Waking up from LDs because of 'excitement'

[kozzi]

Most people are not talking about excitement due to some incredible event during a dream.  The excitement generally referred to is of realizing that you're dreaming and being amazed at the feeling and clarity of the experience.  I will generally have a hard time controlling my excitement upon realizing that I'm dreaming.  I have to keep telling myself to calm down or I will come out of the lucid dream or OBE very quickly.  Of course, there are methods that can supposedly help control this, but I've not had enough experience to try those methods.    

Kozzi

[bennypr2002]

If my memory serves me, you dont wake up from getting excited about a certain event, you wake up when your contious mind gets to excited. When expiriencing dreams while not lucid, your contious mind is not involved. When you become lucid your contious mind becomes involved and thats when lucid dreams get cut short.

-Benny

[Nick]

Regarding the excitement part while in a lucid dream, I've experienced it too. Recently when I was in a lucid dream I decided to try jumping off a high place and "float" down. The experience went as planned until I was about halfway down and then I woke up.

When I read EXPLORING THE WORLD OF LUCID DREAMING by Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold they talked about this phenomena. Apparently, it is common at first to wake up during a lucid dream because you get excited. They write that in time it isn't much of a problem.

Their website is nice to explore:

http://lucidity.com/index.html


Very best,

[Athios]

"When you become lucid your contious mind becomes involved and thats when lucid dreams get cut short."
So the difference is conciousness, hmm......interesting.  []

quote:Originally posted by Nick
Apparently, it is common at first to wake up during a lucid dream because you get excited. They write that in time it isn't much of a problem.

That's good to know!!  []

[Makaveli]

I've messed up a lot of LDs by getting too excited.  Once I realise I'm dreaming I usually can't get it to last more then 10 seconds.  Lately I've been screwing them up because I get lazy.  This morning I became conscious in a dream which lasted a few seconds but for some reason I willingly decided that I would rather wake up, after getting up I banged my head against the wall and couldn't figure out why I would give that up.

[Spirit_k9]

2 big reasons for losing a lucid dream are a sudden lack of focus, and a conflict in what's going on in the LD and what physical reality allows a person to do (ie; floating can't be done in the physical so the mind rejects it)

When I first started LD'ing, the first few times anyway, I'd excite myself right out of it. I'd think "wow, I'm dreaming and I have control, whoot whoot!" and then I'd be awake and miffed. What happened there wasn't so much the excitement as it was a LOSS OF FOCUS. You cannot remain lucid without focus in the dream.

The initial excitement will pass as you LD a few times, but the focus issue remains. When you become used to focusing the second issue regarding the conflict of the waking mind and the possibilities in the dreamworld sort of level out, allowing even more focus.

Here's a trick I've come to learn and utilize when lucid dreaming to improve focus; when lucid and calm, start turning around slowly like a spinning top. Maintain your focus throughout this exercise. If you start to lose focus stop spinning and get your composure, then start again. This will accomplish several things....

- You begin to realize that you are not facing 'one' direction when you dream, you can take in all that is 'around' you and oddly enough, this makes it EASIER to focus because you aren't getting buried in the details of ONE thing. Focus becomes easier and the spinning sensation will cease, but you will be -more- aware.

- Your surroundings disappear, allowing you to construct your own dream, or allow another to seep in. You'll also eventually come to realize that this LD realm is a wonderful place from which to launch other experiences. Knowing then that you are inside your own mind, you now have the ability to exit, not as an astral body, rather then as a point of awareness only. (this leads to a completely different subject tho)

- The conflicts between the mindset of the physical and the dreamworld will eventually disappear as you become used to manipulating yourself in the dream world. The spinning enhances and speeds up this realization, why, I'm not sure.

Worked for me anyway []

[Athios]

Yeah, you're right, my mind just tends to wander a little bit after I realize I'm dreaming...  [|)]

Thanks for the detailed explanation of the spinning thing.
I've tried it before, but it was just blindly spinning without purpose. Worked to extend my LD for about 10 seconds, then it ended anyway.  []
I'll try it with focus in mind.

[Athios]

Wow, it's been quite a while since I've visited the Astral Pulse forums...  [|)]

Anyway, I had a question about 'excitement'.
I often see people (myself included actually) claim that they woke up from an LD because they were 'too excited'. It seems to be make sense at first, but is this a legitimate reason?

The reason I ask is that I often feel excited in dreams. Whenever I fall, when I have to fight something, or in the extremely rare sex dream []. I'm certainly very excited when I have these kinds of dreams. But I never get woken up halfway through having them.

So....what makes this normal, dream-excitement different from the LD-excitement?