# Lucid Dreaming > DV Academy > Current Courses > DILD >  >  JoannaB's workbook

## JoannaB

Hi, I am JoannaB and I am a dreamer. I am 39 years old. About 20 years ago, I used to be proficient at LDing only DILD back then. I love it, and I no longer remember why I stopped, and all that used to work for me. But from what I can remember, I have changed in those 20 years and what used to work does not work anymore, but different things do. Since returning to LD practice in February my dream recall has fluctuated, but usually when I try I do remember something each night, and on many nights it is a full dream though sometimes just a fragment, but other times more than one. Since February I have had one successful WILD (been trying to replicate that success since) and one successful WBTB DILD (last night!). I try to sleep about 10-11pm to 6-6:30am on weekdays, and sleep in on weekends, plus some weekends I can afternoon nap. I work full time. Am married and have two boys, so busy life).

Most recently: May 17 I started the competition #12 with Checker666. First night of competition I recalled one dream. Second night I did a WBTB and had a dream fragment during which I actually briefly became lucid and then stupidly woke up right away after telling myself that I bet if I opened my eyes I would actually be in bed since I am dreaming (duh), plus I also had another non-lucid fragment and non-lucid dream. My afternoon nap was unsuccessful since I failed to actually fall asleep, but I did have some cool hypnagogic images.

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## gab

Welcome JoannaB!

The competition can indeed be a great motivator. I was gonna join in too, but I missed the sign-up deadline. I'll catch the next one, watch out!

Since you seem to be pretty good at DILDs, and interested in WILDs, you wanna tell me how do you WILD? And perhaps I can offer some pointers. Or ask about DILDs too.

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## JoannaB

Oh, and what else might be relevant: I have been dabbling in ADA, and mantra/intensions, but my commitment level alas varies - though i every day do "something". And while I for a while was good at remembering to RC during waking recently I have not been good about that.

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## JoannaB

> Welcome JoannaB!
> 
> The competition can indeed be a great motivator. I was gonna join in too, but I missed the sign-up deadline. I'll catch the next one, watch out!
> 
> Since you seem to be pretty good at DILDs, and interested in WILDs, you wanna tell me how do you WILD? And perhaps I can offer some pointers. Or ask about DILDs too.



Actually, I used to be good at DILD 20 years ago, now I am abysmal, and would love to become good at either DILD or WILD or both. 

How do I WILD? Well, I lie down and listen to the aquarium or fan's white noise for a while with closed eyelids. I also try to look at what images or light appear behind my eyelids. I am good at getting some cool images. I suspect though that I am trying too hard. 

Another problem is that in general I am not good at falling asleep. It generally takes me a long time most times, and usually I fall asleep once I almost give up hope of falling asleep.

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## gab

Ok, the trick with WILD is that you have to time it right. You have to fall asleep at the same time, when you either see the dreamscape behind your closed eyelids, or you get some other kind of confirmation, that you are already asleep.

The more I WILD, more I realize, that the point when you can exit into a dream is much sooner, than I realized. 

This is how it sometimes is for me:

I stare at the back of my closed eyelids. At first, there is just blackness. 
Then I may see this blackness moving. Like a fog, with black and darker black and maybe dark grey. 
I may start seeing some images formed out of this fog. Not very well defined.
Then I may see some clearly defined individual objects. Like a classic alarm clock. A cartoon figurine. Geometric shapes.
At some point, I may see my whole field of view turn white. As if someone turned the light on behind frosted glass.
These images of objects may start to get animated. More dream like. 
Until I may see some picures, as sharp as a HD photograph. 
And after this, I may get a movie. I usually watch this from birds eye view, as if I was flying over it.
At this point I look at the ground and say something like "I am there". This transports me there and I'm suddenly in 3D environmet completely lucid.

Now, sometimes I don't get the images at all. Instead I get physical sensations.  Vibrations are the most frequent ones. 
Other times, I suddenly realize, that I'm looking at my room. Convinced, I'm awake looking at waking world.
But if I make a leap of faith at this time, I stand up and once I do so, again, I'm in 3D, fully consiouss.

Other times, I just get the idea that I'm tired of waiting for images, vibrations, my room, and I decide to get up. And I'm in 3D again.

I have missed on bunch of opportunities to get lucid, when I was waiting for something to happen and THEN I would act to enter the dream. Instead, I should have been paying attention to the feeling of "I'm in a dream already". It will take a few tries, but you will get used to it and will recognize it.

So just have patience. Every time you attempt, you get further into the process. Our minds have to get used to this strange new thing you doing and allow you to go on with it. 

While I wait for me to fall asleep, I use mantra. Usually something simple, like "I'm dreaming". 

But if I need to remember any goal, I use that. Like "when I see my room, I get up". It works like a charm.

All of my WILDs happened in the morning, or during morning nap. I have tried with at night WBTB, but kept falling asleep too soon.

Morning nap is, when I wake up at any time 6-9am. Stay up from 1-3 hrs and then lie down on sofa watching TV till I get sleep. Lately, I don't even need TV anymore to get me sleepy. If everything goes right, I start feeling my legs relaxing within 5 minutes and vibrations soon after. Then I either get the images, or I just get up and walk away.

I'm sorry, I'm sure i'm leaving something out. Please ask if there is something specific.

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## JoannaB

I suspect that I may need to pay more attention to when I am tired and time my attempting to go to sleep better. I will try to focus on that. Thanks for your advice, gab, at this point while I theoretically understand that the point to enter sleep may come earlier than I expect and I will try to watch out for it, but in practice I am not sure what to do yet. Sigh.

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## gab

Well, I'm sure you gonna have a blast figuring it out. In this case, the journey is as much fun, if not more, than destination itself. At least for me. Good luck ::alien:: 

P.S. Actually, I kind of envy you. All these cool discoveries just awaiting you.

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## JoannaB

So far I got only that one lucid after this completion started, but hey at least my dream recall seems to be progressing nicely. 

And I will need to work on the falling asleep better. I need to focus on observing why some nights I have trouble and others I do not.

Yesterday I thought I was progressing on WILD initiation during a nap, but no dream recalled.

I am not sure what is better to be impatient or patient.

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## JoannaB

Hey, I may have had a breakthrough on the falling asleep struggle, that or I was unusually sleepy during nap today. I remembered reading that a normal person takes about 15 minutes to fall asleep, so i decided to just count myself to sleep to see how far I got. I was not counting any sheep nor anything else, nor was I visualizing the numbers, just counting in my mind. Well, I did not get far.  :smiley:  Alas this did not make me lucid, but I did fall asleep pretty quickly. I think after less than three minutes or so? But perhaps I was unusually tired, can't base a conclusion on one experiment.

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## gab

> I am not sure what is better to be impatient or patient.



I think best is to be indifferent. With pinch of intent. But I think you have a pretty good handle on things and very good understanding of what and when and why. 

That's interesting how you fell asleep that fast. I never fall asleep in 15 min. It's more like an hour, or even longer. I guess having too much on mind and not enough physical activity is what is causing this for me. And cats starting their "night life" the moment I shut the lights off. 

Good luck ::alien::

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## JoannaB

Silly me! I think I realized one of my major mistakes since I returned to lucid dreaming and joined DV. I had not been reading most of the tutorials. I had incorrectly thought that I remembered most if the induction techniques, since I used to be quite familiar with them about 20 years ago. Well, guess what? I yesterday read the WILD tutorial and read more about how to do it, and now I read the MILD tutorial. It finally dawned on me that 20 years is so long that while I knew all this stuff probably back then but I probably forgot more than I remembered, and since February I have been struggling with partial techniques and trying my own because I assumed incorrectly that I already knew what to do! And while I read the Are You Dreaming? book by Daniel Love recently, but now I wonder whether I did not skim or not pay enough attention to some of this stuff, thinking I already knew it. I need to reread LaBerge's book!

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## JoannaB

I can report that the WILD tutorial continues to work like a charm as a perfect sleep aid: I count my breaths, I count the visualized numbers, and I am asleep, no sheep needed - alas I am not successful in WILDing, but falling asleep fast is a good start.

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## JoannaB

I got lucid! I got lucid! I got lucid!

I got way too excited and forgot to stabilize, but hey I recognized the dream. No, voting at a bar apparently is not enough to tip me off, but my mother on TV talking about her dreams finally made me realize. I think the entire night was good: great recall, and in hindsight my awareness was maybe a bit higher in that I questioned some things in my non lucids too, but then rationalized them. And my first dream of the night was like a no lucid about lucidity, so the night started off well and ended even better.

Yay!

Edit: So since returning to the hobby I had 3 lucid dreams: LD 1 WILD during a nap, followed by 2.5 months gap, LD 2 WBTB in morning, followed by 3 week gap, LD 3 (tonight) last dream of night in morning DILD

Things that contributed to this last success: 2 nights of 9 hours of sleep, doing the MILD memory awareness exercises for two days so far, playing Brain Trainer games on my iPhone, first dream of night was almost lucid and set the tone, total 5 dream recall this night

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## JoannaB

It occurred to me that I am way more excited about this lucid dream than about the previous two, and I think part of me is more hopeful that this is it that now I will have more lucids sooner. Part of it is due to the fact that this was in general a fantastic night for me with five dreams recalled, and part of it is that I can really feel the effor starting to bear fruit and I am thus more optimistic that this is not just a one off occupancy but rather the beginning of more lucid dreams for me, like this is a major breakthrough. Out of some reason I did not quite have that optimism the last couple of times.

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## gab

Congratulations! Not only on you lucid, but on the general state of mind. Yes, I strongly feel that excitement plays a huge role in getting lucid. That's how I got my first one. I only practiced awareness question, RCs and a mantra for half a day, or even less. But I was incredibly excited.

You have your confidence back. Keep up your excitement and practice. And don't be discouraged by WILDs (I know you are not). Happy dreams ::alien::

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## JoannaB

Woo Hoo! Another lucid this morning Poker Table in Elevator - No Problem, but Elevator Numbers Out of Order - LUCID! - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

What I especially liked was that I had enough awareness that the reality check not working did not fool me, and did not matter.

Really need to work on stabilizing dream to not wake up right away. But hey: from 2.5 months gap between lucids, to 3 week gap, to 3 day gap now - that's definite progress!  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

Ok, so in the meantime I have been trying the awareness exercise of MILD not quite successfully, and today I tried meditation quite unsuccessfully or rather I discovered that my mind cannot yet focus on my breath like at all, which I believe was the goal of lesson one first attempt, so it was a huge success in a way. Oh, and another author I am reading has almost convinced me that we all have the potential within us to become one with God, however that also makes me realize how much I am falling short if my spiritual potential. My car is no longer possessed by whatever demon took it over after the rain. Oh, and I expect to lucid dream tonight. After all it has been five nights since my last lucid dream, so surely one is due again right, and with all that meditating, and contemplating the power within me, surely I am more aware. Although before I go to sleep I should go open a door, since that was something I was supposed to be aware of today, and I did not notice it a single time. Hey maybe I should open a door while asleep?

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## JoannaB

Hmm, so I realized I have not posted anything in my workbook in a long time. I must admit to myself that I have been slacking on day time awareness and reality checks, but since lucid dreaming continues to be on my mind while I participate in this forum, I must be doing something right enough that I had a lucid dream four days ago http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/joan...-flying-48836/.

I noticed that this lucid dream was longer and I successfully stabilized, so of the five lucids I had since returning to the hobby, this one was indeed an improvement. It was a DILD, and I became lucid by noticing that the toilet was out of place and rejecting my initial rationalization of that.

I am at a point where I enjoy lucid dreaming and dream interpretation almost equally, which is good because then I get satisfaction even when I do not lucid dream. Although it may be bad because I then do not have as urgent a motivation to lucid dream. The largest big development is that I now kind of believe in precognitive dreams also since two of my dreams recently were too close to events that happened soon after to keep me comfortably in the "there are no precog dreams, and even if there are, they do not ever happen to me" mindset - they could have been just coincidence, but my gut feeling is, they were not. So now, my goals are to (a) have more lucid dreams; (b) enjoy interpreting dreams even if non-lucid; and (c) watch out for possible precog dreams.

Alas, this morning my mind recalled three fragments but then insisted I was too tired to write them down right away, so by the time I wrote down, there was only one. Got to watch out for lazy mind playing tricks on me again!

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## Sensei

On rejecting irrational thought:

My biggest Dream sign is not understanding something. If something makes no sense one second and perfect sense the next I always question it. Any time I try to figure anything out I slow down and make sure that I am questioning everything and making a clear line of thought. This gets me lucid a lot. Especially when doing dream like things (running on all fours, talking to people that only exist in my mind, using dream powers). If you actually change your mindset, you will change your dream mindset.  :smiley: 

What exactly are you doing to get lucid? You mentioned ADA and MILD, but what so your days and nights look like?

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## JoannaB

> On rejecting irrational thought:
> 
> My biggest Dream sign is not understanding something. If something makes no sense one second and perfect sense the next I always question it. Any time I try to figure anything out I slow down and make sure that I am questioning everything and making a clear line of thought. This gets me lucid a lot. Especially when doing dream like things (running on all fours, talking to people that only exist in my mind, using dream powers). If you actually change your mindset, you will change your dream mindset. 
> 
> What exactly are you doing to get lucid? You mentioned ADA and MILD, but what so your days and nights look like?



I think what I am doing varies, and that's part of my problem why I am not getting lucid more often. I obviously think about lucid dreaming a lot, being on this forum, and also throughout the day, and before I go to sleep, and when I wake up in the middle of the night. I am pretty good about dream journaling, and identifying dream signs, but not good enough about then looking out for my dream signs during the day usually, I must admit. I have bursts of using MILD or ADA but am not consistent about either. Though I will often try to ADA especially during my commute to and from work. And some days I am good about RCs, but again, not consistently enough, so yes, I need to work on that. I often try WBTB or WILD if I wake up and there is at least two hours until I need to wake up for good. I sometimes mantra before going to sleep, but again not regularly. So bottomline, yes, I need to work on being more consistent, and need to add RCs and looking for dream signs or "looking for the weird" awareness into m everyday life more consistently.

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## Sensei

It is really hard to be consistent.  :smiley:  I personally would recommend making a consistent sleep schedule with a ten minute routine before bed that you can pair with things like brushing teeth etc. This is a good time to do your mantra, visualization, meditate, ADA. That way you can be consistent easier.  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

Did some basic analysis of my LDs this year, and it looks like what I need is to join more competitions! This is the trend I found:

*Join Date 2/26/2013*

Lucid Dream #1: 3/6/2013 (8 days after join date), WILD during early afternoon nap, expectation leads to result, wake up soon due to being confused in LD http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/joan...ragment-44244/

*Competition #12 5/17/2013 - 5/31/2013*

Lucid Dream #2 5/18/2013 (2 months after previous LD, 1 day after competition start), WBTB, wake up right away http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/joan...wake-up-46542/

Lucid Dream #3: 6/6/2013 (3 weeks after previous LD, 6 days after competition end), DILD, lucid due to noticing something weird, basic summoning my husband http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/joan...m-lucid-47126/

Lucid Dream #4: 6/9/2013 (3 days after previous LD, 9 days after competition end), DILD, lucid due to noticing something weird, RC in dream failed but ignore fail, not stabilized http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/joan...r-lucid-47251/

*Competition #13 7/5/2013 - 7/19/2013*

Lucid Dream #5: 7/23/2013 (1.5 months after previous LD, 4 days after competition end), WBTB, DILD, lucid due to noticing something weird, stabilized dream, longer, flying http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/joan...-flying-48836/

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## gab

Competitions can indeed be a great motivator. Congrats on all your lucids so far, WILD and DILD!

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## JoannaB

Forgive me father, it has been most of a month since my last lucid dream. Err ... Wait a moment, this is not a former Roman Catholic's confessional, never mind then. No forgiveness needed. But yes, it has been a while, and I have been a naughty girl and not doing enough to induce LDs. But I feel good about last night's recall: one dream and five fragments is nothing to sneeze at, although given that I do have this lingering summer cold or allergies, I might sneeze anyway. With such good recall last night, surely tonight is the night to LD again, right, subconscious? Are you listening? Repeat after me: "I am aware. I dream. I notice I am dreaming. I remember my dream." I will find some chocolate in my pocket. I will eat that chocolate. I will turn around, find a door, behind that door is the Taj Mahal, and I shall go get it with all that energy from that chocolate. It is vivid, it is steady, it is grand! I can do it. I know I can. Am I dreaming now? If I were dreaming my finger would go through that palm. May I still have some chocolate regardless of reality check outcome?

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## LucasPotter

That was a very amusing post!  :tongue2:

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## gab

I. Am. Aware.

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## JoannaB

The trouble is that while I am aware that gab is aware, it's the Joanna is aware that I am struggling with. Had trouble falling asleep last night, and this time only recalled some measly fragment about some woman making ill fitting pants for a man. Bleh. Where does my mind come up with some of those dream ideas?

I am excited though about the upcoming competition. Yay!

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## gab

I meant, that sometimes when WILDing, I use the "I am aware" mantra. Because sometimes when I enter dream, i start losing my awareness pretty quickly and mantra keeps reminding me what to pay attention to.

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## JoannaB

So I have been having a stressful time at work, and my performance in the competition has been suffering I think as a result - I was hoping to do better. However, up until a moment ago I thought it was much worse than it actually is because I thought the competition ends tomorrow instead of in a week! So there I was wondering why I have half the points I had in the last competition, and thinking that tonight is it. Perhaps I should forget that I just realized that tonight is not it: if I could persuade myself that I must get oodles of points tonight, ...

"Tonight is it. Tonight is the night. I am aware. I am dreaming. I remember my lucid dreams - plural. You hear me, oh mind of mine? Tonight is the night!"

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## JoannaB

So I suspect I have been too tired, too stressed, and trying too hard to actually have a chance at LD or decent dream recall.

BUT I actually got an email from Stephen LaBerge himself! I contacted the lucidity institute about a question whether there had been any reasearch into x (the actual question was about what if someone has too many lucid dreams and wants to stop but can't because we had gotten someone enquiring about that on DV). As part of the reply someone from the Lucidity Institute quoted "Probably the only people who should not experiment with lucid dreaming are those who are unable to distinguish between waking reality and constructions of their imagination." And she said it was a quote from Dr LaBerge's book  "Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life". And I thanked her, and said I was aware of that quote, but that I had thought it was from EWOLD. And then LaBerge himself replied that the quote was actully in both his books.  :smiley:  I wish I could have thought of something more interesting to reply to him other than thanking him for the clarification. I considered writing that I am a huge fan, and that his book had a huge impact on my life, but then I didn't want to sound like a star struck teenager and I figured he probably heard a lot of that, so I didn't.

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## Sensei

> So I suspect I have been too tired, too stressed, and trying too hard to actually have a chance at LD or decent dream recall.
> 
> BUT I actually got an email from Stephen LaBerge himself! I contacted the lucidity institute about a question whether there had been any reasearch into x (the actual question was about what if someone has too many lucid dreams and wants to stop but can't because we had gotten someone enquiring about that on DV). As part of the reply someone from the Lucidity Institute quoted "Probably the only people who should not experiment with lucid dreaming are those who are unable to distinguish between waking reality and constructions of their imagination." And she said it was a quote from Dr LaBerge's book  "Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life". And I thanked her, and said I was aware of that quote, but that I had thought it was from EWOLD. And then LaBerge himself replied that the quote was actully in both his books.  I wish I could have thought of something more interesting to reply to him other than thanking him for the clarification. I considered writing that I am a huge fan, and that his book had a huge impact on my life, but then I didn't want to sound like a star struck teenager and I figured he probably heard a lot of that, so I didn't.



Awesome!  That is really cool. I don't think he would have very many people say that since LDing is a cult following. I think it would be funny if you acted like a teenager freaking out about talking to a celeb. 

Screams, cries, Breaks down on floor like I just saw Michael Jackson in concert. Apparently kids have forgotten the last 2 steps lately and they just scream a lot. :/

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## JoannaB

Well, the stress is really getting the better of me, and my dream recall has been abysmal as a result.  :Sad:  I wish it were not happening during competition but c'est la vie.

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## JoannaB

I fear I must admit that my 7 year old is both more successful at lucid dreaming at the moment and more committed to it today at least. He was so excited about all his recent LD successes, and he went to bed punctually with the intension of mantraing himself to sleep "lucid dream!"

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## LucasPotter

Okay, that's just adorable!!!

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## fogelbise

> I fear I must admit that my 7 year old is both more successful at lucid dreaming at the moment and more committed to it today at least. He was so excited about all his recent LD successes, and he went to bed punctually with the intension of mantraing himself to sleep "lucid dream!"



That is so cool! I hope he keeps it up. How I wish I could go back and tell myself to keep up LDing beyond my childhood. I can't remember what age I stopped for sure but it must have been 25-30 years of forgetting about the dreamworld for the most part. It is also nice to have it as something you can share with family. In a recent visit, I was able to thank my father for introducing LDing so many years ago (to me to defeat a nightmare) and he still has some from time to time. My brother also has done quite a bit of AP. Did you introduce it to your son?

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## JoannaB

Did I introduce it? Well, I told him about the hobby yes, but I did not tell him much about how to have them. Certainly did not tell him how to mantra. But he told me that he just repeats " lucid dream" to himself before falling asleep, and then he has one. I told him the term and what it is. But he on his own started having more advanced control than I have had.

I however am having no success in LD. And a lot of that is stress. I intended to WBTB this morning. Woke up and all that. But when it was time to go back to sleep, I found myself lying awake in bed unable to fall asleep lying awake worrying about something work related that I certainly cannot do anything about over the weekend. Sigh.

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## fogelbise

I am sorry to hear about all the stress.  :Sad:  That definitely makes it an uphill battle. I believe it will come back to you and appreciate your presence here on the forums helping countless newbies and others!  :smiley:  

My father's involvement was basically telling me that I can defeat my nightmare by just realizing that it is just a dream, and once I do I can do anything I want and that I can defeat the monster easily. Him planting the thought that it would be easy I think made it easy to defeat the monster.

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## gab

Nice conversation here, guyz  ::alien::

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## JoannaB

Fell asleep without changing into pyjamas last night, even kept my belt on, too exhausted.

In the middle of the night I remember waking up, remembering a dream, and then failing to write it down. I think it was one of those self reflective nonlucids about dreaming maybe, but I don't recall for sure.

In the morning I had no recall, but a bit of a headache.

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## JoannaB

Well, I continue to have tons of stress, and no recall again. But on the bright side, I am handling the stress and so no longer totally overwhelmed by it. Another blessing is dream interpretation of other's dreams: I find it really helps me at times when I have no lucids and not even recall, but I enjoy dream interpretation, and often as I help them overcome issues maybe, I find some of the stuff applying to myself as well, so enjoying dreams virtually through the dreams of others - hey, it's much better than feeling sorry for myself.

My older son had a really cool no lucid dream which involved his cousins as zombies, and his dad at a meeting in a church encouraging everyone to eat Skittles because "Zombies don't like Skittles." The dream also involved Naga the polar bear dog from Avatar, and this bear dog could talk in this dream and could smell the zombies from far away and run fast.

I have decided I would not mind having a dream that involves a talking polar bear dog. now personally, I would prefer to skip the zombies though. but beggars can't be choosers, so at this point, I will be grateful for pretty much any dream recall, no matter what subject matter.

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## JoannaB

I remembered a dream,yay! Age inappropriate toy birthday gift - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Meanwhile, my 7 year old son reports another lucid dream. He stomped and made the ground freeze, and he confirmed that he can indeed breathe under water. So cool.

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## bemistaken

Doesn't remembering a dream make you feel like you are progressing?  I truly rejoice when I can remember my dreams, I know lucidity is right around the corner.  Good for you JoannaB AND good for your son!  Indeed COOL!  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

Oh absolutely, dream recall definitely makes me feel better. I am actually surprised that my dream recall is beginning to rebound even though my stress level continues to be through the roof. I am glad about the dream recall, and hope to remember dreams tonight again.

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## FryingMan

> I fear I must admit that my 7 year old is both more successful at lucid dreaming at the moment and more committed to it today at least. He was so excited about all his recent LD successes, and he went to bed punctually with the intension of mantraing himself to sleep "lucid dream!"



Before "lucid living" I would get to bed at horrible times -- 3-4am sometimes.  Now I'm running around the house at 11pm telling everyone to get to bed and be quiet by 11:30pm  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

Last night no dreams and not enough sleep because of something at work that I kept thinking about. Tonight better be better!

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## JoannaB

I had some terrific dream recall last night! I wrote it in 3 entries because I woke up three times to write, but there are a total of 4 dreams +3 fragments.

I wonder why I am doing all that stuff to my poor fish? This is the second night in a row that I mishandled fish. Last night I transported some loosely in my purse. Tonight they were in my kitchen sink and then my bare hands.

Magnetized olives, James Bond, security interviews - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

And

Fish in kitchen sink, caught in bare hands, false friend - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

And

Cut up birth certificate - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

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## FryingMan

A good recall night is such a joy!   Congrats!

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## JoannaB

Wow, What a night. 3 dreams 3 fragments. One of the dreams included two instances during which I doubted reality, and yet RC failed. And another dream included what I think was a false memory of having had a lucid dream, and the dream was a false awakening dream trying to write down that lucid in a dream journal. I am sooo close.

Work dream with feeling of inadequacy, younger son missing - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Reality Checks Fail at Disturbing Visit, lost and doubting - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

lucid? followed by FA Non Lucid with iPad trouble and polite visitor - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

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## JoannaB

In hindsight it is a bit disturbing that when faced with the choice that I am either dreaming or going seriously insane, my mind decided to rationalize that I must be going seriously insane.  :tongue2:

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## dolphin

Congrats on your great recall! Try to think about why you recall and awareness was better last night and repeat the same routine tonight. That's a key to consistent improvement.

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## JoannaB

The things that have changed?
(1) I have gotten the iPhone app RealityCheck based on AngelPotter's recommendation, and I have set it to ring Tibetan bells between 20 minutes to every 1 hour at most during the hours when I am awake, and I reality check when it rings the bells
(2) On Thursday night I did not get enough sleep so I was exhausted the past couple of nights and have been sleeping a very long time (for the past two nights I slept like 10 hours or so each night - it's the advantage of a weekend, one can do that sort of thing)
(3) I have been waking up like three times during the night to write down my dreams
(4) Oh and when I go to sleep whether it is in the evening or after one of those middle of the night awakenings, I repeat "Lucid Dream" over and over again, or I count like this "1 I am dreaming 2 I am dreaming 3 I am dreaming ..." while visualizing the numbers.

And that's pretty much why the past two nights my recall has been phenomenal, and I am soooo close to getting lucid.

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## JoannaB

Oh I forgot: I also started using an iPhone app again that gives me memory and attention training exercises. I don't know whether that has anything to do with the current improvements, but it might.

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## JoannaB

Alas, tonight I could not sleep well. Got maybe 5 hours of sleep, which for me is very little. No dream recall. :Sad:

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## gab

> Alas, tonight I could not sleep well. Got maybe 5 hours of sleep, which for me is very little. No dream recall.



Yes, short sleep may not be the best for recall. I normally go to sleep around 1am or even alter. But I have notice, that when I go to bed at 11, my recall is great. Well, most of the time, at least. So whenever I can, I aim for that sweetspot. 

I think it does 2 things:
1. Longer sleep, more REM, more chances for dreams and LDs
2. Just thinking about what time I need to go to sleep and why sets my intent to dream and to remember them

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## JoannaB

Today's experiment:

I will see what effect on dreaming this combination has
- severe common cold
- leaving work early
- paying attention to mile markers on way home
- tea with rum and honey
- NyQuil
- no dinner
- to bed around 4:30pm
- intending to wake at 6:30am (if I wake naturally I shall WBTB)

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## JoannaB

And the answer is: no dream recall. Thorough cold trumps all else. Despite being in bed long, did not get much rest. Staying home sick, as is my 5 year old son.

My son got a second wind from somewhere apparently. I however have discovered that when my nose is completely stuffed up, drinking water feels like choking. This was news to me, so either my nose has never been that thoroughly stuffed up, or my memory of prior colds is really bad. Must remember not to do nose plug RC tonight because I won't be able to breathe through my nose no matter what I do to it.

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## fogelbise

I hope you get well soon!  :Sad:  I don't know if I can teach you anything you don't already know but let me know if you have any questions for me since I am helping out in this DILD workbook area.

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## JoannaB

Thanks, fogelbise. My problem is converting theory into practice. I think I got the theory down, but my LD practice is rather wanting.

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## fogelbise

> Thanks, fogelbise. My problem is converting theory into practice. I think I got the theory down, but my LD practice is rather wanting.



Have you identified what it is on the practice side of things that is wanting? 

Some ideas for a boost besides the things I see you working on (recall, RCs, etc..)...
If you can find time for more sleep that is already a help, but then you can also add WBTB to the mix which can make a big difference. In the new podcast format episodes 2 & 3 found here: DreamViews Podcast  they talk about natural WBTB's and in episode 3, in the third segment they talk about how WBTBs are often overlooked or not considered often enough (sleep time comes first though).Have you tried SSILD? If you do the cycles and go to sleep it has a good DILD success rate. It can also lead to WILDs especially if you don't go back to sleep quickly.I usually reserve real efforts until the weekend when I can sleep longer...if you have days like that, just concentrate on getting a good nights rest and then devote more time for WBTBs when you can sleep in or get to be early.

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## JoannaB

Yup, while I have tried WBTB (and one of my successes was due to it) but I should probably do more of that. Haven't looked into SSILD - will do, although not tonight - tonight my goal is simple: I want to sleep and get some rest; well it would be simple if it weren't for this darned cold. I think I shall take NyQuil. Thanks for all the advice. I shall review it some more when my nose does not feel like a turnip.

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## Sensei

WBTB... The secret god of LDing.

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## JoannaB

I woke up able to breathe through my nose! It is alas recongesting now, but I remember it being clear enough to breathe through less than five minutes ago (using my short term memory here). I decided, might as well attempt to WBTB now, why not? So I am up for the time being, but shall go back to bed. "I dream, and I realize I am dreaming, and I remember my dream."

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## JoannaB

Woke up this morning with an important self awareness realization: my last lucid dream was on 7/23, and it is because in the last three months I have discontinued the most important self improvements that I had worked on to change myself from the low that I was at when I first came here in late February. I had discontinued exercising, spiritual growth, reading nonfiction, classical music, exploration into new to me territories of thought, taking off my glasses to look at the world differently, ADA sessions. All those wonderful practices that I had gotten into between March and July, I had let them all slide, and become once again more narrowly focused and obsessive. My dreams were trying to warn me by sending me all those dreams of the old winning over the new, and most recently a dream in which I ended up imprisoned in an opium den, and yet while I even correctly interpretted those dreams, but I did not fully process them and understand what went wrong, and what actions I need to take to get back on track. Now it's as if a fog has been lifted, and I can see again what's wrong and what I need to do to improve again.

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## fogelbise

This sounds like an important breakthrough! Very nice Joanna! Perhaps setting reminders or goals can help keep you on that path. Maybe I should start interpreting my dreams more often.

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## JoannaB

I think I shall start tracking my self improvement progress in here as well, just the positives: last night I read some in the book Goedel Escher Bach, I listened to Chopin's music, and this morning I exercised not long since I am still not fully over my virus - but every bit counts. My mood is much better than a few days ago. No dreams recalled, but I won't push myself too hard on that right now - baby step improvements.

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## fogelbise

Excellent stuff Joanna, but I know you know that  :smiley:  By the way, after reading your post before last, your post reminded me that I had lost focus on certain things. I was being lax on my awareness and perspective work. Thank you. I keep saying that I should create my own workbook and track the things that are working (and those that are not), systematically. So I think that is an excellent idea that you plan to do that.

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## JoannaB

Today I woke up without dream recall but did not choose to feel guilty over it, and similarly when my afternoon nap WILD attempt failed to get me to sleep, I am a bit more relaxed and no big deal. I continued reading a bit in GEB, which is indeed and excellent book though no light reading. This morning my husband and I had a very interesting theological philosophical discussion about the nature of reality, God, and touching on the issue of why evil exists. I have missed having these debates and thinking of these issues, and am glad to get back to it. Unfortunately though I felt physically worse again: coughed a lot at night, and had a headache at some point this morning. So not all is progress, but there is some.

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## JoannaB

Remembered a nonlucid dream today, and I found it amusing, so that's good. Also exercised this morning.

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## JoannaB

Woke up early, but alas spent more time than I intended reading in DV, and by the time I wanted to attempt to meditate my family was up and making too much distracting noise. Opportunity lost. Got to improve my priorities in the morning, or maybe institute a strict no DV before 6am policy, so that if I wake up before that I should focus on non electronics.

Had an emotional breakdown this morning due to a conversation I had with my husband - he did not mean it, and if I had not been so darn fragile right now, I should have been fine. I could use a mental health break, but I can't take it, due to no sick leave or vacation time left for now, and too much going on at work. Oy.

I will need to find my composure, my balance, and regrow a thicker skin, so that I am not so easily hurt.

So my progress toward self improvement today - not so well. Stress level - up. I do not expect success on the dream front tonight.

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## JoannaB

Today I did a meditation attempt session in the morning, and I think it went better than at previous attempts. Progress. Surprising given how congested I am.

I did not recall any dreams, but given what a bad day I had yesterday, maybe that is for the better and not unexpected.

Failed to excercise in the morning, but will try to do it in the evening.

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## JoannaB

Yesterday was a much better day, mostly routine and mostly calm. Although I did have a conversation on the phone with my dad which included some tension.

This morning I did exercise and I tried meditating a bit again.

Alas I also discovered that it is hard to tell one's mind not to think of something and expect to refocus successfully. That's not how it works.

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## JoannaB

Oh no, I once again lost track of my priorities today, and became riled up about something that I should just let go. I really need to refocus and avoid becoming involved in stuff that just increases my stress and does not help me get out of this emotional roller coaster.

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## Sensei

Reading your Bible and praying (since yar a Christian) should be a great way to get rid of stress since God has promised those that seek him a "peace that surpasses understanding". 

Also. A good thought when stressed that actually helps lucidity:
It doesn't matter how stressful it is, because tonight I will be in a place that I don't have anything requited of me, I can do whatever I want once I get there. 

It will relieve the stress and create expectation, which can be really hard. If you can control your expectations, you can lucid dream.

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## JoannaB

Thank you BrandonBoss. You had a good suggestion there about my reading the bible. I read about miracles yesterday. The fish and breads, walking on water, miraculous healing - good stuff. 

Alas, no recall last night. My son woke up in the middle of the night with a very bad hypnopompic hallucination or false awakening where a zombi followed him out of his dream into his bed. I tried to reassure him as best as I could. Not sure how much I succeeded.

This morning tried meditating outside on the porch. The air is nice and cold and fresh. I tried concentrating on sounds. But my thoughts kept disturbing me, and I could not let them go. They were thoughts of dissatisfaction: angry thoughts, disappointed thoughts, bothered thoughts. Meditation fail.

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## JoannaB

Again no recall. Went for a walk this morning, my head filled with unhappy disturbed thoughts. Then typed stuff I probably should not have typed. Gave myself a tension headache. Are too much chocolate.

However then I emptied the dishwasher, did some dishes. Started rememorizing Morning Has Broken - that's one of the things that got me out of the depression last time, memorizing uplifting spiritual songs, and singing His praises, until my mind was filled with song and not the issues. Then I watered my neglected orchids. I keep being amazed that they survive so long under my "care" - is this evidence that life is a dream and all in our minds, since surely the only reason those plants are still alive is because I need them to be so. When I first looked at the 24 plants this morning, I thought that none of them are in bloom, but then I discovered that three of them are blooming - two tiny ones with a multitude of tiny pink flowers, and one medium sized orange one with a single bloom that was hiding behind another plant. I take that as a sign of hope.

Huge headache, and this time it doesnot feel like a sinus headache, but more of a tension headache or migraine. Do I welcome it, since concentrating on physical pain is preferable to concentrating on emotional issues?

While exercising to the Wii, I realized why the gym does not work for me. It reminds me of public humiliation in middle school where my teacher used to say "And now Joanna will again demonstrate how not to do it." The Wii does not judge me. It may not be as strenuous as the gym - although I can, and today did, work up quite a sweat - but comparing it to the gym is not useful, because I am just very unlikely to go to the gym to exercise in front of strangers.

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## fogelbise

Hang in there! You found some good positive reflections especially in the 2nd paragraph. I also have orchids...don't think I have any blooms currently but had a nice bounty of roses. Did your son get over the mummy? Has he ever confronted or questioned nightmarish characters while lucid?

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## JoannaB

My son got over his nightmare I believe since by morning there was no mention of it, and the next night going to bed was not an issue. Kids are resillient. 

His method of handling dream characters he does not want in lucids is generally to point the finger at them, lift them up, and send them flying backward at high speed. And actually that is also a reality check of his, if he can cause people or things to fly off, he's in a dream. Not the most sophisticated dream character handling, but it works for him, plus he is seven years old so I am kind of amazed at what he can do already. 

Anyway the problem with this nightmare was that he genuinely believed he had woken up, and the zombi followed him, so definitely either a hypnopompic hallucination or a false awakening. But as a result he did not use his lucid trick because he was not aware he was still dreaming. And I can totally understand how that would be scary. I assured him that there is no way that the zombi could have actually followed him, that sometimes dream elements still appear as hallucinations, when we think we woke up, but actually are still between sleep and awake - not really awake but think we are, that it was in his mind only, but that I know it was scary. 

I let him spend some time in my bed, especially since my husband was away and there was room. When my husband came home, he woke our son up a bit, and had him relocate to his own bed, which our boy did without objecting to and only half awake. And that's the end of that incident.

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## JoannaB

While I do not remember my nap dream, I woke up from my nap thinking about chat and feeling sad, which alas is not good news because I can as a result extrapolate that the dream most likely was about the IRC politics.  :Sad:

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## JoannaB

Could it be that I am finally beginning to overcome this depression? I just read and greatly enjoyed Linkzelda's anonymous confessions thread, and it reminded me that in some ways DV is like a giant cluster fuck for the mind, and that secretly that is what part if me really enjoys about it - why have I been fooling myself into not realizing that, and making myself unnecessarily miserable. And so, I am back to being amused, at least for tonight, and I feel like I have turned a leaf for the better. Tonight I want to dream in Linkzelda's comic book format, that would be an awesome dream!

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## JoannaB

While I still had no recall, but for the first time had the sense that maybe the dreams I do not recall were not nightmares after all.

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## fogelbise

Baby steps...my current mode of thinking is to remind myself to do as much as I can without burning myself out...so I take baby steps on some days and you also seem to be progressing...sometimes slow and steady is useful.  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

A dream recall thread reminded me that the last time my depression was this bad when I snapped out of it slowly the first dreams to return were the ones early in the night. I would wake up with intent and get a fragment or idea from a dream - some of those ideas felt like maybe they were from NREM dreams or something, and that they were not really fragments but actually the whole thing: just one sentance or concept - for example: "dreams are like pancakes" or "Is seasonal hunting immoral? No." And that's all there was to those early dreams. This dry spell that I am experiencing now feels different than some of the others qualitatively, so maybe I should work on intent and hope to get an early night conceptual dream like that again.

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## fogelbise

Joanna, let me know if I am being annoying or intrusive...  :smiley:  Have you seen this: http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-sign...reams-try.html ?  If you find you recall too much during the day to make it burdensome, just pick out a segment of the day to recall.

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## Sensei

Fogelbise. I am enjoying your responses. I can't talk for Joanna though. I think that you are helpful.   :smiley:

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## JoannaB

Of course I enjoy your responses, fogelbise! I like interacting with you and others, and if I did not want interactive responses to my workbook then I would have put this stuff in a diary on my phone instead of posting them here.  :smiley:  I am an interesting mixture of introvert and extrovert - I maintain that I am an introvert because I need to have alone time to decompress and regain energy, my husband however who is even more introverted than me claims that I am an extrovert because even when I am "alone" I am chatting with people online.

Anyway, good idea about the waking life recall. Ok, I'll try it here today, and see how that helps:

I woke up about 20 minutes before the alarm. My husband was in a bit of an amorous mood. Then I drank coffee and took some decongestant - darn that lingering cold. My younger son was so excited because today was pyjama-day for him at his preschool. I did a lot of the usual routine stuff, and it was already almost late to leave when I remembered that my housekeeper is coming, and our place is in worse state than usual, so I did some cleanup and did some dishes. Then I took our younger son to his preschool while my husband took our older son to school. I was late to work, but it was not a big deal. My boss called me into his office to talk about something work related, but we also wound up talking about clothes because both of us were wearing something old but favorite. A lot of my work day was occupied doing some tedious monotonous task, but I kind of welcomed it as refreshingly non-stressful. We also had a meeting to declare a part of a project a success, so it was a good day at work. I must admit that I logged into DV chat while still at work, but I was waiting for a process to finish on my computer, so surely that's excusable. I met BrandonBoss and dutchraptor and several other in chat. After work I picked up both boys and we got home almost at the same time as my husband did. I made dinner for a change, usually my husband does the cooking. Dinner was delicious if I say so myself. Mostly pre-prepared stuff but a good variety: there was beef, sweet potatoes, rice, cranberry sauce, bread, Munster cheese, and a vegetable stir fry. During dinner we had some quality family chat time. After dinner had treats. And now I am enjoying a nice after-dinner break. That brings us up to the present.

Not the most exciting of days, but it's been an ok day over all.

Edit: I just realized why you may have questioned whether I enjoy your responses: I need to remember to "Like" responses that I like. Also when I am depressed I do tend to be less good about responding to others so while I would enjoy reading what you wrote but my own comments tended to be a bit self focused, I fear.

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## fogelbise

That was a nice detailed entry! I had to chuckle thinking that your housekeeper should appreciate you. Too considerate (if there is such a thing)! It really gave me a sense of a nice, close knit family...sweet. I hope the day recall helps you with your dream recall tonight...either way I recommend trying it for a good week if you aren't sure whether it is helping. No worries about the likes...besides, if we "liked" absolutely everything we came across it would lose any meaning that it may have previously had. It does sometimes feel like I am jumping into someone's private diary...giving me a little doubt on when to chime in at times. Being self-focused during bouts of depression is completely understandable and this is your workbook after all, so no worries there either.  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

As you can see from this dream journal entry my dream recall is back, yay! And thank you fogelbise, you clearly helped!
Huge feast - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views
I was amused to see that one of the foci of my waking day summary here was dinner, and my dream last night definitely had a dinner connection.  :smiley:  Although I think my dream takes the dinner symbolically, to show a different point: I think this dream is about my self improvement efforts and how to reconcile it if there is a difference between my own vision for myself and others who are trying to help me improve - and fogelbise that is not about you, since I find your suggestions helpful, but it is more I think the general concept of own vision driven versus accepting suggestions from others which may contradict my vision. My parents, my husband, my boss for example all at tes have ideas that may at times conflict with my vision for how to improve. Especially my parents can drive me up the wall with such suggestions. When I am depressed or not at my best, I am likely to push away their helpful advice even when it is actually good ideas, but if it is coming from them and I am in a non optimal state, I will rebuff them. So I think this is the kind of underlying theme in my huge feast dream with altercation with a caterer.

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## fogelbise

That is great!  :smiley:  I encourage you to continue the day journal even if you aren't sure that is what helped last night at least for a good week or so...whether it is entered here or in a private journal.

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## Sensei

> That is great!  I encourage you to continue the day journal even if you aren't sure that is what helped last night at least for a good week or so...whether it is entered here or in a private journal.



Reading your day journal the next day, when you are trying to remember dreams, is a good thing, because you might find what sparked the dream.

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## JoannaB

Ok, so today was another good day. (Edit: after rereading all I wrote below, I am thinking that it was not as good a day as yesterday though for a number of reasons - room for improvement for tomorrow.) It started out with dream recall return woohoo. 

While I was in the shower I told my husband about my dream and about fogelbise's suggestion of day journal to help with recall, and how writing about dinner yesterday I believe was in part responsible for my dream. My husband said "That's great, then in order to have a flying dream, you just need to write about your experience flying that day." Out of some reason I thought that hilarious and laughed out loud, and that felt good. I also told my hubby that fogelbise agreed with him that I am being too considerate to the housekeeper, and my husband said that up until then he was not sure what he thought of this fogelbise person, but now he can clearly see that fogelbise is very wise. As I was getting dressed I sang Morning Has Broken, and I got it almost just right so soon I will have memorized it fully. 

My older son had lost his hat yesterday on the school to after-school bus, and he misplaced his gloves somewhere at home. I told him, I don't have an endless supply of hats and gloves, you know, as I found another one. As I was taking my younger son to preschool I thought of a possible task for my new coworker who has been assigned to me, and I am not used to coming up with tasks for someone else yet. As a result I missed the turn, and had to turn around - oh well, at least this time I noticed before I went on the highway - I had in the past once or twice only noticed that I forgot to drop my son off by the time I was almost at work! But this time I noticed early enough. 

While in highway traffic slowly inching my way to work, I called my mother who lives in Europe and is hard of hearing sometimes but bad telephone connections make it worse of course. Very quickly I noticed that she almost could not hear me. So I suggested that she call me back. Whereupon she who had not heard my suggestion suggested that she call me back, but then she wanted a confirmation that this was ok with me, and a few awkward moments later I shouted at the phone that it was fine and I hung up. She called me back, and was concerned that I had been depressed. She wanted to know whether it was due to trouble into marriage. I said no. She said good because she had just had a dream in which I came to her, and said that I would like her advice on marital trouble, but that I do not want her to talk about sex nor to criticize my husband. She responded in that dream that this was too limiting. And the dream ended with me shouting at her. When my mother told me this dream, I told her that next time I ask her for marital advice, she should know that's a dream. She said she wished I was free to ask her that. I said that I don't think that is something for a grown daughter to get her mother's advice from. Then my mom wanted to know what to get me for Christmas, and I said that the trouble is I have too much stuff. Yes, Christmas is a long time away, but my mom unlike me is a planner ahead and a shopper. 

Once I arrived at work, I shared the idea I had had for task for my new coworker with my new boss, but alas was reminded that he had only a temporary background check, so could not have access to that, so I still don't know what to do with the new guy. Frankly I do not know where most of the right hours at work went, but they went by fast. I remember there was a conference call, and I succeeded in something that had failed before - a small task but good to get it done. 

At some point my boss made a comment about body language that made me look up body language of liars, and I read this fascinating site which had some giveaway signs of that, but the most fascinating stuff was that people's eyes according to that site tend to focus elsewhere depending on whether they are recalling something they really saw or heard or making it up. Fascinating idea. I wonder whether this is really true? Alas, I am not planning to start studying people's eyes from now on, so even if it is true, I shall not know it.

Oh, and I found out from the intrusive ads thread that if one pays monthly fee for DV Executive Membership one does not need to see any ads. I didn't know that! So I signed up for it. But I can still see ads, I hope they will disappear soon.

Picked up the boys, and my older son lost another glove, and I told him again, you know, I don't have an endless supply. In the car the DJ could not believe no one recognized a Michael Jackson song he played a snippet of, and I could not believe it either. Got home, typed this, now started fixing dinner. So long!

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## JoannaB

Just had a fragment, but a funny one: Life is a Dream - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

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## fogelbise

I fear that you give me too much credit, but I am definitely touched that I made it into your conversation and it made me smile real big.  ::D:  My fingers are crossed for your recall and even fragments remembered are a success I feel.

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## JoannaB

Ok here is today's day journal entry to help with my dream recall:

This morning after writing the dream fragment down, I helped my older son with finishing up his homework, including pointing out spelling errors he needed to correct - he grumbled about that, but did it. I also reviewed his quarterly report card with him, praised him for having only the highest and second to highest grades. While the perfectionist in me insisted on pointing out where he got the second highest grades as room for improvement, but then I made sure to stress that it is ok to be always good in some things but only usually good in others, that it is ok to have some strengths and not everything needs to have the highest grade - I wished someone had stressed that to me as a kid.

