How to stay asleep while Lucid?

**Zuma** · 10-08-2007 10:44 PM

Hello,

I've recently started getting back into lucid dreaming lately.

I'm coming back from about a three year break (not a three year break without any lucid dreams, but a break where I didn't really try to get them). During this break my LDs existed sparsely, but before that I was fairly good at lucid dreams, I could obtain lucidity consistently and make it last, and have good control etc.

But now, it seems like whenever I get lucid, I wake up in the next few seconds.

For example: I just woke up from a LD a few moments ago where this happened. First of all, the dream felt fairly long before I obtained lucidity, so maybe I should work on becoming lucid early in the dream. Anyways, I did a reality test and realized I was dreaming, and began to look around in my setting. Immediately though, a thought of my body laying in bed entered my mind. I could feel myself waking up in that bed, and I desparately tried to eliminate it. I started at this girl I had just been talking to, I looked at her deep in her eyes paying attention to detail, trying to hold onto the dream world environment. This worked for a few seconds, and the girl became more detailed, but eventually it just faded to black and I woke up in my bed.

Does anyone have any tips for me to stay in lucidity? When I LDed often a few years ago, I remember being able to control when I wanted to wake up, but now I can't stay in the LD. My past 10 or so LDs have all happened like this, sometimes I realize i'm dreaming and then immediately wake up. It's very annoying, if anyone has some help or suggestions, I'd really appreciate it.

(sorry for the long post)

Thanks,

-Jeremy

**jamous** · 10-08-2007 11:55 PM

I hear rubbing your hands together helps, though I haven't tried it. Personally, I think if you are trying to wake up (not your conscious self, but your body, or subconscious maybe) then you're probably doomed to wake. My suggestion is: you know how the most vivid and easily remembered dreams occur after waking up once? well if you usually have lucid dreams at this time (I do), then you ought to set an alarm to ensure you go back to sleep for several hours so IF you have a lucid dream you'll be tired enough to stay asleep.

**G0MPgomp** · 10-09-2007 01:50 AM

Mind your thought..

"You can do it!"

**Redrivertears** · 10-09-2007 06:58 AM

Hey there,

Generally speaking, I find that there's three things that help to prevent you from waking up:

a) Don't feel rushed, don't feel you lack time, don't give in to thoughts like 'I have to do this or this quickly now or my dream will end!". Fears, believes, anxiety have a habbit of making themselves come true in dreams, so feeling that you have to be quick because otherwise the dream will end, will cause it to do just that. Tell yourself you have all the time in the world instead, relax, take it easy. Its harder to do then to write down, ofcourse, but once you get into that proper mindset it'll do wonders.

b) Don't let your excitement get the better of you. The feeling of becoming lucid can have a sudden rush of excitement with it, which can destabilise the dream. Some people will think things like 'oh wow I'm lucid', or 'wow a lucid dream', or somesuch. Again, this can potentially end the dream. Personally the first thing I do in any lucid dream is remain calm, and try to stabilise the dream. I don't begin to think on all the cool things I can do now, until after I feel that the dream is stable and solid and not likely to end for a while.

c) Focus on the dreamsensations. But keep your mind open and get as many sensations at once. You mention focussing very strongly on a girl's eyes. This is good, to an extend, but don't focus solely on that, because this singleminded focus could in fact wake you up. Try to take as much in as you can. Look around, listen to sounds, touch things, see if you can smell anything. Basically try to flood as many of your five senses with dreamsensations.

Ofcourse, some lucid dreams end regardless. That's the way it is. You just have to accept that and move on. The important thing is not to let it get to you, because that in turn will create a fear or expectation that they might end the next time you have one. Which works like a self-fulfilling prophecy again.

Anyways, hope that helps,

-Redrivertears-

**KuRoSaKi** · 10-09-2007 08:22 AM

Originally Posted by Redrivertears

Hey there,

Generally speaking, I find that there's three things that help to prevent you from waking up:

a) Don't feel rushed, don't feel you lack time, don't give in to thoughts like 'I have to do this or this quickly now or my dream will end!". Fears, believes, anxiety have a habbit of making themselves come true in dreams, so feeling that you have to be quick because otherwise the dream will end, will cause it to do just that. Tell yourself you have all the time in the world instead, relax, take it easy. Its harder to do then to write down, ofcourse, but once you get into that proper mindset it'll do wonders.

b) Don't let your excitement get the better of you. The feeling of becoming lucid can have a sudden rush of excitement with it, which can destabilise the dream. Some people will think things like 'oh wow I'm lucid', or 'wow a lucid dream', or somesuch. Again, this can potentially end the dream. Personally the first thing I do in any lucid dream is remain calm, and try to stabilise the dream. I don't begin to think on all the cool things I can do now, until after I feel that the dream is stable and solid and not likely to end for a while.

c) Focus on the dreamsensations. But keep your mind open and get as many sensations at once. You mention focussing very strongly on a girl's eyes. This is good, to an extend, but don't focus solely on that, because this singleminded focus could in fact wake you up. Try to take as much in as you can. Look around, listen to sounds, touch things, see if you can smell anything. Basically try to flood as many of your five senses with dreamsensations.

Ofcourse, some lucid dreams end regardless. That's the way it is. You just have to accept that and move on. The important thing is not to let it get to you, because that in turn will create a fear or expectation that they might end the next time you have one. Which works like a self-fulfilling prophecy again.

Anyways, hope that helps,

-Redrivertears-

Yup you just did it again, here are your answers.

**Zuma** · 10-09-2007 08:41 AM

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Redrivertears, I will try some of the things you say. I definitely get what you mean by sustaining the lucidity before attempting to do anything. I will also try to hone in and relax before getting ahead of myself.

Thinking back, I believe the main thing that was waking me up in that dream was visualizing myself sleeping on my bed right when I got lucid. As soon as I thought about that, I felt like everything was fading to black, probably because I knew it was fake and part of me wanted to return to the 'reality' of me laying down in bed. The visual of me laying in bed was very difficult to get rid of.