# Lucid Dreaming > DV Academy > Current Courses > Intro Class >  >  Tlalocs Workbook

## Tlaloc

So....I joined DV earlier today and wanted to get cracking with this! This is my, Tlalocs, workbook. I've been thinking about joining DV's since I came across the site 6 months ago it seems like such a good forum and community offering support and advice - I'm really looking forward to being part of it!

Anyway...to the chase!

REALITY CHECKS 
-I started wearing a watch again 1 month ago so this is my main RC at the moment. 
-text based checks would be my second one
-followed by looking at my hands - I used to have this higher up the list till I blew a LD when I looked at my hands and the fact they looked totally abnormal shocked me into waking up almost immediately after becoming lucid!

DREAM SIGNS
-the key DS I am working on at the moment is external vibration as a cue to myself to RC
-other common DS's include memory loss, odd architectural forms or settings, people I know behaving oddly, being overly anxious, maps being incorrect, odd or tasteless food, malfunctioning equipment and incorrect things associated with my workplace - basically anything weird
-whilst theres quite alot of these types of dreamsigns - none of them occurred really frequently enough over the others for me to really concentrate on, and they don't occur very regularily in real life for me to practice - hence my interest in an external cue - vibration.

SHORT TERM GOALS
-stabilize my dream immediately upon becoming lucid. This is the NUMBER ONE frustration for me!!!! In the 20+ times I have become lucid in the last 6 months only 2 of my LD's lasted more than a minute or 2, most end within seconds of becoming lucid. 
-I am also really excited to meet, discuss and hopefully make friends regarding lucid dreaming

LONG TERM GOALS
-continue my experimentation inducing LD's in a way that easily fits with my day to day living
-once I've got the hang of stabilization I guess the skies the limit...but to be fair I'm just focused on trying to sort out the stabilization thing first

 LUCID DREAM RECALL HISTORY
-I first heard about LDing in the late 1990's through an Aussie programme called 'beyond 2000' (remember this was the 1990's and 2000 seemed the distant future!) and as a teenager saved up and bought myself a novadreamer (this was before the days of the internet so had to have a catalogue posted out to me in NZ from the US!). I never had much success with LDing so got busy and just stopped trying, then last year I read a fictional book that got me kinda interested again and I googled Lucid Dreaming - hoping someone might have cracked the induction process in the intervening 10 or so years and went from there
-over the last 6 months I have had 20+ Lucid events - so about 1 every 10 days though in practice they don't even out like that, some weeks several, some weeks none, alot to do with whats going on in my life I think in terms of concentration or illness. I call them lucid events 'cause alot are so short I wouldn't really term them dreams - I become lucid, gape, and then often wake up! Nuts!!! I guess in terms of normal dreams I remember bits everynight, and if I'm on a 'vibration' night I'll remember quite a few more

CURRENT TECHNIQUE
-use of external vibration to prompt myself to do a RC which results in lucidity. This kindof includes conditioning to the cue during the day (IWL), WBTB at night, a kind of special MILD to remind myself to be aware of the vibration then the external cue.
-I also use a bit of prompting before I go to bed that I will have a LD

There we go!!!! I'm not sure what I do from here? Back to the tutorial manual.....

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## Tlaloc

So - here goes the workbook! Last night was supposed to be a fallow night but I got too enthusiastic about LD'ing after reading others progress in their workbooks that I decided to 'have a go'.

Heres what I did. Set ICII (vibrating device) to 4.5 hours for WBTB (vII=vibration level 2 out of 3 intensity). Unfort it didn't wake me but I woke after 5.5hrs anyway from a longish dream fairly well recalled (including d/s that I had 'missing memory' which I didnt pick up on, in this case being unable to remember the pin for my cash card). This late WBTB meant I woke around 4.30am, my wife was getting up at 6 so only gave me 90mins to play with.
Set the IC to vI (low intensity), on a repeating interval with the first vibe being 2 secs in duration at 20mins, a second 5 sec at 40mins then to repeat until I turned it off (in short hand this looks like this: IC 40min RCD F20 A40). I did a 5 min special kind of MILD and then tried to return to sleep - but it didn't come easily - at least 40-60mins to drift off, and I ended up turning on my opp side to which I normally sleep and shifting the location of the IC as a result.

So I ended up with only 1 REM period between c.530-6.00am. I recalled this dream pretty fully. Initially on waking I was disappointed that I hadn't had the vibe directly incorporated into the dream and/or become lucid. However on reflection this may not have been the case.

The dream was set in Kathmandu backstreets, at one point I had left a temple and was walking down the busy bustling back alleys trying to quickly find my camera to photograph someone ahead, all of a sudden there was a great noise and people started to scream and rush to the sides of the alley as a great mob of tok-toks (or cyclo's as their know in nepal if they're peddled) zoomed past toward me, I scattered to the side of an unknown building and the dream continued on from there.

On reflection it is possible this great noise and rumbling in the dream was my brains incorporation of the vibration. As I had changed position before returning to sleep I had repositioned the IC and this may have meant it was resting directly on the mattress, if so as well as the tactile feel of the vib, the noise is transmitted through the mattress to my ear as a fairly loud rumbling noise and may have lead to the sudden and startling change of direction in the dream when the 'herd' of tok toks suddenly descended on me.

Or it could just be a coincidence!  :smiley:  Anyways the main thing I am looking for is the continued direct incorporation of the vibration signal into the dream, as this is what I have been conditioning myself to respond to, but the good thing is that this is all adding to my experience of this particular technique.

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## Tlaloc

Quick update whilst enjoying some good NZ Sav Blanc (did I mention we make some of the best sav blanc in the world?  :smiley:  ).

Main things from last night - did a WBTB, IC vII woke me up silently which was good. Did 10min MILD, returned to sleep, with CD21mins F then A vibes.

No lucidity but one def FA. I have had several of these in the nights I've used the invisible clock, last night being typical - I think I have awoken momentarily and check the time on the clock then return to sleep in the hope of becoming lucid.....obviously the jokes on me because when I do actually awaken I realise the time I read on the clock could not be real (usually its later than what was real). ie last night in the FA I dreamt the time was 6.00am. When I did actually awaken it was around 5.30am. I guess I should try and catch these but doing proper reality check everytime - it should be simple just checking the time and rechecking it, but I at the time the 'waking' is pretty momentary and I'm trying to get back to sleep and avoid waking up too much in the hope of catching a proper REM period.

Other stuff - recalled 2 dreams, 1 I managed to drag back after a complete blank in the morning by thinking about all the possible things that could have happened. Its always amazing how the tinniest detail can trigger a flood of memories - I wonder if this is how people with chronic amnesia operate? One of last nights dreams was kind of funny when I got dispropionately screamy when the a temporary room I was staying in got covered in dust and debris - I completely lost it! Not my finest hour  :smiley: 

Finally I guess I should start to somehow tabulate what I am doing with the invisible clock and the vibration induced LD's; FA's and incorporated vibrations so that I can see how I am progressing and I guess so I've got some info if any one else is interested in this in the future.

Anyways its back to the wine and my wife and Friday night - happy weekends dreamers! cheers - Tlaloc

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## Tlaloc

VIBE NITE #10
I woke up finally this morning feeling like it was Christmas day, and kept feeling like I wanted to punch the air for most of it! 
So what happened last night?

In summary - a good example of how effective MILD can be in a dream, an almost DEILD (which demonstrated again how you can hit REM periods with the IC), and my first WILD in years with some decent stabilization (for me anyways) finished with a FA.

1. fun non-lucid dream before my wbtb - a sort of narrative story one about a man who crash lands in a small coastal principality on the spanish peninsula and then manages to escape from one small kingdom to the next but making improvised flying devices. It was one of those suprising dreams where my imagination supplied a really fascinating coherent story for me to enjoy from start to finish from scratch. It concluded with modern day enthusiastes following in the guys footsteps. I don't know where the story came from - no obvious day residue.
2. wbtb worked well, VII 5.30mins (approx 4am), then 3 mins vMILD, set the IC for the usual interval (20) at VI A
3. next dream was non-lucid but reminded me how MILD can and does work, I dreamt I was hiking, and had become seperated from my friends. I ended up being able to take a conveniant lift up the side of a mountain to meet them at a viewing area there near the top. Once there I had the strong feeling I should be experiencing a vibration, and got a little edgey waiting for it - (this can happen IWL with the IC for me), no vibe came, I didn't do a RC without one (duh!) and the dream moved on before I shortly woke up. Upon awakening I checked the IC and the last vibe had been 15mins before my awakening, hence there was no vibe to feel in the dream - demonstrating that it was the anxiety that the vMILD created that had 'leaked' into my dream. Pretty cool.
4. At this stage it was about 5am in the morning and still everything to play for. Around 6am a vibe woke me during a dream - I was at a workplace, kind of clock watching for my lunch break when the vibe hit and I actually awoke but only very very lightly. I lay motionless and a new dream started to form around me, in it I could see a sort of Islamic arch way made of 2 asymetrical columns - on the right a thick one with a palm and crescent sculpture repeated on it, on the other a thinner unadorned column. My brain interpreted this (and I'm not normally a religious or especially philosophical person) as meaning one side was to dream - with all its sculptured richness, and the unadorned side meant not to dream. Anyways - I started to lose focus with all this thinking and jolted myself too aware and awake - the feeling when the dream was forming was like falling asleep but being aware of it - and I awoke with the feeling washing over me - a thrumming vibration through my body and rushing in my ears and tingling - again - pretty cool my first unsuccessful but pretty close vDEILD. (and just to confirm I checked the IC after fully awakening and the vibe had gone off 2 1/2 mins earlier - fitting in with my memory of the experience). The other key bit about this was it again demonstrated how regularily you can fit REM periods with just using a timer - there is much more I could say on this subject....but enough for now
5. At this stage I was awake again and it was 6.30am - the time I normally get up - but it was my weekend off (I alternate with work) and the wife and kids were (incredibly) still asleep so again I thought - 'there's still everything to play for', I estimated I probably had 30mins max to work with so pulled off the IC and turned over onto the side I don't normally sleep on. I could hear my wifes breathing pretty loudly and I thought initially I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep - but then I thought about a DV guide I'd read (Naiyas?) about how she listened to the sound of a fan whilst falling to sleep to WILD so I decided to do that and thats how I got my lucid of the night to be the cream on a pretty cool cake of dreaming...
.....LUCID 21.....
I am listening to my wifes breathing in and out, in and out, and suddenly I am in a dream scene in a room like my old house with a computer on the desk. I am aware I am dreaming (I don't think I ever lost consciousness hence the WILD) and I can hear my wifes breathing in the room like a soundtrack, I do a RC by looking at the function keys on the keyboard and am able to change the text after looking away and back ( I make the F4 key appear multiple times!). I confirm I am lucid and decide to stabilize following some advice I'd read on Benni's (a DV newbie and friend's) journal - by concentrating on the details first. I do this by staring at the keyboard intently and what happens next is quite trippy. Firstly my vision is limited to a small central clear zone, only about 15 degrees of my normal field of vision, the rest is there but very washed out and blurred, as though I am looking a sort of pinhole, I realise probably indicates that the dream might fade so I concentrate more on the keys and the coolest thing happens as I concentrate on the keys the detail becomes sharper and sharper like high definition but also more and more magnified, thus after a minute or 2 the computer keys now tower around me like apartment blocks on a street they are so big and so well defined - this is amazing, kinda like ' hey honey I shrank the kids' kind of stuff, but I worry that : I might wake and two - it might be grotesque if I met some massively enlarged debris between the keys - like body fluff or dead skin cells the size of firetrucks, so I decide to try and fly up and out, I do this by looking up and imagining myself going faster and faster and faster like a rocket and this is exactly what happens - I shoot way up, accelerating so fast the air around me streaks and pulls. After this I wake up, feeling pretty cool about the lucid, get up and walk outside, past our 'guest room' and down the hallway, thinking I wonder who's in the guest room.....I then wake up for real! still in bed aware that the last part was a FA - we have no guest room - hence my confusion.

Anyways that alot to write in 1 post - busy night but really fun and instructive - first WILD in years and only the second in my life, and my first LD after joining DV's after only a couple of days so I am really really chuffed!!! It was really cool to do something which was so 'otherworldly' as well, I woke up feeling like a magician who had just pulled off an amazing spell! Heres to more of those feelings soon!

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## Tlaloc

Vibe Nite #11 (and LD #22)

I'm going to try and keep this shorter this time!! Usual settings for the IC, WBTB successful at 3.50am, felt really awake, did vMILD for 3mins and tried to return to sleep. Really warm night last night despite being mid winter - our terraced house is well insulated and it was a rainly listless night and my wife (who's a very light sleeper) was tossing and turning a lot so it was REALLY difficult to get back to sleep, seemed everytime I just drifted off she would roll over and we'd start again....but eventually drifted into sleep and got the following lucid...a lot of it came from the NZ pics we'd been looking at earlier in the night from our hol there at xmas

LD 22 - I am being driven somewhere in the UK, its winter and dark and wet and the housing is densely packed, then we move into a more open area and the road markings have been painted onto the grass verge and I think 'they would never allow that in the UK with all the rules its more like NZ' and then the dreamscape turns into Wellington (NZ) to outside St Pats (town) the markings being the lines of a hockey field on astroturf. I am now walking down the road past the college, its a bright bright summers day and I feel really energized and happy, off to my right the clear waters of Evans bay lap against the shore and just up front is the turning for the scenic route into Wellington around the Bays. The dreamscape is very clear and accurate. Theres a warm wind and 3 monarch butterflies drift past me, I smile and think how great it would be to come back to wellington permanently with my family at this time, I think - 'how lucky I am to be back in Wellington, only a few weeks from our last holiday there..........at this point I start to become lucid (I am not sure if this is due to the repeated vMILD I've been doing during my waking times, or else its because the logic of being in Wgtn again is faulty, anways...) I start to do a RC of looking at my wrist watch, but stop, remembering that I need to stabilize the dream and what Benni (from DV's) had recommended. I drop instantly to my knees and stare at the concrete pavement, its incredibly realistic with small bits of crushed seashell in it. I focus it well, but feel a rush of lucidity hitting me and the dream darkens and fades. I lie still to try and DEILD, its like I'm in almost sleep paralysis, but my heartrate is too high and it doesn't happen. After a min or two the vibe goes off, but I'm awake now. ( A good sign though, as if I'd hadn't have been lucid and awakened it is likely it would have hit the REM period anyway).

Awake again I struggle to get back to sleep - again wifey is tossing and turning while I lie rock still trying to slip off. I can feel the REM period wanting to come, I get some HA auditory now and then as I almost drift off - someone shouting like a turettes patient near my ear and the feeling of deep immobility like sleep paralysis....eventually the following happens....

LD22a (an 'almost lucid dream' that I'm not counting in my LD count)....
....I feel like I am drifting into sleep, slight tingling and stillness, and I see a large picture frame the size of a doorway infront of me, I grab it and pull myself through it, but the dreamlet fades, but in around 20 secs it returns again, I grab it again and pull myself through (its like I'm floating through it at speed). Suprisingly as I do this a woman and her child grab onto my shoulder and are dragged through with me!!! The next thing that happens is that we are all lying in a white rowing boating in the sea, I am both in it and above it, and the woman says to me 'thanks for helping us', and I say 'yeah, its amazing what you can do in a...........' and I suddenly realise I'm gonna say LUCID DREAM - and wake up!
This was a cool kind of almost WILD/DILD - as I went through the picture frame I lost consciousness but regained lucidity almost immediately after when answering the lady....unfortunately the surprise of this woke me instantly so I'm not really classing this as a lucid dream.

Really enjoyed both of these experiences, the feeling of being back in NZ was so so realistic and my vision crystal clear, and the almost WILD was cool in that I leapt into the dreamscape and it was kinda cool how a dream character grabbed onto me to get there too! What I REALLY REALLY have to work on is stabilization, I feel I can induce lucids on a pretty reg basis now on the Vibe Nite nights, but I have to crack stabilization in my own way.

Goin to have a fallow night tonight so will post once I've had another vibe nite in a day or so.

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## Tlaloc

Is someone free to offer some advice?!!

I would really appreciate if anyones got the time to offer some peronal tips on stabilization. Does everyone need to stabilize so quickly upon becoming lucid? I feel most of the time I've got maybe 1-2 seconds before the dream starts to slip which adds to the stress of the situation. I have managed to stabilize a few of my LD's, but not consistantly.
Did anyone who's a regular LDer now have as many false starts as I'm having? It would be REALLY encouraging to hear about someone who's been in a similar situation and triumphed!  :Clap: 

any personal experiences anyones happy to share would be greatly welcomed! Thanks in advance!!!

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## NyxCC

Hi! That's a common problem for many especially in the beginning. However, while it may happen, it doesn't necessarily always have to happen. So one advice for the long term is don't always associate the moment of becoming lucid with instability. 

There are a number of reasons for instability, lack of experience, excitement, lack of focus or simply catching it at the end of REM. The dream is made from your thoughts and you need to support its existence by feeding those thoughts (which manifest as objects) with your attention. We usually recommend immensing in the dream as much as possible, engaing your senses, giving your full attention to what is in front of you. You may also try rubbing your hands or touching the surface of different objects.

Also, having a task in mind of what you want to do in the dream will help prolong the dream by keeping you more focused. Check out some cool tasks we do monthly:

Tasks of the Month & Year

Also, here's a great podcast on stabilization:

http://www.dreamviews.com/dreamviews...-mistakes.html

Good luck!  :smiley:

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## Tlaloc

Hi NyxCC! I really appreciate you taking the time to reply!!! I think I've suffered from all 3 of the reasons you gave for waking upon becoming lucid (and probably all at once at times!! :0 ). I tried to download the podcast without success so I'll just listen to it straight from the site in the next day or two, be interesting anyways to put some voices to the names I've seen alot of before!

I had another lucid last night I'll write up in the next day or two (unfortunately I am working all this week and weekend), during which I made an effort not to get over excited - I actually seemed more lucid in that moment that the practice in real life prior - managing to say outloud 'this is my lucid dream and I control it' ....but it collapsed anyway  ::doh::  guess I didn't own it enough! still alittle progress and at least I got lucid - and it was a vibe dream with good incorporation which was cool.

I definitely take your point about having a goal beyond being lucid to keep me engaged with the dream world and your explanation that I am engaging my thoughts in the form of dream objects was really helpful.

I think I am going to give spinning another shot (but in a non-excited/stressed way). Its just trying to practice in real life that I find awkward - I've got massively long monkey arms and whenever I spread them out to spin I seem to bang into things! Plus its hard to practice in public! However I feel I've finally got my foot jamming open the dream door alittle by being able to induce lucids pretty regularily now but I need to open that door fully to see whats really inside.....I've had a few brief looks once or twice but I think a really enjoyable lucid of even just 2 minutes length would be massively motivating for me.

Thanks again for your help NyxCC, its really motivating to get some feedback from someone else! Have a great weekend!!! cheers! :0

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## Tlaloc

This is a quick update on the last 2 vibe nites - I've called these 'soft' as they are on work nights so they pretty much consist of setting the vibe alarm for a 5 hr wbtb, then doing a vMILD for 3 mins, setting the IC and going back to sleep quickly and seeing what happens with the intention of minimum sleep disturbance.

(soft) Vibe Nite 12 (Wed night)
- went to bed too late (c 11.30am) so shortened wbtb to 4 hrs, but woke up after 3 and made the mistake of setting the IC, using a repetition of 2 secs at 30mins then 5 secs at 50mins (VI). No lucids.

Lesson learnt - don't go to bed too late, don't shorten length to wbtb.
Interesting aside - the natural dream that woke me before the intended wbtb timer went off was interesting - it was more like I was observing my thoughts (maybe some other stage of sleep) - I could see myself being lucid from afar and got cross that I was simply thinking about lucid dreaming rather than being 'within' myself (ie it was like I was observing a video of myself), so I tried to wake myself up, this didn't work initially and I suddenly thought - is this a lucid dream? and I tried to drive the image of myself through the floor boards of the building I was in (I read a post earlier that night on dream views that this was a good technique for DEILD'ing) but no success and woke up to do the wbtb. Don't really know what this was all about so haven't included it as a lucid.

(soft) Vibe Nite 13 (Thurs night)
-went to bed around 11am or just before. Proper wbtb at just before 4am (5hrs). vWILD 5mins, set IC to repeating 21 5secs VI, back to sleep

LUCID #23
(pre lucid) - this is a bit of a weird one so I won't repeat any of it.....it ends up with me being out in the street in NZ, I am looking down the wide empty street to the hills in the distance when the first (real) vibe hits - I am pretty sure I am dreaming so I look at my wrist watch - it goes from 4.30 to 10 something on the repeat viewing so I confirm I am dreaming - as I am doing this another (fake) vibe hits, and I say outloud 'this is my lucid dream, I am in control' a third (fake) vibe hits and everything greys but more slowly than usual, it goes black, I wait to try and DIELD but no luck. After a min or 2 I open my (real) eyes and check the IC seeing the vibe went off 3mins before.
Lessons - it worked work again - good incorporation, interesting that (again) my brain reinterpreted the signal - this time repeating the vibe several times (the only genuine one could have been the first). BUT I'd didn't stabilize enough - even though I was pretty impressed I recalled and used the phrase I'd only read up about the day before - I think though I need to keep calm but really try and stimulate my dreamsenses so its back to trying to spin, but in a way that doesn't induce panic and waking too early.

Anyways off to bed soon

happy dreams!

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## NyxCC

You're welcome! Congrats on the ld! I think with more practice you will be able to handle these lds pretty well. It's really good that the vibe thing is successfully helping you with ld induction. Any ld, even a short one adds value for a lucid work out. 

Great weekend to you too!  :smiley:

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## Tlaloc

MY ACTION PLAN FOR STABILIZATION

So I've worked out a way I can practice stabilizing a lucid dream in real life. I have started using the IC again IWL but only in the evenings, setting the countdown timer to go off for 5 secs (VII) roughly (+/- a few mins) on the hour. This way I know roughly when its going to go off by looking at my watch (the IC itself is against my ankle), so when I gets close to the time its going to go off I move, without alerting anyone else, to a room where theres no one else and when it does go off I do the following......

.....I don't panic, I s l o w l y raise my wrist and look at the time, or some text, and then s l o w l y check it again without feeling panic or rushed.  I imagine seeing the time change and start to spin around saying outloud 'I am positive when I stop spinning I am still dreaming'. I then think about what I'd do next (bound out of the room in big jumps, TOTM) and after that return to whatever I left before.

This means I can do the practice in private and in full without looking like a dope or crashing into stuff. It also continues to associate the viberation with R/C's but in a not panicked way.....

anyways worth a shot eh?!!!!  ::lol:: 

hoping to get some vibe nites in soon, I've been working a long week - 6 days with a day off on Tues so hopefully tomorrow night might be a goer to try this out.

Happy dreaming!

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## Tlaloc

RECENT STUFF and LUCID #24

Have had a terrible head cold the last 5 days/nights or so basically ceased the vibe nites whilst that was happening as was having problems just staying asleep and rested.

However last night I did get a lucid - if a brief one. This was a non-vibe nite - the dream was essentially a FA that I worked out was a FA - I felt like I had woken up in bed and looked at my watch and it read 6.40 (interestingly even though it was pitch black I could read it), in my mind I felt the time was odd in that I should have been woken up by our alarm by now at this point I became suspicous I was dreaming and as I looked at the watch my vision zoomed in on it the digits displaying the time getting larger and larger (reminiscent of lucid 21) - at this point I was fully lucid - the digits of the dark watch face back so large I was swallowed up in the black of the clock face and into, what others have described as, the VOID (!!!!  ::shock:: ) - black emptiness. My intention had been to spin when i became lucid but this presented a problem as in the dream i was lying in bed (and even though I know this is a dream and I can do anything) - it seemed difficult as to how to start spinning whilst lying in a sheet on the mattress! so I started rubbing my hands together. In the void I could still feel my hands rubbing together and the initial concern that I had lost the dream was cancelled out by the fact that I was aware that these could only be my dream hands and by feeling them I was still dreaming! I then tried to spin in the void but this didn't work well at all - instead I could feel my eyes moving in my real body - side to side, side to side and this made me more aware of reality. I then tried to return to rubbing my hands again but this time I couldn't actually feel them only imagine I was rubbing them - this made me realise I'd woken up. So I opened my eyes, checked my watch to ensure it wasn't another FA (sigh.....no such luck).

Anyway - this small lucid event cheered me up alot as it coincided with me feeling much better (healing lucid dream anyway?  :Cool:  ) and its nice just to have an unexpected lucid gift in the morning. From someone who never naturally dreamed before 6mths ago being able to continue to have these lucid moments feels amazing.

anyways if I can get into bed before 11pm tonight I think I'll do a wbtb and vibe nite tonight so....fingers crossed.

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## NyxCC

Hope you feel better soon. 

Congrats on number 24 and catching that FA! I really liked how well you acted while in the void. Being in the void can be quite tricky because we usually have very little stimuli to hang on to, yet with some experience it can be used as an opportunity to continue dreaming, chance scenes etc. One thing that has worked for me is to expect the dream to come back or wait and intend the next dream to start. Others have tried imagining and expecting a particular dream scene or even a small part of the dream - maybe imagine touching the surface of something, holding on to furniture, etc. You may also expect a DC to give you a hand and drag you out of there!  ::D:  Rubbing hands and poking your dream body's quite popular too, so well done there!  ::goodjob2::

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## Tlaloc

Hi NyxCC - thanks for the feedback! I like your ideas about the void - whilst I was there, it didn't feel rushed more like being in a darkened warm theatre waiting for the movie to start type feeling so I can see what you mean by using the time to prepare for the next dream scene. I think your idea of rubbing the floor would be useful for me to maintain my stabilization and give some features to a potentially emerging dream scene so will try this next time....

Congrats on getting your wings!!! Am I correct that you have to get them afresh every month?

Had a funny dream this morning. I had meant to do a wbtb followed by setting the vibrating invis clock, but I'm still getting over this cold and get a bit of a cough going to sleep so wifey sent me downstairs to sleep. I set the clock to wake me up but slepth through it, awoke around 5.20 and decided it was too late to do the vibe nite so just went back to sleep. Around 6.30am I was in a dream - outside in a surburban street, some kids loading a truck with my wife directing things, then somehow I was waking up there too and trying to explain to some dc's why I was wearing a headband REM detector (I don't have one of these in real life!) and an invisible clock that was truely transparent (I was trying to explain to myself how this could be, given IRL it is sold black and trying to tell myself it was all down to the lighting). As I was doing this - SUDDENLY my wife is yelling my face ' GET UP!' in real life! This was really weird the immediate flick from the dream (in which I'm dreaming I'm waking up and my wife is in the street) to actually waking up with a start and my wife being right next to my face!
My wife explained afterwards that she had come down and had been calling me from the doorway for a few moments, but I had earplugs in and bunged up ears anyway due to the cold, so she came over and increased her volume! It seems pretty likely to me that her calling from the door wasn't enough to wake me up but probably got incorporated into the dream - hence my dreaming (of her and) of waking up....just before she actually woke me up. Ahhh if only she had called out 'Dave you're dreaming!!!' instead! Ha Ha  :Cheeky: 

Anyways thats what I really like about dreaming is all the variety of the experiences, FA, lucids, sleep paralysis, HA, HH and incorporation of external stuff - even if you don't get lucid theres still loads of interesting stuff potentially going on!

I've been thinking about the intervals I'm setting the viberation to, 21 mins repeat has been very effective but has the drawback that if I don't fall sleep before the vibes start (you can't set a delay) sometimes its hard to get to sleep again at all (because you start waiting for the next ones to hit). So I'm thinking I might set the first for 40mins, another for 60mins and then repeat, the disadvantage to this is that theres then a 40min gap in each cycle which decreases hitting a REM period....but  I might try it for the 'soft vibe nites' and see what happens, keeping the 21repeat for the nights I can afford less sleep.

Despite feeling knackered from the cold I am very keen to get back to it and keep the momentum going so hopefully I'll be able to try it out again pretty soon.

Thanks again for the feedback and tips NyxCC!

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## 501

Hi Tlaloc, 

I was just reading through your workbook and thought I would congratulate you on the lucids you have had. Seems like you have been fairly successful with your vibration device. I would actually like to know more about it. I use my phone through out the day to cue me every 7 to 15 minutes to do some sort of reality check. I always forget to do them when I am busy. Anyways, I was thinking of sticking it in my pocket some night for an external cue. How does yours work and what do you use?

I had some massive issues stabilizing at first. I think it is mostly to do with the excitement and I find myself still getting really excited at times and messing up the dream. The main thing I have learned is to relax and absolutely do not think about your waking body or waking up. That is an immediate dream ender right there. The best thing you can do for stabilization is to go go go. Interact with the environment, touch things, look at things be very aware of your surroundings. I first started really really examining my hand, looking at the wrinkles, the hairs, the imperfections and seeing as much detail as I could. Make sure you have a list of things you want to do. My longest lucid yet was the one where I did the task of the month last month. Those do seem to help and definitely help with dream control. Well good luck to you!

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## Tlaloc

Hi 501 - and thanks for the tips on stabilization! For a while I did used to look at my hands as a sort of R/C - you know counting my fingers and this worked well, but then one lucid I had about 3 months ago I looked down to check my fingers and my hand appeared small and shrivelled almost as if it were someone elses hand attached to my arm and to be honest it freaked the hell out of me so much I woke up and stupid to say its kind of put me off doing this as a reality check again!  :Eek: 
I think your advice about relaxing and interacting and having a plan is spot on though, maybe I've forgotten this in my quest just to get lucid. Congrats on last months TOTM - thats a massive boost!

Anyways about your question about using the vibrating device. Mine is called an invisible clock II. You can use it like you are doing to just remind you during the day to do r/c's but what I found is that this has minimal impact on inducing lucids by itself unless you use it at night whilst asleep.

The GREAT thing I found about using a vibrating cue is that it is unobtrusive so you can wear it for the whole day meaning it can go off in the middle of any activity you are doing - forcing you to stop for a second and do a R/C. Without the vibrating device I might remember do several R/C's during the day, but these are generally in quiet self reflective moments that don't generally mimic my dreaming life. Personally I found simply doing more R/C's during the day with the vibration going off DID NOT greatly increase my lucidity at night (although it felt like it should have done).

However, doing the above, and then using the same cue at night DID have a big effect on my lucidity  :Happy: 

Its still pretty early days experimenting with this - but basically I've used the viberation cue on 14 of what I call 'vibe nites' (this is basically following a similar sort of method outlined below) of those 14 vibe nites I got lucid 7 times. Of this about half were due to the vibration being incorporated into the dream, the others were WILDs or DILDs (and I almost got a DEILD) which were related to the vibe going off. Theres also been a shed load of FA's though I haven't capitalised on these yet.

To make it work I just do a wbtb 5 hours after I hit the hay, set the timer on repeat to go off for 5 secs every 21 mins, do about a 3 minute MILD about doing a r/c when I feel the vib go off and return to sleep.

It takes a bit of getting used to with the technique - I'm happy to go into more detail, but its probably worth you trying it (if you want to) based on the above info - and if you have any probs/successes you can let me know!

cheers - and I enjoyed reading your workbook - it'll be good to keep in touch! I think it really helps talkin to others about LD'ing - and if you are keen to give vibe niting a go that would be cool too!

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## 501

Well that sounds interesting. So when the vibe cues transition into the dream do you feel something vibrate in your dream or is it an earthquake? I am guessing there are different intensities you can set it up for too.

I have had zero success doing WILDS, I think I am getting close but just cant seem to get that final step or two. I have been a little successful with supplements but haven't found any sort of magic combo. I still don't know if it is just placebo effect mixed with a little bit of luck. 

I will definitely keep up!

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## NyxCC

> Congrats on getting your wings!!! Am I correct that you have to get them afresh every month?



Thanks Thaloc! Yes, we work to get new ones each month. You've got to check it out and try yourself. Completing tasks in lds has been of great help to remain lucid and prolong the dream.

Tasks of the Month & Year

Good luck with future lds to both of you! You guys are awesome!

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## Tlaloc

vibe nites 14 and 15

These took place last night and 3 nights previously.

For vibe nite 14 I was still pretty hammered by my cold. My wife decided to sleep downstairs after she had a coughing fit this time, and I set out to do a wbtb 5 hours after sleep. However around an hour earlier than planned my little daughter woke me up crying so I decided (against my better judgement) to do it earlier. I also lenghtned the intervals between the vibes to go off at 40mins (2secs) then 1 hour (5secs). Unfortunately no lucids. My wife came in the room and woke me again pretty abruptly (I think secretly she enjoys this!!) and I saw that a 2sec vibe had gone off around 4 mins before she woke me up. I had awoken from a dream - but couldn't remember the vibe being incorporated into it - so it a bit of a MIA moment.

Of interest though was immediately after she woke me she left to go to the shower and I immediately dropped back into sleep and straight into REM dreaming and a sort of FA in that I was dreaming I was looking at the invisible clock to see when the vibe interval had hit - I then dragged myself awake again and realised I had just dreamt this as I was still in bed and the clock still against my ankle - so a pretty interesting snapshot of how quickly you can drop back into REM dreaming from waking (like a DIELD I guess without the lucidity).

Vibe nite 15 last night.
wbtb went well, improved the way in which I am using the timer to silently wake myself without disturbing my wife. Set the timer on 30min intervals to allow myself longer to return to sleep after the wbtb. No lucids - however frustratingly I was in a good stable dream when my daughter came and woke us up, around 1 minute later the timer went off doh!!!! so if she had been a few minutes later I might have been more lucky! 

so no lucids but some good points/ lessons
1. better method of attaching IC for wbtb
2. I have come up with an interesting idea for keeping the cycle at 21mins after the wbtb on a soft vibe nite, that I might try tonight
3. I played around with the clock today IRL and I think the 2 secs cycle would be fine again if I reconditioned myself to it, but if 2. above works I won't have to

Still everything to play for!

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## Tlaloc

Hi 501

you asked about how the vibe gets intergrated into the dream. It gets directly intergrated into the dream - identical to the vibration in real life, with the exception that the length of the vibration might change, or once my brain added in alot of beeping noises as well as the vibe. I'll give you an example of a kind of fun one
'I'm in my 'apartment house' with my wife and a bunch of our 'friends' (these are all false memories), we are all sat down chatting and suddently the invisible clock goes off against my ankle, I'm worried my 'friends' might hear the vibrating noise and as I think this is starts making a beeping sound! I quickly move to my wifes bag to get away from our 'friends' and to pretend I'm looking for a phone, but no one seems to notice and as in real life the vibration (and noise) stop in a few seconds. I still think this is my real life, so I do a reality check with my watch and am amazed to find I am dreaming! As soon as this happens I realise all of this is false memories, we don't live in an apartment, these aren't our friends, just random dream characters! I look from watch at a guy sat next to my wife on the couch (alittle too close) - with a look like - 'who the heck are you pretending to be my mate?' his head shoots up and he gives me a startled glance that cracks me up as if hes just been caught out' and unfortunately then I wake up.

So as you can see the vibration worked pretty much as it would in real life, just being intergrated into the dreamscape - plus some audio beeps this time (because I'd been anxious when I set at the wbtb before that I musn't set it wrong and wake my wife).

The direct integration is what makes it work well, because you are experiencing the same thing as what you have prepared for in real life - to do a reality check following the vibe sensation.

Its possible on a couple of occassions its been indirectly intergrated - but this is harder to spot and prove - perhaps once as the roar of an avalanche, the other as a roar of tok toks down a street. You mentioned earthquakes (a good question from someone in California to a kiwi who has lived with earthquakes all his life prior to coming to the UK!). None so far. Had you read of this in la berges book? In his experiments with vibration they ended up putting the vibrating device in the foot of the mattress and this is probably what generated that sensation. The reason for this might be because the noise of the vibration as well as the vibration itself is conducted through the mattress to the pillow to your ear. This may have happened when I had the dreams of the tok toks and the avalanche, if my ankle was pressing the timer into the mattress. I prefer not to do it this way as it seems to work better when the vibration is as similar to what I am doing in real life. 

Again that seems to me to be one of the best advantages to doing this 'technique'. Unlike a light stimulation (like the novadreamer etc) which you can't practice with during the day, you can wear this device around and it goes off and you do the reality check. At night you wear it, if you are lucky it hits an REM cycle and you are alert enough, it goes off and gets directly incorporated into the dream, you do a RC and become lucid. It requires no interpretation.

anyways thats a long answer but I could keep going! Hope this helps - cheers - T

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## NyxCC

> Of interest though was immediately after she woke me she left to go to the shower and I immediately dropped back into sleep and straight into REM dreaming and a sort of FA in that I was dreaming I was looking at the invisible clock to see when the vibe interval had hit - I then dragged myself awake again and realised I had just dreamt this as I was still in bed and the clock still against my ankle - so a pretty interesting snapshot of how quickly you can drop back into REM dreaming from waking (like a DIELD I guess without the lucidity).



You might also consider adding RCing upon wake to your routine. It's a great way to catch those FAs.  ::goodjob2::

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## Tlaloc

Vibe Nite #16 and Lucids 25 and 26

Had a brilliant night last night! Where I felt I'd been jamming open the door to lucidity repeatedly in the last couple of weeks, last night I felt like I really swung the door wide open and stepped on in into the room! It felt GREAT!!!!!

Lucid 25
I woke up 1 minute 30secs before my wbtb alarm of 5 hrs was due. Had gone to bed earlier as my wife is sick so this was around 3.30am. Set the clock for the usual intervals but waited until I felt sleepy after the 3min vMILD before starting it....

At around 4.20 I am in a dream, I am in a IKEA store and its like the staff have dressed up from the 'playing with my friends' video, in teddy bear costumes. Wife and I leave the store and head to the car park, she opens the boot of the car to put a push chair in and the push chair is left partly in the road, blocking a car from passing that patiently waits. Wife tells me off for not helping  :Eek:  so real life! We head off towards a nz outdoor shop and I stop by a sort of utility room in the car park. I say 'I'll see you there I just need to check this is locked' and go into the utility room and out the other door to the outside again, as I am closing the door.....the vibe hits, 2 slow 5 sec vibes the first slightly broken in the middle, I know this is wrong because it should be only 1 5 sec continuous vibe so I suspect I am dreaming  ::D: . Following my practice in real life I slowly and calmly do a RC by slowing looking at my watch (4pm) and again (10am)....I am lucid  :Happy:  but I am calm and I immediately start walking away from the door to do my planned activity (jumping). I am looking around as I am doing this and the scene is hyperrealistic, I literally AM in this place, the door handle, the grass, the stubby tree all are as though they would be in real life, I emerge onto the edge of a large empty grass playing field, and start jumping just as though I were on a trampoline - and just like on a trampoline I bounce, up and down, up and down, speed and height roughly equivalent to a trampoline, except I am doing this just on the flat lawn! I look around as I am jumping, I see clear building fringing the edge of the field and a church spire in the right hand corner, the contrast is excellent and the sky a very vivid NZ type blue with a sun burning mid way up. I feel amazed....here I am literally under an alien sun.....an entire world complete with its own sun which exists no where else but within me! I feel supercharged but also awed and alittle apprehensive at being alone in this place. The dream starts to fade down and I am content to let it go as I don't want to risk forgetting it and I am so happy with what I have achieved - I have carried out my intentions from earlier in the week (stabilize (thanks NyxCC, Benni and 501 for advice!), bound up and down) and I have intentionally gotten lucid through using the vibration! Happy, happy happy!!! ::banana:: 

I wake, check the clock, 4 mins since the vibe hit. I lie in bed and can feel more REM wanting to come. Pretty quickly I go into sleep paralysis and I hover around the point of WILDing but I just can't quite get the balance right. I imagine (following your advice NyxCC) rubbing the carpet and twice I can FEEL this happening as opposed to imagining it but as soon as I consciously realise this I slip back to waking, its like being on a see saw and either being too awake or becoming unconscious.

After I bit I decide if I pursue this I am not going to get back to sleep, so I do some SSILD cycles to relax myself and try to reset the Invis clock and return to sleep.

Lucid 26
around 5.20am I am dreaming I am at work. Unlike a lot of my dreams this is set in real life, my work place and it is so realistic it is as it is in reality - it literally IS my workplace. Its the prework morning meeting discussing patient lists etc. A colleague who I know is pregnant but whom is yet to tell me she is pregnant because we mostly work different shifts is sitting next to me and I know this is what she is going to tell me. However there is a roaring noise too loud for me to hear which is weird and suddenly I think 'hey is this the IC clock vibrating and I'm hearing the noise? - this is a dream!' as soon as I think this dream ends - almost with a pop! This doesn't put me off though - I am so pleased to have gotten lucid again - this feels like a 'buy one get one free bonus!' ::lol::  !!!!

I check the invisible clock and find that the timer can't have gone off as I'd accidently changed the setting when Id tried to reset it after the WILDing failure. This shows just how important expectation can be on awareness.

So happy with the nights results, I just keeping thinking of that alien sun burning in the so blue sky and what it means - I have finally arrived in a new world!

Happy dreaming!!!!

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## NyxCC

Ahhh, that's awesome Tlaloc! Congrats on the lds! :bravo: Jumping on the grass with the trampoline effect must have been very cool! And I totally understand the feelings of awe! Sometimes the only thing I need in lds is the sun shining!  :smiley:

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## Tlaloc

Vibe night 17 and (seperately) Lucid 27

Did another vibe nite immediately after my success with #16 but no lucids, a couple of times the vibe hit just after a dream had ended - so just unlucky I guess.

Last night took the night off (got a bit of a cough from the previous cold which is distracting) but got another lucid anyway which was great! ::lol:: 

Lucid 26
Got woken up at 4.30am by our daughter coming into our room wanting to sleep in our bed! Wife and I both got up and took care of this 'emergency' situation  ::roll::  and then went back to bed.

At 5.20ish I was in a dream that I was in a field looking at the overgrown cavea (seating) of a roman chariot circus (think Ben Hur). It looks like two parallel massive mounds of earth (the buried seating stands) with a large alley inbetween where the chariots would have raced. I am suprised that I didn't know this was here - as I thought I knew of most of the Roman remains in the UK. Happy with the unexpected find I wander up the grass covered ruin. Behind me I hear a man scrambling and I look back and there is an old man who is excavating some roman pottery remains from the buried site. I look down and spot some samian (red coloured) roman pottery by my feet and dislodge it. I then walk along the buried remains and spot 3 other objects which are superficially buried - including a womans bust. 2 things strike me as odd, all these pieces are the SAME as what the other man had found (but buried in a new location) and the 3 are just too good to be true, I vaguely think they might be fake but then I realise that this is a dream! ::D:  It makes much more sense this is a dream and I vaguely do a RC check with my watch but it seems almost unecessary as it is now obvious this is a dream. I decide to do what my next plan was - to fly (I forget to ask the DC who my soul mate is unfortunately), so I run along the flat between the overgrown ruins and lift up easily into the air, unfortunately as I am doing this the dream goes greyish and cartoon like but I am kindof stuck floating in mid air so I can't spin or feel anything tactile under me, I forget rubbing my hands and make the most of looking around at the horizon and surroundings trying to soak it all in before it slowly fades out - cool but not as an amazing spectacle as that blazing alien sun from the other night.

So good things - got another lucid (yay!), didn't wake instantly (yay!), remembered part of my plan (tick) but still lots to learn about stabilization (should have done this first).

so I am going to try and work on this some more, just need to work out a good consistant strategy to stay in the dream - not getting overly excited and having a plan def help, so does tactile stimulation so maybe I've just got to keep doing all these three things together.

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## NyxCC

Nice! This dream was super cool without it being lucid and you made another success by realizing things were off with the buried objects! You know we actually had a task of the year last year that involved going to the Colosseum and having a fight there. This dream reminds me of it!  :smiley:

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## Tlaloc

hi NyxCC - thanks for the post! Actually I was repairing the deck at our house today and came across a piece of Roman pottery in the garden - small sherd of plain undecorated red ware. We live now in the outskirts of what was a Roman legionary fortress back in the day in the UK so this stuff can get mixed up in the soil fill. I walk most days past the partially exposed ruins of the amphitheatre on my way to work which is pretty cool (in summer they show movies in it and do occ re-enactments). It was about the only thing (other than my wife!) that brought me over here from NZ. The amphitheatre challenge sounds cool but complex!!! Did you manage to give it a go????

Anyways been thinking about my LDing. Trying to work out my next plan for the next LD. I want to focus on trying to achieve something that will make me want to come back for more. I think I've become so focused on just working out a way to get lucid regularly I've kind of lost try on why I might want to get lucid.

So heres the plan - in the next lucid I stabilize I'll take flight try and find some water and plunge down into it at high speed and swim underwater for as long as I can.

I really miss swimming in the sea since I've been in the UK - I used to surf in NZ and we always used to swim in the rivers on a hot day or head to the beach, so I swim whenever I can when we're abroad (sorry people from the UK but its just too cold or murky here!). I'd love to be plunging into the water or surf tonight! just the feeling of the salt water would be awesome.

This seems achievable as it doesn't rely on me having massive dream control to change my environment. and hopefully the tactile stimulation of swimming would keep me lucid and dreaming and just like the other night the idea of swimming of an 'alien' ocean would give me a huge buzz.

So there it is the challenge I've laid down for myself - now I've got to try and make it happen!

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## NyxCC

> Actually I was repairing the deck at our house today and came across a piece of Roman pottery in the garden - small sherd of plain undecorated red ware. We live now in the outskirts of what was a Roman legionary fortress back in the day in the UK so this stuff can get mixed up in the soil fill. I walk most days past the partially exposed ruins of the amphitheatre on my way to work which is pretty cool



That must be so exciting! I love stuff that's from the past.  ::D: 





> The amphitheatre challenge sounds cool but complex!!! Did you manage to give it a go????



Not quite. I managed to fly over a city that looked like Rome in ancient times, there was a colosseum, but then I got distracted it turned into a toy-like replica in a room. So, not much done there, but I still think it will be cool to tour around ancient Rome sometime! 

Great idea for your next ld. Water's a very versatile dream element and you can have lots of fun playing with it. You also can try plunging in smaller bodies of water as portals to the ocean. Enjoy!  :smiley:

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## Tlaloc

(just realised this is exactly 1 month since I joined DV and started my journal! Cool! In that period I've had some really good advice from people and gotten lucid 8 more times - avg 2x week which I'm really stoked with! Thanks everyone!!!)

VIBE NITE 18 +19 AND LUCID #28

Vibe nite 18 (2 nights ago) - not much to report - no lucids - think I'd had too much to drink - I did the wbtb but didn't get alert enough I think. Plus I'd been repairing our deck so was pretty tired from that.

Vibe nite 19 (last night) - had been out for my father in laws 70th more (sigh :smiley: ) drinking - but earlier on, and an earlier night to bed, but woken up by our daughter (her night light had malfunctioned!) and so reset my wbtb. Did the wbtb at 4.10 with a better vMILD (getting excited about it) and at around 5.20am was dreaming about living the life of a gunslinger and being in a gun fight - this went of for some time, and I ended up in the amorous embrace ( ::shock:: ) of an unknown lady (we'd been to see 'The Wolf of Wall Street' 2 nights earlier and I think this was the influence). Anyways whilst in this 'embrace' I realised 'this can't be real!' and became lucid! I then kind of didn't know what to do, I suddenly realised that all this that was 'going on' was false memory and felt alittle guilty and also realised it would be hard to stabilize in my position (hand rubbing or spinning didn't seem appropriate!), nor did I see how I could just leave my current situation and fly off and find water (ps the portal idea seems cool NyxCC!) - so the dream just died and faded through my stalling!

Anyways....

Tonight the plan was to have a sober night and really try to get the vibe incorporated into the dream - this relies on the luck that its going to hit an REM interval - but also my level of awareness and motivation and depth of sleep - all of which are negatively effected by too much booze (one-2 glasses of wine seems ok but more is less helpful) - on the other side of the coin - I'm off work at the moment and its nice to relax with the wife.

Anyways I wanted to put down my stats for how well the vibenites have been working before the data gets more skewed, so I'm off to get some wine and cheese and olives and if I get the chance I'll fire off another post shortly.

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## Tlaloc

EARLY RESULTS, THE STATS - 19 vibe nites - 53% lucidity, 37% direct incorporation of the vibration into a dream  ::thumbup:: 

Basically I have now done 19 vibe nites - on 10 of these I got lucid so thats a rate of 53%. 7 times of those 19 nights the vibration was directly incorporated as a vibration (37%), and of those 7 times I got lucid 5 times (26% of the total vibe nites).

On the other 2 of those vibe nites I had the vibration directly incorporated into the dream as a vibration but didn't get lucid (in 1 I did a crappy rushed r/c, in the other the dream swept me along so I meant to do a r/c but forgot to do it).

Of the 10 lucids on the 19 vibe nites not all were due to direct incorporation of a viberation into the dream - 5 weren't so I would describe this as a 'vibration assisted' rather than 'vibration induced' method.

Finally on another 2 nights I had lucid dreams which were initiated by me perceiving a vibration but which were not vibe nites - in that I wasn't wearing the vibrating invisible clock. In one of these I had a vibrating pins and needles in my leg in real life - which transferred to the dream as a vibration - in fact this is THE DREAM that got me going on trying to induce LD's through external vibrations. The other was from NZ where we were staying in a farmers cottage with some friends and the unfamiliar buzz of the refrigarator got incorporated into my dream as a buzz I though might be from the invisible clock and got me lucid - even though I wasn't wearing it.

So in summary again I've had 10 lucids on the 19 vibe nites + 2 other vibration associated LD's + some close misses within those 19 vibenites and also a fair load of FA's associated with manipulating the clock which I haven't capitalised on yet.

Anyways better to record some of this before I forget, as its useful for me to remember where I"m at and to motivate me for the future! Off to drink some red wine and watch some telly - Happy Dreaming!

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## NyxCC

Great results so far, Thaloc! It's really good that you have been keeping stats like above, very useful and motivating! Good catch with the unknown embrace too!  ::goodjob2::

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## Tlaloc

been busy recently posting on this thread - http://www.dreamviews.com/lucid-aids...ml#post2085278
really interesting discussion - I am really enjoying being a part of the DV community - so thanks NyxCC and everyone else!

Maybe I should get back to some dreaming soon!  :Cheeky:

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## Tlaloc

Vibe Nites 20 + 21 and Lucid 29 and an interesting FA

Vibe Nite 20 - no lucids but some interesting dreams- I am guessing I didn't hit any REM periods with the vibe- think I was overtired as I'd been drinking a bit the night before which I don't think helped at all.

Took a good night off

Vibe Nite 21 and lucid 29 and an interesting FA - lots of odd dreams, in the morning I was trying to work out the chronology of it all. It reminds me of a Maori myth we have in NZ of Maui dragging up the North Island, I feel like I am pulling the threads of these dreams out of the deepest bits of my memory, pulling, pulling, pulling! I quite enjoy it as its amazing what you can eventually recall.

Anyways it went something like this....pre wbtb I had an odd dream about talking with the guys who were contributing to Zoths thread on the ND2 (see prev link) the dream was odd in that no knowing anyones true face their faces were their avatars....anyway I must have missed my actual wbtb cue as I woke up much later than intended - around 4.40ish am. Did a vMILD and set the IC for a slightly diff pattern, at 21mins it did a 5sec vibe, at 42mins 2 5sec vibes sep by 5secs and at 1 hr a 10 sec vibe before repeating. I managed to get through 5 vibes (ie almost 2 hrs) before I had to get up for work.

Now comes the bits I can't quite remember right. I was very conscious of the first 3 vibes going off (which is a good sign I'm not getting desensitized to the signal), then after that I woke from a very short lucid (not related to a vibe but prob related to the repeated microwakings)....

lucid 29 - very brief, I am standing in an underground carpark and there is a sort of sinster guy on the down ramp facing me, I feel alone and he radiates maliciousness, I suddenly become aware I'm dreaming (due to the anxiety boosting my awareness about the situation) but want to wake up and so do almost immediately. (We had just watched the first 2 episodes of the new House of Cards series 1 so I think the political intrigue got to me!). I think I have a subconscious concern about getting 'trapped' in a lucid dream I don't like, a couple of times I've become lucid I've freaked out that I am in a way alone.....anyway I then dropped back to sleep....

back into a couple of interesting non lucid dreams, but at somepoint I did what I thought was a waking life reality check of my watch. I normally do this after the vibe hits but to be honest I can't remember if this was the reason I was doing it. I did have a dream I was a student again and sharing a room and had woken up but I can't even recall if the reality check was part of this dream or if I was dreaming I was doing it in my own bed at home in real life.....anyways what happened was this......

an interesting FA - I am in a bed, its dark, and for some reason I feel I need to do a R/C (this is prob due to a vibration cue but I can't honestly remember if this is correct), I look at my watch and because its dark in the room I press for the light to come on, it kinda does but its so dim I can hardly read the dial, I squint and thinks its 7 something ( in Real Life it can't be as I get up at 630), I press the light button again and again its so dim (like candlelight) I can't read the dial - I think - damn the batteries must have died, and drift back into sleep.

In the morning I remembered this and checked my watch and the light WORKED JUST FINE  :tongue2:  dohhh!!! classic missed reality check - electrical equipment not working!!!! Just goes to show even when you think you've got a foolproof R/C (checking the time on my watch and rechecking) your brain can still beat you!!!!

Had last night off so may try another vibe night tonight.

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## CanisLucidus

> Vibe Nite 21 and lucid 29 and an interesting FA - lots of odd dreams, in the morning I was trying to work out the chronology of it all. It reminds me of a Maori myth we have in NZ of Maui dragging up the North Island, I feel like I am pulling the threads of these dreams out of the deepest bits of my memory, pulling, pulling, pulling! I quite enjoy it as its amazing what you can eventually recall.



Very well said!  This is _exactly_ what dream recall feels like to me as well.  Sometimes I wake up with almost nothing in my head but a faint emotion.  but if you can just grasp that thread and pull just right, you can often pull back a huge, detailed dream memory.

It seems to get better with practice, too.  (And falters with disuse.)  Before I got into LD, I thought I didn't really dream.

I like the NovaDreamer 2-related dream!  That's captured my imagination a bit too lately.  I'm surprised I haven't had an ND2 dream of my own!

Great job with your workbook by the way!  The Aztec reference in your name is interesting, too.  I only know it from a video game.   :smiley:

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## Tlaloc

Hi CanisLucidus - thanks for the reply! Good spotting the Aztec nature of the name (I wasn't sure if many people would recognize it)! I noted the Latin basis of your own - I'm from NZ but have been in the UK for around 5 yrs now - about the best benefit of being here (and it isn't the weat ::shakehead2:: her!)  is the archaeology. I've done a few seasons of digging up at a Roman fort called Vindolanda - just by Hadrians Wall - its a really atmospheric place. I've always been interested in Mesoamerican cultures as well so I decided that once I hit 20 lucids I'd sign up to dreamviews and in advance I thought I would use the name 'Smoking Mirror' (another Aztec diety) as my nom de plum (it sounded suitably esoteric) - but would you guess it - I'm signing up and put the name in and BAMMM it comes up saying it had already been used!!!! ::shock::  I'm then trying to think - 'what should I use?' so I try a couple of Maori names but the system doesn't like this (!!) and my wife is starting to ask me why I'm spending so long sorting stuff out on the pc - so I panic and go with Tlaloc - the Aztec weather god (and demander of child sacrifices   :Oops: ) so there we are I've become Tlaloc!
Anyways - thanks for the feedback - it would be great to stay in touch - I appreciate all the effort everyone (NyxCC, yourself - and all the others) put in - it really gives me (and I'm sure everyone else) a MASSIVE boost to get some friendly feedback from someone more experienced. Thanks again  ::lol::

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## Tlaloc

vibe nite 22 and some interesting incorporations

Did a vibe nite (22) 3 nights ago. No lucids - but one funny dream involving David Hasselhoff (any dream involving the Hoff is funny!), and a very close wild, and some interesting sleep paralysis (I seemed to become paralysed with a slight grin on my face, unable to shift it till my wife bumped into me and snapped me out of it). The 'almost' WILD involved me going from being awake and trying to WILD (after a microwaking from the vibe) then seeing me reading from a page in my room and being aware this was a dream, I tried to roll my body out of the bed but couldn't quite work out how to do this (I wasn't sure whether I should actually physically try and do this - I was worried I'd fall out of bed and wake my wife! or whether I should just 'imagine' doing it - NyxCC do you have any advice????), I then thought about what NyxCC said about rubbing the floor and my consciousness drifted off thinkng about this-into normal sleep. No obvious incorporations of the vibe, but frustrating I was in a nice stable non lucid dream when my wife SNEEZED really loudly twice and woke me up suddenly, I checked the Invisible clock and it had 90secs to go before it would have vibrated into a very stable REM period - DOHHHH  ::cry:: 

Still had some luck last night

Last night - some good incorporations and a low level lucid - last night was meant to be a vibe nite but the following happened....I set my vibrating clock on my wrist to go after 5 hrs for the wbtb. I am in a very relaxed dream in a backstage actors room talking to my cousin who I haven't seen in years and having a very detailed (and accurate) catch up about past times and I am really enjoying seeing her again when VIMMMMMMMMMMM I feel the vibrating clock vibrating and hear it also - its LOUD and in the dream I'm scrambling to find it as it keeps going off and I am worried my cousin will hear and wonder what it is - and then its still going and I wake up in my dark bedroom completely disorientated for a second searching for the clock on my ankle (its normal location) before realising its on my wrist and turning it off. This is the first time I've hit an REM period at my wbtb time, I wondered if this might happen at some point through luck and last night it did. Obviously I didn't have time to become lucid - in the dream though I was completely aware this was the invisible clock vibrating and that I had to do a R/C (after quietening it) - so both the incorporation of the signal into the dream from the real world (the vibration) and my conditioning (do a R/C) were spot on. It was just that because it was the wbtb alarm it was too strong (strenght 2) and too long (20 secs) that it woke me up (as its meant to do for the wbtb). Anyway it was cool to get another incorporation  ::banana::  but alittle poignant to realise that the really satisfying catch up I'd had with my cousin hadn't happened at all!

After that I set the clock to go off and tried to return to sleep, but my wife was tossing and turning and everytime I was about to drift off she'd bump me and I'd wake up. So I ended up resetting the clock again....and again.....its a bit frustrating as I feel pysched up and pregnant with lucidity but at some point I just drifted off into sleep without resetting it and had the following dream......I'm in a bedroom with my wife when suddenly I feel something in my hair, I look up and theres a wasp buzzing around the room and it keeps going for my head bumping into my hair I duck and weave and can't get away from it.....and then I wake up. I wake up and I've got this twitch in my scalp (in real life) that makes it feel like something is touching my head (tap, tap, tap) - and this twitch is what had been incorporated into the dream. I check the invisible clock (I wondered if the buzzing was it going off - but then realise I hadn't set it at all), I then attempt to go back to sleep but the same thing happens with my wife tossing and turningn so I reset it again but fall asleep without turning it on! 

I then have the following very low level lucid dream - I'm in a cafe with my wife, with some of her friends. One of them says she has just returned from NZ and can I check her credit card bill for whilst she was there for mistakes becauses shes unsure about the currency exchange. I take a look at the billing sheet and as you'd expect it has lists for travel stuff (5 pound charge for use overseas etc) but when I try and focus on it its hard to make it stay 'fixed' and I say 'I can't add this up - because I'm dreaming, this is a dream it just won't work' - normally when I become lucid I become HYPER aware (and so often wake up) but this time I am just dull, stay at the table at the cafe, follow the dullish plot and slip back into nonlucidity. I then wake up and realise I haven't set the clock (again!) and so take it away from my ankle as I've only got 30mins before I have to get up for work.

So not a vibe nite in the sense that I only did a wbtb but didn't actually ever switch the thing on properly! But some interesting tactile incorporations (one from the vibe, one from my body) and one low level lucid. The incorporation from the vibe for the wbtb really pleased me - more than the low grade lucid - as it was very vivid and its a bit of a thrill thinking you've sent yourself a message (the vibe) from the real world to yourself in the dream world and it has the desired effect of telling you to do a R/C (and ideally get lucid).

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## NyxCC

> then seeing me reading from a page in my room and being aware this was a dream, I tried to roll my body out of the bed but couldn't quite work out how to do this (I wasn't sure whether I should actually physically try and do this - I was worried I'd fall out of bed and wake my wife! or whether I should just 'imagine' doing it - NyxCC do you have any advice????)



Hmm, were you looking through your own eyes or were you seeing yourself from a third person perspective? If you were already seeing though your own eyes, you might have already been in the dream or at least on your way to being fully there. I know what you mean about being afraid to physically move. When very unsure I would try to first think of the movement to see if that works. You can also try zooming on a specific object or place. With more experience you get somewhat more assurance as to whether you are in the dream or not and then can proceed with moving. 

Aww, you success with the vibes has been really good so far!  ::D:  It reminds me to try to play around with the auto-snooze alarm on days when I'm not doing the regular wbtb.

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## Tlaloc

Thanks NyxCC for the advice and feedback!




> If you were already seeing though your own eyes, you might have already been in the dream or at least on your way to being fully there.



