Got a few seconds of spontaneous lucid dream last night before my brain shunted me back to normal dreaming. After going lucid, the first thing I tried was a reality check different from those posted here (at least, I don't think it was from here); essentially using just your tongue to attempt to block your breathing, similar to the 'pinch test' described here. A hands-free test, using your tongue as if you were swallowing, since that normally blocks the airway. Turns out that is not a good reality check, as, oddly enough, it acts exactly the same as in reality (and thus is useless as a test case). Which I suppose isn't that surprising, given that's fairly hardwired behavior, and so if anything could be done correctly, things like that would be it.
Might be because it, in fact, made you swallow IRL. A common thread in some of my (non-lucid so far) dreams is things like feeling my arms being extraordinarily weak or choking, then waking up, which are likely caused by RL-feedback on the dream (I have a massive horizontal scar slightly below my ribs which makes it uncomfortable to sleep on my back).
Arms being weak is a common occurrence in my dreams, too: just last night, I had a dream where I was in a Super Smash Bros Brawl game, and I tried to throw a Smart Bomb at another player, but I couldn't throw hard enough to make it explode, and he just kept coming at me, laughing at my weak and pitiful attempts to save myself, and I knew that I had no chance of beating him and that Smart Bomb had been my last hope but but it just bounced off of him...
Yeah, my dreams where I have weak arms are usually scary.
I didn't post a log yesterday, because I didn't do anything, but for continuity's sake I decided to have a log for every day.
Shadowhammer's log, day 7I did not attempt to lucid dream. I did not lucid dream.
Shadowhammer's log, day 8I intentionally made myself cold in order to keep myself from dozing off. This strategy, henceforth known as 'The Chill Gambit', was successful, and I was able to do FILD without falling asleep until I decided I wanted to.
I stayed awake using FILD for approximately an hour. At this time, I decided to simply fall asleep, hoping to replicate the success I experienced the first night that I did that.
However, immediately after I had made up my mind to do so, I felt as though a large electric shock went through me*: I felt a jolt of energy course from my toes to my head, and every muscle in my body clenched for a fraction of a second. I also heard the 'bzrap' noise that is comically associated with electric things, except instead of sounding silly, it sounded SO COOL. It did not hurt. I thought, "Awesome! Hallucinations!", and then realized, "Wow, I sound like such a druggy."
*I haven't ever experienced a severe electric shock (worst one I've had was the static-electricity-Van-De-Graph-machine-holding-hands-in-a-circle experiment in grade nine science class) so I am not sure whether this is actually what it feels like.After this, I waited another while, and then decided to go to sleep. While I was waiting, I heard rodents in the attic and my parents walking around.
After falling asleep, I dreamed that I was playing Guitar Hero, but the music was gradually being replaced by an annoying throbbing whine. I realized I was dreaming, and decided to "attempt to enter into or manipulate the hallucinations" by making the frequency of the throbbing increase and decrease. I was successful in doing so, and eventually decided to simply make it a continuous low-pitched whine instead of the irritatingly high pitched pulsing.
I recall something about deciding that I wanted to have a sci-fi dream in space, but am uncertain if that was psychological retcon, or if I actually changed the dream from my basement to space.
The next thing I solidly remember is being in a small spacecraft, dodging laser blasts from a much larger enemy craft. I said something to the effect of, "Nice lasers, bro!" (not exact wording) and then summoned a fleet of my allies from hyperspace or warp or whatever. It was a really awesome looking fleet. As with before, I am uncertain whether I used dream sorcery to make the fleet appear, or whether it was simply an event in the dream.
After that, I was in my kitchen, looking at the night sky and vividly envisioning the massive amount of dakka that my fleet was unleashing on the enemy ship. I then remember deciding, "Hey, wait a minute, I should be in one of those ships!" and attempting to change dream perspective. I believe that I was successful in moving my consciousness back to my spacecraft, bu I am not certain because that is when the dream ended.
Tonight I will attempt to do almost the exact same thing. However, I notcied that my estimation of the time that had passed while doing FILD was significantly off: it had been only an hour when I guessed it to be an hour and a half. To prevent a gradual slide in the length that I spend FILDing, I will make sure to continue doing it until well past the time that I think is sufficient.