Many years of lucid dreaming, now out of practice
Hello:
I first started lucid dreaming after reading Edgar Cayce's books. I spent a good portion of my 14th year sleeping up to 14 hours a day, just to be able to be conscious in my dreams. And sure enough, the first time I did I thought, "I'm dreaming!" and woke right up! Later, with practice, I could stay in the dream and change it, but I was exhausted in the morning. (Anybody want to address that?). The trigger for this whole thing was I had started having nightmares about being killed various ways, and I basically started lucid dreaming to make the killing and dying thing STOP! It worked. Nightmares are no longer a problem - they are actually kind of entertaining.
Fast forward to 28 years: Over the years I had let LD go, and I started a hatha yoga class where one of our homework assignments was to pay attention to our status every hour on the hour. Record our phyiscal sensations, our environment, our thoughts, our emotions. 1 week later I had my first LD in over 10 years.
Another useful thing...as an exercise for a different discipline, I was taught at bed time to go backwards, non-judgementally, through my day. This exercise at first put me out before I even managed to review as far back as dinner. Over time I could review all the way into my previous night's dreams. Very, very useful. Being NON-JUDGEMENTAL is key, just acknowledge what you did, what happened, and keep moving backward.
More recently I took a class in Dream Yoga. How very interesting! In this, you focus on interviewing one of your dream characters. This helps you develop a conversation with your unconscious self. Amazing!
Lastly, when younger I had frequently flown, and taught in my dreams. I could always only fly about 10 feet or so from the ground. Then, years later, I managed to meet up with some special people (my mom & dad whom I have never met in the waking world), and go off planet to a sacred place.
I could unconsciously OBE, but the only conscious OBE I've ever done was from LD.
Life lately is run here, run there, do this, do that, and no time to just relax and be able to sleep enough to move back to LD, but hopefully, by chatting about it, I can reawaken my old skills.
Happy Dreams!
Sparklinrose :vibes:
