Thread: Warning for new LD'ers

So I had what was about my 5th LD last night. It basically consisted of me walking around my house being amazed by the clarity and detail of the dream, playing with my dog, and trying to make the light switches work.

After I woke up and came down from the initial high of having a lucid dream I realized that all I really did was waste 20 minutes walking around in my dream.

So this is a cautionary tale to new LD'ers. Have a plan for what you want to do when you're in the dream. The first LD you have it won't matter because you'll just be happy about knowing you're dreaming, but after your first LD I would recommend planning to do something exciting.

I'm not sure if i would call that wasting your time. The problem you have when you just start lucid dreaming is that you will probably wake up from excitement, atleast this way you have a good feel about how lucid dreaming feels like. And there is a good chance that this will reward you in the future.

But i guess it all depends on how you look at it.

While you may not have gone flying through the heavens or wielded unworldly powers you still had a dream experience that so many in this world never get at all, and as Ekyu said above by becoming familiar with your normal environment in a dream you can learn to stabilize your LDs better and move on to bigger and better things.

Every LD is a success.

20 minutes of walking around in an imagined landscape where everything is almost as real as real life sounds good enough for me. Having a goal usually helps you stay lucid and keep you in the dream.

Keep your first goals and dreams simple. You did not waste time, because you have many hundreds of LDs in your future. You were practicing even if you do not realize it. At first just interacting with the dream is good practice.

As far as having a plan and goals keep it very simple and build in steps.

I recommend the following as early goals. They train you and build awareness of how control works.

1) Look at your hands and move the finger. Do your hands seem to respond to your intent? Can you watch and feel yourself touch something? Simply get good enough that you can find your hands, move them by intent, and then feel them touch something.

2) Basic summoning of an object. What makes it basic is that the item you wish to find does not need to appear as if by magic. Basic summoning involves finding an object by whatever method that you intended to find. Pick the object when you are awake. By any trick you can you will have the object appear and you will hold or touch it. My first object was a sword. I simple wanted any part of an LD to involve me holding a sword. This alone took 3 LDs to acomplish. Find the object by telling yourself a made up plot. "I left the sword on my bed," then look on the bed. Or what finally worked for me was asking a DC to hand me a sword. I then reached behind me and a DC put it in my hand.

3) Basic summoning of a DC. Keep the goal simple. You do not want to pick a specific person, you want to pick a basic DC type. Maybe you want to summon "a pretty girl" or "a man on a bike" so you set the goal "In my next lucid I will touch the hand of a pretty girl" You do this by looking around in places and making up a reason you 'know' you will find them. Such as "There are always pretty girls in the lunch room" enter the lunch room planning on it being full and having pretty girls. Any variation on this is a good goal.

4) Cause any object to move using TK (telekinesis). Simple. Plan on doing this in your next DC, then do it. You should start very small, such as just knocking over a glass by picturing it happening.

After you have completed those 4 goals, feel free to make the goals more amazing. Such as jumping onto a roof from the ground. Then flying and so on.

If you had a lucid dream then you are aware that reality itself could simply be an illusion. The act of having a crystal clear lucid, no matter how the dreamscape develops, is reward in itself. BTW, I think you did the right thing by simply observing your surroundings. This extended the length of the experience. It took me years to figure out that flying, and other such exhilarating activities, tend shorten a lucid dream.

20 minutes for a 5th LD?? you should be happy, not disappointed
I've had at least 5 LD's where I did nothing but wander around my house...it's not that bad! the joy of knowing you're in a dream is fascinating enough as you have all the time of your life to do better things with or w/o plans in your next lucid dreams!

I'm never in my current house when I dream. I always find myself in a place I've lived before or a couple places that are recurring. There is one house I've never seen in real life but I've lived in it in so many dreams that I know every room and it feels like home when I'm there. I think being in my real house would be interesting.

I also tried WILD multiple times, and even when i reach paralysis (which i can break whenever i want to btw) nothing scary happens.

Also, i think that people writing about how scary it is, is actually causing more harm since the readers will expect to see something terrifying. So either it will affect the experience or scare people away from even trying it.

Originally Posted by ImBored

So I had what was about my 5th LD last night. It basically consisted of me walking around my house being amazed by the clarity and detail of the dream, playing with my dog, and trying to make the light switches work.

After I woke up and came down from the initial high of having a lucid dream I realized that all I really did was waste 20 minutes walking around in my dream.

So this is a cautionary tale to new LD'ers. Have a plan for what you want to do when you're in the dream. The first LD you have it won't matter because you'll just be happy about knowing you're dreaming, but after your first LD I would recommend planning to do something exciting.

This was my first LD, too. Except it ended with my alarm clock.

Also, don't gripe, that was a fucking amazing use of your fifth lucid dream. More people should just experience lucidity and nothing else when it first comes. Everytime you go to bed now, feel that lucidity, how good it was, how natural, how you're going to experience it many times again.

That is informal suggestion.

Look up Phenomenology, because you just discovered it for yourself in a lucid dream. Pretty cool.

Originally Posted by XxXArTiStXxXxX

So people who always say that WILD gives you SP is fake? -.- ugh.

Unless you suffer from narcolepsy or an associated sleep disorder, it's unlikely that you will experience sleep paralysis during a WILD attempt. Instead you simply witness your body falling asleep consciously.

There's been a lot of questions about using the WILD method and unfortunately many have gotten too afraid of using it due to the fear of SP, which is something most people won't have.

Back to the OP, it's not a waste of time. It takes some time to getting used to and being able to maintain your dreams stable. Those 20 minutes walking around are fine considering the struggle newcomers have to maintain their lucid dreams.

I'd be happy to just have a LD like you described OP. And with all the time in the world to lucid dream, then one for playing with light switches is not what I'd consider wasted.

after you LD for a while. you'll realize that shooting fire, passing through walls, sex, flying, etc. is ALL pointless. the things that are actually progressive are harder and require more discipline. i.e. meditation inside a dream.

Originally Posted by xXxArtistxXx

Here is a warning, if you don't want to get the hell scared out of, DONT ATTEMPT WILD you'll get SP (sleep paralysis) wich causes scary hell hallucinations.

I would have to say that is false. About half of my LD's so far have been WILD's, and I haven't gotten SP once, plus it's not that big of an issue either, as long as you know it's not real it's not nearly as scary.

Originally Posted by ixsetf

I would have to say that is false. About half of my LD's so far have been WILD's, and I haven't gotten SP once, plus it's not that big of an issue either, as long as you know it's not real it's not nearly as scary.

So people who always say that WILD gives you SP is fake? -.- ugh.

Yes... And no. Every person is different. Some people experience SP, some don't. Some people hallucinate bad things, some don't. What i am saying is, maybe it's not a good thing to go around scaring people. People should know what to expect, but saying: " OMG it's so scary you will crap your pants!" might not be the best approach and could scare people away from trying a great technique.

Originally Posted by Matte87

20 minutes of walking around in an imagined landscape where everything is almost as real as real life sounds good enough for me. Having a goal usually helps you stay lucid and keep you in the dream.

that is soo true

Originally Posted by ixsetf

I would have to say that is false. About half of my LD's so far have been WILD's, and I haven't gotten SP once, plus it's not that big of an issue either, as long as you know it's not real it's not nearly as scary.

ok, im gonna stop believing almost everything i read.