I then located the connect the dots and color by number book of my younger son's - yay! It had been missing forever, but today he needed something for show and share, and the theme was bring something you made and are proud of, and my son did not want to bring anything like that, but this activity book when I found it he was willing to take - perfect! Last evening I had suggested a pinch pot, but it was clear that even though it had his initials on the bottom and had clearly been made by him last year sometime, my five year old no longer remembered making it. And even though this pinchpot has been standing in plain sight since it came home, but it has been out of mind despite not being out of sight, whereas the activity book had been sorely missed while it was misplaced.

I took my older son to school this time while my husband took my younger son. I talked to my son about religion about how Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship the same God but we worship him differently, and have some different ideas about God, but it is the same God. Hindus believe in different Gods. Since we are Christians, we believe we have more right, but that does not mean that some of the things we believe cannot be wrong, and I believe all religions have some of their beliefs right. I told my son that what I like about Buddhism for example is that they say one should focus more on right now, and less about the past and future, but focus on making the right decision right now and paying attention to what is happening now. And my son said that he understands what they are saying.

At work we made a couple of good decisions that will help our project overcome some limitations. And then my boss suggested that since my work for the afternoon was the kind of work I could just as well do from home, I might as well go home and work from home. Sometimes I positively love my boss!

After I finished work, I had some time before going to get the boys, so I did something I had not done in a while. I went for a walk around our neighborhood without my glasses on. The world looks a bit more magical without my glasses, a bit surreal and very blurry. I pay more attention when my glasses are off because I have to make up for my limited vision, and I also use more of my senses, so I am more likely to hear and smell and feel in addition to see. Sometimes I wonder whether I loose out by wearing my glasses almost always. I feel more vulnerable without my glasses on, but I also feel a sense of wonder and awe.

When I picked up my younger son, he threw himself on me with a big hug. Then I thought he said he wants more hugs, but he actually wanted more challa (bread).

My older son had found his Pokemon folder in the lost and found of his after school, but had discovered that some cards had been taken by other kids. This brought back a memory of when my wallet got stolen at school, but then the officials searched the backpacks of all my classmates, and I felt bad that they all got accused of being thieves, and it did not even help find my wallet. I told my son about this and told him to be careful because friends are more important than Pokemon cards. He said "but it was not your fault" meaning that it was not my fault my wallet was stolen and all my friends accused of being thieves, plus he pointed out that it was probably not a friend who stole my wallet. I said that was true, but I still felt bad about it, and thought it was important not to accuse friends or make them feel like one accuses them.

Got home and ordered pizza. The boys are watching TV while I am typing this. My husband is not home this evening - he has some social obligations / evening meetings.

Overall a very good day.

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## bemistaken

JoannaB,

I read every one of your post everyday...you may think your words are not encouraging but they are!  I am right there with you dealing with either the kids, sickness, or just reviewing if the LD skills that I have been practicing on is working.  Keep posting!  You are such an encouragement and motivation for me and others.  You are always quick to encourage and welcome others.  I will never forget how I was in the most terrible dry spell and you invited me to participate in a DV challenge.  I was cautious because I have never challenged my LD skills in a competition before but for the first time, I ended up winning the lower league division.  In the past, I would get so frustrated with myself about my lucidity.  But, all I have to do is read your post and focus on your persistence and I know everything is going to be alright.  Everyday, I'm right here rooting for you and everyone else (including myself) who is in the same boat here on DV.  

To me, DV would be a sad place without you...Keep doing what you do JoannaB  :smiley: .

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## JoannaB

Thank you so such, bemistaken, for your very touching comment - I truly appreciate it!

Edit: Btw, I in turn greatly enjoy reading your letters to Lucy - she probably does not even realize how fortunate she is to have your personalized attention.  :smiley:

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## bemistaken

No problem Joanna B,

Speaking of Lucy...I been thinking about her all day and I can't wait till I get home so I can tell her what I'm going to do to her tonight  :Cheeky: !

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## JoannaB

Ok, this has never happened to me before: I remembered a fragment of a dream, but it was too close to a potential issue at work literally not symbolically, and too recognizable (if a coworker happened to browse here) that i cannot post the dream online. Suffice it to say, it was a worst outcome scenario in an issue at work that hopefully will not happen.

Edit: To clarify this dream was not really a nightmare, and no stressful, it just showed one possible worst case scenario but kind of as an FYI let's keep that in mind, what if, but not in an emotional kind of way.

I now had one of the best exercising sessions I have ever had. It was great. I started out with some Samba dancing to the Wii and alas did not have the rythm quite right, but then I moved on. I did Wall Smasher - I just love smashing down imaginary walls on the Wii - there is something about walls being blasted to pieces and totally obliterated that really appeals to me - and I did better than ever before, completely destroying two out of three of the walls presented to me. Then I tackled Yoga. I remember when we first got the Wii for Christmas, I started on yoga, and whenever the instructor on screen said, "can you feel your mind being in tune with your body?" I would then think to myself, "why yes, they are in perfect tune, both body and mind agree that they are stressed and akward and uncomfortable." Rewind to today: I felt the harmony with my body in a pleasant way, I felt I was actually getting the poses right, and I was getting perfect scores on the Wii. After I had exercised 16 minutes, I was all sweaty from the Samba and Wall Smasher, and ready to call it quits, when I told myself that I appear to be in top form today and so I should keep going, so I excercised Yoga for another 16 minutes (so a total of 32), and it was great - even the pose that requires me to stand on one leg with one leg parallel to the floor behind me, which is my weakest pose, sure I occasionally did wobble a bit, so not perfect, but I did not fall nor was in any real danger this time of loosing my balance all together - yay!

Based on this excercising I have sense that I am in much better shape now physically and emotionally. I bet I will have a lucid dream soon if I just focus on some ADA and some reality checking. Speaking of which, given how good the exercising just went, am I dreaming? Reality check says no, and this time I want the answer to be no, because I would not want this exercise session to have been in a dream only.

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## fogelbise

It sounded like you were smashing down walls in more way than one! Beautiful stuff!!

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## JoannaB

Summary of the day:

Dream recall exists - yay! Exercising huge success! Loaded dishwasher, put away laundered children's clothes, did two more loads of laundry, dishwasher loaded and run, kicked off a process for work that will run 20 hours, went for a walk without my glasses on to ice cream place, got Nutella and Mango ice cream, chatted with a woman who was sitting on her porch enjoying the crisp weather - we chatted both on my way there and on my way back, tried napping but not quite succeeded, my husband and boys meantime went to a university and church event and came back, checked progress of work process, half an hour later delivered kids to a daycare provider's home for a play date with her son while my husband and I went out to a restaurant after changing into more formal evening clothes, experienced incident with cockroach on rice in fancy Indian restaurant (yikes!!!), and right now am in bar of Holiday Inn enjoying glass of wine waiting for a dance event to start, although it will be a brief dancing because we are due to pick up the boys in 1.5 hours.

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## JoannaB

Got tipsy. Danced like a giraffe, and then like an octopus, and briefly like a bunny. Fewer inhibitions. Sashayed my butt. Should dance more often.

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## JoannaB

No dream recall this morning, that may be due to alcohol in the evening or due to cuddling with my husband in the morning, but no regrets.

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## JoannaB

Woke up without dream recall in the morning. Kicked off a 35 hour process for work. We picked up a young man who needed a ride to church - he is originally from Sudan. I sat in the back in our van and played Tap Tap Revenge on my iPhone. At church my younger son was too clingy so I staid with the boys in Sunday school. My younger son was a bit too unruly / sprawly / impatient during story time, but then he did a beautiful job cutting with scissors during the arts and crafts project. We joined my husband upstairs for communion and some singing of hymns and prayer. Coffee hour was as usual an elaborate affair and socializing with other paritioners - it's nice to be in community. On the way back dropped off the young man at a metro station so he could go visit friends. Came home and had a nap, and remembered a dream fragment. Woke up confused thinking it was morning. Throughout the day off and on spent time on DV. Dinner was delicious, but the ice cream store visit afterward was even better. We walked to the ice cream store with flash lights, since it had fallen dark already. And that's where we are now, waiting for boys to finish their ice cream, my husband reading a book and I am typing this, and I am way too full.  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

Woke up remembering one fragment from early in the night (written down at midnight) and also remembering that there had been other fragments and that they were kind of like reviewing a to do list of issues. My husband brought me coffee in bed.  :smiley:  after I got up had to ensure that swim suit was packed for my younger son. Woke up said younger son - he likes to sleep in more than the rest of us. Heated up waffles for breakfast. Listened to my older son practice the piano. My husband needed to get to a meeting on time, so I delivered both boys. But before we left we could not find my iPad which was a bit disturbing given that my previous one got lost earlier this year. And of course the iPad was out of power so "Find iPhone" app was useless. My younger son was very clingy when I dropped him off. 

Got to work and proposed another idea to my boss of an assignment for the new coworker, and this time my solution was accepted. Monitored a number of processes. Chatted with coworkers. Lunch included Tilapia, and this time I ate it in the cafeteria instead of at my desk. My boss's boss was visiting to do performance evaluations of some people, not mine though. One time I chose to interrupt one because I needed to verify something with the coworker being evaluated and it was urgent enough. Overall workday was solid. 

Picked the boys up. My older son grumbled about need to do homework, my younger son grumbled about lack of iPad. I was too tired not to exercise, so I exercised for 15 minutes - not as good as on Saturday, but I did break a sweat and every little bit counts. Meanwhile my older son took a nap, when my husband got home, I suggested that maybe our boy is taking a defensive nap to avoid homework, but he more charitably suggesting that maybe the boy is coming down with a virus and needs the rest. I was late for dinner because needed a shower after exercising. During dinner my younger son sang us a song in Hebrew - I wonder whether he understands the lyrics (I don't). My older son woke up at some point during dinner. I went to check once more in the van, and did find the iPad there - wahoo! Now I am lying on the couch typing this, while the boys are watching a list of all Dr. Who actor's to the them song of Dr. Who on their dad's iPhone - "This is what the first one looks like." I hear "No, first one looks different!" Brother responds "You are looking at the wrong guy then." And now it is reading time.

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## JoannaB

Went to bed at midnight and after six hours I recall no dreams, but I woke up happy, so am fairly confident that the dreams I failed to recall were not nightmares. I will need to cut down on the caffeine I think to reduce risk of staying up so late. After getting up it was a fairly typical morning in our household in terms of preparing boys and ourselves for going out. My boys chose to dress like twins in similar/same clothing. My husband had a morning meeting, so I dropped off both boys, but had two electronic devices, so they were happy in the back seat. As I dropped off my older son, my younger chose to stay in the car and continue to play. As I was dropping him off my younger son said he wished he could go to bed, and he sat down on me like on a chair as I was bending down to hug him goodbye and he did not want me to leave.

Work started as usual with needing to respond to some emails, and it was mostly a fairly easy going day, nothing too hard and challenging, and no stress. 

While I was waiting for a process to finish, I logged into DV chat, and spent most of the time in query with someone who is depressed. I wish I could help, since I know a thing or two about depression. However, in my experience, the only way out of depression is to change, and this person does not think it is possible or desirable to change. Of course, I am an open minded person, and like to think that it is a mistake to tell anyone that my way is the only way, and the thing is that I am not, since it is not like I am saying that the change needs to be in a particular way, but I do not see how a depressed person can get better without change. I actually have a theory that an advantage to depression is that those of us who get depressed actually have a strong incentive for change, since at some point one reaches a point where not changing is not really an option. Most people are reluctant to change, and depression kind of forces the issue, I think. However, the person who I chatted with reminded me that this is not what all depressed people believe. Sigh. I wish I could help, but sometimes it is almost impossible to help someone if the two of us do not believe in the same premises. And I cannot change someone who does not want to change nor would I want to, but ... sigh.

As I picked up the boys, there was this cute kid in the elevator whose mom and him were playing a game of Open Sesame, where she would pretend that his open sesame and holding the mom's ID card actually opened the elevator doors - it was cute! My younger son proudly finished memorizing a song in Hebrew as I picked him up. My older son made a concerned face because he thought he forgot to take his homework folder from school, but I reassured him that his teacher had emailed all parents that she had forgotten to send homework, and would send it tomorrow, but meanwhile she sent the spelling list as an email attachment - yay for electronic communication. We drove through the McDonald's Drive Through, got home, ate. I wove the words from the spelling list into one giant letter string for my son to identify. And now I am typing this.

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## JoannaB

No dream recall, but I feel like I was catching up some on getting sufficient rest - this time went to bed earlier, and got probably 7-8 hours of sleep. While I do not recall dreams, I do recall lying in bed thinking about minor stuff from work which I could do nothing about while asleep - silly mind, I wish I could tell it to shut off thinking about such issues at night, sort of like having an "ignore list." Woke up around 5:40am, put on some clothes and a jacket, and went to sit in the almost still dark on the porch outside our home. I had not noticed before how much noise from far away traffic one can hear out there and how noisy the heat unit is outside our window. I took off my glasses and just enjoyed sitting there for a bit. Not too long though, since I got too cold. Went inside and curled up on the couch. Watched the light / shadows on the ceiling for a bit but then half drifted off to sleep again, until my older son got up. We watched Wild Kratts together, which was about owls in the Sonoran Desert. I made coffee before the shower, and brought a mug for my husband in bed for a change. Afterwards though he made breakfast, but I ensured the boys had swim stuff with them. I delivered my younger son to preschool while my husband took our older boy to school. My younger son ran outside of his preschool building, fell, and hurt his hands. "Can you carry me inside?" He asked plaintively. So I carried the 5-year old boy plus backpack while maneuvering the ID card out of my purse and swiping it to get into the building. By the time we got to the elevator he was well enough to walk, which was good because he is heavy!

Not much excitement at work, about three hours in conference calls and meetings, and the rest doing fairly routine stuff for me for the most part. My husband called to tell me about the Thanksgiving lunch and book fair he attended at our older son's school - last year I went. Among other things our son persuaded his dad to spend a small fortune in books - it helps to have parents who love books at such times. Then I got an email from my younger son's preschool about the day today which included a photo of my younger son holding a book, so I guess it was a day of book for both boys.  :smiley: 

The traffic on the way from work was horrible, so I was a bit late but barely so picking up the boys, and got lucky to not get charged a late fee this time. Got home, and now my boys and I are all three of us chilling in the living room, each of us with electronic devices, waiting for daddy to come home. Soon though I should probably look into dinner, and my older son should do his math homework.

Tonight I will go to bed with a strong intent to remember dreams.

Oh I almost forgot, for the past few days I have also been a female petite cop who is a vampire in my daydreams. Still trying to decide whether or not she/I get(s) accepted into the vampire community when she moves to a new city or not, especially since I am only a half-blood vampire, and thus need to dring blood out of fridge due to no fangs.

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## fogelbise

I am impressed at your perseverance with the day recall task! If it ever feels like too much of a burden, try to just pick a segment of the day to recall...but if you can do like the above, that is great!





> Tonight I will go to bed with a strong intent to remember dreams.



 Exactly...and I know that you know this, but if you are like me I often forget to remind myself to do a mantra or something by the time I go to lay down. "I remember my dreams" is what I use for recall assistance...but I have also seen "I remember my dreams and write them down as soon as I awaken" (or similar). I also notice that if it is fragmented sometimes just starting to write whatever I have reminds me of more of the dream...kind of like brainstorming: just start listing whatever you can and it sometimes gets the flow going...pen and paper is great for quick entry...others like voice transcription through a voice to text app or recorder, if no one else is in the room to be woken up. Again, I bet you know this, but reminders can't hurt I hope  :smiley: 





> I do recall lying in bed thinking about minor stuff from work which I could do nothing about while asleep - silly mind, I wish I could tell it to shut off thinking about such issues at night, sort of like having an "ignore list."



 Two things that work for me is rolling over and writing down the thing I am thinking about if it is something I think I need to remember or visualize mentally "checking it off my list" if it is trivial. One of those seems to free my mind from the thought.





> Oh I almost forgot, for the past few days I have also been a female petite cop who is a vampire in my daydreams. Still trying to decide whether or not she/I get(s) accepted into the vampire community when she moves to a new city or not, especially since I am only a half-blood vampire, and thus need to dring blood out of fridge due to no fangs.



 Very cool! Do you watch True Blood?

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## JoannaB

No, I have not watched True Blood, but I used to watch Being Human, and a long time ago Forever Knight, plus I used to read all kinds of Vampire themed fictional novels mostly romance, but it's been a while now.

Thank you so much for your advice and reminders. I shall definitely mantra tonight ...unless I do forget of course.  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

I did forget to mantra or go to sleep with intent alas. However I did remember one dream, and it was a weird one: My squirreling (cleptonania?) issue - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Slept for about 8 hours with no memory of waking up in the night.

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## fogelbise

Your welcome and thank you for the nice comments in the post before last  :smiley:  Also, that was significant recall for that dream and perhaps you needed that solid 8 hours to sleep, so sounds like a win-win to me!

Do you ever wake up earlier than needed due to your husband getting up or kids making noise? If so, you might try a late morning mantra as well. I tried it this morning and either the mantra or the fact that it was late morning seemed to help. I felt I could say "I am dreaming" 10 times and be able to doze off right away and was able to.

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## JoannaB

Nowadays I am the first one to wake up usually. It's weird in a way because about a year ago I never was the first to wake up, but now I usually am.

This morning I started the Stephen LaBerge recommended part of the MILD again where on Thursdays one looks out for reading, checking the time, daydreaming, and phone ringing. Well, that was not very successful today because it wound up being a hectic day at work with both my bosses trying to redirect me and change my mindset at work into one that is foreign to me. But before I even got to work I had a major discovery: I caught myself subconsciously repeating to myself "I am not well" in a negative self talk - yikes! I put a stop to that for then, but I will need to watch out for that now and nip it in the bud when it occurs.

I am still in the office, and I may or may not write more later. For now suffice it to say it was a hectic stressful day. Oh and my cough seems worse today.

Edit: ok a bit more day summary:

Woke up later than usual. Recalled a dream - weird one. Oatmeal for breakfast for most of us, except for my younger son - he does not like oatmeal - so he had a peanut butter jelly pocket. My older son was excited to have finished his homework. My younger son was glad to go to his former daycare provider's for the day - both today and tomorrow, since his preschool teachers are out at a conference. We arrived in time to briefly see her son before he got on the school bus - when he returns, the boys will play.

In the car tried to pay more attention and started looking for reading and checking the time. That's when I caught the negative sub conscious self talk - yikes! Stopped it, but later that day caught myself again. I need to become self aware enough to stop it. Work was hectic. 

I caughed a lot. Funny thing is in the car on way back I sang the hymn "Amazing Grace" to myself over and over again, and during that no caughing. Could the caugh be a manifestation of my psychological issues, which are fed by negative self talk? Also my bosses both today tried to get me to see myself as more important and the work ahead of us as more doable. I was frustrated because I see my limitations and the limitations of the data I am working with. But perhaps I should be more willing to bullshit and become more upbeat as a result - bullshitting does not come naturally to me.

After I pick up the boys, I will have to exercise tonight - no excuses. This evening I will need to focus more on me time, and also go to bed early. Important meeting tomorrow morning.

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## fogelbise

> I caught myself subconsciously repeating to myself



 Your awareness at work, nice.  Virtually everyone does this negative self-talk but most people don't catch it.





> bullshitting does not come naturally to me



 That could be a bumper sticker  :smiley:

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## bemistaken

Hope you feel better JoannaB,

Don't worry about bullshitting not coming naturally to you...we already have enough of them in this world!  :Cheeky:

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## JoannaB

> That could be a bumper sticker



Did I ever tell you guys about my favorite bumper sticker that I ever had? "Of all the things I lost, I miss my mind the most." That reminds me that sometimes losing or finding stuff seems supernatural to me, kind of like: now you see it, and now you don't, and sometimes then you see it again when you least expect it, right under your nose, but at other times something disappears possibly into another dimension, while it really should be right there.

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## bemistaken

> "Of all the things I lost, I miss my mind the most."



Heehee...I think I remember you said that your bumper sticker was stolen, right?  Did you have it on a suitcase and they just stole the sticker off of the suitcase?  Man, that is hilarious  ::chuckle:: !

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## JoannaB

That's right! A discerning thief who knew what they wanted: left the suitcase and carefully pealed off the bumper sticker.  :smiley: 

@fogelbise: I really appreciate your insight that I should focus on seeing that this was awareness at work, and not on the fact that I was doing negative self talk. I was already worried that I had too early declared the depression as stabilized - I guess I still need to remind myself to look at the positives such as "nice self awareness"  :smiley:

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## fogelbise

Thank for your kind words  :smiley:  I think we have to give ourselves a nod for the little things we are doing right to give us the energy to climb up whatever hill we are faced with...easier said than done I know, but awareness really helps. And great bumper sticker!

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## JoannaB

Went to sleep early, mantra before bed "I realize I am dreaming. I remember my dreams." Slept like a log for around 8.5 hours, woke up after my husband did, more tired than usual, no recall, but feeling ok. All I remember of the night is that I may have forgotten something.

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## JoannaB

Woke up tired this morning and after my husband did. Had some tea. Gave some breakfast to kids and myself. Took out the trash - I actually like taking out the trash because it is pleasantly chillie outside in the morning. Since I had a morning meeting, my husband took the boys to their destinations. I wore a red blouse today to boost my confidence, I like to wear red for that. Today was supposed to look out for birds, doors, bathrooms, and stars. Well, this was most successful during commute to work. I looked out for birds. I saw an airplane flying up high over the highway. Made me wonder whether planes disturb wildlife that might see their shadow and think it is a large bird of prey. When I parked the car near work, I heard birds but did not see them at first, but finally I followed the sound with my ears and eyes, and found several birds on the other side of the road on the ground - yay!

After checking email and a few other things, I piled up into a car with my two bosses and a coworker and we went for an important meeting with the client, which included a photo shoot for article on success of part of project, and then a meeting during which I gave a brief presentation, during which I was confident and did well. Then one of the bosses got invited to another meeting in which the rest of us could not participate, so the rest of us waited in a food court and I ate sushi, and we chatted about all kinds of stuff including the Roman Empire, World War II, Zimmerman, and JFK's assassination. When we came back my boss received a spreadsheet which he needed me to compare and contrast to a previous one, and I did that fast and felt good about the day overall.

When I picked up my older son from after school care, we went to the boys' former daycare provider's home where my younger son spent the day. We staid there a bit, while the boys played I chatted with the parents. Our two families are good friends. Ordered pizza before I got home, and it arrived soon after we did. I had forgot to specify that I wanted to pay by credit card and I did not have enough cash - yikes - but luckily a call to the pizza place allowed me to charge the order to my card after all. After pizza my younger son and I had ice cream while my older son took a different treat. Now we are all on electronic devices in the living room. My husband will come home after the boys' bedtime today. Soon will have to prepare for bedtime for boys although it is Friday night so might delay.

Will I recall any dreams tonight? I recall my dreams. I realize I am dreaming. I recall my dreams. I realize I am dreaming.

Btw, the DV banner has stars and birds - if only it also had a door and a toilet, I could pay attention to it, and meet my Friday MILD requirements.

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## JoannaB

I remembered a dream! Again it is one I cannot post online because too close to truth at my actual work, it had to do with my boss's way of handling relations with client, and an internal conflict of my own of whether I agree with a part of approach or see it differently. The dream included this awkward phone conversation between me and representative of the client where I needed to rewind the conversation in my mind as I worked out my internal conflict over presentation style, how much to reveal, and my self confidence issues.

