but I should not complain too much: I was (and still am) just trying to recover my lucid momentum after taking a break, I had my first more-than-one-lucid-in-one-night, and I got to do my 3 step tasks properly in only one lucid (actually started with the third, but rectified and did them all in the right order)
So now what?  :Thinking: 
I've been tinkering with this: http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...25-time-2.html, enticed by the promise of 100% lucidity  :Cheeky:  Also have read something about a 24/7 Gravity RC. And quite a bit on Self-awareness (a la Sageous)
I'm feeling attracted by these kind of All-Day-Awareness-Of-Some-Kind techniques, but I guess as many others, I'm getting mad at the fact that there is not much solid evidence of which technique might be more efficient.
I've being researching a little bit on very successful LDers and their techniques and, well, each have their own way of doing things, some invented their own techniques, and some just mastered the different, well stablished ones. The only one who I've found claims to be lucid 100% of the time thanks to a technique, and not just by feeling when they're dreaming is Mylynes with the that "Omnilucidity" technique I linked back there, even though he is a natural. Was not a super-thorough research anyway, so let me warn anyone reading this to not just take my word on the topic of "super-effective techniques"  ::chuckle:: 
What if I mixed this "Omnilucidity" with All Day Self-Awareness? Am I going nuts already?  :Oh noes:

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## Bharmo

This morning woke up with no recall, same as previous week, and I decided to update my workbook, then while preparing breakfast remember a long dream, not very detailed, but a big dream about some of my latest concerns IWL. And when I logged in to update found some likes from CL here in my workbook, thanks!

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## CanisLucidus

Dreambh!!  Congratulations on the double lucid!  That's great stuff, man!  I'm looking forward to checking these out.  Congratulations, too, on turning in a good performance in the competition.

The search for the "perfect" technique is such a tough question.  Take your time with the process and don't put too much pressure on yourself to find the very best tech right away.  The most important thing to remember IMO is that the _techniques don't make you lucid_.  They are just there to help focus your intent and your beliefs into a spark of realization when you're dreaming.  *You* got yourself lucid.  The techs just brought out your abilities.

Techniques can help a lot, but nothing matters more than intent, belief, and awareness.

Keep up the good work, dreambh!   ::goodjob2::

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## Bharmo

Back to my practices: I've been doing affirmations in the line of the "Omnilucidity" technique, hoping to get some long term benefits, and in the last few days I've been trying something like ADA including some gravity checking. I'm quite absent-minded (?) and forgetful, so I hope ADA helps me not only in my LDs but in my daily life.
Oops, just got a notification of CL writing a post here, let's check it!

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## Bharmo

> Dreambh!!  Congratulations on the double lucid!  That's great stuff, man!  I'm looking forward to checking these out.  Congratulations, too, on turning in a good performance in the competition.
> 
> The search for the "perfect" technique is such a tough question.  Take your time with the process and don't put too much pressure on yourself to find the very best tech right away.  The most important thing to remember IMO is that the _techniques don't make you lucid_.  They are just there to help focus your intent and your beliefs into a spark of realization when you're dreaming.  *You* got yourself lucid.  The techs just brought out your abilities.
> 
> Techniques can help a lot, but nothing matters more than intent, belief, and awareness.
> 
> Keep up the good work, dreambh!



Nice to "see" you CannisLucidus! Your input it's always so much appreciated.
You are so right that I'm pressuring myself to search for the perfect technique. You know, I'm the kind of person that reads GTD and spends 90% of time "getting organized" and looking for the "perfect tools" and only 10% actually doing things.
 :Picard face palm: 
I was getting a bit frustrated by lack of results since that "double" LD, even thinking about the effectiveness of my approach and maybe change techniques etc etc, but you are right, I'm the one who gets lucid, so I will keep working on what I feel its good for me, in my awareness by means of ADA + self-awareness, and my intent and belief (that reminds me I need to get back to MILDing more seriously, not just get to bed and pass out)
Thank you again for your excellent suggestions, CL!  ::goodjob::

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## Bharmo

Just a brief note: My recall is so bad lately, I need to get it back asap. Oh, and I need to keep some lucid goals in my mind (TOTM?), that's most probably what made me lucid in the competition, thinking about the 3 step tasks, or in other words, a compelling reason to get lucid.
Come on: Dream recall and thinking some goals. :SleepMeditate2:

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## Bharmo

I remember three small fragments from last night, two of them related to lucidity (in one a friend called me while I was on a mall to check on my lucid dreaming progress)
Good signs!  ::D:

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## Bharmo

Did not sleep very well last night, not sure why, maybe because of pain in one eye (had a little domestic accident yesterday) but I woke up at 1.30 at the end of a dream that was turning into a nightmare, and I can remember the dream quite well. The nightmare was about aliens (like in the Aliens films) We were going to see a movie with friends (Prometheus 2?), and then it was a video game and then we were inside the game, with guns that did not work properly, and a few xenomorphs coming out of nowhere.
 :Oh noes: 
Actually was not exactly a nightmare, my subc always puts these kind of dreams together as TV shows or video games so I feel somewhat detached of the danger.

Bottom line is: My recall is so bad lately that I'm happy for remembering a full dream properly today.

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## Bharmo

My recall is still very bad, and I really need to take WBTB seriously again. I'm under quite a bit of stress lately, but this week I'll go on camping for 5 nights, so I hope for one or two lucids then!

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## Bharmo

Last night I seriously tried a WBTB but this just blew it away. Just could not sleep anymore out of excitement!

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## CanisLucidus

> Last night I seriously tried a WBTB but this just blew it away. Just could not sleep anymore out of excitement!



LOL.  I understand the "Oh no, I read something too exciting during WBTB!" problem, ha ha.  Sorry about the sleeplessness, but I really do understand.  Those would be some pretty awesome experiments!

You know, in situations like that, if you can manage to get back to sleep (not easy), you have a good chance of going lucid since you've been up for a while and your brain has been fully engaged during WBTB.  My best advice is to get into your most comfortable possible sleeping position, clear your mind of all thoughts and expectations, and then simply count backwards with your mantra, letting the morning take you where it will.  So once you clear your head it might be something like, "100... I'm dreaming... 99... I'm dreaming... " etc.

And if you lose count, don't think about it at all, just start again at 99.  It really doesn't matter.

But keep those exciting possibilities in mind throughout the day!  You will get lucid again soon!   ::goodjob2::

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## Bharmo

> LOL.  I understand the "Oh no, I read something too exciting during WBTB!" problem, ha ha.  Sorry about the sleeplessness, but I really do understand.  Those would be some pretty awesome experiments!
> 
> You know, in situations like that, if you can manage to get back to sleep (not easy), you have a good chance of going lucid since you've been up for a while and your brain has been fully engaged during WBTB.  My best advice is to get into your most comfortable possible sleeping position, clear your mind of all thoughts and expectations, and then simply count backwards with your mantra, letting the morning take you where it will.  So once you clear your head it might be something like, "100... I'm dreaming... 99... I'm dreaming... " etc.
> 
> And if you lose count, don't think about it at all, just start again at 99.  It really doesn't matter.
> 
> But keep those exciting possibilities in mind throughout the day!  You will get lucid again soon!



Thank you for your encouragement CL! Excellent advise there, as always!

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## Bharmo

I'm here back from my camping mini-holidays and... nothing! I've been quite stressed out with some concerns and responsibilities lately, and could not get them out of my head even in these days. I'm not one of these people who keep thinking about their problems when they go to bed, well, I actually just get to bed, forget about everything and fall sleep in seconds, but I guess a part of my psyche does not let go, because my daytime practices have been quite intensive (not at the camping, BTW) and they should be producing results already.
My dream recall is not too good, but it wasn't when I was getting closer to two lds per week a few months ago neither.
 ::?:  Note to myself: Patience and consistency...

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## Bharmo

Last night could perform a more decent WBTB. Woke up after 4,5 hours of sleep, visited the toilet, browsed DV, did  RCs, drank water and went to bed after 40min. My most vivid dream memory was a nightmare, so I skipped the visualization part of the MILD, and just started repeating " I will realize that I'm dreaming and I'll focus in my senses", after some repetitions I realized I was too awake, so I moved to "100 ... I'm dreaming ... 99 ..." After what felt like 10min I fell sleep, and woke up in the morning with no recall  :Sad:

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## Bharmo

I've been thinking on what I was doing different when I was having success last year and something just popped into my mind: *I was waking up 20 minutes earlier than my wife, so that I could dedicate that lonely time to my DJ*. I'm wondering if not doing that "little" thing might be the source of my dry spell... I might well be! Bad thing about this is I'm about to have quite a few changes in my life (like moving, holidays, etc) that will really mess up with my routines.
Will see how things go...

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## Bharmo

_As I hinted here http://www.dreamviews.com/lounge/718...ml#post2078564, I'm starting to get things ready in order to move in a couple of months to a very rural area in Central America with difficult internet access, so I'm struggling with an important decision LDing-wise: Should I take profit of this two months in civilization to maybe start over at the DVA DILD Class in order to get renewed motivation so that I can break this dry spell and make as much progress as I can in that time period? Or given that I won't be able to continue with the DILD course after the move, should I try to be a self-sufficient LDer and do the effort to become a frequent LDer on my own? Whatever decision I take I'll try to keep up with my DJ (and others') here at DV, as that is so much fun and motivation._

Going back to my workbook, I feel good because my recall has gone up lately, got 8 dreams in just the last 3 nights (which I've never even expected to get to, as my best average was like 1,5 per night) and I've had one or two every night the rest of the week. I had forgotten how interesting NLDs can be!
So I'll keep working in my recall, and well, my RCs are where they should, I think, an average of 5-10 per day, lately I'm doing something quite similar to Sageous' RRCs.

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## Bharmo

I remember four different dreams from last night, well, I remember little from some of them, but still feel very good about it as even when I was LDing more regularly I could only remember one or two dreams per night at most.
In two of the dreams the subject of LDing came out for a moment (read in FB than an old friend was now interested in LDs, and greeting caught by my wife as she read a sexy time DJ entry)
I feel I'm progressing little by little!

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## Bharmo

Lately I'm having trouble to connect to the Internet for more than "Check mail, Check DV control panel, Check Flipboard, Go" so I'm late for this:
Broke my dryspell!!!  ::banana:: 

My recall continued being good, and got to the conclusion that, as CL had said previously in my workbook, I need to take LDing less seriously, especially with all this struggling with 100% lucid techniques.
So no more explanation, the dream says it all: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...-flying-55498/
PS: And I had another lucid shortly after that, but haven't been able to translate it and post it yet.

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## Bharmo

I had a chance to translate and post that other LD.
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...g-widow-55501/
I've been traveling for 4-5 days ( ::yawn::  jet lag  ::yawn:: ), so it may take me a few more days to LD again, but I feel I'm in the right track now.

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## Bharmo

This comes from here.





> dreambh, I understand.   When I started ADA/RC, the result was also a 3-week dry spell.   It was then followed by my most dense LD period, 7 LDs in about 2 weeks including my first DEILD.    I had another multi-week dry spell following that great LD marathon that I attribute to stress, jet lag, and so on.   Getting over my travels and jet lag, I had 2 LDs in the last week that came earlier in the night than almost all my other LDs, both of which came from awareness that "something is here that does not belong", which I attribute to my ongoing ADA/RC focused on location.   I also had another high location/gravity awareness dream that left me very confused upon waking (you mean THAT WAS A DREAM?!), so awareness of location/gravity is still on the rise.    It just takes time, and I'm prepared to give it as much time as it needs.



Wow, it looks like eventually you will reap great benefits for all that hard work!
So you do a location based RC, then? And, have you read this http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...ream-yoga.html OP? It woke up the part of me that wanted to be a ninja when I was 13 years old  ::chuckle:: 





> Two months may not be enough, or it may be you were not going about it correctly or didn't use an appropriate target for your style of dreaming.   It helps to have a guide who knows it pretty well and can read your journal and give you feedback on an appropriate target.  Breath/blinking does not make much sense to me, for example.   You have to choose a focus that resonates with you and how you dream.



I did not expect 100% lucidity in only 2 months, but no LDs in that time IMO meant it was not going to work, so most probably I was not doing it well or did not choose the target properly or something like that, as you said.





> Note that I *do* mix it with Tholey/LaBerge reflection/intention (I generally get in at least a dozen of these, I try for more) and daytime MILD visualizations, and Sageous RRCs.   I also have started saying out loud  "doors are magical" every time I go through a door and notice the to/from locations and scene change, as an awareness spike.   I've gotten to the point where if I'm not actively concentrating on something, like when I'm working, I either have active ADA/RC going, or I quickly realize I've dropped it and re-start it.   It takes time.    I also am more and more putting attention on DEILD, and am trying a new approach to journaling where I don't move at night and just make mental notes, and only physically record in the morning.    Yeah I may lose some detail or entire dreams this way, but if I can optimize time for potential LDs, that's the point of all this anyway.     So far it's working out pretty well and my recall is maintaining fairly well, at least for the last 2 wakings this week.



Actually what I do now is a "Tholey combined with Sageous" if you know what I mean, then LaBerges's MILD at bedtime, and brief WBTBs+MILD whenever I can/remember to do it. When I was doing ADARC I felt outdoors was ok, but indoors would kill it, still happens today to a certain degree, but not that much.
I'm very interested on the mental notes you do for dream recalls. I've tried using mnemonic pegs, a la _Daniel Love - Are you dreaming?_ and did not work with me, but I've not trained mnemonics out of that and maybe that's why. What do you actually do?





> Yeah it's all a mystery, in the end, one must do what works for yourself.  MILD alone can result in practically lucid all night too if practiced regularly enough and with enough attention/awareness.   To listen to sivason, once you just get lucid enough times, it gets easier and easier, and you can get lucid earlier and earlier in the REM cycles, where the really juicy long stable LDs are.



Yes, I think I'll leave ADA variants for a bit later, when I have quite a few more LDs booked.
BTW, it called my attention to realize, with VagalTone's help, that Tholey himself claimed that his technique also should go into background mode if practiced consistently over enough time. That also helped me to decide sticking mostly to the old EWOLD techniques by now.





> And then there's WILD, but WILD has proven not to be a friend to me, at least not yet.



He he, same here.

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## Bharmo

Something I forgot to mention is I'm using HabitRPG to help me with keeping a good LDing routine and other habits. The only thing missing is a Lucid dreaming guild  :Sad: 
Actually I've been thinking a that some sort of gamification of a good LDing routine (similar to what we do at the General Lucid Dreaming Competition) could be a very good idea to make an app, but HabitRPG is quite good and it's free.

