Successful lucid dream last night! Short-ish, but thought I'd mention a few things:
Bought a digital voice recorder, that has a voice activated setting, so I can either roll towards it and speak or just pick it up in the dark to speak into it. I've been using this to record some dream fragments as well as to note times when I wake and if I just had a dream to try to map my sleep cycle.
Upon going to sleep last night I tried to tell myself to do an RC ASAP (which would be when dreaming). I woke a few times very briefly in the night and each time told myself the same thing. The last time I awoke was just before the 'sweet' spot for REM so I told myself more strongly to do an RC, repeated it to myself as I fell back asleep and I guess it worked!
In my dream I was on a jeep-like vehicle, standing, holding onto a few pipes as it drove and thought to do an RC. I found that I could breathe through my blocked nose so knew I was dreaming! My vision was suddenly gone as I became lucid, so I kept calm and concentrated on touch. I could still feel the pipes I was standing against, so concentrated on that and felt them, crouching down to do so. I checked to see if I could smell anything and I couldn't, and slowly could start to get my vision back, and concentrated on a few cartoon-like dream characters. After that I was in a lucid dream and had a decent few minutes of lucidity before it ended! Success!!
Just a note to work on your dream recall - you CAN have lucid dreams and forget them like you'd forget regular dreams!
Disclaimer- this isn’t a Brag thread, really!
I‘m on vacation so having lots of opportunities to attempt wilds, so far each serious attempt is the same, no wild but then a lucid dream after I give up and roll over to go to sleep. This one was Almost a Wild in that I believe I gave up, rolled over, fell right asleep and “pounced” on the dream as soon as it formed - no need of a reality check, I was ready for it I guess! As it was the beginning of an REM cycle it was also quite long!
one funny bit to add, as it was starting I was in some kind of room and was looking at my hands which seems to work well to stabalize things, and one hand was normal, the other had less fingers, then back to the first it was a bit deformed with a few shortened fingers and I just thought “yup, that’s normal, we’re all good here” with a laugh, knowing that’s how dream hands behaved (and it’s also a type of RC) 😀
* woke naturally about 5 hours after going to sleep, washroom, then 20-40 minutes of attempted WiLD
Great work, Jeff! My dream recall is my no. 1 priority right now, it's awful. I have these bouts of absolute no dream recall, but it's seemingly starting to come back. It's been very hot lately too and it's starting to cool down, so hopefully that'll help.
Another short LD, maybe I'll make this thread my LD thread 😀
* Woke late for a WBTB/WILD perhaps, 5am after sleeping at 11pm, thought I'd try anyway
* Lay on my back and did some relaxation for a few minutes
* Started dream walker - went through a few rotations until my mind drifted off a bit
* Pulled back and did another few rounds, drifted, back again
* Gave up after about 30-40 minutes? Rolled over just to go back to sleep
* Told myself to do an RC next thing I saw
* Was in a dream and thought, "I think this is a dream!" did the nose pinch test but not very well, but knew it was a dream, so took off flying off the ground, just jumped into the air a bit and had a very short LD
Another success! Notes:
* Inspiration - key factor here, we had the live stream yesterday and I had lucid dreaming on the brain different times yesterday, read some forum posts, checked out reddit. Also had it fresh as I was going to bed/falling asleep.
* WBTB - didn't exactly plan on it, but woke 4 hours after going to sleep so I went to the washroom, did a little walk around, a little stretch, just to feel awake. Back in bed I did look at my iPad a bit (lowest brightness) to brush up on the Dreamwalker technique.
* Rolled into my usual sleeping position and did the Dreamwalker technique. I only got maybe 3 done before falling asleep
* I had a semi-false awakening, where I still believed that I was trying to LD, but the room was different, my bed was more of a couch, but my dream brain didn't notice. I was scrolling through facebook i believe on my iPad and decided to do Dreamwalker, and stood up. I then just realized, hey, I'm dreaming! Success!
So inspiration and focus are probably the two takeaways here. I was kinda going for a WILD but I've only managed that once I think, more often I've had like this one, a normal LD but soon after falling asleep from a WILD attempt where my brain is still 'close' to the attempt.
Well done for thinking to focus on touch when your vision went black! I recently discovered that I would've completely forgotten about a short lucid if my voice recording hadn't triggered the memory in the morning. I often wonder how many lucids I have that I just don't remember...
Congrats Jeff! That's a useful reminder that even if we do get lucid and the visuals fade, we can stay there with touch and get the visuals back. I've not managed that myself, but had numerous lucids where the visuals went and I just assumed it was all over.
Cool, yeah I think mostly I remember the last REM stage dreams. On my recorder was a snippit from earlier in the night where I just said "there was a fish monger selling fish" - no recall of that, so I guess I should have spent a bit more time at that point and recorded more details!
Nice one Jeff, congrats! Pretty good recall for me last night, just very 'bitty' dreams, mainly from this morning.