Thread: Training in Secret - Unsupportive Spouse

Wow. I'm not the perfect person for relationship advice, but having to hide who you are to save a relationship can't possibly be healthy.

I don't know a lot about lucid dreaming yet, but I think I can throw a few cents. These situations can be kind of delicate, but I have a few suggestions. First of all:

...prides herself on never...ever.....ever changing her mind.

This is straight up damaging to the person and, in some cases (like yours), to people near them. I just want to get this out of the way. This is not how the world evolves, and anyone who takes this attitude is not worth discussing anything with in my honest opinion, because what's the point. You should never endorse this behavior.

About your dream journal, just do it! Does she get upset just because you're writing your dreams? If it really bothers you maybe you can just go to the bathroom and do it there. You can also try to log your dreams by waking up in the middle of the night, and using a faint light to see what you're doing. But I really don't think this should be keeping you from having a dream journal. In other words, I don't think this is the solution you should be looking for or the problem you should be tackling.

As for the lack of people to discuss these things with: that's what the forums are for. I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if many (even most), people had that same problem. I don't have anyone else around me to talk to about this with either, and it doesn't really bother me much. It does not seem to be a very common or even well received practice after all.

I guess the bottom line is that you should absolutely not have your wife (or anyone else what so ever), prevent you from pursuing this because, honestly, it is none of her damn business if you don't want it to be. And I do understand that maybe she's just worried about you: this could lower your performance at work, or leave you tired during the day, but after a while, if no negative side effects manifest, she'll have little reason (aside from saving her ego, which these people live for), to be against you doing it. As you stated, Lucid dreaming seems to be something that doesn't really manifest too noticeably in your daily (awake) life. Things like mantras, practicing awareness and reality checks all can be done very discretely without anyone really noticing it. Bed "rituals" may be a little more complicated to deal with, obviously. I don't know much about these subjects so I'm not great to give advice on these areas. I strongly believe that your problems should be "How do I do X despite my problem", and not "How do I go about this without X", or you risk missing some things which can be really worth experiencing. I also realize that maybe you want to have her more involved, but this kind of people are very very hard to change. You're welcome to try, but expect failure and frustration. I HATE to say this, but I do not recommend you wasting energy with this.

One more thing, remember that she simply does not need to be a part of this. She obviously doesn't want to. Refrain from bringing it up. It may sound like bad advice, but if you do keep mentioning it you'll just upset her and be upset yourself. Don't feel like you owe it to her to tell her about these things. She made her choice, and you made yours.

I hope you find some useful ideas in this. I'm sorry if the post seems a bit hostile, but I really do not like people with that description. It's honestly pretty sad. Anyway, good luck to you, I guess, and I'm sorry about the hand you were dealt.

Why do your wife don't want you to lucid dream. If she know about it and had bad experience with it and don't want you to have the same experience, lucid dreams are harmless and don't make you tired after waking up, ther is no reason to be worried. But if she dosn't know anything about it you can do reality checks and dream journaling without her knowing you are practicing to LD, so she won't know what are you doing.

Let's please keep on topic people: while I'm sure that everyone is/will be trying to help the OP with the question of his wife's support, remember that the purpose of the thread is obtaining advice on lucid dreaming, not on marital issues. Let's make this a quality thread for lucid dreaming tips for people who don't have support on their practice

Welcome to the forums ApisMellifera, good to have you!

Regarding your situation, like others have mentioned, lucid dreaming is mostly a discrete activity, and there are always ways to circumvent your particular circumstances, just make sure that you don't loose motivation or break the habit, as those are the big guns for long-term lucid practice!

First, let's start with this:

There aren't other people that I speak with regularly enough or consider close enough friends to discuss my dreams with. I'm on my own when it comes to doing the actual training.

