lucid droughts, why they happen and how to recover

unfortunately this isn’t a tip thread (sorry :razz:) but i’d like to share my problem. i haven’t had a lucid dream in a week and a day, which is quite bad considering i was having 3 a week about. my question is why do people get droughts like this and how do you recover from them? to tell you the truth though i dont think anyone really knows considering they still happen. however i’d like to do some research to find those answers out and maybe some of you have some tips.

I have Lucid Droughts simply because I don’t put enough effort into induction, and I’m stuck with once-in-two-weeks LDing, maybe even longer. It’s clear that I don’t do enough induction techniques to have constant LDing, but Droughts may simply be a sign from the brain that relaxation from LDing is necessary, or perhaps something even simpler. Maybe other people know more than I do, but sadly, this is mostly speculation.

I agree with Magus. My thoughts about this subject is that it largely depends on the person. Their effort I believe is one of the crucail factors. I’ve read a lot of lucid FAQs and all lot of them say that you shoudn’t try too hard and some say you shoudn’t try too little, so I’d say that it is very hard to determine if you are trying too hard or too little.

Masterpane i guess its your Avatar…lol! :happy:
If u had chosen an Avatar from Robin hood, Tarzan or even Batman you wouldnt have had a dry spell…
How ever its an great Avatar i think… :wink:

But to be serious i dont know, what changed…sleep patterns?
Food, mood, stress?

Tell us?

Jeff

I recently moved house and stopped keeping a regular dream journal and as a result, I went for nearly a month without LDing. Two days ago, I started writing down the dreams I could remember and last night I had a lucid dream again. :smile:
So, if you are not, I would suggest that you write down all the dreams you can recall and perhaps this will help you.

Same here!
I had not a single LD in 54 days. I was really lazy with writing down my dreams. Three nights ago I convinced myself to always write down everything. Two nights ago I had a lucid dream :smile:

i think the state of the mind is the key , at least the important key.
i saw that when i have nothig in my head ( stress , pressure ,…) ld’s
happen more just by willing and when i’m not tune even i try hard
i cant reach that.

and i think growing the number of lds (even just keep them happen regular)needs a realy hard work(disiplin) that u always keep yourself tune .
something like lucid living and do not let other topics occupy your mind.

thats hard , mind dont wana calm down and dont let you always obsurve without get involve in contents easily. i think if someone could do that in any condition he\she will pass most of the way of stablizing and controling the state of the mind that we need in lds.

Hi
Trying too hard or doing not enough could be two factors for lucid droughts.
But what´s even nastier than lucid droughts are complete dream-droughts, sometimes my dream recall is just messed up

However, one thing I found that can help is a new start.If you don´t suceed with your attempts for a long time you can get a bit desperate, you still keep trying but you don´t expect it to work.
So, just take a break for a few days, don´t do anything in this time.No RCs, no journaling, nothing.
Then select a day for a new start (I prefer a new week, or the first of month).Have a shower, change your bedcloth, listen to that music you like but haven´t heared in a while, start a new book…
Do whatever you want to signal a change and a new start.Then start journaling again, and decide wich technique you want to use (and also decide how long you at least want to stick to it).
After all that stuff you can be quite positive about the next one or two weeks bringing a change :smile:

Traumgänger

Good point Traumganger! :wink:

Jeff

thanks for the tips guys, really helpful. as of any changes though, if anything stress has been much less, i’m in pretty good moods, and my sleep patterns are pretty much the same because of school. i think the root of the problem was the reason i was having lucid dreams believe it or not. during my intense 3 weeks of lucid dreams, it was awesome cause i didn’t have to do anything to have them. so i guess in a sense i wasn’t trying at all. so therefore i think that now being lazy isn’t working (nuts) and i’ll have to try as hard as when i used to. thanks for the help! :grin:

Dogma was one of the funniest movies I ever saw.

As for draughts, I have them all the time. I think it’s mostly just not sticking with the plan that prevents LDs from occuring. Whatever you do, don’t get lazy about it and the LDs will come back.

Traumganger wrote some good pointers.

Mental note to self: must make sure to not forget 'em. :wink:

Oh yeah, my dream shortage period is finally over. Anyway I think I know why my drought started in the first place…

I kind of gave preference to the WILD techniques and totally neglected the other non-WILD stuff. Well, the morning WILDs were only semi-successful so I thought I would go to bed much sooner and in the morning have alarms wake me up every half an hour. I started going to bed at 21h (9PM) and after a day or two I just couldn’t fall asleep until 1AM. Then in the morning I either were too lazy or had to wake up for work. All this led to the dream shortage. I just couldn’t remember my dreams for days… Anyway I’ve been going to bed normally for 2 days and voila, things are looking good again.

Lesson to learn from this: Don’t overdo it! It’s counter productive.

well great news (for me at least) i broke my drought this morning with good ole WILD, or perhaps it was MILD, i’m not sure. the thing that did it for me was, bombard myself with written and spoken affirmations, and doing WBTB technique this morning before school. worked like a charm…still wondering what it was though, as i think it was WILD because i was awake and then i was awake in the dream.

Hey that’s just great Master Pane. That sounds like a WILD to me.

and to top it off, i had another one this morning :beer: :cool_laugh:

He hey! I had one this morning too. :wink:

I just ended a several-week lucid dreaming drought. It ended when I realized I was concentrating too much on lucidity and not bothering with thinking about the non-lucid dreams I’d been having (because I didn’t consider them “important” enough).

I forced myself to write down a few dreams as soon as I woke up, no matter how boring I thought they were or how little I could remember. Lucidity picked up the very next night, and I’ve been going strong for the last week…

Harlequin

I never allowed myself to believe that concentrating too hard on lucid dreaming could actually reduce your chances of having one. I suppose consistant failure might lead to the construction of a mental barrier, at which point you’ve decided that you’re in the middle of a drought and therefore can’t have one for another few days at least. How could more effort lead to less results? All it takes is a normal dream to include lucid dreaming as a topic (something which is likely to occur if you spend a significant amount of time each day thinking about it) for you to obtain lucidity in a lot of cases.

As it happens, I’ve just had my first few LDs after a decent 3-week drought. I think my problem may have actually been the reduction of effort that I’d been applying, rather than any kind of over-dose. A few days ago I began testing a brand new technique, and I think the anticipation alone was enough to spark the results I got that night. Perhaps if people renewed their interest with the addition of a few RCs here and there, or a change of technique, they’ll see an end to their drought.

Yeah Stimulance is an important thing in the dream business :cool:
Also the excitement for new tech and experiments!
Just let it spark inside :cool_laugh:
Boredness is the great killer of all.

Jeff