February 8th marked the end of my 30 day lucid dreaming trial. I recorded 14 out of 30 days’ of my dreams in my dream journal, slightly less than half. Most of the times I either forget my dreams upon awakening or was lazy.
So what addition lessons have I learned since the 15 day mark?
1) Keep your pen in your journal on a blank page. Makes it much, much easier to just flip open your journal and write first thing in the morning. You won’t believe how much momentum you lose just in those few moments of looking for a blank page, and sometimes you’ll even write in the dark which makes fumbling impossible.
2) I’m still waking up in the middle of the night after a dream. Bah. A friend of mine who’s done the same thing assures me that it stops after a while.
3) Most of what I remember seems to be from the tail-end of a dream. I have this feeling sometimes that the dreams I can remember are only the ones that happen closest to waking time, and not the whole night’s. Can any experienced lucid dreamers verify this?
4) Dreams reflect reality. I’ve definitely had dreams where stuff that happened that day was reflected in the dream, but in a weird way. Perhaps dreams are a form of defragging after all?
5) Some dreams are stronger than others. Sounds obvious, but some dreams you remember with such emotion, while others only feel like passing scenes. You wonder if the stronger dreams have a deeper meaning or purpose…I had a really dream last night where the last line I uttered was; ‘there is a better world’ before I knocked into the alarm clock and caused myself to wake up (Jung would scream synchronicity!).
6) Some dreams repeat. While I can’t say why, I’ve realized that I’ve been to some dream places more than once, and some people appear in my dream again and again.
7) I still haven’t had one lucid dream yet. Hmmmm.
Even though I still haven’t had one lucid dream yet, this 30 day trial has been interesting. I’m going to extend this another 30 days, because I still feel it’s a fun skill to learn, it doesn’t cost anything except a few moments in the morning, and after 30 days of writing down my dreams, it’s become a habit.
P.S. If you want to join me in my lucid dreaming journey, Bill runs an entire blog with articles about lucid dreaming you can read at Lucid Blog.
February 23rd, 2007 at 1:30 am
Hi Alvin! thanks for sharing the experiment. Did you notice a different type of dream based on your emotional state during the day? (beautiful days leading to pleasant exploratory dreams; stressful days leading to negative ones). I have not tried lucid dreaming, but this is what I have observed in myself-which acts as a good reminder to practice meditation and breathing before going to sleep in tough days!
February 25th, 2007 at 5:30 am
I did try some lucid dreaming experiments when I was younger but didn’t have the self discipline to continue for 30 days then!
One trick I learned, and experience has borne this out, is interrupted sleep. Sometime between your 4th and 6th hour of sleep or so, wake up and do something for an hour. Obviously it shouldn’t be too strenous, so reading and or writing are great choices. After the hour, go back to sleep. I’ve had incredibly lucid dreams from this, although not with any control of what I was doing in them.
February 26th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I’m totally feeling what you talk about in #6, Alvin.
Sometimes I’ll have a dream where I’ll remember in the dream that I’ve been in that particular dream locale before, almost as if it’s another alternate life or something.
I don’t usually go lucid with dreams like this, but that would be awesome!
March 3rd, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Although I’m not a regular lucid dreamer, I’ve had quite a few since I first started practicing over a year ago. It took me several months before I had my first one, and I woke up after a few seconds of that one because I was so excited!
I’ve found a few techniques work quite well for me:
* Waking up in the night – Commonly referred to as the “wake back to bed” method. You’re somewhere between waking and sleeping and it’s much easier to slip into a dream.
* Reality checks – Checking I’m awake when doing things that appear in my dreams. Holding your nose and trying to breath through it is a great check, although it’s a little freaky when you’re dreaming because you can still breath! Checking your watch and asking “am I dreaming” is also quite useful.
You’re right about locations and events repeating. I have several places and themes in my dreams that keep appearing. Missing maths homework seems to crop up very regularly, which is strange as I left school many moons ago. However, this is useful for me as it lets me know I’m dreaming.
I’ve had a few very strong dreams too, including one where I’m falling out of an airplane. Not good, considering I was due to fly a few weeks after I had the dream. It’s one of the few dreams I’ve had where I wasn’t aware that I was dreaming but it felt completely and utterly real (and terrifying). At least with a little lucid practice you can change these dreams into something less frightening.
All the best in having your first lucid dream. It takes a while and a lot of practice, but it’s an experience unlike anything else and well worth it!