A Little Bit About Motivation!

Great post, I can relate to this…Suddenly what you get and achieve, like good DR or nice ND’s, is not enough anymore, and that just lowers your motivation even more.

wise words… patience and appreciation indeed :happy:
sounds like a very familiar theme, which could be applicable to countless other aspects of life… everyday life.

great message! :ok:

This may be pure luck, but one of my strongest motivations for lucid dreams is actually memorable normal dreams.
This last night I dreamed that a rather timid and alluring girl with really beautiful curves was making some sort of dance moves at my local supermarket (of all places, lol).
She actually seemed quite shy and careful, but there as something about her behaviour that told me that it was alright for her if I checked her out without hiding it (I wasn’t exactly staring like a freak, I just showed her some calm and appreciative attention on a more sexual level, like “ya baby, you are pretty”) - evertime she noticed that I checked her out she gave me some sort of look like “oh, you’re checking me out? Mm, that’s okay…”, then she gave me another quick look and kept dancing and looked kindly and shyly at me every now and then.
I loved that dream.

That’s the way it works, almost always first comes non lucid dream then comes lucid dreams. So it’s only natural to take your non lucid dreams serious and as motivation because essentially you need them to achieve lucid ones…

Yes, after all lucid dreams are essentially normal dreams with awareness. :content:

Well, I couldn’t agree more with you because you precisely defined my situation. The only reason I have my LD count over 20 is that I practised lucid dreaming once about a year ago and I’ve luckily remembered, I hope, all of them. In fact the thing that discourages me from resuming practising is I keep loosing my motivation due to the poor dream recall. Perhaps it comes out of laziness? Sometimes I just can’t stay in bed for too long as I could be late for school and at the same time if I get up a little earlier, I’m drowsy throughout the whole day. This often prevents me from writing my dream journal. Alternatively I can remember only residual information which is not worth writing it down.

But enough is enough. I really need this skill and I must learn lucid dreaming to an extent when I will be able to talk with certain people. This is my main goal and I believe it would help me a lot in WL. So thanks for posting. You’re right. I’il definitely work on what I neglected.

It is always worth writing the residual information down. This may not seem like so, but doing so may actually help you recall what you have forgotten. There have been numerous times when I went to write down a dream, and by writing down the fragmented parts that I recalled I suddenly remembered more of the dream. Therefore, you should always right down your fragments, as they may help you remember more of the dream.

Also, just the act of writing anything down is sending a signal to your subconscious that this is important, remember it! Likewise, not writing it down diminishes its importance. Therefore, again, you should always write down your fragments as they reinforce in your mind that dreams are important.

As to your condition with school / laziness: it is best that you trump laziness immediately and become diligent with your DJ. I’ve recently discovered that discipline is very very important when it comes to remembering your dreams. If you really want to recall your dreams and have the chance to have lucid ones you really, REALLY need to write them down. By doing so you become more familiar with the dream world, and you become more familiar with the unique aspects that set it apart from WL.

When it comes to school, I sing a similar tune. You need to at least try to keep up with your DJ during school. I myself am in college, and awake everyday at 7:30 to go to class. (After breakfast and getting dressed and stuff… :razz:) I usually don’t start writing my dreams down until after 12:30, and then they may not get finished until after 4 PM or 9 PM on some days. (Scheduling.)

For example, this morning I had two NDs and a single LD. (This is a record for me for this recall “period”: three separate dreams in one night. By period I mean uninterrupted set of time in which I’ve diligently kept my dream journal: current is about 2 months. The record for me is 3 months no intermission. But back to the example: ) I have yet to write them down due to my classes, yet I still recall them… fully… in decent detail… This is something that I call Persistent Recall, and something that I have been working on for the entire past period. Recall (;p Punny…) that a period is an uninterrupted set of days in which I’ve diligently kept my DJ. I intend for this to be my last. Discipline is important, thus, I will attempt to not stop writing my dreams down. Ever.

Long paragraph… Sorry. :razz: My point, simply put, is that you must DJ. It greatly improves your recall, both long-term and level of detail. If you’re having trouble getting your recall off the ground, then I’d suggest doing a WBTB and trying to remember dreams that way. Of course, you could just write the bits and pieces you recall day to day down, and over time, if you persist, your recall will improve.


Well… since most of that was directed at a topic other than the one the thread was created for, I’ll post my thoughts about the thread here. :razz: (Again long post, sorry… :razz:)

dB_FTS: I greatly agree with you. in fact, it greatly describes my last three years of LDing. I was gung-ho about dreams in general when I first started LDing. So much so in fact that two days after I began I had my first and second LDs. Since then it was an approximate downhill bumpy road in which I on and off kept my DJ and rarely had LDs. I was let down, discouraged. I had forgotten how wonderful dreams are in general.

Now, I’m hoping to change that. I still want to have regular LDs, but I’m aiming for consistent recall before I go for consistent LDs. Any LDs I have right now are just icing. They are something nice, but not the main goal for my level of experience.

(Again: Long LONG post… Sorry… :razz:) Well said, man. Well said.

