Lumi's Dreaming Thread; Dreams of Moon

[Tewi]

Morning:

I was assuming the light was too bothersome because it bothered Lumi, but I might just be better at ignoring it, because it didn't bother me at all. What did was how unbelievably noisy a single person could be this morning. That being said, everyone else is on roughly the same schedule as we are (waking up later actually), and the one person who isn't is at work on weekdays after 5AM, so maybe our sleep schedule doesn't matter as much as I thought.

 

Lumi and the others are often of the mindset that they want a single lucid dream no matter what it takes, and they'll work for each one. I however am more interested in making them repeatable, so less interested in Dream Induced Lucid Dreams and moreso in Wake Induced Lucid Dreams and Dream-Exit Induced Lucid Dreams. I'm currently working on DEILDs because we never have before and it seems the easiest/most repeatable, especially once we've done it a few times. WILDs have shown zero promise whatsoever, but as far as being repeatable goes they're still more reliable than DILDs. Because those are, after all, simply hoping to realize you're dreaming. If you intend to influence yourself to remember while you're dreaming before going to sleep, that's typically a Mnemonic Induced Lucid Dream, ie telling yourself you'll remember you're dreaming - or, that you are dreaming, for those whose dreams tend to trick them into false awakenings and the like.

 

I also forgot to mention that I was able to talk to a friend about lucid dreaming for 45 minutes yesterday. Supposedly that's helped even us in the past, focusing on the subject of lucid dreaming throughout the day, though it's done nothing for me so far.

 

---

 

Night:

Up pretty late because our friend who Lumi started playing a game with before I started fronting had decided to stay up late. Going to sleep at 4:30AM tonight. But as I mentioned, during the weekdays the only person who'd be awake before 12 is at work, so there still shouldn't be any distractions. Let's hope. The struggle of trying to focus on sleep/in-mind thoughts while being distracted by waking life stimuli is a familiar one. I'd forgotten about it, but Lumi must've tried this sort of thing quite a few times. He only ever did WBTBs, though, making it harder to fall back asleep. DEILDs require you to not really wake up at all.

 

Plan's the same: whenever I wake up, immediately start focusing on visualizing myself in the wonderland. Don't really care if I go anywhere or if anything happens. Once I'm more or less immersed in the visualization and thus possibly falling back asleep, I'll focus on immersing myself as you do when starting a lucid dream, engaging your "dream"/visualization senses. In our case that's typically feeling our body down to the ground, then rubbing our hands together maybe. After that, we switch to focusing on the dream environment around us and whatever details there are. Then we take control of the situation and enter the wonderland. That's the protocol, and Lumi's even done it once before, although I believe he forgot the stabilizing part and so woke up as he was walking down the hallway. That was a DILD, though, so he may have just been near the end of the dream. That's why I'm interested in DEILDs. Aside from being repeatable, they guarantee the full length of a dream, which should be quite a while. Because I'm trying to assure quality for them. Can't settle for any less, after all this time.

[Tewi]

Morning:

I don't know why, but I didn't instantly remember to focus on visualizing as soon as I woke up once last night. Every time took an average of ~10 seconds of being conscious. I hadn't necessarily opened my eyes yet any of those times, but it's less a focus on the waking world and moreso too long without being focused on mental imagery. I was able to remember much more quickly once or twice yesterday. After like seven seconds of not doing the visualization once I've woken up, it just feels like I've already failed and it won't happen. The last time I woke up I went with it regardless, but I spent five minutes doing what was effectively wonderlanding, while nowhere near detached from waking senses. I walked around most of our wonderland, before walking to the strange portal/anomaly-like thing in the bamboo forest that leads to Sylvia's.. "room". Just sort of a dark, purple place with a circle of steps leading to the middle, where there's a few feet wide circle shape in the floor with some water in it, just a few inches deep. That's where we sit to 'talk' to her. I guess putting our feet in the water helps quickly immerse us in the visualization/current environment and not elsewise.

 

Sylvia doesn't so much "talk" to us as help guide our thoughts. At best she speaks in short phrases backed by what you guys know as Tulpish, ie thoughts and ideas much more expansive than the words representing them. So, I asked her what I could do to make DEILDs work and if they even could. She asked if I was committed, and then recommended practicing attempting to DEILD every single time we wake up, establishing the inward visualization as a habit upon waking. She also recommended having some place more detailed than the hallway to start visualizing ourselves in. The very end of the hallway actually has two doors on either side of it before Flan's room, one pink and one blue, with not much other than a bed in them. Lumi made them a long time ago as a place to "wake up into" when lucid dreaming. I suppose that was before he opted to simply walk into the wonderland with a door, and before he gave up on WILDing. It works for DEILDs too though, as I can quickly tie in any associations with lying in our actual bed to the wonderland, giving a place to start the visualization and detachment of the senses.

 

So that's the plan I suppose.

 

---

 

Night:

Time to see how that goes. Building up some sort of tolerance to outside noise, if at all possible, would help a ton. Unless I do it once and it starts getting a whole lot easier, it sure takes some specific conditions and luck to set up a good scenario. I do wonder if we can "learn"/get in the habit of waking up less when we wake up throughout the night. There are times where we're just kind of awake but don't have much trouble falling back asleep, and there are times where we're conscious for maybe seconds at best. And of course sometimes we don't wake up between cycles at all, but we usually do. If not it's typically less than 3 of the cycles in a night. Nights where we go the whole time without waking up are exceptional and noted in this thread.

 

Definitely related, because I am assuredly going to have nightmares about this map - I just beat an Osu map we've been trying to beat for possibly two years now. Because its "difficulty" rating is what would have challenged us, two years ago. But as it turned out, the map just gets worse and worse until it hits a point that it confuses us even now. Low Approach Rate is a lot of the problem, but not all of it. This map was meticulously designed by a sadist.

[video=youtube]

As a matter of fact, none of us had ever seen the last 20 seconds of the song until now, either. I survived it somehow. But can I escape it in my dreams?

 

(In case we've never recorded it before/you've never seen it - you can write in Osu by holding C)

[Tewi]

Day:

Still didn't remember at all. The times I did were too late and visualizing did not work or help.

 

I'm going to talk to each of the others before I go to sleep tonight about what they hope to do in lucid dreams to help remember as I wake up. No idea what I'll do next time.

 

---

 

Night:

Obligations to play a game with a friend that Lumi started are over, maybe I can fix my schedule now. IF I end up completely forgetting every time I wake up like last night, I'll just get up early. Which at this point would mean roughly five hours of sleep. That'd help fix my schedule, though. Either that or decent progress in learning to DEILD. Best to make failure a win-win situation.

[Tewi]

Morning:

Nothing at all. What is even going on? I spent half an hour talking to each of them individually about what they'd do in lucid dreams, ending with Lumi saying it was his entire goal in life, and still nothing. Why have I suddenly lost the ability to remember what I'm doing as soon as I wake up? I couldn't give an exact time for how long it usually takes me to remember, but basically I'm reaching the "awake" state skipping over the foggy thoughts state before it, which is where I need to be attempting to DEILD, not after. I woke up with

playing in my head (lot of swearing), which I'll jokingly say describes the last few nights I've had pretty well.

 

I did have some interesting dreams, though. One of which entailed following our cat around as she looked for something, and another that if I recall correctly was about Lumi and a non-existent love interest trying to avoid some "oppressive bad guy"-type scenarios. They were even rather close physically at one point (I mean literally just lying next to each other), so maybe that was inspired by my conversations with him and Flandre. I can't remember what exactly she looked like, but she might have been blonde. Since Lumi usually doesn't care for blonde hair colors, it might be safe to say her presence in the dream was inspired by Flan.

 

It really is crazy just how convincing fake dream context can be. Lumi certainly knows nobody like the person in the dream, other than maybe Flandre, and yet he felt like he knew her. Unlike the strange series of dreams Sylvia came from however, there was no lasting longing after the dream. She was a special case; Lumi spent an entire night of dreams looking for who he thought was a lost friend, with the last dream being them watching a sunset together, before he realized at the last moment before waking up he was dreaming and she didn't exist. He still felt like he knew her (like a childhood friend), so he hugged her as he woke up, and I guess the connection to her just sort of stuck. Too bad she's even more emotionless than me though. I do consider her more of a mental tool than a tulpa, and "she" doesn't disagree.

 

---

 

Night:

I'd already forgotten about that almost-forgotten dream before reading that again, but that's interesting. I've been doing the retrace-your-memories thing again, before I'd just been reality checking and questioning the context of my environment but apparently that wasn't enough. The straining to remember exact details and sequence of what you've done recently (typically back to the last time you did so each time) may have been what made me remember to DEILD as soon as I woke up, we'll see.

 

Still disappointing that my half-hour talk about everyones' motivations to lucid dream did nothing. Unless I remember to try and DEILD within the foggy thoughts period, I'm just going to get up within six or so hours depending on when I wake up, to fix my schedule. If it looks like there might be a chance of actually DEILD-ing I'll sleep longer. But I'm thinking - for whatever nonspecific reasons - doing this at night would be better. Ironically, it may be louder up until 2AM than the hours leading up to noon...

[Tewi]

Day:

Alright, maybe I'll just stay up all night instead. Interestingly and annoyingly, remembering my dreams was actually distracting me from trying to DEILD as I woke up through the night. Because they were interesting. But that can't stop us from remembering as soon as we wake up. Instant recall is paramount. I'm going to stay up all night to put our schedule where I prefer it, going to sleep in the "late" PMs. Focusing on dreaming though, it's likely to drift forwards from there.

 

Found a song I really like recently.

[video=youtube]

---

 

Morning:

If I can't DEILD I'll WILD. If I can't WILD I'll sit there awake and not sleep anymore. I'm sick of this. No more voluntary sleep once our REM cycles are started. Either I'm staying conscious while the body falls asleep or I'm passing out, but those are the only options. I'm completely done with the body and minds' messing around, and of failing over and over because I'm less than semi-conscious. I'm just going to stay fully conscious now and if the body wants to sleep it'll have to deal. Or I can pass out, that's fair too, but it won't be from lack of determination. Because I'm done with this constant consistent failure.

[Tewi]

8:30PM:

Went to sleep a bit early I guess, but it's a decent leap forward. General mental resistance to sleep might be having the same effect as thinking about dreams during the day, as in it's both helping recall and memory upon waking. I'm getting more comfortable with/used to thinking of myself lying in the wonderland bed instead of the waking one, but I'm still falling asleep and dreaming about other random things. One of my early, blurry (possibly non-REM) dreams felt like it had Suwako in it, and a later one Remilia. I wouldn't say they were actually there, it just felt like they were. Could have to do with my reading a couple chapters of a Touhou comic that focused on Remilia's lost pet (... chupacabra), and talking to Lucilyn before going to sleep.

 

Anyways, that "general resistance to sleep" sounds like a good plan. While it wasn't quite DEILD or WILD levels of focus, I was able to pretty consistently remember to think of myself as in the wonderland, which is what my actual goal is right now. I want to make it a habit to always be doing that while awake between cycles. Even if we never properly DEILD/WILD, if we have a habit of imagining ourself in the wonderland eventually we're going to dream about that randomly. And we've never randomly dreamed about the wonderland before - very strong chance of us being there inducing a Dream-Induced-Lucid-Dream, where you realize you're dreaming mid-dream, since to some extent that's why we created the wonderland in the first place.

 

---

 

26 hours later, apparently:

Going to sleep at 10:30PM. Roughly the same plan, sleep at first, then once I start waking up through the night focus on resisting falling asleep, preferably via maintaining visualization of myself in the wonderland. I've got a small area of it I'm familiar enough with to walk through while half asleep if need be.

[Tewi]

Morning:

Might have been too tired to remember to do things last night. Up until the later hours, even my waking times were more or less fluff thoughts. Later I recalled a few dreams before remembering the wonderland thing, though. I think dream recall and DEILD'ing might be in conflict, here. But hey, I might have a solution for that.

 

So there's typically a point in our later sleep cycles where we're still capable of going back to sleep if we let our mind wander, but otherwise any sort of thinking at all (even random thoughts about random things, if they involve actually thinking) will keep us awake. So perhaps I should practice DEILD'ing earlier in the night, while it's still dark and we're still sufficiently tired to fall asleep, and dream recall later on, when the dreams are more vivid anyways.

 

Even I have to admit, our dreams can be rather interesting. Despite such a huge majority of our time over the last ten years being spent inside on a computer, I think we dream pretty much like anyone else would experience-wise. Our brain takes the experiences we do have and makes an awful lot of them. Lumi grew up in a forest-y town, and that place has been the setting for a huge variety of dreams, for example. I guess what I'm saying is, our brain creates dreams based on our variety of experiences, and not specifically based on how much time we've spent doing what. Lucilyn's one walk through Lumi's hometown may have fueled a lot of dreams, and so on.

 

---

 

Night:

I wonder if melatonin does anything for lucid dreaming for us, when we're actually able to remember dreams and such. I can't remember for sure if we ever tried it during a time of good recall/dream vividity. It definitely didn't help create vividity when it wasn't already there, though. Anyways, going to sleep at the same time today. Plan is still to resist sleep while doing so is hard, and to focus on dream recall when it's not, and preferably continue attempting to visualize myself in the wonderland every time I wake up. Have to keep it to a minimum for later hours though, or I just stay awake.

 

I'm torn between what can be accomplished quickly and what takes time. I want to do things quickly, but it seemed impossible. But relying too much on things happening "over time" will mean I'm not trying as urgently as I was at first. But for something so important - for someone I care about's "most important thing" - I must still consider it urgent. Recalling dreams when I wake up is urgent. Hanging on to consciousness as I fall asleep is urgent. Obsessing over dreaming is urgent... Nothing is more important right now.

[Tewi]

Morning:

I didn't sleep very long for some reason. I woke up for the first time after 5 hours, and then only really slept twice more after that. Thoughts still eventually wander sometime before falling asleep. Not really conscious ones I have memory of, but I know I definitely didn't think of the wonderland into being actually asleep. In my last dream towards the end I was actually lying in bed and at some point did a reality check. It was iffy, like my nose was partially plugged but not entirely, which confused me. I tried to readjust how I was pinching my nose but someone got up in my face to distract me. When I woke up shortly after, my nose was totally fine, so that was strange. The reality check certainly didn't fail as I could tell I could breathe through it, but it didn't feel as clear-as-day as it should, especially when it was fine when I woke up. Oh well.

 

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Night:

Was tired enough to sleep at 4PM and here I am at 1AM. Sigh. I need to stop playing games with Lumi's friends. It's sort of expected from 'me', but it makes keeping a good schedule impossible. I guess I'll just have to be more strict about when I need to sleep to them. And to myself I suppose.

 

[video=youtube]

[Tewi]

Morning:

Slept for 7 or so hours again. Getting up "early" is not that hard if you actually sleep at a normal time. It's not just my willpower or something - the others could do it too if they tried. That was more at them than readers. Anyways, still forgetting completely what I'd been thinking in the short term whenever I wake up - I still remember the wonderland thing at some point, but newer thoughts like "Nothing is more important than lucid dreaming right now" haven't settled in, so they just disappear. So apparently, habits and persistence are more important than short-term willpower alone. This is useful information for sure.

 

---

 

Evening:

Going to sleep rather early, bit tired still. If my schedule is alright for the time being, I'd like to focus again on my now-missing ability to remember what to think as I wake up, and my iffy-at-best dream recall. The recall itself is alright, but the number of dreams is not. But perhaps that's just a side effect of not sleeping 11 hours a night.

[Tewi]

Morning:

Actually had a decent mix of recalled ~vivid dreams and ease of imagining myself in the wonderland. I'm not remembering right as I wake up, but it's getting more comfortable/easy to immerse myself in the wonderland up to 20 seconds after I've woken up without being too focused on the waking world. It definitely seems like a habit thing where it'll just keep getting easier if I keep trying. Just have to make sure I've got the right habits being made.

 

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Night:

Hmm, lot of talking to Ponytail about our pasts today. Anyways, I'm going to sleep. I.. Guess, as urgent as his request was, I can't just make lucid dreaming happen at a moment's notice no matter how hard I try. I might just have to set the path for establishing the habits that will help us accomplish it. The others have reasons to front too (and Ponytail and Annabell really want to talk to Reisen and Flandre), so I don't think I can just front until we succeed. But I know the others have trouble figuring out what to do and how to keep it up as they go, so I'll do my best to at least establish the habits as habits first. When they know what to do they should be fine.