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## FryingMan

> Wow, it looks like eventually you will reap great benefits for all that hard work!
> So you do a location based RC, then? And, have you read this http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...ream-yoga.html OP? It woke up the part of me that wanted to be a ninja when I was 13 years old



I sure hope so!    It's looking good so far.   Still plenty of facepalms, though!   Like the one earlier this week, "It's too bad this is not enough to get me lucid.."   AAAAAAA!   At least it was followed by some really awesome dream sex (that I almost forgot!   It was a sudden burst of memory after I thought I had recalled all I could).

Yes I try to stay aware of my location with the subtext: is this a waking location?   And special increased awareness on every transition of location and doors, really watching the from/to transition.  If I ever notice I transitioned location without high transition awareness I stop and do a Tholey/LaBerge and assume I'm dreaming.

That's a great link to BillyBob's note, there's such a treasure of posts hidden on this site, what a trip, I certainly failed on the video!    Dream Yoga is high on my list of stuff to put into daily practice, I started a few things a month ago but haven't kept it up.   I think it must be a great investment of time, however.  As sivason says, it transforms your brain into a lucid dreaming MACHINE!  :smiley: 





> I did not expect 100% lucidity in only 2 months, but no LDs in that time IMO meant it was not going to work, so most probably I was not doing it well or did not choose the target properly or something like that, as you said.



Yeah, you have to do what works for you, as I said.   I'd encourage you to try again at some point, while keeping all the other stuff you're doing.   I for one have nothing better to do while I'm walking around getting exercise or simply moving around/commuting, so it seems very natural to me.





> Actually what I do now is a "Tholey combined with Sageous" if you know what I mean, then LaBerges's MILD at bedtime, and brief WBTBs+MILD whenever I can/remember to do it. When I was doing ADARC I felt outdoors was ok, but indoors would kill it, still happens today to a certain degree, but not that much.
> I'm very interested on the mental notes you do for dream recalls. I've tried using mnemonic pegs, a la _Daniel Love - Are you dreaming?_ and did not work with me, but I've not trained mnemonics out of that and maybe that's why. What do you actually do?



Yup and I do that too (Tholey/LaBerge + Sageous).
The notes are new, but nothing fancy: I just make a few words that represent the dream to me and run them over in my head several times with the images to cement them in place.  If you look at my dream journal for last night, the early morning dreams where I did this I represented as "crazy teacher, police car, house buyer" and just said that several times to myself until I felt I had remembered it.   I should probably do something fancier, I don't have the Love book yet, I'll have to read that.





> Yes, I think I'll leave ADA variants for a bit later, when I have quite a few more LDs booked.
> BTW, it called my attention to realize, with VagalTone's help, that Tholey himself claimed that his technique also should go into background mode if practiced consistently over enough time. That also helped me to decide sticking mostly to the old EWOLD techniques by now.







> [WILDs not working for me] He he, same here.



Yes but you may want to start training for DEILDs: learn to recognize the waking state after non-lucids without moving, and try to do a bit of quick recall and to sink back into  the dream.   I've managed just one DEILD on purpose so far and it was really cool.

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## Bharmo

Quality LDing conversation with Fryingman + Two hours getting my latest dreams to dreamboard.com = One LD!!
I woke up today with no recall, relaxed a little bit without moving and there it was, a vague memory of a weird dream were I was lucid for 1-2 minutes. I struggled a bit to remember in more detail but it was one of those dreams that is better not shared in public  ::embarrassed::   :wink2: 
Here are the notes: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...rated-r-55533/

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## FryingMan

Awesome, way to go!     I myself had a "wild & wacky" set of non-lucid dreams for the night, including strong sense of wondering about my location in one of them, so definite progress on ADA/RC-location.   Yes it's always worth working for the recall, at least asking yourself the question and lying quietly for a while to give the memories a chance to roll in.

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## Bharmo

> Awesome, way to go!     I myself had a "wild & wacky" set of non-lucid dreams for the night, including strong sense of wondering about my location in one of them, so definite progress on ADA/RC-location.   Yes it's always worth working for the recall, at least asking yourself the question and lying quietly for a while to give the memories a chance to roll in.



Thanks Fryingman! And congrats on having your ADA/RC slipping into your dreams, I'm convinced slowly but surely you'll get more lucids more frequently.

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## Bharmo

Yesterday woke up with no recall, even if I tried to remember, but today I can remember fragments (some feel like 90% of the full dream, some like only 5%) of five dreams, they felt more "real" than usual. It's like I was more "awake" last night... Difficult to describe.
Anyways, I'm very happy with that sensation of being more aware in my dreams, and not feel I blacked out all night and then woke up remembering some story but not feeling like I was really here.

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## CanisLucidus

Congratulations, dreambh!  Yeah, I know exactly the sensation you're describing.  It's great when you have a night like that where you manage to latch onto these dream memories before they slip away from you.  Being more "awake" is a good way to describe it.

Roll with this feeling.  Next stop... lucidity!   ::D:

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## Bharmo

> Roll with this feeling.  Next stop... lucidity!



