LukeSid

I was standing in a lake, close to the bank and I dropped my clasp knife into the water. I trawled my fingers along the bottom of the lake and located a knife...but it wasn't mine (it was handsomely marked and clearly better than mine) I trawled again and found another one...which was differently configured but with the same handsome markings.

After finally locating mine, I apparently noticed a number of freshwater fishing items close together on the bank and I apparently assumed that an angler had put the items down to mark his fishing-place...so, being the basically honest person that I am, I assumed the knives might have belonged to him and had somehow slipped off the bank, so I added them to the pile.

Cut to a group of (anglers) who were on the bank and the knives had gone...and I now apparently decided that the knives maybe weren't the property of whoever had marked that area and they would have been "finder-keepers," and I'd lost out.

So I started interrogating the group and one individual started waffling on about something (as DC's apparently often do?) So much for my initial high moral action...I ended up being slightly spiteful that I'd apparently missed out on some fine booty. Hold on...it was just a dream. Why am I feeling guilty? I'm not any kind of freshwater fisherman, so I don't know where that came from...I do know that Ed, my brain, seems to be playing me like a fish.

Yesterday,I had made up an ADA list, based just on mundane personal things that basically should occur in all my dreams. Sensations...of feet, clothing, wind in hair, muscle effects, gravity, notice people's faces, sensations of touch, how it feels to lie in bed etc

I noticed the "waffling" DC's face in detail. The teeth were white and small, with big gaps between them. The feeling of the water as my fingers trawled through it. Another one I must add is the fact that the water wasn't at all cold...no sensation of temperature at all.

Of course, all this is useless if the "awareness" of dreamlike quality doesn't happen.Also, rather than highlighting the "unreality" of dreams, changes like this seem to make the dreams more vivid ...perhaps that in itself is a good signpost to ultimate lucidity.

But I've now got a more focussed list I can concentrate on rather than the more demanding "notice everything" of general ADA.

We'll see...

Watched the Perseids outside last night but Ed is clearly not an astronomy buff...unless he's busy somewhere, working on a new masterpiece, full of CGI, woolly monsters and hot dancing girls..........

Ed's downtime i think...although I skipped coffee during the mid-way wakeup just to see what would happen, so we'll see what tomorrow brings if I have a coffee.

6.00 AM Grabbed a dreamlet, tagged it and went back to sleep

7.20 Grabbed a dreamlet, tagged it...and immediately forgot the other tag. That's the 2nd time I've done that...there's NO substitute for writing, at least the tags down immediately. This dream involved an run-down outhouse running alive with insects, rats and three very strange looking sheep.

I tidied my shed yesterday but Ed, as usual, over-egged the pudding by a factor of at least a 1000% If he ever became a film-director he'd be no David Lean...more Ed Wood (hey! how appropriate is that?)

I'm on a roll at the moment...3 productive dream nights in a row (albeit without a whisper of lucidity yet) I've noticed that the trend these past few weeks has been 2 or 3 barren nights, then 2 or 3 with at least a couple of dreams...maybe Ed needs to rest for a while after a busy schedule?

Lately, I'm sometimes having problems getting to sleep immediately (and I try to aim at midnight as the launch point) I started my bedroom wind-down at 11.00 PM and I was still awake at 12.30 AM, so I took one KALM (Valerian) It worked and I probably went off at 12.45-ish (I reset my "two sleeps" wake time as 5.00 AM, to compensate)

At various times I've taken choline, Valerian and B6 in moderate doses. I can't say I've ever really noticed any benefit and my first captured dream tonight was (like last night) at the top of night. Maybe oldies like me need bigger doses but I'm in no rush to put that to the test.

7.10 AM In a general store in India looking at things...at some stage I'm in another store and I start singing "Unchained Melody"??? (quite impressively, as you'd maybe expect in a dream) But, although I actually have quite a good singing range I refrained from singing the last note (even in a dream I wasn't going to risk it!)
Another first? ...as far as I recall, this is the first time that a dream was a direct result of things that happened during the day.

In India because during my 5.00 AM wakeup I watched a short documentary on BBC news about the history of the Indian movie industry (including "BollyWood") "Unchained Melody" because I debated during the day whether to post the Righteous Bros version onto the forum...I think I will now, as a sop to Ed.

I know it's recommended that we study dream-related things during that time...and I can now see how that would be an advantage. I think I'll experiment and rotate between dream-related and other things, to see what happens. I now always have a small coffee, with perhaps better effect than the other "aids"

8.40 AM... Ed-B-de-Mille excelled himself (or is it really the 2 aliens?) It was about war-games in Tehran. Despite the realities, the World powers (with the apparent co-operation of Iran????) were staging war games and fireworks were let off atop various high buildings to simulate aircraft attacks...the local population cheering the spectacle. Western officers (they all seemed female - Ed!) were going to some sort of briefing inside one building.

I make light of it but, obviously I'm aware that there's a deadline (Spring 2014) that the Iranian government has to meet and this dream obviously reflects that, in its bizarre way...let's hope it's just a silly dream.

Progress lately seem to reflect comments I make on here...the blandness of earlier dreams, the presence of females, using more topical material...all seem to provoke a response. So, apart from the log of dreams, the journals maybe help to condition the brain much more rather than merely sitting down and "talking" to it (which has never really worked for me)

Part of the reason for my difficulty getting off last night was the sudden realisation that I've been missing a glaring dream sign that's been staring me in the face ever since I started a journal (a few weeks before I even started to post it on here) My bed...

I checked through and counted 5 dreams involving me in bed (2 during this last week) Also 3 involving a "bath" (which I had assumed reflected the fact that we only have a shower and I like to relax in a bath) I now think that 3 of those dreams were intended to depict a bed...why would a bath have cushions or other debris in it? One bath had a "stain" at the end which I now think were supposed to be pillows (+ one "swimming pool" - also filled with "debris")

One final dream actually involved someone clearly filling a bath for me (the bandaged hands dream) Perhaps the brain has now split the schema into two..."bath" and "bed" scenarios If I don't eventually react to the "bed" dream sign I may well shoot myself ...only in a dream of course...Ed?...over to you...

3.35 AM I awoke remembered a dream and went to get up and record it and twang!...almost like a fine elastic band breaking the dream recall vanished from my mind.I lay there for 5 minutes but could not bring it back. I can only assume that I hadn't fixed it firmly enough...or was it some weird sort of false awakening? Strange

Yesterday, I mocked the blandness of the dream-content that Ed, my brain throws together. Tonight I got, by my standards, a far-Eastern mini-epic.

06.45 AM I'm in overalls (DS) and how somehow got extremely dirty and somehow unable to wash??? I'm trying to sleep and there's some sort of hatchway, through which I can see some glass retorts, with green liquid bubbling away in them. I get the impression this involves drugs.

Through the hatchway, I see an old ugly Asian woman enter the other room. She moves erratically across the room, getting closer and closer to me, but not seeing me. When she does, she is clearly startled and I make a face at her.

My next recollection is of a young blond European man who bursts into my room with a weapon? (DS) He's clearly aggressive (DS) and threatening me and I say something like "Whatever's going on in there is none of my business" and I think I'm also now getting aggressive. He seems to calm down but I make it clear that I'm angry about being threatened and I tell him so quite bluntly.

Not exactly "The Expendables" but hair-raising by my normal dream-outage

Later, I had a dream-let about another Asian woman who was apparently some sort of minor celeb-groupie. She was complaining to (police?) about "Len Fairclough" (an old Brit TV soap character) who had maybe assaulted her. Later she called him "Len Carefluff" and she picked up on her mistake and repeated it wonderingly

Why? I neither know nor care about soap characters Why did my brain trot out that piece of garbage? Two Asian women, one old and ugly...the other plain. Is my brain throttling back on the recent run of beauties? I sometimes have a paranoid gut-feeling that we are indeed all part of a "Matrix" scenario and maybe 2 alien technicians called Gog and Zarg are playing mind-games with me (I'll never forget the bandaged hands)

I noticed the celeb-loving Asian had something like a bloodstain under her nose. I looked again and noticed other blemishes on it (I've never looked that closely at anything before...and never twice) Did I spot discrepancies? No I did not. Did Gog and Zarg hurriedly flick the "befuddlement" switch to throw me off the track? I like to think so...

PS I remember thinking the green liquid was "Crystal-Meth" I've just Wiki'd and that is usually white, but yellow when impure so wrong there Ed.

I'm joining our ancestors and going back to "two sleeps" BBC News - The myth of the eight-hour sleep

I set my alarm for 04.00 AM and rose last night. I think I possibly missed 2 dreams last night...my obedient brain woke me and I lay in a stupor and didn't search. Wake up! No...sorry...wake up enough to get the dream please...

3.30 AM dream (so 4.00 am alarm probably a good halfway-point) I was with a dentist, who had apparently accompanied me home to get something (teeth????) When we went back out I'd forgotten to pick (whatever) up but he had remembered and had it with him. You all think you're great with your flying etc, but nothing beats the thrill of your dentist going to your house to collect....(something)

6.15 AM At an earlier house we had. People coming round canvassing and our front path full of pots of white flowers and some sort of cards pinned to our front door. I went out - I had red hair (was it a 3rd person dream?) and half-way down the road I discovered I was wearing fashionable ladies shoes (I'm not gay or tranny and I'm 6' 5" and have size 13 feet)

So there you have it...a friendly dentist and me camping it up. However, I discovered it's my mother's birthday on Monday (I only remember the wife's - I swear to you) I doubt the supernatural aspect of the flowers etc...I personally think that my memory-banks may be a trifle blocked but the data is still in there and accessible to Ed my brain (in his own unconscious over-the-top way)

"Aw...how sweet...he remembered!"...it's a good job someone did. Although the wife did of course, when I woke up and told her (where would we be without them?) PS I can sometimes tell the wife about dreams now, without the facial-shutters going down

Still creeping forward...I think

Afterthought. In dream 2 - As I dollied down the street in my girlie-shoes I passed a babe..she was sexy and she was "Showing out" as we Brits say. Surely that's not Ed my brain responding to my grateful comments about the sexual favour on my last Dream Journal post? No! Surely not! I'll know if that ever becomes a regular dream sign (and it wouldn't have taken much "conditioning" to fix itself in my dreams would it?)

A slight sexual encounter last night. I don't get many of those so thanks very much brain, much appreciated...please call again soon...shall I make that a dream sign?

Working at ADA. I personally think I’m already fairly aware of my effect on the environment etc. I’m very conscious of the wild-life that inhabits my garden…love the bees on the lavender and the birds like our cat-free garden.

We recycle and avoid waste wherever possible. I have a good knowledge of how the Universe functions and I have a naturally inquiring mind…to the annoyance of my grandchildren as I ramble on about life’s great mysteries. So I’m concentrating on things like breathing and feet-in-shoes awareness and maintaining the increased vividness that the ADA sessions have over a distracted awareness.

Dream 1 - In a warehouse (major DS) cleverly avoiding revealing my presence to a fork-truck driver. I'm hiding and listening to him talk to another worker. Later (same dream? ...not sure) I find a small metal container with what seems to be fermenting wine. I look for a glass and spot a strange drink-dispensing contraption on a wall…and assume it’s left over from a wedding???????

A lot of current dreams seem to take happen in fairly gloomy places…maybe that saves on brain cells... and why was I hiding? Is that how my brain interprets my dream sign that I'm retired and don't work any more, so it knows I shouldn't be there so it better hide me???? Is it thick or what?

Dream 2 My mother appears at my bedroom door…although it’s at the wrong end of my bed. She’s wearing an uncharacteristically bright blue coat and she smiles wryly when I tell her about my LD attempts. (we’ve all been there) At some stage I must have been thrashing around in bed because I manage to kick her. She tucks me in.

My mother died eight years ago. It’s the first time I’ve knowingly dreamt of her. But I’ve only been dream-aware for a few months so I might have dreamt of her many times before.How’s that for a big, big dream sign? (which I’ve now added to the list)

The dream-signs are rotating with depressing regularity…a sign of my current fairly mundane existence (not much new material you see) But, I’m hoping that will change during the next couple of years as plans are afoot.

Still trying…

3 dreamless nights since stopping the choline, but now they're back so I didn't really need it. I eat the top five things that are apparently good for melatonin so there's no diet problems. But no lucidity yet.

A dream... I was in what vaguely looked like a former workplace and a female manager (apparently) asked me if I worked at that particular section. I think I was loafing about and I guiltily said yes and she asked me what the work involved. Caught out.

