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I'm a guy sitting at the counter in a bar. I'm here a lot, I live nearby, maybe in the same building. I'm talking with a younger woman who's sitting to my right - brown ponytail, in her 20s maybe, someone I rely on. I say to her, "You weren't there (meaning Hell), but you know I was there. That's comforting to someone who (don't remember the exact wording for this next bit, but it amounts to trying to stay out of the nuthouse. Implication being that otherwise he'd start doubting his sanity, think his past was a delusion.)" She cuts me off by kissing me. It's a first, it takes me completely off guard.

Over her shoulder, I see my wife (widow, rather - his wife from before he'd died) sitting a few stools down with her boyfriend or fiance or whatever he is. She doesn't know me - or rather, she 'knows' me, casually, as the false identity I've been using since I came back from Hell; she doesn't realize who I was before I died, to most people I look like a completely different person. But even without knowing me, she's looking at us now and looking disgusted. She and the guy she's with get up and leave.

I figured I was drop by and give an update. I found that I just can't focus on LDing because I become sleep deprived which leads to other issues. I LOVE LDing and wish I could find a solution to this problem.

The issue: When I wake up after a dream and spend a little time trying to remember it, I have major issues falling back to sleep. If this happens a few times per night I can end up with 4-6 hrs of broken sleep which isn't good.

So I don't intend to use this journal for all my dreams but I wanted to start using it at least for the most memorable ones or for side notes about my progress so I can keep track of it and see how I'm improving.


Some stuff about my experiences, I had first heard about lucid dreaming maybe 5 years ago but got really interested in it and started practicing it probably about 3 years ago. In that time I've taken long breaks from it and not had much progress, maybe about 10 short lucid dreams total. About 8 months ago I planned to get back into it with full force, and to truly motivate myself I started working on developing a dream journal app for my phone since there weren't any good ones available (Windows phone). I finally finished it a few months ago and it's the first app that I've ever made, I had some programming experience but still had to learn a lot in order to make it, but I think it turned out pretty well and I'm really proud of it!

Anyway, after I finished it I decided to finally begin working with LDing again and to start things off I began working on my recall by using my new app and exercising my memory during the day. Unfortunately at the time I was quite an avid pot smoker and I think I hindered myself a bit much early on by smoking too much and not being able to remember my dreams at night. I've pretty much quit by now but still smoke maybe once every couple weeks. After about a month of recall practice I started meditating and doing ADA by paying attention to my surroundings and my senses and throwing in a few reality checks every so often. This combined with cutting back on smoking really made my recall improve a ton, from barely any dreams at all to multiple a night. I had maybe a couple lucid dreams during this time but it felt almost like it wasn't really lucidity but just dreaming about lucidity and still going on autopilot in the dreams, so I decided to research on the forums and rework my technique.

What I'm starting to do now is basically trying to maintain a present moment self-awareness/mindfulness and critical thinking about what I'm doing and thinking during the day. I decided that I don't much care for the usual physical reality checks like the nose pinch or finger through the palm because I feel like I could be self-conscious about looking strange around people and be less likely to do them as fully as I should. So what I do instead is when I see my common dream signs, when I'm not being self-aware, or just at random times throughout the day I'll become aware of myself and where I am, think about what I was just doing and what I'm about to do, then really ask myself if everything makes sense. Sometimes if I feel comfortable with it I will look at my hands or do a nose pinch to be sure. What this has done for my dreams already has made them feel like I'm really in the moment in my dreams and more aware of my actions, like I'm actually there instead of it just feeling like I'm watching the events play out on auto-pilot and then waking up to random memories that don't feel like mine.

