Thread: 2016: Year of Awareness, Gravity and Lucidity

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Inspired by the many wonderful lucid dreamers on this site and Fryingman's http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...edication.html I have decided to embark on a large new years 'resolucid'. I shall make 2016 the year in which I develop awareness of my dreams and crack my own personal code to lucidity. If nothing else this year will teach me a lot about how my own dreams and awareness works and what improvements and changes I should make.

So, how shall I focus this awareness? I've decided upon gravity, or more specifically the awareness of my body and the forces acting upon it. After seeing the success that Hukif and Azul among others have had with this and my own experiences with wonky gravity and different body feelings in my own dreams I feel this will be the most beneficial way for me to go about things. I know it will be a long and complicated road but I will give it a crack anyway.

Similar to me December Dreaming Bootcamp, I'll outline some goals I have for the current year, to keep me motivated and serve as a way to track my progress.

Goals:

-Write in my dream journal every night, no matter how much or how little I remember
This will be tricky to keep up, but hey, I managed it for the whole of December so it isn't that out of reach. In just the one month I have averaged and extra 1-2 dreams a night thanks to dream journaling, and if that rate of improvement continues I will be very happy. It has also allowed me to gain further insights into the nature of my dreams and what I need to focus on.

-Post on Dreamviews every day
Not only will this help with motivation, it will also help me learn from all the knowledgeable people here and hopefully help others as well with what little I know .

-Meditate every day
Another tricky goal, however I am determined to pursue it as meditation will form the crux of my daytime work. Knowing how important awareness and mindfulness is for lucidity meditation seems like the best tool to achieve that. I plan to utilize Sivason's sensory awareness meditations in particular focusing on my body, along with interspersed gravity reality checks throughout the day. I also hope to eventually engage in Shamatha and Vipassana meditation, expanding out to concentrate on other parts of myself and then to e aware of my awareness itself.

Lucidity Goals:

-For January, at least 3 lucids, optimistically at least 5
-For February at least 5
-For Autumn (Australian) working up to optimistically at least 7 lucids a month
-For Winter, working up to at least 7 lucids a month, optimistically at least 10 a month
-For Spring and rest of year, working up to consistently having at least 10 lucids a month

I think these goals will provide the right level of difficulty for me to strive to achieve them yet not too much that they are unattainable. These are just guidelines though but ones I wish to achieve anyway.

Techniques:
Along with the aforementioned meditation I shall also transition from my usual finger/hand RC to a more gravity based one, feeling the weight of my body and the forces which are effecting it. This will hopefully bring my awareness of my body into my everyday life, almost like mini meditations throughout the day. I will also still use my finger RC as a backup and alternative. I am also a fan of the 'no technique' method and focusing on purely awareness, so hopefully I wont fall into a technique trap! I may also branch out into doing WILDS and WBTB at some stage but we will see how that goes. I will also experiment with mantras and try to find ones that work well for me. I shall also focus on memory as outlined by Sageous as I have definitely noticed how my memory is switched off in dreams.

I think that just about wraps this up. Thanks for reading through my wall of text, and if you have any suggestions or guides for me feel free to tell me. I will try to post regular updates here of my progress. Lets make 2016 a year to remember!

That seems pretty solid and I'd like to try the goals too

This is pretty nice. I've also noticed something....

2016.

Add 2 + 1 and you get 3, making it 36.

3 x 2 is 6. You got 6 by multiplying by 2. So you have 2 sixes. Add that to the other 6 and you get:

666. The devil. Sorta like a demon.

You can see a demon in a dream. That'll probably get you lucid.

Lucidity is what we strive for.


So yes, 2016 is our year .

EDIT: For seriousness, I guess I already am practicing meditation. Mainly to attempt dissociation.
The dream journalling is where I go wrong.

Good luck! I found updating my thread throughout the year helped me to (re) focus on my goals. Don't be afraid to adjust as you go as your experience grows and you either find new things that resonate with you, or you find your original goals aren't working out. But definitely give things time.

I'll get my own 2016 thread going once I sort out my thoughts on what I want to do .

3 days in and I already have had my first gravity related lucid!!! Although the initial reality check I used was the trusty finger one once I became lucid I focused on actually feeling my body and gravity, which has given me a greater understanding of what to look out for and how to structure my RC's. It felt like my body beneath my head was weightless, ghostlike really, although still able to interact with the world. Anyway here is the DJ link: DJ#60: Gravity Lucid!!! - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views
Hopefully this signals the start of a fruitful year .

