side notes

Slept 10:56PM-6:30AM (7h48m)
Detail: 0 words.

No recall. I was pretty exhausted after implementing some changes to my cardio. Probably not the sole reason, but likely a contributing factor.

I've decided to pare back some of my loftier goals. The idea here is to get a better understanding of my dreamworld and practice stability techniques.

Goals:

1. Observe your hands. Record how they change in detail. Number of fingers? Distortion? Do they stay the same over multiple look-backs? ✓
2. Narrate what you are doing in the dream outloud.
3. Go with the flow. Let the dream happen with as little modification as possible. Look out for your common dreamsigns and note them as they appear.
4. Directly observe text changing. Will it into something specific. Practice this in-dream the same way you do it in waking life.
5. Maintain awareness through traversal of any kind. How does your brain bring you from one set to the next?

Acronym: HNFTT (Hands, Narrate, Flow, Text, Traversal)

Note: I've stumbled upon some info suggesting that the WBTB technique, as described here, might not be the most scientifically solid approach to lucid dreaming. So going forward, I'm thinking of using Stephen Laberge's suggestion of morning naps. I'll finish up the current test sequence as planned and tweak things for the next one.

Current Test <6hr/20m/None>
Test Process:
3 nights in a row: Re-establish sleep rhythm. Go to bed at 11PM and wake at 7AM.
2 nights in a row: WBTB. Go to bed at 11PM. Wake at 5AM (6hrs). No supplements. Stay awake for 20m. Return to bed.
Repeat until four WBTBs are attempted.

Test Data:
#1: Weak Lucid (The Vanishing Plant, Night of Friday 10/6/23) <-- note that sleep schedule was not 11PM/5AM WBTB at this point, but counting it because 6hr/20m was still used.
#2: Attempted WBTB, No Recall (Night of Thursday 10/26/23) <-- isn't reflected in DJ because I had zero recall before or after WBTB.
#3: Attempted WBTB, No Recall (Night of Friday 10/27/23)
#4: TBD.

Test Results:
It's starting to look like 20m without Galantamine is not enough time awake to encourage lucidity for me. I will continue and get 4th data point (maybe a 5th to account for #1's weirdness), but already planning to try 30m plus Galantamine for the next test set, and then 30m without Galantamine after that.

Previous Configurations & Results
<6hr/10m/8mg (Galantamine)>
#1: Moderate lucid (Seeking The Elusive Fantasy Forest™, Night of Friday 9/8/23)
#2: Weak lucid (False Awakening and Fade, Night of Saturday 9/9/23)
#3: Weak lucid (False Awakening, Night of Wednesday 9/13/23)
#4: Moderate lucid (Silverlight Way, Night of Thursday 9/14/23)
It's 50/50. Some great lucids here, but still not the level I'm looking for.

Previous Results
<6hr/10m/8mg (Galantamine)>
#1: Moderate lucid (Seeking The Elusive Fantasy Forest™, Night of Friday 9/8/23)
#2: Weak lucid (False Awakening and Fade, Night of Saturday 9/9/23)
#3: Weak lucid (False Awakening, Night of Wednesday 9/13/23)
#4: Moderate lucid (Silverlight Way, Night of Thursday 9/14/23)

Summary
It's 50/50. Some great lucids here, but still not the level I'm looking for. Going to tweak a couple things and run a new test.

New Test
<6hr/20m/None>
3 nights in a row: Re-establish sleep rhythm. Go to bed at 11PM and wake at 7AM.
2 nights in a row: WBTB. Go to bed at 11PM. Wake at 5AM (6hrs). No supplements. Stay awake for 20m. Return to bed.
Repeat until four WBTBs are attempted.

I want to give myself a quick reference for ways I can earn points in this comp and formulate a plan to maximize points. This will also help me visualize the plan start to finish while meditating, hopefully making it easier to remember while lucid. If all goes according to plan, this dream will yield a total of 106 points, shattering my previous record of 70 points. If I achieve the below I will create a new plan involving the other ways to get points. For now though, based on the below I will attempt to execute the following:

Upon becoming lucid, I will reality check/stabilize (+1) and then teleport (+5) from wherever I am into a fantasy forest (+15). Then I will look for something to eat in the woods, preferably something sweet like cake (+10). Then I will find a cave and enter (+30). While inside the cave I will imagine my dream guide is inside it and find her (+15), and have a conversation (+15). My goal will be to have her give advice about how to create a persistent dream realm, and then execute on that (+15).


Challenge Task
Enter a Cave = 30pts

3-Step Tasks
Teleport(5pts) --> Eat/Drink(10pts) --> Summon(15pts) = 30pts

New Goals
Go to a fantasy-themed forest = 15pts
Have a lucid conversation with my dream guide = 15pts
Build a persistent dream palace in the forest = 15pts

Persistent Dream
Enter the same dream space more than once = 15pts

Enemy/Team
Fight one or more enemies = 20pts
Teammate takes you into their dream = 15pts
Fight an enemy dreamer = 10pts
Convert an enemy dreamer = 10pts
Teammates teaches you something = 10pts
Meet a teammate = 7pts

Old Goals
Make rain fall up = 10pts
Make music play during the dream = 10pts
Ask a DC to hangout = 10pts

Theme
Library = 5pts

I haven't collected good data yet for WBTBs, so I am making another attempt at that now. Here is the go-forward schedule to test 6hr/10m. The idea is that balancing WBTBs with 3 days rest and 2 days on will help maintain sleep rhythm. I've also made it such that I will have 4 WBTB attempts from now until the end of Autumn Comp. So I've set myself up to potentially break my points record again. Time will tell on that one. This test will have Galantamine used in each WBTB, so consistency is maintained. I've also removed Choline because the pill bottle smells fishy. It always smelled, so it is possible that I had a bad batch from the start. It was probably bad judgment to use it for that reason. Either way, new tests are using Galantamine alone. Future testing will look at use/non-use of supplements and rest/wake timings and their impact on favorable lucid dreaming results.

