What is the general progression for noobs?

Hey there,

I am practicing ADA and RC's (RC's i find hard to remember to do them. ADA is easier for me) but still no lucid dreams. I am finding my dream recall to be quite decent. slightly improving. Pure excited - my dream journal (leather bound with a crest of a dragon in the front - looks kinda like welsh dragon) arrived today. Plan to use it tomorrow morning :) anyway, i digress. I find my recall is decent but still no lucidity :\ is there, like, a progression noticeable in people? as in:

1) recall gets better
2) cleared mind/better focus
3) slight clues that you may be dreaming in dreams
4) become fully lucid

or does it just randomly hit one day - Boom! Hey i'm lucid now? lol. Like, how does it work? Any takers on this one?

Dragon

ps my dream journal can be found here:

Dragon Motif Italian Recycled Leather Journal (13cm x 17cm): Amazon.co.uk: Kitchen & Home

:D eeeeeee!!!!

Yeah doing DJ everyday for a few weeks I started remembering every night, more and more in detail. I didn't notice any improvement in having a cleared mind or better focus. I did notice clues that I may be dreaming heavily, like people/me saying things that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Doing about 1-2 RCs a day, a DJ everyday, I got a LD withing the second week of me doing it. But that's just me.

It took me over a month to have my first induced lucid dream. As far as I can tell, once you have one, you have higher and higher chances of having another. It builds up after a while of doing Reality Checks and such. I just started to try and get back into it again after years of not doing anything. I used to have them at least twice or three times a month, but then started to lose it because of not trying. It went down to about one or none a month, after a couple months.

As for remembering to do reality checks, when I was very into it, I started to randomly think about them during the day, not having to think about remembering since I was doing them so often. Oh, dream signs are good to jot down, too. Being able to recognize things that you've dreamed of before can cause you to go lucid.

I've always had good recall, even when I didn't have a journal, but now that I'm writing them down again, it's nice to write something down when you wake up, it helps you WAKE up.

When you have your first one, don't be surprised if it's not very lucid or vivid, and don't try to get excited. One of the things I avoid the most is sexual encounters, all they do is make me wake up. :C

I've been doing Self Awareness, another form off constant awareness throughout the day, and it took me about a month to start seeing results. After that first month of persistent practice, having awareness started to become second nature.
I'm now in my 3rd month of practicing awareness. My results are this:
- I become Lucid at least once every night
- I'm semi-lucid in almost all of my dreams

Of course there is much more success than that though. I've found that just by my awareness alone, I no longer have to Dream Journal everyday. I only log and entry the dreams that I like or feel like doing. After a while, if you keep up dream journaling, it starts to take up hours of your day. Not too long ago it was taking me 2 and a half hours every morning to log in all of my dreams of the night. That got old quick.
Don't get me wrong though, my recall became extremely specific and detailed because of my practice. Now, like I said, I dont dream journal to that extent anymore, I only journal what I want to.

As for Reality Checks, the ONLY time that I do them is when something really weird or unusual occurs in real life. I'll also do them when something seems out of place or has changed. Basically, I do RC's whenever anything out of the normal occurs. For one; this is in my opinion, the best way to do RC's. If you take on the task of doing Reality Checks the way I do, you'll find that they become WAY less annoying to do and you don't do them near as often. After a while of practicing the way I do RC's, I started doing them naturally at the occurrence of anything weird, and trust me, thats all you need with RC's.

My advice to you Dragon, if you really are going to practice awareness man, stick with it. Never give up. It may take you more or less time than it did me, but when you finally do start seeing the results you want, you'll realize that it was worth it; especially since after some time of practice, the general "Lucid mindset" becomes almost effortless to maintain.

Did you ever try WILD's or WBTB's? Just curious. :p

Firstly, thanks to everyone for the responses. All this info has been taken on board. I feel that doing ADA and RC's as oneup mentioned is best for me. I will record dreams until I am sufficient at recall. Also, if and when I get to the stage of 2+ hours worth of dreaming, I think I won't need to record very dream. Only the best ones or mm put important ones. I find that amazing that a lucid dream can be that long, that you can take that length of time to jot them down, oneup. Warbenefit, I agree. It woke me up well this morning. I did try a wbtb (I think) where I woke naturally and tried to let my body sleep and mind stay awake and lucid dream. Sadly that didn't work. Nearly did one this morning. But it wasn't me in the dream. Just a random celeb trying to take a naughty pic and send it to me. Lol. My second alarm went off and I had to get up. Boo. Lol. What are WILD and WBTB again? What does each consist of? Specifically?

