Thread: Lizzzie's Workbook

So what would you say is the greatest challenge in your wild attemps so far?

I would definitely say the greatest challenge is staying conscious through to the transition stage. The furthest I tend to get is through relaxation (my dry, open mouth is often the most distracting as I want to swallow; the most tension is in my eyes due to my concentration) and then I begin to see dream snippets and imagry. After this I drift into unconscious sleep. This is why I am currently focusing on finding a good anchor to allow me to focus on something and keep my mind awake.

I may try some of the rain sound at some point!

Dream Recall
Recorded another long dream!

WBTB Fail
I failed to wake up to both my midnight alarm and my morning alarm! I must've just turned them off and immediately went to sleep again!

WILD Nap
The usual occurred: Rolled over after some time and fell asleep.

Originally Posted by Lizzzie

I would definitely say the greatest challenge is staying conscious through to the transition stage. The furthest I tend to get is through relaxation (my dry, open mouth is often the most distracting as I want to swallow; the most tension is in my eyes due to my concentration) and then I begin to see dream snippets and imagry. After this I drift into unconscious sleep. This is why I am currently focusing on finding a good anchor to allow me to focus on something and keep my mind awake.

I may try some of the rain sound at some point!

You may consider a slight increase in the wake time prior to your wild attempt. That will help be more focused on whatever anchor you choose. I would recommend to experiment with different timing and write it down to see what your optimal timing would be.

As far as anchors go, you can use the digital ones such as youtube/mp3s but also anything from your environment and even your own body. Some people find it easy to use as anchor white noise such as a fan or even street cars (as long as they are not too disturbing!). I personally like to focus on the feel of my own body in bed and gradually feel that change as I fall asleep.

Dream Recall
No dreams recorded, however, this morning I remember that in a dream I looked at my hands and saw 6 fingers and got slightly lucid, but lost it straight away as I was caught up in the dream storyline!

Back home
I am back home now, so I have fewer opportunities to WILD and less time in the mornings to record dreams. I will try to keep it up somewhat! It has been great to have a week full of attempts (with 2 successes!) to get my confidence back that I can lucid dream.

A mantra I have been repeating as I am going to sleep recently has been "Lucid dreaming is easy, and I will become lucid tonight"! I don't know whether it is helping, but its good to feel like I am doing something lucid dreaming related, even if I am not able to read so many tutorials etc like last week.

Hope vacation's going well! There may be less opportunities to wild, however, you can hone your MILD skills in the meantime.

I since the Christmas break I have not been actively thinking about lucid dreaming as much, but the last few days I have been thinking about it again. Yesterday and this morning I have had morning naps to try to promote lucid dreams using WILD and mantras. Yesterday I had a hint of being lucid where I was aware for just a moment, and this morning I was lucid for slightly longer. These were not long or stable, but its enough for me to try to get back to this forum and see if I can keep my mind on lucid dreaming to gather some more experiences!

Dream Recall
This morning was the first time I have recorded a dream this year, although my memory of dreams have been improved, especially when I have a few moments to think about them before waking up properly in the mornings. I will try to record more dreams from now.

Good to see you, Lizzie! I have to say, the holidays really do have the power to detail us (despite offering a diverse experience and more time to sleep). Been recovering from a distracting holiday season myself. I can't understand how it's March already .

Good job getting back on track! See you around.

Originally Posted by NyxCC

Good job getting back on track! See you around.

Thanks NyxCC, I am glad I am starting to think about it more again. I have so much I want to do! I feel that keeping this workbook is really helping me in terms of extra motivation!

Lucid Naps: New tactic
I have looked into techniques that can be used to become lucid during naps, but up until now I find I fall asleep too quickly to attain lucidity using WILD. I watched this video and this guy describes a tactic that may work for me. It involves setting an alarm to go off every 10 minutes, and when the alarm wakes you up from a dream, it is the perfect time to attempt a WILD. I tried this this afternoon and I did find after a few alarms I was getting closer to sleep, and I am hopeful that using this tactic I can manage a proper WILD. The furthest I got in today's WILD was that I had strong images in my minds eye (still not actual images though), so if I had attempted this for a bit longer I feel that it would only get stronger until I become lucid.