Most of us don't have lucid dreaming "company" in our lives either, and it's the reason why Dreamviews has become our home: you have loads of members that hang around here multiple backgrounds, with different levels of interest and expertise, and through community effort we've came up with several ways to strengthen this bond between members. Here are some suggestions:

- Lucid Experiences: a great place to share your lucid dreams, it's very used to report memorable and/or important experiences, while also being able to find out people that went through something along those lines.
- Tasks of the Month & Year: A long time ago, a DV member found the perfect answer to turn lucid dreaming into a group activity: designing tasks that everyone can complete at the same time, and thus, the TOTM was born. Shall you be up to the challenge, prepare to observe the multitude of ways DVers come up with to complete simple tasks like building a snowman, defeating a dragon, or vandalize China's Great Wall (so far, no one has been caught!). And if you think you have what it takes, you can attempt the Task of the Year, a group of tasks that require a significant dedication to your lucid dreaming practice, because crossing all those sub-tasks? Not an easy thing to do!
- Lucid Challenges: who doesn't like friendly competition? If you're looking to compete with the pros or simply integrate on some activities to measure your skills while learning with others and just having a good time, this is the place to go. Many of us find extra motivation when we're competing with others, and several members have gone from lower leagues of lucid dreaming expertise to reaching the first place in many competitions!

But that's not all: even though the majority of DV members are always around and happy to help, you can always sign up for our DreamViews Buddy Program, a great way to grab a partner with who you can share your dreams and talk even more about LDing: whether is someone with loads of experience, or a person that is also starting out, the program was reborn by our dear spellbee2 to once more pair lucid dreaming lovers into a more one-on-one approach with each other supporting the other ^^

As you can see (and probably already noticed by wandering around DV) there's always something going on that you can use to stick to lucid dreaming: topics to discuss, tips and guides to read (or to write!), and you can even pop by the chat....we're always talking about LDing and bacon (free tips on this by anderj101 )

Now, onto your issues with the Dream Journal:

Evidence is piling up: the better your recall, the more chances of a higher lucid dreaming frequency. We don't know exactly why, but what we do know is that the act of Dream Journalling can give you access to a lot of dream signs (which you can train yourself to react while awake), and valuable information about your dream world....The most important thing is that you are thinking about what you dream about, and picking up on chances of becoming lucid.

Since a physical journal is impossible for you, let's turn instead to the (so-far) most powerful memory technique there is: this is a method of remembering a big amount of information in a relatively fast pace, and it's quite effective (all the memory champions seem to use it!). This video explains it:



In short words, this is what happens:

1. You pick a route through a series of familiar locations: the best example is your house, since you know very well each room.
2. Now, when trying to remember something, like a long sentence (like "I travelled to Mars and had coffee with a vampire about butter and cars"), you split it into smaller parts.
3. Using those smaller parts, you try to come up with a memorable image that you will mentally store in each division of your house: the weirder the association the better!

In this example you can imagine yourself Entering in the Hallway that has a Marcian Decoration, then moving into your bathroom where you found a vampire, then heading into the living room where you find you and him having coffee, and a piece of butter in the table. Lastly you picture yourself going to your bedroom and waking up).

Got it? You just need to recall your dream once, then split it into several parts (like you were breaking a story into chapters), and then representing those into a memorable image in each division of your house....being creative is key here, and you'll improve the more you try this (you'll become faster at "storing the dream" into your memory palace - or should I say, house), allowing you to fit more and more dream fragments per location, and ending up recalling larger and more dreams.
If you're having troubles into this way of recalling dreams, consider a look into MMR, which can give you a notion of how undressing a dream into small key concepts works.

Shoot any more questions and we'll be here to answer. Since the reply was already too big I left some stuff out, but there's several other tips so you can take advantage of your "difficulty"...like using your wife as your own personal reality check

At night, just observe everything that happens as you sleep. Then, when you wake up, recall your dreams in your head. You don't need a dream journal to do this. Sure, you won't be able to remember most of your dreams by the end of the night, but you will be conscious of your dreams enough to have lucid dreams, which are easier to remember. Once you observe enough, eventually not only will you be conscious of your dreams but you'll be conscious of patterns in your dreams which when you experience them will trigger prospective memories of dreaming which will allow you to become lucid.

Originally Posted by Zoth

Let's please keep on topic people: while I'm sure that everyone is/will be trying to help the OP with the question of his wife's support, remember that the purpose of the thread is obtaining advice on lucid dreaming, not on marital issues.

Well, I don't think we were really off topic. It's not about marital issues, but just this problem that is really significant when discussing lucid dreaming. It is almost like me asking how to cut a tree, except I don't have access to axes or any kind of saw.

I fear that maybe because he has these problems, he might not be able to try some practices that could potentially really work for him, or lead to really pleasant results. For instance, having a dream journal doesn't seem to be good only for improving your recollection, but also to keep you motivated. It's a history of how far you've gone, and you can come back to read it and feel like you really are making progress. He might have trouble just relaxing in bed to prepare for the night. His wife might pick up this as being abnormal. Between many other practices.