But, hold on...workplaces are a massive dream sign for me and she asked me what I did...and I don't do anything because I'm retired and that's the whole point of the dream sign. So she (or my brain) was prompting me and I still didn't put two and two together and realise I was in a dream.

Later (or maybe in another dream) I was in a clubhouse, where a private function was running and I asked the bride/hostess/birthday girl who did the catering. She said the resident chef did...and he appeared and the whole thing was another massive dream sign

So..after weeks of conditioning I still don't react. I can dream (sometimes quite vividly) I can talk to DC's. The dreams are loaded with signs so ???????

I also now WILD again in the afternoon. I'm comfy. I've now taken to using a really good gentle background tune that loops every 20 minutes and blots out traffic noises etc.. I get SP signs , rushes (though not as fierce as before) and the gentle little snores, that signal that I'm on the threshold...and these are backed-up by the quiet music that confirms that I haven't completely dropped off to sleep. Eventually I create a gentle dream mantra of my own "sun, sky cloud, sea, blue, water beach, sand" ...but no dream.

I may switch to All Day Awareness for a few days...gradually increasing the length of the sessions.

06.05 am I was in a kind of railway station, trying to go down stairs/an escalator? It was blocked by some sort of production company who were apparently promoting a product (I think it was for chocolate ...which I had consumed a fair amount of during the evening)

Being the Victor Meldrew character I am, I challenged them "Why are you blocking the stairs? Can't you see that you're alienating the very people you're trying to sell to?" The guy in charge didn't look happy and I took a straw poll of the commuters and a few put their hands up (but they're all only timid DC's of course)

I don't know if lucid dreams are as disjointed, but I noticed the queue had diminished and the "blockage" had disappeared They must have been stairs and I was suddenly out in the street and not knowing where to go ( maybe my brain had avoided an escalator because it was too difficult to create...although I might have found "Dream Sign" or "Reality Check" notices on the way down, as per my "cunning plan"...as if!)

I asked directions of what (vaguely) appeared to be a passing US soldier in mufti. He was apparently about to chat up 2 male DC's and seemed annoyed by my badly-timed question. He said something like "I could tell you but I won't and I hope you miss your train." (charming!) I said something like "Why, you bastard!" and he seemed to blossom into a fully-equipped soldier complete with weapon (although, thankfully, he moved away)

No lucidity then. But I questioned the contents of a dream within the dream...and I spoke to a DC who seemed quite articulate? Where else but trying for LD would I get to see some of the wonderful absurdities that occur to us all during the night-time? Wonderful stuff...

Unfortunately, I tried to implement my cunning plan too soon after my (apparent) success with training my brain to wake me up after every dream. I think I overloaded it and, last night, it kept me firmly and dreamlessly asleep till 7.30 am this morning


Sorry brain...I should have let the wake-up routine become more of a habit first...

It looks like I've solved that problem.I used to strongly will myself to wake up...now I'm more softly-softly. I visualise the end of a dream and the SP switching-off, just leaving the slight muscle tremors and what I call “twitchy” eyeballs

“Then I will wake, not move, not turn over, keep my eyes shut and remember the dream” …and it seems to work well. But for a couple of glitches I might have hit the end of every dream period last night (one thing I've learnt is the dream-business is full of glitches)

01.15 am (surprisingly early for the first period) I probably went off at aprox 12.10 am so the dream must have been in the NREM period (my earliest logged time before this was 01.40 am) It was definitely a very clear dream because I remember the full details.

04.15 am woke, remembered the dream and sat up to write it down…and found an entry marked “2.05 am Dream sign???”. I think I sat up to record the dream and somehow lost it and lay down again to remember…and fell asleep. I won’t do that again.

Then I hit a wall…I couldn't get back to sleep properly. I lay there till nearly 6.00am then got up for an hour to WBTB and also had a small coffee. I went off again fairly easily.

I woke up and remembered a dream and tried using TAGS again and it worked…except I've forgotten the time (I'm not good with remembering figures) I need to perhaps visualize a clock face Then I hit my main “wall” leg-pains, after a few hours in bed. I think I need to WBTB again…just to get the circulation going again

So...4 good wake-ups…and close to the dreams themselves, because I felt the after-effects in each case. But the usual problem with missed dream signs…particularly the 01.15 dream. Now I seemed to have mastered the “wake-up” instruction I can now see that dreams can be in NREM periods…and I think I'll try and “visualise” myself into recognizing dream signs.

