Post your dreams

[ibanezmonster]

Greg, I think it's a very good thing there are likely no opium dens in your neighborhood.

Hmmm... why? Is that supposed to give you crazy dreams?
The only reason I try B6 now and then is for dream clarity (and length). It works well, strangely.

[ibanezmonster]

I recalled 3 dreams last night!  (none were lucid, though)

The first one: I met a girl I liked a long time ago. However, she was much lighter-skinned and looked different, like another person. This is a freakish idea, but I'm almost 100% sure she was the result of a mixture of two different people. She was nice and friendly, saying "hey, I remember you!" and smiling.

The second one: I was living alone in a big house which my parents bought me. Totally a dream and could never happen. When I woke up, I did not feel too good thinking about this.

The third one: I met old friends from the "gifted" classes that I took from grades 5-8 (after that point, my grades in school only dropped and I never got back in that class). They were all in a group talking, and I had the feeling they were doing well and were going to end up successful and with a lot of money. That is how I need to be. Money is good.

[ibanezmonster]

After reading my previous posts and considering last night, it seems like (having no distractions + complete focus on something novel about lucid dreaming) = highest success rate. Last night, I had no major distractions, but actually joined the DreamViews forum, and ended up having the longest lucid dream I'm ever had, and it felt 100% as real as real life.

9/28/2011
I was in a big building by the sea with [a friend] and some other people when I noticed a water spout coming straight at us. I yelled for everyone to watch out for it and tried to find a safe place. Luckily, it only shook the building a bit, but didn't destroy it.
I don't remember much of what happened after this, but I do remember thinking it's a shame I didn't realize I was dreaming- but while thinking this, I was still dreaming.
So, in the next scene, I was at work. I was walking from one side of the store to the other while talking to [a friend], and I told him that he was just my imagination. He laughed and said something funny which I don't remember, but he didn't deny it.
I walked out the building and around it, and eventually the dream faded. When it went off, I tried DEILD... it almost worked. I saw realistic flashes of an old neighborhood, but it just completely stopped after about 30 seconds and I woke up.

[Muzition]

Had a lot of dreams last night about visiting exotic places.  I went to New York City and Africa.

(Hmm, dunno if New York counts as exotic.)

[ibanezmonster]

Had a lot of dreams last night about visiting exotic places.  I went to New York City and Africa.

(Hmm, dunno if New York counts as exotic.)

Where I live, New York would almost seem exotic, in a way... derp derp! 

[ibanezmonster]

Had 3 dreams last night after weeks of barely any dreams.

In the first, I met one of my childhood friends and caught up with how he is doing. In real life, he works at Kobe's (I guess you can be Korean instead of Japanese to work there  )- in my dream, he said he works about 16 hours a day. Probably, it's only about 8 or 9, but anyways, if I just felt so bad for him. He does hate his job- what happened to the kid with all of the fun video games?

In the second, I had a false awakening. Meaning: I dreamed that I woke up- except I was still in bed, and I saw flashes of lights on my wall of pictures of abstract shapes and evil clowns. Every time that flashed, I heard some type of scream. I was going absolutely crazy, but I was alright with it. Not much different than a portrayal of me in waking life.

In the third, it was lucid, but I forgot to stabilize it and it slipped away. 

[ibanezmonster]

Another lucid dream, but I couldn't keep it stable! 

But that's okay, because I don't expect a strong dream to last long after 7-8 hours of sleep, anyways. What I'm going to try to do is wake myself up after about 4-5 hours of sleep and think about lucid dreaming- trying to stay awake for 5-10 minutes. Mixing that with exploring any topic lucid dreaming-related before bed and pretending I am lucid dreaming as I drift off to sleep.

There's a method to get lucid dreams often, but it differs for everyone. Some things have worked well, some haven't. It's kinda like shooting free throws (something else I've been working on and have improved the more I stick to a certain form of shooting).

[ibanezmonster]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH! 

My method worked (in a way), but I forgot to do a reality check in the dream! I didn't have a lucid dream at 4 AM, but I woke up at 7 and went back to sleep. In my dream, I was in the bathroom, thinking to myself, "Man, I wish I were lucid dreaming..."

And then I woke up. That was one of the strangest feelings ever. To be absolutely certain you are awake, and then wake up realizing you were sleeping is very disorienting.

Tonight I will set my watch to 5 AM instead of 4 AM. Not sure if I can try for 6 AM, which may indeed be the peak time for dreaming, because my dad is awake around that time and making noise. Same thing with everyone else at around 7 AM.

[Muzition]

A few nights ago I dreamed I had a really nice bass clarinet.  Then I woke up and remembered that it was true. 

[ibanezmonster]

A few nights ago I dreamed I had a really nice bass clarinet.  Then I woke up and remembered that it was true.

......... lucid dreaming is very hard  ....

i'll go sometimes for a week or two at a time not even remembering my dreams, which is the first step.
I think that October 17th post was the last lucid I had. 


I can pretty easily go into sleep paralysis and consciously keep my mind awake while sleeping, but...
1- can't be too tired, or else I lose consciousness
2- have to be tired enough, or else I can't fall asleep

And just going into sleep paralysis doesn't assure that you will go into a dream state- you have to hit a REM cycle, supposedly. And when your sleep cycle is completely messed up due to scheduling, then it's just a mess for a while.

But... I'll just focus on attacking both Dream-Induced Lucid Dreams and Wake-Induced Lucid Dreams. It's one or the other, really...

[Karl Henning]

A few nights ago I dreamed I had a really nice bass clarinet.  Then I woke up and remembered that it was true. 

That's beautiful.

[Karl Henning]

The other day I had a dream which, on waking, I found notable for some reason or other.  I forget, now, anything about it.  I'm okay with all that.

[ibanezmonster]

The last few days I've felt like I've been getting closer to getting a strong handle on inducing and stabilizing a lucid dream, and it resulted in having a nice one this morning. 

Mainly, I was jumping around across rooftops in some neighborhood (again), but also managed to steal a couple of ladies and pull large objects (such as power lines) toward me just by sticking out my hand. My only complaint with the dream is that it didn't have that super-realism I love (it's realism was in-between clear thoughts and reality). Something I realized and put to practice to help avoid it ending too quickly: don't do anything you feel like you can't do (don't force anything). It worked.

And I'm thinking my plan of sleeping like this: 12pm-7am, wake for a couple of minutes, go back to bed with alarm clock turned off, gives me more chances to LD (I had mine at ~8:20). I don't even remember dreaming last night, but in the morning... it worked.

[chasmaniac]

Trains crashing! Trains crashing!

[ibanezmonster]

Last night, saw that same side effect of B6- nightmares! 
All of a sudden, I saw a King Cobra and thought, "I could feel absolutely terrified of this..." and for seemingly no reason, stared at and the fear increased (not terrified of snakes in real life, though I wouldn't want to run into one).

Such a telltale B6 side-effect- in your dreams, everything starts off normal, but your focus ends up going to something really bad happening, and often you die in the dream. However, it's strangely exhilarating, and I don't mind it at all.

Before last night, I had about 3 or 4 days straight where I would dream sometime around 3 or 4 am, and the dream would be extremely complex and have tons of stuff happen, but after just a minute of waking up, I couldn't recall any of it. Going back to sleep at 7 to attempt a WILD, my thinking was too murky to have any success.

About a week ago, there was a morning where I tried WILDing at 7, and that morning was a huge success. I had 4 or 5 lucid dreams, but they only lasted no more than 30 seconds each (every time I attempted to force something onto a dream which didn't feel natural, I woke up and fell asleep again and had another LD). The only scene I still remember now is in a school hallway, similar to the one in my old elementary school- completely realistic, too.

[ibanezmonster]

Finally broke out of that ~7-days straight of having detailed dreams but not being able to remember them (the last entry being only different because of B6)- pretty sure it's because I went to bed an hour earlier.

I ended up dreaming that I checked on Meshuggah's website and they finally announced their new album- it had a gray cover with some name I can't remember, because it's one of those cliche metal words that are made up- something like "Pylosoxia" or whatever... However, it was so convincing that I didn't even think about doing a reality check and didn't end up becoming lucid.

I think that week was a symptom of "being too tired" to LD- not only does it affect WILDs, but also DILDs and dream recall, possibly. The more tired you are, the less you dream, because you are spending more of your time in NREM sleep, which is more of a Delta State. When you hit REM sleep and dream, it's more of a Theta State, which is lighter sleep. Probably a major reason why B6 causes vivid dreams might be because it gives you energy, leading you to sleep lighter.

[ibanezmonster]

I ended up dreaming that I checked on Meshuggah's website and they finally announced their new album- it had a gray cover with some name I can't remember, because it's one of those cliche metal words that are made up- something like "Pylosoxia" or whatever...

They just finished their new album today, and I'm not sure if this is the cover or not, but it's pretty close to the image I dreamed of:

(but they haven't released the name yet)

Last night I had two dreams- one at night and one in the morning.

1. At night: I rarely have nightmares without B6, and the only ones in recent memory are 2 that involved fighting off demons, and this one is similar. In the last one a year or two ago, the demon went inside me at the end of the dream. In the dream last night, I was a fiercely big and strong demon with a body of fire, and I had to kill demons that spawned from me that looked exactly like me, but there was some sort of cyclic pattern to it that I don't remember. The really traumatizing part of it was that when you try to kill them, they turn into my dog, and I saw my dog on the floor, crying, with his neck broken, slowly dying, while I stood there with a sword, intending to cut off his head because I had to. Luckily I woke up then, out of sheer trauma and grief at that sight. Hmm... ummm... symbolism, maybe?  If so, it's pretty easy to understand the meaning of this, since my mind has really taken a turn toward very dark, absurd paths the last few years due to some uncontrollable reasons. 

2. In the morning: finally, another lucid dream. Probably being up for 30 minutes in the morning because of the smoke detector helped. I was on top of buildings, just jumping around pipes and platforms and stuff for about a minute. I didn't dare try to control the dream, because any of that would of course make it stop.  It was okay, but it would be nice to more of an input into what I want to do.

[ibanezmonster]

I've had a memorable dream every single night since my post on Jan.2, meaning 9 straight nights (just by adjusting my sleep schedule to 11-8 (or 7)). I would say it's pretty safe to say that's the technique to use from now on.

I've also had a few lucid dreams, but like always, they only came from intently focusing on and reading about lucid dreams before bed (for at least 20 minutes). So, I now have a pretty reliable induction technique, but honestly, it would be nicer if I didn't have to spend the time doing that each night, so I might end up looking for alternatives (may the ADA "all day awareness" technique?)

Also have found a waaaaaay better way of waking up in the morning- put my cell phone's alarm set to 8, and to vibrate in the morning as the alarm. I couldn't even describe how much better that is than waking up because of some annoying radio across the room.

Next step: buy earplugs to sleep with, so the noise everyone makes between ~6:50-8 doesn't wake me up. A good percentage of my dreams happen then. I plan to simply use DILD for every lucid dream (forget WILD)- during DILD, you have no idea what time it is, so you have no pressure to rush before it's time to wake up, leading to greater dream control.

[ibanezmonster]

11 in a row.
Had a nightmare that a hacker hacked into all communication systems in the world, and displayed their logo "2012" or something like that. But the bad thing was that if you got injured, people couldn't call an ambulance, and you would just sit there and die. They also tried to do terrorist activities to eliminate the earth's population gradually, if I remember correctly.

I spent at least 20 minutes reading the Dreamviews forum before going to bed and no lucid.  If I don't think about it, I won't have one, but if I do, I have a greater chance at having one, but not a 100% chance.

The 3 steps towards mastery:

1) Dream recall
2) Inducing Lucid dreams
3) Dream control

1 hopefully will continue (11 in a row couldn't be a coincidence, right?), 2 and 3 are too sporadic. Gotta figure out how to be consistent with those... 

[Karl Henning]

Dreamt that two grey-hued dogs, each on a leash held by a person, jumped out of a window.  When I looked down, the dogs had landed all right, but they looked larger in scale than other objects down on the ground.  I didn't see the people who had been holding the leashes, although seeing that the dogs were all right, I felt the people must be all right, as well.