CanisLucidus, the Dream Guide Prophet!!
Last night got lucid through microWBTB+MILD, and I think I got a TOTM as well!
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...taurant-55756/
I need to add some notes on how I got lucid on that entry when I get a chance.

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## FryingMan

Sweet, congrats, keep the momentum going, don't slack off on your daily practice!

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## Bharmo

> Sweet, congrats, keep the momentum going, don't slack off on your daily practice!



Thanks! Looks like I'm back to my "get one lucid per week" goal, so yes, I need to keep my daily practice going, and reach out for "two lucids per week"!!

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## JoannaB

You know a great way to get those two lucids per week would be to join this competition: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...read-17-a.html - are you coming?

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## Bharmo

> You know a great way to get those two lucids per week would be to join this competition: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...read-17-a.html - are you coming?



If you put it like that, how can I say no?  :wink2:

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## Bharmo

> Thanks! Looks like I'm back to my "get one lucid per week" goal, so yes, I need to keep my daily practice going, and reach out for "two lucids per week"!!



A couple of days after I said this, I got a flu  :Sad:  that's why I have been keeping quiet here. On the other hand, the flu was a very good excuse to sleep in, and I've tried MILD, SSILD and WILD in these three days, but nothing worked, which is quite normal specially with WILD and SSILD which I never try.
Anyways, the flu made me slack off quite a bit on my awareness practices so I'll be really happy if I get one LD per week after this, especially as I'm joining the competition.

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## Bharmo

Competition 17 has started and once more I forget about my Workbook with all the excitement  ::embarrassed:: 
I've been busy as well, that's why I delayed one day in setting my 3ST and missed one opportunity to do it... Because I got lucid the second night of the Comp!!
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...-battle-56050/
As I explain in the entry I was not fully lucid, but well, I'm still a student so I'm happy enough with that dream. BTW this dream is a milestone - I've had now 16 lucids before joining the DVA and 16 after (I've decided to merge the count on my profile) and I'm happy I've had one lucid per week for the past five weeks. I need to consolidate that, and also work to get two per week!

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## Bharmo

Wow, more than one month without updating here  :Sad: 

I've been doing some statistics, so in the *last 6 months* this is the amount of LDs:
Nov13 - 1
Dec13 - 2
Jan14 - 0
Feb14 - 4
Mar14 - 2
Apr14 - 3 so far

And *yearly LDs*:
2012 total LDs: 8
2013 total LDs: 17
2014 total LDs: 9 so far

I've known Lding since 2010 but practicing on and off since then, in July 2013 I joined the DVA, but still have struggled with practicing constantly through large periods of time.
Lately I'm taking a more "chill out" approach, doing the minimum DJing, RCs and intention (not doing very well with RCs lately) to see if I consolidate the minimum habits of a lucid dreamer so that they finally stick. Something I'm finding useful is using *Habitrpg.com* to shape/reward/punish these and other habits.

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## Bharmo

Last night I worked hard on intent: while falling sleep, when my Fitbit One woke me up (twice, even though I think I just set one alarm... FA?) and on some other natural awakenings I told myself calmly "I will realize I'm dreaming" and specially "I'm dreaming".
Looks like the affirmations and multiple awakenings resulted in this brief lucid: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/drea...carnage-57295/
I'm happy that I'm *again* back to 4-5 LDs per month, and even though there is a problem with length and level of lucidity, I will keep working on getting the basic habits stick and keeping quantity up, and I'll worry about / work on quality in the future.
Oh, I almost forget, two LDs in three days!!  ::banana:: 
 ::chuckle::

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## Bharmo

Tonight I tried to do just as I did last night, but no result.
I honestly think someone should do some research on why something never works two nights in a row, at least for noobs  ::chuckle:: 

Anyways, just got this advice from CL:




> Well improvisation can be fun too!  If you're looking for a good goal that dovetails with correcting the problem of short lucid dreams, one I like is to be determined to interact deeply with the dream scene and draw out as much detail from it as possible.  It's really cool to find out just how far into them you can go and just how vivid they can become!



I'll try to keep it in mind!  ::thumbup::

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## FryingMan

^^ That' great advice, one of my favorite LDs of all time so far is just me *looking around* really deeply.   What a trip.

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## Bharmo

So I've decided to use my workbook again. I need to establish the habits and mindset necessary to LD regularly again, this time for good. Oh, and I've changed my username!
Sharpshoey has proposed to work together on the Gravity RC, although I think both of us are combining it with other techniques.
I'm on holidays and do not have a reliable internet (worse than usual  ::chuckle:: ) but wanted to post this to get started!

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## Bharmo

Got lucid last night! That was quick!
 ::banana:: 
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/bhar...m-flute-61806/

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## Bharmo

Waking life anecdote:
We got some friends visiting this week, and today while preparing breakfast my wife said to us: "Last night I dreamt that I had to do a lecture but I didn't have any notes or remembered what I had to say, so I realized I was dreaming and tried to wish myself awake. I still feel terrible for that dream" 
Ovbiously I was like "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!?!"  ::o:  She saw my face and added "Yes, it happens from time to time, I'm going through a bad time and I sort of know am dreaming, so I wish myself awake"
At this point I knew I had to seize the opportunity, but I know my wife opinion on dream-related stuff, so I just said "As it was a dream you could have just got to fly away" They laughed like that was ridiculous, so I added: "When I have a fly dream, I wake up feeling wonderful. I you had flown away you'd feel great now" They giggled but I believe I made them think about it.
Five minutes later we were talking and joking, and my wife said something to tease me, so I paused and said "I better just fly away from this" and extended my arms superman style. Everyone got it, and burst in laughter  ::lol:: 
I think I'm going to use the "I'm just flying away from this" joke from time to time in the hopes that it sticks in my wife's SubC, pops up in a dream, and she gets a taste of lucidity!

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## CanisLucidus

I love it!  Great story, and what a great way to just subtly get dreaming, lucidity and flight on your wife's mind.   :superman:   Brilliant plan!

I hope she really gets to enjoy her next LD!   ::content::

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## Bharmo

I'm on my phone so I'll be brief.
Still working on my "new technique", this morning woke up a few times because of rain and I can remember being more aware than usual in those dreams, not lucid, but I think I was closer.
I believe the awareness training is working well, but I need to integrate LD goal setting and memorization in my routine somehow. I'll try different ways and see what feels good.

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## Bharmo

Here I am again, frustrated about not getting lucid, but I'm just checking and it has been... 10 days from my last one? Well, that's not too bad taking into account my current rate is one LD per month  ::chuckle:: 
Anyway, I've decided to just get a couple of LD goals here for inspiration and motivation:

1) Do some more funny, wild parkour.



2) Shape-shift into a coati, I've petted two temporarily and I love them, including their excellent climbing skills and voracious, bottomless curiosity.



So, I'll keep working on my technique, which by the way is evolving to something very similar to Sageous'  RRCs  ::hrm::  but I guess that is a good thing!
Anyway, I will keep reminding myself to be patient, thinking about my goals and stay positive!

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## Bharmo

Oh, oh, and:

3) Create a portal and go through it!

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## Bharmo

Note to self (from another thread):





> By the way, reviewing the Dreamy Feeling thread which discusses more or less the same topic I found out something very similar to what OneUp said about his recent "nothing technique". Here is what he said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 			
> 				In the end, I gave up my best efforts with Self Awareness. 
> ...

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## CanisLucidus

Oh man, great goals, bharmo!   ::D:   Parkour and portals are awesome for such obvious reasons, but I love the coati goal for a lot of reasons, particularly the expression of curiosity and positivity.

If you can carry that attitude with you in your awareness practices, it's really a wonderful thing!  IMO awareness work should always feel easy and happy, like you're engaging with the world in a positive, happy way, exploring it to seek out the dreams you'll inevitably find yourself in.  The coati seems like a perfect expression of this really happy, curious mindset!   ::content:: 

Great stuff, man, and you've really got me wanting to parkour now!   ::goodjob2::

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## Bharmo

Thanks CL! I definitely will include that positivism in my practices!  ::goodjob2::

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## Bharmo

I got lucid last night!!  ::breakitdown:: 
I still cannot post it in my DJ, but here's how I got it and how it begins:





> _This is my 46th lucid. Had a beer for supper, did some pre-bed LaBerge MILD and woke up 5 hours later for a bathroom visit (I slept through my vibrating alarm set up for one hour earlier, or rather turned it off unconsciously, but I've been using it too many days in a row) I had a lot of trouble to fall sleep so I had the chance to MILD several times in between daily live worries going round and round. I've been mixing my home-brewed technique with classic LaBerge techniques for less than 2 days and here we are!_ 
> 
> I'm walking back home with three friends, I think we might be in our early twenties. We are playing some kind of game where we play with a soft, small ball which cannot be touched with hands and arms, like soccer style, and there isn't a clear goal to the game, just keeping the ball in your team as much as possible while the others try to get it for them. I'm enjoying my complicity with my teammate which is a girl, and actually, I think I have feelings for her, teenager feelings to be more accurate. We and the other two play and laugh and jump on urban obstacles and loose the ball and get it back and have a lot of fun

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## CanisLucidus

Congratulations, Bharmo, that's great news!   ::happy::   I'm looking forward to reading the whole LD, as well as any other details you're prepared to discuss about your new technique and how you've mixed it with the classic Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming stuff!

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## ~Dreamer~

Nice work getting lucid, Bharmo!
Would you like us to change your name in the workbook title?

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## Bharmo

> Nice work getting lucid, Bharmo!
> Would you like us to change your name in the workbook title?



Hey, thank you so much, that would be great!

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## ~Dreamer~

Updated to Bharmo's Workbook.  :smiley:

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## Bharmo

> Updated to Bharmo's Workbook.



