Thread: I'm Done! I Give Up!

Originally Posted by DarkDreamer1020

constantly watching anime and playing video games

Perhaps if you hadn't spend a ridiculous amount on those hobbies you would have more success at lucid dreaming.. Gaining motivation is fine, but you can't spend many hours a day occupying your mind with distractions. Not if you want your awareness to increase, that is.

Anyway, your post seems to me like a cry for help. So tell us, what exactly did you do, throughout all those years, that didn't help you become lucid, so we can try to find what you did wrong and how to improve. It's almost impossible to do honest work on lucid dreaming for such a long time and not become at least semi-decent at it.

Originally Posted by mimihigurashi

Gaining motivation is fine, but you can't spend many hours a day occupying your mind with distractions. Not if you want your awareness to increase, that is.

I concur with this. Life presents far too many distractions, and they can be a big negative to raising awareness. It's a matter of priorities.

Anyway, your post seems to me like a cry for help.

It actually sorta kinda was. But I was serious in everything I said. I've been trying on and off for at least a good four years now, And I'm going nuts because I haven't seen any results yet. Not even a little bit. I've tried but failed at dream journaling (Mainly Because I Was Lazy And Had Work), Reality checks didn't seem to do much, WILD (Scoff), and don't even get me started on WBTB! I don't know, maybe you're right. Maybe I am doing something wrong. If you have anything to say to help me, I'm honestly all ears. PLEASE HELP ME!!! (Oh Yeah, And Then Theres The Whole Interacting With Dream Characters Problem...)

Originally Posted by DarkDreamer1020

It actually sorta kinda was. But I was serious in everything I said. I've been trying on and off for at least a good four years now, And I'm going nuts because I haven't seen any results yet. Not even a little bit. I've tried but failed at dream journaling (Mainly Because I Was Lazy And Had Work), Reality checks didn't seem to do much, WILD (Scoff), and don't even get me started on WBTB! I don't know, maybe you're right. Maybe I am doing something wrong. If you have anything to say to help me, I'm honestly all ears. PLEASE HELP ME!!! (Oh Yeah, And Then Theres The Whole Interacting With Dream Characters Problem...)

I know it was a cry for help because if you truly wanted to quit trying and leave, you would've likely left without saying anything, let alone explaining your problems.

See, one of the most important factors in lucid dreaming success is consistency. If you try on and off, it's unlikely you will get results. You brain has to become accustomed to an increased awareness and questioning of the current reality. That's only going to happen with consistent practice.
So that's one fundamental you haven't grasped yet. The second one is dream journaling. Dream journaling is vital for dream recall, which is vital for lucidity. How are you going to become lucid if you don't even know what your dreams are like? Even if you do have a lucid dream, if your recall is poor, it's very likely you completely forget about it. Don't be shocked if you might've already had some lucids but never remembered them because of poor dream recall.
WILD is an advanced technique, beginners can get lucky with it but very rarely, certainly do not recommend it until you get better at LDing.
Reality checks must also be done with consistency, and mindfully. If they're done a few times per day in a mindless state, they're not going to do much, especially if they're not even done every day.
WBTB can be tricky but it doesn't have to last hours, it can last as short as a minute and still be effective. And what is the problem with dream characters interaction?
Sorry I would have gone in more details but I gotta go to bed.

The fact that you bothered to post makes me think you're still open to at least some interpretation of your lack of lucid dreams. Well, first consider a few things:

- It's literally impossible to analyze someone's progress based on what they do. There are hundreds of reality checks, many variations of all popular techniques, and even if you told us "I'm doing visualization 4 hours a day" that still wouldn't give us a clue of the quality of that visualization, or any other exercise for that matter.

- Mindset (do not confuse this with motivation) does influence your chances: first, let me confirm what many lucid dreamers already know: motivation only goes so far. If you think everyone of us has the patience to practice every day, or to engage into mindfulness exercises, or seek self-awareness, you're wrong. Unlike natural lders, the rest of us needs to get up and throw themselves to work, every single day. But how do we do it? Simply by practicing with moderation, focusing on the journey rather than the reward, and after so many weeks and months, these practices become a second nature, as easy to perform as waking up and brushing your teeth. Just like drivers, it takes some time to get everything down to automatic mode. The trick is to know how to keep yourself inside the habit.

Now, knowing all this, how was your "on-and-off-practice?" Being an on-and-off lder myself (which is awful because it makes it almost impossible to keep track of your progress), I know by experience that the fact that you're not sticking to a routine of practice for some time gives you the false illusion that you're putting up enough effort into it when actually your performance could be much better. Once again, this is completely normal (because you still have to engage into conscious, forceful actions), but it can be quite frustrating because the results will never be as good as a person who sticks by it for a long time, even if that person is practicing less than you.