 - I'm pretty sure I was seeing through my own eyes - it was like a flash of being in a dream scene which was hyper realistic of my bedroom (like a lucid FA in my bedroom) but then it went, I guess its hard to know then, because I am still in the bedroom whether it is reality or still the dream - both were identically set up, only in the dream I was reading a piece of paper which was impossible as I was (in reality) lying in bed! Should have done a reality check but hard to do as I felt somewhat paralysed! - Anyway still kinda cool and I guess progress on the way to 'getting' WILDing.

_Thinking outloud...._ I'm just going to write down some thoughts I've been thinking about vibing....and decided I'm going to take a few nights to try a different, stronger but shorter setting. I'm going to seperate out these from the 'vibe nites' as the stimulus will be a bit different.
I'll call them 'e-nites' (for experimental) until I decide if this is better or worse.

My thinking is this....when I started the vibenites my awareness during and after the wbtb was very high - due to the excitment of starting a new project and also a degree of anxiety I make wake my wife the first few times I tried it. However having done 20 or so without waking my wife the anxiety has worn off, and I find I am more likely to sleep through the vibe than I did previously. Previously the first few vibes would wake me up and then after that they wouldn't.

I had thought this might be due to my awareness dropping as I stay asleep (and this is probably partially true) but I also think this is probably due to me just entering a deeper sleep (I guess the two might go hand in hand). I had also thought this might be due to the repetitive nature of the stimulus causing a desensitization to it - which concerned me.

Then the other night I had the dream where the wbtb signal got incorporated into the dream and then woke me up. What was interesting about this - and got me thinking is that I had had no  prior waking to this. In otherwords even though I WAS in a deep sleep with NO wbtb to boost my awareness there was still excellent incorporation of the signal - but it was a higher strenght than normal.

Perhaps this worked because I am so conditioned to the signal that my response to it is almost reflexive (do a R/C - its the invisible clock) and so being higher alert isn't a necessity (desirable - but not a necessity). 

So given its hard to massively increase my alertness as I'm unable to get out of bed for fear of waking my partner up, and given I'm probably dropping into a deeper sleep faster now than I did at the start of the vibe nites - it might make sense to increase the signal strength and see what happens. I imagine the first night or two I might just wake up more (not a bad thing) as the 'novelity' of doing it probably will increase my alertness but then after that - who knows - it might be a more effective longer term strenght to use.

NyxCC - I know you've used coffee to help with inducing lucidity - did you find you have stuck to just the same dosage since you started -or have you changed since - I wondered if this might have parallels to what I'm thinking about regarding changing the strength of my vibe. Theres a line I'm trying to seperate between the possibilty of desensitization (which might be a slippery slope) vs a plateauing effect - whereby you need to allow for adjustment of the stimuli strength after a period of adaptation but that after that further desensitization does not occur.

Hope I'm right! fingers crossed, alarms set - GOOOOOO!!!! ::microwave::

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## Tlaloc

vibe night 23/e1 + lucid 31

I am a bit tired as had too much to drink last night so going to try and bang this out asap. Went to bed, missed my wbtb so woke up at just after 5am and set IC at vibe II 2 secs. Then after an hour or so woke up from a dream I'd been on a bus that had just hit something and damaged its wing mirror - upon waking and looked at IC and the vibe should have gone off about 1min before I woke - so poss indirect incorporation (small vibe = shudder as bus hits something) or maybe it just woke me up. I don't specifically remember the bus hitting anything, but me pointing out the wing mirror was broken so we must have....

anyways went back to bed and a while later my daughter woke us up so we got up for an actual wbtb, now around 6.00 so not much time left but I thought - 'still everything to play for' kept thinking about the previous poss incorporation which triggered the following series of events.....

a vibe goes off (either in reallife as a microawakening, or within the dream) and I have a FA that I'm checking the timer to see if it corresponds to when I thought it should have gone off - it doesn't at all - which should make me aware 'THIS IS A DREAM!!' but it doesn't and I drop back to sleep, I then have another FA where I get up out of bed and I'm wearing white ankle socks and the invisible clock is big and clunky and I'm walking out of our bedroom when I notice there are mirrored tiles on the wall - and BANG - I'm immediately aware this is a dream and I'm lucid!!!! - BUT the shock of the false memories shocks me and I wake up....into a FA - I've woken up in bed again but my real bed and the children are there so I read them a bit of the Jungle book.....

.....then my son comes into our room in the REAL world and wakes me up.

So a couple of FA's and a mini-lucid - but even though the lucid was really short and I should be disappointed - I'm actually kind of stoked that I managed to get it in at all given it was so close to my wake up time - I feel like I just managed to steal home base - and even though its REALLY frustrating to wake up so quickly its also REALLY cool to have been lucid again - so I'm guessing all in all not a bad night.

Going to continue with the II strength but increase it to 5secs again to make the cue more recognizable sometime in the next few nights.

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## NyxCC

I see what you mean about the desensitization to stimuli, also had a look at part of the N2D2 discussion. It certainly makes sense. Still, I think you are probably having two forces at work here and they are opposing each other - desensitization vs expectation/conditioning. I did shortly experiment with sound alarms (auto snooze and also one playing song), but haven't made it to the lucid phase there. It would either wake me up as it was too loud or it would make me so nervous, I would wake up on my own, wondering when the next alarm will be. And then at some point I would go into deeper sleep, missing it altogether. Possibly in the long term there is some desensitization, as you guys have already mentioned in the other thread. But then you also learn how to deal better with the signal, you know to associate this with lucidity, which builds expectations and is also incorporated in dreams. I wouldn't be surprised if you do this for a long time and start having more dreams with the vibe even if you are not having a vibe night. 

About caffeine, I mostly keep my daytime dosages low, so maybe this helps me avoid becoming desensitized. In the beginning, I actually took larger doses, but saw this may be having a neg impact on stability as it was preventing me to fall properly into sleep. Now, I'm more into the 30-50 mg range. I don't do it every day either, so that possibly helps.

Congrats on the ld!  ::D:  Those FAs can be very tricky, had a number of them myself today too (no ld though). We lucid dreamers have to be constantly alert and RCing upon waking because these things are such a great opportunity for bonus lds.

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## Tlaloc

NyxCC - I think what you said 




> Still, I think you are probably having two forces at work here and they are opposing each other - desensitization vs expectation



 is absolutely hitting the nail on the head! thanks for this - as it is a really good reminder that I can use expectation to increase the likely hood of picking up the signal. I think this is maybe what I need to focus on more during the wbtb, particularly as the vibe nites become more routine as time goes on.

anyways this is what happened a couple of nights back

vibe nite 24/e2
wbtb at 4.00am (bed at 11pm), short vMILD then set the IC to II strength, 21min intervals 5 secs duration and returned to sleep. The vibe being at the increased strenght repeatidly woke me up - but interesting to try it. It hit at least 2 REM period and cut straight through it - one minute your in dreamland the next I'm awake from the vibe - so again shows its pretty easy to hit an REM period just using an interval timer - but good in that it increased my recall and the vividness of the dream - in that I immediately remembered what had been happening with a clarity almost reserved for lucidity.

Had some interesting dreams but no lucids - interesting narrative story one about the blitz during the second world war - 3rd person coherent story and very vivid with explosions, fire, romance of the characters, and a twist, and a nice one with wifey in it, but the most interesting from the vibe point of view was another very vivid FA

FA - pretty much everytime the stronger vibe went off I woke up but I generally just waited the 5 secs and returned to sleep. At one of the vibes going off I decided I'd tone it down, so reached down pulled the IC off my ankle and reset it for the lower viberation setting and returned to sleep. About 40 mins later the vibe woke me up - and now I think - hold on, if I'm still getting woken up but the vibe it can't be at the lower setting.....and I suddenly click that the last time was a super vivid FA - I do a reality check now (why NOW!!! why not THEN!!!) and its normal (DOH!) and check the clock and it still on vibe II - so yes missed another good FA!

but at least I got some interesting dreaming in - and I guess Ive decided unless I want to try DIELDing I'm better to leave the vibe at strength I, and maybe work on trying to build up my anticipation/expectation during the short wbtb in bed (unfort I can't get up out of bed for fear of waking my wife - but its starting to get lighter in the morns here so this helps increase awareness anyway).

I've decided to try a different pattern of cues tonight as well. Previously I liked using the 5 sec interval on repeat as often when it gets incorporated into a dream it gets distorted so just by 'listening' to the vibe you can tell if you are dreaming or not before even doing a R/C. But I'm wondering if by making the cues different, and slightly irreg spaced intervals it might be easier to get them incorporated - I'm worried the repetivite and predictable nature of the current system means its easier for my brain to tune it out.

Worth a try. Really want to stay lucid for longer next time, I am hoping I am getting closer to turning the corner, but as with everyones lives there are lots of things competing for my attention, I don't want to put LDing on the back burner and some motivating successes would really help to keep me on the straight and narrow

anyways - on with the show...

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## 501

I was trying external stimuli for a little while but quickly lost interest. It seemed to either wake me up or keep me awake depending on what it was. I tried both binural beats and some apps that give cues during REM periods. I did try my phone in my pocket too set on vibrate but it didn't do anything. 

Do you do WBTB and reality checks during the day even if they aren't vibe induced?

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## Tlaloc

Last night was kind of a crappy night! Vibe nite 25/e3 - lucid 32

Went to bed trying to be optimistic about getting lucid - did my usual autosuggestion, and had a tiny lucid before the wbtb (and vibes) went off
lucid 32
I am in a lounge room talking to some friends when suddenly these tiny insect like things appear flying around me and distracting me - I try and swat one and miss but see they are in fact tiny minutarised robots - I think 'this is crazy, nothing like this exists - I'm dreaming' - I become lucid but immediately wake up and then immediately drop back into sleep - so the whole dream is kind of dull in my recollection. It almost felt like I wasn't 'trying' to stay lucid - not sure why - but a bit annoying!

Anyway did the wbtb, tried to get myself more aware but it is hard to do without being able to get out of bed (due to risk of disturbing wife) so slipped off to sleep again. I had set the vibes to go off every 10mins and different durations at vibe I- but didnt get any incorporations, so after waking up again, got REALLY annoyed and set it to vibe II and again zero other than a few wakenings but even then they didn't really wake me up enough to do a WILD or DEILD attempt.

Pretty pissed off in the morning - but started to think about what 501 asked me and about what I am doing....

so heres the thing - I initially did a series of days after I got back from NZ in Jan of wearing the invisible clock (IC) during the day and doing regular R/C's with it. After I got over the initial jet lag I tried the vibe nites on the 14 Jan and got 2 incorporations that night with one lucid. I then continued but (and I checked this in my notes to find the exact day) on the 19th of jan I wrote down 'maybe no daytime use and break from IC for a few days means stimulus more novel and like to increase incorp. Avoids habituation'.

At that point (5 wks ago) I pretty much stopped doing daytime use of the IC. I felt I had become 'conditioned' to the response, and as I put above I was worried that by carrying out lots of vibe related R/C's during the day I would find them less 'novel' and also I was worried that with all the day time ones being 'I'm not dreaming' I might weaken my likelyhood to associate them with lucidity and start rushing them.

But now I think I was wrong. I think the response is NOT one of conditioning but its consciously trained response - I am choosing to do a R/C so everytime I do one after the vibe hits I am reinforcing that association with the stimuli, strengthening it, not weakening it (as long as I do do it consciously and thoughtfully ).

So this is what I am going to go back doing again.

I had just written a whole lot more than this - but the computer froze (twice when trying to insert a smilie :-(  and all  that was autosaved was the above. I had about 5 bullet points of how I think I've reduced the chances of FA's and how to do a special vibe related R/C but rather than blab about it, I'll just do it and if it works, I'll write it up then.

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## NyxCC

Sorry the night didn't go as planned, but even a mini-ld's a sign of progress and the practices working. 





> I was worried that with all the day time ones being 'I'm not dreaming' I might weaken my likelyhood to associate them with lucidity and start rushing them.
> 
> But now I think I was wrong. I think the response is NOT one of conditioning but its consciously trained response - I am choosing to do a R/C so everytime I do one after the vibe hits I am reinforcing that association with the stimuli, strengthening it, not weakening it (as long as I do do it consciously and thoughtfully ).



Yes, every time you do a RC, you are strengthening the habit, and increasing the chance of this happening while in the dream. I noticed at some point I would do a lot of critical thinking and talking RCs in real life that would carry over just the way I did them. For example, I would see something strange and say out loud (to my bf who's tired of listening about lding but at least it's a reaffirmation to myself or maybe trying to make him have an ld  ::chuckle:: ). Anyways, I would say "Oh, this looks weird/like a dream, now it's a good time to do an RC" but I don't do one. Then I would have a dream of seeing some dream sign and would say exactly the same - good time to do an RC and then carry on with the dream. So, it's kind of obvious that I had to change this - without looking weird of course.  :tongue2:  

One of the earliest things I've read around here - in a lot of DILD/RC/DS discussions and tutorials is that you have to take a moment to think that you might be in a dream right now. Don't just say - nah, this can't be a dream and go on, but rather become really excited and incubate that feeling that as you are doing your RC, you are in a dream and you are becoming lucid and so happy about it. Obviously, this is just mental pretending, with no real acting as if it is a dream (to those who might happen to read this and wonder what's this advice). 

Sweet dreams!  :smiley:

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## 501

Something else I have noticed is that if you don't take the RCs during the day serious that will carry over to your dream. 

I remember one of the first times this happened to me we had been on the road the whole day and were at a hotel that night. I took some supplements before bed (which I had not taken before). I went to the bathroom and I felt really messed up like I was really drunk, couldn't even walk upright. I did a quick RC at my hand and dropped it before it clicked as to what I was doing. I woke up and thought 'you got me you tricky subconscious'. I have caught it a couple times in my dreams too where I look quickly and realized that something could have been fishy there and look again and sure enough I am dreaming. I have however missed out on a handful of lucids by doing this.

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## Tlaloc

Last night was the first night in a few days I could concentrate again a bit on dreaming. Of interest mostly for a kind of WILD like experience similiar to something I had 2 weeks ago. I woke in the night and so set my intention to be aware of my dreams and my body drifted back into sleep with my eyes closed and I focused on being able to see my arms in my bed, and after a uncertain amount of time but I think could only be a minute or two or even less I could see my arm with my watch on quite clearly resting on my bed in our room. It was very clear, but the watch was slightly wrong, I was aware this was a dream and wondered if I should do a reality check but didn't as a) I knew this was a dream 2) I was worried about losing my train of thought. I tried moving my arm but couldn't. I then had tried to move out of the bed - but couldn't. After a bit I just lost concentration and slipped into full sleep.

I'm not really counting this is a lucid dream as its different from my normal ones, but maybe thats because I mostly have DILD's. Plus I couldn't really do anything. It was like a I could see everything but not move anything, and its an odd perspective because I am dreaming about the same location my physical body is located - my bedroom - even though some details are incorrect - eg my watch, and also the fact it is in lightish in the room in the dream when in fact its pitch black nighttime in reality. Its kind of enjoyable though as it is almost like the feeling I am seeing through my closed eyelids - which is an odd description but is the best way to describe it, I am lying in my dark bedroom but can see quite clearly the dream version of it.

I think it must be because I wanted to see my arms in my bed it ended up like this. 
Anyways....something to think about

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## NyxCC

That's the beginning of an ld for sure. Great progress, even short practice counts.  ::goodjob2:: 





> and its an odd perspective because I am dreaming about the same location my physical body is located - my bedroom - even though some details are incorrect - eg my watch, and also the fact it is in lightish in the room in the dream when in fact its pitch black nighttime in reality. Its kind of enjoyable though as it is almost like the feeling I am seeing through my closed eyelids - which is an odd description but is the best way to describe it, I am lying in my dark bedroom but can see quite clearly the dream version of it.



I know quite well what you mean, this has happened to me when wilding or going for my from scratch lds (where I basically don't care if I catch the transition or not). It also sometimes happens involuntarily while I'm falling asleep. For me the clue that I'm seeing through my eyelids type of dream impression is that it's dark and the objects slowly come into focus but entire scene is initially in monochrome red. A bit later I may transition into a different scene altogether and it becomes normally colored (if daytime).

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## Tlaloc

Thanks NyxCC! As this has happened a couple of times I might try and actively seek it out a bit more. I have this plan that if I have a LD set in the bedroom, I'd like to go to the curtains and open them wide and look out. In the UK the bedrooms are on the second floor, and rather than looking out of the 'green', I'm hoping I might see a totally different image - a bright cityscape glowing in the night sky. Anyways thats the plan if I can get past the paralysis and keep it together long enough!

Had a couple of interesting short dreamlets last night. I have done any vibe nites for a while, but I have been doing the training during the day. And last night I had two dreams that the invisible clock was going off on my wrist (where I normally put it for my wbtb alarm). Both resulted in me immediately waking up. It was interesting because even though I haven't being doing the vibe nights perhaps the daytime practice is still incorporating the ritual into my dreams.

Been a bit of a stressful week, another dream saw me looking in the mirror and seeing all my hair had become silver grey - self pity no doubt! Another saw me arranging pictures of NZ into a frame, I probably won't be able to visit home for another few years (it was 3 years between the last visits) - which often makes me homesick, again interesting to see how the day residue incorporates itself into the dreams.

I am aiming to try a few more vibenites soon. I think I am going to have to try and install some more awareness into the process, I've drawn up a series of 'experimental' conditions to try and achieve this given the limits that I can't get up out of bed due to the risk of disturbing my wife, so I've got a bit of work to do. All the studies done with vibration as a cue (ie LaBerge and Hearne) were very short term 1-2 nights. I've made it work in that context, but its getting it continue to work which is an area no research has been done on. But its a nut I think is worth trying to crack.

Have a good weekend NyxCC!

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## NyxCC

> In the UK the bedrooms are on the second floor, and rather than looking out of the 'green', I'm hoping I might see a totally different image - a bright cityscape glowing in the night sky



That's a great plan. Sometimes the outside world would look different when I try to leave through the window or it may change to some unknown place later on when I go down and start exploring. 





> I haven't being doing the vibe nights perhaps the daytime practice is still incorporating the ritual into my dreams



That's fantastic, it seems like it really is!  ::D: 

Good luck with your new experiments and a nice rest of the weekend!  :smiley:

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## Tlaloc

Tried a vibe nite last night for the first time in a while. Missed the expected wbtb so had a delayed one, and lengthned my viberation length. The late wbtb meant I only had about 1 hr 20mins of sleep to play with before the alarm woke me up.

Got close to one incorporation but the vibe went on for too long and kind of dragged me out of the dream.

However the more interesting event was a dream I had inbetween vibes just before awakening for the day. I dreamt I was driving my uncle in a car up the street - there were plenty of missed dreamsigns in this (I haven't my uncle in the flesh for 10 yrs, the driving was difficult). He told me to pull into to a parking space, and I felt massively relieved to get there and turn the engine off given I was having such a stressful time keeping the car straight and not smashing into anything. My uncle said I could take a nap, so I laid my head against the drivers window and closed my eyes, and at this point I realised I was dreaming as I realised my head was lying against my pillow in a funny positon (the pillow being scrunched up and pushing my head up). It was a very vivid and odd sensation - I had gone and closed my eyes in the car resting my head on the window and now in the same position as in the dream I was aware I wasn't actually in the car but in my bed, but still with my eyes closed! I kept the closed and tried to DIELD imagining I was still in the car and I would open them to see the inside of the car - but couldn't make it happen. 

Perhaps I was at the end of the REM period, whatever - whilst it was non-lucid the junction between the dreamed reality and the actual reality seemed absolutely paper thin and incredibly vivid  - I nice experience just before the alarm went off.

This supports what I've been thinking about over the last few days about how to better do the vibe nites, so I'm going to continue to experiment, trying slightly later wbtb's to naturally increase my awareness, along with trying to activate my natural 'fear' of waking the wife to the same end!

my gut feeling is that awareness is a big part not of just recognizing the vibration as a dream sign but is also key to getting it incorporated into the dream in the first place, which is not something I had thought about initially. I realise that by delaying my wbtb I will have less dreaming time left, and any lucidity will probably be less stable, but the idea of being able to increase the likelyhood of an incorporation is quite attractive, and if this fails perhaps the chance of just a normal lucid - kind of like what almost happened this morning (but obviously this morning wasn't actually lucid) might be increased anyway.

worth trying out anyway, I would love for this to work! and I have a gut feeling it just might....but I don't want to jinx it  ::whyme::

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## Tlaloc

I did a later wbtb last night, bit of a disturbed night with my daughter being ill. Didn't get to bed till 11.30, set the silent alarm for 6hrs rather than my normal 5 and it went off cutting straight though a dream I was having about surfing in NZ. Interestingly this time it just woke me up as it was much later in the morning than the one a week ago which got partially incorporated into the dream. But again shows how with a bit of luck you can hit the REM periods with an alarm. So I did a bit of the usual preps at 5.30am and tried to return to sleep. But then my wife got up because my daughter was disturbed, the birds were singing outside, I started to go into a relaxed calm and thought about WILDing but decided against trying as I worried it would result in me not getting to sleep before the alarm went off to wake up.