Thanks Dreamer!!  ::goodjob:: 
Oh, and the full dream is here:
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/bhar...portals-62108/

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## Bharmo

I keep working at my day time practice, which has organically evolved to a mush up of Paul Tholey's Combined Technique and Sageous RRC. Some days I'm a bit more distracted than others by Real Life, but  I'm working on it every day. My recall is quite good (for me) with an average of almost two dreams recalled per night. I've had interesting NDs lately, and today woke up from a dream where I met with my last teenage crush IRL before I met my wife, and re-lived those feelings. I like dreams with strong feelings, as they make me feel I did not just drop dead for 8 hours, but rather went into some interesting adventures!

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## Bharmo

Oh, BTW, past "crushes" are not a recurring theme for me, but I'm visiting the area where I grew upfront a couple of weeks, and I'm getting varied and strong emotional day residue from that, I believe.

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## FryingMan

> I keep working at my day time practice, which has organically evolved to a mush up of Paul Tholey's Combined Technique and Sageous RRC. Some days I'm a bit more distracted than others by Real Life, but  I'm working on it every day. My recall is quite good (for me) with an average of almost two dreams recalled per night. I've had interesting NDs lately, and today woke up from a dream where I met with my last teenage crush IRL before I met my wife, and re-lived those feelings. I like dreams with strong feelings, as they make me feel I did not just drop dead for 8 hours, but rather went into some interesting adventures!



I know what you mean, Bharmo!   While I feel somewhat ambivalent about very poignant emotional dreams, what I really enjoy most is the very strong experience of "me" really being  there and observing,  thinking, reacting, doing.  Such "vivid awareness" is much more valuable and enjoyable to me than simply just "vivid dream environment"

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## Bharmo

Wow, you're right, although I still have lots of room to improve on that "me" being more there.
I'm happy you brought negative emotions up. You know, I had an intense nightmare 3 nights ago, it was pure, uncontrollable fear (the dream itself was not that bad, but somehow my fear escalated) 
 :Oh noes: 
I had done lots of daytime and nighttime work, but when woke up from the nightmare I did not want to go back to sleep for 30 minuts, for fear I would go back to the dream, lucid or non-lucid.
Actually, I was more scared of becoming lucid if I went back to the dream (which I felt I was going to) and was paranoid about getting my worst fears come up with lucidity, with me being 100% there because of lucidity.
But the experience was somehow positive, as in the morning I thought a lot about that 100% irrational fear I went through, and realized that eventually I will have to confront those fears, and the more "lucid experience" I have under my belt, the more prepared I will be to face it.
 ::goodjob2::

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## Bharmo

I wrote this yesterday in my phone's notes app but could not post it here:

_Since I set my goal of shape shifting into a coati I've been wondering how would feel to transform, but today I let my fantasy go further and imagined how *being* a coati would feel like and I was really excited!
I can't wait to have that wonderful experience!!!_

And last night I had this short LD!
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/bhar...nucopia-62342/
I'm happy even if it is a "micro LD" because right now my main priority is getting my frequency up, and I believe this post shows that having exciting goals is a main factor.

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## Bharmo

This post from Sageous was very interesting for my practice:




> *tl;dr:* These techniques do not do essentially the same things. Like a regular RC, a critical state test is a valuable tool, and would work well if done just before a RRC: the state test might bring you to lucidity ("Hey! This is a dream!"), and then the RRC might open you up to the potentials of lucidity ("This entire world is me; cool!"). A critical state test is more interested in the function of awareness than it is in the acknowledgement and acquisition of self-awareness and memory. The two techniques are similar in that they are both meant to aid lucidity, but they are not essentially the same because they do two very different, though certainly complementary, things.



I've been combining (or trying to combine) Tholey's Combined Technique with Sageous' RRC, so I thing I will try to describe it here in my workbook in more detail in another post, and see if it makes any sense  :Thinking:

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## Bharmo

Last night had a non-lucid profound experience, something that will make me think about some specific aspects of my life for a couple of days. Even though I save that for myself, the end of the dream was quite Inception-esque, and I find it quite funny:

After some emotionally intense experiences (where I missed a few very clear DS's, like odd bathrooms and wearing totally inappropriate clothing) I was walking back home on my own at night, but someone called me to join them at a house. I went there and a very interesting sexytime situation came up. Just as sexytime started, I was like "Wait, after all that happened, now this? I think I should RC" but just as Dom at the end of Inception did not wait to see if the spinning top toppled but just joined his family, I looked at the sexytime situation, thought "whatever" and joined the party  ::chuckle::  Nevertheless, the sexytime went on for one or two minutes and it woke me up  ::doh::  Then I realized how badly I missed that opportunity to get lucid, but I was not too upset as I got thinking about the first part of the dream.

Anyway, I'm happy with this dream overall, I have food for thought and I was at the brink of lucidity!

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## FryingMan

Nice!   You may have made the right decision, non-lucid sexy-time can go on indefinitely for me, while lucid ST usually has a time limit of a few seconds  :smiley: .

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## Bharmo

Wow! Got lucid last night!  ::banana:: 
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/bhar...r-cycle-62454/

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## Bharmo

Got lucid *again* last night!  ::breakitdown:: 
Here is the dream: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/bhar...hansson-62480/
I believe this is my first time getting lucid two nights in a row. I hope this tears down some psychological barriers on my perceived difficulty for getting more frequent lucids!