You're right, lucid dreaming is totally lame.

Best not to listen to all these folks and just give up hope.

And yeah, I agree, vidja games and dem cartoonimations from japan are way better at giving you inspiration and an idea of what to expect when lucid dreaming than reading people's DJs. Let me know if you want some suggestions on some DJs to not read!

You failed to dream journal because you have work? That's problem one. Is lucid dreaming just a thought or a priority? Set your alarm 10 minutes earlier and/or wake up during the night to record dreams. It's a minuscule amount of effort.

If you read a book on lucid dreaming and actually APPLY the principles it is extremely likely that you will start having many dreams, and eventually lucids.

However, I would not base your life happiness on your experiences in lucid dreams. Lucid dreaming should be fun, entertainment, experimentation, exploration, and for doing things not possible or acceptable in the waking life.

If you would like to improve your waking like, here are a few books I would recommend you read. I support the quest for lucid dreaming but you spend more hours awake every day, and life is too short to be miserable. Happiness during all times of the day is what we strive for.

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
Choose Yourself - James Altucher
The Power Of Now - Eckhart Tolle

Hey man, look. I'm sure every lucid dreamer (including myself) has been in your shoes at some point. Hell, I'd 'given up' 3 times before I ever really became motivated enough (by my first ever random DILD). The thing to realize is that if you give up, you'll never succeed. Sure you may get extremely lucky and just happen to become lucid in a dream, and I hope you do so that you can experience something amazing enough to motivate you to continue. But the odds are against you.

I've only had 3 LDs in my life - the first two of which lasted all of 10 seconds - and I've been really practicing for a year. Lucid dreaming is one of the toughest things I've ever "learned" to do, and I haven't even become nearly proficient enough to call myself a true LDer. If you want to see real progress, it's going to have to become a legitimate lifestyle change for you. Let me ask you a few questions if you don't mind.

1. How do you practice lucid dreaming? What techniques do you employ, and do you do any day-work to improve your chances of DILD?

2. (And this one is what turned the tide for me) Do you smoke mairjuana regularly? Weed is REM suppressant and the effect is has on your memory is pretty terrible for your recall. Now don't get me wrong, I'm 100% sure that with the proper motivation it's entirely possible to become great at lucid dreaming while smoking regularly. But as someone once told me on these forums, there's a pretty immense learning curve (meaning that once you have your first LD or 2, your frequency of having them is going to start skyrocketing) and for beginners, smoking can be a real detriment. Someone on these forums gave me the advice to quit the pot, at least for a month (which has the added benefit of bringing your tolerance down ), so that you can really start dreaming and getting a hang of things. Within 2 weeks of quitting I was rewarded with the most amazing experience of my life a few days ago, my first real lucid dream

Look. It's your prerogative if you want to quit, I mean it is hard work and nobody would judge you for it. But lucid dreaming is one of the most incredible things you can do in this life, and it would be a shame if you were to miss out on that after coming so far!

Good luck to you in all aspects in life, and remember. ANYONE can lucid dream.

EDIT: And as far as your problem interacting with dream characters: In a lucid dream, you can do anything.Anything that you can possibly perceive in your mind you can accomplish in a dream. I'm not saying this or dream control in general is easy in any way, but this includes turning any and all of your dream characters into whoever you damn well please! All with a simple flick of your wrist or power of your will.

If I were you, DarkDreamer, I'd listen to the good advice these guys -- even Mzzkc -- are offering and give LD'ing another try, only this time with a little more consistent focus on the process and on getting your head in the right place. If you're too lazy to keep a dream journal, scoff at fully half the routes to a LD (WILD), have issues with getting up and going back to bed (WBTB), and assume that your DC's will let you down, then you could try this for another 4 or 40 years and never succeed. The best things are never easy, and sometimes take some real effort on your part... if you ever do succeed, you won't regret it!

Oh, and about those mindless DC's: I've had, among other things, many adventures, conversations, and intellectual arguments with DC's, and was rarely disappointed -- as long as I wasn't expecting to be disappointed; assume that your DC's will be mindless robots and, sure enough, they will be. Give them a chance.

Good luck, whatever you do.

You've gotten a lot of good advice Darkdreamer, so may I give you bad advice?

