why?

[fredhedd]

when you try to prolong the experience it usually means you are consciously trying to not think about it ending.  any thought about the experience ending or about your physical body will usually start to cause fluctuations that will bring you back very quickly.  it's hard to keep your calm in that moment when you first realize that you are lucid.  w/ practice you can eventually learn to control yourself.  there are some techniques for maintaining lucidity at www.lucidity.com.  when you are non-lucid it's easy to keep calm because you are usually so caught up in whatever you are doing that you don't realize you are dreaming.

[Frank]

Yes, Fred, I'll second that. It's basically due to your level of conscious awareness. With next to no awareness, say, with just the bare level of knowing that you are dreaming you still tend to just roll along with the dream. As it's the uncontrolled release of thought-release-emotion that creates and fuels the dream: for as long as your thoughts continue along the same lines, then the subsequent dream will continue along those lines.

But if your sense of awareness develops to the point where your thoughts become interrupted, say, you begin to question about something or other, then the dream will become interrupted. Simply because it was your previous uncontrolled train of thought that was creating the dream.

This is also one of the techniques I advise people to try in order to determine whether what they are experiencing is merely a lucid dream, or the Astral proper. All you need to do is fix your mind on one particular aspect of your surroundings and ask yourself a clear question about it. Anything that subsequently begins to dissipate was merely a dream, and anything that remains is Astral reality.

Yours,
Frank

[alfa_33au]

Hi all,

Im impressed! My experiences coincide with what Frank and Fred have described.
Its amazing how practice can keep you there longer.
I find i end mine, with the thought of 'id better get back now'.
But too soon!
The other night, upon turning to return, i saw fragments of what could have been my silver cord.  Could not see where it was attached to me, probably because i didnt focus on looking there, but could see it a few feet away.  Is this possible?

Thanks
Paola

[AndrewTheSinger]

Thanks for the replies, it is relieving to hear that. I would hate to belive my friend was right.

I also visited the lucidity website and downloaded some of the texts, they are very helpful.

Best regards.

[AndrewTheSinger]

Why do non-lucid dreams seem to last longer than astral projections and lucid dreams? Does it have to do with resolution? My friend suggested it would be sorta like a long film with poor quality, and a short hi-fi one, in the end they take up the same space. What do you people think?