lumiina's Workbook

This workbook has been retired since all of the required homework assignments have been completed. Happy Dreaming!

Reality Checks:
- Thumb/palm
- Gravity
- Waving hand in front of vision
- Reading/Checking Clocks

Dream Signs:
- Experiencing paralysis
- Sleeping, trying to wake up, yet being able to see things around me
- Extreme fear
- Intruder
- Husband comes home early
- Television characters/celebrities
- High school/University/Japanese Camp
- Driving
- Parking lot
- Late for something/Missed something I was supposed to go to
- 3rd person perspective
- 1st person perspective of someone that's not me
- I'm not in the dream
- Being inside a video game
- Public restroom
- Aquatic animals
- Grandfather (deceased)

Short-Term Goals:
- Levitate/fly in a dream
- Talk to a dream character/Befriend a reoccurring dream character
- Record a song that I hear in my dreams
- Confront the intruder in my reoccurring false awakening dream

Long-Term Goals:
- Cultivate my dream control
- Figure out the connection between the immersion method for acquiring a language and non-lucid/lucid dreaming
- Overcome my fear of not being able to wake up in a scary dream

Lucid/Dream Recall History:
- I vividly remember having a lucid dream, perhaps my first one, when I was younger. I was being chased around my parents' house by someone who wanted to kill me. I realized I was dreaming and closed my eyes and told myself to wake up. I was probably in junior high at the time.
- Years ago I heard of lucid dreaming and wanted to try it myself. The first time I was able to induce a lucid dream was through DILD. But I remember being so scared because of having very little control, I never tried it again.
- My most common lucid dreams are either triggered by sleep paralysis or false awakenings.
- Saturday is my best day for recall. I usually wake up early because of my weekday routine, and then go back to bed and remember my dreams when I wake up naturally.
- Started a dream journal, couldn't remember any of my dreams since I started it, until Saturday came around. I woke up and remembered music from a dream, wrote it down in my journal, then went back to bed and woke up remembering three dreams.
- 02/23/2014 First MILD
- 03/10/2014 Second MILD, achieved dream plan of flying, talked to a dream character, attempted task of the month
- 03/28/2014 Third MILD, achieved dream plan of talking to a DC in Japanese
- 05/20/2014 Fourth MILD, achieved dream plan of telekinesis, accomplished task of the month
- 07/05/2014 Second WILD, first time a WILD has been exciting and pleasant for me as opposed to scary from lack of control
- 07/18/2014 DILD, achieved dream plan of going to my mother-in-law's in Japan, lost lucidity at my mother-in-law's

Current Techniques:
- MILD after WBTB
- WILD

Lesson One

Homework Checklist
[x] Start your own workbook thread in this subforum.
[x] Start a Dream Journal and record each dream.
[x] Establish a night-time routine (Include reading your dream journal, making sure to leave your DJ open to a blank page for quicker dictations).
[x] Write a list for why you want to lucid dream (for motivation), and plan out what you want to do in your next lucid dream.
[x] Do reality checks whenever you experience something weird throughout the day, and list it in your workbook.
[x] Record the times that you naturally go to bed and wake-up, and list it in your workbook.

OPTIONAL
[x] DreamViews Dream Journal
[x] Dream Snippets Thread
[x] Lesson III awareness
[x] Listing reoccurring elements in my dream journal

Night Time Routine
- Take memos on the things I want to do/don't want to forget and put the thoughts aside for tomorrow
- Dream journal opened to blank page every night
- Repeat my mantra for the night, visualize my target dream, then clear my mind and fall asleep, repeat if WBTB
- If I wake up in the night, write down any details I remember from any dreams into my dream journal

Natural Sleep/Wake-up Times
- Fall Asleep: 11:30pm to 12:30pm
- Natural WBTB: 12:30am to 1:30am; 3:30am to 4:30am
- Awake: 6:30am to 7am
- Sleeping In: weekdays until 8am to 9am; weekends until 10am to 11am

Motivation List
- Overcome my fear of not being able to wake up in a scary dream
- Have an outlet to express my creativity
- Learn more about how the brain works
- Learn how amazing God's creations are through exploring how creative the brain is through the dreams it creates and the capability of lucid dreaming
- No longer dread falling asleep
- Deal with the obsessions caused by my OCD through exploring my dreams
- Be on a consistent and healthy sleep routine

Lucid Dream Plans
[x] Fly in a grassy field
[x] Talk to a DC in Japanese
[x] Telekinesis
[x] Visit my mother-in-law's house in Japan

First Lucid Dream Plan Attempt 2/23/14

Dream occurred between 4:40am and 6:02am.

I realized I was dreaming in a FA and did a thumb/palm RC. The setting is my apartment. I'm excited and attempt to fly in the building next to my bed, but each jump only leads to a little floating, no flying.

This leads me to the conclusion that if I become lucid indoors, I should look for a portal to go outdoors so that I can practice flying in a bigger space.

Lesson Two

Homework Checklist
[x] Study up on all of the induction techniques listed here and find one that suits you.
[x] Continue to post all of your experiences, even failed ones, into your workbook.
[x] Practice your chosen induction technique for at least 2 weeks (although longer is preferred) before changing it to something else or ruling out that it's not working.

OPTIONAL
[x] If possible, it is highly advised to include WBTB into your routine.
[x] Discuss your chosen technique with the teachers by posting in your workbook. There are lots of ways to go about each technique, we will be able help you find a method that suits you!
[x] Choose a second (and possibly third) induction technique that compliments your first. For example, if you chose DILD you will also be able to perform WILD.