If you decide to not follow the advice given, or that the circumstances of life stop you from ever being disciplined at the art of lucid dreaming, just let it go. Don't say "I quit!", simply let go the idea of "I will be a lucid dreamer or I won't be a lucid dreamer". Simply practice recall for a whole year. Every day when you wake up, spend no more than 3 minutes remembering your dreams. Don't remember anything? That's okay, you don't need to remember dreams everyday, no more than you need to watch TV every day. Then, just write four words on a piece of paper that you carry in your pocket all day, and look at it periodically, to remember your dream. Analyze it. Day dream about it. Change the outcome. Finish the dream. Become a dreamer, not a lucid dreamer. One day, In a year, you'll become a good dreamer. Then, you might find the time and discipline to become a lucid dreamer.

And happiness is about loving your life, its pointlessness and its beauty. Life is a friend, not a park.

(I really hope you take anyone's advice before mine, but just please never forget about lucid dreams.) Good luck!

Wow... I did not think that this many people wanted me to not give up and keep trying... I'm kinda shocked actually. Okay. This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna try and pick up meditation. I hear it not only help with Dream recall and Lucid Dreaming but it also helps with life in general, and I could honestly use that right about now. I'll also try Dream Journaling again and try my hand at MILD. I'll keep you all posted and thank you all. The motivation really helped out a ton!

(Oh, And Thanks Jesslet And Sageous. It's Good To Know That DC Could Be As Interactive And Responsive As You Want. Lol!)

Originally Posted by Occipitalred

You've gotten a lot of good advice Darkdreamer, so may I give you bad advice?

If you decide to not follow the advice given, or that the circumstances of life stop you from ever being disciplined at the art of lucid dreaming, just let it go. Don't say "I quit!", simply let go the idea of "I will be a lucid dreamer or I won't be a lucid dreamer". Simply practice recall for a whole year. Every day when you wake up, spend no more than 3 minutes remembering your dreams. Don't remember anything? That's okay, you don't need to remember dreams everyday, no more than you need to watch TV every day. Then, just write four words on a piece of paper that you carry in your pocket all day, and look at it periodically, to remember your dream. Analyze it. Day dream about it. Change the outcome. Finish the dream. Become a dreamer, not a lucid dreamer. One day, In a year, you'll become a good dreamer. Then, you might find the time and discipline to become a lucid dreamer.

And happiness is about loving your life, its pointlessness and its beauty. Life is a friend, not a park.

(I really hope you take anyone's advice before mine, but just please never forget about lucid dreams.) Good luck!

This is not bad advice, this is incredible advice that cuts to the heart of the matter.

People look at LDing as some cool trick that will be like a video game. The truth is it is an adventure that starts with DREAMING. The core of the art is dreaming, so why do people fight the idea of learning to dream first? "I don't want to work on recall, I want to fight ninjas!"

Non lucid dreams can be an amazing enhancement to daily life, as can the effect of increased awareness.

Don't try to skip to the end, embrace the whole process and enjoy each part.

Lucid dreaming is one of the most difficult mental disciplines I know of, so it should be approached as a path to spend a lifetime on, not a goal to be reached by the end of summer.

Sounds like a bit of a rage to me, and the way you descibe yourself makes me think you should first improve the quality of your life before moving on to lucid dreaming. Not wanting to sound rude, sometimes a person needs some solid advice.
Secondly, it might be a good idea to realise lucid dreaming will not automaticly and instantly give you massive life-changing adventures.

At last, I'd say watch this movie: "The secret life of walter mitty" it's quiet nice and showed me life itself can make things that are just as amazing as lucid dreaming. Though it is still a movie, I liked it more than I expected...

Originally Posted by DarkDreamer1020

Wow... I did not think that this many people wanted me to not give up and keep trying... I'm kinda shocked actually. Okay. This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna try and pick up meditation. I hear it not only help with Dream recall and Lucid Dreaming but it also helps with life in general, and I could honestly use that right about now. I'll also try Dream Journaling again and try my hand at MILD. I'll keep you all posted and thank you all. The motivation really helped out a ton!

(Oh, And Thanks Jesslet And Sageous. It's Good To Know That DC Could Be As Interactive And Responsive As You Want. Lol!)

Here's some more motivation and a roadmap for resilience and persistence. It's about U.S. Navy SEALS, but the principles apply to all endeavors we undertake. It contains some very good takeaways.

A Navy SEAL shares 8 secrets to grit and resilience - Business Insider

Stick with it! Don't let frustration make you throw in the towel...you can do it! Listen to our DV members and saturate your mind with lucid dreaming. I can't say this enough...

DON'T...GIVE...UP.

If you have tried for four years without success then I can tell you this right away - you are doing something wrong.

Everyone can lucid dream, as long as they dream in the first place.
Lucid dreaming only means that you learn to be more self-aware about your surroundings, and to be more observant and ask yourself which state you are in at any given moment, and this is something that everyone can learn.

That's essentially what you need to practice when you are learning to have lucid dreams;
realize that you cannot always be sure that you are awake, and that it's a good idea to double-check this every now and then.
Also, you should think of dreams in general as something fun and enjoyable.

Let's start over again, from the beginning - I suggest that your main goal for now is to rediscover your fascination for dreams in general, and to simply decide to be as aware as possible in them.
Don't demand that you "must" become lucid "tonight", just go to bed and tell yourself that you are going to be as aware as possible about the dreams that you will get that night, and try to remember them as vividly as possible.

Also, one approach that I sometimes use, and that I can recommend, is that I sometimes think of sleep as something I have to do in order to get as many dreams as possible.
That's how I used to think a couple years ago, and I intend to start with that again - instead of thinking of sleep as the "main" thing I do when I go to bed, I just think "now I fall asleep, and start collecting loads of dream memories throughout the night".
This boosted my dream recall like crazy, and I almost instantly started remembering 4-5 vivid dreams every single night just because I was so focused on recalling them.
In either case, if you start with focusing on remembering your dreams in as much details as possible then you will quickly notice that you will start to feel fascinated about dreams again, and this will most certainly rekindle your motivation.

What about methods that make you wake up after dreams like drinking lots of water

If you wake up immediately after a dream your more likely to remember it for journaling

Also what about supplements, take some B6 for dream recall and some Melatonin for vividness.

If you are able to wake up through out the night just keep taking like 10mg of each before going back to bed helps me increase recall

There are other things that can help you to trigger too by making dreams bizarre and surreal

I just took 200mg of 5HTP it will increase serotonin latter tonight which gives focus (and hence awareness) when I wake up I'll start dosing with the others, I expect to remember like 3-7 dreams tonight

also if you wake up thinking of work you can forget remembering dreams, what are your thoughts on waking try clearing them and remaining still and recalling anything you can, go through a list of stuff to see if it triggers memory. Like for me Bus, Train, Car, Plane, Guns, Swords, Insects, Old Friends, Dead Relatives, Pets etc. I'll be lying there thinking I must have had a dream, but can't remember a thing when suddenly I'll go through the list and be like oh yea spiders aren't insects but now I remember dreaming about them and bring back 10 minutes

Originally Posted by Laurelindo

If you have tried for four years without success then I can tell you this right away - you are doing something wrong.

Everyone can lucid dream, as long as they dream in the first place.
Lucid dreaming only means that you learn to be more self-aware about your surroundings, and to be more observant and ask yourself which state you are in at any given moment, and this is something that everyone can learn.

That's essentially what you need to practice when you are learning to have lucid dreams;
realize that you cannot always be sure that you are awake, and that it's a good idea to double-check this every now and then.
Also, you should think of dreams in general as something fun and enjoyable.

Let's start over again, from the beginning - I suggest that your main goal for now is to rediscover your fascination for dreams in general, and to simply decide to be as aware as possible in them.
Don't demand that you "must" become lucid "tonight", just go to bed and tell yourself that you are going to be as aware as possible about the dreams that you will get that night, and try to remember them as vividly as possible.

Also, one approach that I sometimes use, and that I can recommend, is that I sometimes think of sleep as something I have to do in order to get as many dreams as possible.
That's how I used to think a couple years ago, and I intend to start with that again - instead of thinking of sleep as the "main" thing I do when I go to bed, I just think "now I fall asleep, and start collecting loads of dream memories throughout the night".
This boosted my dream recall like crazy, and I almost instantly started remembering 4-5 vivid dreams every single night just because I was so focused on recalling them.
In either case, if you start with focusing on remembering your dreams in as much details as possible then you will quickly notice that you will start to feel fascinated about dreams again, and this will most certainly rekindle your motivation.

These are some great points. From Memm's recent great post (linked in my signature), I've changed the way I think about the night. The night is for *dreaming*, (and rest). Relax, and *dream* (with super vivid excellent recall of course), that's the purpose of the night. I've found it gives direction to those hazy waking moments, "Huh, what's going on here? Oh yeah, *dreams*!" and either then recalling or consciously entering a micro-WBTB with quick intention-setting, mantra, and dream yoga meditations. I've found this approach gives really amazing dreams.