Frustration & Insomnia

I have always found lucid dreaming very difficult. I was once (probably a year or so ago) very interested in lucid dreaming but gave up after a few weeks of frustration not making much headway (I also don’t have cash for help such as the NovaDreamer). During this period all I had were, I think, 2 or 3 pre-lucid dreams, where I felt like I might be dreaming, but gave up the idea. I’ve only had about 2 real lucid dreams in my life (i can’t remember if these were at the time of my obsession), in both I didn’t have really strong lucidity so I couldn’t think of anything except I for started flying.
The last few days I’ve been trying again, looking at lucidity stuff for hours and hours doing reality checks all day and even trying food induced stuff. I do have insomnia so it’s a bit hard to practice MILD & WILD techniques, I can’t focus that long.
I will admit that my dream recall has been pretty bad lately(tips? besides journal, thats also hard with insomnia), but I don’t feel I’ve had a lucid dream at all, you can usually get a feeling of an important dream.
Anyways sorry about the long post I’m just really frustrated any tips and encouragment are welcome. :help: Thanx.

Dream recall…hmm…one good tip is to set your alarm to coincide with your REM periods. Like, set your alarm to wake you up when you know that you’ll be dreaming. The hours you may want to set it are 1.5 hours after you fall asleep, 3, 4.5, 6, 7.5, and so on, depending on how long you sleep. When you wake up, the dream you were having should be fresh in your mind. That’s just one of the methods, though, you can find some more stuff in the wikibook: en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Lucid_Drea … eam_Recall

Like i said i have insomnia so everytime i did this it would take a long while to get back to sleep again.

Not many people do. A cheep alternative would be to get a strobe light and hook it up to a timer. It should only cost you $30.00 to $50.00 dollars at most.

I can not stress strongly enough the importance of a dream journal. In my opinion it is one of the most important tools for lucid dreaming. Now that does not mean you have to wake up in the middle of the night to remember your dreams. Just wake up at your normal time and write down what you can remember. In a short time you will start to remember more and more dreams. Better yet. If you can wake up later than normal. The longer you sleep the more likely you are to wake from rem sleep.

Do RC as often as possible and do them seriously.

Search this site for meditation techniques. I know you said you have a hard time with concentration so print out a routine you like then record it to a tape. That way all you have to do is follow the tape.

Finally, I just want to give you a little bit of hope. I too suffer from severe insomnia yet I can lucid dream. I can even do WILD which is my favorite method. Insomnia is not a barrier to lucid dreaming.

There is nothing special about me. No one said any voodoo rites over me to help me lucid dream. I am no different than you. So, if I can do it so can you. Just practice and do not give up ever !!! In time it will happen. How long I can not say. It could happen tonight or 3 months from now.

Good luck and happy dreams

Thank you so much for the tips and encouragement, couple of questions though: how would you hook up a strobe light to a timer and would it go off all night? Also, how does a dream journal help u LD besides increasing recall( how does it do that either?). Just curious. Anyways, i do plan 2 keep a journal now thanx. BTW does ne1 know of any free dream journal software? Website wont work becuz the comp in my room doesn’t have internet.

I agree with what have been said before. I also found that a good method for enhancing dream recall is increasing your awarness in your waking life. If you keep paying attention to everything around you, you’ll find it more easy to remember dreams. Also having dreaming a lot on your mind during your waking life helps your dream recall.

I’m not sure how the DJ increases dream recall. I think it does it but putting assigning some importance to recalling dream so that you will be motivated to do it. But the DJ does help you LD, because when you have collected enough dreams in your DJ you’ll start noticing some recurrent dreamsigns (objects, people, or situations) and if you train your self to RC everytime you see a dreamsign, then you’ll do that in a dream and you’ll get lucid.

No the strobe light will not go off all night. The timer plugs into the wall then you plug the strobe light into the timer. You then can set the timer to turn on the strobe light at different intervals thought the night. Obviously you will want to try and time it so the strobe light goes on while you are in REM sleep.

i noe this topic is kind of dead, but if u visit it again, have u actually used the strobe light like that? does it work? wouldn’t it wake u up? thnx for all the help.

I used it a long time ago and it did work. I don’t need to use it anymore as I can LD without it. One piece of advice though. Use one of the colored filters that come with the strobe light. The first time I used it without the filters it blinded me in my dream. I used the red filter but, I don’t think it matters what color you use. Also, put the strobe light on the opposite side of the room and it should not wake you up.

Good luck

ok thnx. crap i lost the filters. o well, i’ll figure something out.

Good luck and let me know how you make out.

i will as soon as i can get a timer, broke right now tho and i don’t noe where to get one.

If you have a wal mart or k-mart you should be able to get one for like $5.00 and better ones for $10.00.

as soon as i get some money :cool_laugh: , yeah i noe, i don’t even have 5 bucks :cry: lol