Dream Memory

When I first started this project, it was a pain for me to go to bed each night trying to focus on my dreams. This was suppose to help me remember my dreams throughout the night. This past week I havent had to focus nearly has hard before I fall asleep and I am now remembering from 3 to 5 different dreams a night. Now, not all five of these dreams as vivid as some but I can still remember the main idea of 2 dreams and the other 2 or 3 dreams will be extremely vivid. The nights I have remembered the most dreams are the nights were I am very worn out and get a very good night of sleep. The deeper your sleep the more dreams you will be able to have without waking up in the middle of them. I am glad however I can now do this almost second nature every night and dont have to keep myself up at night meditating.

My First Lucid Dream!

If you have been following my blog, you know that for the last month I have been trying to teach myself how to have a lucid dream. Which is the ability to control your subconscious and manipulate the dream anyway you want. When I started this assignment I really didn't think I would find much. I thought lucid dreaming was just an extreme exaggeration of a day dream. My opinion on lucid dreaming changed a few nights ago when I finally had my first lucid dream. I am just now talking about my lucid dream because I was so surprised and shocked that it took a few days for me to even accept that fact that I did have a lucid dream. It took me a few days of thinking it over and over to make sure that it was in fact a lucid dream. After I had thought over my dream time and time again I had to accept that I have had my first lucid dream. I was truly blown away.

My lucid dream was very odd. The dream was actually a nightmare. I was being chased by monster that looked like some type of werewolf. As I was being chased and hiding from this creature something hits me that this thing really cant hurt me. Suddenly all the fear I had was gone. As the creature got close to me I held my ground and didn't run. Instead I put a giant wall in between us. As the dream went on I was actually toying with the creature by letting him get close to me, then changing the environment around me so he couldn't actually get to me. Also all that fear that I had at the beginning is now replaced with amusement. I was like a child playing with my new toy. Since this was my first time in a lucid dream I really didn't know what to do with it. I never really tested the boundaries of my dream. I also never really attempted to get full control of my dream but could  change little things with ease.

All in all I am very excited that I have had my first lucid dream but at the same time I was scared to admit it because I does make me sound somewhat crazy. But I have found out that I can in fact have a lucid dream and it is very possible. Now my goals for the last week is to push the boundaries of my dreams if I am able to have another lucid dream.

What Time is It?

So as I said before in my other post, I am doing reality checks throughout my day to make it a habit for me. The other night I had finally did another reality check in a dream and it worked!! In the middle of my dream it occurred to me that this might not be real and I might be actually dreaming. So I tried to remember how I got to the place I was currently at and I was really confused and couldn't figure it out. I then took my phone out of my pocket and looked at the time. The time on my phone said it was 67:02. Now obviously this isn't possible not even in military time. So at that moment I was able to realize I was in fact in my dream. I then took the time to look around and see how much things are out of place in my dream and it became very obvious I had to be in a dream. It was such a crazy feeling to actually be inside of my dream and know that everything I am seeing at this very moment was not real. All I am seeing is a world created by my subconscious. But even though everything was out of place, it felt so real. I had to a few checks after that just to convince myself that I am really dreaming. Unfortunately I woke up before I could really test how much I could manipulate in my dream now that I know I'm dreaming. I am now even more excited to find out if I can learn how to have a lucid dream.

Is this Real or Fake

Now that I am starting to remember dreams better and better, my dreams are also becoming more and more vivid. This is really cool that Im make progress in that area but the only problem is some of these dreams are starting to feel almost too real. For example after a night of hanging out with a bunch of my friends, I had a dream about us hanging out and two of my friends got in a fight in my dream. It was a very vivid dream and when I woke up and tried to write down my dream in my journal but I couldn't remember if that fight really did happen or was that might dream. I have had a few other dreams that I had to look up in my journal to make sure that it happened in my dream and not in real life a few days later. It is kind of messing with my mind a little bit but this excites me because I feel like I am really getting close to my first lucid dream!

Reality Checks

Their are many techniques I have been practicing these few weeks and one of those is "reality checks". Though out my day I have to keep asking myself if I am dreaming or am I awake? If I ever find myself in a place that I have never been to or see something that seems odd or out of place I give myself a reality check. I first think about how did I get to this location. In a dream you always just appear in a location and never think how did I get to this location. The point of this is if I make reality checks a habit I will also do these in my dreams. In theory this is suppose to work. I actually had a dream where I actually did a reality check but I was still convinced I was awake. This was my first real opportunity to have a lucid dream, but since I couldn't convince myself I was in a dream I failed. This is discouraging and encouraging at the same time. It is discouraging mainly because I missed my first shot at it but its encouraging because it is starting to become a habit for me. The first step to becoming lucid in a dream, is to first recognize that you are in fact in a dream. So I hope I will do it again soon and will be able to recognize that I am in fact in a dream. This is also starting to change my attitude about lucid dreaming. Like I said before I really doubted that lucid dreaming is possible when I started this project. Now I am seriously thinking this could in fact be possible. Every thing I have been doing has been working the way the experts have said it would. I just feel like I am getting very close to having my first lucid dream!

Directing My Dreams.

Now that I have started to remember more and more dreams and I have been having more vivid dreams, I am now working on directing my dreams. Since I cannot fully control my dreams my goal for now is to direct them. What I mean by this, is while meditating before I fall asleep, I focus on a subject that I would like to dream about. For example, before I fall asleep I keep thinking to myself that I want to be on a beach and direct all my thoughts towards being on a beach. That night I had a very vivid dream of me being on the beach. In the dream I was with my friends on the beach for spring break. This is the only night it has worked thus far. This is much like if you watch a movie that you got really into right before bed and before you fell asleep you were just thinking about that movie, and then later that night have a dream that has something to do with that movie. This is my next step I am really focusing on these next few nights.

This might be working.

Sorry, I got distracted by spring  break and didn't stay up to date with my blog. However, I still have been working on learning how to have a lucid dream. As I said before, the first step the experts suggest I do is work on trying to remember my dreams. Each night I have been meditating and focusing on one thing, and that is to remember my dreams more vividly. To my surprise this has actually worked. Especially in the past week my dreams are becoming more and more vivid. So vivid that after I woke up from dreaming I was so sure that the dream was real that it had altered my mood for the morning. One morning in particular I had dreamed that I had been thrown out of college and had to go back to high school again. This dream felt incredibly real and when I woke up I was in a horrible mood until I sat down and thought the dream through and realized I am still at Ball State and do not have to go back to high school. Now everyone one has had dreams like this that feel so real it takes a moment for reality to set in once you have woken up, but since I have been doing my meditations at night and have been keeping a dream journal, I have had many of these dreams in the past week. So far the experts have been right and I'm excited to see where I am at the end of this week.