Discussion of Secondary Techniques - Prolonging

Dear fellow oneironauts!

There is a prolonging mood in the forum... I'm glad, that there are impulses from different threads, from different forum dreamers to gather our experiences regarding:

"How to stay in a lucid dream" and / or "how to stay lucid in a dream".

Prolonging techniques are applied by many experienced lucid dreamers tacitly, but the beginners (and I'm still beginning...) often encounter frustrating periods of very short LDs. The typical situation for me in the last months is: In the instance I get lucid the dream fades and I soon wake up. My questions are: How can we prevent premature awaking at the very onset of lucidity? How can we then prolong the ongoing lucid dream? What are the early warning signs of waking up physically? How can we stabilise (or even create) the dream - scene? How can we prevent loss of lucidity? How can we recognise false awakenings? What are the early warning signs of loosing lucidity? How can we re - enter dreamstate?

Of course, these are no new questions. There are resources online at the lucidity.com homepage. I think they can serve very well as a basis for our discussions. The LI-faqs with a short introduction to the subject: http://www.lucidity.com/LucidDreamingFAQ2.html#preventwake

Stephen LaBerge's study on the effectiveness of spinning and handrubbing vs. going with the flow: http://www.lucidity.com/NL7.34.RU.SpinFlowRub.html

The chapter of Stephen's book "Exploring The World of Lucid Dreaming" that deals with our subject here. http://www.lucidity.com/EWLD6.txt

And, of course, the resources are all the forum dreamers and their experiences! There is a lot of information shattered all over the forum. One aim can be to gather the essentials in this thread. It would be fine for the beginners if they find helpful discussions and examples of how to do it.

Another question is, how we can make up our discussion, so one can retrieve information better. Maybe we should agree upon indicating the used or discussed techniques in the headlines of our postings. If we want to do so, we have to agree on the terms. The following is a suggestion of terms for different techniques:

"SPINNING" Definition of Stephen's invention by himself: Spinning: When in a lucid dream and the dream began to fade, while they still felt their dream body, they were to spin around like a top, as rapidly as possible. Beginning in a vertical or standing position, they were to turn around on a point with their arms outstretched. It was indicated that it is important to experience a vivid sense of movement. They were to continue to spin until they were in a vivid dream scene, or awake. They were instructed to repeat to themselves over and over while spinning, "The next scene will be a dream."

A typical example, quote taken from Stephen's study:

The following report illustrates a dream judged to have been successfully prolonged by spinning: ... at that point, the oddness of this super-calculator prompted me to say aloud, "I think this is a dream!" And so it was. However the calculator started to fade and de-materialize, and as it did, so did the dream environment. Immediately I remembered to do the spinning-top experiment.

As everything around me turned to blackness--no visual content whatsoever--I started to spin round and say, "The next scene will be a dream" ... I was astonished to find a hole of brightness opening up... the bright hole literally appeared as a break in the black clouds around me, as if the sun were breaking through. I could see the branches of a tree through the hole. As I continued spinning (and it's strange that even though I was spinning round, my sight of the hole was unbroken), I seemed to pull myself towards and through the hole into the countryside of the next lucid dream scene...

"HAND RUBBING" Stephen's definition: Rubbing Hands Together: When subjects were in a lucid dream and the dream began to fade, while they still felt their dream body, they were to vigorously rub their (dream) hands together. They were informed it was important to experience a vivid sense of movement and friction. Participants were to continue to rub their hands until they found themselves in a vivid dream scene, or awaken completely. Also, they were to repeat to themselves over and over while rubbing their hands, "The next scene will be a dream."

A typical example, quote taken from Stephen's study:

The following is an example of a dream judged to have been successfully prolonged by hand rubbing: I am walking through a beautiful forest. Suddenly I realize I am dreaming. I guess the excitement begins to wake me, so I remember its time for the rubbing hands experiment. I drop a towel I hadn't realized I was carrying, and began to vigorously rub my hands together. I feel my hands rubbing together, experiencing warmth from the friction... My dream stabilizes! I am so happy, I decide to keep walking and explore my beautiful dream forest...

"LOOKING" definition by Don Juan Matus in Carlos Castaneda: "Journey to Ixtlan",1972, chapter 10. (I translated the text from the German edition!) "Just look at your hands."... "Every time you stare at something in your dreams, it changes form...The trick in learning to arrange your dreams is apparently not to simply look at things, but to expand their view. The dreaming is real, if one succeeds in focussing on everything." ... "You don't need to look at your hands... Like I said before, take anything, but choose it in advance and look for it in your dreams [this belongs to inducing LDs, too. Ralf]. I said take your hands, because they are always there." ... "When things are changing form, you have to turn your gaze and look at something else and then look at your hands again. It takes long to perfect this technique." There are some more hints on this technique in the following chapter.

Castaneda writes on his progress in the following chapter and other books, but I can't find a detailed dream report by him quickly. (Not that I want to say there is none!) Instead I quote from Stephen's study one more time:

Sparrow uses this idea in this example of one of his own lucid dreams: "...I walk on down the street. It is night; and as I look up at the sky I am astounded by the clarity of the stars. They seem so close. At this point I become lucid. The dream 'shakes' momentarily. Immediately I look down at the ground and concentrate on solidifying the image and remaining in the dreamscape. Then I realize that if I turn my attention to the pole star above my head, the dream image will further stabilize itself. I do this; until gradually the clarity of the stars returns in its fullness."

Definition by Linus Christerson: "Bombard you eyes with information. Therefor I also avoid darkness. You simply get less information in darkness. In broad daylight you see much more details and colors and so on."

LOOKING can also be defined as opposite to staring at one point for a longer time. The latter is a technique to awaken from a dream at will.

LOOKING seems to be a technique, that not only stabilises, but probably induces creation of dream images. That means the images emerge, because I'm looking. The relation between eye movement and dream images is worth a discussion.

"MOVING" definition by Linus Christerson (read his mail full of ideas and experiences re prolonging in the thread "Post Your Lucid Dreams - Miscellaneous" Friday, March 08, 2002)

"First of all I never stay in the same place too long. I'm always on the move, changing my view." "I also try to stay away from water. You move slowly in water."

MOVING engages the dreambody and is of course linked to perceiving new situations.

"INTERACTING" in general seems to be the key to prolong and stabilise the lucid dream. For a definition of this general meaning I like the words of Joy Fatooh (in response of Linus' posting mentioned above):

"Keep the dreaming attention engaged in the dream world with details from all the senses. And don't try to take complete control but knowingly go along with the game."

This seems to be the advanced prolonging "technique". I think the difficulty for beginners lies in the words "knowingly" and "control". The beginner has firstly to learn to control his own emotions, thoughts, behaviour. And then he has to find the right balance between attention for the state (being and staying aware, that this is a dream), attention for himself (self control) and attention for the ongoing dream, for interacting with dreamcharacters, objects, environment in general. "Interacting" seems to be the most "tacit" technique. But if you look at reports of long lucid dreams, you'll find good examples. It seems, that experienced oneironauts forget about this technique, just like experienced drivers forget about the gearshift and other technical details and enjoy the free and ecstatic ride in lucid lands...

"CALMING DOWN" definition by me ;-) : If you realise, you are lucid and you feel this typical rush of energy (adrenaline?) running through your dream (and physical?) body: Calm down and stay focussed. I'm sorry to say it: Keep cool, although your heart is jumping with joy and excitement and / or fear. How to do it? My experience is: Say it to yourself. In this case, let speech guide your emotions. A certain (but not too high amount) of "willpower" might be helpful. And for fearful dreamers: There is no cause to fear anything. Lucid dreaming is safe. The oneironauts return... Some people advise to take a deep breath and relax. There is a link between breathing of dreambody and physical body, and it is plain, that breathing influences emotions and clearness of thoughts. There seems to be correlation of willpower used to achieve lucidity and the energy rush at the onset of the lucid dream (at least for me). So it might be wise to work on a medium high (not too high) level of motivation in daytime, e.g. while doing RCs. Lucid dreamers, who are able to watch hypnagogic imaginary and enter a dream consciously show a very subtle ability to stay calm and focussed. Practising meditation might be helpful.

Maybe later on we'll find some good examples. I found no real good matches in my diary, although I focussed on this "technique" for some time. (And still sometimes have to!)

I know that these are by far not all variations of prolonging techniques. The possibilities and combinations are countless! I hope these examples show essential and successful techniques. The focus of these definitions and examples is more on the "how to stay in the dream" side, than on "how to stay lucid". I hope we will come to the lucidity - preserving techniques in a future posting. And another worthy thread in "Secondary Techniques" would be "Navigation in Lucid Dreams". Maybe Linus wants to start a discussion, he is already into exploring this subject.

Thanks for your interest. I hope we will make the best of this thread and increase the quality of lucid dreaming.

Long live lucidity ;-)

Yours Ralf

This one may show what I wanted to say regarding the use of keywords / terms. It is a long dream and I posted it in another thread. Please excuse the long and double posting, but I think this one is about prolonging all the way. I was very delighted with this one after a long dry spell.

I just remarked, that another technique remains to be defined: Don't move on awaking in physical body. But I have enough for today.

Looking forward to a vivid discussion

Ralf

Keywords/ applied techniques: SPINNING, CALMING DOWN, LOOKING, MOVING, INTERACTING, HAND RUBBING

Title: Successful Prolonging 04032002

I sleep in, have a dream about the hospital that ends up in an extremely embarrassing situation for me. But I am helped by an unknown nurse. I wake up REALLY released, that this was a dream. I sleep in again. (Nonlucid) Meet this friendly nurse in another room. She asks me how came this embarrassing situation. From the bottom of my heart I say: "Yeah, this was a real nightmare!" Saying this it dawns on me, that it was actually a dream and that I'm dreaming right now. With this insight the surrounding gets blurry, shortly I see diplopic images, then vision fades quickly until everything is grey and formless.

But this time I won't give in! I don't make a move, don't open my eyes. I try spinning the dreambody. At first it feels like the heavy physical body. I keep on trying. Feel like turning the physical body to the left side with force. Then I have the impression, that my legs are swirling. That can't be real! Finally I get into the fast spinning feeling. Yeah, I did it. With this thought it abruptly stops. I calm myself down, relax and focus on spinning again: It works. But I can see nothing. Don't really know, how I come to the thought, but I simply start to look around, I move my eyes to the right abruptly, a short instance later I see, that I'm inside a room. I quickly and abruptly look to the left side, before this image fades. The looking opens the room, the field of view after a short delay, again. Just as if the intention to see something or the simple act of moving the eyes creates the dreamscape. I'm in a slightly changed version of a room in Badendorf (my former home), first floor.

I'm continuing looking around, I don't focus on one object or direction and stay rather calm. I focus on doing something, moving continuously, but not too hasty. The vision is still rather blurry with pitches of grey, no colours. I see a lit pendant with stripes attached, which nearly reach the floor. Looking at this arrangement and thinking it is strange increases my lucidity. I notice, that I have to take care not to loose it. With this thought my dad and older brother enter the room. I ask myself why they are here, they don't fit. And I don't want to talk to them, I fear it would distract me too much. I turn to the window, away from them. I test the solidity of the dream - wall by pushing my forearm through it in a semicircular movement. It feels less dense than water, but thicker than air. I see the whole forearm inside the wall, as if the wall is semitransparent.

Everything gets blurry again. Seems, I looked at wall and forearm too long. I look around. Environment gets sharper again. Then I push my arm through the window pane. No resistance, no crashing, as if it wasn't there. But I see it. I jump through the closed window. After a short blackout I find myself on the street. Anybody around. I take the sidewalk heading to Luebeck. Again I force myself to stay calm and to keep on moving and just looking. Still not satisfied, that everything is grey in grey and somewhat blurry, I remember, that I could rub hands. It is like turning the contrast knob of a black and white TV: Everything gets clearer, black and white appear. I scan the houses of the neighbours. Thinking, these are dream - houses and dream - neighbours, that social rules are different here in dreams, I decide to enter the house. I run across the street and jump through the closed door. No problem.

Inside the house I look around again. I ask myself, if it would be worthy to remember details and prove them later. But I decide, that this is a too hard task for today and I doubt if I would ever prove it in reality and I know, that the houses looked different from waking life anyway. Environment starts to fade again. Maybe too much thoughts, too little action. I look around and rub hands. Stabilised. I open the door in front of me, in the same instance thinking, that this is a flaw. I should have jumped through. And these are the consequences: While crawling through a high window to leave the house, I bump my head. The dream - matter is getting harder due to me respecting physical laws in dreamworld. That's my own fault, that is actually what I think in the dream! The next doors are already open. A nice compromise made up by dreammachine, isn't it? I see an edge of blue sky through the door. That looks delicious!

I leave the house. I'm in the garden behind the houses. Magnificent! I'm nearly overwhelmed by all the green of grass and bushes and trees, the skies so blue. Hard to keep cool. What is left to do now? I decide to fly, I'll reach the tree - tops, remembering Linus (?) advice to use arms as wings. I climb on a pedestal jump and try to fly like a bird. It works. For a moment I'm getting higher, then I'm forced into a position lying on my back. I can only see the blue sky. I have the impression, that the dream will end soon. I try the looking thing. This time the effect is, that I open my physical eyes. I'm lying on my back. Looks like our bedroom. I close my eyes, see the blue fade. That's it for today. I awake in physical body.

Thanks Raf for the feedback on my WILD/DILD,

I tried your suggested experiment with prolonging technique last night. I recognized someone who died about 10 years ago - it took about 10 sec. to notice this obvious dream sign and I did a little test hop while looking at my feet. (they stayed up in the air! yes!) I turned to the other 4 people in the room and said, "My Licidy friends want us to do a prolonging technique, so lets all rub our hands together." They did and it made quite a loud distictive noise (for about 15 sec.) I laughed and I started to loose lucidity (while hand rubbing)?!? I tried spinning but awoke too rapidly.

Great initiative Ralf!

Hmm... When reading your post and checking up those links I once again become interested of trying spinning. But I have no good experience of this technique. And when having such poor expectations I probably will have nothing other then a total failure, which means waking up. So before I try spinning again I need to convince myself that I indeed will succeed. But how do I do that? Brainwashing myself? Hmm... It might work.

And I would be very thankful if someone could give me a good answer on the question: "What are the early warning signs of waking up physically?" Sometimes my LD's ends very abrupt, without a single hint that it was about to happen. Something I find rather annoying. It's impossible to stop something you don't see coming.

Ted: 15 seconds is a fairly long time. Try not to get stuck with certain doings, find new things to keep you occupied with, new things to examine... Be on the move. By the way, nice idea engaging your dream mates in your prolonging activity!

Farewell, see you all in the dream world!

Keywords: HAND RUBBING, SPINNING, NOT MOVING, INTERACTING

"NOT MOVING" Definition by Stephen LaBerge in "Exploring The World of Lucid Dreaming": "Even if you find that despite your best efforts to stay asleep you still wake up, all is not lost. Play dead. If you remain perfectly motionless upon waking from a lucid (or non- lucid) dream, and deeply relax your body,..." Alan Worsley in LaBerge, op. cit. "Lie very still--don't move a muscle! Relax and wait. The dream will return. I've had dozens of lucid dreams in a row with this method."

Example by Linus Christerson in "Post your Lucid Dreams - Miscellaneous" Saturday, February 09, 2002

"Now to a fun thing which happened to me this morning: I had just awakened from a lucid dream, but I hadn't moved and lay still in my bed. Trying to renter the dream world. It took kind of long time, longer then usually, and I begun thinking I had spoiled the whole thing by thinking too much. I was fairly awake and aware of my body. Then suddenly a dog, a bearded collie if I'm not mistaken, leapt out from behind me. I was almost scared of the sudden occurrence. It was a total black void. Only that dog and me. I turned my head and watched him pass my leg. I followed him with my eyes, and when he stopped 4-5 metres a head I was looking out over a desolated desert. ..."

Ted

Congratulations. It is a nice success to get lucid and remember to do experiments. Did you have the impression that hand rubbing did prolong your dream? Did you rub your hands, too? You write, that your lucidity faded. But my impression is, that your dream faded, not your lucidity, because you thought of spinning. Did you tell yourself, that the next thing you will see is a dream, while hand rubbing? If you have the impression to be awake, don't give up, but lie perfectly motionless (physical body) and continue spinning of dreambody.

Thanks for your posting and taking part in the experiment.

Linus

Thanks for feedback, and for your posting in the "Miscellaneous" thread.

On spinning: I think every technique is fitting to a special situation and to special dreamers. And the success of applied techniques is certainly dependent on training. I remember, that you were able to re - enter dreamstate by simply lying still. Maybe that works better for you in this case.

Early warning signs, that the dream fades: Stephen gives the essentials on the visual aspects in http://www.lucidity.com/EWLD6.txt

I found on several occasions, that another warning sign is being unable to move freely or arbitrarily. This happened to me at the onset of dreams sometimes and in the end, too. My interpretation is, that the dreambody is in these moments closer linked to on input from kinestetic (I don't know, if this word exists in English) senses. (position of physical body in space, spatial relation of parts of physical body). If I focus on moving the dreambody - at least at the beginning of the dream - this "stiffness" melts and I can move more freely. In other cases I woke up soon after. I didn't apply hand rubbing or spinning - at least seemingly not at the right time - to prevent physical awaking in these cases. So: Be aware of the slightest disabilities in your movements. And then I would suggest using spinning or handrubbing or dancing to engage the dreambody. I sometimes think, it would be better to avoid activities like flying, when the dream is not stable enough. I know that many dreamers have long flying dreams. But in my dreams flying often is the beginning of the end. Maybe due to lack of interaction with dream environment, too high emotions, ecstasy, too little movement of dream body in itself.

Does anybody know more about early warning signs of waking up physically? And maybe how to react successfully on them? Feel free to post examples of your own!

Examples from my diary:

Flight training in Badendorf I?m in Badendorf, the living room. I run and jump, heading to the front window. It seems to be a kind of training. I?m not sure, whether someone is with me this time. I try to fly and notice that I?m dreaming. I try harder to move and get my arms free, while my legs still feel, as if they are just sleeping. I have still not passed through the window. I feel fuzzy and somewhat in a hurry. I nearly awake. I try spinning. It doesn?t work. I awake.

How Dreams are made up ... The next thing, I remember is, that I would very like to swim in the void. I simply do swimming movements. My legs feel stiff and tired for a while, but soon they take part in the swimming - experience. Now I?m swimming and hovering in the void, aware of the dream - like quality of this experience. It is wonderful. ... What can I do now? I try one more time to hover. I kind of jump. My tiptoes feel very ?physical?, the rest of the body kind of ?astral?. Seems like the tiptoes decide to stay on earth and that it is time to wake up. No matter. I?m feeling very well (sauwohl), I open my eyes and find myself in exactly the same position, in which I hovered through the dream: Lying on the belly?s right side.

Ralf

Try using selfhypnosis in youre dreams..you can let your dreambody fall into a deep sleep/trance and with it also enter nrem and stay lucid..look at the forum through the mirror for my simple spinning spiral tech for selfhypnosis in a lucid dream.. Watch out yogi from the east..with the use of self hypnosis in your lucid dream the west is closing in..

Jeff

Hi, Jeff -

I searched the LD4all forum for your post and found it. Very interesting. I copied it for later use. I'm working with the 61 points relaxation method some time now and with the count - yourself - to - sleep thing, sometimes combined with visualisation of a white dot. Maybe the self - hypnosis hint will help me to focus more on relaxation. I seem not to come so deep, as in the first months of relaxation practise more than a year ago. You seem to be experienced in these realms. Did you attain the latest DreamCamp in Kalani? Would you please post a definition (see the earlier definitions in this thread) and an example application (an experience, you made) of this technique? I find it very surprising to find a western dreamer lucidly going through Non - REM.

Thanks for your intriguing contribution

Ralf

Hi Ralf, iam from the Netherlands..and have not been in Dream camp Kalani(to bad)..I will do as you say later this week.. some theory..some application..i do that..promissed..will be friday or so..ok!

Greetings Jeff

Jeff

Yes, too bad, that we both weren't there. And very good, that we can exchange experiences, here! CU later this week.

This morning I had another successful try for lucidity and did the prolonging task. See the full report in "Post your WILDs" Ralf Penderak (Ralf) (217.85.45.93) on Wednesday, March 20, 2002

Keywords/ techniques :

HAND RUBBING SPINNING MOVING NOT MOVING

The dream:

...just keep on floating, a window appears in the dark. It has a crossbar, dividing the pane into six parts. I'm standing in front of the window, looking at the street, it is daytime, bright light, still minimal aware, but without a doubt knowing, I'm in a dream now. My first impulse is to put my head through the window. I do it and see, that I'm some meters above the ground. I think, it wouldn't be clever to jump down, because I fear the dream isn't stable enough now. I turn and face the darkness behind me. That is no good, either. The dream fades. Now I remember the prolonging task. I rub my hands. I feel the friction, hands get warm. I get calmer. I try to move, but can't easily. Body seems still too awake. I can get into a slow spinning movement, while I still rub hands. I tell myself: "The next thing I will see is a dream." I want to say it "loud", but all I can produce is a whispered stammer. All I see is darkness, then everything turns grey, the dreambody dissolves and I'm feeling the physical body again. I don't move, but try spinning one more time. Without success. I try to relax and enter some dream. Doesn't work, either. ...

OK. The prolonging gave me another few seconds only. The question is, what could I have done better? My suggestion: Stay at the window, look around and rub hands, until dream blows up. Does anyone has additional ideas?

Learning more...

Ralf

Ralf et al,

As soon as I noticed the telephone was a bar of soap I thought, "dreaming; now what do I want to do? Might as well fly while I decide..." but lacking any major motivation, I almost woke up by the time I'd flown into the next room. I remembered your prolonging experiment, though. My first thought was to try spinning. But this particular dream-house was full of people I didn't know; there was some fat guy in that room; and though my hold on the dream was already very tenuous, it occurred to me that engaging with the wavering, fading image of the dream-character might be effective. So I asked him if he could help me out with spinning. He showed me his spinning technique and I tried it, and together we summoned someone else whom the fat man said was really better at this than he. This gained me just a minute or so of dream; I woke up after that anyway.... too much stuff from waking-life on my mind, & have to work very late tonight. Maybe I just need some good old-fashioned sleep.

Joy

Hey, Ralf, how's it going? I really enjoyed your post about prolonging. I've used both spinning and hand rubbing. You wrote this post before I'd had my LD reported in "Dreaming and Awakening, Feb 02, the Big Island." I think that report was dated March 16 or 17 and is now in the archives of that area of the forum. Well, here's a variant on the hand rubbing thing. In my very long LD about the Hawaiian twins Kalani and Ke'aloha, I actually rubbed hands with Ke'aloha. This is the first time I'd ever rubbed the hands of a dream character. Till now, I'd only rubbed my own. But hey, I'm not saying my subconscious made a bad choice. I must say rubbing the hands of a sweet-voiced Hawaiian guy, albeit he's a dream character, gave that activity a new level of enjoyment, as well as prolonging my LD. Well, you've given me something to sleep on, so I'll say good night. Thea

Based on this morning's dreams I definitely endorse Thea's technique, with the added note that any and all dream-body parts are equally as effective as hands.

Joy

Hi! I've tried spinning a few times now. Three I think. Haven't worked so well. Hmm... What should I do? I want to change the scene to whatever I want. But it's hard. Should I try with pure will? But I tried that before, and sure, I got the picture I wanted before my eyes. It was just a picture though. I couldn't apply it to the surroundings. I'll do some experiments tonight, I hope.

In three days time I'll have holiday! Wonderful, yeah? Of course? Then I'll dream...

And remember; don't except oddities!

Hi, lucid learners

I'm back after some work, a hardware update and joyful "off - dream" activities.

Thea Thanks for this delicious tip on handrubbing... I never engaged in erotic or sexual activities in LDs. Maybe I'm too shy. Your LD in the Kalani - thread is great. How did you manage to stay in so long? I very much enjoyed the postings of all participants.

Joy, of course ANY part of body is "rubbable", more or less joyfully... I admire you and other erotic - driven dreamers I'm trying hard to keep a focus on LD practise while days are full and I have to get up early. I do dream sign - awareness training and try to wake up after some hours of sleep for a short time. I used the ND mask again after two month pause. Enough sleep is very important. I want to do the interacting thing more often. The strange thing is, that people tend to disappear, once I'm lucid. So I have to interact with the non - living environment.

Linus The spinning thing: Maybe it needs more practise to arrive at your destination. The technique isn't as much important, as the intention, that is what I think. Like I said, maybe you should experiment with navigation in LDs and then start a thread on the subject. I don't have that much experience in this. My current task is learning prolonging and I still work on increasing LD frequency. I could support you with examples from literature, if you want. Just say a word.

Longing for prolonging

Ralf

Dear oneironauts!

New examples of the prolonging - task: See whole dream report in: Post Your Lucid Dreams (Miscellaneous) Friday, March 29, 2002

Keywords / techniques:

SPINNING, NOT MOVING

Now he seems to say to himself, that this is not his name. And I'm confused. I look at him intensely. He changes slightly. I must be dreaming. I continue staring at him, call his name one more time. The dream is fading. I'm in a fuzzy state of mind, but I remember Joy's advice to interact. So I keep on talking to him, asking for help in spinning. I get into the spinning movement and end up in a non - lucid sequel of the dream, all I remember is that I saw his face one more time.

I lift myself up and hover right beneath the ceiling. I look down and see, that my foot still touches ground. Hm. I do some jumps. Sometimes staying longer in the air, sometimes landing on my belly. I wonder, why it doesn't work all the time, until it dawns on me, that I'm dreaming. I immediately wake up. But don't move. Instead of hand rubbing I decide to use guitar playing to re - enter the dreamstate. I focus on the feeling of body, of guitar in hand and striking of the strings, not on the sound. After some seconds the feeling gets more and more realistic. Now I can hear the sound, too. The longer I play, the larger vibrations I experience. It feels, like the dreambody morphs into waves of sounds, except the arms, which keep playing the guitar. It is an ecstatic experience. I'm happy that I've come that far in my dream - practice. But unfortunately I still seem not to be able to "bear" this ecstasy for more than some seconds. (But I can say, that I'm getting better in the "enjoying - exercise".) I force the dream body to let go of physical body with the intend to enter another dream. But this seems to be a too hard try. Dreambody vanishes. I turn and doze into another non lucid dream.

Ralf

Dear Ralf,

A brilliant idea to keep playing your guitar! And a great example of flexible thinking regarding dream prolonging techniques. It seems to me they work best if the action fits in well with the on-going scene.

Your description of singing (included in your full dream report under Post Your Lucid Dreams topic) sounds so familiar. My lucid dreams often include spontaneous singing and my voice in dreamland is far better than the one I hear in awakeland. Why is this so? And why is there this occasional inner harmony taking the form of multiple voices during such episodes? Perhaps, as in June's dream of seeking the meaning of the Universe (reported under Dreaming and Awakening Feb '02 @ The Big Island), I may not know, but may enjoy.

I want to remember the way you describe the vibrations in your dream and the way your dreambody morphed into "waves of sounds" the next time a surge of "chilly vibes" threatens to wake me. The idea of ecstatic transformation is rather appealing, even if momentary. ;)

Thanks for the inspiration! Keelin

Ralf ' Not sure what to make of being labeled an "erotic-driven dreamer,' I've decided to take it as an odd compliment rather than analyze its accuracy. Reminds me of an unconnected snippet at the end of a lucid dream, when one of a group of women said to me for no apparent reason "You are erotic!' and I responded, "I'm sorry ' I mean, thank you!'

I've been thinking my recent dreams weren't contributing anything to the prolonging experiment, but looking through my notes I found this dream series of 18 /19 March that used several of the ideas we've talked about here and maybe added one or two.

18/19 March 02

I had just written the poem that I posted under the Kalani dreamers" discussion, "Make love with everything you find/sleeping or awake'.' I was thinking of that when I went to sleep, and also an assignment given me by a dream colleague to perform small acts of compassion within my dreams; and thus motivated, I was giving love to my sleep-interrupting calico cat instead of pushing her off of me. In my first sleep period I was lucid and woke up very happy but with very little recall ' just a few details such as winding up the flying pig at Kalani, in the dark, smiling.

Next sleep period, I was sub-lucid and floating around the living room in dim light while talking with my 90-year-old friend, asking if she would like to have a CD that I'd bought but didn't turn out as I'd expected. Hovering near the ceiling and wondering it giving away a CD I didn't want was an act of compassion, I became fully lucid and affirmed, "Okay, I'm flying" ' using flying as a synonym for dreaming. I thought, now what would I like to do? My friend had vanished; I accepted the fact that my dream no longer included her and thought, would I like to go out flying? In answer I was drawn head-first, still at ceiling level, to the door. Okay! I floated down to where I could reach the door handle, and as I began to slide it open, the calico cat jumped onto me ' on my physical body in bed, I realized, but without waking me. Okay, I thought, my act of compassion can be to take her flying with me! As I brought her outside she began purring and kneading and then I did wake up.

I memorized all this and then spun a bit, holding the cat and making light the soles of my feet. Soon I was in a strange dark tacitly lucid dream in which there was a huge flood and I, my car and my cat were floating through deep flood waters by dark of night, over on the other side of Blind Spring Hill where rare flash floods from my home valley flow toward the nearest river 40 miles away. My cat was swimming nose-up, smiling, and there was the odd sharp awareness that she didn't need rescuing because it was a dream; but at the same time, pulling her out of the water was the right dream-thing to do. I grabbed her and noticed that her fur felt real, and dry. This dream was not frightening: it was charged with an electrical sense of excitement, vivid with flashes of bright moonlight glinting off the surface of black water. The water was deep and I wanted to swim.

Eventually I found myself just outside the door where that earlier dream left off, but sans cat, floating low in the twilit air. Would I wake? No, I would fly; and fully lucid, I overrode the pull toward waking ' felt as a wavering quality of dream-senses ' with swim-flight motions, persisting while dream-senses stabilized.

From here I had a wonderful, thrilling time flying generaly eastward in wide open countryside with a few trees and with twilight gradually brightening into day. I filled my senses with with the sights and tactile sensations around me but mostly with feeling myself to be in flight. I experimented with flying styles and at one point it seemed that the thing to do was to let go of both effort and control and fly backwards with my eyes closed, head-first, face-up, pulled along by the forces that produced an electric tingling feel beneath the surface of my scalp. Towns and streets had begun to appear and I was thus zooming trustingly above the main street of a small town, avoiding obstacles successfully. This was very enjoyable and I thought about telling my Kalani dream-campmates so.

Opening my eyes and returning to a more familiar face-forward orientation, I landed on a building and jumped off, experiencing the thrill of free-fall before swooping up into flight again. I althernated flight with giant, bounding steps along another building's edge. Flying upward among tall trees, I thought, what would make this even better? - Flying with my beloved! Rather than materialize his image I invited his spiritual presence and felt the possibility that he was there, flying freely near me. A wonderfully sensuous feeling arose and continued rising.

In the branches of a tree I found, incongruously, a single segment of peeled orange. I accepted it and began to eat it: sweet and juicy. At the same time I could hear a noisy flock of birds approaching behind me - maybe gulls - and I was remembering my assignment and wondering "What should my act of compassion be?" I decided to leave the remaining portion of my orange segment for a bird to eat. I placed it on the roof of a tall building - by now I was in a city - where it lay among many pairs of sunglasses. How funny! I wondred if the dream birds were like cartoon birds who would appreciate sunglasses, and tried to remember if I'd seen a cartoon with a gull in sunglasses.

I flew to another tall building and leapt off its edge, wondering what it would be like if my faith in dream flight were not absolute. I fell and fell toward the city street below, where the sidewalk was full of busy people wearing dark clothing and dark glasses. The dream imagery wavered a bit as I neared ground. Of course I can fly, I thought, and pulled up at the last moment. As I swooped into the air again I also began to wake, and opted for recall rather than further prolonging.

I had to type that twice - my computer crashed the first time before I cound send - so I'll leave it at this & send before further mishap. Would you-all like to identify the elements that you think contributed to prolonging? Also if anyone wants, I can try to clarify parts like "making light the soles of my feet" or anything else that is not familiar.

Joy

I sure enjoy reading everyone's posts, thanks!

Ralf, I found myself in a LD a few days ago and did the hand rubbing as the imagery was fading and for the first time it revived everything. I think it worked better because I also made extra effort to notice my surroundings while doing it.

I had an other Lucid dream this morning- I spoke outloud that I was moving locations and tried spinning with open eyes to relocate but couldn't change locations, I closed my eyes and kept spinning and opened them but it had only became night in the same location. It did extend the LD however. Anyone have any advice for the immoble spinner?

Hi Ted,

In a memorable lucid dream years ago, I had a similar outcome to what you've described in your recent spinning episode:

("...I closed my eyes and kept spinning and opened them but it had only became night in the same location.")

I began spinning in the front seat of a car only to land in the back seat, despite my intention to arrive at the Sea. Surprised, but undaunted, I got out of the car and found the beach only a few steps away.

What I believe happens is that expectation plays a key role here, and it's not always easy to shed what we've learned since day one about how the world is supposed to behave. But if you can remember that the rules of this world needn't apply to the dream world, that will help free you up for some magical transportation and conjuring. After all, who's to say the very scene desired isn't waiting behind the nearest door or just around the corner? Considering there's no external reality to make a world consistent in the ways in which we are accustom, what would be there if we simply turned around with a dream-appropriate sense of expectation? Oh, there you are! ;)

Wishing you great spinning adventures -- and landings as desired next time! Keelin

Dear Joy:

Thank you for your very engaging lucid dream report (great flying!). What I especially appreciate is the assignment you mention of performing small acts of compassion within a dream. I would like to try this in my next lucid dream, so I thank you also for the inspiring goal. Your sharing the suggestion here on the Forum can surely be considered an act of compassion performed in your waking life! ;)

Mahalo, Keelin

PS: Perhaps you're already doing this, but if not, then it's worth mentioning: If you can type your messages in Word (or a similar program) and then cut & paste to the Forum, there's less risk of losing your writings (because you can save along the way).

I'm glad you like the assignment, Keelin, and will extend your thanks to the deserving being who initiated it.

I was typing in Word and trying to save when the computer crashed - it claimed I had no disk space or some such, and shut everything down. So I rebooted and came here and started over. I tell you, malfunctioning technology is a totally useless dream sign for me....

Keywords:

HAND RUBBING, SPINNING, INTERACTING

Schwimmen nach Badendorf 02042002 #NT #LT #DSA4 #Prolonging #Interacting #Handrubbing #Spinning #Schwimmen #Badendorf #Mama I'm standing at a public swimming pool. I wonder, where I left my cloth, how I did get here and if I paid my entrance fee. Although I'm somewhat confused, I decide to enjoy the situation and jump into the water. I'm working my way towards the rim of the pool, but my sight is somewhat hindered. I follow the patterns on the floor to get there. Finally I'm standing there, thinking over and seeing different ways of jumping. I decide to jump from one of these platforms. I'm jumping, diving and breathing. The breath is rather loud. Breathing under water. Hm. I must be dreaming... I try to get to the surface. Do hectic movements. It doesn't work. I stay on the ground, under water. It gets dark. I force myself to breath more deeply and slowly, I force myself to relax. I hear and feel my breath very intensely. I keep on performing swimming movements - now more calmly - to engage the dreambody, for not to loose the dream. I feel the body very manifestly, but see nothing. I focus on my arms. I move them into my sight. Now I can see them, translucent in the dark. Suddenly I'm in a different place. Its Badendorf again. I keep on moving, walking upstairs from the cellar, avoid staring at one point too long. I see my mother sleeping in the living room. Must be the right time for a sleep, but not the right place. Should I wake her? No. I keep walking, heading for the stairs leading up to the first floor. Everything looks so realistic. Everything so detailed. I begin doubting, if I dream at all. My mother did get up and now follows me. I wonder, whether she will see me. (My thoughts are somehow confused, as if I think, my dreambody is really in Badendorf, and she is really there, and I'm a kind of ghost). I walk upstairs, it is dark there. Remember, that I'm not to enter dark places. So turn around and decide to jump. This will be the reality test. This will show, if she will notice me and how jumping and landing feels. I do it. Jump high and long downstairs, land on the first step. It is a soft landing. Now I'm nearly totally convinced, that I'm still dreaming. Seems, that my mother didn't notice me. It gets darker. I keep on walking and looking around, but get somehow caught up in a corner. I start rubbing hands vehemently. I feel the friction. I feel them getting hot. While rubbing I'm getting into a slow spinning movement unintended. Just like in one of my last LDs. I awake in bed. Turn. This feels like the physical reality. I don't get up and write down, because I estimate, that it is 0400 am. I don't want to disturb Astrid. I did set the alarm to 0600, bedtime was midnight. So I try to re -enter dreamstate and end up in non - lucid dreams. I get up at 6:30, take notes of the dream, get up shortly and then do a MILD exercise, using this LD. My mind is somewhat fuzzy, due to short awakening. I often drift off during the 61 points, but keep on and enter dream recalling and re - living phase. I turn from back onto right and continue re - living. I drift off into a non - lucid dreamscene where I have a close encounter with the police, which I in the end in a pre - lucid mood manipulate after my fancy. I wake half up and shortly think over the oddities. Sleep in and

Lucidity - police 02042002 #NT #LT #DSA3 #Interacting Find myself in a car, carelessly driving across the curb in a curve, while entering the main street. There is a police car, again. Lucky, that they didn't see me. There is a car driving on the sidewalk. Can that be? I look one more time. Now it is on the street. But I have to set my indicator left to leave the pavement now. If that isn't obtrusive driving. That has to catch the police's interest. But I'm lucky one more time (strange enough ;-) ). Now my car turned to a bike. There are some levers, which I try. One seems to be linked with indicators. The effect is a green light blinking. That can't be! I must be dreaming again. I keep on biking, engaging my dreambody. I look around, to stabilise the scene. But although this is a very smooth way to awake in a dream, the scene begins to fade slowly and I awake in bed. Satisfied, that I had another lucid one at will.

Lucidity: The first dream seems to be initiated purely by the decision to have one, respectively to wake up and do MILD. This a very early nights LD in my proportions (after only 4-5 hours of sleep). This phase of my sleep seems to be characterised by greater stability of dreamscenes, the body seems to be not that awake. But my mind isn't very clear, lucidity is weak. It seems to be helpful to have tasks and to focus on them to stay lucid. One more help is to do reality checks from time to time. In the second LD, it is the other way round: Mind is clearer, but dreamscene less stable, physical body too awake. Stability: When the dream dissolves, it seems to be helpful, to focus on the dreambody, however you do it. Swimming is quite intense, because it involves all the body. And looking at dreambody's hands in the dark might be a good trick to re - create visual environment. At least in this case it seemed to be the effect. My impression is, that I'm still too much in a hurry, while using these techniques. But time by time I succeed in prolonging my LDs. If I look at my situation in January, I would say, that I learned a lot. Meaning: I'm surprised, that my LD choose the setting of Badendorf again (Where I grew up, where my mother still lives). There must be something. Somehow (looking back) I felt caught in the dream situation. I didn't find a way out. Like all my experience is limited by the houses walls and maybe the inhabitants, respectively my reactions to them. The next time I'm there, I will explore this situation. I should maybe have talked to my mother. It is still, that I fear loosing the dream or lucidity in intense interactions, involved in discussions, not moving, not looking around. I will give it a try next time.

More later (I hope so...) I'm hoping, I have the time to reply your postings before leaving for some days.

CU in LD

Yours Ralf

Dear Joy!

Please excuse me. You should really take it as an odd compliment. I wanted to express, that the ability to deeply enjoy experiences in LDs is certainly something, that makes them more likely. It is kind of self - rewarding. Compared to you I feel, that my approach is too "dry", too abstract. It is certainly too simplistic to put you into this "erotic - driven" category, and the words may the wrong choice. I know, that you are a scientist, I know, that there are a lot of other facets in your life: the artist, the poet, the mystical, ... Hope, that is more accurate.

Thanks for posting dream - reports. These are prolonging hints, I found:

Ask for what to do next and go with the flow of the answer:

?Okay, I?m flying? ? using flying as a synonym for dreaming. I thought, now what would I like to do?" " ...would I like to go out flying? In answer I was drawn head-first, still at ceiling level, to the door. Okay! I floated down to where I could reach the door handle"

Integrate (disturbing) signals of physical body/ reality into dream - plot:

"the calico cat jumped onto me ? on my physical body in bed, I realized, but without waking me. Okay, I thought, my act of compassion can be to take her flying with me!"

Re -enter dream state by "making light the soles of your feet"

I remember you wrote about this technique earlier. Would you be so kind and go into detail about it?

An early warning of premature awaking is a wavering quality of senses.

"I overrode the pull toward waking ? felt as a wavering quality of dream-senses ? with swim-flight motions, ..."

Thanks a lot for these details of how to prolong LDs. I think, they are helpful for everybody. Posting them is certainly an act of compassion ...

Yours Ralf

P.S. I'm sorry, that some types of your original message have somehow been transmitted wrong. I've no time to correct them now. CU

I have used spinning a lot to regenerate dream scenes.

I've had success with the following variants. (I always have a dream body and if I crouch I can always feel a dream ground.)

1. Rub together the fingers and thumbs of my outstretched hands, or keep one arm extended while rubbing my lips and tongue with my other hand. The rationale here is that the area of cortex devoted to the fingers tongue and lips is relatively very high.

2. Do forward head over heels or lie down and roll over and over on my side. In the latter, which seems to be very effective, I focus on feeling the ground touch different parts of my body as I roll.

Though there is never any problem with the ground I find it more difficult to generate a wall close to me. If I stop spinning and walk or crawl forward in the dark I will usually find one eventually (if I don't wake up). On a few occasions I have then followed the wall, found a door, opened it and found a dream scene, the hall outside my bedroom door.

Ralf, thanks for the clarification! I guess I got your meaning anyway, because that's how I decided to take it: having to do with fully experiencing all senses, physical and otherwise. This is an ongoing project of mine....

I guess I set up a challenge for myself when I invited anyone to ask who didn't know what I meant by "Making light the soles of my feet" - because I have not yet figured out how to put it into words. Let me try anyway, and if you experiment you will likely get it.

I noticed during my earliest attempts at going back to sleep and having a lucid dream (WILD although I didn't know it was called that) that sometimes when it happened, I would get this feeling sort of like a tingly lightweight upward-moving energy originating in the soles of the feet, as if - if I were standing - I would float upward.... So I've tried sometimes imagining that feeling and inducing it, and sometimes it works.

If anyone else does this, please augment my description with yours!

Joy

Hi Owen!

Thank you for your variations on spinning report. Fascinating to consider the cortex area and also wonderfully logical and creative to use the dreamground to ground the dreambody -- and thus prolong the experience.

Roll on with deLight! Keelin

Hi all!

Just back from a five days visit of Berlin.

Joy, thanks for the description. Seems to be an exercise, that draws attention to dreambody. I'll try it.

Owen, thanks for details on recreating and prolonging.

CU soon.

Owen, I incorporated some of your ideas in a prolonging incident after reading your post: on becoming lucid I felt a little wavery so I kept hold of a set of keys that was in my left hand, because it felt very vivid and real; dropped to my hands and knees, and crawled downstairs past a noisy washing machine and outside where birds were singing, by which time I felt stable enough to take off flying.

I've been noticing how strikingly vivid the sense of touch can be and continue to recommend attending closely to all senses (and don't stop with the familiar 5).

Ralf, I like your list of prolonging elements of my dream - you identified some that I hadn't thought about. All I would add is the motivation of an assignment that appealed to me, and enjoyment.....

Joy

Joy

Owen, thanks for sharing your ideas on prolonging lucid dreams. Last night I had a chance to try rolling during an obe-type lucid dream. The result was I had one of my longest lucid dreams ever. I noticed something rather curious, though. Like Joy, I walked down the stairs on all fours. After a while the dream began to fade, so I rolled over along the floor and the dream stabilized. Later I went through the backdoor and into the grass. Passing through the door was difficult. Everything visually disappeared. I had to feel around for the back step with my hand before the dream stabilized again and I was properly outside. Once outside I saw things from the perspective of a cat and felt about the same size. In the dream the grass was taller than me and seemed amazingly high -- about 6" for perspective. The dream continued on for quite a while until my alarm abruptly woke me up. I rolled three times during the dream and each time the dream stabilized.

Joy, did you notice any difference in how you experienced things when trying this versus spinning or hand rubbing?

Ralf, I had an interesting prolonging experience in a Lucid Dream the other night. I was flying down a stairway when I recognized I was dreaming. I got to the bottom & started hand rubbing to prolong the dream and in preparation to relocate (to spin or look for a doorway) to a new location. However before I fully decided where to go the scene faded & I found myself in bed still rubbing my hands togther! A bit mystiflied and frustrated I held still & tried to fall back asleep & re-enter the dream. I just fell asleep.

The next morning in writting out the dream it seems apparent that what I had was an other of my false awakenings (in bed rubbing my hands together no less!). I believe this because my hand movements seemed unbroken from the flying sequence to the movements in bed. Shouldn't there have been some residual leftover paralisis as I awoke? I've noticed in the past I have awoken while singing in a LD and all that came out as I awoke was a slight sound. I guess I should always do an RC when I awaken in bed. What do you think?

I think RC'ing on first waking up is a great idea. What you describe here does sound to me like a false awakening. What you said about singing in a lucid and making only a small sound when you wake up reminds me of an experience years ago in which I woke up loudly singing a Bob Dylan song - I think it was my singing that woke me up; at any rate, it definately woke my sisters who were sleeping down the hall - much to their amusement.

Hi, all. I'm definitely ready to try spinning and/or hand rubbing next time I get lucid, if only I think of it. I got lucid very breifly Sunday morning. And only because I was sleeping late, drifting in and out, which is not how I want to spend my weekends. Anyway, in a NLD I was in the house from the tv show "Designing Women," and the characters were clearing the place out. They were packing things up, and the place was empty. I went upstairs, and was looking around the second floor. It had a small, square central area, with 3 bedroom doors off it. Facing the stairs was a window, with a crib beneath it. I was thinking how close the rooms all were to each other, and apparently I had gotten confused as to the tv show involved, because I was thinking that with the "Golden Girls" character Blanche always having sex, the others in the other rooms would hear all the time. Then I was thinking that I had never seen the upstairs of this house before. That triggered lucidity. I realized that if I had never seen the upstairs, I must be dreaming. It felt wonderful! But as I was thinking about what I should do, I woke up. Happy dreams, Kate

Hi, lucids

Joy, this assignment is surely a good motivation to keep in the dream and compassion might be a special energy that feeds the dreams creatures and stabilises the scene.

John, the rolling thing is surly worth trying next time. Thanks for the report.

Ted, a funny false awakening. I had similar ones. While handrubbing or spinning, remember to say to yourself: "The next thing I'll see is a dream." That helps. Doing RCs on every awaking is safe, too.

Adastra, nice to see you here. And thanks for making me smile.

Kate, just keep on, you WILL learn how to make the best of these short lucid moments, how to prolong them and stay in the dream. We have collected some worthy hints here.

I had a series of four LDs the other night. I was able to re - enter lucid dreamstate three times. A great success for me. And I had one of my longest LDs ever. But: I didn't write anything down, because I had to leave very early to work in hospital. I used many prolonging techniques, I was even able to fly. What was significant? I spun, gave up, because I thought it didn't work, found myself awake and then recognised the false awakening. Another success was, that I could pick a person in the LD and then met her. I simply said to myself: There she is, behind the next corner. And there she was! While interacting (another goal of mine: interact with persons in LDs, don't avoid them) the dream faded, but I stabilised by rubbing hands. This is another example of navigation. Maybe we should start a thread (or use the existing one in: Research, ...)

Hope to post more soon I'm somewhat busy these days.

Ralf

Hi folks, I'm sending this from an internet cafe in Venice! I'm having a break!

I've just had a cluster, seven LDs in 7 days, only two of the LDs longish though.

I managed a new task. I put my left hand on a table and using my right hand as a saw, cut off the fingers of my left hand. The cut surfaces were pinkish and smooth, not bleeding. I then put my left hand behind my back, and when I brought it forward the fingers were regenerated. I cut them off again. I did this several times and made small pile of cut off fingers. The fingers became smaller than my own with neat fingernails. I picked up handfulls (or is it handsfull) of fingers and let them fall back on the table.

Owen

Ralf,

Experimenting with different navigation techniques is my current LD goal. Why? I'm tired of wandering my house and street. Eureka! Poltergeists aren't evil, they're bored!!! You would be too if you were stuck in the same place forever. Okay, I don't believe in ghosts (or souls), but I do believe in boredom. After all, over 70% of my LD are of the OBE type which start in my bedroom. I've tried flying, but invariable I will wake up, since there aren't enough of my dream senses being used while flying to keep my dream world stable. A few times I was able to spin to a new dream scene, but that was after I became lucid within a dream that was already in progress. I have tried willing myself to a destination (as Monroe did) without success.

Another problem with my OBE LD is that there are rarely any people in them. The few that I have found, such as the young ladies I saw when I was floating in front of an upstairs window of a house, were unfamiliar to me, startled, and not particularly conversational at that moment. I will have to try your suggestion of willing someone I know into being around the next corner. I could use some company. Now I feel like Casper. Interestingly, when I become lucid within a dream in progress it is often crowded with people.

John

Owen

Wow! That is a complicated experiment, that needs a stable scene. It shows the illusory nature of the dreambody. Could be part of future horror film, too. ;-> With a series of seven days in a row one has time to experiment. Congratulations! Have a good time in Venice, don't be drowned.

John

Maybe you should at first stabilise the dream scene at home and then try something different. Walk around the corner or through a door into another dreamscape, or do slow pirouettes like Linus suggested, and see new things with every turn. If you have a TV at home, use it to switch to other scenes, then enter. Flying seems to be difficult for some people. I'm still wondering why. I had a great success with dancing while flying. This gave me incredible speed. Don't know how you fly, but one shouldn't forget to move the dreambody. Some frequent flyers don't care about stabilising at all, so it may be a question of expectation, too. Being alone in LDs is often the case for me, too. People tend to vanish, when I get lucid. On the other hand I avoided interacting with dreamcharacters in the past. Maybe I have to learn to let them be there and to interact and stay lucid. If you can't leave your home, why not perceive it differently? The cat - perspective was very funny. Why not a birds view, or the view of an ant?

Keyword: SPINNING

Hi, lucid friends!

This morning I thought about getting up earlier for a MILD exercise. I thought about for some hours... This seemed to result in the following moment of lucidity:

Auflösung in Bewegung 20042002 #NT #DSA3 #Meer #Wind #Rauchen #Prolonging Moving out of shape We are going to search something like coins or so in the sand of a beach. I think about strategies of finding. I take a magnet with me to detect metal. And because coins are spread at random, I'll use another random process and change my direction while searching with every wind gust. I feel very clever in thinking so. I want to lit a cigarette. But I have no lighter. I go to a store and fetch one. I lit the fag and inhale, put the package in my trouser pocket for later use. Did I start smoking again? No. I must be dreaming! Dream fades. I start spinning slowly around a vertical axis. I add circular movements of my forearms. I see only grey. I move my eyes with the intention to see something. This ends up in a somewhat circular movement, too. Now I rotate my head on top of that. A very funny feeling. The form of the dreambody begins to dissolve, the movements gain own, separate life. I seem to be not focussed enough to let it happen and awake in physical body.

Sorry, that I didn't try the rolling thing. Next time. But interesting and funny experience: Movement without form. This was not the spinning, that Stephen described, and it wasn't that successful. But joyful nonetheless... I have a new goal: Do everything to increase the vividness of the dream, until it surmounts daytime realism. That is more than stabilising, maybe one could call it over - stabilising. Maybe that is a way to create a more stable dream - environment. I thought about creating a greater "distance" to the point, where the dream begins to fade. So one could react earlier to a loss of the high details, work on re- establishing them, everything in a greater "distance" from loosing the dream. But what can we do so far? Hand rubbing, all the techniques, which refer to the dream body. Interacting with dreamcharacters, deeply experiencing all senses. (This reminds me of a dream, where I felt the hot air of a malfunctioning toaster this morning). Seems that believing in the (physical) reality of the dream creates more stable environments, too. (Like Linus once said, just pretend, as if you were not lucid...) Maybe some of you have more hints.

CU in LD

Ralf

Ralf,

Your final paragraph in which you talk of "distance" brought to my mind Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's reference to "....eleven categories of experience in which the mind is usually bounded by experience." and which can be transformed in lucid dreams.

One of these is speed. He suggests that in a lucid dream many things can be accomplished in a short time..."Visit a hundred places in a minute." he says.

So think what could be possible in a short lucid dream. Cramming in many events might be difficult if the dream immediately breaks up, but even there it could be possible to condense a sequence of many tasks during a spin, particularly if there is a dream body.

I'd not thought before about the possibility of extending the length of the dream, not in real time, but by increasing the density of tasks or activities.

I wonder what would be the best strategy to try this out?

Owen

Here's another hint, I think - the dream-fairy gave it to me.... I posted this dream once before somewhere in here but not under this prolonging discussion. It's what resulted when I'd been having a few days of difficulty in stabilizing lucid dreams, and asked a dream character for advice.

In the non-lucid lead-in to this dream a family member was behaving in a difficult manner and I was trying to respond appropriately, with moderate success. Here's what I wrote in the morning:

When the dream ended and I realized it was a dream, I thought, "Darn! I wish I'd known that while it was happening. I could have handled that better than I did.'

I went through a west-facing door that led outside, and finding myself in the lattice-walled entry to a beautiful sun-dappled, flower-filled garden, I thought, "Wow! I'm still dreaming!'

Just ahead of me stood a tall, very slender, elfin-looking woman with reddish-gold hair in a pixie haircut, gazing upward at the flowers that climbed the latticework. I remembered that forum participants have often mentioned asking dream people for advice, so I approached her cautiously ' not wanting to wake myself up ' and asked in a hushed voice, "Can you tell me how to stay dreaming?'

She looked at me with twinkling eyes, put a finger to her lips and tiptoed around a corner of the latticework, beckoning me to follow. She pointed and whispered: "See that orange marigold? Would you call that color a "sulfur orange,' or a "Physa orange'?'

The flower was bright yellow-orange, vividly detailed. It wasn't a sulfur yellow. Physa ' I recognized that as a term I'd learned in my work as a wildlife biologist, but often had trouble remembering when I needed it. I thought hard. It was the genus of something.... Then I smiled at the elfin-woman and said softly, "You're trying to trick me! "Physa" is a snail! So "sulfur orange" would be closer.'

She smiled broadly, sparkling eyes looking sidelong at me. "Show me more,' I whispered. She beckoned again and went around another corner....

"Physa" is a plain brown, spiralling teardrop-shaped water snail whose name (before this dream) I always had trouble coming up with when I needed it to distinguish it from its Helisoma and Pyrgulopsis pond-mates. It was one of those elusive words that I knew, and I knew I knew it; but it would only come to me later, intuitively, when I wasn't trying to think of it. In the dream, I was faced with the opposite circumstance: the word without the corresponding image, with the added twist of a false color lead.

I always think of this dream as "The dream-fairy asks me a riddle." But why do I call it a riddle? - I couldn't explain. I realized this morning that the essense of a good riddle is that solving it requires both rational and creative/intuitive thought. Whenever and however you can engage in that sort of meta-level thinking within a dream, there you have it: the essence of lucidity.

Joy

Dear prolongers

Thanks for your thoughts

Owen

That would be a cool way of prolonging. I want to keep from saying: This or that is impossible. Only want to say: There have been experiments in lucid dreaming showing, that estimated periods of time in dreams are very close to waking life time. That only seems to imply, that you can't compress time in dreams (or waking life?). Anyway, we don't know, but we can experiment. Visiting one place at will in a dream is hard enough, but visiting hundreds of places? Your dreams seem to be quite stable, why don't you try and report? I wonder, if perception of places in this velocity is still detailed.

Joy

I enjoyed your dreamreport when you posted it the first time and I enjoy it again. It is a fine example of how to use the dream (characters) to stay in the dream. The thoughts about riddles are interesting. You are right to say, that this is a main property of lucid dreaming: The synthesis of logic and intuition.

Prolong the dream

Yours Ralf

Ralf, but dreams often compress time in the same way movies do, by showing a scene or two to represent a whole era; and they may do it in other ways too. Enough people report having experienced long periods of time during a short sleep or trance to give it some credence. I think the experiments showed that people can and do experience a short period of dream time (counting seconds or estimating minutes) same as waking time when they set their minds to that exact task - without limiting what's possible! Ask Einstein about time if you think it's immutable.

Joy, Ralf

I've noticed in LDs that if I'm say at my front door of my house and I decide to walk down the road to a shop about 100m away that my recollections are....

I start to walk....maybe I see a blue car on the way......I'm at the shop. It's not clear whether I forget the walk or I "jump" using zero time.

To be honest my recollection of walking the 1km home from work today is not so different.

I'm a bit suspicious when people (I'm sure honestly) say they had an LD that lasted say 10 minutes. But I could not remember the last 10 minutes of detail in my waking life never mind a dream. And how is the time gauged.

I have been measuring the length of my LDs not by an estimate of how long it would take me to do the things in the dream but by how many words it takes me to describe the lucid part of the dream.

Suppose you were admiring a lucid landscape for two minutes of elapsed time. How could you really estimate the time and what would it mean. Surely the thing to remember is details of what you see...a blue house with four windows....a cow....a mountain in the distance....a man sitting on a bench....etc

Owen

Joy and Owen

Interesting discussion

Joy, you are right with all the movie - like tricks, which dreams use (I think, movie's structures are borrowed from dreams). That is one thing, causing this density of dreams, that results in a kind of compressed experienced time. Some people say near - death experiences are like dreams. And it is said, that these experiences sometimes include a more than detailed life's review within a few seconds. This is extremely dense. One could object, that all what these people report are memories, how can we say, they "really" had this detailed recall of their whole life and all the threads of effects of their actions, thoughts and emotions on other people. In fact most of them are deeply changed by their experience, so there must be something to it. Your response makes me think, I was right to avoid saying: This is impossible. Time is a strange thought, anyway. I understand Einstein's thoughts in this way: Every system has its own time, if we want to compare times of different systems, we have to include their relative velocity, especially, when speed is near light speed. Time does depend on relative speed. This has physical effects. Seems to be more than just expectation. Time (and causality) from the point of view of Psi research seems to be very different from everyday perception. Future events seem to cause present effects. All times (Future, present, past) seem to be linked, the flow of causality seems to take every direction. I wonder, whether there have ever been experiments showing, that people can accelerate mental processes like computing in dreams. This would be a nice prove for the assumption, that time flow in dreams may depend on expectation. (As far as I know, computing is not that easy for most dreaming people).

Owen

I made similar observations in my LDs. The way across the street isn't continuous walking, but seems to be an instantaneous jump to the destination (e.g. the house). Jumping out of the window causes a short black out, then I find myself walking on the street. What would it MEAN to estimate the time? This is just another question, one can research: How is perception of time in (lucid) dreams? We have to be careful not to limit our experiences by misinterpreting results of scientific research. But all I know until now, is that experiments showed a similar "timing" in dreams compared to waking. I'm not sure, what it means. What does it mean to estimate the time it takes me to enjoy a beautiful sunset embracing my beloved one while dreaming? It means nearly anything in this situation. What does it mean to estimate the time it takes to compute a mathematical problem in a dream? It means a lot. If we find out, that it works much better, it may be worthy to put effort into developing lucid dreaming skills for mathematicians. As long as we have no prove, they wouldn't do it. I'm not sure, if all lucid dreamers do realistically estimate time of their LDs. But I believe, that it is possible to stay lucid very long, if not all night and day.

How the time is gauged, again!

I wish I could greatly accelerate typing and thinking English

CU in LD

Keyword: SPINNING

Hi, lucid friends

After a pause of one month with no dreamwork I got back to it. Living without caring for dreams is only half life to me.

Inspired by Skypony I dedicate my new beginning to finding guidance. But as you see (and as I've expected) I still have to work on the prolonging / stabilising thing. There is still the task of "super - stabilising" to be fulfilled. I'm satisfied with achieving lucidity on the second try with MILD. Over and over thanks to Stephen LaBerge for developing this technique systematically. I still regard this as the most effective stand alone exercise in LD. Spinning didn't lead to another dream in this case. But I'm glad with how long I could stay "in" dreambody this time. Spinning is a dream of its own in this case:

The dream:

"Funny Guidance" or "Variations on Spinning"

I'm arriving at a bus-stop. I'm carrying the trunk of a smaller fir. It has nearly no branches. I imagine, that it would be hard to drive with the fir, it would block my sight. The crowd at bus-stop looks at me as if I'm somewhat crazy. I say, that I bought the fir (as a Christmas - tree) provident, maybe I'll get none in winter. Now everybody produces a piece of wood, as if everybody wants to say: I thought of the winter, too. I find the sight funny: All the people with wood in hands. Then I think: It is absurd. And then it dawns on me, that I must be dreaming. For a moment I'm excited, then remember to ask for guidance, while the visual fades, although I wish to communicate. I begin spinning like a top and it works so far as I don't wake up physically, but I feel resistance as if I'm close to perceiving physical body again. I stay spinning for a while, waiting for a dream to get visible. But nothing happens. I start to wave my hands. That feels quite realistic, but doesn't lead to entering a dreamscene. I decide to spin in the opposite direction. (Just an idea born in the moment). That feels like swimming against the stream, like I have spun some time in a small pool, influencing the water to spin in the same direction and then abruptly changed my direction. (I'm not sure, if there is anything significant to this perception, I only found it feeling interesting.) Then I bow backwards extremely and turn as if glued to a huge rotating ball. At first I'm afraid to break my spine (funny thought in a lucid dream), but then it feels liberating, as if I'm more independent from the influences of physical body. Then I speak loud and ask for guidance one more time. All that comes is a mute croak as if the sleeping body tries to speak the words. Now I awake physically.

This time I forgot to use the "LOOKING" technique. I could have tried Owen's rolling or grounding. Next time.

Meaning: What I intended was finding guidance into love and light. What I got was a Christmas - tree (the light at winter solstice) and a crowd showing me how weird my actions are. As I explained it reasonable (like so often), they produced something funny, what woke me up. That IS somewhat like guidance, isn't it?

Long live lucidity

Yours Ralf

Hi Ralf,

I have a similar experience when reversing a spin, that of resistance. Sometimes, but not regularly the reversal seems to "shock" me into a dream scene. It's not clear to me whether you had a dream body, you could try rubbing your hands instead of waving them next time, or rubbing the fingers and thumbs of your outstretched arms, or rubbing your lips and tongue with fingers, but DO try to bend down and feel the floor you're spinning on - it will be there.

My last spin I "awoke" into an NLD where I was writing the dream just had in my dream diary.

April and first half of May was good for me, but few LDs since then. I'm convinced it's something to do with my new more healthy diet. I have been eating lots of bananas and sunflower seeds which I love, including before bed. But I just read that they are rich in tryptophan which puts the brain to sleep. In the old days I might have cheese or meat for a bedtime snack which is high in tyrosine that keeps brain alert apparently. I have great NLDs though and quite a lot of dreams where I'm thinking about lucid dreaming matters.

I'm curious to learn how you do MILD as I'm not satisfied with what I do. I tend to fall asleep too readily or the visualisations become confused and I don't feel that I am able to establish a really strong intention to remember to recognise I'm dreaming. It seems so easy as described in Stephen's book but I find it difficult, perhaps it's because I started quite old, I don't know. I do believe however that my prospective memory has improved over the last two years.

Do you always get up and wake yourself up totally? How long do you spend doing the MILD before sleeping? Do you continue it until you fall asleep or break off then try to sleep but recommence if you find yourself thinking of something else? How long do you spend in each cycle carrying out your lucid task before returning to the beginning to focusing on the intention to recognise that you are dreaming?

From July I've decided to spend 6 months trying to have a WILD - never had one before - so I'm sure to be picking your brains!

Best wishes,

Owen

Colin,

B6 hasn't helped me with dreaming regardless of when I take it (some say take it all before bedtime)...and 1500mg might be unhealthy.

Melatonin has brought deeper, more intense dreaming experiences for me (I take it off and on just before I go to sleep).

Karen

Collin- What works dramatically for me is to get out of bed around 5 or 6AM & do a few things around the house. Only for 10-15 minutes. Studies show that a lot of onirenauts stay awake for longer periods of time before returning to bed. During this 15 minutes I conciousley remember that I want to dream. This almost always insures me of 1-2 dreams. Often lucid but not allways. Another big key for me is to lay in bed for 2-3 minutes & recall-remember my dream. Most often I recall the end of the dream & work my way back from there to the beginning. good luck Latch

Colin B6 has worked well for me, it appears to increase my ability to remember my dreams, however it could always be argued that any result(s) are psychosomatic. I would be carefull about dosage though as to much over a long period can be harmful, I usually leave a few days between taking it to account for this. Rob

Hi all, I wanted to post a prolonging method that has been powerfull for me and has worked 4 times out of 4 times using it. I got this technique out of William Buhlman's book Adventures Beyond the Body. As soon as you realize you are dreaming you demand, "Clarity Now!". Repeat this everytime the dream begins to fade or focus is being lost. This has several effects that I have noticed. One, it reminds me that , yes, I'm in a dream. Two, every time I demand it verbally in the dream, the dream scenery sharpens in visual clarity. Three it keeps my attention hooked away from my physical body which the slightest thought of wakes me up, thereby prolonging the dream. Also the empowering clarity that ensues from this demand is like an anchor into the dream.

I found that whenever I remember to use this technique, I end up with what seems like full rational capabilities, making it easy to remember what ever experiments I have been meaning to try. Please if anyone decides to use this technique and manages to do so.. I would love to hear if it is as effective for others as it has been for me.

Hi, Ryan

Welcome here!

I'm reading Buhlman off and on, too. In fact I have worked on some of his exercises to get clearer about my viewpoints regarding dreaming and OBE like states. The "clarity now!" is interesting. There have been tries by several dreamers with different effects. Some said: "Increase clarity * 1000" and nothing happened. Good that the thing works for you. At least it is a way to stay lucid, as you have pointed out. Use keyword search with "Clarity" , "clarity now" . You might find some examples. Ah! Now I remember! It was "increase lucidity". Try that in keyword search.

Did you do anything to increase your LD frequency after your first LD? What for do you use LDs? What kind of experiments?

Funny coincidence that you mentioned stabilising dream and prolonging / increasing lucidity. I had a lucid one the day before in a MILD exercise, where I could once more use prolonging techniques.

After some strange things about malfunctioning tubes and some out of place crabs in my fish tank... I became lucid, although my spouse said, that everything is normal. Like so often in the last months visual blurred, I then started to rub hands and after stabilising the dreambody (still no visual elements)tried a simple experiment, i.e. swirling left arm, then right arm, but that made me somehow loose feeling of dreambody. So I returned to hand rubbing and jumping. That was a great way to make dreambody more stable. (And after the dream I thought, that this also recollected Owen's advice to use the dream - ground for stabilising - thanks Owen). But then I began to loose lucidity: At first I thought I probably used my physical feet for jumping. But I kept on doing it. Then I felt the knob (the handle) of our locker (in fact in the next room) in my hand every time I came down. It felt extremely real. I thought I must have gone in a spinning movement involuntarily. And then thought, that my sweetheart must think, I've gone entirely crazy, if I would really jump up and down in our apartment with closed eyes. But I didn't want to open them, because that might cause me to wake up. Thinking and jumping I suddenly stumbled and fell into the arms of what felt like my tender darling. Then I can open my eyes now, I thought. And found myself lying in my bed. The digital watch didn't change, so it was really waking time.

Quite satisfied to dream lucid once more using the MILD thing, successfully prolonging and beginning to try a simple task. But this time I lost lucidity and that made me loose the dream. So the prolonging - the -dream thing seems to work, now it is for prolonging lucidity. Next time I will try your advice. Maybe it will work for visual clarity, too. I should have better used the knob to re - enter the dream, that would have been in the run of the plot. Next time I will use what the dream offers. Another point might have been, that I didn't stay up very long before MILD, only 5 minutes. Seems, that my mind wasn't alert enough. Sometimes I get bored doing things like handrubbing and jumping instead of enjoying the ecstasy of the lucid dream. But that is my situation. And in fact I was very happy all day, because it was one step further in lucid dreaming and a lot of fun reporting my dream to my sweetheart. We even replayed it... just imagine a two centner man falling backwards into the arms of a one centner woman... we DID have fun...

Does anybody have further advice? I'm still looking...

I think staying lucid is much easier than stabilising the dream.

Maybe your post and my dream are a good introduction to the second part of prolonging techniques: How to stay lucid and increase clarity, once the dream is stabilised. Everybody feel free to post ideas. I'll gather the information shattered all over the forum and LI website another day.

Prolong the lucid fun!

Yours Ralf