MILD/WBTB history
2/22/14 6:15am
- Used mantras 夢を見ています (I am dreaming) すごい夢を見ています (I am dreaming an awesome dream) うれしい気持ち (happy feelings).
- Did not become lucid.
- However, did recall up to three dreams after WBTB and MILD
2/23/14 3:33am
- Recalled one non-lucid dream without using any techniques
- Used mantras 夢を見ることを分かってます (I will realize I'm dreaming) 野原に風で空を飛びたい (I will fly in a field using the wind).
- Became lucid.
- Recalled one lucid dream and one non-lucid dream after WBTB and MILD
2/25/14 2:30am
- Played soundtrack from おおかみこどもの雨と雪
- Used mantras あの草原に行きたい (I want to go to that field) 夢を見ることを分かってます (I will realize I'm dreaming)
- Imagined my dream plan, from going through a door to arriving at the field to stabilizing myself to taking flight
- Purposefully induced hynogognic images of mountains from the field and a woman growing wings and taking flight
- Really struggled to fall asleep, mind was too aware
- Turned off music around 4am
- Did not fall asleep until around 5am
3/10/14 8:05am
- Awake at 7:20am
- Brushed teeth, went to bathroom, hugged husband goodbye
- A little afraid to fall back to sleep
- Reminded myself I need to sleep for rest and to achieve my lucid dream plan
- Visualized my dream plan
- Prayed to God I have a lucid dream and fly
- Quickly fell asleep
- Became lucid
- Achieved dream plan of flying and talked to a dream character
3/28/14 7:32am
- Had FA at my mom's house, non-lucid
- Mantra: I fell asleep at my apartment. If I wake up somewhere else, like my mom's, I'm dreaming.
- Fell asleep and became lucid.
- Achieved dream plan of talking to a DC in Japanese
5/20/2014
- WBTB through autosuggestion, woke up at 5:30am
- Fell back to sleep, woke up at 7am to say goodbye to husband, went back to bed
- Woke up at 8:30am then kept pressing snooze
- Had a lucid dream and woke up at 10am
- Lucid dreaming had been on my mind throughout the morning
- Achieved dream plan of telekinesis, accomplished task of the month
7/8/2014 7:23am
- Woke up to say goodbye to my husband then went back to bed
- While trying to fall asleep, thought about my lucid dream plans
- Had two non-lucids (one FA), then two lucids (FAs)
- Attempted to go through window as a portal, but just entered another FA
- Attempted to go through door as a portal to reach Japan, but it ended up just my apartment hallway and I woke up

DeILD/WBTB history
2/25/14 5am
- Laid on my back, fell asleep and experienced SP, woke myself up
- Continued lying on my back
- Imagined a female dream character in my house in another room
- Triggered SP, starting slipping into a dream state
- Had an auditory hallucination of a man saying "I love you" and then "you" repeatedly
- Woke myself up

WILD/WBTB history
3/11/14 8:30am
- Awake at 7:30am
- Brushed teeth, went to bathroom, hugged husband goodbye
- Very active stream of thought (regretted not waking up to have coffee with husband, visualized my dream plan)
- Took a while to fall asleep
- I tried swimming in my room out of bed towards the door and breathed through my nose as an RC (despite not being in water)
- I realized I was not just thinking but transitioning into a dream state and felt my body under paralysis, so jerked myself awake
- Following this short WILD I had three short dreams in which I also jerked myself awake from
7/5/14 11:30am
- Woke up at 8am, went to my mom's to dog sit, took a nap around 10:30am
- Took a while to fall asleep
- Induced a WILD by laying in a supine position
- Used hand in front of vision RC and realized I was dreaming
- Auditory hallucinations (a little scary, but I wasn't bothered) and feeling of my body lifting up (pleasant)
- First time a WILD has been exciting and pleasant for me as opposed to scary from lack of control, but I woke up shortly after, probably out of excitement

DILD/WBTB history
2/20/14
- Said goodbye to husband, went back to bed
- FA and lucid
- Scared and used all my effort to wake myself up
6/26/14 8am
- Pressed snooze repeatedly
- Awake at 8am
- Towards the end of the dream realized I was dreaming and felt paralysis
- Stayed calm despite paralysis and debated continuing the dream and attempting dream plan to visit mother-in-law's house in Japan or to wake up for work
- Chose to wake up for work since I had already pressed snooze repeatedly that morning and it was time to get up
6/28/14
- Woke up around 7am, went back to bed
- Non-vivid dream
- Realized I was dreaming, but nothing came out of the lucidity and I just witnessed the dream
6/29/14 8:47am
- Woke up around 8am, went back to bed
- Lots of non-lucid dreams, but at some point I became lucid
- Did some flips in the air
- Tried to make the pitch dark room lighter by shouting either vivid or brightness, but it didn't work
- Knew I had to get up so either woke up or lost lucidity, don't remember which
7/2/14 8:30am
- Husband woke me up to say good bye
- Pressed snooze a lot on my alarm clock
- False awakening, couldn't move from my bed
- Mostly stuck in bed, but at some point was standing up
- Used thumb/palm RC and realized I was dreaming
- Changed repetitive auditory sound to make it less scary
- Woke up
7/18/14 5:45am
- Napped 7am to 10pm, Bed 2am to to 5:45am
- Woke up with a DILD
- Achieved dream plan of going to my mother-in-law's in Japan, lost lucidity at my mother-in-law's

Lesson Four

Homework Checklist
[x] If you you have a lucid dream and find yourself losing it, practice the stabilization techniques listed here. Post your results in your workbook.
[X] When inside of a lucid dream, practice the dream control techniques. Post your results in your workbook.

OPTIONAL
[x] Recall your favourite quote inside a dream and say it out loud. What were your experiences?
Quote: 世界を変えることは、できますか？「わたしたちの教科書」
[ ] Visit somewhere you know from waking life, take note of all its surroundings, are there any subtle differences?
[ ] Swim underwater and attempt to breathe, were you able to?

Reflection 02/24/14

Last night I didn't make any attempts to lucid dream. I just wanted to rest and take a break. I also felt I went to bed later than I would've wanted. I want to create more of a consistent sleep schedule. Starting tomorrow I'll have more of a consistent schedule so I hope to observe this week the times I naturally fall asleep, wake up in the night and wake up in the morning, then record it in my workbook.

