Don't I feel silly?

Well, my first lucid experience was grand to me, so naturally I’ve been trying to have another one. However, even though I’m doing reality checks, keeping a journal, and focusing before sleep, I’ve been unable to pick up on the oddest of dream cues.

After completely missing that something was more than a bit unusual, namely: vomiting up about eight cubic feet of pink styrofoam, I’ve considered a light form of PILD (punishment-induced lucid dream, if the forum doesn’t have it indexed). Every evening that I fail to have a lucid dream (and I know this sort of thing takes time, so I’m just hoping to re-enforce the idea), I’m going to write out “I will do reality checks in my dreams,” about 100 times the next morning.

I have a feeling that I’m being more than just a mite bit impatient, because I only had my first lucid dream about ten days ago and these things don’t happen overnight. I just want to know if anybody else uses methods similar to this and if they are at all effective. Thanks!

technically things liek this do happen overnight :peek:
lol soz someone hadta say it

aww i was gonna say that lol

Wow. Now I REALLY feel silly. And I pride myself on being a literalist too…

ANYWAY… back to the question at hand…

Daedalus wrote:

You just have to give yourself time. The LD ’s will come to you eventually. If you just hang in there and allow yourself the time to recognize your dream signs for what they are. I am not a big fan of punishment induced lucid dreaming. I believe that it would ultimately be self defeating. You should not feel silly because you miss obvious dream signs. It happens to the best of us. What methods for inducing LD ‘s have you tried?

i agree with milod, you’re trying to force it instead of allowing it to happen. punishment is negative reinforcement and eventually either unconsciously or consciously you’re likely to develop a negative attitude toward LDing which i imagine will hurt your chances of experiencing them rather than help them

think positive, LDing should be fun, an activity you want to do… not a chore (you get punished when you don’t do your chores)

relax, have fun, take a break even :yinyang:

Yeah. As they say, old habits die hard, so I’m going to kill this one before it becomes a problem.

I suppose that is how my mind has always worked. “If you aren’t doing something right, then fix it!” I need to practice patience rather than trying to force something that I should know by now comes on its own if you nurture it and give it time. Thanks for helping me to see this.