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.