this is going to probably make little to no sense so bear with me.
i’ve gotten “lucid” a couple times in my past- once when i lost it immediately and fell back into a dream, and once when i snapped awake immediately. but a few nights ago was my first REAL lucid dream. the first successful one.
and now that i’ve had a real, full lucid dream, i have some questions.
i’ve noticed a lack of clarity in the LD i had the other night. you know how you remember a dream from the night before, but it’s kind of… unclear? like someone sort of told you a vague story? that’s what my dream felt like when i was in it. i felt like i was dreaming in the MEMORY of a dream. it’s reeeally hard to explain.
it kind of felt like i was closing my eyes in the real world and daydreaming, and forcing everything to happen around me. it didn’t feel like i’d stepped into a clearer dream. it just kind of felt like my consciousness stepped into the same exact dream and rolled with it.
is this natural? is there a way to fix this for next time? did ANY of what i said make sense?
I am not really sure here, also I am a bit sleepy “so bear with me”.
Are you saying that your dream lacked clarity and you knew it was unclear (lucid)?
If that’s what you meant, I agree that Lucidity is not Clarity, that is, you can be lucid and your dream may be unclear.
SPOILER - Click to view
Yes, LDing may not be as easy as many people think, you don’t only have to be lucid, you need clarity, recall and time inside there… you may also want control, which is a completely different thing.
If I got it right, it’s is common. I wouldn’t use the word “natural” for that, but I think you would expect a “yes” there.
How to fix? You may make use of stabilization techniques. There are some examples in the “While” part of the famous LD4all guide. However they are not guaranteed for that. I really believe that “dreams have to end somehow” and the lack of clarity could mean that you are too late or too early in a sleep cycle.
For advanced LDers:
SPOILER - Click to view
Some advanced LDers may even consider to force awakening if they cannot stabilize the dream or make it clearer. By forcing awakening, a experienced dreamer may manage to reenter a dream by chaining into a new sleep cycle in which they would have more chances.
thank you for your help, tggtt. i’m sorry it took me… jeez, FOUR days to respond.
i’ll take your advice seriously. i’ve read a little on stabilization techniques, but i’ll be honest, i haven’t researched it quite as much as the rest of the elements of an LD- like the ones you mentioned in your spoilerbox.
it just seems like such an impossible thing for me to stabilize. my first LD came directly out of the blue without any real warning, so when i got in, i wasn’t ready at all and i completely forgot all about stabilization in my excitement.
so what about when it happens again? i’m gonna probably guess my next LD is going to be a very long time from now. what if i just get excited again and completely forget about stabilization?