Well, CosmicIron, clearly I did not realize I was speaking to a LD'ing authority, and should have tempered my opinions in deference to your great experience, or perhaps not spoken at all.  Shame on me!  But speak I did, so I'll respond; I'm sorry in advance if my experiences do not correspond directly to yours, and apparently the thousands of LD'ers you've worked with in your long career.

Originally Posted by CosmicIron:
How can you "enjoy" a lucid dream if it only lasts minutes, if not seconds, especially after you have put in great effort to make it happen?  I simply do not see the logic behind that.

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I never said there was logic in it, just that great things can happen in even the shortest of time s -- unless you miss those great things because someone told you to crawl around on the floor to make your dream last longer.  Also, if you truly put great, and correct, effort into your preparation for a LD session, odds are already excellent that you'll achieve commensurate results -- to put all that effort into the dream, and then to miss the experience of it because you're still busy putting in effort after the dream started seems a bit of a slap in the face to all that effort.  I really am surprised that a person of your professed experience holds the opinion that there can be no value in a short LD. Truly odd.

  Let's face this; pre-mature termination of lucid dreams and abrupt false awakenings during an LD is common among even very experienced lucid dreamers.  The stabilization routines provided here do not take long to execute, but they will immensely extend the duration of the dream, and at the same time, help increase the user's lucidity, self-awareness (which as you pointed out is an important factor for the overall experience), and quality of the dream constructs.

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  All true, and I don't think I was disagreeing with any of that in the first place.... Save for one bit: can you share with us how stabilization routines increase self-awareness?  I've found that most routine-based techniques (aka, all of them) tend to separate you from your self-awareness, not increase it.  I suppose I could be wrong...

From you're saying you are essentially declaring the entire subject (extending lucid dreams durations) unnecessary...
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As an end in itself, absolutely.  If there is a way to extend the length of an LD without making the extension itself the priority, and I'm sure there are several, then have at it. But dropping everything for the sake of a few more seconds of a dream simply does not make sense to me... in fact, to me that seems counter-intuitive.

  The truth is, not all LDers have 2k+ lucid dreams in their life, and they can certainly benefit from every bit and pieces of information which may help them extend the duration of their precious lucid dreams.

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Fair enough, and certainly true.  I was simply tying to point out -- especially to the folks whose LD's might only last a few seconds -- that all is not lost if their dreams are short.  Extend away, but don't abandon the glory of the dream for the sake of a few more seconds of crawling on the floor. It's the LD that is precious, and not its duration.  Now that I think about it, to tell newbies that their dreams must be long to be significant is both disingenuous and potentially hazardous to their development.  That doesn't seem like a good thing to me.

  As a side note, I do not know how you manage having very long LDs while NEVER practice any stabilizing techniques.  To my knowledge, even the most experienced LDers need the help of stabilization techniques; they just sometimes perform them intuitively, like a second nature.  I have had many thousands of LDs throughout 20+ years of research and practice, yet I cannot make such bold claim that stabilization techniques are unnecessary.  If you have a secret to that then please share with us.

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No secret.  You could be right in that I am stabilizing somehow, intuitively, and have no idea I'm doing it.  Personally, I don't believe that.  I think it's more that in a  LD I am comfortable with my presence in the dream and really don't even give much thought to losing lucidity.  After all, if my lucidity is  and I lose it (which happens a lot), I am confident, in the dream, that I'll gain it back shortly (which also happens a lot).  This "ability" comes, I think, not from some secret technique but from a careful lifelong development of self-awareness and memory, and a certain blending of those things with confidence and expectation before and during the dream. Also, I don't consider it a "bold claim" to say there's no real need to crawl on the floor, shout, abandon reason, and all those other things just to have a LD of decent length.  Not so bold at all, I think; maybe even a bit pedestrian.  Indeed, it's really odd that this has never occurred to you over those many thousands of LD's and while working with all those thousands of LD'ers...you'd think my approach would have popped up somewhere.  

BTW, I have never seen ANYONE, despite the fact that I have worked with thousands of LDers, with the ability to have LDs that last "hours"; from a physiological point of view it is simply not possible.  Again, you must have a secret if what you are saying is accurate.

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Wow. I've "worked" with maybe a hundred actual LD'ers in my life, with only a small handful of them being arguably advanced, and yet quite a few have had LD's that lasted for an hour or more -- some as long as four or five hours.  Perhaps you're moving in the wrong circles?  

I really don't know what to say here, as your stance is very confusing.  Someone with the experience you profess to have should be an adept at stretching the outer limits of a REM cycle alone by now; not denying, in caps, the possibility of doing it.  You must know by now that a REM cycle can last an hour on its own if you've got enough hours of sleep behind you.  Yet you do not; very odd.  

That leads me to how very long LD's work, physiologically:  yes, your REM cycles limit dream time, but it is possible to "jump" REM cycles, especially during LD sessions occurring after at least eight hours of sleep.  How?  By sensing that wakefulness is coming soon (I usually hear my breath, or my white noise machine in the background of the dream), and preparing to "hold on" to your dream and self-awareness while the brief pause of wakefulness passes.  This is not hard to do, with practice, and is very similar to the DEILD technique.  So, physiologically, you can both bypass the sleep cycle and potentially extend REM for quite some time beyond "natural" limits.  Again, I find it odd that someone with your vast experience does not know this, since a lot of us do it all the time. It is not a secret.