Tonight I really want to focus on my lucid dream plan. So today I'm going to focus on doors as portals and my dream grassy field which I want to summon. I think if I focus on little tasks that'll build up to my lucid dream plan in full, I'll eventually achieve it.

I also want to start doing all day awareness intensely and consistently. I'm slowly building up the habit to be aware and do RC throughout the day. I'm inspired by Joram's post about his three week ADA experiment.

A new long-term goal of mine is to figure out the connection between the immersion method for acquiring a language and non-lucid/lucid dreaming. As I become better at lucid dreaming, I think I will find out a lot. My hypothesis is that one can find out just how close he or she is to a language by observing his or her dream life and interactions with the language. For instance, even though in my waking life, I know how to say "don't come" is 来ないで (konaide), in my non-lucid dream, I clearly heard it as 来なくて (konakute), which is wrong. Why?

Hey lumiina, great results after only two days of practice! :)

Your goal of figuring the connection between language level and dreams sounds interesting. I have never wondered about this. It will be cool to see what you find out.

Good luck with your new lucid schedule!

Thank you NyxCC for commenting!

Update 02/24/14

Created a dream scrapbook for my target location: the grassy field.

Just a few snippets from my scrapbook:

Attachment 6624Attachment 6625Attachment 6626

First picture from Howl's Moving Castle, helping me associate doors as portals to fields.
Second picture is from Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki, a movie that really inspires me set in Tohoku.
Third picture is a picture I took while in Tohoku with my husband's family.

Update 02/25/14

Removed soundtrack from my grassy field lucid dream scrapbook.

Playing music as I tried MILD did not work out. I woke up around 2:30am and tried it. I finally turned it off around 4am. It kept my mind so aware, I couldn't fall asleep at all. I was up until around 5am and started dozing off around then. I slept on my back, which I rarely ever do. At one point, I thought I had moved to the couch and fallen asleep then, and wanted to go back to bed but was paralyzed, then realized I was in bed already and tried to wake myself up. I did, but then I accidentally almost slipped into DeILD. I was starting to feel paralyzed again. At first, it wasn't too scary. I thought maybe I could slip into a dream by imagining Jan from The Office in the kitchen. It worked, I was slipping into a dream state and heard a man, not my husband's voice, rather a very stereotypical computer like male's voice, but I imagined it being my husband's voice saying "I love you" and then "you" repeated again and again in my ear. I knew it was an audio hallucination so I wasn't scary. But the lack of control of my body was just too much and I woke myself up.

Overall, it wasn't a very good night. I have a hard time calming down my mind to fall asleep.

Current time: 6:50 am

I love the idea of dream scrapbook for your desired location. Do you use visualization pre bed, natural wakes, or during the day? It can be of great help to incubate the desired dreamscene.

Sorry to hear the night was so exhausting. Usually I recommend to people to make the wbtb a bit longer, but in your case I think it was too long. Depending on how easy it is for you to fall asleep, you may want to play with the lenght to find your perfect spot over the long run. Before more experiments, I think it is important to get a good night's sleep though. :)

I liked how you handled the sleep paralysis too - very professional. It helps to think of nice things during any episodes, like listening to music or trying to transition to a different scene.

Thanks for the encouragement and advice!

Oh, I visualize my dreamscene all day long! Whenever I can, daydream or pre bed/natural wakes. I'm just so excited to dream about it. I read the incubation tutorial. I was so inspired by it. I haven't drawn anything concerning my dreamscene, but I've done all the other incubation steps.

Another thing I want to do is engage my senses with similar senses that I would want to experience in my dreamscene, such as the feel of grass against my feet (though... it's winter right now). I try to imagine what it would feel like.

Yes, it's so easy for my mind to get consumed with thoughts and excited, unable to sleep. I think I have to keep my WBTB simple and short.

Now I wish I had been more calm and just went with the flow when I realized I was dreaming about sleeping on the couch! Perhaps I could've gotten more sleep and been able to extend lucid dreaming. It was a rough night because I had a hard time falling to sleep, but when I think about it, it was kind of a cool dream to have a false awakening somewhere where I'm not actually sleeping. I should autosuggest to myself to stay calm when paralyzed and just roll out of the body so I can go explore my dream. My automatic response is to struggle and try to wake up.

Quote:

---

Yes, it's so easy for my mind to get consumed with thoughts and excited, unable to sleep. I think I have to keep my WBTB simple and short.

---

This is something I really had to practice dealing with as well. I still have to handle it right and not get too excited or fretful about something.

I like to clear my mind with some kind of ritual that gets it onto a slower pace. I like peaceful backward counting while draining my mind of all thought. Trying to just experience the moment and counting slowly backward from 100 while inserting "I'm dreaming" or something similar. When I lose count, no stress, just start over. Repeat until knocked out. This has pretty much always worked for me eventually.

Quote:

---

At first, it wasn't too scary. I thought maybe I could slip into a dream by imagining Jan from The Office in the kitchen.

---

Ha! I've been binging on The Office on Netflix the past few weeks during my workouts and I've also had a number of dreams with the characters in them. I became lucid during a couple of them as well, including one where I was playing a video game where Michael Scott fights zombies. :chuckle:

Anyway, cool dream experience!

Got a good night's sleep last night. My husband just leased a car so I'm going to be able to sleep in now since I don't have to drive him to work. Wonder if this will lead to more dreaming and LD opportunities. Now I can record what times I naturally go to bed and wake up.

CanidLucidus -

Thanks for the advice!

Yes! I was sick last week and watched all my Office DVDs to distract myself from not feeling well. We have them all. So I think The Office has been entering a lot of my dreams lately. Even my husband had a dream he was driving with Michael and Dwight when suddenly the road got narrow on both sides and they got stuck.

Update - Routine 2/27/14

New schedule has started, and I found myself having lack of discipline (as usual). My husband left at 7:10 am and I went back to sleep as planned. I was planning to wake up at 8:30am or 9am at the latest, but I kept pressing snooze and woke up at 9:53 am, despite having heard the alarm clock each time and having the opportunity to get up.