Goal of the test is to prove or disprove this statement: While on a consistent 8 hour sleep schedule, performing a 6hr/10m WBTB with 8Mg Galantamine will yield favorable lucid dreaming results for theshirecat.

Night of Tuesday 9/5/23: Re-establish sleep rhythm. Go to bed at 11PM and wake at 7AM.
Night of Wednesday 9/6/23: Re-establish sleep rhythm. Go to bed at 11PM and wake at 7AM.
Night of Thursday 9/7/23: Re-establish sleep rhythm. Go to bed at 11PM and wake at 7AM.

Night of Friday 9/8/23: Galantamine-assisted WBTB. Go to bed at 11PM. Wake at 5AM (6hrs). Stay awake for 10m. Return to bed. <6hr/10m #1>
Night of Saturday 9/9/23: Galantamine-assisted WBTB. Go to bed at 11PM. Wake at 5AM (6hrs). Stay awake for 10m. Return to bed. <6hr/10m #2>

Night of Sunday 9/10/23: Maintain sleep rhythm. Go to bed at 11PM and wake at 7AM.
Night of Monday 9/11/23: Maintain sleep rhythm. Go to bed at 11PM and wake at 7AM.
Night of Tuesday 9/12/23: Maintain sleep rhythm. Go to bed at 11PM and wake at 7AM.

Night of Wednesday 9/13/23: Galantamine-assisted WBTB. Go to bed at 11PM. Wake at 5AM (6hrs). Stay awake for 10m. Return to bed. <6hr/10m #3>
Night of Thursday 9/14/23: Galantamine-assisted WBTB. Go to bed at 11PM. Wake at 5AM (6hrs). Stay awake for 10m. Return to bed. <6hr/10m #4>

Going to try something new this week. I will try to incubate the forest scene I was targeting for my lucids during the competition. This should help me be lucid - my number one dream sign is grass apparently.

But being lucid isn't the goal here. I want to experiment and see if I can influence dream content from waking life practice alone, and if so, to what degree. I'm going to try and apply techniques from a 2012 post from Evolventity, Frobthebuilder, Oreoboy1996, and NightSpy2 (https://www.dreamviews.com/general-d...-tutorial.html).

In a nutshell, the task is to set the intention, visualize the scene using meditation, and use mantras/art/writing to support the incubation. I plan to achieve that by performing a visualization exercise (meditation) about 15m per day in the sauna post-workout. That way it fits into my existing routine. I will also be writing down incubation entries as if they are actually dream recall.

Goal: Dream about a deep forest setting.

Making a note here to remind myself about WBTB timings. This includes time spent sleeping prior to WBTB as well as time awake before returning to bed.

Timing for Pre WBTB
Commonly practiced timings are 4.5hrs and 6hrs. These are probably based on 1.5hr sleep cycles. For example, 4.5hrs is 3 cycles (1.5 x 3) and 6hrs is 4 cycles (1.5 x 4).

Timing for Post WBTB
I've had success with staying awake for just 10m in all my previous attempts. I don't know if I would have higher quality lucid dreams if I were to increase this time. I've had several good lucids, but no excellent ones yet.

Rankings
Here is a ranking of my recent lucid dreams and their WBTB timings:

Night of Friday 3/10/23: My 1st lucid in a long time. Probably my most exciting of the recent bunch. Giving this a 3/5. ?hr/10m.

Night of Friday 3/24/23: Exciting WILD transition, but from what I can remember the dream itself was a nothingburger. 1/5. 5hr/10m.

Night of Friday 3/31/23: Another good lucid. 3/5. 5hr45m/10m.

Night of Saturday 4/8/23: Decent. 2/5. 6hr/10m

Summary
Based on the last four lucid dreams, there might be a bias toward 6hr being better than 5hr. Perhaps they would be better if hitting closer to the 4.5hr mark. Also worth experimenting with the time awake, since I have no data for longer or shorter wakeful periods. 10m seems shorter than what others suggest. Maybe lucidity quality could be improved by increasing it. Overall, more data needed.

Next Steps

Experiment A: For the next four lucids, use 6hr/15m as a timing. This will test whether 6hr is consistently better, as well as whether 15m gives more lucidity compared to 10m.

Experiment B: For the next four after A, use 4.5hr/?m as a timing. Evaluate the ?m timing based on results of experiment A.

Experiment C: For the next four after B, choose the best of both worlds and evaluate.

No recall. Pretty terrible sleep this night, but that was self-inflicted

No recall. Woke up late for work and rushed the memory away.

Fragment
Not much recall today but I did wake up with something. I had a profound feeling of importance about life and family, and the name "Trixie". I wonder if there was a more involved dream behind it, but the feeling and name is all I can remember.

No recall.

No recall this time.

No recall. I was too busy last night and this morning to focus

Lost the recall on these, but I definitely had some content upon waking. Still haven't invested into finding a good solution for being too lazy in the morning to record. They seem to fade so darn fast. To be fair, we had some pretty busy evenings this weekend, so I can hardly blame myself for this result. But still. Wish the recall was better.