Of course I know this is not straight forward, but I really do think, as I mentioned above, that the problem he should be tackling is how to deal with this problem, and not how to go around it, possibly taking an impoverished route. In a sense, I think this should be more of a "life advice" question and less of a lucid dreaming question, but again, I know how hard these things are. Maybe this is just wishful thinking: I really don't want anyone to feel oppressed by someone they love. Maybe I'm wrong and he can still have a good experience despite these issues.

Your post was still upstanding, don't get me wrong.

Originally Posted by RaveCrazedDave

Well, I don't think we were really off topic.

You weren't: what I wrote was meant as a friendly reminder for future members replying, that due the circunstances of the OP, might go off-topic in their replies (unlike yours and nikakwa's), and spam the thread with non-constructive feedback.

That said, I totally agree with you in the sense that the most healthy approach for both OP's relationship and lucid dreaming practice would be one of pursuing acceptance of his lucid dreaming hobby. Still, like you said, things rarely are that straight forward! Who knows, maybe things can indeed work out in the end

First off, I am already seeing some great advice here, and thank you guys for the quick responses!

I apologize as I'm afraid I opened up a small can of worms here in regards to marital strife. In my original post I was too eager to get to my question and realize that I just left my wife out there to take a beating. I would like try to put things into some better context. She had a very rough childhood and understandably clings very tightly to any sort of control that she can gain as an adult. For her, control = safety. We are perfect for each other because she tries to use her control wisely and usually makes extremely intelligent decisions. Conversely, I am able to benefit her by being about the most laid-back person you will ever meet. Of course, there is much more to our relationship than this, but you can see how we are mutually beneficial. She has complained to me in the past that she has often had to deal with disturbing thoughts/dreams/feelings which result from her upbringing. I believe that this may cause her to believe that the psyche/spirit/what-have-you is a dangerous place to explore and that she is really just trying to look out for me. I assure you she is not the monster that you may have gathered from the original post.

I strongly believe that your problems should be "How do I do X despite my problem", and not "How do I go about this without X"

(that quote was from RaveCrazedDave. Still learning some of the forum tools here, hope the quote showed up right)

Rave, you make a great point there. It's amazing how a different perspective can clear things up. Essentially, instead of going without a dream journal, I should focus on creative methods of finding some way to record my dreams. I think you are right. Though mine may be in a different form, I know it is a vital tool and would be worth any extra effort needed in order to reap the benefits.

Dolphin, what you said already rings true for me. Just being conscious that my dreams are important and taking the time to think about them, I have already seen my recall improve in the mornings. I used to wake up to a fuzzy, fading fragment of the last image, which would be gone in a few seconds. Now I can fairly clearly remember the dream, and more of it, for a minute or two. I'm hoping this improves further over time.

Zoth, the memory palace! Of course! I've heard of this technique before, but never considered it for use with dreams. If I can use this to store a memory of a dream quickly, then my hope is that this may give me the ability to record entries in an online dream journal an hour or so after waking.

Already I think I see a feasible plan coming together here, and I must say I'm very excited. This doesn't mean people can't post more ideas. I am always hungry for any bit of advice this community has to offer.

Thank you guys again for you help!

Originally Posted by ApisMellifera

So there's a little background. I am completely hooked on the idea of lucid dreaming, so I've been lurking in the forums and finally signed up with a new (secret) email address yesterday.

Hi Apis M.

Be wary though if you are sharing the same computer or laptop with your spouse. Reason: If you fail to log in to DV account for a while (28 days?) then you get sent a reminder to your (secret?) email address. You probably already know this, but just in case?

BTW I second what Dolphin said regarding recording stuff.

I had a lucid dream this morning not long after taking a short toilet break (ie: WBTB.) Thing is I haven't been writing ANY ordinary dreams down lately and I have been discouraging myself from getting lucid due to having a busy schedule.

I obviously wrote the lucid down along with the rest though.

Hello ApisMellifera, that does sound like an awkward problem, which could be so much easier with the support of your wife, but essentially will probably motivate you even more to succeed with lucid dreaming.

I get the impression from reading so far that a pyshical dream journal will not go down well. I personally find a dream journal essential if you want to LD regularly, trying to remember dreams in my head is not only more challenging but after a couple of days have passed they will probably be virtually gone from memory. This doesnt mean though you won't have more luck recording your dreams mentally than I.