I have never thought about this that way. It could actually help. I’il remember that.
Also thank you for rest of the tips you gave me. It’s time to go to bed. Let’s start again :happy:

EDIT: @Scipio Xaos: I woke up and… I must say you had a sensational effect upon me :happy: I suddenly was able to recall 7 dreams, short, yet pretty vivid. Also I got one LD in which I screamed for no reason (it’s a dream, it’s a dream!!! while looking at my 7-fingered hand - that was scary) and two SP. Furthermore in one of my dreams random DC quoted what you posted here about dream recall and motivation. I lost every single opportunity to develop my LDing except for impressive number of dreams I remembered. I know it’s not going to be like that always, but that’s a good signal I think :happy: Regards.

I have the same DJ problem.
Actually although I do remember quite a lot of my last night’s dream (at least 3-4 different places that I could even more or less connect together as a single storyline), I still didn’t care about writing it down, so I’m sure I could remember even more if I lay still for a while and went through the dream some more.
But I guess any piece of DR is great, and I will just need to remember writing things down in the future.

I agree.

Well this is something on what I agree also. People usually jump right to idea of lucid dreaming and everything before that they neglect. But whit time and little bit of research they come back to bases… :content:

That’s the thing. When you are motivated then you DR is amazing. I remember my first days of practicing LD’ing. I’m having my first DJ here and I’m going through and reading my first dreams. And it was amazing. I was so motivated that I would wake up on my own after every dream(I believe that it was almost every dream) finished and I wrote it down in my DJ…

Motivation is almost everything. From motivation you can do whatever you want and it’s so easy that people usually don’t believe stories that motivated person tells!

Good luck to all of you! :content:

Since you’re all talking about DJ I’ll add a bit of my experience :tongue:

1- Typing my dreams out on the computer instead of writing them on paper helped me a LOT in terms of interest, since I can type a lot more before getting tired.

2- Record as MUCH as possible. Instead of “I see a house”, write “I see a small house with a round window. The roof is green and there are birds in the sky. It reminds me of where I grew up.”

3- If you only remember random fragments, write them down. If you only have a vague feeling you dreamed about carrots, write that down. It doesn’t really matter if you did or not dream about carrots, just write it down.

4- Write down what all your senses pick up.

5- If you have to wake up early, do the exact same thing, just don’t expect to have great recall. Be happy with a small fragment and explore it as much as you can.

When I did all this I have to say I got the most amazing recall I’ve ever had and I’ve never had that much fun with my dreams. LD’s came naturally, with little use of techniques. Also, this might seem like “too much to handle”, specailly if you aren’t feeling motivated. I suggest not taking it too seriously, don’t demand it of yourself. Just try it out a few days. For me I was only able to actually type out 9 pages of dreams because it started becoming so much fun!

Anyway, good luck :happy:

Ah, yes, tell me about it…

I can relay on everything except first one. I did have physical DJ and then I switched to computer DJ and I lost motivation. Then I switched back to physical one and things are going much much better. I guess this one is an old story about: every one of us is different story… :content:

Oh, cool! Everyone is different indead. I put it there just in case someone gets their hand tired and that makes them lose motivation… like me xD

Also I would like to add that I’ve noticed that sometimes when I don’t have time in the morning I type my dreams on smartphone and later on I would write them in my actual DJ. It’s not time saving technique but level of details is much better then when recording them only once.

If you have time I would suggest that kind of DJ. In the morning I’m trying to write as many details as possible and later on always something pops up. Whether that’s from the same dream or another one that I will write down or even the one I didn’t even remember in the morning. And also it helps you to remember dreams in physical life better and also you can analyze them in that time when you writing then for the second time…

To me, if when I go to sleep I do something like MILD where I tell myself(repeatedly) that as soon as I wake up I will record whatever I remember dreaming then it’s easy for me.

However, if I simply go to sleep and wake up during the night, recording my dream is the last thing in the world I could give a crap about, :cry:

I’ve only had three extremely brief LDs that all-together lasted something like 10-15 seconds(the most recent being last night via WILD) so my interest is very high, but I can see how obtaining my goal of regular LDing may cause me to lose sight of what got me there/keeps me there.

In the future I will remember this post of yours when I’m recording my non lucid-dreams and wondering why I waste my time when I can already LD fairly regularly(one day soon, lol), I’ll remember the folly of others before me who shared the same thoughts and I’ll keep my records going and hopefully improve ever further. Thank you for your post! :content:

I tend to wake up several times during the night if I go to sleep early, and it’s always the same story:
“wohoo, I remember a few segments of the dream, BUT! it isn’t that much, so I’ll just skip it and fall asleep again :woo:”.

I am usually like that too, but I found it much easier if I record those segments on my smartphone and then later I can record that in my DJ. And when I’m recording it for the second time I usually get more segments then when I record it for the first time.

Dreamers usually think that they will lose sleep and that they will feel sleepy in the morning if they wake up and record their dreams but they will not in most cases. Well it could be that you will feel like that but then you need to work your way around it, I guess…

Same thing with me, but sometimes I do it with even longer dreams. I need to up my game, and start writing every single dream I have again. No matter how boring they are.

I’ll try what QuestingForLucidity is doing (telling himself that he’ll write his dreams as soon as he wakes up). Hopefully that’ll make me less of a lazy butt.

Sometimes for better DR dreamers wake up from a lucid dream intentionally just to record what they dreamed, specially if they feel like they could lose lucidity or that they were dreaming for some time and they might lose first minutes of the dream…

I think that this is good way of actually boost your DR also awareness…