The Story So Far
by
, 05-09-2016 at 11:14 AM (544 Views)
From writing a story where I dragged in a loose connection to lucid dreaming (about which I then knew zilch) to spending, considering my age, a lot of energy learning about (and self- conditioning for) lucid dreams, I finally achieved my first one in September 2013.
Looking through the childlike scrawl of my journals it's clear that my dreams in the first 2 years were longer, more substantial, and far more vivid (and I was often close to more potential LD's than the dozen or so I've actually achieved.) I can see from my entries that I monitored my eating habits, the moon cycles, approximate times, and any other data I thought might be useful.
Nowadays, dream recall is thin, the dreams are weird and lacking punch and Ld's are even rarer than in the early times. So, have I got too old to dream? (if you'll pardon the musical pun) Personally, I don't think so.
My brain is generally good. I have problems recalling names on quizzes (but I've always been like that to a certain degree) But I'm still red hot on general knowledge (except sport, don't ask me about sport) I definitely eat the right things, plenty of fruit, chick peas, shellfish, loads of the right veg, etc etc. Supplements like melatonin, choline, B6 have never worked for me. I've taken choline before retiring, then topped-up with a melatonin tab before WBTB and slept for 8 hours plus and still not even got close to an LD.
I think I could get back to the old days if I worked as hard at it as I did before but I don't want that. I've done it, bought the t shirt, dreamed the dream, wakened in the dream, fell out of the dream, failed to get back into the dream and now I have other priorities. I've branched out into so many side issues and interests, McKenna, Adyashanti, Sam Harris, DMT, psilocybes, meditation, awareness, the brain (and I know that's going to be the tip of the iceberg in years to come.)
I will never abandon all attempts at LD. I'm always looking for shortcuts. I instinctively know that they exist. There's probably a magic combination of set, setting, and helpers. Maybe it's VR. Maybe it's VR plus helpers (I've always felt that intensive game-playing has somehow altered my perception)
Further confirmation last night that you can dream about LD issues without necessarily LDing. I had a dream where I was packing away a bedroll on a campsite and the bedroll disappeared. I explained to my wife that things disappearing was one of my strongest dream signs.
So, on the LD front things can only get better. If they do I'll likely tell you about it here. There may be quite a gap...there may not. If there's a very long gap it may well be that I've died, although you'll never know if I have...unless I find a way...