Thread: AstronomyDomine's Workbook

Hi everyone. I'm Paul, a 46 year old male from Texas, USA. Been lucid dreaming on and off ever since I could remember, but my dreams have been very infrequent -- sometimes years elapsing between one LD and another. So I've decided to learn how induce them intentionally. I've had pretty good success thus far: averaging about 3 a month (that's great for me!), but I'd like to get to the place where I'm having at least 3-4 per week. There's so much I want to do, places I want to explore, questions to ask my subconscious, et cetera. Obviously, I so look forward to sleep each night. I'm a big book person, and I've read the obligatory ETWOLD by LaBerge, as well as the phase stuff by Raduga. I've also read Waggoner & McCready and Yuschak. I assiduously keep an old-fashioned spiral notebook dream journal by my bed to record all my non-lucids upon waking. And I try to update my DJ here on DV as often as I can. Out of curiosity I developed a sort of "lucid dreaming vision board" for my own use in aiding me on my journey to intentional lucidity. I figured that since creative visualization was so successful in helping me achieve goals in WL, it was certainly worth exploring its effectiveness in the realm of dreamscape. And it worked for me very well.

But then I got sick (bad sinus infection) and all my strength for doing my WBTBs and mantras and RC's and MILD visualizations fell by the wayside for over a week. I felt so crummy that I even stopped journaling my non-lucids for a period of time (a conduct akin to sacrilege!). I have since resumed my DJing, but my lucids now are nonexistent. I have zero awareness in dreams -- dreams that just a week before I would have noticed plenty of powerful signs to spur lucidity. Now I just miss them completely. How quickly the mind when not exercised goes back to its former state of blissful oblivion when dreaming! I feel now like I have to start all over.

In the past, my efforts in WILDing have yielded only 1 LD -- and it was more of an OBE than anything else: The sitting up in my dream body, rolling out of bed and flying off into the night kind of dream. All the other WILD attempts gave me insomnia. Other than that WILD, all my other LDs have been via DILDs. It just seems I have to work so hard to achieve simple awareness in my dreams. Please don't get me wrong: the effort is wholly worth it. But I can't help but wonder: does it get any easier? I think back to when I was 14 and learning how to play the guitar. It was very difficult at first, learning all the different chord patterns and fingering exercises. But now I am an accomplished classical guitarist and can sight read and play J.S. Bach fluently. Will lucid dreaming become sort of like that if I dedicate myself to all the hard work now? I hope so

Any help, encouragement, tips, pointers, wisdom or shared knowledge would be greatly welcomed and most appreciated! Thanks!