I also went to bed kind of late, at 11:45pm. I'd rather be in bed at 11pm at the latest.

Still trying to gain discipline and find the right schedule. Ideally, I think to bed at 11pm, up at 6:45 am when my husband gets up, dream journal and WBTB, then up at 8:30am is ideal. Considering that I probably wouldn't fall asleep until 11:30ish and would lose some sleep doing WBTB, that would give me a good 8 hours of sleep.

Good thing is I've been falling asleep generally easily lately. I found out with WBTB, if I stay in bed and don't get up, and just say good bye to my husband from bed, then I won't have a bad dream.

Update 3/1/14

I was set a little off track when I was discouraged about whether lucid dreaming would be a distraction from the other goals in my life. Ultimately, I realized I can do this, as it doesn't take up much time of the day, just an awareness and dedication, then my night essentially would feel less wasted because I'd be lucid dreaming and having fun. It gives me a motivator to regulate my sleep schedule and to sleep, which is good for me.

I was thinking about quitting for a day. I'm somewhat impulsive and feel the need to make clear-cut decisions, so I ripped the pages out of my dream journal (though realized it wasn't even necessary, because even if I do quit, I could still keep the entries). Thankfully, all my entries are also here on DreamViews! I've opened up my dream journal again and left it next to my bed. Going through doubts really interrupted the flow I was on and now I need to get it back.

I think remembering the dream I had of attempting to fly and using my lucid dream plan check list as a motivator will help me get on track. I'm adding "be on a consistent and healthy sleep routine" to my motivations list in the workbook.

I think a big factor in making me realize perhaps I want to lucid dream is having two nightmares the very night I thought about quitting lucid dreaming, reminding me of my goal to face my fears and enjoy my dreams.

Because I was set off track, I've been having a harder time with dream recall. I've slept many times, of course, since then and now. And I can feel myself having had a dream, but I'm not recalling my dreams like I did before. I think I'm in a slump from having been discouraged and am letting my dreams slip instead of keeping the intent to recall them and write them down.

Update - Routine 3/1/14 to 3/2/14

Exhausting day. Woke up at 6am to go to a daycare conference from 8am to 1pm. For some reason, these sort of events really tire me out. Slept from 5pm to 9:45pm. Perhaps my body forced me to fall asleep because of the stress in being in such a big conference. I'm not good with huge crowds. There were 700 people there, and during the breaks everyone talks so loudly and all at once. The clutter of noise really stresses me out. I think it's because I have SPD, in which one of the symptoms is feeling overwhelmed in crowds.

Considering I went to bed at 1:11am and woke up at 11:13am, I recognize I got way too much sleep, which is unhealthy. I slept almost 15 hours combining the nap and that night. So this week I'm aiming to sleep 7 to 8 hours each night, from 10:30pm to 6:10am, with no naps during the day. I also hope to have a WBTB in between. I think I can control my sleep habits better if I make a rule just to get up at the same time as my husband, that way I'm not tempted to sleep in too late.

Now, if I happen to not be able to fall asleep for some reason, then I can sleep in or take a nap later on. But the general aim is to not have too little sleep or too much sleep. So 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night.

Sleep Routine Goal: 10:30pm to 6:10am, WBTB in between, no naps during the day.

Update - Dream Journal 3/2/14

So far, I've been using an old school notebook with other notes from a class in it as my dream journal. After having gotten rid of a lot of entries when I was having doubts about lucid dreaming, it just doesn't feel like a dream journal anymore. So my plan is to get another blank journal in which I can use just for dream journaling. Or even a binder in which I can categorize things. A fresh start would also allow me to organize it as I wish, including adding a section for dream signs and my dream goals. I may also start using BrandonBoss's dream journaling technique once I get this new journal.

I'll continue using my old school notebook as a dream journal for the time being until I can get a new one.

Update - Dream Recall/Routine/Dream Sign 3/3/14

My dream recall is improving as I get back into lucid dreaming. Right now, I feel so tired when I wake up, I'm practically scribbling on the page! Sometimes with my eyes closed! I just want to fall back to sleep when I wake up.

I got back onto a good sleep schedule. To bed at 11pm and up at 6:50pm. Woke up briefly at 12pm but fell back to sleep. Could've tried MILD, but was too tired. I got lost in thought and then remembered I should try my mantras, but before I really got any chance to focus on visualizing, I just fell back to sleep. I think as I get into more of a consistent routine, then WBTB will go better.

I feel very rested this morning. As soon as I got out of bed and got moving, I was no longer tired. Also enjoyed coffee with my husband before he left.

I remembered another common dream sign of mine, public restrooms. I dreamed briefly of a public restroom in a scene last night, but I don't remember what happened in that scene. Added it to my workbook's dream sign list.

Nice to hear you are getting back on track, lumiina. Wish you restful sleep and ld motivation. :)

Last night, something like that finally happened. We had to drop off my car at a tire place after hours late at night. The darkness of the parking lot and overall feel felt like similar scenarios in my dream in which I get lost in the parking lot. So I did the RCs palm/thumb and holding nose.

I do RCs all the time, but rarely do I get the chance to RC in a scene in waking life that's out of the ordinary. It was a good opportunity.

Update - Achieved Dream Plan!!! 3/10/14

I'm so excited! I achieved my dream plan and it was so fun! Not only did I fly by dog paddling and swimming, I also talked to a dream character! I asked him what my middle name is and he said "Windy" then took my hands and we flew together.

At first flying was hard. The gravity is so different in dreams, but that's why flying is possible. I grabbed onto the things around me and propelled myself off of the ground, then doggy paddled and swam through the air.

I stabilized my dream by rubbing my hands together. Stabilization wasn't an issue, waking up was! After I was ready to wake up, I had trouble doing so. I finally woke up when I rubbed hand lotion on my tongue to wake myself up. I realized I had only been asleep for 30 minutes so it wasn't that big of a deal. In my dream my clock read 1pm so I was worried!

