Sorry about the lack of updates, I've been busy with studying and school work and haven't gotten around to updating this. Rest assured, my dream journal has been expanding nonetheless.

Something really interesting happened last night. I'm not sure why or how, but when I first went to sleep I had a strange tingling feeling. It wasn't in a part of my body like a normal sleep paralysis, but in my head instead. It didn't hurt but it was a really strange feeling as I fell asleep. It was the kind of feeling you get when you spin around a lot, but without the dizzy feeling, if that makes any sense. The strangest sensation really.

Anyway, with this feeling came incredibly detailed dreams. They were more believable and vivid than most of the dreams I've ever had. I was also having them very rapidly, each was only 10 minutes and I awoke slightly after each to realize it was a dream. Some were kind of scary including my room mate walking into my room while I'm sleeping then ominously walking over with the intentions and actions of him killing me. Some also revolved around my general living quarters, a snowy setting I could only imagine. It was truly intriguing.

The more noteworthy thing is noticing what this tingling does to a dream. For some reason I had a much higher rate of reality checking and actually had multiple lucid dreams. It was a different sort of lucidness than my results a month ago. What happened here wasn't imagining environments and creating situations but more so making crazy and irrational decisions from the situations presented. I don't want to call them Quasi-lucid dreams, so I suppose I'll just put it that I didn't take full advantage of the realization.

I want to look into this tingly head feeling a little more, I don't know if it's related to the ability to have lucid dreams. I do know that the feeling seemed to be related to a night full of interesting and vivid dreams. I am a bit pensive on recreating the feeling as the surrounding circumstances weren't exactly enjoyable. The night before I had 4 hours of sleep and was exhausted throughout the day, fell asleep watching TV at 2:00ish [normally go to bed around 4:00 - 5:00], woke up at 5:30, went on the computer for 2 hours, then headed to bed. It was after I woke up from the first dream when I realized the strange feeling. My hypothesis is that my "nap" before hand eased me into my dream cycle and I never had enough time to reset myself so I resumed closer to REM when I went to bed. The longer period of sleep time allowed me to dream much longer. At least, it's a guess.

Anyone have any thoughts / comments on the matter?

~ Damian ~

Last night I had a lucid dream.

It all started off in a dream where I was walking back from campus with groceries. For some reason, and I'm really not sure why, I set them down by a bench. I then saw people walking by and one of them struck me as very very strange. I then said that it was a dream, I don't recall doing a reality check other than strongly believing that it was a dream. I then actually levitated across the area I was in, which is very similar to the area I live in now. I remember then testing other things, like jumping far and making things show up, although I honestly cannot recall anything that I tried other than the flying. I will say that the moment of flying was amazing and surprisingly vivid. After a few moments of this though, something happened and my control over flying turned into me hitting the ground and trying to jump up. Oddly enough, around there my sense of knowing it was a dream faded and I didn't realize I was dreaming at all. At that point people sent dogs after me and I fled into a house. In this house was an underground community and from here continued a long, drawn out dream of me running / meeting people / talking to my father / living in an underground dorm / random absurdities. Then something happened that has never happened in a dream before. I recall going to bed and waking up in the same place, effectively living out actual days. Obviously the dream couldn't have lasted for that long, but the series of events I went through throughout it gave the effect of lasting that long. I also had visions of people that weren't me and views like camera angles, it was interesting. Dreams are really quite fascinating.

The dream was a success in my studies as I did in fact achieve a period of lucidity. However, it wasn't a complete success as my lucidity eventually faded, something I wasn't aware could happen. Perhaps I woke up to a degree then fell right back into the dream but without the same mind set or something. I shall have to review the ways of maintaining lucid dreams now as that short burst of lucidity was really something out of this world. Carrying that feeling out for a longer duration is my next goal. There are no guarantee as to when my next lucid dream will occur, but when it does I shall report back.

Alright, so my recall from last night was the largest return value yet. I remember rather strongly what I have written on my paper, and some of them I remember a lot more than what's written the more I think about them.

Anyway, similar results as before, checking reality is rather difficult. To help perhaps, I'm going to refer to Steven LaBerge's book and mp3's sometime this weekend or sometime soon.

Regardless, I have to get up early-ish tomorrow so I have to go to bed. I'll report back when I get any sort of new breakthrough.

Coming across the same problems / situations, the dreams are vivid enough and they seem fairly complete, but I don't have the conscience enough to ask myself to test for reality inside my dreams yet. I see why it's so tricky. Perhaps I need to think more about it before going to bed or somehow making a prompt for myself. Also, recognizing some Dreamsigns would be helpful too. I'll have to try to analyze my dreams a little better sometime soon.

On the plus side, I had a really nifty dream about being on a jungle tour and we were given a camera and some apples to throw at the animals to take their picture. The idea was in a videogame once, haha, so perhaps my mind pulled from good memories of that game. But yeah, it was fun.

Going to bed now and going to keep a piece of paper close by.

Last night I had similar results as to the night before. While I do remember a rather lengthy dream rather clearly, I could not at any point bring myself to do a reality check, even though the dream was strange enough that it could have prompted something. It's a tricky thing.

Additionally, up until yesterday I had been waiting for my passport impatiently as I plan on studying abroad next semester in Japan, and I got word that it came. I feel that this may take off some stress and maybe have an effect. Without having a control it's hard to say but last night's dreams did seem more enjoyable overall.

On a side note, I have just awaken from falling asleep accidentally on my bed at 3:00 AM. I had a dream where I had body parts that weren't human, it was remarkably similar to a movie I had watched tonight a few hours earlier so I'm sure it's from there. There were others like me and it turned into a competition or something, but I don't know why or for what.

I don't think I am going to record any dreams tonight, at least with audio. It's actually dark right now and I think I want to just go to bed as I'm rather tired at the moment. I'll put a notebook alongside tonight.

It's amazing how dreams work, really. Take last night for example. I woke up at different times throughout the night like I always do, but I didn't remember anything. Then when I woke up the final time I was a little sad because I hadn't remembered anything... until I thought about it. As I laid there thinking about what I was just dreaming, a flood of abstract thoughts came back, as well as a rather lengthy sequence about an auditorium with a volleyball game and a guy giving pamphlets out every half an hour about getting tattoos on your way to New Mexico.

The most difficult thing about realizing you are in a dream as I have experienced thus far is the step that inclines you to check in your dream if it is a dream. I am aware of reality check methods and feel comfortable doing them, but being prompted or even inclined to actually do them is rather difficult. I can't say I've had any positive results with that method, although I have had a few dreams in my life where I knew I was in a dream. At that point, I hadn't realized the potential of what could have been done in that state. I guess that's why there are studies on them, yeah?

Well, I'll keep you posted with any results.

Welcome everyone! This blog exists as a way to share my independant studies on lucid dreaming with the world. I'm not an expert in the field so please forgive or correct any scientific errors. I do have a little bit of background in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and a firm grasp on Linguistics and Computer Science. Unrelated to these fields, I also know a small amount of Japanese with my ongoing life goal to one day become fluent.

Now that that basic info has been said, I may as well discuss my motives for my blog and concurrent study. First of all, we've all had at least one dream at some point in our life, be it a happy event that you are saddened by your awakening or a terrifying event that couldn't end soon enough. The experience of a dream is that unlike any other, the realistic nature is enough to convince yourself that what is happening is real, despite you running from a giant monster with massive wings. It is the way that the mind perceives these dreams that allows something like that to be passed off as completely acceptable. Additionally, that cliff that the monster chases you to and jump off, just to fly away yourself, also seems fine. In fact, the dream may shift to exclude the monster entirely and shift right into flying merrily in the skies above. Surely those who have had a flying dream know the excitement and thrill that they are actually flying. Or at least, they believe they are.

Yet... isn't that what ultimately matters? To have a dream that is enjoyable is something literally out of this world. Let me start by saying that for whatever reason, I remember anywhere from 1 to 3 dreams a night, sometimes remembering only key occurrences, sometimes remembering dreams multiple minutes in length. I would consider myself lucky in this respect as a lot of adults reportedly lose the ability to remember their dreams. While I do not consider myself immature, I will openly admit that I grasp my "inner child" rather tightly, and maybe because of this my mind can think more like that of a child's.

Continuing on with that idea, what if it were possible to have a strong influence on what happens in your dream? What if you could make a particular dream into that flying dream? What if. One of the main goals of this project is to hopefully achieve something along this line, not persay the flying dream, but the ability to recognize a dream and consequently change the outcome.

It's completely reasonable that you as the reader may instantly pass this idea off as a falsity, something that could never happen. However, unfortunately for your arguing case, there has been scientific research done, extensive at that, that very much does exactly as outlined above. This sort of reassurance along with my already above average rate of dream remembrance has sparked a rather large interest in partaking in some studies of my own. Obviously, this isn't a one day thing, and I may never obtain the results I desire. The risk however, is worth devoting time to do at the least minor preparations and procedures in optimistic hope.

A good resource on lucid dreaming is a site known as Lucidity. I cannot vouch for their accuracy as I'm not experienced enough with the field, but I can vouch that the information on this site is consistent with information elsewhere. I can also say that their FAQs section happens to be very informative and very encouraging. From a quick explanation to how lucid dreaming works to some benefits and methods of obtaining lucidity, this site alone could be motivation enough for some people to find the sheer fascination of the subject.

I hope you follow along with my experiences, feel free to subscribe to my blog or email me at damian.larue@rochester.edu to strike up a conversation about anything, dream related or not. Expect updates daily to a few times a week, potentially longer during busy times or other real life issues. I am a college student after all. Hopefully this project will end in a success that I can take with me for the rest of my life, but if not, it will undoubtedly be a most enlightening experience.

~ Damian ~

Having officially decided to start this project on October 31st, 2008, I only have some methods that I'm going to strive to use tonight as opposed to any sort of results. Actually, before I knew the idea of "dream journals" existed I decided to try to write down ideas from a dream sort of haphazardly. I did actually get something, although incomplete and cryptic as I wasn't sure how to do it at the time. Here it is, "break wrists in some sort of match [probably a fight or struggle], people gather, laugh, ask questions, no answers". Normally I remember 1 or 2 dreams rather vividly without trying to record them but last night I only got that cryptic sort of dream, at least, that's what I wrote before I knew any strategies.

As mapped on multiple strategies, there are 2 main things that must be established to fully lucidify a dream. The first is to actually have a way of remembering dreams. The first step of that turns out to realize you're having dreams, which fortunately I already am past. The next part of that is to find a way to remember dreams to fully bring out the results of the other procedures. While waking up correctly and remembering in trained circumstances will come with practice, a good way to start is to write down or verbally record the dream experience. The best way of doing this is with your eyes closed and as little movement as possible as your brain may still be focused primarily on that dream and optimally be prepared to re-enter into a similar state should that be desired. For whatever reason I wake up probably a dozen times a night and have a firm grasp on the dream I had previously. After multiple awakenings, some of the previous dreams become distant and too vague. This is where a thorough recording would probably spark details that would cause recogition. I think I'm going to set up Audacity tonight and give that a go and hope for the best.


The 2nd part which I will focus on should the opportunity to show itself is to establish the dream as a dream. Obviously, as in real life, you don't question if life is real all the time, so in a dream you wouldn't either. However, if you go to bed with the intention of lucidly dreaming and follow known methods [which I'm not going to do the first week or so most likely], you may come to the realization that you can check and actually verify something as a dream. There are ways to do that, as listed on multiple sites, but the main ones are:

• Look at a clock or anything that has changing number, like a watch or a thermometer. Anything in sight that has a digital display or varies throughout the day. Then look away from the object and then back at it. In almost every real life experience the number will be the same. If you do this rechecking yet again the results actually magnify to a 95% chance of changing. After all, your mind isn't dreaming because it's trying to keep track of time, it's merely coming up with something you've seen or can reason. Additionally, if the item has something that it shouldn't, ie a watch having letters it could not have, you are also in a dream.
• Try putting your fingers on one hand through your other hand. Surprisingly this works well and because of the impossibility of the situation is an instant cue.
  
• Look at your hands and feet in relation to other things. Supposedly your hands and feet can look strange in many situations if you actually concentrate on them in dreams.
• Imagine your surroundings. You're not really anywhere in a dream, therefore you could be ANYWHERE. Try to imagine the surroundings changing, whether from a standing position or through a door, etc. Heck, trying this in real life wouldn't hurt, yeah?
  

My Blog isn't a scientific paper and I don't plan on using other's research such as what is reported on Lucidity, so please go there to get a better explanation of anything mentioned, or email me.

Another huge item is something known as a Dream Sign. Everyone has different dreamsigns, something that can be recognized in a dream recurring more than once that is a sure sign that you're dreaming. This is the quickest way to realizing a dream as a dream, however, in a dream strange things are rarely [at least naturally] looked at and thought of as actually being weird. Establishing dream signs are sure fire ways of speeding up this process.

And with these ideas I shall leave this post. Tomorrow I shall give any results I have and work from there.