I am going to follow this topic. Some goals I set this year are the same as yours, such as meditating everyday. I found that the app HabitBull might be very handy for developing a habit like meditating everyday, or do X WBTB's per week. With this app you can set your goal, and everyday you can change your daily goal to 'Successful' or 'Unsuccessful'. It has a calender-like weekly overview, so I set my goal to meditate for 30 minutes everyday, and whenever I don't accomplish this goal, I see a red day in the week. Seeing that red will motivate me to accomplish my goal everyday, so that every day is green and marked as successful. Maybe this will work for you too.

Flying off to Orlando and then on to Cancun tomorrow, will be gone for 2.5 weeks so you will all get a break from my big, staring, all knowing eye. My dream recall had been a bit average the past couple of days, no lucidity, but I haven't been sleeping too well either. Anyway, hopefully I have some great travel dreams and my recall skyrockets by sleeping somewhere new.

Quick little update. Thanks to all the jetlag and erratic sleep schedule I have been having rem rebound and dreams after even just an hour of sleep, which is interesting. I have been remembering quite a few dreams and had a mini lucid on Friday night where I immediately woke up. All of the plane's and rollercoaster etc has been good for gravity rc .

Me likes, good luck!

I am back now, sleep schedule completely stuffed up haha. Good news is I had 4 mini lucids wen overseas, just as I was waking up at the end of dreams. If that keeps up then I should maybe pursue DEILD haha.

Progress Report 1 Month In:
January was a pretty good month, it started off really well but has dipped a bit the last week post vacation, it should start picking back up again now. So lets see how I did compared to my goals.

-Write in my dream journal every night, no matter how much or how little I remember
Going overseas with my family for half the month meant I wasn't really able to write my dreams down then, however during that time period I put extra effort to try and remember them mentally. Apart from those days however I did write in my DJ every day, even when not remembering much.

-Post on Dreamviews every day
I haven't been able to quite achieve this goal (using holiday as excuse again haha) but I have been around and I will focus more this month on posting here more regularly. I think something stopping me is that I do feel somewhat unqualified to post advice here since I'm nowhere near the level I would like to be, but I can certainly help people with basic questions and advise them on what not to do haha.

-Meditate every day
Ah, now this one I need to focus a lot more on. I did meditate maybe 6 or 7 days this month but I really want to focus on at least doubling that for February. I don't understand my brain's thinking about meditation, it makes me feel good and takes hardly any time at all and yet I always forget about it or am too lazy to do it. Sigh, persistence is key though, I will show my brain how much it wants to do it .

-For January, at least 3 lucids, optimistically at least 5
Success on this front, I had one full on lucid and four mini lucids, so I guess if I count the minis as a half lucid they add up to 3, right on par. This is also the area on which I have improved the most over the last two months, going from about 1 every 3 months or so to 5 or 6 in two months. I need to keep up this improvement and focus on getting them longer and more regular, but overall I am happy with this.

Dreaming stats wise I recalled ~64 full dreams and ~15 fragments, so an average of ~2.06 full dreams and ~0.5 fragments a night. This is pretty similar to December, just one extra full dream and a few less fragments, but I feel the quality of the dreams have improved and being overseas stuffed up my sleep patterns and I lost a few days sleep while flying/through jetlag. So overall while it isn't much of an improvement I am content with not having gone backwards through a much more volatile month.

For February as mentioned I need to refocus on recall as well as meditation. Tying in with that my gravity awareness practice suffered during the last half of the month so I need to start practising that again. Here's to a fantastic February!

I'd also like to hear your about your experiences with your new routine! Good luck Blair!

Little update: Things have been going pretty ok. Only 1 almost lucid since last time but my recall has been consistently good and improving, which is where a lot of my effort is going. I've been a little lax with RC's and gravity awareness but yeah. I started meditating a bit more again which has certainly helped. A major breakthrough I have had however is the realisation that not just gravity but also time is off in my dreams. In a lot of dreams but particularly video games/fantasy related ones I seem to redo the same scene multiple times to get it right, ie. I die on a level so I go back to the start and try again. I also sometimes am aware of what is going to happen in the future as if it has already happened. I will therefore start trying to incorporate reverse reality checks and things like that to try and catch out these moments of deja vu and redoing events. RL has been pretty stressful lately but I shall persevere and remain as focused as I can on LDing.

well if your going to be gravity based what about using the Jump Test

you jump if you float, fly, or fall too slowly your likely dreaming or in a vertical wind tunnel, or possibly you and grandpaw have had a bit too much fizzy lifting drinks (in which case you are also dreaming)

I suggest you think that you will fall to slowly, many a jump test has left me stranded mid air, causing me to FA or even wake up

an alternate method is just to pull your feet up like bend your knees but with you remaining inplace and just being off the ground
(less chance of being stuck in the air, I have developed a few tricks to get back to the ground too tho, like using a zooming effect to induce motion)

cool, my goals are simple: 1 lucid this year, record anything i remember each night into my DJ, and start a DJ on dreamviews.

Progress Report 2 Months In:
February was a bit of a tough month IRL, family and financial dramas and starting uni, but I've managed to not come out too badly on the other side haha. My actual lucidity practice has taken a bit of a hit however but it isn't too badly damaged I hope. So lets see how I did compared to my goals.

-Write in my dream journal every night, no matter how much or how little I remember
Happy to say I have continued this and wrote in my DJ every night. Even though I had minimal to no recall for about 4 days I still wrote stuff down those days. This diligence and hard work has payed off, with my average dreams per night shooting up to ~2.69 full dreams and ~0.75 fragments a night, up from last months averages by a bit more than half a full dream and a bit extra fragments a night, which is awesome. The quality and detail of the dreams I recall and the amount also seems more consistently good than last month. Hopefully I can continue to see this level of improvement in my dream recall in the future months.

-Post on Dreamviews every day
I'm not sure if I have posted on here everyday but I have done so pretty often and probably a bit more than last month, so although I can still improve I have done decently well.

-Meditate every day
Similar to last month, I have struggled to maintain a regular practice. I could give some excuses and shit but really it is just my laziness, so I have really got to step I up next month. I don't necessarily need to do formal seated meditation either, I can probably do little 5 minute mini meditations on the train and stuff. Adaptation is key hehe.

-For February at least 5 Lucids
Ehhh nope . My lucidity daytime practice has sort of fallen by the wayside a bit this month, again simply my own fault. Although I have gotten a lot more insight into my dreams from my increased recall, such as how time works differently, I haven't summoned up the energy to consistently put this knowledge into constructive practice. I know what I have to do to get back on track, now it is simply time to do it . I only had 1 semi lucid this month, so well short of my optimistic goal but hey, better than nothing right. This is the area I want to focus on the most in March.

So with university starting my life schedule will likely be thrown all about, but I really want to maintain my sleep and dreaming, so hopefully I will come back next month with some great news. Anywhoo,

So last night I was listening to music and thinking about a similar sounding album and the cover art for it, which features a guy floating over the edge of a cliff, when I suddenly comprehended that I could experience that same flight through becoming lucid. I had a huge rush of motivation and awareness, re-kickstarting my drive for lucidity. Although I didn't get lucid last night I had a huge night for recall, remembering 9 full dreams, which I think is my most ever. even through starting uni my average this month is now 3.42 per night, which is a huge jump and if I can keep it up I am very proud of. I think dream recall really comes down to simply being committed to reaching for recall every single awakening, even if you think you have nothing. A few nights recently I woke up thinking I hadn't had any dreams but persisted for a few minutes and discovered I had indeed had 3 or 4 dreams. Building the habit of dream recall through journaling and affirmation before bed has been super effective.
Now it is time to use my newfound motivation to get back into actual lucidity practice as well.

Mid-month (or thereabouts) update. Things have been going pretty well, recall has still been up, motivation still high. I have started doing a bit more lucidity practice but still need to increase that a bit. I am determined to meditate before going to bed for the next week, I know it works really well but laziness tends to get the better of me :/.

Progress Report 3 Months In: (Or, here we go again!)
It' that time again where I get to self flagellate and bore everyone to tears with statistics . Bust seriously, March was a pretty good month all in all. Lucidity itself didn't really come but I definitely feel a lot closer and there were a lot of close calls and missed opportunities which I haven't noticed before. Anyway lets jump into it.

-Write in my dream journal every night, no matter how much or how little I remember
I am very proud to say that not only did I write in my dream journal every single day, I also actually recalled dreams every single day. For the first time I have gone an entire month without a single day devoid of dreams, whereas 6 months ago I would have around a dream a week. Thanks to this and my huge spike of recall mid-month I ended up recalling 110(!!!) full dreams and 27 fragments this month, making an average of ~3.55 full dreams and ~0.88 fragments a night! This is an even bigger increase than from January to February, and if my recall kept up in the last week instead of dipping back down to about 2 a night I might have even hit an average of around 4. Considering all I do for recall is write in my dream journal every day and say to myself "I will remember all of my dreams tonight" before I go to bed this should be heartwarming to people struggling with recall that all it takes is consistency and effort. Even if I'm not getting lucid all that often I really enjoy my regular dreams after barely having any for most of my adolescence which continues to motivate me.

-Post on Dreamviews every day
Similar to last month, I haven't exactly kept a count or anything but most days I am posting something other than my DJ here. I have tried to help people out in a few help threads with my opinions and I hope to do more of that in the future. I sort of don't feel qualified for specific LD related help due to my low rates of lucidity thus far but with things like recall and motivation and stuff I'm sure I can contribute more.

-Meditate every day
Welllll at least I am consistently inconsistent . Every week or so I get a burst of motivation for meditation so I do it for 2 days but then I either simply forget or am too lazy and wind up not doing it. I don't know why my brain is like that considering when I actually do it the rest of my day improves, so I think I will have to do a little more reading on the subject and then set up a daily habit like with my DJ, hopefully with similar results!

-For Autumn (Australian) working up to optimistically at least 7 lucids a month
Nope. unfortunately lucidity has been a little lacking this month. I have definitely noticed later on more and more missed opportunities and instances where I could definitely become lucid but now I need to work on actually seizing those opportunities when they happen. I looked at my dreams this month and made a list of all the recurring elements that appear to try and find more relevant dream signs, I found that I often dream about uni, high school, whatever game I am playing at the moment and, most peculiarly, waterslides/theme parks. The first few are relatively easy to incorporate into reality checks but the latter is a little out there. I have also been doing RC's more regularly towards the end of the month which I hope to continue.

That's it for this month, here's to greater success and sweet dreams for April.

Progress Report 4: Getting sick of it yet? :p
Here we are once again, with pretty similar results as before :/. It isn't all doom and gloom though, so let's get cracking.

-Write in my dream journal every night, no matter how much or how little I remember
Once again I am proud to say that I both wrote in my dream journal for every day, but I also continued to recall at least one dream every night. In fact, apart from one shocker of a night with 1 fragment I think my lowest a night was like 2.5, which is pretty cool. This month has been a tale of two halves for me though. Up until about the 20th I was on fire, averaging around 6 dreams a night, however a lack of enthusiasm and sleep due to work since then has resulted in a significant drop in results. Overall for this month I averaged recalling ~4.57 dreams per night and ~1 fragment, which is still once again a massive improvement from last month. My goal was to get minimum over 4, realistically 4.5 and optimistically 5, so for most of the month I was ontrack to beat my highest expectation and exceed 150 dreams, which is pretty awesome. Now I just need to get back to that level of recall again.

-Post on Dreamviews every day
This has gotten better, yay. Spellbee's competition in particular has helped motivate me to come online every day and post in threads such as the competition as well as try to help people. I hope I can continue to improve on this.

-Meditate every day
Same old, same old. This month I even signed up to some meditation website but I promptly forgot about it. The start once again was better though, so overall this month I probably meditated around 8-10 times, so not terrible but not good either, I aim to double that to 20 times for May.

For Autumn (Australian) working up to optimistically at least 7 lucids a month
Unfortunately not much progress here. I did have a couple of semi lucids but nothing full blown, although particularly throughout the competition I noticed a whole bunch of false awakenings as well as missed opportunities. I really need to buckle down and focus on this aspect, after all remembering dreams is all well and good but you can't have "lucid dreaming" with only "dreaming". Hukif's gravity RC thread has also been helpful.

So overall a great month in some respects and a poor one in others, but all I can do is learn from this years experiences and continue to improve. See you hopefully sooner than next month.

Focusing on dreaming has been pretty difficult the past few weeks as the end of semester draws near, but I will have a 5 week holiday soon so I hope to get back into the swing of things then. In the meantime just gotta stick at it. A
Ps. About to hit both 3000 hall points and 3 years member, maybe I should give my name a glow to celebrate :p

Originally Posted by BlairBros

Focusing on dreaming has been pretty difficult the past few weeks as the end of semester draws near, but I will have a 5 week holiday soon so I hope to get back into the swing of things then. In the meantime just gotta stick at it. A
Ps. About to hit both 3000 hall points and 3 years member, maybe I should give my name a glow to celebrate :p

You remind me.of myself in a lucid dream sence.Iv known and been practiaing lucid dreaming for like 2 years maybe and i know alot about it but i just never seem to have as many as everyone else....probably one or 2 a month if im lucky.
My new goal iv been doing for the past 4 days is 2 10 min meditations a day and 2 10 min mantra meditations a day and a full body scan meditation before sleep and thats basically it.
Iv heard that meditation is the key to lucidity...the more aware you are in the day means the more aware you are in your dreams so iv decided to give up with reality checks ect and stay focused on meditation.....i hope after a month or so i should see some promising results =)

I also apologise if im wrong and your an experienced lucid dreamer that has lots of LDs =)

Haha no you are right I have over 3 years had probably 10-15 lucids, so yeah not adept at it just yet . Thanks for commenting, meditation I definitely a key practice and one I should be doing much more often.

Either today or tomorrow (timezones are confusing lol) it will be my three year anniversary since joining the site. I actually probably started lurking around 3 months before then but whatever, its been a wonderful three years, thanks for having me haha. In a couple of days I will post up my May update (preview: Ain't great) but I will be on holidays for the majority of June so I am determined to kick back my lucid dreaming overdrive. Here's to many more years of lucid dreaming!