Awesome! Congrats on the ld and the close call with TOTM. What a creative way to wake yourself up! I usually try to will my body to move a finger or just kind of will myself to wake up if I really don't want to continue dreaming. A habit from past nightmares. :P

That's what I usually do too! I usually try to move my body until I wake up. But I couldn't feel my paralysis, so I took other creative measures, ha!

My brain was way too active when I attempted MILD this morning. Could not keep my excitement down and instead ended up dream chaining, waking myself up from each dream when I realized I was falling asleep and experiencing paralysis. I had one WILD, very short, that I was swimming out of bed and did an RC through breathing through my nose (despite not being in water). I was just too excited! Ha.

I really, really wanted to have the MILD I had from the day before and do the TOMT right by asking the guy what his middle name is, not mine, and then fly with him again. Oh well! Maybe another morning when I'm more calm.

Update - Dream Plan 3/11/14

I have a new dream plan to focus on. Since I tend to trigger lucid dreams through false awakenings, and once had a FA on the couch when I was in bed, I think I might be able to trigger one in Japan from my memories of sleeping there.

Time to start scrap-booking and triggering memories from when I was in Japan. Sometimes I dream that I go back to Japan (just like in Japan sometimes I dream that I'm back in America), so I think this is totally possible. I just have to focus my intentions.

I think I had trouble with MILD this morning because my attention was too divided and I didn't know exactly what I wanted to lucid dream of.

Update - Dream Plans 3/13/14

I've decided to update my dream plan from a FA in my mother-in-law's house to just visiting my mother-in-law's house. I'm still aiming to induce the dream through triggering a FA in her house, but if I achieve the dream plan through visiting the house through a portal, or just noticing I'm dreaming while dreaming about the house, I'm fine with that.

I also added on another dream plan to talk to a dream character in Japanese as part of my research on immersion and lucid dreaming. I decided I'll ask my favorite quote 世界を変えることは、できますか？ (Is it possible to change the world?) and see what happens. That way, I can incorporate the quote task from the optional homework into my dream plan.

Becoming lucid in a place of the past sounds like a good plan. From personal observation, I tend to have a lot of dreams in places where I used to live before. Sometimes when I ld through wild, my dreams would even automatically begin there. Very interesting. To facilitate becoming lucid in non-lds, I like to repeat mantras like if I am at place X, I realize that I am dreaming.

Good luck with your future tasks! :)

Dreams are feeling really foggy lately. I still remember a lot of details from my dreams. But they don't feel vivid and I don't feel a sense of awareness. Rather, it feels like I'm just passively watching them. Rather than existing inside my own dream self. So I feel like there's less chance I'll become lucid.

Usually my dreams are like this, but it really hit me when it felt like this, even during a false awakening intruder dream early in the morning after a WBTB. Usually they are so realistic and I'm automatically lucid. But it wasn't this way this time.

I think first I need to work on my sleep schedule. I've been going to bed too late and waking up too late. And I still feel tired when I wake up. I think it's because I have my period, which makes me more tired. Once I get up, I'm fine. But it's really tempting to just stay in bed.

I'm also doing a foreign language reading contest. Lucid dreaming is great for this because I can read a few pages of manga during WBTB. But the contest is not great for lucid dreaming because I just want to stay up reading all night, so I end up going to bed late. But, I'm really happy I have this hobby of lucid dreaming, because it pushes me to have a healthier sleep schedule. It's good for me in so many ways. Such as how it also makes me look forward to dreaming, when I used to dread it.

I think I have to focus more on my mantras and visualization during WBTB too. I've been so tired, I kind of do them, but I'm not focused enough and fall back to sleep shortly. I think this is the problem. I'm just too tired. It's either because of my period or because I need to fix my sleep schedule, maybe a little bit of both.

For me recall tends to suffer the most when there are large deviations in sleep schedule and/or when I expose myself to too much bright lights or PC/tablet screens in the hours before bed. Both affect natural melatonin production and brain chemistry and not only is my recall worse off, but I also tend to sleep quite poorly on such occasions.

Good luck with the language contest! :goodjob2:

Thank you! The contest is going well. I've read two novels, onto my third novel and a lot of manga!

My dream vividness and the feeling of experiencing my dreams as if they are actually happening in real life has returned to normal! I'm also back to a normal sleep schedule and no longer sleeping in past 8:30am.

Lately in my dreams there have been snowy roads. I don't know if this is a temporary dream sign, given the season, or a new dream sign that'll keep appearing. I haven't gotten a chance to write down my dreams on this site yet, but I've written a lot in my dream journal and they are really interesting, from needing heart surgery and taking out my heart and blowing it up like a balloon to giving birth to Jesus reborn and having to hide from bad people.

I accomplished one of my dream plans!
I seem to have a two week gap between establishing a dream plan and accomplishing it.

I accomplished the dream plan in which I say my favorite quote in Japanese to a dream character. I didn't get much of a response <(^_^). It was my mom as a DC and she kind of just said to me "yes" briefly and went on with her business. I'm not even sure if she really understood me.

Now, in real life, my mom doesn't know Japanese. So perhaps that played a role. Another thing is that it was really hard to get the words out of my mouth. Is it because sometimes talking while lucid can be difficult, because I was trying to say a specific quote, or because it was in Japanese? That would be interesting to keep an eye on as I continue trying to talk in Japanese while lucid.

Congrats on your task success! :) Sometimes it can be hard for me to also talk with DCs, like it takes a great amount of effort to utter the words. No idea why that is. However, it doesn't always have to be a challenge.

Do other DCs speak to you in Japanese?

Yup! In my non-lucid dreams DC talk to me in Japanese. I haven't had enough lucid dreams with DC to tell yet if DC will talk to me in Japanese while lucid.

Ah, that is so cool! :D One other interesting thing you might try although a bit tricky would be to try to read something in Japanese. I know letters change quite often but maybe you can read a title or something short that makes sense.

