I Need Help In Attaining Lucidity

[NightShade101]

Okay, firstly, I have pretty good dream recall. I can usually recall about two dreams per night. My problem is pretty classical: I know when I've been dreaming AFTER I've already been dreaming, but during the dream I have no idea no matter how bizarre the dream is. Thus, I have no chance to attain any sort of lucidity. I've tried the MILD technique and I simply fall asleep while I'm attempting it and start dreaming again -- without lucidity. Not surprisingly, then, my attempts at controlling the contents of my dream have been unsuccessful as well; for example, I'm a reader of Lovecraft so I attempted to concentrate on his fictional town of Dunwich, hoping that I might induce a dream set therein. Strangely enough, even though this failed, I did end up dreaming about a song with lyrics that mentioned a character in Dunwich! The same thing happened last night; when I once again tried to imagine myself in a dark, foggy forest I ended up dreaming about a special edition of Psycho! I will be really grateful if someone can help me learn how to become lucid in my dreams. I am a heavy sleeper, so alarm clocks absolutely don't worok with me no matter how loud they are (they usually end up waking everyone else in the house EXCEPT me, even when placed next to my pillow&#33.

[hellopotato]

hey, i had the same scenario as you did. i would just..not become lucid. pretty annoying. then i started reality checking. all the time. like when you look at your hands or w/e you have to believe that you are dreaming. do that a LOT in the day.. when you go to sleep, your subconcious makes you do one in a dream. i hope this helps. please, PM me if you have further questions. good luck to you!

[RetepNamenots]

Have you tried the WILD method? I haven't really been able to get anything to work, WILDing is the closest I've got (I've got to hypnogic imagery, vibrations) but then lost it :/ As for the alarm clock thing, try telling yourself that you will get up at a certain time, and there is a good chance that you will. I told myself, for the first time last night, that I would wake up at 5AM. And lo and behold, I woke up at 5:20

[Spoof]

I agree with hellopotato. Doing a lot of reality checks during the day can definately help to get lucid during the night. I myself have now started to do them whenever I think that anything is odd at all. I just started doing that yesterday. Also, I have tried to be more aware during the day. I look around everywhere to see if anything at all is dream-like, and if it is I do a reality check. When you fall asleep, it would also help if the last thing in your mind is lucid dreaming and the thought that the next time you see something, it will probably be a dream Good Luck!

[NightShade101]

Thanks, guys! I'll let you all know whether these suggestions help me tonight -- if not, I'll post again on this board.

[zypher0550]

All I can do is tell you what I did. When I first started I did a few things. Mostly alot of reality checks during the day. When I looked in the mirror, took a drink, anything that I did often that might happen in a dream. I also began meditating. I had tried it before, but I started doing it regularly once I started LDing. I don't know if you've had a lucid dream before, and just have trouble getting another one or if you haven't had one yet. But once you have one, before you go to sleep at night, concentrate of the feeling you have during a lucid dream. The feeling that lets you know you aren't in the real world. I'd describe it as a euphoric numbness, but you won't know what I mean if you haven't had one. Anyway now I mostly DILD, but that's why I don't have alot of LDs, because I kind of stopped trying. Hope that helps.

[NightShade101]

Thanks a lot for the advice, zypher -- I'm definitely going to try your suggestions out. I tried WILD last night and was sorely frustrated; I never reached the stage where one is supposed to see flashing lights or feel vibrations. I just fell asleep. No matter how hard I tried to keep my mind awake, it simply didn't work. Perhaps WILD is just not the strategy I should employ when trying to obtain a lucid dream.

[NightShade101]

Will someone please show me how to avoid falling asleep while attempting WILD?

[hellopotato]

hey there, just got the PM i am having this same problem myself. i believe you have to actually get out of bed, maybe walk around or go to the bathroom, or drink some water. billybob001 even goes as far as to suggest sexual arousal. when you get up, do some math or something so that the logical part of your brain wakes up. then go back to bed using the counting technique. hope this helps, good luck to you!

[NightShade101]

Thanks a lot for the advice! How do you do the counting sequence?

[QwinsepiaSquared]

I'm pretty sure you just relax, and start counting in your head. 1...2...3...4...5...6...etc. Eventually you get to the point where you continuously mess up, and you know that you're almost dreaming! WILD is a hard technique to learn, especially for a beginner, so be sure to try some other techniques if it doesn't improve at all after a couple of weeks.

[hellopotato]

not quite. first you inhale and say 1, then exhale and say "i'm dreaming". i did this until i got to 300. then i felt this GIGANTIC jolt and i opened my eyes. i was in my dream room. i RCed and was able to breathe through my nose even though it was plugged.

[NightShade101]

I'm starting to really worry that I might be one of those people who can't LD. I tried your suggestions when I awoke in the morning, but this time I was TOO awake to fall asleep properly again! If only I had been able to wake up in the middle of the night...but I sleep so deeply that alarm clocks don't work for me. I did have a dream last night, but once again was unable to become lucid in it (even though I've been trying to become more regular in my reality checking). What do you think I should do to improve my chances of lucid dreaming? (Or is it a hopeless case?)

[hellopotato]

definitely not hopeless. do you keep a dream journal?

[NightShade101]

I sure do -- I've been keeping it pretty religiously these last few days since I've become interested in attaining lucidity. Unfortunately, it usually just serves to remind me how no matter how insane my dreams are, I still never remember to reality check during one of them!

[person-person]

Hey QwinsepiaSquared, You might have the answer to the question I have. When I am trying to WILD I count up to around 100 but from then on, it becomes very hard to keep track and my mind keeps wondering. Here's an example: Say im at 153 then 154 then 155 then 86 then 87 then i realise, "wait a moment, im sure i got to at least 140!", so i start form there again, then 141 till say 160, then its back to 120 or something. So that's kinda normal, because my mind tends to wander and i lose track of were im up to. To NightShade, you need to develope a good recall and have at least a couple of weeks worth of dreams recoreded to have a decent effect id say. Look for dreamsigns. By the way, iv only had about 5 ld, low ones at that.