[I slept only two hours last night due to taking a nap in the afternoon, I feel like I should be more tired than I am right now.]

WILD is Wake Induced Lucid Dream, where you relax in such a way, without moving, to go to sleep. This makes your mind fall asleep AFTER your body does, causing you to go into a lucid dream immediately. I've never been able to do this without my eyes being opened, for some reason. They close at a certain point and whatever I was looking at stays in my mind when I go into sleep paralysis. It's a difficult technique, I don't really consider it the best.

WBTB is Wake Back To Bed. Meaning you wake up after a cycle of REM sleep (when you wake up randomly in the middle of the night, that's usually when an REM cycle has ended) and stay up for about twenty minutes, to get your mind just aware enough so that when you go back to bed, you'll be more aware and have a higher chance of having an LD.

There's dozens of other techniques out there, you just have to find them. Good luck on your Lucid Dreams. :D

Does using binaural beats officially count as WILD? It always makes me pass out after 10 mins. My Good Mate had the ability to lucid dream from a binaural beat (his first time and accidentally so). If so, I seem to go into a black consciousness, almost as if I'm surrounded by a black cloud and can't see anything at all :/

It depends if the beats helped him get a Lucid Dream during a dream (a DILD, Dream Induced Lucid Dream) or when he was trying to sleep, going straight into lucidity when he fell asleep. Anyways, gotta get ready for school, I won't be on for about seven hours or so, so don't expect an immediate response. :P

DragonLucid:

You seem to be headed in the right direction, but let me add a couple of thoughts that might help:

First, you really should look into the tutorials for achieving DILD and WILD, especially a technique called MILD (Mnemonically Induced Lucid Dream). Though having good recall and a clear mind is a good start, there really is some more to do. Keeping a dream journal is important, as are doing RC's, but they alone do not complete the "ready to LD" list. Also, I humbly suggest you look at my own Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals thread, which might help you with the big picture of what you need to achieve regular lucidity.

It is also important at the beginning to write down every dream you remember, regardless of how important you thought they might have been. The action of writing down as many of your dreams as you can recall in as best detail as you can remember will help you more easily recall your dreams in the future, and also to recognize them during the dream. Importantly, the struggle to remember and write down as much as you can is a major part of the action. I know it is tedious and impractical to write it all down, but try not to defeat the point of the DJ'ing exercise by only doing the important -- and easy to remember -- dreams, because this will not help much in developing your dreaming memory.

Here is your OP's progression list, with some additions and notes:

1) Interest in LD'ing causes lots of thought about it (very important for developing expectation).
2) recall gets better
3) Learning about and practicing techniques to induce DILD and WILD, especially MILD, helps you to prepare your mind for the actual transition to LD's.
4) cleared mind/better focus -- through stronger self-awareness and memory.
5) slight clues that you may be dreaming in dreams (actually not that important, though helpful).
6) Long series of false lucids (non-lucid dreams about being lucid), false awakenings, and very brief flashes of low-level lucidity.
7) That first "Ah-ha!" lucid moment occurs.
8) Achieving the 2nd LD (often way harder than the 1rst)
9) Develop your prolonging and controls skills during relatively short (but very satisfying) LD's.
10) become fully lucid

I likely left out as much as I added, but hopefully you'll see that there is much more to successful, consistent Ld'ing than what you noted -- However, I have to say that what you noted shows that you are definitely on the right track: most of the things you listed were about getting your head in the right place for successful LD'ing, and that is by far the most important aspect to LD'ing; with that attitude from the get-go, DragonLucid, you should do well!

