TheOnerous wrote:
I used to spend a lot of time working on dreamsigns but gave up after a lot of consistent effort and no results. Will I go back to that way? Time will tell...I change my mind a lot!
That's a really nice problem to have Summerlander! I'm hoping to find inspiration for songs in the phase at some point. Would you consider yourself to be a natural, or have you just put in a lot of effort over the years and now have it "sussed"?
Almost sussed! hehehe!
THE PHASE = waking consciousness during sleep hybridisation at 40Hz of brainwave activity conducive to lucid dreaming and autoscopy.
Multiple attempts at phase entry by separation in the night. None successful, but I'm pleased to be back on track with my conscious awakening attempts. Will continue to experiment.
TL;DR: Treat the darkness you see when you close your eyes as a dream you are trying to incubate. Study this darkness (and its blobby greyness) when going to sleep. Think of the darkness as a location in its own right you want to enter when dreaming.
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(I experienced LD in the first REM period on two occasions (out of four) using this approach.)
I don't really get HI when I go to sleep so decided to experiment to see if I could use that to my advantage. I wanted to use the "black" you see when you close your eyes as a type of dream incubation and as a non-verbal kind of affirmation I could study on going to sleep. During the day I would close my eyes and study the darkness. I would stare into it and treat it as though I believed it was a location (a very surreal one!) that was mostly dark, but with floating blobs of greyness and black and grey orbs and other dark objects and mists. While doing this I would treat it as a dream incubation exercise: I acted as though I was simply observing another world that I knew I wanted to enter on sleeping.
When going to sleep I would continue studying the darkness for as long as possible. If I started to drift off to sleep I would bring my attention back to the darkness and its grey blobs and swirling grey clouds. Instead of having a verbal affirmation such as: "I'll realise I'm dreaming", I treated the darkness as a kind of visual affirmation. It can be easy to forget a verbal affirmation while you're drifting off to sleep, but I reasoned that the darkness would still be there while drifting off to sleep acting as a reminder to my intention to enter the "darkness world".
Going forward
I've moved on to other experiments for the time being (I'm experimenting with finding better ways to achieve conscious awakenings) but when I come back to this darkness approach, I think that one addition I could make to the approach is to look slightly to the right when going to sleep (instead of staring directly ahead), where the intention is to make the falling asleep process take longer so that the visual affirmation (and intention to enter the darkness world) is made stronger.
Still experimenting with dream incubation. Still getting people from my past appearing in my dreams - even without deliberately trying. Also it seems I can incubate visuals in dreams but not feelings and sounds and other senses. I may try a "mindful reading" experiment to see if I incubate dreams about text and use the text for an RC.
Had a fantastic non-lucid dream last night. I was basically walking round my home town and it had all the elements of my home town, but everything was in a different place.I think I was on the road to lucidity at a couple of points but got distracted. It has made me generate a couple of 'What ifs...':
What if...we get distracted so easily in (non-lucid) dreams because our random eye movements (of dream sleep) make us see something else in the environment that distracts us and makes us think about something else?
What if...I wrote non-lucids in my DJ as though they contained lucid elements? Such as teleportation?
Found myself aware at the end of a dream. Kept still and attempted to separate but couldn't. Got some HI (strands of "ribbon" with flashing lights on them) but they faded.
Experimented with dream incubation last night so didn't set out to try indirect techniques, but found myself having a couple of conscious awakenings so decided to use them to attempt separation. Couldn't separate in these attempts.
Experiment: The subjects I attempted to incubate a dream about didn't feature in my dreams last night. But I will try again tonight.
SSILD: Woke at 4am so decided to try SSILD. No LD resulted from that and I'm not sure my recall was better than normal.
Attempt: Had a conscious waking. Tried to separate but couldn't.
Lucid dream: Realised I was dreaming when I had a nightmare (I have about two nightmares a year). A man produced a gun and said he was going to pick someone at random and shoot them. He chose me. As he walked towards me I thought it was a dream and a nose pinch proved it. He reached me and I looked at my hand to back up my nose pinch. Six fingers. Unfortunately I woke up. I tried to separate on waking but couldn't.
I'm still thinking about LDing when I go to bed and ask myself if I've had LD when I wake up; but I haven't got as much time during the days to focus on my efforts. Longer term, when I come back to LDing properly I think I'll focus on DILD/MILD because I haven't been able to get indirect techniques to work at all.
Haven't got the time to focus on LDing at the moment, but over the past few days I've found myself in places that are quite dreamlike and have made me think of lucid dreaming, so I've decided to start RCing (nose pinch) again.
At the moment I'm concentrating on raising my awareness during the day (but only in environments where increased awareness increases my enjoyment of the moment) and occasionally asking if I'm dreaming and doing RCs. My recall has been down for a number of months now.
Hooray! First proper LD for what seems like a very very long time.
First REM period (again) but it wasn't like my normal LDs in the first REM period - it was very clear and I had my wits about me. It started in my childhood bedroom and I felt a dark, sinister presence next to me. I instantly realised it was a dream and did a nose pinch. I headed for the stairs and palpated the wall all the way down. I walked into the living room and the view from the window was very different from the one in real life. There was a giant black bumper-car outside the window. I decided to approach the bumper car but I woke up. Ideally I would've kept still and attempted to separate but I guess I am out of practice and I opened my eyes. I had thoughts of another attempt but I felt quite ill and it was quite hot so I just went back to sleep normally.
Had a nice break and enjoyed the Olympics. Recall has gone back up to a decent degree - looks like being busy kills my recall! Not quite sure where to go from here, but I'm currently asking myself if I'm dreaming occasionally.
I've shelved my attempts to enter phase using indirect techniques. It's been about a year and indirect approach hasn't yielded results, despite an enormous amount of effort. I might come back to them at some point. They still appeal, but maybe I am just not suited to them?
I've gone back to asking myself if I'm dreaming regularly. Last night I had a short LD. I suspected I was dreaming and pinched my nose. I couldn't breathe properly but backed up that RC with a look at my hands - which proved I was dreaming beyond all doubt! I don't remember what happened after that. I can't remember what happened, but I do remember waking up and thinking I'd had a lucid adventure. Time to work on recall too, perhaps?
Excellent recall again last night. Another increase
Had one FA - unfortunately I missed it because a nuclear war was under way (which is kind of distracting).
Had a dream where I had great control but without realising I was dreaming. I was flying along a river and I found when I looked to items on the riverbank I could make them be a colour of my choosing using my will.
Funny you mention that because recently I dreamed that I was running through white corridors and exploring white rooms. I absolutely thought I was awake and that the environment was physically real. Everything was white and I commented to myself how I would have loved to see that in the phase (and even remembered having thought this while watching an episode of Big Brother that included a white room). Suddenly, bam, I was lucid and did enjoy perambulating the white interior of what looked like a hospital. I also met a nurse who sounded Polish. She told me her name but I fouled and had to take the kids to school.
THE PHASE = waking consciousness during sleep hybridisation at 40Hz of brainwave activity conducive to lucid dreaming and autoscopy.