I tried Laberge's "An Hour of Wakefulness Before Morning Naps Makes Lucidity More Likely" and I think I got better quality dreams...but no lucidity yet. Laberge maintains that the brain doesn't "direct" dream scenes...merely throws in a schema..well I'm not so sure.

One dream, where I tentatively approached the white door of a surgery, fearing the worst for what I might find inside...and finding dead medical personnel on the floor around a bed only lacked Hitchcock's screeching soundtrack to the Psycho shower scene...well produced, a decent build-up and a pay-off.

Except, of course, it 's one of my main "trigger" dream signs and I reacted not a bit...maybe I was too busy admiring the direction...just enjoying the movie in other words...

My brain must be laughing its little temporal lobes off, as I stumble unwittingly through its dream scenes littered with clues. I try firing myself up for 2+ hours before sleep, running endlessly through mantras, dream signs etc (and visualising, not just mouthing the words) The main result is that it takes longer for me to fall asleep (still muttering)

But...one day I will be lucid...ever onwards

Still having dreams awash with dream signs (I've stopped caring about it...at least they're there when my mind finally comes to its senses.) Perhaps it's the choline but DC's have been noticeably more communicative to me. I don't have dark dreams normally (I only recall one since I started the journal) But DC's seem to have been far more remote before.

Yesterday I had quite an animated conversation (apparently) with a colleague and we parted with a hug and last night I had a conversation with my boss? and a fully- recognisable former colleague (normally, they are vaguely like someone I knew)

"Alan says you're Laberf" he said and he seemed impressed (Laberge?????) I was being modest and saying it wasn't due to anything particular on my part. Whatever that crap meant, there's definitely more communication going on. I hope it's not the choline...I don't want to be dependant on those (apart from the price, they smell awful!...like slightly dead fish)

Lucidity aside, I'm learning a lot about the mind and the brain. The unconscious is not just a "dream-helper" (or maybe "hinderer" in my case) It's working away, day and night, with quite a heavy workload. If the conscious and unconscious were painters the unconscious would be an impressionist...working vast canvasses with bold sweeping colours, but not too much fine detail (hence the dream distortions)

It's kept us alive as the major "fight or flight" organiser while the fussy conscious would just be thinking about it (a bit like Obama) The conscious would be a detailed portrait painter, dabbing away at a canvass whilst the unconscious had knocked out two or three, made some coffee, tidied up a bit and checked the mail. Who'd have thought? Give me the unconscious any time.

Ever onwards

I was never going to be one of those "hit the ground running" LD'ers but I've seen enough here to guess that there are probably more baby-steppers like me than there are wunderkind ...people who can instantly fly at a whim

I can now spontaneously wake 3 maybe 4 times a night, usually not spring up and often gather in a few dreams. I am gradually finding my natural REM times. I discovered this The REM cycle, combining rules, and age. [Sleep. 1982] - PubMed - NCBI

Despite its jargon I take it to mean that old males have half the number of REM cycles but twice the REM period length. That explains why my plotting of dreams seems to spread across the night rather than clumped in 5 or more "sweet spots" Interesting.

I'm still succumbing to WBTB + WILD attempts for my (perceived) REM window of 5.30 am but the hot weather here (yes we occasionally have some) is hampering my attempts...even with a fan. The "rushes" have notably diminished at the moment, so I really must lay off WILD's for a while and concentrate on the other methods

I've taken 2 tabs of super-choline (choline+pantothenic acid) two nights running. There may have been a slight improvement in intensity of dreams but certainly not worth mentioning really...I'll try it for a while longer.

Still trying to make sense of my strange dream of 13/7/13...it could be caused by the choline or it might mean that I'm closer to one night picking up on one of the dream signs. So...I'm not disheartened. Slow but steady improvement on waking after a dream...discovering that maybe my REM periods may be spread out further across the night than youngster's dream periods (one up for the oldies perhaps) Sensing that my brain needs time to adapt (maybe with a little help from my friends)

Ever onward!