As long as I have a noob on the hook for a second, let me make one quick technical clarification that might help you: WILD (Wake Initiated Lucid Dream) and DILD (Dream Initiated Lucid Dream) are not techniques, but rather descriptions of the two ways that you can transition into a LD (WILD = moving from wake to sleep/dream without ever losing waking-life self-awareness; DILD = bringing your waking-life self-awareness into a NLD during the dream, and thus becoming lucid). All the techniques you read about are simply ways to achieve one of these two transitions into a lucid dream. This might not seem important to you, but I think it is a good idea to keep this distinction in mind as you wade through the tutorials... oh, and though it is true, this is not a generally accepted or popular notion on the forums.

Finally, I must repeat what OneUp already said: self-awareness is the key to lucidity. I highly recommend that learn about it and begin attempting to practice it as soon as you can. And no, ADA, is not a self-awareness technique, though if practiced alongside self-awareness techniques, it can be helpful.

I hope that helped; good luck in your journey, DragonLucid, and I'll see you around the forums!

:sageous:

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Originally Posted by Sageous

DragonLucid:

You seem to be headed in the right direction, but let me add a couple of thoughts that might help:

First, you really should look into the tutorials for achieving DILD and WILD, especially a technique called MILD (Mnemonically Induced Lucid Dream). Though having good recall and a clear mind is a good start, there really is some more to do. Keeping a dream journal is important, as are doing RC's, but they alone do not complete the "ready to LD" list. Also, I humbly suggest you look at my own Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals thread, which might help you with the big picture of what you need to achieve regular lucidity.

It is also important at the beginning to write down every dream you remember, regardless of how important you thought they might have been. The action of writing down as many of your dreams as you can recall in as best detail as you can remember will help you more easily recall your dreams in the future, and also to recognize them during the dream. Importantly, the struggle to remember and write down as much as you can is a major part of the action. I know it is tedious and impractical to write it all down, but try not to defeat the point of the DJ'ing exercise by only doing the important -- and easy to remember -- dreams, because this will not help much in developing your dreaming memory.

Here is your OP's progression list, with some additions and notes:

1) Interest in LD'ing causes lots of thought about it (very important for developing expectation).
2) recall gets better
3) Learning about and practicing techniques to induce DILD and WILD, especially MILD, helps you to prepare your mind for the actual transition to LD's.
4) cleared mind/better focus -- through stronger self-awareness and memory.
5) slight clues that you may be dreaming in dreams (actually not that important, though helpful).
6) Long series of false lucids (non-lucid dreams about being lucid), false awakenings, and very brief flashes of low-level lucidity.
7) That first "Ah-ha!" lucid moment occurs.
8) Achieving the 2nd LD (often way harder than the 1rst)
9) Develop your prolonging and controls skills during relatively short (but very satisfying) LD's.
10) become fully lucid

I likely left out as much as I added, but hopefully you'll see that there is much more to successful, consistent Ld'ing than what you noted -- However, I have to say that what you noted shows that you are definitely on the right track: most of the things you listed were about getting your head in the right place for successful LD'ing, and that is by far the most important aspect to LD'ing; with that attitude from the get-go, DragonLucid, you should do well!

As long as I have a noob on the hook for a second, let me make one quick technical clarification that might help you: WILD (Wake Initiated Lucid Dream) and DILD (Dream Initiated Lucid Dream) are not techniques, but rather descriptions of the two ways that you can transition into a LD (WILD = moving from wake to sleep/dream without ever losing waking-life self-awareness; DILD = bringing your waking-life self-awareness into a NLD during the dream, and thus becoming lucid). All the techniques you read about are simply ways to achieve one of these two transitions into a lucid dream. This might not seem important to you, but I think it is a good idea to keep this distinction in mind as you wade through the tutorials... oh, and though it is true, this is not a generally accepted or popular notion on the forums.

Finally, I must repeat what OneUp already said: self-awareness is the key to lucidity. I highly recommend that learn about it and begin attempting to practice it as soon as you can. And no, ADA, is not a self-awareness technique, though if practiced alongside self-awareness techniques, it can be helpful.

I hope that helped; good luck in your journey, DragonLucid, and I'll see you around the forums!

:sageous:

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Thank you so much for this reply Sageous :) wow. What a reply. That list is genuinely what I was hoping to see. Read your thread (part read as I was bombarded with phone calls and gym membership and agh. Busy times. Lol) and I will study it properly. I now know the difference between ada and self awareness :) I have noticed serious differences in my recall and focus. At night the colours are flowing when I close my eyes to go to sleep. It looked 2 disco balls were having sex in my minds eye last night. Haha. Mental colours. All good though. Pleasant experience.

Yeah I will continue to DJ ;) can't wait to write up last night's :D had a very real and sexy dream :D I dictaphone them and write them up at night as I wake up with enough time to get ready for work. But I see your point and do notice progress in all areas. Kinda subtle but definitely there.

That list is just handy. Again, what I hoped someone would put up. So thank you.

Thank you for clearing up what ada and awareness are. Just so I'm completely clear, going into a lucid trance state using theta waves, what exactly does that constitute as? A WILD? I find binaural beats do make me go into the necessary theta brain state, I just can't lucid dream yet. My mind goes blank. Otherwise I believe I understand the destination between the 2 of them.

You will definitely see me on this forum. I am beyond enthusiastic about this topic. I will be successful at this. Thanks for the luck and advice Sageous :)

^^ Happy to help, DragonLucid!

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Originally Posted by DragonLucid

Just so I'm completely clear, going into a lucid trance state using theta waves, what exactly does that constitute as? A WILD? I find binaural beats do make me go into the necessary theta brain state, I just can't lucid dream yet. My mind goes blank. Otherwise I believe I understand the destination between the 2 of them.

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I'm not sure what a lucid trance using theta waves is. Indeed, I hadn't realized you could use theta waves, as they are waves produced by your brain during sleep, and not something that would help much coming in from the outside; did you mean that the binaural beats somehow get your brain to produce theta waves? In any case I suppose, if you include your sleeping body in the formula, that would indeed constitute a WILD.

Again, I'm not sure what you're doing with binaural beats -- never used them myself -- but I'm a little surprised that they get you into a theta brain state and you actually notice, because you ought to be sleeping, I guess that's where the dreamless WILD comes in, huh? But again, I don't know. I would suggest, though, that you consider giving less priority to things like binaural beats while you are learning to LD. It is probably better to save such mechanisms for later, after you've had a few LD's on your own, and are well aware of the process as it "naturally" occurs; and that process will include dreams. I think you will appreciate that you did it on your own.

Good luck in your lucid quest, and we'll see you around the forums!

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I would suggest, though, that you consider giving less priority to things like binaural beats while you are learning to LD. It is probably better to save such mechanisms for later, after you've had a few LD's on your own, and are well aware of the process as it "naturally" occurs; and that process will include dreams. I think you will appreciate that you did it on your own.

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I strongly agree with Sageous. I never like to use binaural beats or anything that will help me, because in the end I won't be as proficient with LDing as if I had learned it on my own. I think its best Dragon, to become independent and free of such things in your practice because most LDers who do tend to use beats find themselves starting to depend solely on those soundtracks to become lucid.
However, if you're fine with that then go ahead and use them man. Some people like to have those things to fall back on, and that's not a problem. On the other hand, if you're really getting into using a lucid mindset effectively it is best, in my opinion, to stay independent as I said earlier so that you can better your LDing skills. Depend on only yourself and you'll find that though you may have chosen the harder path, you'll be able to LD at will after some practice. :)

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Originally Posted by OneUp

I strongly agree with Sageous. I never like to use binaural beats or anything that will help me, because in the end I won't be as proficient with LDing as if I had learned it on my own. I think its best Dragon, to become independent and free of such things in your practice because most LDers who do tend to use beats find themselves starting to depend solely on those soundtracks to become lucid.
However, if you're fine with that then go ahead and use them man. Some people like to have those things to fall back on, and that's not a problem. On the other hand, if you're really getting into using a lucid mindset effectively it is best, in my opinion, to stay independent as I said earlier so that you can better your LDing skills. Depend on only yourself and you'll find that though you may have chosen the harder path, you'll be able to LD at will after some practice. :)

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I agree with the beats thing. I use them sometimes but they never work, only make me feel weird and make me fall asleep quick. Most people are eager and want to jump in quick, like I kinda was and still kinda am, but it takes practice, trust me you will see results, just last night I kinda had a lucid dream and I've been neglecting RCs and DJs for MONTHS and I've just jumped back in it hardcore like this weekend/monday and my results are already coming back in. If you're lucky like me and my friend you'll start seeing them early, just have faith, because if your mind is doubting, then your subconscious will take that and work against you.
I read a post of a guy who was doing it for like what, 4 months? 7 at the most, and now he has em every night.

Thanks for the reply guys. Yeah I don't think I'm gonna use binaural beats. Yes Sageous, it literally invokes a sleep/trance state. As I said, my friend was fit to lucid dream. But I agree with all 3 of you - I feel it's "artificial lucid dreaming" and I don't want that. I feel it would hinder my progress so I won't do it until I'm proficient in all manners of ld-ing.

Yeah almost got my DJ up to date (dictaphone stored) and RC check not as much, but trying to work on self awareness and ada.

So I know I'm doing it right, self awareness is acknowledging I affect other people and everything in life and likewise everything in life directly affects me, as I encounter anything. It's just pondering on that thought? Then ada is is physically noticing everything around you, but also within you and that directly affects you. Basically using the full extent of your senses - so you see and be aware of all you see, hear, smell, taste and feel (physical and internal)?

Have I just about nailed it? The way to practice is to just focus on these things yeah? Like meditate - sit and take time out to focus on these? How long for? How many times a day? Can you over do it?

^^ Yes, you seemed to have pretty much nailed it, DragonLucid. Here are a couple of thoughts to help you get more firmly on the path:

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Originally Posted by DragonLucid

Yeah almost got my DJ up to date (dictaphone stored) and RC check not as much, but trying to work on self awareness and ada.

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You might not want to diminish the importance or frequency of RC's in your day. RC'ing is perhaps one of the most valuable tools for preparing to LD, so keep on doing it (and keep them sincere!)...in fact, adding a RC to the end of the other things you do is a good idea.

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So I know I'm doing it right, self awareness is acknowledging I affect other people and everything in life and likewise everything in life directly affects me, as I encounter anything. It's just pondering on that thought?

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Yes, self-awareness -- the understanding that you exist, and everything you do or say effects your local reality, and it effects you -- is that simple. But simple isn't always easy. Pondering on that thought, or, more specifically, wondering about your interaction with reality on a here & now basis is an excellent exercise, and a very good start, but there will be more work later, as you move along. Also, keep in mind that you are not pondering your thought about your interaction with reality, but the interaction itself.

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The way to practice is to just focus on these things yeah?

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The way forward is to focus on these things, but be assured there will be much more to do; like nurturing your memory and expectations. It's a good start, though!

Also, don't fret about there being "so much to do and know," either. Yes, this stuff will take time, but that time is spent in parallel with your LD'ing experience; you do not have to be expert in these things before you can LD. Your first LD's will occur as you are working and learning, and by the time you finally gain a mastery of these things, you will likely have already been consistently LD'ing for a while. In a sense, LD's are sort of a rewarding side-effect to your efforts to learn about self-awareness and develop your memory.

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Like meditate - sit and take time out to focus on these?

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Instead of focusing on these things during allotted times, try to make these things an integral part of your waking life activities -- it all works much better that way.

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How long for? How many times a day?

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For as long as you can manage and as many days as you can fit the exercises in. There is no universal minimum and maximum for these things, and you will establish your own limits with practice.

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Can you over do it?

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Yes. If you find yourself doing self-awareness exercises, ADA, or RC's mechanically, without much real personal input, you might be doing them too often, and have made the exercises rote in order to make them easier to bear. You will learn nothing if that happens. Moderation in everything is a good thing, so try not to obsess.

I started my dream journal the 28th of September last year, when I started taking lucid dreaming seriously. So in four days I've been logging dreams for one year.
To this day I have written 248 entries in my journal, one entry often contains two to four dreams, and I have had 28 lucid nights since I started taking it serious, some nights may contain two lucid dreams. I'm trying to reach 30 before the 28th, and I will probably make it. I'm no natural at all, so I have to train myself constantly to have LDs.
That's my noob progression for one year, so you have some sort of scale if you'd like :D