Also during the day and especially before bed I'll be practicing some Lucid Daydreaming, where I will daydream my most recent or vivid non-lucid dreams, and visualize them again as best I can to change the events so that I become lucid in them at certain moments and act out what I would do when becoming lucid, reminding myself that I'm dreaming while visualizing. I sometimes do it when I catch myself daydreaming other stuff too, or at least just remind myself that I was visualizing and bring myself back to the present moment and go through my mental reality check. I think this practice will have a double effect on lucidity because I will be more conscious of visualizing which should transfer to better recognizing dreaming since they are vivid visualizations and also I will be practicing getting lucid from dream signs, going through proper steps to stay in the dream, and doing my intended tasks. It probably also helps that I am using my recent dreams and changing events in them so that I switch them from being non-lucid to lucid. So far from doing this practice for the past week I've had a couple moments in my dreams where I will be thinking of a previous part of a dream and recognizing that it was a dream, once almost obtaining lucidity because it made me stop to think about it. I think this shows that my brain is beginning to realize the difference between dreaming and reality.

Anyway, I guess that's enough typing for now. I just wanted to get that out there and start a journal so I can track my progress along the way, I think I've got a good system figured out and want to start my baseline here. I'll keep working with my current practices and see how things go for the next few weeks.



Edit: So I just noticed Naiya's MILD tutorial from someone commenting on it and see that it's pretty much exactly what I'm doing with the daydreaming practice, so that is a good sign that it will be helpful!

This is a non-lucid dream I had tonight, but it boosted my motivation.

I was at my house, sitting on a couch, reading some newspapers. Some articles published in them caught my attention. Each paper had an article which talked about studies that have been done about lucid dreaming. They all came to the conclusion that people who have lucid dreams often, see their intellectual habilities enhanced, while also being happier than people who don't have them. This was supposedly due to the fact that lucid dreamers have a higher level of awareness and self-awareness in their daily lives and this seemed to create new neurological pathways in the central nervous system. Interesting.

In the dream I was glad such things were being published because maybe it would encourage other people to take the journey, but deep down I knew mostly everyone wouldn't pay much attention to it.

I have heard lucid dreamers say they feel more intellectually capable since being into it, but I don't know this for myself. What I have felt though is that I more easily feel happier because of it. By making lucid dreaming a background thought in my mind, I always feel I'm making steps forward to better myself, so to speak. And as for the neurological pathways thing... I don't really know where I've got the idea from, maybe I read it somewhere but I don't remember. But casually, I'm studying the nervous system in a Physiology subject at uni, no perhaps it's not so much of a coincidence.

drempt that i was in this small office buildingn afater hours with liz. she turned to kiss me really fast. it was natural we both went for it. she was strange to kiss i guess you could say or at least it felt weird.. her lips were sooo idk just hard to get the tounge in but i still felt good. anyway we layed down right on the ground and i dont know if i stuck it in or not but i came really fast but it was like so much cum al over her body. then she sucked my dick for a while and got all the cumm off

earlier in the dream i was hosting an aa meeting/party at my house. i had my house and then somehow my grandmas house next store was an option...there was a rope swing that let to people hang on and spin really fast.

i saw nick g there with lots of other random people

/5/14/14

last night bed after midnight - 7:10am

Everytime I woke up, I knew I dreamt about DV. Members, posts,... No recall of anything specific.

took b6 and valerian root, woke up several times, only recall dream before i woke up just now

sitcom like dream with 2 kids. setting is a large open kitchen with light orange/yellow wood and fluorescent light behind translucent white panels and plenty of daylight. one kid is expecting the other to come in and pour some milk. he and his female friend are already drinking milk. it seems like he expects the other kid to pour the remainder of the milk from a glass measuring cup into his glass cup only to realize that there is too much and his cup is overflowing. but when he goes to pour it, the first kid pulls away the now glass jar of milk with a string that is attached to his hand while he sits across from the table.

I wake

LUCID
*I became lucid while riding in the passenger seat of a this SUV. In the parking lot of a wendys I willed the SUV on the road. I felt I had full control to steer in any direction I wished. When I got on the road I made the car float up to the level right about the trees. I was beautiful! I had a vast view of all the houses while sitting back and enjoying the ride. Since I was in a familiar place I attempted to point out differences and similarities in the environment. It's rare that I just sit back and enjoy the ride in a lucid dream!