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## JoannaB

Ok, while playing Luminosity on my iPhone, I had an important insight: the goal should not be not making mistakes (the perfectionist in my is reluctant to let go of that goal), but rather what matters is my reaction to the mistakes, my perception of the mistakes, and the speed with which I recover from mistakes. In this game I lose more points by hesitating and slowing down after mistakes than through the mistakes themselves. I should apply that lesson from the game to life as a whole. Not let my mistakes rattle me so, just keep going accepting that mistakes happen, but instead of attempting to do it all perfectly and focusing on each mistake, my focus needs to be on keeping going with a positive attitude, and when (not if) mistakes happen, recover and get back on track quicker, without letting mistakes that are already done and cannot be undone rattle me so, not letting them ruin my enjoyment of the rest of the game/day/life.

This is an important lesson, seamingly obvious, and yet so hard to implement for someone like me who was taught from early on to be a perfectionist. Alas my older son is too much like me, and I can already see the perfectionism in him - I will need to work on in my parenting not only avoid imposing my perfectionism on him, but try to teach him to accept mistakes more gracefully, which will be hard given how hard that is for me.

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## FryingMan

Yes very important in LDing as well -- do not let setbacks get you down, relax and enjoy the process.   Pay attention to the practice, but don't stress about it when things don't go perfectly.   Time is on our side in LDing, slow and steady gets the dreams  :smiley:

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## fogelbise

That's awareness again(of your reaction to mistakes)! And congrats on recalling a full dream! You do deserve a pat on the back  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

Alas, I do not deserve a pat on the back after all: I then proceeded to pick a fight with my mother over the phone, and then I needed to decompress and logged into IRC, and got upset over IRC politics again, and then I was frustrated most of the rest of the day and had no dream recall this morning. Sigh. Today I need to work on taking some steps in the right direction again.

Lots of body aches today, but I had a nap during which I did remember a dream. Some awareness successes off and on during the day. Joined another lucid dream forum - it is much more quiet, and unless I become much less of a forum junkie, it's probably a bit too quiet for me, but it appears to have more of an intimate community atmosphere, so perhaps a place to retreat if I become too stressed. Overall though today was a better day than yestday, despite body aches.

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## JoannaB

So in the meantime I have branched out and am now a member of three dream related forums instead of just one, which likely will mean spending less time on here I fear, we will see how it develops in the long run. For now I am enjoying communicating with new people about existing interests in a new way.

I think I am starting to regain some confidence that I will have a lucid soon. Even though I recalled no dream today, I remember remembering a fragment earlier and then forgetting it. Since I woke up at 4:20 I decided to try WBTB, and thus staid up for twenty minutes. Went back to bed when I felt sleepy, but alas had the hardest time falling back to sleep, and I am not sure whether I did fall asleep at all inbetween when I went back to bed and when my alarm sounded at 6:30. However, I did do some visualization, and had a bit of HI - mostly very bright light behind closed eyelids. And despite today's lack of success, I do think I will have a lucid soon.

I caught myself doing the same negative self talking yet again yesterday. While I did not usually notice the things I was trying to pay attention to as they were happening, but I did notice them usually soon after the fact, so I think my awareness is improving again.

Edit: I remembered the dream fragment I had and forgot earlier! I had to do with shirts for my husband for Christmas, there was a file of them on the floor in front of our walk-in closet, and I think his mother had gotten them for him, but I wanted to have given him the black one.

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## fogelbise

> so I think my awareness is improving again.



That's great Joanna. I also bet that you will have a lucid soon. I was reading about an ADA type technique that focuses on breathing and found myself paying attention to my breathing more through the day and found it also was a good way to recognize stress and other emotions since they often affect the way that we breathe. I do hope to continue to see you here on DV but understand that it may help the stress. What is the harm in giving yourself a pat on the back...the way I see it, it reinforces the good habits.

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## JoannaB

Got woken by alarm which I forgot to turn off for the weekend. I do not recall dreams, except I do recall there was something work related.

In general though despite patchy dream recall, I have been doing better. My creativity is up (writing short stories again). Feeling good emotionally.

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## JoannaB

Ok, I will have a lot of work to do to get back to where I was even a month ago. I have let things slide again, and now I have a cold as well. Recently I had a lot of nights staying up or waking up in the middle of the night worrying about things. The last two nights I took Melatonin to help me sleep, and it did. On the plus side, I have been more creative and doing a lot of short story writing, but I have been procrastinating a lot on a lot of stuff, and stressing a lot.

Today, I woke up to find out that it is a snow day: no school for the kids and no work for my husband and me, yay! It really helps to live in a wussy school district and work for federal government, so when school and government closes one does get a day off. Anyone in Poland or Wisconsin (where my husband and I grew up) would shake their heads in disbelief that the capital area closes after only this little snow, but sometimes it helps to have really poor drivers and limited snow plows and all that. We took it slow this morning, and then we walked to a local restaurant to get a fancier brunch. I decided to be adventurous and got an omelette containing chili peppers, only to discover that I could not taste them - it was a good omelette though. We tried to buy kids' boots, but the local store did not carry any, so came back home. Lazied about a lot. Wrote a short story. Then changed the water in both aquariums, did some dishes and laundry and mail and such. A combination of lazy day and chores day. Overall, it was a good day.

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## fogelbise

There she is  :smiley:  And I see you did a day recall post as well!

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## JoannaB

A very stressful day.  :Sad:  Gave no thought to reality checking or awareness or any of that. Sigh.

It did not start out so bad, though I did have to de-snow/de-ice the car, and worried that I would be late to the appointment for the estimate for my car's bumper (I rear-ended a school bus recently - the bus had almost no damage). My husband (God bless him) offered that he could take both boys, but I decided that I could take the older one to school and still make the car estimate appointment, and I did. The estimate was fairly painless - yes, the bumper needs to be replaced, but I kind of knew that given that it has a hole from the school bus's exhaust pipe in it, but our insurance will cover more than half of it, and it's not so bad, and luckily no one got hurt, that's what matters. 

Anyway, coming back to today (not the day of the accident), I then got gas, and was an hour late to work - I had called in late. Then my boss immediately called me in for a meeting in his office, and I had barely enough time for lunch, and had several business phone calls to take care of, and a meeting, and time sensitive something or other, and did not even get to start a process which takes a long time to complete, before it was time to leave and pick up the kids, and get home. 

Then my mom and step father came - they arrived in town today. My mom's visits always stress me out - it's the grown up daughter mother thing, even though my mom means well and I overreact. Add to that my having had a stressful day at work and being exhausted. Dinner actually went well and we all got along - my stepfather had picked up some Peruvian chicken from a local restaurant and some yuka, so I did not have to cook. Then I made the mistake of logging into work while too tired, trying to start that long process, and I made a mistake, which luckily I think was not a big deal, but luckily I caught it before proceeding further. I realized I was too tired to fully kick off the process. 

Right before leaving my mother told me "Be sure to ensure the kids brush their teeth before going to bed" and when I did not reply, she repeated it. And that's when I exploded in anger "Don't tell me how to bring up my kids. What do you think I do when you are not here? Don't tell me what to do when you are not around. It drives me nuts!" Not a good start to the visit. My mom is luckily staying at a friend's house because I cannot handle the two of us under the same roof, my roof. It does not help that my mom always comes for sooo long - she will be here until right before Christmas (we will then each go to separate destinations - it is not my mom's turn to get us for Christmas, we are going to my in-laws), and then my mom will be back for half of January. When my mother-in-law comes to visit, she rarely stays a whole week, and usually I am not stressed even at end of visit - whereas when my mom plans to come, my stress level goes up a couple of weeks before the planned visit. I wish I did not overreact so, but I cannot help it. Sigh.

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## fogelbise

That sounds like a challenging situation. Good thing she is not staying at a friend's house at least! Good job day journaling  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

Today woke up remembering a dream and a fragment, so that was good. In the car watched out for red cars on the highway for awareness practice. Had an important meeting at work. Alas had a horrible migraine headache for most of the day. Then was frustrated with a work process that kept failing to complete and had to be restarted. My mom picked up the boys from after school care. I ordered Thai food. Dinner was pleasant and evening was much less stressful than yesterday.

Tonight dream competition starts. I will try not taking Melatonin for a change to see how well I can sleep without it. I shall wake up and remember my dreams.

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## bemistaken

> I shall wake up and remember my dreams.



Sounds like a good way to start the competition!  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

This morning woke up at 4am, recalled a dream and a fragment, tried to WBTB, but failed to fall asleep. Pleasant cuddling with hubby before getting up, plus he surprised me by having coffee ready so I got coffee in bed - perhaps I had dosed off after all since I did not know he had gotten up. I exercised for 15 minutes - wall smasher and karate. Printed out some family pictures for younger son's show and tell. Delivered younger son to preschool. At office had conference call in which I was one one of two people talking the most. Went over some budget estimate numbers, and did a few other tasks. We did team photo thing. I called to settle a few of my personal bills. My husband wanted to pick up kids but needed my help with that in last moment due to traffic. In the car I thought of work issues which I will definitely not do anything about over the weekend, useless fretting. I tried becoming more aware instead but was not successful. Came home. Exercised for another 15 minutes - yoga this time. Dinner with my mom and stepfather and husband and kids - this time my husband cooked, and I did the dishes. Now kids are watching TV and I am tired lying down in bedroom. I also have a fruity herbal tea.

My plans for tomorrow do include a brief afternoon nap hopefully for competition and also to help with my cold. Today I had a bit of a headache still/again, but nothing like yesterday. Tonight I want to remember my dreams, and again WBTB - this time let's fall asleep again successfully, ok?

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## fogelbise

I am impressed and I see positive things in your day journal! You seem to be exercising quite a bit and that's great! Let me know if there is any way I can help you as I would like to see you have a strong competition  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

So today I woke up around 4am again with a headache. Used steam inhalation in addition to Tylanol to combat it. Staid up over an hour, among other things researching for a Christmas present for my mother in law. Went back to bed (WBTB) attempting to WILD, and while I did not succeed with that but I did fall back asleep. I wish I could remember my dream better and not just fragments because the fragments hint at a wonderful dream complete with Indian shamans, flying on eagle's wings, animal transformation, magic, falling into water, a possible ghost - nifty stuff, all non lucid.

Woke up still a bit headachy - sinus headache - but got better throughout the day. Went to a birthday party of a 5 year old friend of my younger son. Drank green tea. Napped, tried to WILD for nap, but no dream recall - sort of half sleep half awake most of the nap time. Went to a lovely evening at a Polish cultural organization, an evening of Polish and English language Christmas carols and Polish food. This was my mom's idea, and my mom and step father and my husband and I and our boys all went. Upon returning home stressed out over a financial issue I had neglected to take care of when I should have, but took some steps to hopefully resolve it - an issue due to my not paying enough attention and letting important things slide, but I am now correcting some of them. Played Tap Tap Revenge to reduce stress. My boys were very excited because they won the Castle Panic collaborative board game which they played with their dad tonight. I should play with them next time.

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## JoannaB

Around midnight last night I had finished watching the video about evidence for psi that Chimpertainment posted yesterday. I found it interesting and since my husband was still up to I came to tell him about it. Then what happened: he says he was being playful, while I was being serious, and I felt like he was ridiculing my interest, my feelings got hurt, we discussed how we have issues we need to resolve (to react to eachother better, communicate more, spend more time together). Alas I was exhausted already before all this started, and then got even more so. I got maybe about 5 hours of sleep, and woke up with too much stress to fall back asleep. In the morning I exercised for 15 minutes, and my older son joined me for most of it, and that was good. At church I was close to tears, not because of what was happening at church but before. While I did get a nap in the afternoon, but no recall.  After nap though things improved: we played Settlers of Catan - my husband and me and the boys and it was good. Had dinner. Now my husband is watching football, kids are playing with transformers and Megazord, and I was playing Luminosity before. My mom was with us at church, and my stepdad and mom are still coming over for tea this evening - they had other plans before.

My main concerns include issues between my husband and me, and also that my stress level right now is so high that I am close to crying even at less stressful part of day, and I feel like my feelings are easily hurt and I am likely to overreact. Though I am not sure whether or not I overreacted: we do have some serious issues there. Psi of course is not the issue, though it is a growing interest of mine, which my husband does not understand, but that's just the topic of the day - our communication issues go deeper. Also I need alone time to revitalize, and yet we need more together time too, and there is not enough time.

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## JoannaB

Update: did another 15 minutes of exercising for a total of 30. Overall despite the major argument with hubby, there were good parts to this day of course.

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## fogelbise

Your workbook seems to be flowing quite well as a way for your personally track your progress. Please continue, along with your day journal, and if you have any DILD questions perhaps put them at the beginning of your post so I am sure to see them and respond.   :smiley: 

**

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## JoannaB

Not a DILD question but an awareness one: should I think that my awareness is really low because I left my car running with lights and heater on and key in ignition for an hour in a store's parking garage and came back to a dead battery, or should I take it as a positive sign that I then proceeded to RC since it seemed to me highly unlikely that in waking life my car would not have been stolen under these circumstances? Earlier that evening I RCed after realizing that I had just gone through a stretch of road that was one lane used in both directions which is highly unusual, and yet I had been on autopilot right before that and thus did not remember seeing the light or whichever signal that must have been there to ensure that cars knew to go or to stop for this stretch of the road. Overall, I am thinking awareness fluctuated.

Taking some steps back: in the morning a fairly slow morning, hard to "jump start" my system after the weekend. Remembered one fragment, but even that was good because at first I thought I remembered nothing. At work talked about budget with boss, also reached important conclusions on what would need to be changed about a report. Made some progress on a financial matter but not enough progress yet. Despite being very tired, drove one hour to my husband's work place for an office Christmas party. I might not have chosen to go, but given our recent issues, I decided that putting in the effort was important. Party was ok, and it was nice to see his work place. Then came the issue with my car's battery (but I was so lucky it had not been stolen). Meanwhile my mom spent the evening with the boys, and they went to see a neat Christmas lights display in our town, and my older boy did part of his homework - yay. Upon returning home I felt very schlumpy, so here I am lying down and typing.

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## fogelbise

> Not a DILD question but an awareness one: should I think that my awareness is really low because I left my car running with lights and heater on and key in ignition for an hour in a store's parking garage and came back to a dead battery, or should I take it as a positive sign that I then proceeded to RC since it seemed to me highly unlikely that in waking life my car would not have been stolen under these circumstances?



Legitimate LOL! Wow, untouched...maybe any criminals thought it was a trap or an episode of "What Would You Do?" Seriously though, the RC was a recovery.  :smiley: 





> Earlier that evening I RCed after realizing that I had just gone through a stretch of road that was one lane used in both directions which is highly unusual, and yet I had been on autopilot right before that and thus did not remember seeing the light or whichever signal that must have been there to ensure that cars knew to go or to stop for this stretch of the road. Overall, I am thinking awareness fluctuated.



Awareness definitely fluctuates even with the best of them. Most people go the entire day on auto-pilot.





> Taking some steps back: in the morning a fairly slow morning, hard to "jump start" my system after the weekend. Remembered one fragment, but even that was good because at first I thought I remembered nothing.



Excellent! I find that I need to lay in bed just a little bit longer to get the recall flowing. Sometimes I would give up too soon..."Nothing there...oh well..." and I get up. Take a few minutes for yourself.

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## JoannaB

Woke up from a scary dream in which I was being gorged by a boar/rhino. Intended to go back to sleep, but had some thoughts on how to improve a work process instead. I made coffee and heated up frozen pancakes for breakfast. I exercised only 8 minutes, but every little bit counts. My husband offered to take both it's this morning, which was nice of him. Before they left, I signed up the younger one for some specialty classes. Took out the trash. My hubby also kindly took my car since he has longer commute on highway and thus my car's battery would charge longer. Work was productive, included improving a process and a report, then a presentation by someone else, and finally a short deadline last minute assignment. My boss gave each of us a box of chocolates - it's the season for chocolates. I picked up the boys. Started some work processes which run faster after hours and which I can kick off from home. Meanwhile the toilet overflowed when my younger son was flushing - oh, well, it happens, I fixed it - not my favorite part of the day. My husband fixed dinner. I called my mom asking whether she could return the orchid plant she bought me because I have too many orchids as is and am hoping to reduce not increase my collection, and she decided she will give it to a friend of hers instead then. My younger son suggested we play truth or dare at the dinner table, which is a new favorite game of the boys. Overall a good productive day, and I note that my husband was a darling today in many ways.

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## JoannaB

Remembered a dream though at first I thought I did not, but as I lay there cuddled by my husband I recalled one. Did not get a chance to do any awareness training or RCing during the day since it was a hectic day.

Helped older son practice for spelling test, and took him to school. The back doors of the van would not open due to being frozen shut, so my son climbed back from the front seat. However the attempt to open the doors must have dislodged them enough for the car to think they were open but one could not close them any more, so we drove to school with the constant beeping of car due to "open" door. At school I finally managed to open back doors and shut them again.

 At work double checked a short deadline project which I had worked on and then a coworker. Then had an in person meeting which I had to leave in the middle of for a conference call, which ended up being cancelled due to a work related crisis of some key stakeholders who needed to troubleshoot something instead, so I returned to in person meeting. When it ended I had barely enough time to fetch lunch, and saw a former coworker but had no time to chat. Wolved down lunch. Another in person meeting. Sent some files to a coworker to double check and explained to him what's what. 

Then a deployment occurred and then I discovered issues and was in work crisis and resolution mode until after 7:30pm (missed a job interview of new potential coworker which I should have participated in but too busy, had to make time for an important work call not related to crisis and scheduling a meeting) - I did manage to get home around 6:30 but immediately had to log back into work to ensure that the crisis got resolved. My role was mostly coordinating and verifying and sending instructions and ensuring that people were available after hours. 

Bad cold, took Mucinex upon returning home. Ate dinner after everyone else in my family and did not feel up to heating it up so I ate it cold. Now sipping a Sinus tea and half lying on the couch. Yup, it's been a full day.

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## JoannaB

PS: My older son who is quite a lucid dreamer, and recently got into increasing his own size in dreams and also gliding to the ground instead of falling - cool stuff, so as I was kissing him good night he sang to me "I wish you a lucid dream. I wish you a lucid dream. I wish you a lucid dream, and a happy one, too." To the tune of We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Super cute. I did remember to RC upon returning to my bedroom after that. However, apparently I got a super cute and supportive of my LD practice almost 8 year old boy in waking life.  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

Woke up with just the memory of having written down a fragment in the middle of the night, and indeed there it was, and I had no memory of the dream beyond that, apparently a falling dream. I took a Galatamind, but could not fall back asleep. Helped my older son set up a Wii game they got as an early Christmas present from friends of ours. Started to make scrambled eggs, but forgot I had put them on, and my husband saved the resulting omelette in the last moment. It was actually pretty good. My husband took the boys to church for rehearsal for Christmas pageant while I did a last moment correction to Christmas shopping. Sorted rubber bands for rainbow loom by color. Some laundry, some dishes. Later in afternoon some cuddling with my husband while boys played in other room. Dinner. Fairly uneventful, mostly lazy day.

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## FryingMan

> I took a Galatamind, but could not fall back asleep.



Did you also take a smidgen of melatonin to go with it?  If not you might try that next time.   Or perhaps wait for a waking where you feel like you have a lot of drowsiness available to counteract the waking influence of the Galantamine.

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## fogelbise

I still haven't tried any supplements so far but CanisLucidus seems to get good awareness with multiple LDs from it. I did actually walk into one of those nutrition supplement stores and ask if they had it. They said "you mean glucosamine (or similar)?" I said "no, but do you have anything to aid lucid dreaming?" She said "what is that?" and I said "conscious dreaming" and she just looked at me weird...haha  ::D:

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## JoannaB

So I had not been on DV nor any other forum for a while. Too much stress, depression, whatnot.

The only recent dreams I recall from the past week or two:

I accidentally stabbed a friend of my son's who was staying over night at our home apparently, I stabbed the friend with a pen in the throat. I woke up when i had been trying to reach 911, and trying to prevent the kid from taking the pen out of throat because I thought she would die if she did.

There were people drowned in a river on both sides of a bridge. I tried to burry them by throwing ice in the river, but the ice kept melting, but I kept throwing in more ice. One of the bodies the head separated, but it did not look real more like a plastic head of a manekin at that point whereas it had been real before.

We bought a new home. One of the bedrooms had no windows, but it had a deep pit on one side of the room that was an accident waiting to happen - I was trying to figure out how to secure it so no one falls in there and breaks a limb or neck. Also in this room, there was a bed, and a whole bunch of ladybugs were swarming on the pillow. Normally I like ladybugs, but in this dream they were creepy.

And that have been my dreams lately. Using my dream interpretation skills, I conclude that my mind is deeply disturbed, but I already knew that.

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## fogelbise

Welcome back JoannaB!  :smiley:  Those are very interesting dreams indeed! Perhaps a few dream signs in them. Sorry to hear about the stress and depression.  :Sad:

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## JoannaB

Thanks for the welcome back, fogelbise.

The day before yesterday after a long staff meeting at work I suddenly had the feeling as if all joy had drained out of life, and so I cried in my office, and left an hour early and exercised, and sang Morning Has Broken and Amazing Grace, and had a bath, and played a board game with the family, and felt a bit better.

That night I dreamed I wanted to play the lottery (which is something I do want to do in real life, haven't bought a ticket in years, but now I could use a break). So in my dream I went to try to buy lottery tickets, and was told that most lotteries have been discontinued, and the only one I could participate in, the winner would get an expensive purse. Did I want to participate? No, because then I would just have the additional trouble of trying to resell the purse, and I don't need that.

Yesterday was better. I actually did get a few things accomplished, and I did not have a breakdown, which was good.

I recently started crocheting again. That helps. Making a kid's poncho now.

I am not really doing anything for lucid dreaming at the moment except an occasional reality check once in a while when things get too weird if I think of it. However, mostly I think I need to get to a better place mentally before I continue.

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## fogelbise

Maybe a good time to play the lottery since it entered your dreams!

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## JoannaB

Hey, I thought I was too far from lucid dreaming to bother trying due to all that stress, but this dream motivates me to pick up LD practice more seriously now. I almost reality checked in the dream, though alas decided not to:

Too busy cleaning up poop to reality check - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

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## fogelbise

Nice to see your previous practice and/or recent thoughts about getting back were showing up in your dream! You were close!

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## JoannaB

I had no recall from the night before - only got 6 hrs of sleep due to crisis at work. Not worrying about it, actually had to work from 4:30pm to 1am on Saturday, and then 7:30am to 11am on Sunday. This is becoming ridiculous. I started this job with a "I don't work overtime" position, but it became non-sustainable.

I did buy lottery tickets today.

I don't remember much from my dream during nap time, except that something made out of glass (chandelier maybe?) exploded, and glass rained upon me, and later it happened again - two glass showers in one dream, because clearly one was not enough.

So stressful dream patterns continue.

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## fogelbise

I wonder what glass raining down on you means and if twice means your subconscious was really trying to get a message across.

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## JoannaB

Maybe, I think the message is something along the lines that the stress is getting so much, and it is exploding and cutting into me.

You know the saying "hanging by a thread". Well, I have started up my old hobby of crocheting again, and it occurred to me that that's my thread right now: the thread that keeps me still sane enough.

Edit: Usually I am not a believer in dream dictionaries, but I did a quick online search, and got things like that rain symbolizes depression, broken glass symbolizes an aspect of one's life that is in pieces, and an explosion can stand for an explosion of repressed feelings. That seems to fit quite well with my situation.

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## JoannaB

Ha, I may have discovered a very promising treatment for my depression. It hinges on the idea that my depression seems to be seasonal, more likely in the winter. If it is actually seasonal affective disorder (SAD), then phototherapy is an effective treatment. I got a lamp for it, and started treatment today - I really hope it will work, very excited.

I was also reading that researchers have a theory for why certain people have seasonal affective disorder: a vestigial instinct to hybernate! So according to that theory I am kind of like a mama bear. I get more fatigued and grumpy as the daylight gets shorter, crave carbohydrates (especially ridiculous amounts of chocolate), lack the energy for stuff, etc. I had already over the years noticed that I cannot work effectively in a window less office. However, until now I had not really put it all together. It fits.

So I will be shining a very bright daylight spectrum light (lamp made specifically for phototherapy) on myself every morning for 20-30 minutes. And if it is indeed SAD, chances are my mood will improve. It has something to do with seratonin and melatonin production by the brain due to light stimuli or lack thereof. I wonder what effect this will have on my sleep.

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## fogelbise

I have heard of that. I bet you will see an improvement! It should also help you to sleep better (my understanding).

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## JoannaB

I continue to go up and down, two steps forward one step back or alas at times one step forward two steps back. Had a couple of good days, followed by a really bad one, followed by one that started with huge anxiety but ended on a better note. On Friday morning some of my own thoughts scared me (that I was having such thoughts was a sign of how poorly I was). But then things got better.

Today I went for a walk and realized that I have been neglecting having fun. It made me almost cry. I came home and knew I had to do the dishes, but thought I got to have fun, but the dishes need to get done. So I put the radio on loud and danced while doing the dishes, and life was better. While doing the dishes I emcountered a tea leaves full egg that neither my husband nor I have been able to twist open for a while, and I almost had thrown it away. Today I did not take no for an answer, and had self confidence that I could do that, and the tea egg opened. I also realized that I should not focus on why I need to leave my current job, but rather why I want a new job: I need a new outlet for my creativity, I need new ideas to excite me, new concepts to learn to expand my skills. I had been feeling guilty that I have been causing my husband's stress, but instead of guilt over that I need to look for ways for us to have fun together. So progress. Although every time I think of that my throat constricts and I almost cry, but I think this emotion is due to having neglected this for too long. A part of me almost gave up hope that my conscious self would ever realize what is truly wrong with me. I need to go back to daydreaming again. I started a bit today, but it is not easy after the long neglect. But i used to know that i need to daydream to stay sane, and somewhere along the line I forgot, or rather convinced myself that it was foolish. Action item: be foolish more often!

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## fogelbise

Hopefully writing it all out will help to remind you what works for you and what doesn't. Good luck!  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

I thought I was still too close to depression and too much stress to even try to get lucid. Well, I was wrong! Tonight I briefly became lucid. Now alas I woke up immediately upon realizing it was a dream, but this proves that my mind is ready to try again.  :smiley: 

Became LUCID briefly: why am I now wearing clothes in church? - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

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## fogelbise

Yay Joanna!!  ::D:  And you noticed oddities earlier in the dream!!

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## JoannaB

Dry spell, but ... Things are better. I found out about this book "The Power of Now" by Eckhard Tolle, and I sense that I am finally beginning to "get" mindfulness due to this book. I am beginning to watch my inner voice and to refocus on the present whenever I catch myself straying into negative thinking and worries. I am working on overcoming my depression. Today was a good day. I recommend this book to absolutely anyone. It combines ideas from Buddhism and Christianity and others but it is meant to appeal to a wider audience, and a lot of it just rings true - that's the best way to describe it I think. My approach to spiritual truth often is: does it ring true? And this does.

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## fogelbise

It's good to see you back around!  :smiley:  Living in the now...I like it!

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## JoannaB

I had a long lucid! Long LUCID: went through solid window! - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Contrast that to my last lucid before that which was very short: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/joan...-not-fa-56565/

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## JoannaB

Second lucid in one night!
2nd LUCID in one night, but gross! - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views
Alas really low awareness and really gross dream theme.
But hey at least I knew it was a dream, and at one point I went in fast forward speed.

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## fogelbise

Awesome JoannaB!! Two in one night!!

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## JoannaB

While I was away, I found treasure in my home: two paper dream journals - one with some entries ranging from 1997 to 2000, and another with entries from 2002 and 2004. Neither of them contains many entries, and alas only one lucid dream (became lucid in an ice cold shower in 2004, floated out of the bathroom and over to the bed, false awakening but retained lucidity, and my husband was there in bed - a good dream  :smiley: . What this shows that my memory was faulty: I did not completely abandon this hobby for twenty years. I wish I could find my original dream journal from when I first learned lucid dreaming, but alas that journal would either be at my father's house or no longer there.

Edit: I do however believe that 2004 was my latest dreaming effort until February 2013. Why did I stop trying to lucid dream? I had kids. My older son was born in 2005. Now that makes much more sense than a full 20 years without any lucid dream attempts, while my kids were young I was too busy to pursue this goal.

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## JoannaB

A major advantage of caffeine withdrawal is that I am getting more hydrated. It goes like this: I need coffee! Here have an herbal tea instead. Gulped down herbal tea. Still not satisfied. Try another herbal tea, and then a third. I still want coffee, but I have been a good girl.

I stopped drinking coffee or caffeinated tea on Saturday, in part because I know that caffeine has a negative effect on my ability to be mindful and so to improve my chances at lucid dreaming, I have given it up (for now anyway). Plus it was time because I had escalated consumption too high and had gotten too dependent on it.

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## fogelbise

Great to see you again Jo-B! That must have been special to find those old dream journals! I would love to find some of my old ones. I did have interest in dream journaling 10 or 15 years ago but stopped. Did you ever check out those Open Beta threads? I seemed to be one of the few people that really liked it but I wouldn't be surprised if you like it also.

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## JoannaB

I did read the Open Beta threads and liked them. It's been a while now though, and I forgot already, so I should probably reread them sometime.

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## fogelbise

I started going back through at least the exercises if not the text of the chapters. It really doesn't take that long to do an exercise and they give some cool experiences.

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## JoannaB

I had been wondering whether my mind would be anywhere near ready to do the dream competition, since I started working on my dream recall again only a week ago, and while I was recalling something every night, but nothing long or vivid or with any awareness whatsoever.

And then I had this dream this morning:
Inherited plantation - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

While it was nonlucid and I was not even myself, but it was amazingly vivid and long and while I was not aware, but there were moments where I was questioning something, like that tug of war for the apple.  :smiley: 

So I think I am definitely making leaps and bounds in getting ready. I do enjoy a good nonlucid dream as well.

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## fogelbise

Very nice!! I also had quite an adventure in a non lucid/semi-lucid dream the night before last and I agree, they can be very satisfying as well. Congrats!!  :smiley:  I noticed your workbook got locked/closed somehow so I unlocked it but let me know if you were wanting it closed.

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## JoannaB

Thanks, I appreciate you unlocking it. Definitely did not want it closed. I could have closed it accidentally though.

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## JoannaB

I am not sure but if I rber correctly I think this may have been my first time getting lucid during a competition instead of after it. What lead to this lucid aside from competition, I had lots of stress and long working hours and was sleep deprived for a couple of days there, and then on Friday the issues at my work got resolved, and I was so exhausted, so I picked up the kids after work, picked up McDonalds drive-through food, and after we ate I told the kids to wake me only during emergencies and I went to bed at like 7pm or even a bit before, and slept till 4am, and then I was up for like an hour or hour and a half for WBTB, and then went back to sleep, and that's when I had the lucid dream. So I had slept for about nine hours before this and then up for a while before this lucid. Thing is I am still tired. All the tiredness catching up to me.

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## fogelbise

Congrats Joanna!! Very nice!! Hopefully you catch up on the sleep over the weekend.

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## JoannaB

Annoyed because while I can remember that the website I often frequent nowadays had weird icons instead of the forward and backward arrows for navigating from page to page, and I remember noticing that this was weird, but my overall awareness is too low and I do not know for sure whether this was in a dream last night or whether this is a memory from last evening where the website was actually glitching in which case I have no dream recall and I did not even consider doing a reality check, no matter whether this is a real life or dream memory.

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## fogelbise

Good to see you again Joanna. I hear you...sometimes our awareness just isn't there...especially while sleeping. Our best results seem to come from a multi-pronged approach including day practices, pre-bed intentions and WBTB. Easier said than done of course.

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## FryingMan

^^ If I learned anything this year, it's that yes, both day work and night work are required in this hobby.   I'm making a renewed effort in 2015 to embrace WBTB and I *hate* getting up in the middle of the night!     But getting excited about the possibility of a LD really helps to get up, and bringing in that extra awareness from your time awake can really help chances for lucidity.

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## JoannaB

My New Year's resolution is to overall become more aware. So far it is not going well yet, but I shall keep working on it.  :smiley:

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## FryingMan

^^ At least you're aware of how it's going!  :tongue2: 
If you haven't read it already, I heartily recommend "Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life" by Jon Kabbat-Zinn.   Just periodically make "stop! Breathe!" moments throughout the day.  Once you start you'll want to do it more and more throughout the day.   Linking awareness of the breath to general awareness is awesome because we always are breathing!.

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## JoannaB

I have a vague memory which I think is from the past few days and it is almost certainly a dream fragment though I cannot place it: I remember awol lowing several pills at once and not choking and being proud of myself for it. In reality I tend to choke on pills and would not attempt to awol low multiple at once since a single one is enough of a challenge and more at once is not a good thing to even attempt. I cannot figure out though when I dreamed this if I did. Which is annoying because I am I. The dream competition and thus one would think that I am paying attention to dreams, so where does this memory fit? Or is it just a stray thought a fantasy rather than a dream memory, and if so my fantasies need improvements.

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## fogelbise

Does sound like a dream fragment. I wonder if *FryingMan* (ping) the Recall King might have some ideas on digging out the exact source from your memory bank. Perhaps something along the lines of "what was I thinking, doing or experiencing before this memory popped into my head?"

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## FryingMan

> Does sound like a dream fragment. I wonder if *FryingMan* (ping) the Recall King might have some ideas on digging out the exact source from your memory bank. Perhaps something along the lines of "what was I thinking, doing or experiencing before this memory popped into my head?"



I don't know if I can add anything here.    We have memories of our experiences.   Dream and waking experiences seem more or less identical in retrospect, it's just that the memories of dreaming experiences are more fragile in that we must take effort to "rescue them" from the night and bring them in to "long term storage."

Sometimes I have to really think whether a memory is from a dream or from waking, and sometimes it's not clear.   Usually the thing that helps to clarify this is remembering the context, which is what fogelbise already mentioned.

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## JoannaB

I cannot help but think that having the brief lucid tonight is a hopeful sign that this season's depression' send is finally in sight.  :smiley:  it was strange though: My dream recall has been virtually non-existent, I have not been practicing lucid dream methodologies. I had a huge headache yesterday evening and this morning some headache, today we have a major snow storm. This past week most days I was depressed. I would have thought this would be the least likely night for a lucid. And yet there it was. It was brief and I woke up almost right away and could not remember how to stabilize. But any lucid is amazing at this point.

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## fogelbise

Nice! Yes, I would take it as a turning point and continue in this positive direction.  :smiley:  Congratulations on the LD!

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## bemistaken

Congrats JoannaB! Kick depression's ass!  ::wink::

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## JoannaB

The night before I had a dream that was kind of a reverse lucid dream. I knew that my current state of consciousness was not what it usually is in "waking" life, but in this dream I believed that I was actually more awake than in waking reality, sort of like in the Matrix movie. I was on a small platform, and all around me was a precipice, I was high up, terrified, and thought that any more than a tiny movement could result in me plunging to my death. So I barely moved, and "drifted back to sleep." The thing is that I had a strong sense that I had experienced this before. This could be a recurring nightmare that I do not recall. I have a bit of a phobia of heights. When I was a young adult I overcame a phobia of large dogs in a lucid dream, and I am thinking if this really were a recurring nightmare, it would be a perfect opportunity to get lucid, if only I could realize that it is not more real than reality ... Unless of course it is more real, and we do live in a matrix.  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

I was just looking at the cat on the top level of our cat tree, and I just realized that the nightmare of mine that I describe in the post above, it's as if I dreamed about sleeping on the top of a cat tree. Shudder. And the cat like that.

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## JoannaB

It's been a while. My dream recall is almost non-existent, but judging by the fact that my depression is pretty bad right now, I expect I am missing out on recalling some nightmares. Something's got to change. Perhaps lucid dreaming is once again part of the answer. Got another copy of EWOLD since I could not find the other two copies of this book anywhere in my house. Started rereading it today. In other news I've got the flu, which has kept me in bed for the past 2-3 days. Depression and flu, not a great combination. But got to start again somewhere, and this is my new starting point.

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## fogelbise

It's great to see you back here JoannaB!  :smiley:  I am sorry to hear about your challenges.  :Sad:  I came across PsyBlog some time back and they have so many articles and research almost daily on various aspects of the mind...but I would say they focus a lot on depression, as well as the aging brain. I recommend checking it out. I hope to see you posting progress in dream recall...and lucid dreaming...but perhaps work on recall first?

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## JoannaB

Thank you for the welcome, fogelbise. Good to see you again. I will definitely try to work on dream recall, although I also want to try to work on achieving lucidity - it always took me quite a lot of effort to achieve it, so might as well start the effort now.

My dream recall as I say almost non-existent: a couple of weeks ago I recalled a dream in which I had a sink in my dream home office, left the water running, and left the room. When I returned the flood was too much to just mop up. I cried for help, but nobody came, and I did not know what to do, so I woke up.

A more recent dream fragment: I joined an ultra leftist political organization, and apparently I could shape shift to stay in disguise when going to meetings, so my dream face contorted into a different shape. That's all I remember.

Interestingly sometime in 2017 I had a memory during waking life which I am pretty sure was a dream memory and an opportunity lost to become lucid in a dream. I remember thinking "hmm, it's weird that I can operate my iPhone in these gloves, never knew that worked." After recalling this memory and realizing what it probably meant, I went home and tried operating my phone in those gloves, and sure enough it did not work, so dream memory most likely.

Edit: It occurs to me that just because lucid dreaming has always taken me a lot of effort to achieve does not mean that has to be the case again and setting up my expectation that way is counterproductive. The one thing that has changed meanwhile is that I have learned to exercise every single day and have been doing this for over a year, so one could argue I am not the same person I used to be, and thus my dream success expectations should be a blank slate. With exercise I have had great success starting easy and progressing steadily over time, with more stress on consistency than on intensity. Now that I have the flu I am taking it easier of course, for example this morning just worked out for 15 minutes, but that's 15 minutes more than I would have done two years ago.

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## JoannaB

How is this for dream recall after I set my mind to it? First night two dreams recalled:

Dream 1: I was pouring myself a drink. It looked like an alcoholic drink but was not: on the rocks, sparkling water, and then some currant juice. I was in a space that looked a bit like a bank with bank tellers windows. A man who seemed a manager type said to me that after I was done making myself a drink I should seek out some assistance. I assumed I needed to pay for the drink, and I rather thought this was not my first one, and so I had to pay for two drinks. Maybe the "tellers" were supposed to fix me the drink and the fact that some drink ingredients were available for self serve was an oversight? So after I poured the drink I approached the tellers. There appeared to be three male tellers right next to each other that were available. I asked which one of them could help me, and two of them responded affirmatively, so I kind of addressed both of them saying I assumed I had to pay for the drinks. I think that was all.

Dream 2: We were visiting our friend the childcare provider. She suggested whether we would like to foster these kids: there was a girl that was really cute and constantly tried to nurse at my breasts, and then there was a baby and another toddler boy. They were siblings. My husband at some point was suggesting that I should make up my mind quickly because the little girl clearly wanted me, and she was so cute, would not want this opportunity to be lost. Meanwhile I felt overwhelmed. The constant attempts at breast feeding while cute were invasive. The girl seemed too old for this though I was assured she was only one year old but she looked big for her age. Also three additional kids in addition to our own two! Then there was the woman who seemed constantly critical and ever watchful, and I was not sure whether she was with Child Protective Services or a relative there to ensure nothing bad happened to the kids. I kind of suspected the woman was part of the package deal and came with the kids. Also it would not be adoption just child fostering. Their biological parents were migrant workers and there was the risk that someday they would move and take their children with them, after we had grown attached to them.

That second dream especially was something else, overwhelmed and pressured in a bad way. Yikes! But I guess I was expecting my dreams right now to be pretty bad which is why I want to work with them to try to turn that around.

Edit: It occurs to me that there is a bit of progress, unlike in my flooded office dream where I cried for help and nobody came, at least in the drinks dream when I need assistance there is plenty available though my first instinct is to self serve / self medicate, but I do not drink alcohol which is good and also I do seek assistance ultimately.

Edit2: While I do not feel pressured to adopt kids, I do feel pressured to adopt causes what with all the outrage we and our friends are feeling due to the political situation, and the thing is I cannot handle those causes emotionally right now, so I deleted the Facebook app off of my phone for now, and while I still get all those emails asking me to donate money to this and sign a petition to oppose that, but for now I will need to learn to ignore them and not get riled up over it.

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## fogelbise

Congratulations on the nice recall!  :smiley:  





> Edit: It occurs to me that just because lucid dreaming has always taken me a lot of effort to achieve does not mean that has to be the case again and setting up my expectation that way is counterproductive.



I absolutely believe this! Even though you are not a beginner/newbie, the first link in my signature speaks to this and I think it is valuable to anyone, beginner or not.





> The one thing that has changed meanwhile is that I have learned to exercise every single day and have been doing this for over a year, so one could argue I am not the same person I used to be, and thus my dream success expectations should be a blank slate. With exercise I have had great success starting easy and progressing steadily over time, with more stress on consistency than on intensity. Now that I have the flu I am taking it easier of course, for example this morning just worked out for 15 minutes, but that's 15 minutes more than I would have done two years ago.



Very nice! Are you saying you may want to follow a similar formula for lucid dreaming of starting easy and progressing over time while putting the focus on consistency rather than intensity?..if so I think that sounds like a great formula.

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## JoannaB

Until about 3 am I had no dream recall last night but then went back to bed and remember two dream fragments. One was a dream in which My mother was visiting (which she is not now) and I was sad to find out she would not be joining us for a vacation at the lake. In the second dream fragment I was visiting my old job which I left months ago, and I actually expected that it still may haunt my dreams, however I expected to be reliving the bad parts version of that job in my dreams, instead this was more of a nostalgic visit. Sad and nostalgic, yup my mood swings definitely continue. Definitely something to watch out for as dream sign, mood swings, although there are plenty of those in waking life nowadays as well.

Edit: how interesting that I can go from remembering only three dreams / dream fragments in the past two months to remembering two per night by just willing myself to do so. Dream recall is amazing how one can turn it up at will.

Edit2: it occurs to me that while I was sad a bit in one of these dreams and emotional in both, but neither of them was a bad dream which was already an improvement. And then I had a really good day today, in so many ways so much better than any day for the past week. So there is hope and improvement. :-)

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## JoannaB

Well, after the initial good recall I then had one night of no recall, and then tonight one of those weird movie like dreams which I don't know why I had it and I was not a character in it, and I felt uninspired to write details about it so I probably wrote even less than I remembered at the time. Anyway here is what I chose to write upon waking this morning:

Car mechanics, a disable woman was a master mechanic, presentation, also need protection from bad guys?, evaluating value of a business

And that was after a WBTB because without that I would not have remembered nada.

But in better news, I am feeling better, recovering from depression and from flu. Still not fully recovered but back to work today and being fairly productive.

Edit: Come to think of it the disabled woman being a master mechanic could be about being capable despite disability or in my case disputes depression.

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## fogelbise

Sounds like positive developments overall. 





> Edit: Come to think of it the disabled woman being a master mechanic could be about being capable despite disability or in my case disputes depression.



This makes sense to me and I think finding the positive messages in your dreams can help with progress. For interpreting some dreams, the mechanism may be tapping into your inner wisdom rather than the actual content of the dream.

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## JoannaB

> For interpreting some dreams, the mechanism may be tapping into your inner wisdom rather than the actual content of the dream.



Agreed. While I am quite into dream interpretation, but for me it does not matter whether it is original intent whether that is what my mind had in mind when I had the dream, or whether it is meaning that I create now after the fact by analyzing the dream, as long as I get some value out of the interpretation, gain an insight about my mind, who cares when the meaning actually started, well I don't anyway. I sometimes like to dream interpret weird occurances in waking life as well, because sometimes looking at things in a novel way can lead to interesting insights that might elude my usual way of thinking. Making sense out of nonsense is a valid technique in my mind, even if it started out as nonsense. Although with dreams I do suspect that often they are not nonsense to begin with, but even when they are, they do not have to remain nonsense.  :smiley:

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## fogelbise

I like your thinking and I like your idea of interpreting weird occurrences IWL. That seems like a great way to reflect on WL experiences more and become more mindful.

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## JoannaB

I had a bad day depression wise for most of the day yesterday, and I think my dreams reflect that, especially the overwhelmed birthday party one but also wanting simpler work. On the bright side I remembered three dreams or fragments.

1. Birthday party

Felt overwhelmed. Organizing younger son's birthday party. One of the parents accused me of not intervening when some kids took too many goodies so there was not enough left for everyone. While I knew she was right, but I did not have the energy to intervene.

2. Interns division of labor

Was working on project not current job. I think my old boss Dr B was the boss. We hired interns to do simple stuff. One could not handle it and left. Then there were not enough interns to get all of it done. Plus I also wanted to do some simple stuff, so I did. One of the interns was talented enough to help with the more complex research, and she really enjoyed it.

3. Monster killed

The was a monster or prehistoric or alien animal. It was huge. My younger son was staying overnight at the White House, and animal was killed. I got to see the carcass though it was top secret.

Edit: Hmm, a monster killed in the White House, that sounds like a political statement. And there I have been so careful to not pay attention to politics in waking life to not let it affect my mood.

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## fogelbise

Hang in there JB. You are continuing to get some consistent recall. The White House dream does sound very symbolic…interesting!

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## JoannaB

Thanks, fogelbise. I am hanging in there. And yesterday was much better.

Tonight I again had three dreams:

(1) The first one I would call a nightmare after the fact. One of those where during the dream I have no problems with it, but upon waking up I got angry with myself. In the dream I was asking for my old job back, not exactly because in a different role, but in same team. This is a job which while there I at times was so close to quitting without having a new job because the people there and the situation were making me feel desperately like I needed to get out of there. Waking me never wants to go back there again. I seem to be dreaming regularly of my old job so definitely a dream sign.

(2) In the second dream I was a teen again with my father making decisions for me. Again a situation waking me does not want to return to. In the dream I wanted to participate in some sort of lottery to win a new iPhone, and my dad said no, because of privacy concerns. 

So I was in the dream unwise with my dad the voice of wisdom/rationality - depressed thinking putting self down?

(3) Third dream had to do with phone again, and in hindsight opportunity lost for getting lucid because I was confused that a phone that was supposed to be broken was working just fine. It was my husband's phone (which is not broken in real life just in dream). Anyway, no lucidity just confusion.

Edit: It's frustrating that even though my progress with dream recall, and my being back to work and productive this week, and clearly recovering from flu and able to do more in fitness again (today used my 14lb dumbbells for leg exercises again), even though all that points to my being a determined and capable woman who is overcoming this, and yet in my dreams I grovel, am incompetent and confused. Hey, subconscious, catch up!

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## fogelbise

> ...I was confused that a phone that was supposed to be broken was working just fine.



On the bright side, that seems to be a good sign that you noticed that something was off with the phonethat you awareness was at least better than the average person's awareness in a dream.





> Edit: It's frustrating that even though my progress with dream recall, and my being back to work and productive this week, and clearly recovering from flu and able to do more in fitness again (today used my 14lb dumbbells for leg exercises again), even though all that points to my being a determined and capable woman who is overcoming this, and yet in my dreams I grovel, am incompetent and confused. Hey, subconscious, catch up!



I feel that dream recall and lucid dreaming work best when we stay as positive as possible. I recommend focusing on the positives of the week like being productive, fitness, dream recall (while still putting in the effort towards your dreaming practices). I hear you on that last sentencethere can definitely be some lag in day residue's affect on dreams.

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## JoannaB

One night of no recall and one night of two dream fragments after wake back to bed.

One of the fragments was in my current job (yay, current job not old job).

The other dream fragment seemed to involve an effort at time travel to prevent Trump election, but the attempt at correcting it went wrong, and thus Bill Clinton never became president.

Oh well, can't change the past, but can change the present, and so far I am changing my present in the right direction. Yesterday was a good day, and today so far has been a very good day too. Beautiful warm weather, very nice.

