How much do you plan your (lucid) dreams?

Just what the title says! To what extent are your lucid dreams planned and/or improvised? Which do you prefer? Do you think planning dreams is important or useful or suits your style of dreaming more or less?

For me, I could say it’s a healthy balance between the two. In general I really like improv a lot more, it makes me feel like I’m more part of the adventure rather than the director of a static script where the excitement just wears off. Improv FTW! But on the other hand without planning I’d never be able to set up big dreams or come up with really awesome things to do, I’d just be stuck doing the same simple fun things perpetually when the dream world has endless possibilities.

That’s me… but I’m curious about you! :smile: How’s your attitude to planning vs. improvising lucid dreams?

I try to keep a “to-do list” in mind, or a priority list like…if I so happen to become lucid tonight, the first thing I want to do is (fill in the blank).

But I need to be at a certain “level” of lucidity to even remember the top of the to-do list. So, there being improvisation getting to that state, there ought to also be improvisation with sustaining or adjusting for when I’m in that state.

The one that’s worked best for me was WBTB combined with WILD. Making a new dream from scratch is too much effort to fall asleep again, so I take what my unconscious gives me and work with that.

I try to plan it all the day, but I end up forgetting about it and finding other things to do…

It depends a lot.

Sometimes I want to achieve something specific. It could be dreaming up an image, or a song, or just sitting on an Antarctic iceberg for a few minutes to just rest. When there is a plan for the LD, I usually use a VILD/WILD combination to induce it. Since this technique only works if I can fall back asleep without being disturbed, it rarely works anymore.

It is much more common now to just get lucid spontaneously. If that happens, there are no plans. I just go out and see what there is to see, hear and feel tonight.

I do like to have goals in my LD’s, mostly abilities to try to learn or places to go. I only ever have one goal in mind at a time. I only have RC induced LD’s because the WILD method gets too crazy for me to handle…

I travel by drawing a teleportation ring and going through it but it rarely leads to where I intended to go. So I just go with the flow after that. I can’t be too forceful with the direction of my dream because I will usually get stuck trying to do one thing the entire dream and accomplish nothing.

I do both as well