I managed to hit another Task of the Year item! This one's from the morning of 5/11/2014.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #209: Aladdin

I’m standing on a long stone pathway that cuts through the middle of a vast lake. People pass by me on either side, and as I watch them go, I think about my intent to have a lucid dream. It quickly dawns on me that one has just begun.

I look out over the lake,.seeing numerous Greek-styled marble columns sticking up out of the water. I take flight to get a better view of the water and it’s just as striking from higher up. I go up and up, preparing for some peaceful exploration, but I accidentally cut through some low cloud cover and lose sight of the lake. A flock of birds crosses in front of me and for no discernible reason, the frame rate of the dream briefly dips. I’m briefly amused that my brain seemed to have had trouble with that relatively simple scene.

I head back down through the cloud cover, regaining sight of the lake. I fly lower, studying DCs as I go. All of the flight finally reminds me of the Aladdin Task of the Year, and I land, mentally gathering the details of what I’m supposed to do.

First, summon that lamp. I try several behind the back summons, but I keep botching them. This is annoying me a bit, but I finally manage to get the sense of an object in my hand even though I can’t see it. I wiggle my fingers a bit like a magician and the lamp “paints” itself in from top to bottom as I watch.

I make my wish for a magic carpet, and immediately one scoops me up from underneath. I remember my first attempt at this task and again ask the lamp for a “delicious cookie”. Right away a cookie appears in my left hand and I don’t hesitate before cramming it in my mouth. It’s really good! The chocolate chips are just a little small for the “perfect cookie” but it’s still excellent.



I’m apparently stuck on a “delicious food” theme so I immediately wish for “delicious hot chocolate”. I bring my hand back into view to find it holding a china cup full of hot chocolate. I guzzle it down. It’s way colder than it should be and there are odd clumpy patches in it like it didn’t mix well, but still tasty. Okay, done!

I continue flying the carpet for a bit, staying about 10 feet off the ground. I come to a section that looks like the exit to an amusement park. There’s a woman waving goodbye to me and the other people as we leave. I don’t get much further before the dream ends.

This lucid is from the morning of 5/11/2014.

Color legend: Non-dream Dream Lucid

Lucid #208: Carnival Chain

I have a false awakening where Wife is bustling about the room getting ready for something. I’m groggy and not seeing anything too well, but I follow her as she heads out the door. There’s some kind of event that we’re supposed to be getting ready for, but I have no memory of what it is. I do remember wanting to have a lucid dream, though, so I feel frustrated that I’m expected to get up.

I follow Wife for a bit and suddenly we’re outside by some docks. She’s dressed in a white sundress that I’ve never seen her in before, holding hands with our two children “E” and “R”. She looks beautiful. I wish that I could go with them but I’m almost too tired to move.

I tell her that I’m going back to bed, which she seems to accept. Somehow I stagger back to the bed and as soon as my head hits the pillow, I attempt to WILD. Right away I get the sense of motion and I can’t believe how quickly it’s working. I go with the momentum and experience a moment of massive acceleration before emerging in a mid-morning carnival scene that I know is a dream.

I’m not pleased with the vividness of the scene, so I rub my hands together and then stare at them, trying to draw out as much detail as I can. It takes a few frustrating moments but finally fine details start to emerge. One oddity is that my hands are covered with cuts and scrapes like I’ve been fighting or working with something sharp.

As the scene comes into better focus, I see that Wife is walking here with me at the carnival. We pass a sandwich vendor who stops us and begins an emphatic explanation of what it takes to make the turkey sandwich. He says that the “traditional” sandwich of “turkey on a donut” is outdated and that rye bread is the wave of the future. It sounds crazy to me, but I try to grasp the details, hoping for some flash of insight. It never comes, though, and the dream fades.

I hold on for DEILD, and in a few seconds I’m back in the carnival scene. I take a few steps but something seems to be stuck in my throat. I try to sort of gag and clear my throat, but it’s still there. I feel like there’s some kind of waking life problem and remember that I’m sleeping on my stomach. I have this vision of the pillow pressing on my throat and in a few seconds, I’m out of the dream.

I flop onto my side, get ready for DEILD, and re-enter the carnival scene a few seconds later. Wife’s here with me again, and says something flirtatious. I’m feeling very interested, so we make out for a bit before getting down to some sexytime. I’ll spare the details here, but it's interesting that after the "festivities" the dream continues long enough for us to wander around the carnival a bit more.

Finally the dream breaks, and I DEILD in one last time to the same carnival scene. Wife and I pass by a carnival barker who’s inviting passerby to try out the “lucidity machine”, a large, boxy contraption that he says is guaranteed to make you have a lucid dream for only “4 quarters”.

I encourage Wife to try this out. “But you’re already having a lucid dream,” she replies.

“Yeah, but you’re not.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Four quarters seems kind of expensive.”

“It’s not real money,” I tell her. “Please just try it.”

I’m exasperated by all of this. Wife shakes her head and continues to skeptically study the device as the dream ends.

Did my hypnosis session - and at least I dreamt of dreaming and the forum, even. And I have much more recall than usual - the below is by far not everything.

Crazy stuff - first I dreamt being at work with a friend from uni - and there was a scene, where I was in a conference room and got angry and threw my bag out of the window. With my camera in it and important paperwork.
Not much more from that dream - just that one needed a token to use the elevator, and if several people use one, you threw the extra tokens into a box. I threw mine, while she didn't have one and we took the stairs, and she told me, her unhappy love-story from years past had shown up again, and how she would suffer.

That was one dream - then the next one went on for a while and then it came to me telling people, that I would have dreamt last night of throwing my bag out of a window. A friend of mine goes - yes!! I have dreamt of you doing that as well - how stupid - out of the 23rd story-window and your camera was in it - and she knew more details.
Me - noo - it was only the third - got to go look for it..
And then it dawned on me - that sounds as if we had a shared dream!!
I thought about going on the forum and opening a puzzled thread - and explained to my friends, why I think, it can't work, and that I needed to search for a rational explanation, but couldn't for the life of me see one with all the details.
Stupidly, it didn't strike me as a strange idea to go around the hospital and search the ground for my bag - nobody knew where exactly that room had been.
It wasn't possible to access the ground around it so easily, so I got into a belated Christmas market in the middle of summer and other obstacles. And got woken up while still searching.

Something quite similar had happened to me before:
In a dream came a memory of having had a dream with exactly the (unfamiliar irl) setting of the actual dream - and my conclusion was - that prior one must have been a precognitive dream!

.../I see the dream in 3rd person. There's a gang lead by 3 guys who have the worse behavior. The others just follow them without thinking. They are sort of a extreme-right wing party. We (a bunch of nerds) are living in a room next to their place of reunion. One of the leaders commands the troop to fire our room by incinerating their wall first and then he goes out with the other 2. I see it's a stupid idea what they are about to do. The lower ranked guys start to fire their wall, it burns all. They want to spread the fire from their side to ours, but they start having problems with the fire in their own room first. I think if we help them to solve that problem they will follow us. We help them to extinguish the fire using pancakes. Now they are on our side/...

.../It's twilight. I'm following a dark cat which shows me some secret things buried on the ground. Something about a gold ring/...

* Alarm clock went off
* I lost many dreams because of I went late to bed. I wasn't able to wake up after them to take some notes.

* Nap after work:

.../I'm walking with my older daughter on another recurrent dreamscape street. There's a group of women walking in front of us. I notice one of them looks like one of my relatives. I tell my daughter she's my cousin, then she recognize us. We give us a hug. The street ends on the top of some escalators. Her parents get there from the lower platform. I have to confirm the other kid's flight ticket. She's at home, we are going to pick her up. She has to flight back tomorrow, otherwise I have to think when could it be. My uncles invite us to lunch in a good restaurant. I explain them we have to pick the little one first and I have to think for the new flight day/...

