I think I just found out why my LDs are so unstable all the time. It is the RCs I do that makes the dream unstable. An example:
I am walking on this road when I realise I am dreaming. I keep walking for a while. I notice that the dream is pretty stable. After a while I look at my hand. The moment I finish counting my fingers I get paralysed and can’t move, I get this “sand in my eyes” feeling (my eyes are burning and I can hardly see), and this blurry DC appears out of nowhere and starts running towards me. In other words, total chaos.
I don’t know why this happens, but I am pretty sure it is my RCs that cause this utter chaos in my LDs. It might be that it happens for no reason, maybe because I expect it to happen. Might it be because i stop paying attention to the dream for a few seconds while RCing, causing me to wake up while the dreamscape is fading? Pherhaps it is a mental block or something, I don’t know…
Does anyone else have this problem? Does anyone have any thoughts on how to overcome it? I sure don’t know what’s going on here, so any help will be appreciated…
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned very often on this forum that has worked wonderfully for me the couple of times I’ve tried it is spinning. Just literally, within the dream, spin your body around like you’re trying to get dizzy.
Dr. Laberge recommends it for both stabalizing and enhancing a lucid dream, delaying early awakening, and also sometimes to change the setting of the dream.
I think it was two separate dreams that I thought to do it within a lucid dream… both times as the dream seemed like it was ending … the visual was blurring and fading … it worked well both times. One of the times, every time it seemed to be getting ready to end, I spun wildly and the dream got vivid again, and I was able to keep that up for what seemed like quite a while by repeating the process.
Perhaps give spinning a try?
Peace,
Sruthan
The reason spinning and such things increase the solidity of the dream is because you are interacting with the enviroment. Rather than just spinning, pet something, run your fingers over it and feel it. Notice the smells in the air and the sounds around you. Just generaly interact with things around you, feel the breeze and what not. This should help stablize things some.
Yes, odd2k, I’ve often have the same problem. I’ve found that it isn’t good to do RC’s unless your dream is fading on you. Focusing on the dream environment is the best way to stabilise the dream.
Ok, spinning and all other stabilization techniques seem like a good idea. However, I cannot avoid doing a RC in my LD unless it is a spontaneus induced one. Most of the time, I feel there is something wrong and do a RC to check if I am dreaming. If it is a dream, the RC will cause me to lose all control.
Hmm, I think I have an idea though: The next time I feel something is a bit strange, I will not do any physical RCs, instead I will use the ‘how did I get here’ RC. Ok thanks for the replies
How about rather than doing a typical reality check, just try to do something you couldn’t normally do. Something that you don’t have to do anything physical, try to levitate or something. That way, you just kinda jump into the lucid dream without doing a reality check (though technically you are checking reality by seeing if you can even levitate). But, if you succeed at it, just go into flying rather than taking the moment to think about the fact that you are dreaming. I find that if I think about the fact that I’m dreaming when I become lucid, I tend to wake up, so I just jump right into the lucid dream activities instead.
Even better, the next time I become lucid, I will try to pretend that I am in RL, awake. I’ll just have to be careful not to lose lucidity…
I think lucidity and dream stability are opposite of each other. The more aware you are of the fact that you are dreaming, the more dream-like everything around you will be. And the other way around, if you think it is RL, then the dream will be just like RL.