Anyways I did manage to get to sleep, and had a dream I was at a do with the kids, what was interesting was that in the dream I was asked to come inside to help my daughter who was stuck behind a chair, as I did this, the adult in my house she was with looked up and I was suprised to see it was the archaeologist I'd worked with for a couple of years down the road. I was a bit shocked as I thought 'I'm going to have to explain why I haven't turned up at the dig for the last 18mths!' and this shock and suprise woke me up. A couple of mins later the vibe went off (whilst I was still awake), then my daughter came in and we all got up.

So no lucids and no vibes, but this DID make me think I am on the right track again doing a later wbtb.

My awareness was definitely higher, I was very close to coming lucid. Obviously the higher awareness meant I woke up out of the dream, something I rarely do unless I have become lucid. But I think there is a better chance the vibes may get more incorporated this way, and if I can get vibes into the dream regularly then I think I am much closer to being sorted - largely because the vibe itself won't suprise me, it should just prompt me to do a R/C, if I train myself to do this in a calm way then the realisation of lucidity could be a calm one rather than a suprise. The key is getting the vibe incorporated in the first place on a regular basis.

This kind of reminds me of learning to surf. You can hang out, out back waiting ages for the perfect wave and still muck it up through lack of practice, or you can enjoy lots of smaller rides in the white water runs (broken waves) which are easier to catch but less epic.

I think I'm opting to try and do the white water thing - as what I need is the confidence and fun that might give me. Its worth a hope and a prayer!  :Pope:  (I just popped that in to be able to use this cheesey icon!)

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## NyxCC

Sorry for the late reply, lots of posts and stuff going on. 





> My uncle said I could take a nap, so I laid my head against the drivers window and closed my eyes, and at this point I realised I was dreaming as I realised my head was lying against my pillow in a funny positon (the pillow being scrunched up and pushing my head up). It was a very vivid and odd sensation - I had gone and closed my eyes in the car resting my head on the window and now in the same position as in the dream I was aware I wasn't actually in the car but in my bed, but still with my eyes closed!



So you did become lucid! In-dream lds are awesome! I often hear stories of people going to bed in the dream and becoming lucid in the process. Another great habit carryover!  ::D: 

About awareness, it's quite possible that it is high during vibe and bed related dreams. I'd be sure to make a good list of key dream signs and often go over it to remind myself about dreaming or RCing upon encountering these. 

Best of luck!  :smiley:

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## 501

> my gut feeling is that awareness is a big part not of just recognizing the vibration as a dream sign but is also key to getting it incorporated into the dream in the first place, which is not something I had thought about initially. I realise that by delaying my wbtb I will have less dreaming time left, and any lucidity will probably be less stable, but the idea of being able to increase the likelyhood of an incorporation is quite attractive, and if this fails perhaps the chance of just a normal lucid - kind of like what almost happened this morning (but obviously this morning wasn't actually lucid) might be increased anyway.



Whats up bro! Yes absolutely awareness, I think most of us try for that awareness and vividness in the dreams. This is the spot where the LUCID events are most likely to occur. Your brain has to be in the special place to say... hey something just isn't quite right. Sadly enough it seems like it is usually right on the tail end of a dream. I remember Nyxcc saying you want to be right in the sweet spot where you are asleep but can ask 'hey is that an elephant in the room?' I think 75 percent of my dreams have happened to me when I was able to sleep in or just off my normal sleep schedule. I usually get up at 5 so my mind I think is used to getting up at that time, by 7 if I am still sleeping my awareness really kicks in and this is when I usually go lucid. 

Happy dreaming!

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## Tlaloc

Hey 501! good to hear from you!  ::D:  Think you are dead right about the awareness and timing issues - man I'm sorry you have to get up at 5.00 bro!  :Crying:  Sounds rough! I get up at 6.20ish but you are absolutely right, if I get the chance to sleep into 7.00ish the chance of going lucid shoots up.

today was a prime example - lucid 34  :Happy:  it happened at 7.20am, only possible because my kids were staying over at my parents at law. I was really, really stoked with this, even though it was absolutely tiny! Partly because it felt like I was breaking a dry spell of sorts, and partly because it took 2 hours of surfing some pretty cool HH to get there, and because it was a WILD - so pretty different from my usual DILD's.

Anyways I'm going to describe the night so I can refer back to it if I need to. No alcohol for once, went to bed at 10.30 so earlier than normal, 6hr wbtb - woke after 5 - amazing how I've become trained to 5 over the last 6 wks that I wake up then even if the silent alarm doesn't go off. Anyways went back to sleep and woke up at 6hrs, so 4.30 and did a vMILD, set the clock for 20mins but as you'll see in a sec it never had the chance to get incorporated into the dream.

I decided I wanted to boost my awareness as per the prev entries so I stayed awake longer, and also as I normally sleep with a sheet over my head I pulled this down, and this had the desired effect in that I became so aware I couldn't get back to sleep easily. I knew by 5.00am that it wasn't too much of a prob as I had probably 2 hrs up my sleeve, but I didn't want to WILD, rather I preferred to try and return to sleep to allow the vibe to get incorporated. It continued to go off every 20mins but I just couldn't quite get there, but the result was some really cool HH and dreamlets and sleep paralysis which came in waves, and like a surfer I'd try and pick up the swell and get lucid and each time the wave would roll past underneath me and I'd have to wait again!

The HH were very cool though, one of the first was almost more of a semilucid - I decided to try something I'd read a day or two ago on DV's and tried imagining myself clapping rhythmically, I did this for only a min or two and then suddenly I was in a car with a female DC who turned to me and said 'Why are you clapping?' and I reply (feeling stupid and trying to make up something to explain) - 'because my hands feel cold!' - and then the dream collapses!  ::lol::  How dumb! I should say after this I also ask 'whats your middle name?' to the black but I think the dream has gone into the void by then. The name 'Jamima' comes into my head immediately (the name of a doll on a NZ kids show from the early 80's) but I think my sub-con is saying it rather than the DC (as shes gone into the void), so I don't think I can count it as getting the mthly task done  :tongue2: It just shows how quickly our brains are scrambling to come up with explanations in dreams to make sense of the often insensible! But this exchange with the DC really cracked me up! I try the same rhythmic thing with rowing and a dream starts to form but I again wake up as I'm trying to hard to stay alert

The next one was some sleep paralysis pretty intense but cool, followed by a dream in which I started to cross a road but could hardly move my clawed hands due to the SP, as I managed to do this I woke up again....

then more waves of HH....some similar in content - I am trying to operate the electric jug - it doesn't work triggering me to think I'm dreaming and I remember I'm asleep and immediately wake up, a bit later similar thing with a toaster - it won't work, I wake up - I think these are more HH dreamlets than actual dreams - they are so short but intense, almost like visual phrases, probably related to the fact I should be up and having breakfast normally by now.

anyways its now been almost 2 hrs and I feel the REM wanting to come, so I pull the sheet over my head and the HH takes me to seeing roman pottery in a garden plot, I see some shards of different functions/types - a spotted motarium and I instantly dismiss this as a dream, as I know I haven't seen this in real life, I expect the dreamlet to collapse but it doesn't this time - this time (lucid 34) it stays. I see the pottery and am in the garden and I know its a dream, I look at my hand to see the detail, but the dream starts to collapse with a roaring in my ears, it goes black and I try to rub my hands but I can hardly move them, I'm in the void for maybe 30secs trying to unlock my arms and hands but I feel paralysed and slowly I wake up in my bed, my arms are locked around me in a mummy type position so perhaps this also entered my dream as it faded?

So the LD was pretty short but after having lots of HH wash under me I felt I finally caught my wave right at the end of the night and managed to get up and ride it even if only for a short while the ride was pretty cool and it left me buzzing all day!

I was never really asleep until that last WILD to get the vibe in so I don't think I'd call this a vibe nite, although its possible the regular going off of the alarm helped keep me alert.

final thoughts 1. pulling the sheet off my head increased awareness
2. I shifted the IC to the ball of my foot and this felt like it would be novel enough to increase the likely hood of incorporation
3. not drinking the night before helped
4. having a guaranteed sleep in allowed me to keep going at the HH, I have had nights like this before, but they work best when you can keep going to you hit the sweet spot, if this had been a work day I might have been more tired, and there wouldn't have been a lucid at the end as I'd had to have gotten up 1 hr earlier.
5. the rhythmic imagining thing worked pretty well

Final thoughts, the HH were really, really fun! It feel great to escape into another world again - there really is nothing else like it - the randomness of what your going to find is definitely a part of the attraction!

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## 501

Well pretty cool. I have had maybe a very short successful WILD. I have almost given up on them since they do take so much time and I think it is valuable to get my sleep in. 

Its funny you mention the drinking thing. I have pretty much stopped drinking. My wife and I would usually have a few bottles of wine on the weekends every weekend and I have pretty much stopped doing this since the weekends are the times when my lucids are most likely to happen.

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## NyxCC

Hey T, how have you been doing? Anything new? You've had a pretty good success so far, don't let what you've achieved till now slip away.  :wink2: 

No need to post updates often, just remember to keep up the practices as circumstances allow. Take care!  :smiley:

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## Tlaloc

Hi NyxCC - thanks for the post - very thoughtful and much appreciated!  :Happy: 

I am still experimenting with the vibe nites - trying diff combos to see what works best. Hanging in there by my fingertips! Will post more once I've got the data together. Hope alls going well for you too! Cheers - T  ::teeth::

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## Tlaloc

Waiting for my wife to return from wine club (sigh)...ah the responsibilities of having children eh?!  :Happy: 

Not much action to report lucidity wise. Reading some ebook I found on this site about 'The Phase' - sounds errily like some sci-fi film about the next deadly virus - but really is just a broad term for lucidity and its elk - OBE's and near death experiences. It seems pretty thorough with some good advice and a lot of detail. I am starting to worry I am entering into a pretty common error of being one someone who knows a lot about his subject without actually being able to do it well - a sort of lucid armchair traveller.

I am going to try and think of a way to increase my motivation when I wake to do my wbtb's, as this should increase my awareness. I have gotten to the point I am just goin though the motions too much and just wake and then crash back into a deep unaware sleep. Its trying to work out a way I can do this based around the limitiations that I can't get up out of bed due to my wife being a light sleeper, that I don't want to sleep somewhere else and that I don't get lie ins (thanks kids!  :Happy: ). In fact a friends child who was staying with us when they came to visit, came into the lounge where my wife and I were temporarily staying and physically stripped the bed sheets off us in the morning while I was trying to lie in! 'If you're not sick you can't sleep in' was her 3 yr logic!

Previously my awareness was boosted by the novelity of my tech with the vibe nites and the risk I was going to wake my wife increasing anxiety and awareness, but with this becoming routine I find myself just slipping into deeper sleep quickly....any thoughts Nyxcc? I tried a couple of wacky ones (9VOLT battery to tongue, smelling salts). I am almost certain awareness (as in lighter sleep) is the key......

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## NyxCC

Hey T, great to hear from you!  :Happy: 





> I am going to try and think of a way to increase my motivation when I wake to do my wbtb's, as this should increase my awareness. I have gotten to the point I am just goin though the motions too much and just wake and then crash back into a deep unaware sleep



Yes, it can be quite difficult to wbtb and try to ld especially if you are extra sleepy. Sometimes the bedsheets feel so comfortable.  :smiley:  I constantly need to set new goals for my lds otherwise it's almost like I have no will to ld. Ah, maybe this is a hidden form of lazyness? 





> Previously my awareness was boosted by the novelity of my tech with the vibe nites and the risk I was going to wake my wife increasing anxiety and awareness, but with this becoming routine I find myself just slipping into deeper sleep quickly....any thoughts Nyxcc? I tried a couple of wacky ones (9VOLT battery to tongue, smelling salts). I am almost certain awareness (as in lighter sleep) is the key......



Do you think that deeper sleep is only due to desensitization and not just you possibly needing more sleep? If you feel like you need an extra rest, then go for it. 9Volt battery on tongue? That sounds scary! For alternatives you may try a cold shower (best avoid head and heart area), legs would be easy (if you're able to escape the bed that is!), a short cold shower may stimulate neuron activity, leaving you more refreshed. Also, daily meditation may help improve focus and awareness even at night. The more benefits would of course come if practiced consistently. Finally, the other thing you may try every once in a while would be light supps (as not to mess up sleep). Depending on the effect, you may experiement with pre bed or wbtb supps like Gingko or lecithin. These enhance dream vividness and recall and may result in somewhat lighter sleep.

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## Tlaloc

As always great advice NyxCC!  :Happy:  However tonight I am going to disregard all that (sorry!) and try something really whacky!  ::movingmrgreen::  This may be one of the oddest ideas for inducing a lucid dream and I have no clue if I'll even be able to implement it, let alone get anything near the desired effect.....but its worth a shot just for the novelty factor alone!!!!!

I'll post more about the method (and results if any) once I've had a chance to try it - hopefully tonight all going to plan, but otherwise might be a night or two before I can do it again if I sleep thru my intended wbtb tonight.

ps.....it involves something I plucked from my neighbours 'garden' and stuck in water earlier on....you'll have a good laugh when you work out this one I think NyxCC!!!!  :laugh:  Hope your dreamings going well! cheers T

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## NyxCC

Well, you got me guessing T! I'll list all the stuff I could think of later.  :tongue2:  I just hope it's not snowdrop - the plant is actually poisonous!  ::nono:: 

Ok, let's wait and see what you came up with.

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## Tlaloc

.....so....just got back from Accident and Emergency - guess I got your email about the snowdrop thing too late NyxCC....JUST JOKIN!!! ::mrgreen::  (but thanks for the advice anyway!).

Anyways - what I tried was using a rub of stinging nettle against my ankle - I'd been thinking about this for a while and did a 'dry run' during the day a few days ago. The tingling went on for 2.5 hrs after administration against my skin (go histamine and other nasties!) and it resembled the sort of sensation I got from the vibrating clock, but on an ongoing basis, but kind of coming and going so you don't get desensitized to it.

But it didn't work!  ::whyohwhy::  - at least last night. I'd had to 'harvest' the leaf earlier on, and wrapped it in a wet bit of kitchen towel to preserve it, then put it in a small air tight container and stuffed in my boxers for the nights sleep. Woke up around 5am and rubbed it on my ankle but it was pretty dry (probably from my body temp heating it during the night) it was enough to give me a dull burning tingle but not as much as a fresh leaf would do.

I returned to sleep and tied on the IC for good measure (vibe II, 5 sec vibe, 30min intervals) but by waking at 6.50am had no memory of any incorps. Had some good HH just after waking and dropping back to sleep though of looking at my watch and getting the wrong time, but these were vivid HH dreamlets rather than a lucid dream.

Might try it again though....One of the times I got lucid just after I starting thinking about using a vibrating device (late last year) was through having pins and needles in my leg - this got incorporated into the dream and I got lucid from it, so I figured the stinging nettle might be a way to repeat this. So there some faint logic in my madness!  :Happy: 

So I didn't wake up at all with the IC clock set on vibe II and this has happened quite a bit recently, so I am going to increase it to....dah dah.....vibe 3! This is the final setting -the highest it can go, so if that doesn't work ....cue boys to men song 'end of the road'.....it might be the end of the vibe nites project.

If this is the case I think I'll write it up and post on the forum anyway under Lucid Aids - just so others who might be interested in parallel type projects will have a starting point or reference to look at......

back to chores now  :Bliss:

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## NyxCC

Lol, T, I'm relieved to read that you are relatively ok.  ::lol:: 

I went through all possible herbs, fruits and veggies that you could have gotten - camomile, mint, cherries and even pea (Princess and the Pea story), wondering what kind of mix you will come up with. I briefly thought about nettle too, but couldn't figure any application for it. Well, now I know what to expect! I hope there aren't any hedgehogs running in your neighbor's yard, because I see where this is going!  :Big laugh:

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## Tlaloc

Hi NyxCC - been awhile! :-) Hope all is well for you and yours! I started to write a post concluding my experiments with the vibe nites but found it wandering off to too long a discussion (more a paper than a post!). Effectively what happened in the end is habituation to the vibrating stimulus, my unconscious brain no longer incorporated the stimuli into the dream, it simply started to ignore it, so I ended up turning the vibration intensity from 1 to the highest 3 and finding it wouldn't even wake me up at all (whereas when I started 5 mths ago, the lowest vibe would wake me up and get incorporated well).

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much I can do to beat this as I've had it turned up to the highest setting and I just sleep through it (I did a whole series of about 15 vibe nites where I changed the duration and intensity to try and get my brain to incorporate the cue without success).

Still its been interesting to do it, if frustrating. I am just in a bit of a limbo trying to work out where to go forward from here.....I am still limited that I can't get out of bed due to the risk of waking my very light sleeping wife, and I get minimal lie in due to my young children....I had thought about trying DIELD and using the sound of the clock under my pillow to wake me without disturbing my wife, but looking at other posts people often complain they become habituated to the alarm noise after a while and it ceases to wake them....maybe I should try WILDing???? I'm kindof thinking of something where you remain conscious might give longer term success compared to what I've experienced which is the opposite - more experience of the vibe lead to innate habituation to the cue leading to less success. Any thoughts? Thanks!!!!!  ::wink::

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## NyxCC

Hey T!  :smiley: 

Regarding the vibe induction, I'm thinking have you tried taking some time off it - a week or two to see if sensitivity returns? Also, I wonder if expectation may be playing a role here. Remember in the beginning you were so excited about the vibe, you started becoming lucid even without it actually being on. And now you are thinking the opposite - that you have become desensitized and it's not working, so you kind of don't expect it to work the same way too. What do you think?

About other options, approximately how much sleep are you getting, do you still wake up naturally, what is the content of your dreams (any dreams in the room, notable dream signs etc.), so that we might think about different strategies. I'm sure we'll be able to come up with something that adds extra ld chances.  ::reading:: 

Take care!

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## 501

Hey T!! Do you ever get up at night to go to the bathroom? I have been using an alarm that I put under my pillow to wake me. I get up and WBTB about 30 minutes and use the restroom. My wife is a lighter sleeper than me and I don't think I wake her. But for it to be a good LD for me I need to get at least 8 if not more hours of sleep. 

I have been having a decent time with the supps I have been taking but they sometimes tend to cause me to toss and turn. 

Good luck brother.

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## Tlaloc

Hi NyxCC! Been awhile between drinks huh!! I got pretty busy after the last posts above, still am in some ways but hoping to fit the LD work around that. I wanted to take some time out after finishing with the vibe nites stuff as well to relax and rethink my approach to LD'ing.

So here we are! I decided to try the mental technique I had some success with above (post 53) and described by Harianago as a rhythmic way to induce LD's (RILD), a WILD technique but preceded by a tiny WBTB so almost crossing the line towards DIELD.

I've tried it 2 times in the last 3 nights, the first I tried clapping as I drifted off, and it worked in that the clapping suddenly became 'real' in that I could 'hear' sounds and feel the force - this startled me as I though I actually had started clapping in bed - so much I woke up from the FA. So success in getting it incorporated into the dream from waking.

Tried again last night but not so successful. But I am keen to keep going on this technique as I feel it suits me (as I got lucid from it before), and being a mental technique (vs EILD) I should find I can improve with practice.

BTW I reckon I sorted out the problem with the vibe nites habituation thing - but have decided to lay off it for the moment to see how this pans out first. I think it will be refreshing to have the change.

Fingers crossed! Hope you're well NyxCC - cheers - T

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## NyxCC

Hey T! Good to hear from you!  :smiley: 

That looks like a promising technique indeed. Looking forward to reading your feedback on it. I know once you set your mind on lding, those awesome lucid dreams will follow.  ::D:

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## Tlaloc

Hi NyxCC good to hear back from you! 
I'm enjoying the technique, I basically try it whenever I wake up at night, either spontaneously, or I've tried it from setting the vibe alarm, but giving myself a night off every few days. I've tried it over I guess 4-5 nights so far? No lucids but some interesting effects which were quite cool.

Twice I've had the visualization of clapping change from visualization to suddenly hearing the sound and feeling the clap (this happens if I initially concentrate on the sensation and repeat it and then drift off and suddenly the fact its 'real' brings me more aware) I presume this is the transition from being awake to being asleep. Unfort this hasn't converted into lucidity - perhaps it will with practice.

The other interesting night was when I had several really vivid dreamlets where I did reality checks with my watch and the time changed or was absurd - this was like being lucid as I knew the results were showing I was asleep but I couldn't develop or expand the dream (almost like being in SP but with visuals) - but I was definitely asleep as I woke up after 3 of these. I am guessing these were some kind of lucid HH, and with my mind focused on LD'ing they were based on them, so I feel I am getting close to the 'real' thing.

anyways I am enjoying it which is the key thing! so will let you know when, or if, I can take it further - cheers - D

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## 501

Hey T!

Good to see you haven't given up. I was dry for awhile and not on here much and then boom all of a sudden got a fresh wind. I think we are all still working on that perfect technique to get us lucid. Every time I think I have something solid it ends up going flat some how. Still going though!

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## NyxCC

> Twice I've had the visualization of clapping change from visualization to suddenly hearing the sound and feeling the clap (this happens if I initially concentrate on the sensation and repeat it and then drift off and suddenly the fact its 'real' brings me more aware) I presume this is the transition from being awake to being asleep. Unfort this hasn't converted into lucidity - perhaps it will with practice.
> 
> The other interesting night was when I had several really vivid dreamlets where I did reality checks with my watch and the time changed or was absurd - this was like being lucid as I knew the results were showing I was asleep but I couldn't develop or expand the dream (almost like being in SP but with visuals) - but I was definitely asleep as I woke up after 3 of these. I am guessing these were some kind of lucid HH, and with my mind focused on LD'ing they were based on them, so I feel I am getting close to the 'real' thing.



Sounds like you are making great progress indeed! Keep up the good work. This thing really is working, I think you are really close to ld and those ld dreamlets - I know what you are talking about. It sometimes happens to me as well if I try to make a specific scene to enter or my mind decides to ld on its own. Keep on trying, you will either at some point transition into a lucid dream or a non-ld will start but your awareness will be boosted so you will get lucid later.  ::goodjob2::

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## Tlaloc

quick update - been continuing with the RILD tech. Last night I added on the ol' mantra 'I'm dreaming' as I clapped to try and retain more awareness - and it helped me to sustain my focus for longer, but I still ended up just falling into non-lucidity.

I am still enjoying the tech a lot though, particularly the clapping part as I keep getting the strange sensation (which is pretty cool) of crossing over from imagining it to 'feelin' it, feeling the slam of my hands together and the sound of the clap, slow deliberate. Its just that almost immediately after that I lose consciousness, and I don't have any obvious vision (that I can recall).

I'm guessing that I must be in a kind of transition zone where I am starting the WILD process but drifting off before its complete, either into REM or NREM. But I'm happy to keep working on it. I think the mantra may help, and if nothing else might help trigger a DILD if its on my mind and I lose the WILD. My recall certainly seems better since I've been doing this, I feel 'on the edge' of going lucid....fingers crossed (and hands clapping!  :smiley:  ).

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## dreamingaze

I have been using the "I am dreaming" mantra as well, and it really helps me stay focused, especially if I also count.  I say: one, I am dreaming, two, I am dreaming, etc.  Without that, I just get lost in the haze.   ::D:

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## Tlaloc

Hi Dreamingaze and thanks for the post! Its a fine balance isn't it?! I tried using that mantra when I first started LD'ing again about 12 months ago, and found on one night that it took me about 3 hours to get back to sleep after my WBTB, but then I got 3 short consecutive DILDs and one FA out of it in the late morning. I tried it again and found I just couldn't get back to sleep - everytime I'd drift off my brain would shout 'I'm dreaming!' and I'd wake up again, so this time round I am trying to use it more....subtley I guess!

Sivason had a good comment in a thread from a few days ago, he'd count by itself and once he started to lose his place counting he'd then introduce 'I'm dreaming' just to bring his consciousness back then count again, and this is what I'd thought I'd try tonight.

anyways - congrats on your WILD'ing! and good luck with your dreamin and thanks for the comment - cheers and have a great weekend - T  :smiley:

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## dreamingaze

Yep, it's definitely a fine balance!  When I first started out using a mantra, it kept me awake also.  I got frustrated very quickly because I usually have no trouble falling asleep.  Subtle is the way to go, but it can be so hard finding that "sweet spot."  I like the idea of using the mantra only when the count starts to drift.  I might give that a try.  

Happy dreaming.  Wishing you much success this weekend!

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## Tlaloc

Just got back from a great family hol in Brittany, France! So a bit of catching up to do...

lucids 35-38 - pretty happy to have got some lucidity again after a 5month spell of not really doing any practice and zero lucidity as a result. Got these four in the last 6 days so I am very happy with the change in frequency! All were pretty short but I am just chuffed to be getting some air time! so in brief

lucid 35 - 4/8, wbtb woke up after 5.30 hrs. Stayed up for 40mins.
I'm dreaming I am at Hadrians wall or an equivalent roman fortification, taking photos. The scene changes so that I can't find it through my camera viewfinder, or in fact can't find the wall anywhere at all! This strikes me as too odd to be real and I become lucid, but within seconds I wake up! Doh!!! I try to DIELD and get very close, I imagine clapping (RILD) and can see some DC's wandering around past me (one in pink) but just can't quiet get myself into the scene and lose it becoming too awake.
After this I get waves and waves of HI and dreamlets with lots of 'almost there' wilds but just can't get in. One really vivid one is seeing myself in a mirror - with me stiking my tongue out like a haka in the mirror (even though I am not doing this in the dreamlet) - almost as if my reflection has its individual consciousness, I am aware this is a dream, but can't get it to continue beyond observing it.

lucid 36 - 8/8 wbtb 6hrs, vibe + new R/C. Lots of HA before I managed to fall asleep again after the wbtb. I am dreaming I am about to an eyetest on a man whose has had laser surgery. I go to grab the trial lenses, when I see the positive and minus lenses have all been mixed up, I am annoyed and think 'damn locums' but then I realise that the colours of the lenses are incorrect, grey and red when they should be red and black - and I realise this MUST be a dream! I grab a lens to do a reality check, the number says +0.37 which is an unusual valve and its swimy, I get excited that I am dreaming and plan to spin around as fast as I can and rub the patients leg (!) to get some tactile stimulation (oh...weird?!! - probably get my registration suspended doin this in real life!). Unfort my excitment causes the dream to collapse and I drop into the void, I try to DIELD thro clapping but it doesn't work

lucid 37 9/8 wbtb 6 hrs - vibe + RC, lucid from a FA.
I am checking the san-disc (mp3 player) after a fake vibe (still had 3 mins to go - thru antipication?) and the equiliser on the screen is going - but my voice says something different, about volume or something and I realise I am dreaming! But awaken very quickly (sigh....)
BUT - this showed I can catch FA with this new technique :-)

as if to prove the point the next lucid was similar

lucid 38 10/8 wbtb 6 hrs vibe + RC lucid from a DEILD FA
the vibe goes off and it interupts a dream I'm having about some roman frescos I didn't know about (which suprised me pleasantly but not enough to make me lucid). Anyway after a second of so of the vibe going off I press the on button on the san disc to do the RC but instead of hearing my voice I hear a 'chirp chirp' like a car alarm! It takes me a second to realise that this means I am dreaming, I've effectively DEILD'd, the vibe has just interupted my sleep enough to allow me to slip back into sleep and the RC has exposed it as a dream. Now I am lucid but instead of doing anything useful I make a huge effort to perform the RC again - and this time with effort I come out of sleep and perform it correctly - showing I am now really awake!
Fascinating but kind of annoying that I wasted the chance.

Anyways that where I am up to...Had to have the last 2 nights off due to travelling, so hopefully will start again in the next couple of nights. The last 3 lucids were all through the same technique (vibes + new R/C idea) which is working well (only done it 3-4 times), making me more alert to the vibe, picking up FA's reinforcing lucidity goals.

Au revoir!

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## NyxCC

T!!! This is fantastic! Sounds like you had a really great time in Britany! I'm happy your new tech is working so well and you caught those FAs with ease! Congrats on the lds!  ::D: 

For me the best way to prolong lds is to get going with any task I had in mind and even if the dream ends, refuse to let go until you go back in there and complete the task. It's worth mentioning that deilds can be a pain sometimes, so don't be frustrated in the times they don't quite work. Just keep trying and you will get the good ones.  

Wish you lots of lds!

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## Tlaloc

Thanks for the encouragement NyxCC! Must have helped as I got lucid 39 this morning.

Lucid 39 - wbtb 6 hrs, vibe + RC
I have fallen asleep after a brief awakening from the vibe + RC, and am dreaming I am at a large table, in the dream I have to get up and refill a container with water as part of a reality check, I am doing this but then realise the mp3 player/san disc, is on the table and detatched from my headphones and I think....this cant be right, and I realise immediately I am dreaming! I remember what you said NyxCC so immediately try and move onto the totm and yell out 'say something in french' towards the people at the table but it all goes black and into the void but a voice comes back (in English!) 'what do you want me to say?' - after that nothing, I try imaging myself clapping to try and DIELD but nothing.

So I am still suffering massively from waking too quick. I think I was in a very light sleep, I really have to practice (in real life) not getting so excited when I get lucid.

After that I got very close to a WILD, with some HA (someone shouting a random name 'Andrew' near me) and my whole body had a thrumming viberation like I was lying on a ferry boat, and then I had a sensation my whole body flipped 180 so I was lying on my front, but I couldn't get any visuals, perhaps this would have come with time, but then my daughter woke up in her room and started playing and her voice carried down the hall and started to wake me up, interesting some of the sensations continued so I tried to imagine flipping again, but it didn't work and I eventually gave up and broke the SP.

Hopefully not too long till number 40, and perhaps a longer LD!

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## NyxCC

Awesome! Congrats on getting another one!  ::D:  You were close to completing the totm, well done! Oh, by the way one trick that CL uses often when the dream collapses is to get a DC give him a hand and drag him out of the void. You can also pretend (which is partially true) that you have just lost your eyesight but NOT the dream, try to navigate with the rest of the senses from there are maybe linger a bit in the void vs waking up if possible, expecting to start distinguishing things in the dark and then when they appear interact with them. Same logic applies for wilds. Seems you were pretty close with the wild by the way!  ::goodjob2::

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## Tlaloc

Just got back from a road trip with the family so a bit knackered - but had a good run with the LD'ing which has really, really pleased me. Got 5 LD's in in the last few days. Plus a few tactile incorporations into the dreams as well.

And finally a had a bit of a longer LD again - last night - a brilliant one where I managed to run and take off and fly through the night sky looking down at a twinkling rural landscape at night - man - just delightful!

anyways I'm going to fully post them in a day or two, too late to do more now, but thanks for the ongoing encouragement NxyCC! : )

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## NyxCC

Yuhuuuu!  :Bliss:  Congrats!!! Looking forward to reading those!

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## Tlaloc

Thanks NyxCC! Now I've got another one to add to the pile!!! Lucid #45 - nice to be able to complain about the volume of LD's for once!. Got another LD this morning, I'm thinking that's 11 (?) in the last 4-5 wks - something like that anyway - so really pleased. I think (without looking back) they've all come through the same kind of method - an interrupted sleep method. And I am starting to concentrate on stabilizing etc now - think I've made some progress in that direction too. Will update sometime soon when have some childfree time! T  :smiley:

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## Tlaloc

Ok - here goes - trying to update the LD's
first two were using the vibe to interrupt my sleep with the RC. Both from 22/08 (I think). 
LD #40
I have arrived at a London street with a trainstation with my wife and am surprised how neat and tidy the street is. We pass a shop with a bold sign saying Chai on it and head down to the trains. These are outside and open top - like a roller coaster. My wife gets in but as I start to the train begins to move off - I grab on and say 'its fine' but then I think 'this is too weird - I'm dreaming' and am lucid - it all makes sense now, I manage to get my butt into the seat and thrash around - I can feel it stimulating my dream body but its competing with my sleeping body awareness so I keep writhing around to try and get more tactile sensation, Becky turns to look at me....and I lose it! Still the tactile stimulation thing definitely was working

lucid #41
same night, same method. Short one - I am in our house, its early morning (like a FA I guess) and I notice our front door is partially open, I think maybe its robbers - then I click 'I'm dreaming' but wake up.

Also had 2 tactile incorporations into other dreams that morning
1. the vibe goes off and I am dreaming about programming it so I don't do a RC (doh!). This is about the only way it could go off and me not do one, odd as it normally gets perceived as being on my leg when I'm sleeping with it, perhaps I heard it more than felt it this time.
2. I am at an amateur haunted house show, a disabled person takes me into a room with a 'ghost' (am man with ghostly hands suspended on wires) brushes my bottom. I wake up to find my daughter in bed kicking me in the butt!

23/8
had an almost WILD -after 40mins of trying this time the vibration was more erratic like a faltering motor or a person in a plane with turbulence, I knew my alarm was going to go off so I tried to speed it up by squeezing my eyes and pulling them inwards - this gave me lots of visuals like white drifting and zooming snowflakes, I looked into them hoping one might expand into a dream scene but I think I was just trying too hard mentally and it didn't happen and I gave up.

24/8
next 3 all over 1 night - away with the whanau (family) all in one room. No equipment, but similar theme - interrupted sleep. PS this night had drunken at least 1 bottom of white, prev LD night had had probably 1/2 bottle - so white wine still seems ok prior to attempts (thank god!).
LD #42
tried a WILD (get some HA - someone yelling 'chocolate' by my head) after being woken at 3am by my daughter grinding her teeth in the bed next to me (ohhhhhhh!  :Sad:   ). WILD didn't work, drop back to sleep. At 4.00am I am dreaming we are at a bed and breakfast place in the countryside, its early late but lightish (dawn or dusk) and a lad comes in and tells us to come quick, I follow him out of the room and outside. We are on a gentle hillside outside the house, theres a bell clanging and he points down the slope and I see the stream below is rising at a phenomenal rate. I say to him 'it must be a really strong tidal pull' and he points out towards the mouth of the stream where it meets the sea, I follow his direction and gasp - there is this massive amazing wave suspended in the air, like a suspended tidal wave, with the top shimmering and frothing and water droplets streaming off it! It is intensely powerful image and beautiful and I immediately realize this can only be a dream. I remember I need to take action to keep the dream going, so I run a few steps down the hill and launch myself into the air and....I am flying! YEEEHAWWW - COOOOLLLLL I am bouncing in the air a couple of times then am zooming over this beautiful rolling country landscape with small hamlets below in a soft predawn light with their lights on but details visible. I go higher and then I get into clouds and the features go grey through the clouds with just pink patches where the town lights are coming through, I get a bit worried because its hard to concentrate on anything now and I am worried I'll lose the dream, I can feel my body but I am worried its my bed body as I am supine flying and I worry this is kind of a void because it grey with out much detail in the clouds, so I stop flying and move my arms and try and clap but then I just lose the thread of the dream (can I clap standing up 100's of metres up in the air?  :smiley:  ) and the dream ends - but I AM BUZZING.
LD#43 same night, same motel room, more interrupted sleep, my daughter (sigh) feel out of her bed! Back to sleep.
I am dreaming I am in the hotel bed (this is a FA) and my daughter has said something to wake me and my wife up. Becky leans across me, pinning me and starts kicking my daughter screaming 'shut up shut up!' (shes 3! But a sleep deprived mother will do anything ha ha!) - I think this is definitely a dream and become lucid - it kind of makes me laugh that my subcon has created this scene, but find I can't move due to my wifes DC pinning me, then I get alittle concerned and think - what if this isn't a dream?....and then I wake up for real, and my wife and daughter are sleeping peacefully next to me.
lucid #44
this was preceded by a long NLD, I am at a friends house in the country for a party, I am cleaning something and can't believe I get my dinner gear dirty, I get cross through a show and crazily it smashes their window and I feel awful. Alittle while later I am walking by myself away from the house before the party starts and reflecting how I have to look for oddities in dreams, and I look up and silhouetted on the hill line about 15m away is a black figure of an old lady with a hat (like a sort of witch) - and I know she is evil. I know I am dreaming because I know I just created her with my suggestion, but freak out and wake up, its 7.00am and I must be in a light sleep.

These 3 LD's all had 2 common themes IMO - all were due to broken sleep (my daughters moving, grinding, yelling during the night) and I became aware I could tell I was dreaming just by looking for the abnormality in the dream - rather than 'going with the flow' I correctly saw the dreamsign for what it was - this was a cool feeling (the wave, my wife being out of character, the sudden appearance of the figure). I felt I had cracked a kind of mental nut, if something is too weird to be real - you literally are probably dreaming!
(ps the last dream was interesting in that it showed it is easier when the dream is less busy to make this leap in logic, the first part of the dream was busy and I got caught up in it, but when I had some time for introspection I got lucid).

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## Tlaloc

and finally lucid #45 this morning - using vibe and RC and interrupted sleep method (ISM). Awake 5.30, lucid around 6.45.
I am dreaming I am finishing an eyetest - its going pretty smoothly but suddenly I think - hold on their something different about my equipment - the stand is on the wrong side of the chair! (Its not when I think about it later, but the colour is wrong - so my premise that somethings not right is correct). I do a watch RC and it goes from 4.30 to 555 and I'm lucid, I do as I planned which is to fall backwards onto my butt and start rubbing my hands on the carpet, it feels really bristley and my hands can feel it but the feeling of my dream body starts to come in - I keep rubbing my hands but become awake, I can feel the tingly in my hands even after the dream has ended. I try to DIELD for a second but am happy to get up as I need to get up asap anyway.

I was happy to get lucid again so quick and again through same methods as prev lucids - DILD through questioning abnormalities in the dream, being promoted by the interruption of my sleep and reinforced by a sort of MILD/RC. Seems to be effective which is exciting!

Now I have decided I can work on stabilization more. I decided to do the fall back thing as its very tactile and quick, I can scrub my hands on the floor to increase my dream body sensation, what I want to do in addition is to:
1. do a nose plug RC rather than watch RC. I think based on my experience that the watch RC is reliable BUT it takes your attention away from the visual environment (you're just focused on the watch not your surroundings), its non tactile so the dream body isn't felt, and it gives you a shock when it changes. I think the nose RC would negate some of these things, I can continue to scan the dream environment, its less rapid and more tactile - worth a try - if it makes a difference for me -might be interesting to do a Dreamviews study on whether some RC's do help stabilize the dream more than others.... (this could take a while to change as I've done the time thing for so long now, but it does tend to startle when it changes)
2. stay more calm, and immediately take action - drop to floor and stimulate hands on floor.
3. plan party for when I reach my fifteeth! (you're def invited to party NyxCC!). Seriously hopefully 1+2 might allow me to have longer LD's like the flying one. Even that was only a few minutes long, but I feel I am making progress, if its slow. I am trying to get the fundamentals sorted, and hope if I can do, maybe I can pass on some information to those others who are also struggling, but if there's one thing for sure I am not a natural lucid dreamer, but I am fairly persistant!

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## NyxCC

New at lding, huh?  :Cheeky: 





> I follow his direction and gasp - there is this massive amazing wave suspended in the air, like a suspended tidal wave, with the top shimmering and frothing and water droplets streaming off it!



This must have been quite a sight! Also, loved the flying part after that.





> These 3 LD's all had 2 common themes IMO - all were due to broken sleep (my daughters moving, grinding, yelling during the night) and I became aware I could tell I was dreaming just by looking for the abnormality in the dream - rather than 'going with the flow' I correctly saw the dreamsign for what it was - this was a cool feeling (the wave, my wife being out of character, the sudden appearance of the figure)



All these interruptions are not that bad after all. Your daughter is now your bonus ld alarm.  ::D:  Also, excellent awareness and critical thinking on your side! 





> I think the nose RC would negate some of these things, I can continue to scan the dream environment, its less rapid and more tactile - worth a try - if it makes a difference for me -might be interesting to do a Dreamviews study on whether some RC's do help stabilize the dream more than others.



This is a great idea! It will be really cool to read your and other people's feedback on this.





> 2. stay more calm, and immediately take action - drop to floor and stimulate hands on floor.



Good strategy. On stabilization, I recall a couple of lds where I poured a bottle of water and also one with some pebbles on myself to increase the tactile sensations. It felt great plus gave me a lot of confidence.

I don't know if this relates to you, I just want to add to avoid thinking about your physical body and banish all thoughts of the kind 'I am starting to feel my body; I am going to wake up now'; etc. While you are in the dream there is only one world to be concerned about - the one in front of you.

Looking forward to the ld party!  ::dancingcow::

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## Tlaloc

Cheers NyxCC - and I love the dancing cow - get down and boggey!

And guess what - I got lucid AGAIN this morning! WOW!  :smiley:  Same tech - can't believe it. Woke up after 6 hrs (c 5.15am) set the IC for 24 mins repeat and did 1 audio RC. Then returned to sleep (almost getting caught out by wife who heard the click of the san disc mp3 player clip and demanded - 'whats that?!'). Anyway got to sleep and got after 3 RC's
Lucid #46
I have finished a dream about being on a pirate type ship and am walking back into my room, this is kind of a FA, I'm thinking - I'm goin to be too tired for work, I haven't been able to get back to sleep at all after my 515am waking - and then I suddenly realise I am dreaming and this IS a FA (the rooms different and I think I realise I couldn't be up and out of bed without remembering how I got there) - cool! :-). I start rubbing my hands together vigourously to get some tactile sensation (I forget to fall backwards), my hands appear to be wrapped in linen (like a mummy) and the friction is excellent I can really FEEL the sensation, RUB RUB RUB, much more than my normally sweaty hands would feel in Real life (!). I keep saying as well ' I will maintain lucidity, I will maintain lucidity' The more I rub and the more I talk the more stable the scene is, kind of like cranking one of those dynamo machines in a science museum where the more you turn the crank the brighter the light bulb burns. As soon as I slow though the dream starts to fade, so I start going faster RUB RUB RUB and it comes back, I try and steal a look around but I seem to have linen bandages over my head and around my eyes (like a real egyptian horror book mummy!). I want to see where I am so I risk not rubbing to try and brush this away, I get a glimpse of the same bedroom in white, but the dream degrades, I start rubbing again and it starts returning but not enough and I slip into half wakingness. I try and speak outloud but no voice comes out. And I awaken more fully. A few seconds later the vibe goes off (it would have been interesting to have felt it within a lucid dream as opposed to a NLD). I do the audio RC to confirm this isn't another FA, and then my son gets up in Real life  - so the dream probably wouldn't have lasted any longer anyway. 
I remove my kit and lie back down to sleep, and start to get really vivid scene of my wife and another lady coming into the bedroom and sitting down on the bed next to me (maybe like a DIELD starting up) but the alarm goes off.

Man though I am AMAZED how frequently I am getting lucid at the moment and really pleased that I managed to prolong this late morning dream for at least 2-3mins but rubbing vigourously, I see no reason why I couldn't go further and fully stabilise a dream like this again! It was cool to feel my dream body so intensely, and the link between the dream vividness upping and downing with the rub was kind of cool too! Its cool that all these dreams are coming from an increased awareness of the the oddness of the dream as well - proper DILD's - this makes me not reliant on perceiving the viberation in the dream at all, the technique rather is enhancing my awareness and intention to be aware which is kind of empowering and cool too!
On with the show!!!!

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## Tlaloc

more random thoughts....
tried the system again, but perhaps not the best night to have tried, had half a bottle of bubbly with my wife before bed, so tired, and missed the vibe to wake me up so woke up later, hadn't turned the sound up enough to hear the audio, did rc's though to the vibe but much less alert and felt groggy and slow doing them. Had 2 dreams, 1 where I did think - 'this is weird, I thought all those bugs were dead...' but didn't take it further and then had to get up.

I often have NLD's where I think something is weird or alittle odd but don't make the connection to dreaming. HOWEVER that night in the travel inn I KNEW after a while if anything were odd it was most likely a dream - hence getting lucid 3 x in one night. And looking back at this journal, in the earlier part (before I took my 6mth sabbatical away!) I got lucid 5/10x in the 'vibe nites' without feeling the vibe.

Looking at it all together the following seems to make sense:
1. going to bed earlier increases the chance of me getting lucid, as the wbtb is earlier, I feel more refreshed and excited I have more 'time to play with' and everything to play for.
2. sometimes staying away after the wbtb alarm has helped - ie trying to wild for a while, or the rare occ I get up to the loo and risk the wrath of wifey! But this isn't essential as long as I am relatively awake and excited before returning to sleep.
3. The repeat awakening/sleep disturbance is KEY to getting lucid, esp if I've had an earlier wbtb and have some time to play with (see 1!) and aren't too groggy and tired (hence the earlier bed time). This is what fundamentally seems to help me cross the threshold from saying 'that weird' in a NLD and continuing on oblivious to my true sleeping state to going fully lucid - ie going 'that's weird.....hold on - its a dream!'. That tiny difference and tiny progression in logic that = lucidity.
4. hopefully this shift in my focus to just 'feeling the vibe' to the above 'get excited and get more aware and recognize the dream' might bear more fruit.

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## Tlaloc

ps - just calculated that I have had 12 LD's in the last 23 days!  :Big laugh:  man that cracks me up!!!

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## NyxCC

Good job catching the FA! Those mummy bandages were crazy! <<< Now I need to forget about this, especially since I need to complete the challenge of finding the Pyramid of Giza and exploring it.  :tongue2: 

12 lds in 23 days is awesome! Keep it up!  ::D:

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## Tlaloc

Lucid again this morning!!!! Yippay! Using same tech! Decided to give it a name - [planned] interrupted [sleep] audio method - or more simply - the Interruption Audio Method (I-AM).

Anyways this mornings lucid = #47
Initially had had a bad nights sleep, my daughter (=3) kept getting up in the night (around 2-3am) so eventually got some rest after that (plus had had 2 glasses NZ sav blanc). My vibe alarm went off at 5am and woke me up but I was tired and crashed back into sleep (got some good HA though as going under). Then I woke up at 6am and realised I'd forgotten to set things up. I then thought - shall I do the I-AM? as I figured I only had 1 hr left before my kids got up. Thought it would be unlikely to work - but tried it.

Set it up and went back to sleep after 25mins (had 1 A-RC (audio r/c) at 24mins and the audio really sunk into my brain...reality check, keep lookin for the vibe...). Anyways I must have drifted off and I am dreaming....
....I am dreaming I am standing in my daughters nursary school and there are 2 boys behind a desk in front of me dressed in little roman costumes, a friend we know who is a teacher aid comes and pours water over one of the boys head and completely drenchs him (like the bucket challenge raging at the moment) and I am watching and (just like in the travel lodge) my brain is completely logical and I simply and calmly think 'this is very realistic and kinda funny but that wouldn't happen in real life - this is a dream' and that makes total sense, its more logical its a dream than real life - I am calm and lucid and I start rubbing my hands vigorously together and get a good tactile sensation. The problem is I seem to have been disembodied in the dream and I so I kinda think maybe I dont' have a body in the dream, I can feel my hands but not see them, the scene goes black but I can still feel my hands and now I am imagining I am in my bed, I keep rubbing as I know this is my dream body (not my real body) and I start to rise up in the bed, I am alittle worried that I might be awake and about to wake up my wife next to me, so I go slowly (Iam 99.9% certain I am dreaming but the potential wrath of wifey makes that 0.01% doubt kinda troubling!). Anyway I slowly push myself up through the sheets but to do this I have to stop rubbing my hands and I lose myself into a grey void, this stays like this for maybe 1 -2mins, I am still in bed and know this is the void, I hope another dream scene will appear but its just grey and misty - not black, I try imagining I am clapping but slowly wake up. Its 7.05.

So 1. really happy the method worked I tried it 2x since my last update (with nights off). On the nights off = no lucid. Nights doing I-AM, lucid =1 and other night see below (almost got it).
2. reckon I've got the method for me sussed - very happy with it! It means I can avoid getting out of bed, I don't feel tired, I don't rely on the vibe being incorporated and I like the mental side of it - I am aware I am dreaming rather than being reminded I am dreaming.
3. I am making steady but slow progress on stabilization, last few dreams have been able to prolong lucidity through rubbing hands and no longer so excited when becoming lucid as the lucidity is not so much a shock more something I am expecting.

Anyways I've got a sec so I'll update on the other night I did I-AM - morn of 30/8 (sun). WT =5.30am. Set up 5 sec vibe, 24min repeat with audio
I am dreaming there is an earthquake and people are falling out of the ceiling. And then I wake up into a FA, thinking I am awake, but in a childhood bedroom, I decide to remind myself next time I am dreaming I will write RC in big letters in pen on a piece of paper I have with me in bed, and I do this...and then the vibe hits and I think 'thats good' but then I realise I am not in that bedroom but I awake in my real bedroom! I try not to move to do a DIELD but decide to do the audio RC instead after a second and am fully awake.
So on that night not really lucid as such, but very much focused on lucidity and the vibe did get incorporated into the dream before waking me up (if it hadn't woken me up perhaps I would have gone lucid after a RC?). So I have shortened the vibe to 2 secs to help this happen again.

anyways gotta go! But really stoked with another lucid!

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## NyxCC

Another success! Awesome! I like the name of the tech. You really are getting lucid every other day these days.  ::D:

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## Tlaloc

Got lucid #48 this morning! Didn't do the method yesterday and no lucid, did the I-AM this morning and got lucid! This time it was an eild with the vibe being incorporated.

Bit bittersweet however as I'll explain later, might need your help with this NyxCC. I'll have to post later tonight as gotta get the kids to the childminder and onto work - but am pleased am slowly inching closer to the big F-I-F-T-Y! and did a ham fisted attempt at your basic task NyxCC too! (with the shoe!).

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## Tlaloc

When I get a chance (hopefully later on tonight?) I'll update this again - but just to share the good news - got lucids # 49 and #50 yesterday morning using the same method (other 2 mornings didn't use the method and no lucidity) so I have cracked the half tonne! Yay! Party, party, party!!! :Rock out: 

I've had a quick chance to look at my stats for this too. So I've done this tech (I-AM) 12 times total (only started it last month when on hol in Brittainy). And I got 12 lucid dreams from it on 10 of those occassions, so its 83% successful (so far!), but on some of those 83% nights I got multiple LDs.

I also had 1 night I haven't included where I had a similar type of technique (interuppted sleep, but without the audio), where I go lucid 3 times. If I'd included that then the success rate would be slightly higher.

I'm pretty amazed how successful this seems to be. On the nights I've haven't done it, even though I've wanted a LD I haven't had much success (1 LD, and that was on the first night where I tried to do the technique but dropped the mp3 player on the floor, woke my wife and just had to do a wbtb without it). And the 4 months prior to that I hadn't been lucid at all. 

Prior to that the most success I had was with the similar vibe nites - but even that was only at most 53% successful (10 LD's on 19 nights, and no multiple LD nights).

Suprisingly I feel that I can pretty much expect to get lucid on the mornings I try this, and equally oddly its through DILD's, and it happens within a short time span. For example on some of the mornings I didn't think it would work as I'd only have 1 hr of sleep left and I still got lucid. I'll try and keep the stats going to see if this truely does pann out as a successful technique. I guess others might benefit from trying it - esp newbies or people who can't or won't get up to a wbtb.

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## Tlaloc

so time to catch up on last 3 LD's. I am now focusing on stabilization and dream control. Any help appreciated!

#48 = I-AM, 4/9 morn. WT 4.30, LD around 5.30am - eild.
I am in a NZ house, having just heard a poem read out by an old school friend DS. My wife and I have just had a fun sort of quickie on a couch and she says her parents are coming around. Laughing I stumble in the kitchen and start trying to put my clothes on, but can't seem to do it, but I find this funny, like I'm about to get caught out by the inlaws. I then feel the vibe against my leg and without rushing I just look around for something to do a RC with, I find an electric clock on a dishwasher or oven and look at it and back and the time changes from 4.00, to 5.32 then again as I blink and I am now fully lucid (EILD). I start rubbing my hands together and the dream feels very stable, I am in the kitchen, and I decide to try your shoe challenge NyxCC (totm) given my clothes are on the floor, I lift my foot up, but then...and this is what I need advise on...I start to kinda of feel this dread that I am 'stuck' in this place/dream and something dark might happen. And I sort of panic and drop the dream and wake up.

If I am completely honest with myself I think is the reason why I have dropped some of my LD's before, its this odd contradiction, on the one hand I WANT to get lucid, on the other, when I am sometimes I feel kind a kind of panic that I am in this massive empty place alone and that something bad might happen. If you remember I had a dream a wk or 2 ago where this happened after I became lucid and low and behold a silhouette of an old lady (like a sort of witch) popped up on the horizon, brought into being by my thoughts.

Anyways the day after this I read up some stuff and decided I needed to be more positive, so I decided I would concentrate on being curious of my environment in term of focusing on the details in my environment rather than swallowed up overthinking how 'big' the unknown the dreamworld could be.

The next morning I got lucids 49+50, after a few drinks, bed 12.00 (london), WT 4.30 first LD 6.00 I-AM
49 - an odd NLD I am playing tennis with celebreties in an indoor hall, the actress who plays Kalassi in Thrones goes past with something dangling from beneath her, at first I think it might a sort of 'crying game' moment, but then I think maybe shes in the process of a really long child birth (! weird). Anyway the dream changes to me looking at myself in a mirrored surface of a kettle. I have a stubbly beard and even with the curved surface distorting the image I can tell its not me and I think 'this is definitely a dream - cool' I remember my stratergy so I start rubbing my hands to stabilise and say 'I will maintain lucidity, I will be curious' over and over again, this seems to help but the dream has sort of morphoed I have lost the vision in my LE completely and the RE is like looking through a diagnonal slit. I keep saying the mantra so I think I should be curious and explore, I try pulling my RE eyelids apart but this doesn't help my sight so I think, 'just keep going', I decide to experiment pushing my thumb through my hand (haven't done this for ages) and start doing, it stretches like plastene but then I am not rubbing my hands and I think I'd better do that and I start rubbing my hands but too late and it fades to the void. I am in the void for around 60-90secs, just lying there, can't feel my body in bed, can't feel my dream body, I am not sure what to do, I start of clapping but then I slowly start to wake up for real.

I am pretty pissed off after this! Even though I got lucid, it annoys me that again I haven't been able to do much, even though I got some stabilization and remembered to do what I intended (the curosity mantra) it still didn't come together. ARRGH!

so I try again, its 6.00am and I figure I've 1 hr max left. I return to sleep and get LD 50 (yay!) at 7.00am
50 - I am outdoors at a sports fixture, a atheltic meet, oddly the sprinters have scottish soltares on their shoulders (even though its not glasglow) and have headphone ear buds taped to their arms (to stop them bouncing around during their run!). The run is cancelled and the athletes file out to a judge, some of the athletes have the bottom of faces blanked out just eyes, no nose or mouth just smooth skin and I wonder if they are wearing onezees or in a movie. I look down at my watch and its all scratched out and blurred so I can't do a RC and I am instantly lucid. I think 'fuck it, I am just going to go for it this time' so I immediately sprint off, I am running along the raised spectators bank and I jump off and start flying and start going up and I think 'I'm doing that again' recalling my last flying LD where I went too high into the clouds and into the void, so I correct it and fly lower around 3ms above ground level. Its very detailed I am flying above the referrees and athletes but then BAMMM the dream goes black and I am chucked into the void. Again I don't know what to do (I think about canis lucidis' waving of the gladius but nothing happens, no dream scene appears) and I wake up.

Good and bad - getting some dream control (I can fly, change direction and height), I can easily recall memories from real life (intentions, other dreams etc) but I am still frustrated about the length of the dream, and I think I haven't resolved my 'fears', I think flying helps defeat this, but with flying I feel I am not stimulating my dream body enough, (maybe I should flap rather than superman?). 

any thoughts NyxCC? am I on the right track? cheers and hopes all well - T

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## NyxCC

Yeah!!! :Congrats on the milestone, T!  ::dancingcow::  ::muffin::  ::aphiusiscrazy:: 
Fantastic results with your new tech! As you said it's also quite nice that you don't waste much sleep with it either.





> I start rubbing my hands together and the dream feels very stable, I am in the kitchen, and I decide to try your shoe challenge NyxCC (totm) given my clothes are on the floor, I lift my foot up, but then...and this is what I need advise on...I start to kinda of feel this dread that I am 'stuck' in this place/dream and something dark might happen. And I sort of panic and drop the dream and wake up.



Let me say that this a normal reaction that even experienced lders have. Every once in a while we would freak out for a reason or no reason at all. But we must learn to control all this. I used to have frequent nightmares but simply by repeating a mantra over a long period of time until it got internalized, the number of unpleasant dreams significantly decreased. There are numerous ways to handle bothersome situations and related concerns. First of all, on the conscious level, decide that there is nothing to be worried about, nothing will happen, always approach the dream with confidence. Resolve that you will have no fear or worry and if necessary repeat this in your mind. 

When in the dream and a thought like this crosses your mind, try to suppress it. There is actually a slight delay between the thought and the manifestation of anything so it's possible to nip it in the bud. If by chance you summon something undesired than you can again approach it with confidence and turn things around. You can influence your mood and change the mood of the DC. Even if there is a scary figure in front of you, why shouldn't it be on your side? Be creative and win them over to your side. I like to hug aggressive DCs, confront them with denial or ask them to teach me something instead. 





> Good and bad - getting some dream control (I can fly, change direction and height), I can easily recall memories from real life (intentions, other dreams etc) but I am still frustrated about the length of the dream, and I think I haven't resolved my 'fears', I think flying helps defeat this, but with flying I feel I am not stimulating my dream body enough, (maybe I should flap rather than superman?).



I have a similar experience with flying, actually. It's cool to fly but the weightlessness is a lack of tactile sensations and that accompanied with often diminished focus may contribute to me losing the dream faster. Again, my best advice is to try to follow through with a task, something that will keep you engaged and focused. I know it's easy to go into panic mode that you are losing the dream. The problem is when you go into that mode you divert attention from the dream and then it might be too late. But is it too late? Be confident and stubborn, expect the scene to return, to distinguish images through the closed eyelids (no need to open them). 

Hope this helps and looking forward to your next lds!  ::D:

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## Tlaloc

Hi Nyx - firstly thanks again for taking the time to reply - your advice is simply invaluable - you've always got a kind word to say and I can't thank you enough for your help!

I'm keen to try your advise out. I had decided the other night to focus on trying to do one of the totm - thought I'd do your shoe one and figured one way to get over the panic thing is to focus on achieving something - as you said above  



> Be confident and stubborn



 so I figure I'll make it my task to ask a DC I meet (nice or not) to borrow their shoes - I figure this will hopefully result in some interesting interactions and if I encounter some 'trouble' - ie sinister figures - this probably would disarm the situation ('can I borrow your shoes?' is probably enough to throw any misfit off their game!). If I can't see any dc's to ask I'll run around stamping my feet or bouncing and if I start to flop into the void I'll imagine I'm rubbing my disembodied hands on a rough carpet floor, I'd forgotten but I'd done this some months back and it seemed to be a good trick for me to stay longer in the dream.

I tried the tech last night after some rose. Think I'll avoid any red type wines - seem to lose my recall (white seems fine). Anyway had 1 dream - not sure to classify it as lucid or not (any advise accepted! vote - HERE!). Plus I think I should avoid getting too hot, the winter duvet seemed to make me duller (more hibernation mode I guess!).

LD 51? not sure whether to count this or not
Anyway had the following result, wt 4.30 I-AM 2 sec, 24mins. Usually I try and remain somewhat aware before the first vibe goes off (24mins) but I must have fallen asleep as the first vibe I felt when 'vrrmm, vrmm, vrrmm, vrmm' it took me a second and then I realised - 'that's not possible - this must be a LD' (as the vibe is set to only go off once every 24mins). So I slowly did the audio RC but this was correct - so obviously I had then truly woken up after realising that the alarm had been intergrated and changed (as it often is) into the dream. The way it changes is often a great clue it is happening in a dream as opposed to real life. It either repeats (like the above) or has audio as well.

So I am guessing I had drifted back in REM sleep - the vibe got incorporated in to a sort of FA (of me being in bed), I felt I was back in a deep sleep, and then my realisation must have actually woken me up. I went back to sleep very quickly after this, back almost straight into dream sleep - in fact I had some very really HH of seeing a book where whenever I looked at the page numbers - they changed, I knew this was a dream vision but it wasn't more than a sort of still image  - so I am presuming (from previous experiences) this was a hypognaemic hallucination.

Anyway after that I have no dream recall at all, though I responded to the regular wakenings. By about 6.20am I started to get the signs a lucid might be coming up (again?) I start to get the audio RC echoing in my mind and was drifting off - when my daughter got up and that was it for the day!

Ah well! If I can get another 1-2 LD under my belt in a few more days using this method then I am really going to concentrate on daytime practice of stabilization and the tips you gave above - using mantras etc, having a pre-practiced game plan and really being confident of what I intend to do....fingers crossed! A little more success would boost my confidence a lot I think. 

Whilst I feel I can at last call myself a lucid dreamer (and not just a fluke artist) after the last 2-3wks of successes I still feel like the most un-natural LD of all time! Yet I hope it might suddenly click a bit more and I'll suddenly get a stable LD of some length. I know I can do this, I just want to do asap! Cheers - T

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## NyxCC

I'm slightly confused if you are referring to the dream with the RC or the one with the book? 





