I'm a practitioner of the Dreaming method as outlined in the Carlos Castaneda book "The art of dreaming"

I come here, of course, to add any technique to help me along.

LD experiences so far are short.

Here is the Gate of dreaming that i have been drilling for a month or so:

1. to find your hands in your dreams. when you can succesfully look at your hands, look around at other objects briefly in a systematic matter to prevent the dream from changing.

2 to gain lucidity you must intend to notice yourself fall asleep. you accomplish this without a single thought it is more like a bodily sense.

Finding your hands is arriving at the gate. To cross the gate requires 2 things to be accomplished: A. you must be able to view any object in your dreaming without it changing.. to do this means you have acquired Dreaming attention. Dreaming attention gives off Energy that attracts dreaming creatures which you can turn into a dreaming Ally (or dream guide). another byproduct (which varies from person to person) is a voice that also can assist in your dreaming called The dreaming Emissary. so B: The gate is crossed when you succesfully get an Ally.

So far i have found my hands at least Thrice. They are usually not mine. either bigger or smaller or more hairy than mine.

When my LDing was almost taking off. i could view certain objects without them changing. but what keeps happening is that i get swept away buy the circumstance of the dream and it becomes a regular dream.. the few times i have looked at the objects of my dream, i sometimes here a Nagging voice telling me to look at specific objects. One time i heard a voice trying to tell me things but it was so distorted that i did not understand what it was trying to say.

i've noticed other dreams that don't feel like dreams. they are brief instances that happen during dreaming but feel so real i get scared and wake up. in one instance i was aware of sleeping in my bed while simultaniously i was also standing in front my bathroom mirror. i was wearing the t-shirt i had worn earlier that day and i could examine it with such detail it was if I was actually standing there. when i noticed that i was also in my bed everything became blurry and i woke up. the next night i dreamt i was standing in front of the mirror again only my hair was messy and it was too dark to see my face.

since then i seem to have hit a dreaming "dry spell". i can't remember any dreams or just have normal dreams. but in my normal dreams i keep thinking that i should be doing something. another thing is that the few regular dreams i have had are more vivid!

i will post my last 2 dreams below in the next post.

dream 1: in the dream the character (which i am assuming is my new friend)would lock himself in artight glass rooms. where he would expose himself to a gigantic dinner table sized red light. the red light would give him euphoric insights into things and visions. i noticed a negative effect: every time he left the glass room over an hour interval he seemed more detached from the world. it seemed like his energy was draining. i had a thought that if he kept up his addiction with the red light room that it would kill him.

i also was tempted to spend time in the red light room. because i wanted to experience the effects for myself. i tried to go in one room but my brother intervened. he told me that if i locked myself in that red light room that there was nothing he could do for me because i would be forever lost like my friend.

Dream 2: i tried the CID (chocolate induced dream). probly the most linear dream i've ever had. in the whole dream i was walking around toronto with my roomate and his brother talking. nothing out of the ordinary happened in the dream (which is unusual for me because EVERY dream i have had is like twilight zone stuff).

i have a feeling that the CID will help me stay in a dream to view it's objects so i will esperiment further.