Lucid Dreaming Challenge No. 1

Last week I began my path towards becoming a Lucid Dreamer. As a first step on that path, I needed to begin recording my dreams. Well as there is no such thing as a life path paved in gold, I stepped right into the first pothole the very next night.

Sunday night, the 20th, I went to bed and attempted to program myself to remember my dreams. I kept saying to myself, “I will remember my dreams, I will remember my dreams” but I fell asleep before it could take hold and woke up with nothing. Monday night, however, I successfully inserted the program, had a really great dream and remembered to wake up to record it. The problem was that it was 4:30 A.M.!

Because I’m still working on overcoming internal negativity, I immediately thought, “Good lord, how inconvenient!” My mind over dramatized the major drawback of this pursuit in an effort to make me abandon the project.

See, I love to sleep. If there was such a thing as being a black belt in sleep-fu, I would have one. I overslept all the time and would take naps in the evening because I was still tired. In the back of my mind I knew that my constant fatigue was partly because I slept too much but I didn’t want to face that truth because, well, I was addicted.

In mid-December, though, I decided to take control of my life and the first thing I did was regulate my sleep. Only eight hours a day. Bedtime at midnight. Awake at eight A.M. No exceptions. Boy was my body pissed at me. It took three weeks to get used to the new regimen. A few times I fell back into the old habits of taking a nap or oversleeping but each time I forced myself to get back on track. I am now reaping the rewards of having more energy and a stronger sense of self discipline.

It doesn’t surprise me that my mind balked at being interrupted during its precious sleep time for this newest project. Quite frankly, I am afraid that a pattern of interrupted sleep will cause me to fall back into old habits. On the other hand, my dream recall has improved. In the last week, I can remember dreaming at least four days though I’ve only recorded them twice. The other times I took mental note that I had dreamed, rolled over and went back to sleep. I’m afraid that if I don’t keep up my end of the bargain and record the dreams, then I’ll forever be stuck at this “level”.

One of my weaknesses is that sometimes I become inflexible when it comes to my routines. I think I need to loosen my grip a little on this one and add an extra half hour to account for the additional awake time during the night. Another option is to try to “program” a “cookie” in my mind that will save all of my dreams until I wake up. I know this is possible because I’ve had dreams in the past that I’ve never recorded but I still remember to this day. I will try the cookie idea and see how it goes. If it doesn’t work, rest assured that I won’t lose any sleep over it.