.../I'm playing pool. I didn't know I have improved so much my game. I'm playing pool like a pro, I'm surprised! The balls look a little bit older. The cue looks like a scratched long wooden stock. I don't care, I love the game. I fail a ball, it's not a problem because of I'm playing alone and try it again. I put my hand deep in the pocket to take the balls back and try again. I perform a lot of very good tricks, I'm amazed! There are lot of tables in the hall. I'm next to a wall. Two guys are playing on the other side. I miss two balls out of the table. They roll where the other guys are playing. One of them kick them back. I thank him/...

* I've started to draw fast sketches of the scenes again.

Morning of May 14, 2014. Wednesday.



The first part of my dream was quite interesting in a personal sense and was like a “breakthrough” event which I have not had at such a deep level for some time, I think, especially as it had sort of “clever” associations with some other recent dreams. (For example, a recent dream featured the term “Kill Zone” and this one had “Send Zone” as part of the last event. For a long time, my dreams have sometimes had concepts that repeated in twos for two days in a row, or sometimes threes; for example, the patting someone on the upper back from their left, stuffed animals as a possible “threat”, and several others.) Also, it related to my wife’s dream of the same time period in a very deep and unusual way (relating to the “other” apparently and some sort of energy sent back through time).

I am not sure of the location or address (it seems to change several times, actually) but I am with my family. There is some mail that is piled on the bed for some reason, both opened and unopened. Some of it is old junk mail, I think, which has supposedly remained unopened for quite some time. I pick one larger envelope up and feel something hard inside that is thicker than paper would be. When I open it, I discover that it is a plaquette similar to the one in some ways that I have had from a very young age in Arcadia (and still have on the wall now; it had been left behind in the post office as unopened “junk mail” by a member of the “other’s” family). Instead of the tan/pale brown, though, it is pale blue. The motif is a bit different, the surface is smoother, and the message is different and somewhat shorter. Unfortunately, I do not remember exactly what it was, though it might have been “Count your blessings, not your sorrows”, I think - and at one point the plaquette is oriented perpendicular to the other one in that the message is longways (what you would call “landscape” as opposed to “portrait” in graphics terms). Still, it seems the finding is great - being very important, and seems like some sort of deep immersion into the Source, almost like finding a personal treasure that you had all along.

Near the end of my dream, which I will write before the middle of it, there is some sort of blog on the Internet that talks about different religions and “fabrications” - similar to the theme of fabricating dreams in some ways. (Although it was published on February 24, 2012, I had never seen it before, so this turned out to be precognitive for me relative to the usage of the word “zone” and some of its associations in the actual article - as well as my wife’s experience relating to someone being her friend only if she gave them snacks - and it included the picture of the exact same plaquette I found as a child, which I found intriguing but of the usual “precognitive energy” and familiar validation feelings I have experienced day to day since early childhood.)



In my dream there is also talk about the “Send Zone” as related to the Source (although the real-life blog was similar to the one in my dream, it was not exactly the same throughout - it was a bit more “generic” as well as slightly political regarding world affairs), which is implied to be like an egg-shaped (or teardrop-shaped) realm of bright blue light. I am trying to work out the liminal area or “threshold”, but it seems sort of ambiguous in concept - as if I am always “already there” - somewhat like trying to work out from a map how to get to a certain location when you already are in that location and there are no boundaries or individual aspects - hard to explain - or like holding “a glass of water” under the surface of a lake. It is difficult to relate because I feel such an understanding of “oneness” that there does not seem to be any sort of “division” (or separation of any kind) and it almost seems as futile as someone trying to find the “border” of where a light in a room slightly changes in midair - or, “everything inside the circle is the same as everything outside the circle”. The blog seems to represent some sort of confirmation. I feel quite “giddy” and blissful, filled with positive energy. Then again, I did do about six hours of intense imagery projection and affirmative meditation prior and reached a point of clarity that actually seemed stronger than at any prior time in my life.