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## fogelbise

> The other dream fragment seemed to involve an effort at time travel to prevent Trump election, but the attempt at correcting it went wrong, and thus Bill Clinton never became president.



Very interesting!





> Oh well, can't change the past, but can change the present, and so far I am changing my present in the right direction. Yesterday was a good day, and today so far has been a very good day too. Beautiful warm weather, very nice.



Yay! I like to hear about your positive momentum!

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## JoannaB

One night with no recall, and one night driving a car which is suddenly missing both a break and a gas pedal and going fast.

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## JoannaB

Well the theme of driving and not being in control continued in the second dream.

Dream 1: Work more like old job but not exactly. Supposed to make connectivity in the field but they want to use local data from the port not headquarters data. At first we say that's not possible, then think maybe possible but likely not what they expect.

Dream 2: I was running late to pick up my older son from some sort of school event concert. Other people wanted me to give them a ride to the concert but I said no. But then when I stepped away from car it was full of people going to the concert. I said that I need to pick up my older son and won't be staying there, going for my younger son then. They said no problem, they just wanted a ride one way to the concert. I felt like I had no choice. And I was not even in the driver's seat, aunt Anne was. There were like 10 people in the van, and I was concerned that we would be pulled over by the police for having more people in car than legal. But we made it there. And I found my older son in the crowd.

Things are apparently not as expected in my dreams. A bit longer recall this time, so that part is good.

Edit: Another good thing is that it works out in the end: we do not get pulled over, and I do get to my son.

At the therapist today we discussed that at times I choose not to be in the driver's seat of life perhaps because for the longest time it was not an option so I got used to escaping and abandoning the driver's seat and decision making to someone else because it was safer that way.

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## JoannaB

I vaguely recall some sort of dream where my boys were teens and did not look like my boys but in my dream I knew they were, and they were through some sort of religious ceremony combined with puberty gaining some sort of supernatural extrasensory perception powers that I did not have.

I think this dream at least in part is caused by jealousy: my older son is a regular lucid dreamer and much better than me.

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## JoannaB

I had a still birth (but luckily this was not a dream during which I felt emotional). Strangely enough I slept through it. Woke up and asked to see the baby I had given birth to in my sleep, and was told by my husband that it was born dead. I decided to pump breastmilk and donate it to the hospital.

My interpretation: Dreaming is the act of violent creation sometimes. New ideas or entire paradigms or schemas are born and die in our dreams. And that's ok. Then when we wake up we have a choice of how to react, and we can continue the act of creation by taking our thought development in a new and interesting direction, donating the byproducts of our mental labors to others for example. We do not have to grieve for those dead thought processes that until recently we expected to nurture and love. Changing one's mind can feel like life and death, but as long as what emerges is helpful, in the end it's all good.

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## fogelbise

Wow, I'm glad to hear you weren't emotional, that could have been heartbreaking! I really like your interpretation! Any plans for a WBTB, perhaps on the weekend?

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## JoannaB

> Wow, I'm glad to hear you weren't emotional, that could have been heartbreaking! I really like your interpretation! Any plans for a WBTB, perhaps on the weekend?



I fairly often when I happen to wake up naturally in the middle of the night do do some form of WBTB. But I will not set an alarm for it because (a) I sleep with my husband and would not want to wake him, and (b) I feel if I am not waking up enough at night perhaps I need the extra sleep more than the WBTB. Lately I have been mostly going to bed earlier because I am still not fully over my respiratory health issues and have actually been feeling a bit worse, so more sleep is right now higher priority. Plus my daytime awareness is not yet good enough so that is something I feel I need to focus on next, increasing awareness.

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## fogelbise

Agreed, when I am not feeling fully healthy I also avoid breaks in sleep. I was still thinking about what you said about your son and trying to offer something that might give you a boost towards being able to some day match (or surpass) his ability possibly. I find that WBTB is a huge boost to awareness, but mine tend to be longish - 30 to 60 minutes and I go to bed earlier to make up for it. Doesn't feel like a hassle on most nights I do WBTB and is many times a nice quiet "me time."

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## JoannaB

Another old job dream:

Interviewed at my old job again. Asking how has it changed since I worked there?

We went out for lunch getting sandwiches from a street vendor deli. I asked vendor to recommend me a sandwich and prepare it with what ever she suggests.

My interpretation: what's the point in revisiting old issues if nothing has changed? If old style of thinking did not help before, why am I trying same approach again? Must not give control to other in ways that may not work for me: thinking is mine, need to not let others tell me how to think.

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## Superman1

Hi folks.  ::rolleyes:: 

If I may intervene internally, immediately plus go back in time, to 15/02/17...  :Drama: 




> I had a bad day depression wise for most of the day yesterday, and I think my dreams reflect that, especially the overwhelmed birthday party one but also wanting simpler work. On the bright side I remembered three dreams or fragments.
> 
> 1. Birthday party
> Felt overwhelmed. Organizing younger son's birthday party. One of the parents accused me of not intervening when some kids took too many goodies so there was not enough left for everyone. While I knew she was right, but I did not have the energy to intervene.
> 
> 2. Interns division of labor
> Was working on project not current job. I think my old boss Dr B was the boss. We hired interns to do simple stuff. One could not handle it and left. Then there were not enough interns to get all of it done. Plus I also wanted to do some simple stuff, so I did. One of the interns was talented enough to help with the more complex research, and she really enjoyed it.
> 
> 3. Monster killed
> ...



Maybe when you decide to simplify things, you can handle the complicated stuff or it becomes simpler itself as your talent is freed.
Can this be the old boss or what was in charge of you ending?
As the very old huge alien that may be what started before your history or seems to predate you, perhaps not normally revealed to you or is a secret unless you rise to the top of your control, could be ended by a new strength or action.
So yes a political statement about your inner politics or government. 
And how the outer politics affects your mood can reflect how the inner does.



16/2/17




> In the dream I wanted to participate in some sort of lottery to win a new iPhone, and my dad said no, because of privacy concerns.



You wanted a new iphone, but yours wasn't broken. Maybe just your husband's side (your control?) of it was which confused you.
Because it's chance and slim to win the lottery and not earned.
Though you were "a determined and capable woman who is overcoming this, and yet in my dreams I grovel, am incompetent and confused. Hey, subconscious, catch up!"  ::happyme:: 
It must mean the dream is about another issue, or the inner one. That might concern your privacy concerns your dad (control joined with you the female side symbolized by his unseen wife?) was wise about.  :sageous: This connection or communication might be distant.



19/02/17 




> One of the fragments was in my current job (yay, current job not old job).
> The other dream fragment seemed to involve an effort at time travel to prevent Trump election, but the attempt at correcting it went wrong, and thus Bill Clinton never became president.



Maybe this was trying to get to the cause of wrong control, such as in the White House and that prehistoric cause. ::cookiemonster:: 
But correcting that was hard and the good governing could not win.



21/02/17 




> One night with no recall, and one night driving a car which is suddenly missing both a break and a gas pedal and going fast.



Hence maybe your motor loses ability to stop and progress, but is fast out of control.






> *Dream 1:* Work more like old job but not exactly. Supposed to make connectivity in the field but they want to use local data from the port not headquarters data. At first we say that's not possible, then think maybe possible but likely not what they expect.



Sounds like being more connected out there, in an unexpected way, or a way not used to, not with your normal old control.






> *Dream 2:* I was running late to pick up my older son from some sort of school event concert. Other people wanted me to give them a ride to the concert but I said no. But then when I stepped away from car it was full of people going to the concert



Late in picking up this mature control, does that involve doing what others ask or not saying no though you wanted to which might be eventful for you? Can that be the privacy issue? Your dream before of the old job for the team mean being more equal that way too.





> I said that I need to pick up my older son and won't be staying there, going for my younger son then. They said no problem, they just wanted a ride one way to the concert.



So you might need mature control, won't stay there or won't be two-way without that, and because you didn't have it, you had to go for your younger control to learn.





> I felt like I had no choice. And I was not even in the driver's seat, aunt Anne was.



 Sounds like for others it's one way, their way, making you feel you had no choice or control. How is Aunt Anne's character who was driving?  ::rallysmile::  In control?





> There were like 10 people in the van, and I was concerned that we would be pulled over by the police for having more people in car than legal. But we made it there. And I found my older son in the crowd.



Correction was coming; it was more than should be expected of you. So maybe your control was blending in with the crowd, not standing upright in your individual self which you saw in the end.



23/02/17




> I vaguely recall some sort of dream where my boys were teens and did not look like my boys but in my dream I knew they were, and they were through some sort of religious ceremony combined with puberty gaining some sort of supernatural extrasensory perception powers that I did not have.



Teens is double figures - maybe suggesting right relations - as well as grown more and ranging from younger to older control, powers that seem super because you don't have them and need extra perception for. 





> My older son is a regular lucid dreamer and much better than me.



Like awareness and control. ::meditate:: 



24/02/17




> I had a still birth (but luckily this was not a dream during which I felt emotional). Strangely enough I slept through it. Woke up and asked to see the baby I had given birth to in my sleep, and was told by my husband that it was born dead. I decided to pump breastmilk and donate it to the hospital.



You can't give birth to a new stronger you if unaware (maybe you weren't feeling   ::rainbow:: it).
So nurturing this needed healing; perhaps the emotion side was asleep. ::sleeping:: 


Okay, I got carried away, lost control  ::holycrap:: and sped ahead  ::rolllaugh:: and did every following dream almost (not futures ones).  ::wino:: 
Hope it wasn't too little, Joanna.  ::shakehead::  Or too late.  ::chuckle::

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## JoannaB

Friend Superman1, thanks a lot for helping me interpret. I can already tell parts of it hit the truth, but I will need to review the rest when my mind is more awake (just woke up), any way thank you!

Tonight I had a new dream about poisoned water:

Tap water was poisoned or anyway not drinkable. Someone sued the company that provides tap water and they paid lots rich away without letting anyone investigate, so they did something wrong but did not want people to find out what. Anyway, the challenge was what to drink. Would cooking or filtering make this water drinkable, or did we need to buy bottled water for the cats as well as for us? Luckily the crisis did not last long. While this was going on though we had a guest - a man I did not recognize - and we wanted to give him something to drink but had to give up.

Edit: Yes, greater awareness and control is what I do seek. No wonder I turn to dreams. What is interesting is that I am finding out that being in more control can sometimes seem like being in less control. I may choose not to be in the driver's seat, but as long as that is my choice and I am aware, than I am more in control than if I am driving unawares. I seek to be in control of myself again, with the depression finding myself out of control. Understanding is key, awareness, as long as I become more aware and understand myself more, I will be ok.

Superman1, you ask what Aunt Anne is like. She is amazing, and seems very much in control of herself, I don't think I have ever seen her out of control. A very laid back woman who seems to know how to be herself and gracious to others. Then again I do not know her well enough, this is just my impression based on rare extended family interactions. Maybe if I got to know her better maybe I would be disappointed to find that she is less composed and not as unflappable as she seems.

Ultimately I want to be composed like that, but I also just want to know myself better.

Edit 2: My own interpretation of my own dream of last night is that the nurturing part of me is poisoned, the essential part, that's the depression. And I admit the guilt, but do not want to dig too deep into the causes yet. But it is interfering with my being a provider for my family, and interfering with my being a good host to others. But luckily I do not expect the poison to last long, I still have hope that I will get out of this mental state soon. Still sometimes I do not see a solution to the immediate problem, and then I am tempted to give up for now.

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## Superman1

Your interpretation is very good, Joanna, about that black cat, and the rest of it. Or do they call it black dog? Or the black alien. Of depression.
I think that hits on the truth of what I was trying to see in that White House  - a very positive you - and its secret of the alien Control.
Realizing you are always in control and having honesty you can't go far wrong. :Clap:  Rather than some bio-illogical alien force some may have you believe.


If you want, here is my interpretation before I read yours., if it's not all too much at once, and is probably mostly the same:

Tap water comes from beyond the house or you, maybe government or as you said a company. Could that refer to the company of others I wonder having wrong control?
So what should nourish you was undrinkable. Perhaps you saw so clearly what was wrong, the pay out or reward, the benefit, your value, would be increased instantly.
Maybe you would not let yourself investigate, or part of you didn't want to, and did not want to find out what poisoned you, whether in you or relation to others.

So it was now a challenge what to drink, that was pure I imagine.
Never heard of cooking water, lol. What's it taste like? But yes maybe that means warming this emotion will kill the bugs. Or heating it right up into passion which can drive you.
Or filtering out what was wrong.
Yeah it's most important the cats get good water. Humans are second. But it's funny you put the cats first, because cats often appear in dreams and could mean your independent nature or the solitary side, or maybe going your own way rather than others.
Putting yourself first?  ::gab:: 
And does bottled water mean bottling things, or this, or emotion, up?
I guess the crisis can't last, once addressed or corrected, or you do not want it to last.
Enter the new man or control or assertiveness you did not recognize you wanted to give life to, but you had to give up. Maybe you wanted to as you suggested later in that specific way.


Yes that can be very true about admiring someone, such as your aunt - you find out they're not that perfect, haa.
 But that initial impression you get must hold an amount of truth, even a big one, a needed vision if you like, for oneself.

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## JoannaB

Fogelbise, if you are still reading this, I did a WBTB attempt for about 1 hour as you suggested, but did not have a lucid this time. I suspect insufficient awareness still, need to work on that.

Still the contents of the dream was very hopeful:

Was at airport. Vendor gave me filled doughnut free of charge. Got on private plane. My husband was organizing a political meeting there with congressmen and senators. The rules of such meetings required that one politician came who was not invited, and we were relieved that even this one was one who could be trusted, not one to sabotage this meeting.

My interpretation: Sometimes i get an unexpected good thing. The plane was a private plane so this is not about public politics like Trump but private internal politics. The setting on a plane is hopeful: getting ready to fly, to feel freedom again, perhaps also lucid dreaming which for me is mostly about flying. There is lack of control over all invitees, reflecting that I do not have control over all events/thoughts/emotions/reactions. But despite lack of complete control, it all works out in the end. Even those things I do not control, may turn out well. And we are in control over most of the invitees, just one is a wild card, and even that turns out ok. So overall a very hopeful dream.

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## JoannaB

Well tonight's dream seems rather grimm:

A young man was talented at making dolls clothing out of wool. Unfortunately the wool he was using was poisonous over the long run. He knew but used it anyway because it was cheap. His parents with whom he was living told him not to use poisoned wool and were worried but he would not listen to them. I told him to stop and it seemed that he would listen to me, just wanted to finish this last outfit and put it on the doll. It was a floppy woolen hat, light blue, floppy but not shapeless. I said with this talent he could find a place as an apprentice in a real clothes manufacturers. Alas it was too late at this moment his artery in his throat burst and he was dead instantly from all the poison he had handled over time.

Trying to see the positives here: I seem to have recalled a full story, so yay for recall, also fairly detailed, such as detailed hat. In addition, I was cast as the voice of wisdom in this dream, and the other was going to listen to me. The dream is also about creativity and talent and taking risks to pursue it. Yea, I think that's all the positives I can think of at the moment, otherwise it is a rather shocking dream. Oh I guess another positive, I did not actually know the young man, so it's not like it is someone I know in waking life and care about, which would have made it more disturbing. Of course, I noticed the reoccurring theme of poison. Must remember to check whether I am dreaming next time I encounter poison.

Edit: another possible positive spin, the foolish part that is willing to handle poison to achieve goals is dead, and the wise part survives.

Edit2: The fact that wool is poisonous makes more sense to me because I have an allergy to wool that comes from sheep, makes me itch. I guess another positive is that now the poison is no longer in water which is harder to avoid - one can avoid wool once one knows one should and one is willing to actually avoid that which one knows is harmful/poison. That actually makes some sense as I have identified "poisoneous" way of thinking, irrational thought patterns that cause me harm, I had kind of known for a while that they are there, but I may be finally willing to change them / to do something about it. Hence this dream.

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## fogelbise

I'm still here and see you making a connection to your dreams which can be helpful in more ways than one. It is good to see Superman as well…he helped me interpret a dream a good while back.

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## JoannaB

Superman1, 
I was rereading your interpretations, and this one in particular hits an important nail on its head,

"Late in picking up this mature control, does that involve doing what others ask or not saying no though you wanted to which might be eventful for you? Can that be the privacy issue? Your dream before of the old job for the team mean being more equal that way too."

Yes, that is an important part of my problem, doing what others ask and not saying no.

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## JoannaB

Tried WBTB again, and alas failed to fall back to sleep. Trying too hard to pay attention, trying to WILD.

But before that had some great dream recall: notice how long that first dream is, so much longer recall than before.

Dream 1:

There were people and I was part of that group and at first I did not realize it, but the I realized I could shapeshift into any of the others in our group. We were ghosts of sort. 

The shapes were those of victims of a serial killer, and we were here to help stop him. He otherwise might not be stopped because he was always careful not to leave any evidence pointing to him. 

One of the police officers realized that we all matched looks of previous victims, and that when he tried to check our fingerprints he could not find any. So I had to transform in front of the police to show them what we were.

The scene changed the killer was about to get another couple of victims, or so he thought. Even though I had the shape of one of his victims, he did not recognize me. I reached for the phone to call the police. He grabbed my arm in a strong grip, and pulled a gun on me and the human in the room. But I got out of his strong grip and grabbed his gun arm with my supernatural strength and bent it out of the way. 

The room filled with all his victims, but it was clear the killer did not recognize any of us, did not care enough about those he killed. So we had to show him who we were.

Dream 2:

Still shapeshifter theme. A man who can shapeshift temporarily kidnaps a couple of kids. Takes them to town, feeds them ice cream and lets them do whatever they want. Then when police and parents arrive, he shape shifts into a kid. One of the other kids, the boy, is in the know that this is the shapeshifter and supports his cover story that this boy's parents stepped away temporarily and left him here in our company. I am not sure whether I was the shapeshifter in this dream, the boy, both, or neither.

My partial initial interpretation: Shapeshifting is about personality changes choices. Do I choose to become more concerned with doing the right thing (as in catch the bad guy), or do I have fun. Interestingly need to be kidnapped to have fun, so need to force myself because fun does not come easily to me now. I know I can be whoever I want to be with superpowers, but the question is who do I want to be next. The fact that the killer did not recognize the victims is significant, it's an additional violation. I matter and have the need and right to be recognized. I am not just a ghost but have super powers. I am strong. In the first dream there is also a lot of showing who or what I really am, proving myself, revealing myself.

Edit: Also noted 9 consecutive nights with dream recall of at least one dream, so my recall is definitely improving.

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## FryingMan

> Tried WBTB again, and alas failed to fall back to sleep. Trying too hard to pay attention, trying to WILD.



This is a really tricky balance.  I think practicing seated meditation during the day helps to understand what sort of mindset is required.   It still takes a tweak, since in "normal" meditation one is not supposed to fall asleep.   Practice, practice, practice!    Trying for WILD is a great way to end up with a DILD, *if* you can fall asleep.    Some of my best DILDs have come about as "failed WILDs" where it took me *hours* to fall back asleep.





> Edit: Also noted 9 consecutive nights with dream recall of at least one dream, so my recall is definitely improving.



Woohoo!  Keep the momentum going!  Consistency (of effort and intent) is king with growing recall.

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## JoannaB

Thank you, FryingMan,

And yes, I can see how meditation could help. Though I tend to struggle with meditation too, usually feeling like I do not do it right lol. Though I know that some would say that there is no wrong way to meditate. And there have been times when I have had a very successful meditation session.

And yes, I actually had the thought at some point this morning, that I should give up the attempt to WILD and that perhaps than a DILD would succeed. Though by then I was too awake to fall asleep period.

I shall keep the momentum going indeed! It is nice to see progress.

Edit: I also realized that though in my dream my instinct is to call for help, call the police, but I do not actually need the help because I am strong and can handle the situation myself. That's quite positive thinking right there.

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## FryingMan

> Thank you, FryingMan,
> 
> And yes, I can see how meditation could help. Though I tend to struggle with meditation too, usually feeling like I do not do it right lol. Though I know that *some would say that there is no wrong way to meditate*. And there have been times when I have had a very successful meditation session.



Indeed!  From "Wherever You Go, There You Are -- Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life" by Jon Kabat-Zinn (I cannot recommend this book highly enough.  It is now my #1 recommendation from my lucid dreaming bibliography





> [Meditation] is about stopping and being present, that is all.







> Meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity which at bottom is about _not_ trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, but simply to realize where you already are.







> People usually don't get this right away.  They want to meditate in order to relax, to experience a special state, to become a better person, to reduce some stress or pain, to break out of old habits and patterns, to become free or enlightened.  All valid reasons to take up meditation practice, but all equally fraught with problems if you expect those things to happen just because now you are meditating.  You'll get caught up in wanting to have a "special experience" or in looking for signs of progress, and if you don't feel something special pretty quickly, you  may start to doubt the path you have chosen, or *to wonder whether you are "doing it right."*



So just keep bringing you attention back to the present moment.   Focusing on the breath is the usual recommendation.   When you notice that your attention has wandered, just bring it back gently and without judgement ("OH!  I'm SO DISTRACTED today! ARGH!") to your focus point (e.g., breath).  Again and again.  That's it!   Over time, you will find your thoughts and mind settling and quieting down, and beginning to "obey" you more and more, rather than ruling you and driving you.   But don't seek out this mastery as a goal, as Kabat-Zinn says, therein lies peril.  Just "be."

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## Superman1

Can you receall what dream that was roughly, *fogelbise*?

This was my take, or give, *Joanna*

DREAM 1 - WRONG CHANGE
Shapeshifting is changing appearance to blend in or not be seen for what you are. Hence ghost and the real you is killed, in a serial way.
But maybe you are careful not to leave any evidence pointing to this or your true secret identity? So no fingerprints, until you transform.
The wrong doesn't care about the right you, until you become who you are.


DREAM 2 - RIGHT CHANGE
So maybe you saw you can't just do what you want and be temporary to become this, it might not be good for you and takes away your new growing potential. 
The correction that came might show this, ideally to join with the man like an inner marriage and commit so it's permanent, as the kids were boy and girl, rather than the cover story of the shapeshifter.
So you were not sure what role you had.

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## JoannaB

Hmm, interesting that you perceived the shapeshifting as negative. I consider it as a positive: the potential to change who I am is important to me, and it is kind of a superpower empowering. Ghost is also not necessarily negative, could be more like the Holy Ghost since these ghosts are many yet one, and seek justice to overcome evil.

Edit: In fact the ability to change myself, my personality, is an important part of my self identity. Something I am proud of. I once overcame having been prejudiced, and became much more open minded and tolerant. And much more recently I changed from a couch potatoe to a person who works out every day. And right now I am battling to change from a depressed person into a much more healthy one. So yes, I am the one who changes, and that is important, and it is good. I am the changing one, I am a shapeshifter, and therein lies my power.

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## fogelbise

I am happy to see your recall improving Joanna, along with other positives in your life! You should definitely be proud.





> Can you receall what dream that was roughly, *fogelbise*?



Actually you both helped me interpret it: Violent, Gruesome Nightmare

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## JoannaB

A woman who is my parents age, and I think a friend of my dad's in dream, calls me up and says she is nervous because she is taking a college research course and want to make a good impression, and asks me for advice. I advise her to read a lot of what the professor published especially, and use his citations. Also to study, and ask questions.

I don't like that the first part of my advice to the woman is about kissing up to authority figure, which I do tend to do too much. Want to change that.

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## Superman1

It wouldn't be the last time I am wrong. ::hrm:: 
I've thought about that shape-shifter dream a lot and came to the conclusion both could be true, maybe the shapeshifting can go either way. Which sounds pretty obvious now I say it.
Even the kidnapping could have two meanings, in my view. 
Maybe the ghost can also mean transition to your new life after.
Even not being recognized might have another meaning besides what you said, that you do not want this killer side to see you any more as the dream is about not becoming victim again. 
Yes maybe Dream 2 is more like you know you made it temporary though have power to change at will.

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## Superman1

> Was at airport. Vendor gave me filled doughnut free of charge. Got on private plane. My husband was organizing a political meeting there with congressmen and senators. The rules of such meetings required that one politician came who was not invited, and we were relieved that even this one was one who could be trusted, not one to sabotage this meeting.
> 
> My interpretation: Sometimes i get an unexpected good thing. The plane was a private plane so this is not about public politics like Trump but private internal politics. The setting on a plane is hopeful: getting ready to fly, to feel freedom again, perhaps also lucid dreaming which for me is mostly about flying. There is lack of control over all invitees, reflecting that I do not have control over all events/thoughts/emotions/reactions. But despite lack of complete control, it all works out in the end. Even those things I do not control, may turn out well. And we are in control over most of the invitees, just one is a wild card, and even that turns out ok. So overall a very hopeful dream.



That might involve you trust yourself more rather than self-sabotage your personal freedom if you sometimes did that - maybe the one part you don't invite. But the uninvited negative is always a rule, or that is lack of control as you said and seems the theme. 
Maybe this self-governing will fill you with a more rounded free character that is sweet, with no hole in your centre.  ::tongue::

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## JoannaB

LUCID LUCID LUCID

I and not sure, but this may have been a WILD!
I remember thinking, I could get up and try a WBTB, but I shall fall asleep conscious instead. I don't remember being conscious of the imagery or of the sensations of falling asleep. But when the dream started I was aware what it was.
EDIT: After further review I think this was a DEILD!

The Lucid:

It started out as watching the dream as kind of a movie. A man would turn anything he touched to burning and ashes. He touched his son. The boy was scared, starting to turn to ashes in his face slowly. The father unhelpfully said "it will be any moment now."

I knew I was watching a dream, so I decided to reach in and join and do something about it. I reached in and took the boy's hand believing that my touch could heal him. And it did.

I was walking with a DC then, not him, some grown up woman. I stepped into gum. And I guess the touch means turn into association was still on my mind because my foot started turning into gum and then my hands as I tried to get the gum off also started turning to gum. And out of some reason so did the hands and feet of the young woman with me.

I thought what to do. Turn expectation and belief into what I want to happen! I said "Quick! If we put them into water our hands and feet will be healed." I expected this to work. So water showed up, like a pool of water or a spring of sort. And as our hands and feet were dipped in, as expected, they healed.

I woke up then.

-------

What happened before:


Earlier in the night I had a dream about lucid dreaming. I was lying down with my older son, and we were talking but I was not sure thought he may have dozed off and may be talking in his sleep. He said that he saw a wall of writing with newspaper names on it and asked what to do. I said, look at it, read the "Washington Post", then look away, and will it to change to the "Times". He said he did it. Later I asked my son when he was awake whether he had been asleep or awake earlier, and he said with a smile "I was awake."


I think that may have been the dream I woke up from before deciding to go back to sleep instead of WBTB. So clearly lucidity was on my mind. I remember not checking the time during that awakening, and being concerned whether I still had time for one more dream. But then I thought I would fall asleep anyway, if alarm would wake me so be it, but I would make whatever time I had count. So I fell asleep with expectation of being awakened. As it turned out I was wrong and it was like 3:30 am when I woke up from the lucid. But this may be a good method for me to try again, to not check the time upon a night time awakening and assume I don't have much. However this kind of assumes also not writing down a dream I just remembered. I did not stop to write down the dream about my son but fell right back into sleep instead after the brief decision making about whether to do WBTB or not.

What I find interesting about the dream earlier in the night is that I was tutoring my older son in lucid dreaming. In reality my older son is better at lucid dreaming than I am, and a natural lucid dreamer. I think he may have heard me say it was possible to do it, but that's all the training he ever needed. So it was not really my older son I was tutoring, but myself, the part of me that needed to learn this and to gain confidence: see it is easy, that's how we do it. :-) In a way my subconscious was also sending me the message that this was a dream, but I did not get it. And later in that dream as I asked my son whether he had been asleep or awake, and he said awake with a sheepish smile, the joke was on me because I was and had been asleep and unaware of that. But awareness was close, so waking up briefly from that, and then falling back to sleep is all it took at that point to reach lucidity.

The lucid dream's theme itself reminds me of Greek mythology of king Midas who would turn anything he touched into gold, and then touched his daughter. 

Come to think of it the turning of anything one touches into ashes, including one's child, is likely based on fear what effect depression will have on my sons and anything I beget (new projects, learning). But I now am more confident that I can heal.

Edit: I think the chewing gum part of the dream was a test of sort to see whether I was aware that it is not my hands that heal but that it is my expectations that cause desired results. And yes I passed that test.  :smiley:

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## FryingMan

Woohoo!    The process of entering a dream is really bizarre.   It's hard to know, personally speaking, if I was conscious the entire time, or just returned to consciousness right a the dream began.   I wouldn't worry about classification, but that does sounds like a WILD!

Congrats: focusing on LDing and dreaming, together with all the other things we do (RCs, mindfulness, WBTB, inent, etc.), is what brings them about!

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## fogelbise

Yay! I am very happy to hear about your lucid dream! Keep up the great progress (in all the different areas you have been progressing)!  :smiley:  Try to think of anything you've been working on recently that might have helped in addition to what happened this particular night in order to help increase the odds of becoming lucid whenever you can put those factors in motion in the future.

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## JoannaB

Scientists have brought to life prehistoric gad flies of sort. One escapes and almost kills a dog. The dog at some point lies down as if resigned to its faith. Someone kills the fly. Scientists regret that this rare specimen that was so smart was killed.

My interpretation: Need to stop fighting old issues. Such fighting can only lead to defeat, as I am fighting myself. Need to let go. In a sense appear to give up. But more so accept. That's when I will win against my own prehistoric gadfly. Interestingly, I am the dog. But in a way I am the gadfly too. And the scientists. Studying old issues may seem smart, but really it is not.

Edit: this reminds me of a scene in my favorite movie When Harry Met Sally. It goes something like this: Harry: You need to let it go. Sally: It just happened. Harry: You know that a year in human life is just a day in a dog's life? Sally: Who is the dog here? Harry: You are. Sally: I am the dog?! If anybody is the dog here, you are.

I think this scene from the movie was probably why this dream featured a dog.  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

> Yay! I am very happy to hear about your lucid dream! Keep up the great progress (in all the different areas you have been progressing)!  Try to think of anything you've been working on recently that might have helped in addition to what happened this particular night in order to help increase the odds of becoming lucid whenever you can put those factors in motion in the future.



Well, I reviewed the journal entry for the day before the lucid, and it was overall a fairly bad day. A day full of frustration, and giving up on some tasks and changing course, and then I did not feel well, so I went to bed early. Yes, the going to bed early is something I can try to repeat, but I don't want to repeat any of the rest.  :smiley:  What I find fascinating about lucid dreaming is that it can occur even when one has been depressed, and even after one had a crappy day. And then the following day is definitely going to be a great day after one had a lucid because hey I can lucid dream, I can do anything.

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## fogelbise

I wouldn't want to repeat that either…but I doubt that the negative parts of the day helped you to have the lucid. When I say recent, I am thinking any practices for, or similar to, lucid dreaming that you had been doing in the prior week or so.

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## JoannaB

Ah, well, come to think of it. The day prior to that I actively decided to try something new, to reach outside of my comfort zone and expand my tasks at work. Learning, trying something new, that may well be good for lucid dreaming.

In addition to that I started playing Pokémon Go (my excuse is I am "helping" my sons, since I am using the same account), but really it is something new, and having fun, and it gets me to do more short walks. Come to think of it Pokémon Go and lucid dreaming are a bit alike because it is the combination of reality and imagination.

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## fogelbise

I could imagine both of those things playing a factor somehowhmmsomething to think about. Learning and trying new things must make new neural connections, though I'm no expert on that. The Pokemon Go game reminded me of something CanisLucidus told me about**: "Looking for the dream" during the course of your day. It could be combined with the Pokemon game - looking for the dream while looking for Pokemon. I can't remember exactly how CL did the exercise, but one way I would do it is looking for a dream scene around any corner I turn, or under a blanket for example. In dreams the transitions when going around the corner in a hall can be dramatic (dreamatic!).

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## JoannaB

The previous night, no dream recall.

Tonight:

Dream 1: I think we had switched to a bigger church that we joined. As part of the service there was a ceremony rejoicing in the fact that some of the boys including my older son bridged into Boy Scouts. The rejoicing at church included a fast dance in a line moving fast around the altar and undulating like a wave of people at full speed. Strangely I saw only grown ups there including my husband and me.

Dream 2: Our older son was trying out the Boy Scouts. He was in the company of four other Scouts, clearly up to something, on some sort of mission or quest. I occasionally would run into them where I went but I did not interfere. He seemed to be having a good time and building new friendships.

Dream 3: My husband and I were getting married again - renewing our vows? This time I wanted to have lots of bridesmaids, all the strong women who matter in my life. And I told them to wear what they wanted, to choose it themselves, whether something they already owned or new. No need to match the others.

My thoughts: lots of ceremonies. Renewing, rejoicing, trying out, building new friendships, acknowledging existing relationships - all good things. The clothes of brides maids I think are symbolic for making own choices, living lives our own way including dressing our own way, which is something strong women want to do and have a right to do. No matching others, no conforming to standards of what is expected or normal, but being ourselves.

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## JoannaB

A silent movie was playing and my younger son was making instrument like sounds with his voice. I asked him why he chose not to narrate with words.

My thought: I wish I had not asked that. There is nothing wrong with making instrument sounds with voice, and he was being cute and creative. I have become aware how much I dislike others trying to impose their ideas of how best to do things on me, and I think in this dream it shows me that I better be careful not to do that to one of my sons.

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## JoannaB

In an earlier dream I know I was back at my old job but that's all I recall.

Then this dream: I had a baby, apparently I had had him for quite a while now and he was breastfed but I did not remember previous times that I had breastfed him. After that I carried him around but without a burp cloth and was unprepared for the mess. Someone had spilled a huge amount of cold medicine somewhere as well. Also the baby was now in the bottom part of the bunk bed, and apparently he chose this moment to become more mobile, and he fell out of bed.

My thoughts: Well it's not surprising to me that my dream life is suddenly perturbed by news, since yesterday I had unexpected disturbing news that caused me to fret, feeling unprepared and not ready.

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## fogelbise

My thoughts are with you in regards to your unexpected disturbing news.  :Sad: 

I like the idea that the process of trying to interpret our dreams can put us in better touch with our feelings and the sources behind those feelings.

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## JoannaB

Today I have reason to be optimistic. Yesterday's news may have shocked me temporarily but today it looked like it may turn out much better than expected. I won't know for sure until at least a week from now, but at this point I dare to hope. It is even possible that things may turn out better for me because of this. Sometimes fate may not seem to be listening, and something happens that does not seem at all like what one asked for, and then it turns out to be better for one than if things had happened the way one thought one wished. Here is to new opportunities, new doors opening, new forks in the road. Tonight I will dream positive dreams. Who knows with my current mood, a lucid dream might fit right in? :-)

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## JoannaB

My mom and I were on some sort of large tour vehicle (a ship, spaceship, aircraft, not sure which). We were about to take off. Everyone else was searching for a seat with seat belts and with headphones (that would allow one to hear the guided tour), but my mom had other priorities, not sure what she was doing, and I wanted to be with her. So neither of us had seat belts nor headphones. The crew came and insisted that we need the but then they could not find a better seat for us and they got too busy with takeoff to pay attention to us. In my luggage out of some reason I had a large heavy container with half cooked rice and the water still in it.

I think when I woke up earlier I remembered another dream but then fell asleep again and forgot.

My thought: I have observed before that sometimes there is a delay where one is feeling better during daytime but one's dreams have not caught up yet with the more positive mood, and I think that's what happened last night. Even though yesterday was a good day and a hopeful day but my dream did not reflect that yet. Well, I had another good day today, and hopefully by now my subconscious will have caught up, and hopefully I will have a good dream.

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## JoannaB

I was at my job, apparently working at a store of some sort. My boss was a boss I once had long ago. I was worried because I had to leave early and had forgotten to tell her in advance. I had to go to a Cub Scout event with my sons, a pinewood derby. I called my husband to ask if I had to go, but the kids would be disappointed. Then there was the challenge that I would have extracting them out of school earlier because it was a school day and school was not over yet, it was sometime after 2pm but not 3pm yet, so almost end of school but not quite. Then my older son was kind of there. I seemed to be carrying him like a baby on my hip or maybe like a puppet. His upper body was his usual preteen self, but I had the sense there was less of him in his lower body, and the burden of carrying a boy that size seemed to be a non-issue for me. Strangely he did not seem at all like he would be disappointed if he were to miss the event. He seemed mostly tired. I wound up asking my boss whether I could leave early for scout's pinewood derby. She went to the storage area of the store and brought back several pinewood derby cars, clearly fond memories of her kids younger years. So this was not an issue for her, but a legit reason for me to go.

My thoughts: ha! My coworkers and I during lunch were talking whether it was better to give a reason if one was leaving early or to not give a reason, after speculation that the reason why our team lead was leaving early without a reason today was probably because the weather was beautiful, and he probably went to play golf.

The carrying my son with me but not quite is an interesting way for my mind to present it. So many times we carry someone in our thoughts, there they are, even though they are not there, and I think that's what that was about.

Also the idea of us parents thinking kids would be disappointed whereas actually maybe not, got to be careful with that. I still clearly remember one time I did not want to go to a dance lesson as a teen, and my mom said "Do not deprive yourself of this pleasure." Hmm.

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## JoannaB

So I now have almost a month worth of dreams, and reviewing them for dream signs, the ones that occurred the most were my old job or at least one of my sons. My old job has the advantage of being clearly a dream sign because it no longer occurs in waking life, however usually I think I dream of it when I am less aware. My sons of course are on my mind a lot as they are in my waking life a major theme. I am not sure whether or not I want to check whether I am dreaming every time I interact with my sons, that seems a bit weird.

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## fogelbise

> So I now have almost a month worth of dreams, and reviewing them for dream signs, the ones that occurred the most were my old job or at least one of my sons. My old job has the advantage of being clearly a dream sign because it no longer occurs in waking life, however usually I think I dream of it when I am less aware. My sons of course are on my mind a lot as they are in my waking life a major theme. I am not sure whether or not I want to check whether I am dreaming every time I interact with my sons, that seems a bit weird.



Agreed. I haven't' found a good way to use my wife or son as a dream sign without quite heightened awareness, except when my wife is acting completely different or my son is much younger than IWL. If you got the old job one working, then your awareness would be good once you caught the fact that you were dreaming, but you might need some extra help to catch it in the first place. I tend to focus on things that will raise awareness so that I can catch a dream sign even if it is not something I am focusing on. One example was a dream where I was talking about my son and what he is doing in college and shortly after I find myself carrying him as a toddler and realize I am dreaming. I wasn't looking for a dream sign related to my son, but my awareness was raised after WBTB and MILD in this case (I alternate with SSILD).

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## JoannaB

In previous night all I recalled was a fragment that I had a new therapist named Bill.

Tonight I dreamed the following:

Someone who was my friend in the dream but not in reality had online contact with some organization that was putting women down and against religion. She dragged me into it though I knew it was dangerous to try to dissuade such people. I was much younger in the dream, maybe a teen or very young adult. Noticed somebody snooping around the house in the yard. Then I got kidnapped by the organization. I knew my best chance was trying to outsmart them. Had to involve them in dares without overtly mentioning religion or women but ones that would hopefully cause some of them to question their current belief that women are inferior.

My thoughts: Again I am surprised I had such a dream. In waking life I am now doing quite well. Yes, I guess I do have a meeting coming up during which I will have to prove myself, but I am optimistic, and the people I am meeting with at least via email sound reasonable. Where did this dream come from? I don't know.

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## fogelbise

It seems as if this thread was closed so I just reopened it. Let me know Joanna if you did want it closed though.

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## JoannaB

Had no desire to have it closed so thanks for reopening.

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## Superman1

Hi again guides.  ::wink:: 






> My mom and I were on some sort of large tour vehicle (a ship, spaceship, aircraft, not sure which). We were about to take off. Everyone else was searching for a seat with seat belts and with headphones (that would allow one to hear the guided tour), but my mom had other priorities, not sure what she was doing, and I wanted to be with her. So neither of us had seat belts nor headphones. The crew came and insisted that we need the but then they could not find a better seat for us and they got too busy with takeoff to pay attention to us. In my luggage out of some reason I had a large heavy container with half cooked rice and the water still in it.
> 
> I think when I woke up earlier I remembered another dream but then fell asleep again and forgot.
> 
> My thought: I have observed before that sometimes there is a delay where one is feeling better during daytime but one's dreams have not caught up yet with the more positive mood, and I think that's what happened last night. Even though yesterday was a good day and a hopeful day but my dream did not reflect that yet. Well, I had another good day today, and hopefully by now my subconscious will have caught up, and hopefully I will have a good dream.



Maybe the good can highlight the bad though, and the dream seems to say you were more concerned about your goal taking off than listening and paying attention to it. Had to be guided, otherwise where will it go? Hence half-cooked, needing to be fully reconstituted, perhaps with heated emotion, and maybe was too heavy to lift off or you didn't pay attention to what was stopping it? 
Your mother might mean your inner action, while your sons in other dreams I think could be your developing outer action of this.

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## JoannaB

Dream 1: I bought several cars, and they had not been cheap. But each of them broke down in similar spot in parking garage. A man came and said he would help me. He managed to start one of the cars somewhat and off we went. He may have been an employee of the garage.

Dream 2: I was part of some secret society and we had a way of speaking in code in clicking sounds. I was with a man, and he seemed to be asking the kind of questions that made me worry he was an agent for the other side. But then he started clicking, and I was grateful he was on our side. He had a message to deliver. He saw his geothermal teaching teens a sport outdoors. He went up to him and started clicking. I explained to one of the teens that he was his brother.

Fragment 1: I was reviewing old photos of mine and each was under a slightly different name. For one I used my maternal great grandparents last name (not really but in dream I believed it was).

Fragment 2: Had a movie of a political get together at my family home around world war 2. But someone confiscated it saying it was top secret. I regretted not having it as a family momento.

Edit: I had been worried already that I had no recall last night but I guess due to time change. Today had quite a bit.

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## JoannaB

Thanks superman1! I will ponder this some. Although on second thought I am not going there: just recently stopped seeing a therapist who was all about my internal parent child relationship, parenting my inner child, and that caused me even more issues than I originally came to her for, and when I stopped that therapy I got drastically better.

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## JoannaB

Another thought, it is weird how many dreams I have about secret societies and top secret stuff, given that my life is pretty much an open book without secrets. I am actually bad at keeping secrets, so I try not to have them. Definitely do not belong to any secret society, and I am pretty sure I have never been exposed to anything top secret. Perhaps my subconscious feels I need more excitement in my life.  :;-):

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## JoannaB

The theme of secrets continues in a different format in the first dream of the night:

Dream1: My husband hides something in a chest with a fake bottom for me to find in case of his death. I open it as soon as possible after he hides it. He is not pleased, since I was not supposed to open it yet.

Dream2: I have some sort of mental illness, not depression, in this dream. But I don't remember what. There were other dream characters who had a mental illness where they have convinced themselves that a couple of imaginary people I told them about are real. Someone else tells me that he is sure I did not mean this to happen.

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## fogelbise

> Definitely do not belong to any secret society, and I am pretty sure I have never been exposed to anything top secret.



That's sounds exactly like what someone who belongs to a secret society would probably saywink wink

Seriously thoughthat is very interesting that it keeps popping upas if the meaning hasn't been uncovered yet.

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## JoannaB

Argh! I remember it being the middle of the night, recalling a dream, but deciding not to write it down. It made sense at the time. Now it is morning, and I do not recall a single dream, and wish I did.

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## JoannaB

Fragment 1: I was under the protection of the mafia.

Fragment 2: I was engaged to be married to Bill, a man who sexually harassed me. But I called the engagement off.

There was a third fragment I recalled a moment ago.

My thoughts: Being under the protection of the mafia is maybe about an illusion of safety, an illusion of well being. It is also in a way like the second fragment in that one has hooked up with an abuser, is shackled to something that is not in one's best interest. I need to identify what is not in my best interest and let go of it, call off the engagement.

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## JoannaB

Today started with no recall, then came an emotional rollercoaster of a day, but it ended well. I wonder what kind of dreams will follow.

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## JoannaB

Fragment 1: Aliens discovered - do we wait to figure out whether they are friendly or preemptive first strike?

Fragment 2: I was helping organize a party for a friend's son. Wondering whether friends of friends would be welcome too. Meanwhile I seemed to also be babysitting a little girl.

My thoughts: Given my option of the current administration, I would expect them to shoot first and ask questions later or not at all. But in this dream I was part of those making the decision I think, so perhaps this is not just a political commentary but also about me. Well, I did have to make a fast decision yesterday, a bit too fast perhaps, but I do think I made the right decision. Still maybe the fast decision making caused this dream?

Also it is interesting to observe how my kids are beginning to interact with friends of friends as their friends more than before. My older son told me that he was interacting online with a girl in a neighboring school who is in his friend's class. I bet that caused the second dream. Different friend though.

I wonder whether the babysitting a little girl while organizing a party is in part about my feeling like a bit too much is going on. Need to relax more.

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## JoannaB

Dream1:

A friend of mine in dream (unknown in waking) wanted to buy two cats together after our previous cats died. We were told to go to isle 9 of this large store.

In isle 9 all the kittens were tiger striped. There were lots of them in bins. Out of some reason I was now with my older son not with my friend. All the kittens here looked the same to me and none stuck out. The was one kitten though that was being rolled over by a bear or a man the size of a bear. The kitten got flattened and bear left, but then kitten recovered. I decided I did not want any of these kittens.

As we were leaving the friend called. I told her none of those, and do not have time now to look at others.

My son and I saw a grassy area outside the store with some groundhogs and wild bunnies on it. Mostly groundhogs but I told my son "look a bunny". There was at least one bunny.

Dream2:

I was with a group of alumni who were Jewish. Though I am not Jewish but I was their friend so they brought me to this reunion like event. At some point they were showing a projection of a wall full of photos, all of them taken from the back showing people's backs of heads. A handsome young man who in the dream was supposed to be a close friend of mine but in reality not someone I know, said to me "look all our photos are up there including yours". But then he remembered "oh yours would not be up there because you are not Jewish. We only include Jewish people in these photos. Sorry." I said "That's all right. No problem." And it really wasn't for me. Out of some reason I thought my sister in law was up there among the photos, the back of the head looked like her anyway.

My thoughts: We are members of our local Jewish community center, though we are not jewish, but it is a wonderful center that offers after school care for kids and classes and events for grown ups and kids. Got lots of friends there, and the fact that we are not Jewish is not an issue in that setting. I think the reason for this dream was because my husband's fraternity is having a reunion this weekend, and there again are people many of whom I would also consider my friends but I am not in the fraternity. And though from their point of view they would probably find it odd, but sometimes I do feel like I do not belong at some of their reunion events. Maybe this dream is setting the comparison and saying why do I never feel awkward in the Jewish community center but sometimes do feel awkward among the fraternity?

The kitten being squished by a bear but then recovering is I think about resilience. Sometimes a bear of an issue threatens to crush me, but as long as I recover from it I am ok. My bear of an issue in these past few weeks seems to have walked away, and now it is time to recover from all that stress.

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## Superman1

Maybe some of this is true:





> Fragment 1: Aliens discovered - do we wait to figure out whether they are friendly or preemptive first strike?



Could it be the result of the dreams before where you had the fake, then the imaginary and the real, perhaps during your process of change. 
So maybe if you could not get where you want yet, you may sometimes feel you have to defend yourself. So that might explain a concern whether the other, or you, is a friend or enemy. 
But waiting vs a preemptive strike are opposites. So could mean: waiting, or action? 





> Fragment 2: I was helping organize a party for a friend's son. Wondering whether friends of friends would be welcome too. Meanwhile I seemed to also be babysitting a little girl.



 So, this might be fixing it with he choice to make it friendly, while caring for this development within.
Or aliens could mean feeling a bit left out or alienated, and the party can be fixing it.





> Also it is interesting to observe how my kids are beginning to interact with friends of friends as their friends more than before. My older son told me that he was interacting online with a girl in a neighboring school who is in his friend's class. 
> I bet that caused the second dream. Different friend though.



The dream can use this to symbolize you.

So you had: 
waiting/action to avoid hurt.
alien/friendly.
Maybe taking out the wrong alien or scary idea by having fun and enjoying others.

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## JoannaB

Waiting or action has indeed been a major theme in my waking life.

Thanks, superman1!

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## JoannaB

Interestingly, I did not recall this dream right after waking up, but about half an hour later:

I was searching for the perfect birthday cake for my birthday which in my dream was on Christmas not in the summer. I knew I wanted a more European style cake. Chocolate with other flavors like maybe some pistachio and marzipan. The store I went to appeared closed but the man was willing to help me out anyway. He kept insisting he had just what I was looking for. There was this one cake that looked like maybe it. I asked for a sample, tasted it, but it did not taste good. The man expected me to like it though, also he wanted to know if he could pack it up for me, as if he expected me to take the cake I had just sampled which not only was not whole anymore but somehow had collapsed and was a mess. I declined. I wound up making myself a cake. The concern was that it might be too small for all the people present. That or everyone would get tiny portion with no second helpings.

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## fogelbise

> Interestingly, I did not recall this dream right after waking up, but about half an hour later:



^Very nice...and congratulations on the great recall the night before as well!

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## JoannaB

Warning, this dream should be rated adult only.

I was not myself. I was a young woman, newly wed to an Episcopal priest. 

Usually my husband received guests at our home over the weekend, but this time he expressed the desire to be alone. When people knocked on our door I made the mistake of letting them in, saying that he was not available but if they wanted I could host them anyway. 

I had not understood that my husband did not want to be alone, he wanted to be alone with me. He clarified that, and so next time we spent a day alone, having sex.

We were in a grocery store, I was sitting on the shopping cart like little kids do, I do not know how I fit, also I was facing toward my husband and the cart must have been quite open in that direction. I was shocked that he would do it in public. Sure he tried to be discreet so no one could see exactly, but people could infer when he penetrated me. A parishioner walked by. I tried to talk to him, without letting on what was going on. My husband could not talk right then. I feared the parishioner figured it all out, but did not seem to mind.

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## JoannaB

Yes, fogelbise, my dream recall these past three nights seems to be much more detailed than before.  :smiley: 

I had a lot of stress in my life between March 7 and 17. And now that the stress has been resolved, I can relax, and I think it is having positive effect on my dream recall.

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## FryingMan

> Warning, this dream should be rated adult only.



The best kind!

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## Superman1

Here is my edited version - I don't mean PG  ::rolleyes::  but of all the dreams - so I don't risk overdoing it:

Maybe Dream 1 & 2 before seen together show depression can disconnect you and from belonging, and the reunion is with yourself too and being better friends with yourself which includes defining yourself, as none of the old kittens stood out you binned most of. 
Then you saw some area of growth outside, maybe where you don't repeat but multiply new stuff or listen to this better?
 Rabbits are highly social animals, unlike cats.

You sister-in-law you saw the face of though must represent the part of you married to what your husband symbolizes.
 "A handsome young man who in the dream was supposed to be a close friend of mine but in reality not someone I know," can be this action or control you want, to replace that bear-man one.

This can be the birth of this new you, at a time of union that Christmas is. Maybe European means the tasty sweetness of being more free and open. It seems you were concerned you didn't have enough to go round.
So not being able to join with you, as a priest can't with a female, maybe you want to do this openly in public to get wholey fulfilment, though another part of you does not and is shocked.
Rabbits are known for this.

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## JoannaB

Superman1, I get what you are suggesting, but I think in this case personal associations make a difference:

(1) we have two cats in waking life and they are very social cats. If it makes a difference, I am a cat person, but my husband grew up with bunnies, so that would be his pet of choice, though he is fine with us having cats, which is the pets we actually have now. So in a way cats are my choice, rabbits are my hubby's choice, and that is what they could represent. So maybe not liking my available choices, I go outside myself to seek a choice that is more like what my husband would make?

 (2) I am Episcopalian, and the priest in the dream was Episcopalian, and Episcopalian priests can get married and be with their wives. However, I did grow up Roman Catholic, so there was a time in my life when priest cannot marry was norm. My husband is very active in the Episcopal church and considered becoming a priest, which would not have prevented him from marrying though. What if this dream is more of a "what if" scenario, what if different choices had been made, what if my husband had chosen to become an Episcopal priest, and what if I too were someone other than who I am, and what if we were less constrained in some ways?

(3) No, European is definitely not more free and open. If anything more the opposite more formal and constrained and conservative, less casual, but more familiar (what I grew up with). I became more open minded and free when I accepted that I had become more Americanized when I was a young woman. One of the major transitions in my life. European birthday cakes though are without a doubt much tastier than the way too sweet frosting loaded thing that is a typical American birthday cake.

---------

Tonight all I remember is this:

A book of dark magic (which I out of some reason had) had been borrowed/taken I suspected by kids. There was danger in them playing with it. I found out it was my older son who took it.

Here comes the tricky part, I am not sure whether I woke up or was close to waking up. My eyes  were closed. I did a reality check on an imaginary clock, and the time changed from 03 minutes to 05 minutes. But I was awake with closed eyes either at the time when the reality check ended, or possibly even before that, and just playing with images behind closed eyes.

It did not feel like a lucid. It was more like I just woke up from dream and my eyes are still closed so let's practice a reality check, or maybe the last piece of the dream was about me doing a reality check right before I woke up. But it did not have the excitement of a lucid, the realization that this is a dream. So I think I more realized that I was waking up or just had.

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## fogelbise

> Here comes the tricky part, I am not sure whether I woke up or was close to waking up. My eyes  were closed. I did a reality check on an imaginary clock, and the time changed from 03 minutes to 05 minutes. But I was awake with closed eyes either at the time when the reality check ended, or possibly even before that, and just playing with images behind closed eyes.
> 
> It did not feel like a lucid. It was more like I just woke up from dream and my eyes are still closed so let's practice a reality check, or maybe the last piece of the dream was about me doing a reality check right before I woke up. But it did not have the excitement of a lucid, the realization that this is a dream. So I think I more realized that I was waking up or just had.



Even if it was simply hypnopompic hallucinations, that is a good sign that your awareness was there while you were experiencing them.  :smiley:  Lots of interesting dreams of late and I am happy to hear that you have gotten past that stressful period.

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## Superman1

Thanks Joanna. Yes that helps clarify some things. 
Yes I forgot your parents are from Poland or one is, if I recall.
Yes I wish everything wasn't so sickly with sugar. Soft drinks ::fuckyeah::  ice-cream   ::dancingcow::  and chocolates  ::reading::  as well as cakes  ::muffin::  would all taste much better with half the sugar, or a third.

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## JoannaB

> Thanks Joanna. Yes that helps clarify some things. 
> Yes I forgot your parents are from Poland or one is, if I recall.
> Yes I wish everything wasn't so sickly with sugar. Soft drinks ice-cream   and chocolates  as well as cakes  would all taste much better with half the sugar, or a third.



Both my parents and I are from Poland. I moved to the US when I was 16 years old.

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## JoannaB

An old professor of mine was dying. He had sounded very close to death for a long time. A relative of mine was surprised that he had lived that long.

As I teleported into the university town I could feel the presence of three powerful evil masters conspiring. Had to change my teleportation destination in mid teleport, and landed in the inn, saying something like "That's more like it." Or "Thank goodness." The innkeeper responded that I was the second one to teleport in here voicing relief. 

I realized that the powerful evil ones were plotting something. Somehow found out or figured out they were planning a ceremony to use my professor's dead body to bring the devil on earth and start eternal hell on earth. I had to stop it. 

I teleported there to the ceremony. Destroyed the body with some sort of laser shooting out of my hand. 

But one of the evil ones was willing to commit suicide to have another body. (Cliffhanger ending? Or dream recall ran out?)

My thoughts: Very good dream recall, long and detailed. I am as the hero, a good guy. Had neat superpowers. Last night I dreamed I had a book of dark magic, and tonight dark magic again is a major theme. Wow, what a dream. Oh, and it is significant that the evil masters were three. I once a long time ago had a dream that three means complete. Evil Trinity creating hell? Also note the recurring theme of some sort of secret society, and also religious ceremonies in my dreams though this one was not Christian religious more Antichrist, and I was not part of this secret society. Oh and that particular professor of mine is long dead, died suddenly I think of heart attack or stroke if I recall. He was the only character in this dream who is real. I was not really myself. Interestingly, I think though am not sure that the relative of mine who expressed surprise may have been my grandmother, who in reality has been long dead. If it was her than that would be a second real character in this dream.

Another significant thing I could really feel the evil. Not that I know in waking life what evil feels like, but in this dream it was like I had an extra sense for it.

Oh, and in some ways I would put this dream in same genre as the shape shifter victims of serial killer one. Interestingly enough that dream occurred two nights before a lucid and I do think another lucid is likely soon.

My interpretation:

This dream is about my battle with depression. There is danger in resurrecting memories that should be long dead and buried. In a way I enjoy the battle, and the problem is that as long as I do, the fight is more likely to continue.  I have acquired some impressive skills in battling depression. I even thought I had won for good. But thus far I have won the latest battle but have not won the war. One of the greatest dangers in depression is suicidal ideation. Could I someday go down that low again? I wish I could say no, but that would be denial talking, and with depression denial is a great danger too, got to not inderestimate the enemy. Ultimately what I need to keep in mind is that in both dreams and mental illness, ultimately I am battling part of myself, so every win brings with itself a loss also.

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## JoannaB

Dream 1:
Interaction between me and a coworker in another part of the company that apparently I used to work for, left, and then rejoined (not a waking life employer).

Her: oh, so they rehired you?
Me: yes
Her: I was curious why you only chose to inform me and one of those obnoxious twins when you were interviewing here again.
Me: that was not informing, it was a request for a recommendation.
Her: oh, I must have not read that carefully. I can send the recommendation now.
Me: Don't bother. I now already work here again. And the other guy promptly gave me a glowing recommendation.
Her: Ah that's good. I was curious why you would now have a photo of your former coworker's baby on your desk.
(It is strange she would know that since I am now passing her cube, not she mine, but in the dream I do not realize that.)
Me: That's not my former coworker's baby, that's my child when he was a baby. You know babies look alike. And besides even if it were my former coworker's baby photo, it would not matter because my baby looked just like that.
Her: ah that makes sense.

As I leave her cube, I bend down to choose a desert from a box there without asking whether I may. I am then annoyed because it is supposed to be a box of boxes with chocolate-vanilla-chocolate deserts, and yet the box I grabbed only had two like that, and the rest are chocolate-chocolate-chocolate which is too sweet. I think I will need to complain to someone about that. But then I proceed to eat all of them anyway. (Eating way more sweats at once than I could in waking life. Also the box of sweats I am eating appeared much larger than the one I grabbed. Again I did not notice that while dreaming.)

I obviously felt annoyed throughout this dream (which is weird because in waking life I do not recall anything for me to be currently annoyed about).

Dream 2:
I was working for my old job again. There was a meeting that everyone was supposed to attend that seemed like a waste of time. Then we were assigned someone to join our team, without any way to evaluate her fit and reject if not a good fit. She seemed to at least act like she was in charge. What she seemed to care about the most was an antique piece of furniture in our office rather than the project or the team. I had the choice do I quit? I knew I had not been with this job long this time so it would look bad if I do.

------

My thoughts: while not as neat as last night's dream, the first dream of the nigh was detailed, and long. It was different in that I seldom have such long conversations in my dreams, also eating is not usual for me in my dream. I also felt strong annoyance, and many of my usual dreams do not have that strong emotional focus.

The second dream is obviously less desirable for me, old job again. I wonder whether my subconscious keeps bringing me back there to ensure that I finally quit it for good? Or what?

Interestingly both dreams of tonight are about being rehired.

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## JoannaB

No recall today but yesterday 

Dream 1:
I got stuck late at work. I briefly wondered why because I didn't really seem to be doing much of anything, but I decided that it must be because I started late and I was not well and it was a busy day. It seemed to be 11:15 pm. It was strange that my son's after school care had not contacted me. I hoped they were ok. I felt a bit guilty that I had not called anyone about it either. Maybe my husband just happened to pick them up. Someone who in the dream I believed worked in the after school care came to my work out of some reason. She was surprised I was still there but did not know anything about my sons. We were at some sort of sports stadium at my "work", but I did not think that was odd.

Dream2:
Was preparing some sort of space for a formal dance. Setting out some sweets. They had melted and did not look like much. But still tasted very good.

My thoughts: in dream 1 at least I noticed that some stuff was odd, but then rationalized it. In second dream, note tasting sweets theme again recurring

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## JoannaB

Come to think of it I do remember a fragment from today:

Book too good to not finish writing but original author is dead.

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## fogelbise

Nice recall Friday and Saturday morning! The multiple teleporting dream sounded very interesting!  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

Grr, one of those nights when I recalled something in the middle of the night, failed to write it down, and by morning recalled nothing. There may or may not have been something about the order in which things happen???

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## JoannaB

We moved. It seemed to be a smaller house in a small town. We did not think all things through including laundry. Apparently the plan now was to take all the shirts we owned to the dry cleaners, and that was a lot of shirts. My husband was surprised to learn that I do not use cologne daily. He seemed to think it helped with not wrinkling shirts. Did we forget the trash cans in our old home?

My thoughts: these past few days, I have been feeling like I am missing something in my self evaluation, something important I do not get. I think this dream reflects that unease.

From dream interpretation stand point, a smaller house can mean a too narrow minded outlook or confining myself to too narrow a set of ideas. The clothes are an image thing, may be about lack of self confidence in the image I project. The lack of trash cans may be about not rejecting old ideas efficiently enough, inability to let go of stuff.

I think lack of self confidence and lack of creativity may be my current issues, hopefully just temporary.

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## JoannaB

On Friday morning all I could remember was Playing Pokémon Go in my dream but catching only regular types of Pokémon.

Today I remember the following:

(1) Called back to get my old job back but then I at first say I will only accept it as part time contractor with understanding that I will be looking elsewhere for a new job, but then I refuse even that, and explain why I refuse that job in front of everyone including client who funds the project.

(2) Connection made between meal of fish and bread and wine at restaurant and communion.

We go with a friend to restaurant.

(3) We stayed at a hotel and they damaged our car by putting the wrong kind of gas into it. And then we stayed there again and they did the same thing to our other car. Out of some reason our cat was with us when we went to the mechanics. There was a woman at the mechanics who wanted to help take care of our cat. She gave her a water dish, put a dog leash on her. Also she seemed very concerned when we insisted it was not time to feed the cat. The cat looks hungry she said. This cat is always hungry, but she cannot always eat because she is slightly overweight we explained.

(4) I sought to meet with funding client of old job at a restaurant based on an enigmatic note from her that did not actually mention the name of the restaurant but had me guess it. I showed up, she did not. My older son was there for some reason. We waited a long time, then got some complimentary food.

Lots of food in my dreams.

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## Superman1

Your cat must have needed a service. One gene different and it would be a car.

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## JoannaB

Superman1 LOL, you are right.  :smiley: 

My dream today:

I was at work. Suddenly realized I had missed all meetings of the day, and this was supposed to be a day full of meetings. I did not know where the time went since I did not remember doing anything. I could not figure out what time it was, so I rebooted my computer, and then it showed a time past 10pm. Past 10pm?! Out of some reason another coworker was still there too. I panicked. I had failed to pick up my kids. Why didn't anyone call me?! Why didn't my alarm go off to leave work?! I tried calling their after school care but of course no one answered just a voicemail that they are closed. Were my kids with child protective services?! Or did my husband get them? I called my husband. "Are the boys with you? Please say yes." My husband said "One of them is." Me "what about the other?" "Our older boy is with two girls from school." (Out of some reason that did not bother me.) "And the younger?" "He is with me at work. I am at work. He is very bored and sleepy." I think I was still trying to figure out how all this could happen when I woke up.

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## JoannaB

I was hosting a Christmas dinner with friends of ours coming whom we seldom see but who are very dear to us. I started cooking late. Was making some sort of risotto and pork and some veggies but felt like more was needed but was running out of inspiration. Needed help. Called my husband but he suggested that I engage my friend's help instead. She was willing. I needed to show her first what I had made so far but realized my husband must have moved it somewhere and I could not find it. I tried calling him again,  but I had no voice. So my friend called him for me. He had put the food in the oven so it would not get cold, but I was worried it would dry out too much, and also while there was food in the oven it was not the food I had prepared. In hindsight, I notice the kitchen was not arranged like my actual kitchen but I did not notice that in the dream.

Dream 2: I was a boy in the Middle Ages, climbing the ramparts of a fortress or abbey, when suddenly part of the fortified wall rose up and started to swing overhead. I was cowering down. Then the monks came out and started walking on the ramparts. They had meed, and one of the young men asked for some and got a generous amount. The young man was showing us all theeed he got, enough to share. He wondered whether I had tasted it before and offered me some, but I declined. He was saying that the way I keep hiding they were assuming I was a runaway slave, but if I was not I should stop hiding because it is making others nervous. I said I was not a runaway space but was a servant and my master was angry with me so I ran away, but I had not been his property, still did not want him to find me. Then someone found out that my master was dead, so no need to hide.

Dream3: Our home had hiding places we had not known about. And in one such hiding place we saw one of our cats cuddling with another cat identical to her, and there was yet another cat identical to her too, and we could not tell which of them was our cat, and they were all sweet with us, so it seemed instead of two cats we now had four cats, and three of them identical.

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## JoannaB

Two fragments:

I think I was involved in drug trafficking, but trying to get the main drug dealer arrested, but problem was that police were very peculiar about what kind of evidence they would accept. I think the main drug dealer was a woman.

My husband wanted to get our house cleaned more thoroughly, hire a company that used a certain strong chemical which we had to provide. Problem was to get postman to notice that we wanted to send a note to this company.

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## JoannaB

This morning I was too exhausted to write down the fragments / dreams I remembered, and by the time I fully woke up, they were gone.

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## fogelbise

You've been doing really well with recalla few lesser nights is normal. That middle ages dream sounded intriguing. It's those kind of dreams that get me thinking where they come from and I start thinking far out ideas wondering if there is any way they could have anything to do with past lives or even information encoded in our DNA from out ancestors. That last idea was actually the subject of some recent research I was reading about where they found specific fears passed between a generation or two of mice. A mouse was found to have had an irrational fear of some stimulus that only his "grandmother" or "mother" had been conditioned to fearsomething the subject mouse had not been exposed to yet. Very intriguing.

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## JoannaB

Yup, it is intreguing.  :smiley: 

And I decided also to give myself a bit of a break, just a couple of days. I had been pushing myself too hard, and it was stressing me out too much and exhausting me, so now is the time to take it a bit easier for a bit, before plunging right back in.

Of course, my idea of taking it easier may be pushing it for some other people. I just did 40 minutes of Yin yoga, which is the kind of yoga where one is taking stretches beyond their previous limits and holding still for 3-5 minutes per position. It is painful yet satisfying and restful at the same time. Kind of weird.  :smiley:

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## JoannaB

Still not sleeping well enough for good sleep and this is affecting my recall. Still, two fragments:

I was working on some me sort of complicated homework for English class, where I had to read and do art and crafts and plant a plant and write an essay, all part of same project.

I was worried that I would be laid off. Others were due to budget. And yet son of someone got one million dollars. Though in my dream he was the son of someone important in the company, in reality this was my stepfather's older son.

Nap dream: while on highway on ramp scraped driver's side mirror against a wall.

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## JoannaB

All I remembered this morning of my dreams was that there was not enough financial aid for college.

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## JoannaB

I may not recall any dreams today, but I did make a major sleep related re-discovery:

I had been having trouble with rising out of bed lately, major trouble. Too tired to get up, need major will power and lots of time to overcome.

This morning I woke up at 4:30. It was still an hour before my alarm goes off, and usually I would have tried to fall back asleep. But then I remembered that 1 hour is less than a full sleep cycle. I felt awake at 4:30 and was able to get up without any trouble. I bet if I had tried to fall back asleep my alarm would have woken me in a phase of my sleep cycle when I would not be ready to get up at all yet again.

So my rediscovery for today: getting up when I naturally wake up is so much easier. I knew that before, but forgot to apply it.

I spent the last hour half of the time meditating (yay, good) and half of the time browsing online (should not have done that, but hay I am not delayed by it for a change). It is my usual wake up time now, and I am wide awake and ready for the day. Now time for some yoga exercising.

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## JoannaB

Dream competition started!

I remembered one dream:

In my old job things were not going well. So I made a call to an older employer, and they suggested they could do a corporate take over of this job. (Strange that I would consider them preferable since they were not good employers.)

Meanwhile my coworker S. offered that she would give me and two others a ride home after work. I agreed even though I had a car with me and there was nothing wrong with it. As I was sitting in the car with the others waiting I think for the driver who had forgotten something inside, I feared I may be late to pick up the kids from after school care, but thought that at this point I was likely to be late even if I took my own car, so I staid with the others. Toward the end it occurred to me that probably the other two lived closer and would need to be dropped off first causing further delay.

Edit: My thought is that this was yet another one of those taking control of the situation versus choosing not to be in control type dreams. In the first half of the dream I choose to take control but make a poor choice, and in the other half I choose not to take control and again it seems a poor choice. So maybe the point is that what makes a choice a good one is not whether or not I choose to take control?

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## JoannaB

I will now start posting competition related dreams to dream journal section and linking from here.

Day 2 competition prior to WBTB: nice Russian young man - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Day 2 competition after WBTB: Must Go Back to Bed - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

The post WBTB dreams while non lucid definitely show the WBTB was on my mind.

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## JoannaB

Night 3 competition: Kidnapped by an actor - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

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## JoannaB

Night 4 competition: cockroach infestation - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

The above fragment. Plus a failed WBTB. Failed to fall back to sleep. Grr.

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## JoannaB

I have a sense that I may have remembered even more just as I woke up, but by the time I got to writing it down, three dreams, still not bad, though none of them were of particular interest to me.

Competition Night 4: Family Visit, Old Job, Buying Sweatpants - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

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## JoannaB

Just a gruesome fragment. Why?

Animal Bodies Buried in Flowerbed - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

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## JoannaB

It's been almost a year since my last lucid. That sounds almost like the beginning of a confession.  :smiley: 

Anyway, I had a LUCID this morning. It wasn't much, it was burry, and didn't last. But it was still so good to have a lucid again. I am guessing it's because I have been meditating almost every day for the past two months, so my self awareness is higher. Hopefully this is not just a fluke but the beginning of a new round of lucids. I should start doing reality checks regularly again.

Here was today's lucid:

I was sitting at my computer at home, trying to turn the monitor on, but it wouldn't turn on. And then another monitor that was not even connected turned on, and it moved in front of my other monitor, facing away from me.

I got up, and headed for the living room, where my husband was sitting on the floor, and I said "I managed to turn on a monitor that was not even connected. You know what that means?" And I swear when I started speaking I did not know, but at that point I realized it, and so I continued, "It means I can fly!" And so I lifted off and hovered in the air in the living room. My ability to fly confirmed what I had just figured out, that this was a dream. Alas I noticed it was very blurry, not vivid at all. And my husband did not really look like my husband, kind of faceless, but I knew it was meant to be my husband. I said "Why don't you join me?" And was satisfied to see him lift off the floor as well. But the dream was already fading, and I woke up for the day.

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## fogelbise

Congratulations on the lucid and the steady meditation practice! It is nice to see a familiar face I haven't seen in a while.  :smiley:

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## Superman1

:superman:  The dream certainly fits your experience and looks easy to understand, and monitor.

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