That's a great idea!

Update 04/20/2014

I haven't been on these forums in a while! Got preoccupied. But still keeping up with dream journaling in waking life.

I once had a dream that I was dream journaling a dream I had that night. Unfortuently, I forgot what it was about by the time I woke up, but I knew while I was "journaling" in my dream it was a good one. Too bad I wasn't really writing it down! I often have dreams of me doing something in a fake "waking" life in thinking I'm effecting my environment when I'm not.

I had a really creepy sleep paralysis experience while falling asleep on the couch after a night of little sleep. I could hear the TV show I left on in the background throughout the whole experience. I thought I had left the tea pot on and heard it, though deep inside I knew it wasn't really on. I kept trying to wake myself up and get off the couch. There was bacon and eggs on the table and someone was "there", not my husband, but maybe my husband. I just wanted to wake up because I had to go to school soon. I knew the entire time no one was really there and the teapot was off but still felt a little frightened. Then I finally woke up randomly (none of my attempts to wake up worked, it just happened randomly) and the sound of the teapot went away, TV still on and continuing as normal.

This morning I woke up, dream journaled an amazing dream about my husband wanting to go to space and me trying to stop him (that I hope to put in my DJ here too later when I get the chance) and then went back to sleep and had multiple false awakenings at my mom's. The first false awakening, suddenly I realized I was dreaming, and the realization was painful! I immediately jolted out of the dream and was "awake" but paralyzed, could not see my surroundings. I just wanted to wake up but kept falling asleep into the same false awakening at my mom's. I was afraid to realize I was dreaming so kept the thought in. I originally thought I would lucid dream and control my dreams the first time but was surprised when I was kicked out of the dream.

Hey lumiina, good to hear from you. :happyface:

Sorry to hear your ld experiences were not quite on the positive side. On the other hand, I am confident that with more practice you can turn the situation around and feel more comfortable during those false awakenings and even SP. One thing that helps is to recognize that there really is no threat in these situations and to direct the attention to one's own mind. You are fully capable of supressing any bad thoughts even in the dream and prevent them from materializing.

Sometimes I also freak out, out of good old habit loosing the grip on self control and start thinking that something will happen in the dream, etc, but with more experience come to remind myself to stop doing this and how stupid I am for doing it (it actually helps a lot!:D) and then nothing bad happens. An even better way would be to focus on positive experiences - we put the same effort, whether we expect something terrible or something nice. One good thing to do is to summon and listen to some dream music - it sounds great in dreams and we can just chill out even in cases of SP or being unable to wake up. Basically, use every opportunity and turn it to your advantage.

Sweet dreams! :)

I like the idea of summoning up some dream music!

I've been away from the forums for a while, really busy with school. I know I should be more consistent if I want to improve my lucid dreaming skills, so I want to stay more committed. After finals are over I hope to come back and get back at it, at least for the summer! Lucid dreaming was so good for my OCD, and I recently had a really back OCD attack involving a hypnogognic image of two demons and being unable to sleep that reminded me why I love lucid dreaming and why I need it. It's enjoyable and makes me look forward to sleeping. I also had a really interesting dream last night. It was long! I've been so sleep deprived this week due to my OCD so I had no energy to write it down (right after finals are over, I plan to consistently write my dreams again every time I wake up). But it did inspire me for what I want to do next while lucid. I dreamed that I could move things telepathically and I can now see how I would do this lucid and want to try it. Once finals are over, I want to add telepathy to my list of lucid dream goals.

So I'll see you guys again soon!

Update - Dream Plan 05/11/14

I've added another dream plan to my journal:

---
I've woken up somewhere and notice that I am dreaming through performing a gravity check. I realize this is my chance to try out telekinesis. I see a nearby object and put my hands out and focus my attention on the object in order to make it move. I'm happy with the results and stabilize the dream by rubbing my hands together.
---
**Note: I did not accomplish this dream plan, it's just a scenario to help me visualize during MILD what my dream might be like.

My semester ends this Wednesday and I'm so excited to get back into lucid dreaming and make it a habit over the summer so that next semester I don't fall away from it like I did this semester.

Meanwhile I'm working on an essay for my dreaming class. I found this inventory of peer-reviewed journals called International Journal of Dream Research. It is so interesting and I thought I'd share it. I'm thinking about doing my essay on the article about dream characters and math.

The article is giving me so many ideas, I've decided I'm not going to wait until the semester ends. I want to start up my lucid dreaming again tonight! I'm so excited.

Another goal I'm thinking of, going off of your comment NyxCC about reading in Japanese in my dream and the article's fact that dream characters can write and draw is that perhaps in my dream I can also ask a dream character to write in Japanese.

First night back at attempting lucid dreaming! While I didn't lucid dream, I am impressed that I woke up at 3:30am (autosuggested myself to wake up at 4am for WBTB). When I stopped attempting lucid dreaming, I never woke up during the night. Autosuggestion is amazing.

I slept in and remembered my dreams between 6am and 8:30am then 8:30am and 10:30am. I wrote them in my physical dream journal.

Around 3am I did faintly remember a dream. I was trying to work it out in my mind and figure out what I can write in my dream journal, but then I lost it because I started getting lost in thought. By the time I really became aware and woke up at 3:30am, I forgot the dream completely. I wrote about this experience in my dream journal too.

Great to see you back Lumiina! :)

Quote:

---

I've woken up somewhere and notice that I am dreaming through performing a gravity check. I realize this is my chance to try out telekinesis. I see a nearby object and put my hands out and focus my attention on the object in order to make it move. I'm happy with the results and stabilize the dream by rubbing my hands together.

---

Congrats on the ld and task completion! By the way, telekinesis is currently one of the basic tasks in our task of the month, you can post it there if you like and get wings. :D

http://www.dreamviews.com/tasks-mont...ay-2014-a.html

Making a dream character write in Japanese sounds like a great task! Best of luck with it!

