WAS: 'Aigh! So close...' NOW: 'Yay!'

I got so close to having a full on LD (you know, one that last for more then a few seconds…).

In TWO seperate dreams I nearly came lucid. But one of them really stands out…

Cos in it, I decided to take an RC (just randomly, like I do IRL). I closed one eye to look at my nose, and saw it fine.
Well, whenever I do that RC, I’ve picked up the habbit of doing it with the other eye as well. I don’t when I picked that habbit up, but I have.

So in the dream I closed my eye to look at my nose… and it wasn’t right. You know when you close your left eye, your nose seems to point, and left when you close your right eye. Well, in this dream, when I closed my left eye, my nose seemed to still be pointing left .

I figure that I was dreaming - then someone walked past me, and I noticed just had detailed everything was. I thought that was no way that could be a dream…

So the RC passed - just not in the way I thought it would. I was so startled by ths, that I did it over and over again, until it eventually went normal.

Then I tried the pinch my nose RC, and that failed as well (I couldn’t breathe). But by the time I had taken that RC, I was already pretty certain that I wasn’t dreaming. Maybe I should have taken it earlier…

Anyways… I asume this means I’m getting better? I’ve only been using my current tech (WBTB and MILD) a few days, and already I’ve nearly got an LD. With any luck I might get it tonight… wish me luck .

You can’t rely on anything to tell you that you are NOT dreaming. I mean how can you ever tell? A dream can mimic reality to perfection. Even good RCs like pinching your nose can fool you. Especially if you expect that you might not be dreaming when you do them.

I just did and RC and it failed. But i don’t know for sure, maybe i’ll wake up in a few minutes and this won’t be in the forum cause i never wrote it. I actually think that is possible. I’m always a little suspicious when i am browsing the forum.

Yeah, and I’m very much aware of that in waking life. But in a dream, the logic part of brain (partially) shuts down, and becuase of this, a failed RC means I lost the little bit lucidity I had managed to get .

Yeah you are definetly right about that. Im hopelessly stupid in my dreams. Especially if i am dreaming early in the night. I become gradually smarter towards the morning. Or well, towards noon that is

I haven’t really found that I get any smarter towards the end of the night - then again I haven’t really looked. But it makes sense that that would happen .

Ha! The same thing happened to me, as you read in my thread. That’s cool then; I know somebody at the same level as me, who’s going through the same thing.

It’s weird how after I got that close, my brain wanted to give up. I couldn’t remember my dreams at first when I woke up the next night/day, it felt like I didn’t dream. But I didn’t except no for an answer, I lied there, becoming half asleep, and remembered almost everything I dreamt about the night before. Don’t let your brain give up, it’s your brain, take control.
Well, let me know when you finally become fully lucid.

It almost sounds like you realized you were dreaming then talked yourself out of it. Anytime you find yourself seriously considering weather or not you are dreaming, you are. Try something like flying, or change something with thought alone. Hopefully you would have a hard time rationalizing that.

The only problem with that is when you are dreaming, you can’t rationalize things like this. This is obvious IRL however, when you dream your logic goes out the window.

Sureal your sure on the right trail
Dont give up and keep on going for more lds!

Do you already know what you will do in your next ld?

jeff

The Poultry King

That is very true. It is also why I do not rely on RC to tell me that I am dreaming. Im my LD ‘s I either become lucid with WILD or in DILD in which case I just know I am dreaming. I think that doing the reality checks while awake and keeping a dream journal helps you get in tune with booth realities. Then when you are dreaming you suddenly just know you are.

By the way, what is MILD? I know what it stands for, but I don’t know what it is.

Heh, I got lots of posititve replies from that .

Actually, that is EXACTLY what I did. I underestimated just how realistic and detailed dreams could be. Cos in my last two LDs (both low level) it wasn’t as detailed, and the world around me felt weak. This one felt just like real life .

But I had a go last night, and it seems my brain is now kindda annoyed with me .

I set my alarm clock as normal, but I got almost no sleep before it went off again (that was meant for me to use WBTB). Not only that, but any and all atempts at MILD went really bad. The time when I enarly got it, I could do it till I fell to sleep. This time I went on for hours, and it just kept me awake.

I remember no dreams at all from that night, and I woke up feeling terrible (too tired… i felt like this for the first half of school too).

And somehow, my clock had somehow got turn forwards an hour, so when I got up for school (an hour earlier) I woke my baby sister up which annoyed my mum… and I couldn’t get back to sleep before I had to get up again…

So yeah - last night didn’t go to well…

So, in theory, tonight should go really well .

How to do MILD can be found on the site somewhere (I think in Take Off!), but I use a simpiliar version.

I just say ‘When I dream, I will be aware that I am dreaming’ till I fall asleep, and everynow and then visualise myself in a past LDs.

When you start getting the words wrong you know you’re close to sleep (I started to say ‘when I dream, I will wash the car…’)

Um, that is MILD, not a simpler version.

Whoa - how long did you do the RC for?

I meant that I use a simpilar version then the one on the site. I only say a single line, and don’t do the other stuff.

For as long as I could go without ‘air’.
The main reason I think this failed, is becuase I expected it to fail. I didn’t think I’d be able to breathe, but I tired it anyway.

Next time I’m lucid, I’m gonna try this again. See if it will ever work for me, or if it was a one off .

Sureal

Don’t get discouraged and keep practicing. Things will get better with time. Sorry I can’t give better advice than that. You already know what you are doing and how to do it. Now you just have to stay determined to have more lucid dreams and don’t give up.

Here is to more LD ‘s

good luck and happy dreaming.

Thanks .

I didn’t have an LD last night… but I did have a long and vivid ND, so I guess that’ll do for now .

Ooh! I had an LD last night! All hail WBTB and MILD!

Infact, I nearly had two, but my RCs were playing up again…

Hey, congratulations, Sureal!!!
I had a series of non-Lucid and very low level LD’s yesterday … pulling hair out … I kept turning on light switches that didn’t work. A couple of times I sorta realized it was a dream, but got confused or woke up. We should all keep repeating to ourselves, “If in doubt, you’re dreaming until proven otherwise!”
Peace,
Sruthan

Congratulations!!!

Great to hear about your success.

Happy Dreaming