> Whilst I feel I can at last call myself a lucid dreamer (and not just a fluke artist) after the last 2-3wks of successes I still feel like the most un-natural LD of all time! Yet I hope it might suddenly click a bit more and I'll suddenly get a stable LD of some length. I know I can do this, I just want to do asap! Cheers - T



T, of course you are a lucid dreamer, and no newbie either! You've gotten quite a lot of lds in the last few months, so you really should be proud! And you are going to crack them lds so you would have longer lasting ones, going after tasks and having a great time.  ::D:

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## Tlaloc

Hi Nyx - thanks for the reply! Just a quickie here - I decided to try and post my LD's in a journal as they are becoming more frequent.
Night before last had a LD - early morning - but my recollection of it is REALLY poor - flying around etc, I think it was a low level of lucidity and it faded into a NLD, however I work from at some point very excited about it, but feel back to sleep so quickly as to hardly recall it!  :tongue2: 

Anyway this morning got LD52
Lucid #52 - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views
hope this link posts ok. I was chuffed as I got it in a very workable time frame for the way our weekdays (and some of my weekends) work in a 1 1/2 hr slot before our alarm goes off at 6.20am. Just enough time to slot it in and not be tired for work.

Dream was very vivid, and I was really focused on the TOTM but I think I let the horse bolt, I must focus on stabilising first, I feel I have enough time to do this (and I was rubbing my hands) but I need to focus on this first then go for the prize!

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## NyxCC

Not bad, T!  ::D:  Loved the view of the green hills and the glow in the air. Very exciting how the lds are comming these days. 

A little tip with dream control, when you yell for the stuff you want, be sure to also think about it (also you can add expectation to that). Apart from that I think it is a good idea to yell around, it helps build confidence, maintain lucidity and even stabilize. Funny observation: CL likes to curse sometimes (only) in his lds, and it almost always coinsides with him completing some complicated task.  ::chuckle::

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## Tlaloc

> CL likes to curse sometimes (only) in his lds,



 'only' in his LD's - the guy must be a saint!  ::rolllaugh:: 

thanks for the support - aiming to push on and upwards! happy weekend NyxCC! Unfort I am working but might try and slip in an attempt this weekend. Cheers  - T

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## NyxCC

Thanks! Have a nice weekend and some bonus lds despite work.  :smiley:

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## Tlaloc

Got another 2 this morning - 53 an unexpected successful WILD, and a DILD after, both through the I-AM but both short.

Lucids 53+54 - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Might try spinning, its hard to know whether to keep trying new things to stabilize - a temptation in the hope I'll stumble on 'the' right tech for me, or whether to try and concentrate on only one. I guess theres no harm in trying a few out and then concentrating on the most promising.

At the moment the closest I can describe what happens is that its like when you suddenly get a cramp in the arch of your foot...your going about your daily life then BAMMM it (the lucid, or cramp) hits and you are instantly scrambling to deal with it - either rubbing your foot to try and ease the spasm in a cramp or trying to save the dream. I'm guessing though that even some ld's would be difficult to stabilize regardless of how experienced a LDer you were - so maybe the next will be easier for me and I'll get further again.
cheers - T

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## NyxCC

Mr. Skywalker, congrats on squeezing the lds in your busy Saturday work schedule!  ::D: 

I've been thinking about the stabilization issues and wondering if it is always necessary to perform it. I know a lot of beginners' lds are shorter and it takes practice, also with wilds stabilization or rather anchoring is recommended, but you may not need to stabilize at all times. Personally, I rely on my feeling about the dream rather than mental reasoning to decide if it needs any stabilization techs or so. My usual ones in case needed are moving hands around, grabbing objects or walking briskly around. But as I said, I don't quite necessary do those every time, but rather go about my tasks or just go exploring around. Do check out the podcast about this by the way. You can give different stabilization techs a try to see if a particular tech yields better results, but also try to go without performing them sometimes, because dreams need not always be unstable by default. Hope this helps! 

http://www.dreamviews.com/dreamviews...-mistakes.html

_Stabilization starting from min 24_.

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## Tlaloc

Been about a week since I updated this. Busy and a bit stressful at times.

Had 2 occassions last week where I'd set time aside at night to try the technique - but cocked up both! I hadn't realized but on both nights I'd set the timer to go off only once rather than on repeat so it went off the first time and then I just returned to sleep until my main alarm went off.
In some ways this was useful as it kind of acts as a control set of 2 nights - if you wanted to verify that its not just my intention to get lucid on the nights I used the IAM method to get lucid, as on both of these nights I had hoped to get lucid and didn't, largely (I think) because I was able to interupt my sleep.

So my feeling is that the interupted part is the key. But the audio is also crucial to 1) prevent me from becoming desenitized to the vibe signal 
2) increasing my awareness by forcing me to take action and giving me a message to wake up and listen to
it also helps me catch FA.

I couple of nights later I stayed at a travelodge as I was away on a roman dig, in of all places, a place called 'cockermouth'! Dig was great, travelodge was ok but a bit of an interupted night gave me LD 55 - Lucid 55 - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views
after that I set off the IAM (first time I had been able to do this properly since my last lucid) and got another short lucid (56) after realizing I was in a dream seeing my wife and kids were telling me to get up and knowing that couldn't be possible. Unfortunately this ended very quickly.

Had another couple of nights off then tried again yesterday morning - IAM and got another short lucid (57) again disappointed as very short. Basically I was dreaming I was talking about lucidity with my wife in our 'bedroom' when I realized the room was not like our bedroom at all - actually now I'm writing this I realize my brain was reimagining the travel lodge room with a tv on the wall - anyway this triggered me to become lucid but it all faded to black really quickly before I could start to stabilize it. I went into the void and was about to try something when the vibe went off and I gave up.
I then had another NLD where I started to wonder if I was dreaming but decided against it. Wish I had done a RC just to check.

Tried the tech again this morning (IAM) but no lucids - first time this has happened in a while. Unusually though I seem to have turned the audio on during a RC but fallen asleep again straight back into REM and a NLD without turning it off (its hand held and audio repeats with break inbetween) as in my dream I could hear my voice talking over the dream conversation I was having, but because the voice was correct I assumed it was real life and that I was playing around with the device during the day and it was on some sort of speaker and malfunctioning. In the dream I was stressed because it was loud and I couldn't turn it off! Doh!!!! Shows how I need to do more RC's, the audio kept going on and in the dream I couldn't turn the device off. I then seem to have actually woken up and switched it off, or I think rather it just got to the end of the track (around 2min total in lenght) and it stopped itself. 
Interesting that whilst it was non-lucid it incorporated the audio track exactly as in real life - that was why I accepted it within the dream.

Anyway I guess another 3 lucids isn't too bad, and the plane crash one was amazingly vivid and more stable. Will take a few days off due to work and then try again.

Final thoughts - need to really concentrate on the audio to wake myself up more rather than falling asleep during it.
- need to do RC rather than relying on just 'knowing' I'm in a dream - which increasingly seems to be the case (a good thing, but I don't want to miss any inbetween ones like this morning when I wondered if I might be dreaming, then talked myself out of it).
-spinning worked well. I was interested as to whether this might be due to the OKN response (an eyemovt which occurs during spinning) mimicking REM and when I did it I could really feel my eyes flick, flick, flick in my head, almost more than in real life. It was kind of cool, as I am sure this have showed up on an EOG. It also seemed to stop me losing the dream when I kind of panicked again so worth trying again.
-anyways better be off!

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## Tlaloc

I just looked and 11 LD for the 23 days of this month so far. Really want to focus on stabilizing and getting a positive experience from them. Still got time to try and get some wings as well..... :Cheeky:

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## NyxCC

T! Congrats on the lds! You seem to be keeping up the momentum despite the busyness and stress! Very impressive.  ::goodjob2:: 

The loss of lucidity was an unexpected but interesting side effect of your contemplations. I actually see this outcome in a positive light since you managed to prolong the dream. 

Best of luck with future lds and don't forget to tie your shoes.  :Cheeky:

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## Tlaloc

Hi NyxCC - got a bit of a cold at the moment and working the weekend but managed to do the method this morning and got a lucid from it. Before I report that one - I've just done a thread on the method - just in case others find it of use, or a useful starting point - let me know if it needs any work  :smiley:  appreciate your views as always - http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...b-newbies.html

The LD this morning 58 - I did the method from around 5.00ish and got the LD around 6.45ish, I had done through quite a few repeats of the vibe going off and listening to the audio and had thought it wasn't going to work.....so I am in a NLD, dreaming about being in the kitchen, and I'm thinking about how the method hasn't worked and how disappointed I am and I'm spooning this stuff which looks like baked beans but which is supposed to be coffee out of the sink where I dropped it...and then I think - I am disappointed about not getting lucid - hold on - this is weird - I am dreaming! I look at the kitchen clock it says 10.10 I look away and back but too quickly, it stays the same but I know I am dreaming. I start spinning round, but then I think....maybe I should do another RC just to be sure - I stop the spinning to do this - and WAKE UP - DOOOH!!!
anyway - I am a bit crook so perhaps didn't help, and to be honest I was pleased that I HAD gotten lucid, when I started the NLD thinking I hadn't. But - sigh - as usual have to work more on stabilization. Might be a few more nights before I have another go due to my cold, and my daughter is now sick too, plus work continues on as normal. But will try sometime this weekend I am sure - probably last chance to tie those laces! Hope you're well  cheers - T

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## NyxCC

T! Hope the cold goes away quickly for both you and your girl. 

I checked out your thread, it's very well written, love the structure, explanations, everything. Great thing you took the time to write it all down. I'm sure it will be useful for many and can also inspire others to either give this method a try or develop a similar one.  ::goodjob2:: 





> and then I think - I am disappointed about not getting lucid - hold on - this is weird - I am dreaming!



 Haha, this can be such a dream sign at times. I've seen others also get it. My version of it is slightly more confusing because I dream of the time before going to bed, with other people around and so loud that I can't go to sleep in order to ld.  :Cheeky:  Anyways, great catch on your side.

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## Tlaloc

Hi Nyx - got lucid again this morning - usual method - #59. Woke up after 6 hrs at just after 5am, did about 3 22 cycles of the sleep/wake/audio thing and then I am dreaming I am in an office, there is a woman telling us as she shuffles files a long story about how she used to be in the Cabinet and now shes resigned and working for a chariatable org and shes working her way back up into politics to get back into public office - just to prove it can be done (sorry - don't know why I'm relating all this dull stuff! Of interest this was direct day residue = watched the news for the first time in ages last night before sleep - politics as usual). Anyway - back in the dream a massive cartoon like locust/insect flies from inside the office outside a window and a green but red chested kaka (a big parrot native to NZ) follows it out chasing it (=more day residue, I had been reading about these that night). I chase both outside, and the insect start buzzing my head and ears. I charge around trying to get it away from me - but then realise - this is too weird - its obviously a dream! Lucid I start to spin around but only get a quarter turn before I get chucked into the void. I try spinning but find I can't as I am disembodied and realize I should imagine I'm rowing instead - but am more awake by now.
About 5 mins later the vibe goes off, pinning the dream to 6.05ish. I figure I've got a good chance to get lucid again - I am really keen to give it another go - as I reckon I've got the panic thing licked and want to do the TOTM, but just as I am drifting off I start to think about work stresses and this kills my concentration as I get closer to my normal wake up time and this + the cold and my daughter waking up (who is now also ill) stop me from drifting off again - ahhhh!

Will have to give it a rest for a few days with work pressures, but hope to try again at the weekend. Thanks for your kind words about my forum post - glad you liked it - and again thanks Nyx for all your ongoing support. - cheers T  :smiley:

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## Tlaloc

Tried twice this weekend. Yesterday morning wasn't the best for a mixture of reasons - tried placing the IC on my wrist rather than my ankle (to avoid moving it as much) but it feel out and so I slept through a few of the 22min cycles and missed one def REM period until I woke and realized it was out of contact with my body on the bed. Also got really hot under a winter duvet and I think this makes me dozy and less aware.

So tried again this morning - with duvet off and IC on ankle. Again wasn't the great success - one short WILD only #60 - WILD - Jack Bauer - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views - mostly interesting for meeting jack bauer in person! Perhaps a sign I should cut back on the 24 DVD's with my wife!

Had a couple of what I'd call protoWILD's today and yesterday as well - some also seem like lucids - not sure if others have them. They are dream scenes where you become aware its a dream but it doesn't 'hold' like a lucid dream - I am assuming these are vivid Hypogonenic Hall's that I suddenly become aware of and in and that I stop the process of them turning into a WILD by becoming aware too soon. Anyway that's my guess. That's why the WILD itself was nice in a way as it was a full developed dream, I could feel, move, talk and the DC talked back - quite incredible to see it form around me. Hopefully more might follow.

that's it for now - hope you had a good weekend NyxCC. Ps I always wonder does your name reflect your from New York? cheers - T

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## NyxCC

It's really cool that you have been experiencing more of these wildlets, T!  :smiley:  I think your frequent lds plus the tech keep you at a more alert state and you are able to catch more of these subtle transitions. 

You know, I told you with dilds I don't assume that the dream is unstable per se, so would do stabilization on a less frequent basis. Now, with wilds one usually needs to do a little bit more anchoring. I look from the perspective of changing clothes or costumes, so to speak. One moment you are in bed, nicely relaxed, the next moment you end up in a dream, mid action or in the least ready to act. Sometimes there is this distinct feeling of getting inside your dreaming body, which feels as if you are putting on new clothes, kind of. So, when this happens, I do my best to try to feel comfortable in my new outfit. I make some steps forward, sometimes continuing to walk until I feel it's alright and wave my hand around, can touch an object or so. 

There might be another more exotic option, which would be to try to surrender a little bit of awarness to allow the dream to develop its own plot and as you become more involved it will become much more concrete. That obviously carries some risk of going non-lucid but with practice, and remembering your intent to ld and tasks, it becomes easier to regain one's awareness. 

PS: lol, not from there.

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## Tlaloc

Hi Nyx - quick update - had a couple of lucids 2 mornings ago - my headphones had crapped out a few nights earlier - but hadn't realised until that morning (they were bought for a pound anyway that explains things!). Anyway did the vibe thing, waking me up every 24mins or so, and just did the autosuggestion in my head - concentrating on 'keep lookin for the vibe'. Anyways about 45mins later had this lucid #61 - 'Oh NO! - Whats that in the bed.....??' - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views - bit odd I know! Maybe influenced by my daughter who's 4 and had a couple of 'accidents' recently!
After that short lucid could feel more REM coming, got some good H-audio when heard someone yell near my head, then suddenly realised I was in another dream and lucid - unfortunately after quickly looking around this one suddenly 'popped!' - and disconcenteraly I was back in bed. Still felt had more time to play with and started trying to DIELD - imagining I was waving my arms up and down like a bird trying to hover (or more like in the pool when you can hover by just pumping your arms and down) seemed pretty effective as I kept getting flashes of this and a 'real world' feeling, this happened twice but each time when it transitioned from 'thinkin it' to actually 'feeling it' I would get excited and it would 'pop' - after the second time, decided to drop back to sleep but my daughter got me up mins later.

Happy to have a bit more LD time, but will go back to hand rubbing and just try and calm down more.

Tried again this morning but had to get up to go to work, had had some beer the night before and couldn't really concentrate on the audio enough, kept drifting off so no lucidity but a few good NLD.

Had a couple of good NLD's recently, nice one especially of excavating a roman amphitheatre. Also tried the tech 1 time before the above lucids (when the audio wasn't working well) and got frustrating close to lucidity - dreaming about my parents in NZ and having their compost full of snakes of all things - struck me as bizarre in the dream - but didn't become lucid - maybe just bad luck, or maybe due to audio not working. The next night I tried again - this time working out why the audio wasn't working and thats when I got the above 2 lucids.

So 3 attempts with some dud equipment issues, 1 morning success and 2 LD's. Gotta keep going - my thing to get lucid is to not be hungover (white wine ok, anything else = bad) so can really concentrate on the autosuggestion....and my stability 'issue' of course  :smiley:  I think sensei (aka Brandon boss) had mentioned in a prev post not to be panicked if your first 100 lucids aren't that stable as practice improves him......I REALLY hope I am not going to be the one who proves him wrong! Ha Ha  :smiley: 
cheers Nyx

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## NyxCC

T! Your latest ld cracked me up, especially the thorough inspection you did there.  :Big laugh: 

Wouldn't even say the occurence is so strange, our dreaming mind can conjure all kinds of stuff in the living room or the bathroom. Mine seems to especially like leaking pipes regardless of location.  ::lol:: 

Keep them rolling, T!

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## Tlaloc

Hi Nyx - glad you enjoyed the 'bed' incident! Ha ha!  :Cheeky:  Actually came to back to bite me on the bum - as this morning both my daughter (4) and son (7) both independently wet their beds! Dooh!

anyways - had 1 lucid night before last(#63) . This was a suprise as I wasn't doing my tech - night off. But as I'd gone to sleep I'd been thinking I wanted to concentrate on 2 actions in my next dreams to try and have a simple task to do. If I were indoors I'd try and hover/float, if outdoors I'd fly. Anyway went to sleep on these thoughts and at some earlish stage in the night I had a dream I was flying and after a short bit I realised that I only ever fly in lucid dreams and so became lucid and continued flying for a bit, before waking up - so good bonus! I think the dream was a bit longer than normal, no RC required. But it was much earlier in the night and my recollection of it is a bit hazy as I woke up from it at the end but immediately fell back to sleep (I'm guessing it must have been 2ish in the morning). Anyway - this is the first LD i've had outside out doing the tech in AGES so nice to get a bonus.

This morning after my daughter woke us up at 4am having wet the bed did the normal tech. And got lucid around 5.00ish I think (#64). The 'wbtb' (if you want to call getting up doing a short spin cycle and showering her as a wbtb!) probably helped. The NLD part of the dream I've frustratingly forgotten (unusual for me but I was pretty tired from the days work and had been out doing an outdoors fitness class in the dark and rain so pretty smashed when daughter woke us up early) - but I was walking out in the dream to an outbuilding, plywood and as I got inside it , it was dark and I just got the feeling that whilst it was unlikely, there was a tiny poss I could be dreaming, I tried to do a watch RC but the light didn't come on on my watch and I immediately thought 'I'm dreaming' anyways - sigh - I think the surprise of made me jolt a bit and the lack of light meant I just stopped doing anything, and woke up.

I figured I had plenty of time to play with so went back to sleep. After one more cycle of audio/vibe/interuption I was dreaming I was in bed and I just knew I was dreaming (#65), I did a watch RC again and the time changed each time, so in the bed I started rubbing my hands together, this stabilized the dream, until I realized, oddly I was holding my son's minauture rugby ball in one of my hands, the texture (rubbery and rough) made the rubbing good - but I can't remember why - but I lost the dream after that - waking up- I think I just was too knackered. I checked the time on the clock and it was mid way between cycles.

At that stage I feel really sleep deprived so disconnected the audio and clock and went 'free dreaming'. Had several very vivid NLD's and it was interesting how my NLD self really spent alot of time trying to explain the oddities in the dreams away - trying several times to create false memories (in one I was looking at a photo album with my sister of places I'd never been and was trying to explain how this could be). Interesting how maybe without the awareness the regular interuptions bring my awareness quickly degrades - but then I was pretty tired too. After that my son came in crying that he too - for the first time in years - had wet the bed! And that was that for the day dreaming wise!
Anyways another 3 short LD's in the last 2 days - can't complain, just gotta fix on keeping them going longer. cheers  :smiley:  T

quick final bit to add, was looking at my LD freq by month so Jan - not enough info in this diary as just started DV
feb - vibe nites = 8
mar - vibe nites = 4 (felt I became desensitized and no more lucids, stopped by april)
april = 0
may = 0
jun = 0
july = 0
aug = 12 - develop new method - interupted sleep audio method
sep = 13
oct = so far 6 (middle of the month)
so def spike upwards again and last 10 wks pretty consistant rate of around 3 LDs a week - hurray! Thanks for your support NyxCC!

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## NyxCC

T! Excellent incubation of the ld, even if unintended, worked out really well and so early in the night too. Our thoughts before bedtime can really have an impact on dream contents, so it pays to spend a few mins to passionately think about lding and plan our next move. Well done!  ::goodjob2:: 

Fantastic stats too! I wouldn't be surprised if you continue scoring bonus lds on top your IAM tech, as your mind is really getting used to doing this almost daily. And with more practice those lds will get longer too.  ::D:

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