A method I would suggest however is using your phone as a dream journal. Either just typing a few important bits down in the Notes section, or downloading one of the apps. The apps are very similar to a notepad really. You can just jot down a few bits from memory when you first wake, then when you are alone with a bit more time you can edit your memories into more of a story. Add in the descriptive bits, and try and mention the senses, what you saw, and how things felt. Not only is this better for your recall, its also nice to come back every so often and see all your dream stories stored in one place.

Anyway I hope there is a few bits to think about for you there, any questions just ask away. Best of luck

ApisMellifera, I have a VERY similar situation. My wife thinks it is stupid and a waste of time and she thinks it is "wrong" to pursue. While she knows I am a proponent I try to greatly minimize her awareness of my involvement. She doesn't realize my 3 or 4 o'clock bathroom break doubles for WBTB. My RC is a nose pinch but I have gotten it down to looking like I am sort of just itching my nose or like stifling a sniffel. As far as dream journaling I try to jot down a few lines on a scrap of paper and journal after she goes somewhere. That is all you need. The rest is in your head. So to summarize, I do not "hide" it but I make it virtually invisible and non impact full to her. But it comes with a price...some intimacy is lacking because I feel we cannot really share everything. Sometimes I think "coming out of the closet" and facing the consequences might be better, or me giving up LDs. But I have had about 300 and it is hard to say I am just going to quit now. I feel for you, brother.

Another person in the same boat here (and yes, "don't stand for such a situation," "it's not healthy, blah blah blah" is useless advice, the actual situations are almost always quite more complex than taking the ultimatum standpoint), and I've had quite a good bit of success in building great dream recall and increasing lucidity. Almost the entire practice is invisible. The DJ and forum access are the tricky parts.

Most nights now I do what I call "mental journaling" -- I go over the dreams again and again and again in my head, assigning key words/phrases for them, and trying my best to maintain the growing list of dreams across every waking that I notice until the final waking in the morning where I again review all the nights dreams. I find that when I do this the dreams I'm left with in the morning (some may not make it of course) are more or less indelibly burned into my waking memory and I can put off DJing until later. Sooner is better of course.

I did start off however doing voice journaling upon every waking -- whispering in the night into my smart phone's voice recorder app, then transcribing the notes in the morning. You can actually get up and go to the bathroom to do this in more privacy without risking your spouse noticing. After a year or so of doing this every night I found that I could 99% of the time type up the full DJ without ever needing to consult the voice notes. Moving to mental journaling is the next step.

I still do try to write up short summaries at least of each dream in the DV "describe your dream from last night in one sentence" thread, and do full DJ entries for those that are particularly notable.

Why don't you come over to the DILD class in the DVA and start a workbook thread -- you can keep notes on your progress, ask questions, and receive advice from the wonderful teachers there ( I'm one of them ).

Hey ApisM, I have a similar problem, although not quite as severe. At first my wife was very suspicious and anti. It turned out she was afraid of it for herself, not for me. She has not objected to my various exploits (Zeo headband, electronic DJ, supplements), but her lack of approval has given me a bit of a mental block - like guilt that she doesn't approve. She has come around over the months as I have recounted my dreams and LD's, to the point that she is also recalling her dreams (she never used to very much), and has even recently talked about having a go herself. Maybe this could work for you? Take it very slow and start with just casual dream recall and see how it goes?
While I agree with the "marriage guidance" sentiment, SWMBO should also be the one to share new things with, not excluded.

I have something similar with someone very close to me, but it's not to do with lucid dreaming. It can be very hard to practice my thing when I'm around them, but not impossible.

I really, really think that going to the bathroom to record your dreams is a good idea. Recording your dreams in some way will get you the most lucid dreams, and being able to go back and review them can really help. You don't necessarily have to have a written dream journal (though I'd suggest it over a virtual one in most cases); you can also just record your voice. Beware: you might find--in fact, you probably will find--that certain "techniques" give you better results. Whichever way that is, please try to do it more often than not.

Finally . . . I hope that your lady comes around some day, and that something on this thread helps in the meantime.

Might I recommend a DJ on DV? You can access on your phone or the comp.

Also, Dream Journaling isn't needed for LDing, but Recall is. Here is a guide to learn how to use a DJ to get to a point that you don't need a DJ. The format is easy to use in the forum and then you can copy/paste it over to the DJ and type up your dreams.
http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-sign...m-journal.html