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## Bharmo

I wanted to share the approach to lucid dreaming I've personally committed for the next 9 months.  I might fine tune it, but will not change to any other technique. I would like to make a thread about it in the future, just in case it helps other people, but I wanted to start with a draft, so here we are.
I'm going to bulletpoint the technique and explain the function I believe it performs (I'm re-ordering it and adding a few personal touches):

0- If our dream recall is not good, we should employ techniques to improve it. *Obviously, dream recall is vital for lucid dreaming.* _The paper I have does not go into details, I think this step is very clear, and DV has lots of resources on this respect._

1- We must set an intention to test our state when we are in situations that are characteristic of dreams, like when something surprising or improbable happens, when we experience powerful emotions, when we find ourselves in (or think about) a situation that is recurrent in our dreams. *This sets an intention to question reality that will eventually carry out to our dreams, and also strengthens prospective memory.*

2- _This step is split in the original technique, and I also find convenient to split it in three parst:_
2a- Every time we find ourselves in those situations, we should ask ourselves if we are dreaming. *We further train our awareness of our state of conciousness*
2b- While we ask ourselves the critical question we should imagine that everything around us, even our body, is a dream. _Imagining that everything is a dream can mean IMO imagining that everything is a creation of our mind, and therefore, that everything is affecting and affected by our mind._ *This step makes us more familiar with the fact that while we dream everything looks perfectly real and therefore we need to be very careful when trying to assess our state.*
2c- At the same time we should remember recent occurrences, and see if they are unusual or if we have memory lapses. *This is a very effective RC, and trains our memory, one of the lucid dreaming fundamentals. On the other hand, steps 2b and 2c are slightly similar to Sageous' self-awareness exercise (aka RRC) There is obviously some important differences, but I believe they might be a good training (even if not as good as the RRC) for developing self-awareness.*
_2d- I often include some affirmation at the end of step 2 in order, to strengthen my intention. I also include step 4 here sometimes._

3- We should go to sleep thinking that we will become aware that we are dreaming while we are dreaming. We should not apply effort of will. *This step adds auto-suggestion to the mix, that's why we must avoid "effort of will".* _As LaBerge notes if we want to apply effort then we better resort to MILD which uses prospective memory rather than suggestion._

4- We should have a goal to perform when we get lucid. Even simple goals will do. *This adds an extra element of intention, and having goals is a good way to keep motivation up.* _I often imagine myself achieving my current goal at the end of step 2._


*TL;DR:
Skills trained or tapped by this technique:
0- Dream recall
1- Intention, Prospective memory
2- Awareness, Self-awareness, Memory
3- Auto-suggestion (can be substituted by MILD)
4- Intention, Motivation*

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## Bharmo

So I'm again going through a busier period of time, and had a trip which gave me jetlag for a few days. My practice has slowed down quite a bit, but as I said this time I'm fully committed to it.
10 days have passed since my last 2 LDs which I didn't expect, I wanted to believe that I would get 1 LD per week now  ::doh::  But I need to think that is just normal given my trip and stress, and I'll get my frequency up as I keep working!

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## FryingMan

You're a lucid dreamer!   Stay positive!   Eventually sleep, dreams, recall, and self-awareness will unite again for lucidity!  Keep up the day and night work, it's called "work" for a reason, sometimes you don't feel like doing it, but remember the awesomeness of lucidity and use that as your motivation.   It comes and goes in waves, but as long as your base level of ability of recall and awareness is always growing, the "highs" will come more and more frequently and the "lows" will get shorter and shorter.

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## Bharmo

Thanks, man! Let's keep on working!!

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## Bharmo

Had a mini-lucid last night! My 50th LD was not as amazing as I had planned, but after a 3 week dryspell and all the stress and chaotic sleep schedule I'm happy that I had a LD at all. I'll post it later.

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## Bharmo

And here is the LD:
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/bhar...rim-ost-62825/

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## NyxCC

Yay! Congrats on breaking the dry spell and on your 50th ld!  ::cheers::

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## Bharmo

Thanks NyxCC!  :;-):

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## Bharmo

This:




> Hey guys! I'm camping on an isolated area for the next 6 days, so will be offline for like a week.
> I'll miss Sensei's lessons meanwhile, but I might get a lucidity boost because of the different environment and having more awakenings... Or maybe I'll be more distracted, who knows...



I believe other years I've had LDs on this same trip. Looking forward to it!!

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## NyxCC

Have a great ld time!  :smiley:

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## Bharmo

Thanks NyxCC! It was not too great but my first short term goal is to get to one LD per week consistently, so I'm happy than I'm getting there:





> Hi guys! I'm back, with only one mini-lucid on these pasts days. I forgot to mention that the trip had elements of retreat, and that I was actively involved in the organization, so lots of stress for everything to work out as planned, more than I expected.



And here's the dream:
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/bhar...-flying-63047/

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## NyxCC

Nice! Congrats on the ld!  :smiley:

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