Thanks for linking that journal, I'll be sure to check it out - didn't know it existed and all the great info there. And it's a monthly edition too? Awesome! :)

Sweet lucid dreams!!!

Oh, I didn't accomplish that! That is the dream I want to accomplish, hehe. I'll add a note to be extra clear.

But, if I do accomplish it, then I'd also be accomplishing the task of the month! I didn't know that! I'm even more excited then.

Oh! Then it's a post from the future! ;)

Today I kept pressing snooze until around 11am. I wanted to sleep but I knew I had to get up. This triggered sleep paralysis. I wasn't sure if I was awake. My fan was on my bed and I felt the wind in my face as I knelt down next to the bed (in waking life it was on the laundry basket). I even thought about trying the thumb through palm RC, but I was so sure I was awake, I didn't fully attempt it. Then I was back on my bed and my arms were paralyzed and I kept trying to move them because I knew I had to get up. Then finally I woke up.

If I had fallen back to sleep, I think I could've had a lucid dream, but it was 11am so I knew I had to get up. But this is good, because if I keep my mind focused on this experience, maybe I can have a lucid dream soon. I'm glad I almost did an RC in the dream! It wasn't a lucid dream because I never actually realized I was dreaming. I thought I was awake the whole time. I suppose this is what people call a partially lucid dream, where you're so close to becoming lucid but don't.

You were super close! :) Those FAs can be extremely realistic but with more practice you will be able to catch more of them. From your experiences and posts here and in the forum, I get the impression that you are very sensitive to transition phases and I think you are also more likely to experience lucid dreams.

Update - Achieved Dream Plan!! 05/30/14

I used telekinesis while lucid! And not only did I use it, I used it in battle again my enemies. It was amazing and epic! I didn't think I'd be able to use it so well right off the bat, since flying took me so long to learn.

A lot of firsts happened in this dream. It was the first time I've had a lucid dream that wasn't a FA and that was triggered by realizing I was dreaming in another dream since I joined DreamViews. It was the first time I used telekinesis lucid. And it was my first battle while lucid.

Up to this point my husband, a very close friend of mine and the girl I nanny have all had lucid dreams! And I was wondering, when am I going to have my lucid dream. Things kept building up and I finally had one again!

Very impressive lumiina! :woohoo: Congrats on the awesome ld and getting your first set of wings! Those DCs will now think twice before behaving in a menacing way. :D

This morning as I was trying to fall back to sleep, I was transitioning into a lucid dream (like a WILD). I saw my bed and particularly the pattern of my blanket like I was laying on my stomach and my head was facing the bottom of the bed, and I realized it so I wanted to try to fly and started to (like always), but then I realized my real body is paralyzed so I shook out of it.

I always do that!! I still haven't trained myself to remain calm. The good thing is is I thought about remaining calm? Idk why but for some reason I become afraid of losing control when this happens.

It's also interesting that I happen to trigger a WILD accidentally often now. I don't think this happened before I joined this forum. Instead I just had sleep paralysis and false awakenings.

Maybe I need to think more during the day that if a WILD ever happens to stay calm and focus on flying. Don't worry about my body being paralyzed because I can move my dream body. And say that to myself before I fall asleep when WILDs are more likely to happen to (late morning after waking up). Visualize what would happen and my feelings during an accidental WILD.

I don't think I want to trigger a WILD on purpose. I like MILD better. But if I'm going to have them accidentally I might as well learn to calm down and enjoy the lucid dream since the opportunity of lucid dreaming was given to me.

Quote:

---

It's also interesting that I happen to trigger a WILD accidentally often now. I don't think this happened before I joined this forum. Instead I just had sleep paralysis and false awakenings.

---

I can relate to this. Whenever my sleep is disturbed and/or I get a bit of insomnia even if not planning a wbtb, I have a high chance of an ld, quite often one immediately after falling asleep. I think we just become more sensitive and aware from all the ld experience we are gathering. One thing to help overcome any anxiety is to focus on one's dream goals and go after them even if one didn't plan an ld. Lding is so awesome, so take advantage of this bonus situation. :)

I made some progress in that area! Recently before waking up for work and pressing the snooze button a lot, I had a vivid dream about a pet store and shark tank and debated turning it into a dream where I could go to Japan, because I realized I was dreaming, or waking up for work. Well, I decided to wake up for work, which was the right decision because it was getting late. But I felt calm, even though I felt the paralysis.

This morning I had some lucid moments. My dreams weren't vivid and were more like a stream of thought with some vision and a plot line. I felt like controlling my dream and knew I was dreaming, but nothing came out of it. I believe it's because they weren't vivid enough.

I feel I'll be going to Japan in a lucid dream soon enough! It keeps reoccurring in my thought pattern as I sleep. I just haven't had the right timing and atmosphere to do it.

Yet another lucid dream tonight! I was also brief. Did some flips in the air. Again I felt like I had to get up, so I lost lucidity. (Which was true, I had to get up.) I don't remember if I woke up at that point or fell into a non-lucid dream, since I don't remember the order of my dreams.

Also, lots of dreams about sharks lately.

Two in a row, that's great! :D

You know sometimes it feels like you're out of time and need to get up, but because you are in a dream you are able to do things much faster than real life. This creates the impression of time dilation. I've had this rush myself, just before having to wake and the alarm was set, I would worry that there isn't enough time but then say nevermind, let me do my tasks. I complete the tasks and the ld ends, I wake like 3 mins before the alarm.

OB talks about something similar in podcast 3:

http://www.dreamviews.com/dreamviews...-mistakes.html

I'll keep that in mind! Listened to some of the podcast.

Wow, another lucid dream!

This time, I really struggled to get out of bed to do anything in the dream. Eventually I just woke up. I don't think I was trying to wake up, but I may have been a little just as a reaction. I was trying to figure out what was real and what was the dream. I remember even putting my hands in front of my face and moving them, then seeing a little bit of my hands in the corner of my eye and telling myself, that's my real self and trying to wake up. But of course my waking body wasn't actually moving. I just always think I'm half awake in false awakening sleep paralysis dreams.

