Frustrated

Hey, I'm new here. I have been trying to get a lucid dream for the past 4-5 days (I'm not frustrated that I haven't got one, I'm frustrated about something else.) So far so good, I'm dream journaling, doing reality checks, remembering a lot more dreams, etc.

Here's my dream from last night:
I am sitting at my kitchen table. My sister, cousin, and grandma are with me. We are eating slices of cheddar cheese on colorful plastic plates. Sitting in the middle of the table is a black cat. I assume that it belongs to my Grandma. On accident, I knock the cat onto the floor, from the table. It hisses, and tries to jump onto a chair. It falls. It tries again, and is successful. My sister shrieks at me, telling me what a horrible person I am. I feel bad. I offer the cat a slice of cheese. It starts to take it, but then looks at who is giving it to him. It hisses and tries to scratch me. Everyone at the table jumps up, and runs away screaming. I run into my living room and hide. Then I run through my house into my bedroom, and slam the door. I lean up against the door breathing hard. My foot touches something and I jump up screaming. It is just my little brother. It is dark in my room, so I flip on a light switch. It doesn't work! But, before my conscious mind can start figuring it out, my little brother launches into an explanation about something to do with the street and thats why the light switch doesn't work. I believe him. He then jumps onto my bed and flips on the lamp next to my bed. I don't see if it turns on, I wake up.

This has happened before, where something should've happened where I realized I was dreaming but I didn't. See, I do reality checks whenever I go on a stairs. To get from my living room to my bed room, you have to go up some stairs. I didn't do a reality check when I went up the stairs, but that might've been because I was running for my life.

Is this a common problem? Help?

:welcome: to Dreamviews.

Indeed, being blind in dreams does happen.

You can try to

1. take your sunglasses off
2. wipe the gunk out of your eyes
3. say "wow, it's so bright in here"
4. say "nice view from this window, look at all the people outside"
5. bring your hands closer to your face and "see" them
6. stabilize by touching, feeling, yelling, tasting
7. yell "I can see" "clarity now!"

Or anything similar. But the point is to know that you see, only there is either some obstruction you can easily get rid off, or you were just not looking right : P

Welcome
Induction Methods and Techniques

our Dreamviews IRC chat

gab,

Thanks for the advice. Another question, is it common for DC's to try to explain a dream sign to me? Like explain to me why a light switch isn't working, and hence I don't become lucid?

Another thing is the common problem I was talking about is, is it common for something so blatantly weird to be right in front of you, and you don't even realize it's a dream?
Thanks, nbent412

It was mainly an obstruction, as well

Happened to me a couple times. Light switch may or may not work... but it is much easier to do what Gab shared with you, or just pretend you have something in your pocket that will bring light and brightness, and after that, reach your pocket and pull it out :)

And yes... we all miss major dream signs... even dreaming you are dead/ a ghost, etc and yet not turning lucid!

Happens - mostly it's myself explaining away inconsistencies, but sometimes there's a "helpful" DC doing it for me - you might like to look into this thread, pretty hilarious to read about what happens to other dreamers: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...ing-lucid.html

I've been explaining away a train flying through the sky and disbelieved RCs several times, but usually it works. So don't worry - it's going to get better with practice, but in the end - sometimes your uncon will take it upon itself to lead you astray!
Good tip is also taking note of your most common dream-signs and if possible do an RC, when encountering them in real life.
Good luck on your lucid journey - sounds like you're well on your way!

As to the blindness - yep - what gab and Percy said!

Thanks! Have you ever been in a class about lucid dreaming in a dream? It frustrated me SO much when I woke up! That other forum made me laugh!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nbent412

... is it common for DC's to try to explain a dream sign to me? Like explain to me why a light switch isn't working, and hence I don't become lucid?

Another thing is the common problem I was talking about is, is it common for something so blatantly weird to be right in front of you, and you don't even realize it's a dream?

---

Sure, that all can happen.

1. DCs will tell you anything. Same as we can dream about anything, and not get suspicious. The daytime memory part of a brain is asleep at night, or at least we don't have access to it, so we can't compare what we know to what we experience in a dream. So what we dream becomes our only reality and we see it as normal.

2. Practice awareness and RCs, so you get lucid by gaining just a tiny bit of awareness, that will give you an urge to RC and you will get lucid. Don't rely on anything or anybody else to help you get lucid. That will wake up that sleeping memory part of your brain and gives you power to know the difference between Waking Life and a dream.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nbent412

Thanks! Have you ever been in a class about lucid dreaming in a dream? It frustrated me SO much when I woke up! That other forum made me laugh!

---

Once I was teaching one :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nbent412

Thanks! Have you ever been in a class about lucid dreaming in a dream? It frustrated me SO much when I woke up! That other forum made me laugh!

---

Yup, a few times.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ThreeCat

Once I was teaching one :)

---

And also a few times.


And... I went to the shopping mall to find a parking spot that said, "Lucid dreamer's parking only." And I was glad I am a lucid dreamer so I could park and do my shopping, without realizing I was dreaming!

PercyLucid, that's actually really funny!

^^ And actually oh so true!

All this stuff, from DC's explaining to you that this is not a dreamsign to a DC-character "You" arguing at length both about LD'ing and about how this conversation is not a dream simultaneously, all while the real, waking-life self-aware you (you know, the one who has been spending all that time doing RC's identifying dreamsigns, journaling, etc) remains off in the cognitive wings, oblivious.

Frustrating indeed. I've been at this for decades, nbent, with thousands of LD's behind me, and yet I'll still wake up after a NLD where I was teachng a class about LD'ing (yeah, been there too, 3Cat) or insisting that this flying train (me too, Steph, more than once) really is en route to the workplace from which I retired 10 years ago. And I'm not even going to go into the ongoing campaign my DC's seem to be waging against my lucidity. Yet lucidity still arrives, regularly, in spite of these suspiciously archetypical misdirections by DC's and schemata.

There's not much you can do about these things, except take Gab's advice, stick to your daywork and the fundamentals, and be confident that one of these days yo will look straight at a recalcitrant DC and say, "Uh uh, no way. This is totally a dream!"

Oh, and welcome to DV, nbent!

:sageous: