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Recently I had been reading a copy of Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold that I picked up from the library. This isn’t the first time I’ve made my way through the pages of the book, but I was really focused on practicing the techniques from the book, and intent on making lucid dreaming a regular thing rather than a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence that it is now.

The problem for me is that they don’t seem to be working for me.

I had my first lucid dream a few years back, during my final year at high school, which was soon after the first time I had read through the book. It was a pretty exciting event, something I had been really interested in achieving but had only first really attempted at. Unfortunately, I think it was more just beginners luck than anything else. Soon after, interest passed when I was more focused on schooling, and university came around and the idea soon just became an ideal rather than something I even made an effort to strive for.

My first lucid dream was induced through the MILD (Mnemonic Induced Lucid Dream), which was originally developed by Stephen LaBerge . Essentially, the method insists that you are constantly remembering your intention to induce a lucid dream. This was really quite simple, and at the same time I was constantly doing reality checks during wakefulness. This is what I believe help me more than anything. At the time I had gotten so used to looking at my wrist watch constantly, then looking back the watch again. Sure enough, one night when doing this in a dream I noticed that the time on my watch had changed significantly from the original time I had checked. This was fantastic. I realized I was dreaming, I became lucid, and it lasted a good few minutes. It’s something I still remember pretty clearly to this day.

Recently I had been interested in doing the same thing, but it’s just not that easy this time. I got the book and decided to start from the beginning, trying all the techniques and exercises. To start, I had my dream recall down pretty well. I could generally remember at least one dream each night for several weeks straight, except for the odd string of days when I might not remember any. A significant portion of the time I was even able to vaguely “realize” that I was dreaming, but was never able to become lucid. I knew what was going on, but I couldn’t control anything in the slightest. I knew I had that prerequisite down for the rest of the book.

I begun doing reality checks again, using the same wristwatch technique that worked previously, but I quickly forgot and was looking at my watch constantly (like I do all day every day) without even thinking about it. I flipped through the book more and tried to do some of the relaxation techniques, specifically the 61-Point Relaxation method, but with no avail. Recently I had begun working on the more extensive MILD techniques, which includes listing personal dreamsigns, but that became too much work for me. I used the example daily targets given for memory practice (Prospective Memory Training exercise, page 63) but just couldn’t meet any of the memory targets — even with writing them on my hand.

Further, I attempted WILD (Wake Induced Lucid Dreaming) techniques, specifically the Count Yourself to Sleep Technique (page 90), but found myself constantly losing count and or simply getting bored. It really feels as though there is no technique that can work.

I’ve put a lot of effort into making this a daily part of life, at least on some barely significant level, including publishing a public website (dreamtome) where anyone can journal and log there dreams, as part of recognizing dreamsigns and increasing dream recall — two things I realize are really important, the second of which I feel I have accomplished at least. Now I’m at the point in the book where I can’t go any further until I start having lucid dreams at least somewhat regularly. My plan for now, I suppose, is to continue with my wristwatch reality checks that worked previously, and just really focus on making this happen at least once more — but at the same time, without getting too focused and breaking it.

This whole experience is an interesting exercise in mental ability and stability, and an interesting look at the human psyche. But even that might be looking at it a bit too deeply.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Science & Pseudoscience, Random Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.