This was another DILD. I think I have to focus on MILD and remind myself of my goals every night and throughout the day even. That way, when I become lucid, I can go off of the excitement to complete a task. This time, my goal is to go through a door into my mother-in-law's house in Japan and have lunch with her. Even if I just end up in Japan, that would be satisfying.

In the past seven days I've had four DILDs. Before I fall back to sleep in the morning I should focus on what I want to do in my dream to take advantage of my recent, lucid dream streak!

WILD

Had a WILD during a nap this morning! Was very exciting. The first time a WILD hasn't been scary for me! It's the first time I felt like my body was lifting up and it felt nice. I had scary auditory hallucinations, but I was just so excited to be lucid dreaming, it didn't bother me, even though I couldn't change them to something pleasant. I woke up, I think, out of excitement and never got the chance to explore my dream.

Now I can finally see WILD as my secondary technique, or even becoming my primary technique one day. The reason why I think it was more relaxing is because I told myself before I fell asleep that the dream will be pleasant, that it's just a dream and even if there's something scary, I will probably be too excited to be scared by it anyway (from past experience with lucid dreams).

Progress So Far

I've completed a lot of the tasks for this workbook so far, and want to have everything checked off, even the optional tasks, before moving on. Here's a compiled list of what's left for my own reference:

-Listing reoccurring elements in my dream journal
-[DREAM PLAN] Visit my mother-in-law's house in Japan
-[DREAM PLAN] Ask a DC to write in Japanese
-When inside of a lucid dream, practice the dream control techniques. Post your results in your workbook.
-Visit somewhere you know from waking life, take note of all its surroundings, are there any subtle differences?
-Swim underwater and attempt to breathe, were you able to?

I also want to accomplish the advanced task of the month and take an elevator!

I think I can accomplish a lot of these in one dream. I can visit my mother-in-law's house in Japan and take notes of the surroundings. Ask my mother-in-law to write something in Japanese for me. Then find an elevator to go through.

After I accomplish these things, I will try swimming underwater and attempting to breath and practicing dream control techniques. Then finally, I am hoping to list down my dream signs in my journal. I am thinking about getting a new journal for that and organizing my journals better.

After I complete all these tasks, I may join another class.

Had two FA MILDs this morning.

Unfortunately, both my attempts through a portal didn't lead to Japan! My first attempt through a window "woke me up" into another FA. My second one just led to my hallway and then I woke up.

I think I'm too excited and rushed and instead need to stabilize the dream first.

Oh, and I realized I used a dream control technique this time by using expectation to try to trigger Japan through the portal. I forgot this was a dream control technique but looking back at the lessons I realize it is and think I used this for my first MILD as well with triggering that field. So I can check that off now. I was just thinking about the basic math technique and didn't realize expectation was a dream control technique as well.

I think I'll just list off my dream signs in my DJ now as well since that's an easy task to complete as well.

Tasks Left

-[DREAM PLAN] Visit my mother-in-law's house in Japan
-[DREAM PLAN] Ask a DC to write in Japanese
-Visit somewhere you know from waking life, take note of all its surroundings, are there any subtle differences?
-Swim underwater and attempt to breathe, were you able to?

After accomplishing the above, I'll retire my workbook. I've technically completed all the non-optional tasks from this class and am feeling good about that! All that's left are the optional tasks above.

Thanks NyxCC for guiding me throughout these past four and a half months! I've really grown as a lucid dreamer since then! Right now, I'm going through my first lucid dream streak, having lucid dreams every week. I've accomplished various tasks, even a task of the month, and skills like telekinesis and flying. I'm a lot less scared to dream (though, sometimes I'm still occasionally scared) and much more rational in my dreams and enjoy dreaming more than I ever have before.

Fantastic! Congrats on your latest lds.

I'm very happy to read about your progress Lumiina. :) You have come a long way in the past couple of months. I hope you stick around DV and be an inspiration for others.

Best of luck with your future goals and looking forward to reading about your successes in the totm threads. :goodjob:

Thank you! I am definitely sticking around DreamViews! I love this community!

sivason suggested that when I enter the door, even if the room isn't my mother-in-law's house, to call out her name and pretend it's the right room. So I'm going to try that.

This morning I accomplished my dream plan of visiting my mother-in-law's house in Japan! I was lucid once arriving to Japan in a DILD. Unfortunately, by the time I got to my mother-in-law's I lost lucidity and didn't actually see my mother-in-law, but I technically accomplished the dream plan <(^_^)

I will still keep trying to summon my mother-in-law though!

I think I am ready to move onto my next class and continue perusing my own personal dream tasks. Thank you NyxCC for guiding me and happy dreaming!

Yay! That's awesome lumiina! Congrats :) I was really excited about this task and can already imagine more trips to Japan to follow. :)

Happy dreams to you too.

Ahh! No way? You were excited? Stay tuned! I will keep dreaming and recording them here!

My dreams in Japan are soo strange. Stranger than my dreams about America. There's the airport/arrival type area, which has tons of attractions for foreigners, this train/old car type transportation between the regions, inns, shops and finally my mother-in-law's house, which is the only normal place similar to what I actually experienced in Japan. Japan feels so big in my dreams. It kind of feels like a filing drawer of all my combined experiences and expectations, perhaps. Where the files are all disorganized. It's weird that my brain has created a Japan of its own.

Also, I never seem to take the plane to Japan in my dreams. When my dreams are in between America and Japan, I take a train.

Ah cool! The great thing is, once you reach Japan, your mind will start producing all sorts of related items which is absolutely awesome. You will be able to stroll the streets, visit shops full of Japanese items and go to all the great places you like. :)

Now I hope I get schema infected and dream about this too. On one occasion I was trying to summon a waterfall for toty but got this absolutely fantastic river scene with cherry blossoms near the river bank instead.:smitten: