Moving in the Right Direction?

Had 1 LD about 15 years ago, and now at age 64 and retired, I'm again working on having regular LD's. Started about two weeks ago and have been working on awareness and memory per recommendations of "Sageous" in his "Fundamentals" thread and "Puffin's" tutorial on DILD. I'm trying DILD for about a month to see how it works for me before trying other techniques. I have improved my dream recall and have noticed something interesting. When I started writing down my dream(s) for the night, much if not most of the recall was in third person as if I was writing down a movie that I had seen. The recall has been changing in the last few days with having recall in both 1st and 3rd person, leaning more towards 1st person last night. I feel that this is heading in the right direction. Has anyone else had this experience? Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

Glad to hear you're making progress! If you are natural drifting from recalling in the third to first person, then that I'd good. I read early on about always writing your dreams in the first person but also always in the present to make them seem more real and immediate, so I've always tended to do that and didn't really transition.
Keep us posted on your progress please :-)

Many dream in 1st person view, and many in third. I personally, hrm, I was gonna say I dream mostly in 1st person, but now I'm not so sure. I know all my lucids are in 1st person view, only 1 that I recall was in 3rd. person view. I would say sometimes my view changes mid dream, even a few times.

I think what you are noticing is better recall, so you see more details and more dreams. Writing them down is definitely the way to go.

Thanks for the comments. Since I noticed going between 1st and 3rd person, I've also noticed that my dreams are a bit more vivid and a little more complicated as well. Guess this is due to the better recall. I've also noticed that some of the oddest things that happen to me in dreams seem to happen in 1st person. I sort of know while I'm dreaming that what is happening is strange, but so far this has not been enough to trigger lucidity. Gonna keep working on it though.

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Originally Posted by pdunc

Thanks for the comments. Since I noticed going between 1st and 3rd person, I've also noticed that my dreams are a bit more vivid and a little more complicated as well. Guess this is due to the better recall. I've also noticed that some of the oddest things that happen to me in dreams seem to happen in 1st person. I sort of know while I'm dreaming that what is happening is strange, but so far this has not been enough to trigger lucidity. Gonna keep working on it though.

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Strange things will not trigger lucidity, unless you start thinking in waking life - "well, this is strange, I must be dreaming". And really believe, that you are dreaming, or that you could be. Then this feeling will start happening in your regular dream and get you lucid.

More about that here http://www.dreamviews.com/dild/13212...ods-dilds.html

I know that you're right Gab, and I have been developing my awareness numerous times throughout the day. When I had my LD 15 years ago, it was because I noticed something strange in the dream getting even stranger and said to myself, "I must be dreaming". For a few minutes I knew that I was dreaming and even told a DC that I knew that I was dreaming. In any case, for most of my awareness during the day, everything seems normal and not strange. I believe that it would have more impact on my dreams if I could notice more things being strange during the day, then saying "well, this is strange, I must be dreaming" would have more impact. I'm just wondering how I can set something up so that numerous times during my waking hours I would notice something that seems strange enough to shock me into saying that statement and really believing that I could be dreaming. For now I have been going over my dream journal and noticing the things that were really strange in past dreams and telling myself that "if anything strange like this happens again in my dreams, I will know that I am dreaming". When I see something bizzare in a dream, I typically fell a bit confused before my mind justifies the bizzareness. Seems to me that if I could capitalize on the short period of confusion, it would be key for me to become lucid. Any other suggestions?

At first, you have to fake it. Since our daily lives are kinda mundane, everything looks normal, nothing is "dreamy strange".

What helped me is realizing, that not the strange thing, or the reality check will trigger lucidity. But our thoughts and beliefs.

So what you can do is this:

At any moment during your day, pause for a moment, invoke kinda startling thought or realization, that you could at that very moment be dreaming. Just like in your dreams. We believe we are awake in them, until we realize that we are dreaming. So at any time during day, no matter what you are doing, you can pause and think to yourself 'how strange". I must be dreaming. If you want to attach any actual event to that, you can, but just that thought is enough. What I mean is, if you want to say "that's strange, that car was red and not green just a second ago."

Why I like the startling pause is because we tend to go through our dreams without a pause, without noticing details. We just go with it. Same, as with our lives. Kinda like on autopilot. Zoned out. So when we make a hard stop in waking life to think we are dreaming, we will do the same in a dream.

Triggering lucidity with this "that's strange, I must be dreaming" thought is just one of the ways how to get lucid. I really like the method I described in the link from my previous post. Randomly, at any time during day, pause and believe that you could be dreaming. If you remember the excitement from realization from your previous lucid, then invoke that feeling. That incredible excitement. If not, think of something else that's exciting to you. Then do your preferred reality check. http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...hecks-rcs.html

Just remember, that RCs are just a vehicle, something to attach our intent to become lucid. They will by themselves not get us lucid. The "wow, I could be dreaming" will.

Thanks gab. I appreciate your help in my attempts to become lucid. Just started working on LD's a couple of weeks ago. At first I was getting overly anxious to have one, so I started researching LD's and got all confused on which technique to use. Like most, I was trying to get the job done as fast and easy as I could. Even bought some Calea Z which I have yet to try. Finally calmed down and decided to have a little patience and try one technique at a time for a month or so before going onto another. I am currently working on having a DILD. My day starts off with setting 3 tasks to work on prospective and past memory. One prospective memory trigger might be say, opening a door. Every time I open a door I stop, look around at things closely, touch, smell, etc., just trying to be aware as possible. I then ask if I am dreaming and do a couple RC's. I also look back at the things I've done and experienced over the last 15-20 minutes. I then set an intention to become aware that I'm dreaming the next time I'm dreaming. I may also include the strangeness aspect that we've talked about. I re-set my intention when I go to bed. I may also review my dream journal. (nice to be retired and have all that time!) I have been doing these awareness checks dozens of times a day, admittedly only for the last few days. (my wife thinks I'm nuts!) {"Randomly, at any time during day, pause and believe that you could be dreaming. If you remember the excitement from realization from your previous lucid, then invoke that feeling. That incredible excitement. If not, think of something else that's exciting to you. Then do your preferred reality check". (will do!} Although I have not had an LD yet, my dream recall has gotten much better and the vividness of the dreams has gotten better. Last night I even had a dream with a reference to becoming lucid. In the dream, myself and a few DC's near me were all wearing overly large round watches that were supposed to help us get lucid. This dream was in an early night REM period. I'm guessing that thinking about lucidity in my dreams is a pretty good sign. In any case, thanks again for your comments and suggestions.