Trouble With Dream Signs

moved from gen luc

I’ve just recently become interested in lucid dreaming and unfortunately, have just started working on a much more regular basis. This presents a problem: I keep dreaming about work. Nothing bizarre is happening, I’m not in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people doing strange or impossible things. I just dream that I’m doing my job, the way I do every day. Maybe I just need to keep working on my dream recall, but when I journal these dreams, there’s literally nothing that stands out to me that could’ve been a clue to me that it was just a dream.
This being said, clearly it’s not so easy for me to recognize any recurring dream signs right now. Any suggestions on how I could fix this? Or do I just have to keep consistently doing reality checks and hope that that works for me?
Thank you in advance.

Well… a dream-sign isn’t always something that stands out, it’s something that occurs every now and then. I’d say perform two RCs every time you enter your workplace and after you talked to someone you see in your dreams.
Other than that, just don’t worry about your dreams, before going to sleep relax yourself and empty your head.

Hey BlueMan,

I have found that my normal dreamsigns are being is a different place where I have lived, or not being able to run quickly when I have to. However, I found it difficult to perform reality checks with these dreamsigns. What I did was the “Stare at Your Hands” Technique that Robert Waggoner talks about in his book (You can probably google it and it should show up). Basically, the idea is to stare at your hands and say “Tonight, I will see my hands in my dream and realize I’m dreaming” before you go to bed each night. I suggest this because now, even without staring at my hands before I go to bed, I can become lucid just from randomly looking at my hands in my dreams, so basically it has become one of my dreamsigns that trigger lucidity. I hope this helps!

Thanks to both of you to your speedy replies.
Dream-explorer, that is actually something I realized today. Now that I’m trying to get to lucid dreaming, I’m very eager for my first lucid dream. However I realized today that, like with most special abilities, I need to respect the fact that I need to work my way up to it and not have any expectations about when it’ll happen. I may still have a long road ahead of me, and that’s okay.
Lucere, I’ve actually been using the “try to push your finger through your hand” RC, but I’ll definitely try doing it specifically right before bed with that mentality. I like that RC in particular, because you have to look at your hands to do it anyway. It seems like 2 in 1 to me.

BlueMan,

I think you misunderstood me lol, dreaminglucid.com/fivetechniques.html

What I mean is to try technique number 2

However, I do know the RC your talking about :content:

Hey there BlueMan,

While your dreams may appear as monotonous and ordinary as they may be, realize that with patience and analysis you can get the best out of them, and work your way up to lucidity. You can try many different things for that matter:

Dream Recall: You should continue journaling your dreams. The more dreams you have, the easier it’s to spot the inconsistencies within the dream itself. I have the same problem you have when I started about a month ago. Being in med school, my dreams mostly include scenery related to school, libraries, books, classrooms, etc. Yet the more time I spend journaling my dreams each night, the best I am able to analyse and search for the clues that give me the idea that I’m dreaming. Ask yourself, are there people in your dream who shouldn’t be there? Are there any people at all? What are you doing while you’re working? What about the tools, are you working with the same tools as always? What are you working on? Is everything in place, where it should be, like in waking life? What are the people saying? Do they even talk at all? Search for the small details.

Both what Dream-explorer and Lucere said are also great ideas you could use. Reality checking whenever you are at work or using autosuggestion might also aid you in achieving lucidity. You could also try and ask yourself, “Where am I?” each and every time you are in a different place or room. Or you could ask yourself “What did I just do?” consistently as well in waking life. Then you can reality check after to prove whether you’re dreaming or not. With time, you can get these specific behaviors to show themselves in your dreams.

Also, the amount of sleep you’re having might also have an impact in your recall and dreams as well. Try getting enough sleep when you can, particularly in weekends so that you’re relaxed enough to achieve lucidity. Stress is also important. It explains why you’re mostly dreaming about work, since it’s the only thing that’s keeping your mind’s attention. I’ve found out that the less I think about school, exams, studying, etc. my dreams tend to be more action packed, extraordinary than before. So, relaxing yourself and clearing your mind is of utmost importance.

I managed to achieve a LD today by using the aforementioned tips for about a month. Who knows, maybe you can get this in a week with consistent trying and effort.

Hope this helps you in your quest. :smile: