Lucid comeback after a nearly three month dry spell

Hi. XD I doubt anyone remembers me… I haven’t posted for months. School started, I have only 6 or 7 hours of sleep every night, I’ve been having fun in college and falling in love and doing all sorts of things except lucid dreaming.

At the end of summer vacation I was very actively practicing LDing, and at first it paid off - but as I practiced longer and more and tried different techniques I got worse, eventually I would just blank out as soon as I hit the pillow and hardly remember any dreams in the morning. It was almost as if my brain’s batteries were empty.

Then school started, leaving me with 6-hour nights, alarm clock ringing at 6:30 in the morning, and more of such horror. I still wrote in my dreamdiary next to my bed, but after a while I wanted those 15 minutes of extra sleep instead of 15 minutes of writing and trying to remember my dreams… I tell you, school systematically kills LD motivation (I became very motivated for school though. )

Anyway… I haven’t had an LD since the beginning of September. I didn’t use techniques anymore, didn’t even practice RC’s or write up my dreams. Then, all of a sudden, last night - WHAM. Lucid. I looked at my hands and counted my fingers - there were 8. And then I realised I was dreaming. I lost it quite fast though, because I didn’t remember to rub my hands or anything… but for some seconds, I was medium-level lucid.

I don’t get it! I try to dream lucid and it doesn’t work, and when I’m totally lazy about it, it shows up at random. I’m already surprised I remembered how to do a reality check like counting my fingers. But anyway, Christmas vacation is coming up, so hopefully I can have another shot at LDing. I’m just trying to work out how to go about it - intensive practicing seems to make my brain tired and otherwise I just find lucidity at random without being able to induce it. Has anyone ever had this problem?

I’ve heard lots of people on this forum having similar experiences to yours. One of them will come upon this thread soon enough.

After you’ve had your first intentional lucid dream, you’re bound to have another one eventually even without any effort.

Wow, your story is remarkably similar to mine, except I had never had an LD before.

(deleted double post)

I hope so. It’s sort of discouraging that practice doesn’t help me, only randomness does.

But… I never had an intentional lucid dream. I’ve had about 3 mid-level LD’s my whole life, and a dozen of low-level ones. But they all come at random. :\ Just like WILDs - I can’t induce a WILD, but sometimes, I get one naturally at random (instant sleep paralysis, HI, the works). This is telling me that, yay, I do have some talent for LDing… but too intensive practice has the opposite effect. :\

Glad I’m not the only one ^^

by “intentional”, i mean putting SOME effort in. You dont nessicarily have to try a method, but wanting it… if that makes sense. I consider every LD ive had since i found out what lucid dreaming is to be intentional, simply because of my desire to LD in general.

I wrote:
After you’ve had your first intentional lucid dream, you’re bound to have another one eventually even without any effort.

A better way to say it may be:
After you understand what lucid dreaming is and have a desire to have a lucid dream-and you have your first one, you’re bound to have another one sooner or later.

However, it still may not apply to you.