Re: A little stuck!

[TheOnerous]

I've been focusing on becoming conscious in dreams (aka DILD) and I'm becoming unstuck at a certain point. I'm regularly (about one in three nights, I'd say) remembering to ask if I'm dreaming in a dream, then I do a nose pinch RC, then REGARDLESS OF THE RESULT OF THE NOSE PINCH I just carry on in the dream and miss an opportunity to become lucid. It's frustrating, but also it's a positive that I'm regularly remembering about lucidity in dreams, but I want to move on. Any ideas?

[12padams]

Lol you need to do what I do

Basically think of key words in your plan of action. An example of this for me would be "unit 102". As soon as you do a reality check or become consious make sure you instantly repeat the key words aloud or mentally over and over as you prepare to perform your plan of action.

Below are some examples taken from my own phase experiences in which I become conscious while dreaming and then recall my key words while attempting my plan. Obviously these are not the full experiences but instead snippets from the ones in my book "Teenage Phase Adventures".

Day 203:

While standing in my dark bedroom I lifted my right hand up and tightly pinched my nose. With great anticipation I took a deep breath in through my pinched nose and felt cold air run down the back of my throat. “I'm in the phaseâ€

[Summerlander]

Perhaps once in a while ask yourself the question "Am I dreaming?" during the phase, so that, in case you fall into a dream, you'll have more chances of returning to the phase.  Just repeating the question should be enough to prevent you from falling asleep.

Yesterday morning, after taking the kids to school, I went down and fell asleep.  At the next awakening, I failed to separate but saw some fleeting images. I passively observed them and experienced a floating sensation.  I was hovering, I felt, a few inches from the bed.  I thought, "I want to go higher". I did and then landed a couple of feet away from my bed.  But I didn't have a POA...

Well, I sorta did.

I planned to have an aesthetic phase experience within the confines of that abode simulation and brush up on my deepening and maintaining skills.  Vision was blurry and then I lost it completely so I raised my hands to my face (the recommended 4-6 inches) and began to rub them.  Vision returned with crystal clarity.

I started dancing rhythmically as I rubbed and watched my hands.  They were hyperreal like you would never see anything like it in the physical world.  I could make out wrinkles, fingerprints that were highly reflecting pale light coming from a nearby window, and I had nails like the Oriental dude from Pirates of the Caribbean (the one starring Keith Richards).

My mission was to experience as many sensations as I could and I didn't even want to leave the house.  To me, there was plenty I could do there.  I took my time palpating my body, feeling the texture of my dark blue tracksuit bottoms and some funny-looking brown, red and green socks that I had never seen before.  I proceeded to touch the carpet and then, as I went on all fours, furniture, and, out of the bedroom into the hallway to lick walls and grip the banister.

I started to count and heard myself counting when I looked at my reflection in the mirror (larger than in reality and slightly curved).  I laughed because, I was naked, and yet, paradoxically, I could still feel clothes on me with my hands. LOL!  I stopped counting at "7" (as I observed the detailed beauty in the phase).  Behind my reflected self I could see what was behind me: the doorway and my bedroom interior in fine detail.

I looked away from the mirror and back and my naked self was gone.  Great!  Marvellous, I'm like a vampire now.  I went through the mirror without closing my eyes and experienced some surface resistance.  I touched the walls of a room that existed inside that mirror.  Then I paused to think (mistake) about where to go in the house.  I fouled...

I could perceive the bed beneath me and my wife moving in her sleep next to me.  Then it hit me... what if these sensations are fake?  what if I'm still in the phase?  I got up aggressively and could see straight away.  I looked at the bed and saw my wife rise up and look at me with an expression of concern.  For a sec I thought I had just got up physically and that my wife was thinking I'd just had a nightmare.  I looked at my hands but they looked normal... "ahh... fuck!"  I thought.  So I said to my wife: "Babe, I was trying to separate but..." and I stopped and looked at her...

She hadn't said a word but she looked alive and like she was listening.  "I'm in the phase, ain't I?" - she smiled and nodded.  "You could have fooled me!" - I added.  I started rubbing my hands together and, as I was leaving the bedroom, an old lady emerged from a corner of the room and went to sit next to my wife.  I heard her telling my wife: "Don't worry about him!  He likes to be in the phase... it doesn't even feel like a dream, it feels real!"

To me that was weird and comical seen as both of them were elements of the phase space.  I went to my boys' room and saw that they weren't there.  Their white wardrobe was missing but I did see another which doesn't exist in the real world.  It was one of the most beautiful furniture units I've ever seen!  The wood was nicely varnished, highly reflective, and it had strange glass doors that were limpid beyond belief.

I looked at the white ceiling and it was bumpy, curved and like it was made of plaster fabric.  I raised my hands and tried to reach it and something peculiar happened...  Instead of levitating to the ceiling as would be expected, I remained grounded but my torso began to stretch.  I was turning into a sausage and I could feel it!!!  Soon I was feeling the ceiling fabric with my fingers.  I could even feel my muscles tense... "I'm SOOO in this world" I thought.

As I was leaving the room I noticed writing on a wall.  I stopped in my tracks and went back in.  The letters were like magnets on a refrigerator but they appeared to be made of red wood.  At first glance it read: "NEVER CALL ARLINDO, NOT EVER AGAIN"

I was baffled by this and later, in the waking state, I would speculate that perhaps my unconscious mind, the one that has a tendency to cause us phasers to fall asleep and takes charge of non-lucid dream states, was perhaps expressing itself in its inability to overcome my higher state of consciousness.  I must've been firmly grounded in the Gamma brainwave frequency (the phase state 'signature').

Then, the more I stared at the words, the more they changed.  I saw hieroglyphics and complex tribal symbols of some sort.  they kept changing until they disappeared.  I left the room to go back to mine and see if it was still the same as when I had left it.  It appeared to be the same and my wife was there, asleep.  I noticed that the bed frame was made of wood instead of metal and the bed's length was slightly greater than in actuality.  I had the crazy idea of stretching the bed even more with my bare hands, a preliminary action for what I was about to do to Stacey... and it worked!  Stretching the bed was like easily stretching something made of plasticine.  I now had enough bed surface for a jolly roll-around with my wife who was up, semi-naked and ready.

What followed is perhaps a little crude to be described here in detail but I will attempt to capture the beauty of it instead.  There was a lot of jumping in bed as my wife held onto me.  Movement would slow down when I wished to capture the intensity of particular moments.  Because of this, I was able to reach orgasm... and it lasted as moon-like gravity took over and I wowed the lucid sight of reflectively luminescent crystalline droplets erupting from my sex in slow motion to fall majestically on the bed.  I still tried to have sexual intercourse with Stacey after that but I fumbled as all of a sudden I had clothes on and eventually I fouled.

The point of the story (apart from an attempt to inspire you) is that I had a good time within the confines of my 'house' - where I did not rush anything, took my time deepening and maintaining, managed to reenter, and defeated the unconscious trying to take over.  Stay confident that you will stay in charge and maintain it.  This also applies to the conscious dreaming method because it leads to the same state after all.

Good luck, TheOnerous!

[TheOnerous]

Hey Twelvey

I think I will try that. I will have a think about it today and let you know what I've decided to try.

I love the way you write about your phase experiences, by the way. So full of life. Mine (the actual dream content I don't usually share on my blog on here because I want my blog to be quite punchy and a reflection of how my experimenting is helping my progress) is quite dry in comparison.

The way I become lucid and the way the nose pinch works for me has changed. In the past, it was often the case that as soon I remembered the subject of dreaming I would become lucid straight away and the nose pinch was just a back up. Now - more recently - I have been in dreams and have more or less said to myself "I SHOULD ask myself if it's a dream and RC but I don't need to right now because this is real." And when I have nose pinched the result hasn't always been conclusive: I've had the problem others have had where a little air trickles through and I decide it's real life and I'm not pinching my nose hard enough.

[TheOnerous]

Summer

Great account. I like the way you play the role of an observer and also the way you note the fascinating little changes where the brain gets the details "wrong". I believe I'm stuck in something of a rut as far as entering the phase is concerned. I believe this will end as soon as I get a reasonable detailed phase experience. At the moment I'm happy with the amount of phase-related content in my dreams - a sign I'm making progress - but some kind of block is stopping me taking the next step.

[Summerlander]

At the moment I'm happy with the amount of phase-related content in my dreams - a sign I'm making progress

That's good.  Memory and intention are very important and play a massive role in the dream consciousness method.  This is why Stephen LaBerge is so successful with his MILD technique.

I believe in no time you will overcome your "block".  Don't worry if your dream-initiated phase experience reverts to the dream state so quickly.  this failure will help you to identify the problem at the root.  Think about the failures and what you could have done at the time.  Also think about why you let go of your conscious awareness.  Revising SOBT on that matter may also help.

Good luck!