Sophia Schippers

For my weeklong behavioral experiment I choose to train myself to become a lucid dreamer. In order to train myself to become a lucid dreamer I watched myself count to 10 at least two time every night, and I wrote down what i could recall from my dreams as soon as I woke up. The reason I watched myself count my fingers every time I went to sleep was because after I fall asleep and begin to dream, I could help myself become more in control of my dreams. Once I enter REM sleep and begin to dream, I can take control of my dream by telling myself to watch myself count to 10 in my dream. After doing counting to 10, I then realize I am in a dream and I can control what I want to happen. However, this method did not begin to really work for me till the 5th day do to my lack of sleep. Another technique I used to train myself to be a lucid dreamer was to put a note pad and pen right next to my bed. The reason for this was, when I wake up in the morning I could write down what I could recall from my dreams. At the beginning I could only write down a few objects and faces I could recall, but later into the week I was able to write down 2-3 sentences, and by the 5-6 day I was able to remember 2 or 3 full dreams from the night before. The reason I want to write down my dreams was not really for a control method, but it was for me to be able to identify repeating symbols or scene from my dreams. Being able to identify symbols and scenes in my dreams can help me realize when I am in a dream. In doing this, it will make it easier for myself to take control of my dreams. 

The original reason I choose to train myself to be a lucid dreamers was do to time management. Since I had a larger project taking place in my other classes, I figured lucid dreaming only requires small changes to my night and morning routine, and most of the work took place in my sleep. Dreaming itself has always been an interest of mine because my dreams usually are a reflection of what happened in my day, how I am feeling, or it depicts an event that is going to happen. I also always felt that lucid dreaming was something neat to try but I never had the motivation to try my hardest to recall my dreams in the morning or make it a habit to watch myself count my fingers every night. I had learned these small techniques from a blogger who has gone through lucid training himself, Tim Post. He posted on snoozon in the past and had shared what techniques worked best for him and why. Post not only wrote down hit dreams, but he also drew an image of each dream helping him remember exactly what his dream looked like. 

After a weeks worth of Lucid dream training, I feel that I am still not very good a taking control of my dreams, but I have definitely seen improvement. For example, I am able to vividly remember most of my dreams when I wake up, and I can now distinguish patterns and symbols in my dreams to help me take control of them more. Being able to count to ten in my dreams is still a challenge, but I can recall myself thinking about doing it or looking at my hand. Lucid dream training is a process, but if you are consistent and take the time to adopt small habit into your nightly/daily routines, becoming a lucid dreamer is not hard to achieve.

The images below are small excerpts of me trying to recall my dream as vividly as I can. On the fist picture depicted, I had woken up around 3 am and scribbled down small words, thinking I could build on my word I had written down in the morning, but to my surprise I had no recollection of these dreams the following day. The next picture, I had woken up that morning and was about to recall very little from my previous dream, but I had made progress by being able to create a full sentence and recall small parts of multiple dreams I had throughout the night. Finally, In the last image I was able to recall at least one dream vividly. I was able to remember the dream so vividly, I was able to draw a small picture. When I look back at these notes I am befuddled at what I wrote, but I do find my dreams a bit humorous because many of these small word or sentences make me wonder what was going through my head that night.