I will try this when I am next able to have a nap and report back! I can imagine at first I will keep the 10 minute alarms on so that I can have many attempts without falling asleep for the rest of my time, and then if this goes well I can turn the alarm off when I feel I am close.

I am so excited to say that this morning I had my first proper WILD! I have recorded some dreams as WILDS before, but this was the first time I felt the transition from wake to dream. It seemed to happen almost at once, there were loud clanging sounds and sellotape type noises and this came with strong vibrations. As I have not experienced this before I found it pretty scary, but I knew I just needed to try to relax and go with it as the dream was close! The shock and the sounds did at first make me wake up more, so they faded, especially as I thought I heard my alarm at a part of the noise. I relaxed and tried to allow it to happen again, and it did. I used my hands (at first through thinking so I would not move my actual body, but this later felt more like my actual hands) to stroke parts of my face to solidify myself into the dream. I wasn't able to see too well, only slight shapes and colors were there, but I mainly navigated through my room through touch. I observed my surroundings, taking in what I could, and went outside through the window and felt the breeze on my skin.

Although this was a short experience, I now have a good feeling of what to expect to have a successful WILD! I was pretty amazed with how aware I felt too, usually when I fall asleep I lose consciousness, but it felt amazing to keep it through the transition completely!

Technique Used

To allow this to happen, I used alarms every 10 minutes during a fairly long nap (only an hour or so after waking up from my nights sleep), and during the later naps I remember having non-lucid dreams when I was awoken. I was going to get up, but then I set a new alarm for 15 minutes from that moment to give it one last shot, and it was during this time that I had the WILD!

I am excited to try again! Now I know the feeling I really hope I can reproduce it and be able to continue to understand it better.

If you have any tips to how I can improve my vision in this sort of dream, let me know!

Well done, Lizzzie!

As far as improving sight goes, I would suggest just keep being as involved in the dream as possible, to allow for all your senses to properly turn on after the transition. Do your best to look around and keep going, it will likely improve as you do that. You can also try to focus on finer visual details while also incorporating other senses, especially touch.

Originally Posted by NyxCC

As far as improving sight goes, I would suggest just keep being as involved in the dream as possible, to allow for all your senses to properly turn on after the transition. Do your best to look around and keep going, it will likely improve as you do that. You can also try to focus on finer visual details while also incorporating other senses, especially touch.

Great, thanks for your advice. I just need to take the time and not rush I think, as I am so excited to doing more exciting things past dream stabilization. I will try to stimulate more senses next time! Will let you know if I manage again

Dream Goals
- Be aware of whole body, not just one part
- Be aware of gravity
- Look around, look closely for details
- Focus on breath
- Don't rush!

I am hoping the fear of the dream ending before I can do anything will go away with time. Just being aware in the dream is exciting by itself!

I have started reading Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming again (I have read it ~ 8 years ago) to re-cap the basics of lucid dreaming, and to get some ideas of what I want to do. I will attempt to follow the instructions in the book to increase my chances of lucidity.

Dream Recall
I have started recording my dreams again this morning, and I managed to record a pretty long dream upon awakening from a nice lie-in. I am hoping to record dreams every morning, and will give myself time and effort to do so.

WILD attempt
I attempted to enter a dream during a 45 minute nap without timers. I was aware for a lot of the time, but often slipped into unconscious sleep before awakening again and attempting it again. No luck this time!

This morning I had some time to have a 1.5 hour nap (which is the length of time I had when I first managed to transition). After around an hour of alarms, I was dreaming non-lucidly between the alarms, and in the final 10 minutes of the 1.5 hours, I managed to do a WILD! This time, I attempted to think for a bit longer on my senses. I found that moving around and being active gradually improved my vision, up to a point where I could make out quite a lot of detail and colours from my surroundings. I was more aware of my body, and noticed two different pieces of clothing at two points in the dream. I remembered some of the beginner tasks of the months, so I jumped in the air, feeling the strange gravity as I floated slightly back down, and I put my hand in my pockets of my jeans, in which there was nothing inside.

I found people that I could speak to, so I asked them some questions. The answers were quite generic, so I left half way though one of their answers to find a more interesting individual to talk to. One of my big aims is to talk to a dream guide, so I guess I was looking for a dream character that felt special. When I had found an interesting looking girl who was taking me somewhere, I woke up to my 10 minute alarm which was still on, so I shut it off and took a minute or two to re-enter the lucid dream. After re-entering I couldn't find the girl, but I was in a different room of what seemed to be the same location, dream wise.

Aim for April
As April is just around the corner, and I seem to have found a way to WILD more consistently using long naps and alarms (at least I have managed to replicate it once), I want to complete the list of beginner tasks for April. I have not yet completed the whole list for one month, so this will be a good thing to aim to do to focus my dream mind more on progressing my lucid abilities.

Dream Recall
I have been recording dreams every day for the last few days (apart from this morning when I first woke up).

WILD attempts at night
When I wake up in the night I attempt to do WILDs, but I fall asleep too quickly. I am hoping I can eventually stay awake longer when I awake at night to attempt WILDs.

Nice one, Lizzzie! Congrats!

Originally Posted by NyxCC

Nice one, Lizzzie! Congrats!

Thanks NyxCC! I'm so happy I am finally getting WILD!

Completing 5/7 Beginner Tasks from TOTM (April)

Spoiler for WILD from dream journal:

Long lucid dream WILD, that got more stable over time. I counted my fingers at different points when I doubted myself. I felt it was a pretty long, detailed lucid dream, and was a bit worried I would forget parts, especially as I slept between having the lucid dream and recording it.

In our apartment I looked around the room, and everything seemed in place. I put my hands to the light and looked at my palm, which looked normal. I looked at pictures on the black closet. There were lots of tiny pictures. I looked closely at them, trying to take in detail.

Tried to remember more dream tasks. I was in my parent's garden. I was wearing my blue top and black tracksuit bottoms. I tried to pull something out of my pockets but there was only fluff from the trousers. I felt the grass with my hands and my face, and I felt the texture and the temperature (it was not cold). I looked at the sky, it wasn’t too detailed and colours blended into each other. I tried jumping and gravity was a bit off, but I didn’t jump too high. I attempted to read ingredient labels, which was funny because they looked roughly convincing at a glance, but when read closely, they looked like made up ingredients.

I wanted to eat chocolate cake, so I opened the fridge with the intention that I would find one, but the fridge was full of other stuff, so I didn’t eat anything.

I had a WILD after waking up in the last hour or so of the night, which is the first not during a nap! So I'm super happy about that! However, I did fall asleep again after my lucid which meant I may have forgotten some details of the dream, but I feel that I have remembered most of it as it was pretty vivid. Vision took the longest to come again, but once it did it felt very vivid.

I will try to remember the final 2 beginner tasks for my next LD, so I can finally complete them all! Then I can move onto the basic TOTM

I've nearly completed all of the beginner TOTM for April, just one more to go!

Spoiler for TOTM Beginner 6:

Became aware in my room on the floor. I couldn’t see so I touched objects on the floor, feeling for detail. I went up to and through the window. The sky looked a bit like a Minecraft sky. I remembered the dreamviews task and took my trousers off. Nothing happened.

Although the 10 minute alarms have been helping me achieve lucidity more regularly, it does sometimes cut off a lucid dream and today I couldn't re-enter it. I am hoping, through getting used to the feeling of these WILD transitions, I will be able to do it during the night so I am not interrupted by the alarm. I haven't had any more of the strong vibrations and noises as I did the other week, but I would like to experience this again, showing I am aware completely through the WILD process.

Great progress! I saw you've already posted in the totm thread, so Spellbee should wing you soon.