Photo by Benjamin Voros
Dream Musings: Never Give Up!
Today I want to take a minute to talk about one of the most important things any of us must always remember: Never Give Up! One of the most golden of all the tools in our kit is patience.
My journey started as a kid but went into overdrive in the summer of 2018. While I had always been genuinely interested in dreaming, I had never really dedicated attention to creating the "practice" I had always wanted. I had spontaneous lucid dreams every now again, but never developed consistency in any meaningful way. Hell, at the time, my recall was also spotty at best.
At that time, I decided to challenge myself to 100 Days of deeply focused intent. At the end of 100 Days, I'd either keep going or I'd stop. (Spoiler Alert: I kept going).
So, I gave myself a curriculum of books to study, set myself up with a spreadsheet as my digital dream journal, put scrap paper for keywords by the bed, and off I went.
As soon as I put out the intent to remember my dreams, my dream recall grew. When I read the books and applied what I learned, the quality of dreams grew. I remember more dreams. I attended workshops, I trained, I watched videos. And I continued to advance… slowly and steadily. There was no need for me to race me.
In those first 100 days, I achieved my first *natural lucid dream on night 99! (*It's worth noting I experimented with supplements early on and had some lucid dreams during that period. Now I only take supplements on "special occasions" or when I have a specific intention or goal that I am specifically trying to achieve).
99 Days! For some of you that will feel like a crazy long time. For some of you that will feel quite short. But my "count to my first" will be different than yours.
After that first intentional lucid dream on night 99, I had lucid dreams every 10-12 days. Then every 7 days. All with increasing levels of lucidity, quality, and time within a lucid dream.
Today, over two years later, I consistently have lucid dreams 3-5+ a week. This is all because of the ongoing application of the daytime and nighttime practices required to sustain a lucid dreaming practice. I have carefully created a method over the years that affords me optimal sleep quality (because you cannot skimp out on great sleep), and that minimally disrupts my waking life (this is huge).
It might go without saying, but I love it - and that's important. You have to love to keep it up.
That passion allows me to bring a truly dedicated focus. My dreaming practice gives me great joy. As a person who gets deeply obsessed with subjects, I also find it important to have balance:
Some days I am more focused, other days I am not.
Sometimes I don't want to do dream practice, and I won't.
Sometimes I have a long and meaningful bedtime ritual with multiple night awakenings.
Sometimes I just go to sleep.
Sometimes I have a list of goals I want to achieve...
Often I don't.
Sometimes I think it's all too much work!
And then hours go by because it's work that I love.
I don't pressure myself with time or failure.
I do apply rigor because I like to apply rigor (I'm a data nerd)
I never give up, but sometimes I think about it.
While at the same time, I frequently have hazy, murky, low-level lucid dreams, plenty of non-lucid dreams, and whole a lot of dreams that are simply, utterly mundane.
All of this to underscore that time, patience, and the most positive expectation framework that's right for you will go a long way... at least it did for me. There is no comparison to others, only to what you did yesterday. Let go of expectations—just one day at a time.
Anyway, I hope this helps anyone who feels as though they may be struggling...
You're right on track.