The middle part of my dream was quite bizarre and went through several changes. Firstly, I seem to be in the front yard (northeast corner) of the King Street boarding house. There is some sort of very large three-tiered anthill which seems more like a man-made structure. It also seems like some sort of composite flower-petal-themed circular water fountain structure (without the water) and like a merry-go-round or carousel (but not turning). To my right is a bookcase-like structure (with three vertical divisions and at least four horizontal “shelves”) that the ants somehow created or utilized in a special way. There is one compartment where the ants are keeping their eggs. Another compartment holds at least six dead mice (of different random colors including white, brown, and black) lying mostly on their sides on top of each other and are being stored for food. At this point, the ants might have spider-like attributes, because I sense the mice were captured and stored by some sort of webbing. I notice a few ants come up from the ground and I somehow “pet” them without incident.

Then, I am suddenly aware that this place is actually “also” a large “mouse nest”. Several mice playfully come near me from the center of the “fountain” structure and I pet them as they scurry about. They are of several different colors including browns and grays. Some of them seem more tame than others. This is quite vivid and pleasing.

Later, the construct is now some sort of three-dimensional clothing catalog, primarily featuring beachwear and sunglasses and such. There are images of dark-haired girls (on three different tiers of this holographic “catalog” or supposed commercial display) in very unusual multicolored bikinis that seem to implement various complex tiki pole designs over the front of their body. For example, the top part (or bra) might represent the “eyes” of the tiki pole, with strings coming down and crisscrossing - with additional cloth forming a complex colorful “nose” and then the bikini bottom completing the “tiki pole” with the mouth area of the tiki shown or the hands going across or both in the print. This seems like an entirely new concept and a modern fashion statement and each design is quite different.

Finally, in the last part of the middle section, the construct changes into some sort of different store display, yet belongs to us - and we now seem to be at our present home. It seems almost like a giant three-tiered buffet display or cake stand, while still seeming like a water fountain or merry-go-round structure. There are several slight depressions in the “petal” structures (one in each “petal”) all around, that hold various items in each, most of which I find to be older View-Master reels, some in sets of three (most separated from the old-style packets) and some singular “demo” reels of the kind that used to come with the View-Master itself. I ask my youngest son if he had seen some of them, but he apparently has not. There seems to be something about not mixing them with the others until they have been ordered and viewed the first time.

---

it's been a long while since i've actively tried to lucid dream. the last couple years have been a bit of a blur, as i was in a dark place. I can recall becoming lucid in a few dreams from the fewer i ever recalled having. pot wasnt very conducive to my memory.

i've been trying the last three days to induce a lucid and i managed to incubate it enough to have one today

awake
thoughts
dream
lucid

i'm taking a nap but i wake up only to find im in my van. wait, i didn't go to sleep in a van.
here we go.
i decide to take flight, but upon gaining lucidity my vision goes and i can't see anything. i can feel myself vibrate as i ascend through the van's roof. everything is still black and doesnt seem like its going to change so

i wake up

i guess i forgot to try stabilizing, maybe that would have helped.

i go back to sleep only to have a couple non lucid dreams that i don't recall

I had a dream that my family and I were traveling to some sort of event (it may have been the Kentucky Derby or some wine tasting sort of thing). The place at which we arrived was composed of rolling hills and vineyards as far as the eye could see. I'm a bit hazy on the order of the events, but i can remember that I traveled down into an underground shoppe beneath the rolling hills (sort of like a Hobbit home). It was rather quaint and had many strange items which appeared hand made and wooden in nature. There was only one other person in the shoppe besides me: a young woman with brown hair who was running the place it seemed. It is strange in dreams how you can possess an inexplicable attraction to a simple projection of your subconscious; such was the case in this dream of mine. I was drawn to her, and for some unknown reason, I felt the need to speak with an Irish accent to her. Somehow, I was convinced that this would attract her to me, and it did. We kissed and embraced and so forth. (It was so strangely vivid, and i can recall my emotions in the dream almost perfectly still. I imagine this vividness was due to my rather large consumption of apple juice before going to bed that night.) The last thing I remember about the dream was my sisters, who were digging in a part of the underground shoppe for some unknown reason. That's about all I can remember. Isn't it amazing how wonderfully random and creative dreams can be? It seems you can't consciously make this stuff up. So beautiful, one of the mysteries of life.