I understand that you feel that these techniques have value, CosmicIron; and they certainly do.  But to decide for us all that they are the only solution and all others, regardless of others' experience, must be wrong, and then to assume for us that our opinions are wrong seems sort of short-sighted, and not indicative of the experience you claim to have. Odd  

Nina:

First, an apology:  I'm sorry that your first post to me had to be one forged in negativity; I really like reading your posts, and had hoped that we would meet under more happy conditions.  I'm also sorry that you wasted so many words on something I have no real problem with -- my problem was with CosmicIron's overall stance and attitude, and I was trying to dig beneath it; I'm fine with stabilization techniques and, as Mr. Iron noted above, I  even practice them myself.  

Now:

Originally Posted by nina:
Sageous, no disrespect intended, but I find it difficult to understand your logic in disfavoring stabilization techniques. In fact, I can't help thinking that what you've said is a bit contradictory. You appreciate how amazing a few seconds of an LD can be, yet scoff at the idea of spending a few more seconds to stabilize the LD, in order to obtain even more seconds of lucid wonder. When you feel your LD fading out, maybe you just let yourself wake up, but for me personally, taking a few seconds to use a stabilization technique, and then extending the LD for another 10 minutes or so, is worth it to me...and I consider it one hell of a pay off.

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Don't worry, I'm fairly immune to offense.  As I already said, I do not disfavor stabilization techniques -- any process that can extend the experience of an LD is most welcome, and would be worth mastering.  What I disfavored was CosmicIron's contention that the stabilization technique was all that mattered.  It seemed to me -- and he did not deny -- that he thought it was more important to stabilize the dream than it was to participate in it. That deserved comment, I thought.

In the name of consistency, if you've read my posts here, you'll remember that I have often voiced my concern about making techniques -- especially WILD -- the goal, rather than using them as a tool for lucidity.   I consistently have no problem with the tools of the trade -- I use them (all, apparently) all the time, but I do have a problem, and will shout about it every time, when I see those tools turned into the trade.  That is wrong, and possibly very misdirecting. All I could imagine was some 14-year-old newbie leaving behind his newfound interest in lucid dreaming because he thought it would be something more than crawling on the floor and staring at small objects. So I asked the question: which is more important, a great short LD, or a slightly longer LD where the only thing brought home from it is a 10-minute struggle to stay lucid?  My bad, I suppose, but I'm likely to do it again.

So no, I do not scoff the idea of spending a little more time in a LD, I value that deeply, and using stabilization techniques as you describe them -- as tools for extending the LD -- is a most welcome thing.  I may not use those techniques myself (and have a real problem with things like abandoning reason, ignoring my sleeping body, and, of course, potentially disrupting the entire fabric of the dream by crawling on the floor), but that doesn't mean I don't think the idea of stabilization is a good thing -- which I believe I said somewhere up there.  No, I scoff at those who raise techniques above the dream, and tell me I'm wrong for asking why this is so.

  It's certainly not missing the point, in fact, it exists solely to allow LDers to be able to spend more time doing exactly what they love, having fun, learning, and growing in LDs. How is taking 5 seconds to stabilize, then getting several minutes of amazing lucid as a result of stabilizing..."miserable"?

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It is not, and if CosmicIron had offered that paragraph to me, my posts here would have been much different.  Again, I understand stabilization, and 5 seconds -- even 10 -- of it to add another 10 minutes of dream seem a no-brainer.  Had CosmicIron responded that succinctly, without lecturing me about how wrong I was and how right he was because of all his thousands of LD's and all the thousands of LD'ers he'd "worked with," and then deem my "claim" of long LD's a lie, I likely would have done a mea culpa and stepped away.  But he did not, and I did not.  Sorry for that -- but it really had nothing to do with stabilization. Also, it would have been nice, I suppose, if I had succeeded in making my point that there are such things as excellent short LD's and they can be forgotten if overridden by attempts to ressucitate them. Not sure it would have made a difference here, but it would have been nice.

Actually, it IS possible, and I've done it, many times. I have had nights where I spent up to 4 hours at a time lucid dreaming. This is possible physiologically because REM is not the ONLY time that we dream. People can also dream in NREM, the dreams are just no where near as vivid or dreamlike as REM, but there have been many times when I have been lucid dreaming for a whole REM period, then enter a period of NREM, and continue to dream, and during NREM I seem to have a lot of OBE-type dreams, but I stay completely lucid and eventually enter another REM period, which usually comes quickly (I think I am somehow forcing my brain into REM by focusing on forming a dream and stimulating certain areas of my brain). The longest I have done this for is 4 hours, and I've done it several times.

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Thank you.  I hope that CosmicIron is still reading, and wonder if he will contradict you as well, in the same tone.
But during that 4 hours I used stabilization techniques quite often...sometimes every minute, sometimes every 5, 15, or 30 minutes, depending on where I am in my REM cycle and how easy it is for my mind to remain in the dream. But again, what's a few seconds...when this means your dream is going to last another several seconds, minutes, or hours? I cannot understand why anyone would chose NOT to use stabilization methods, unless they can magically have lucid dreams that last hours with using any stabilization methods...in which case, they would be an exception, as I have never heard of this before.

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I think I've said this enough, and I'm not sure if you're still reading, but:  I agree completely with everything you say here.  I am truly sorry that I led you to believe that I choose not to use stabilization methods -- I use them often.  My methods may be much different than those listed, but that does not mean there is anything wrong with those listed (except where I noted already).  Again, what I chose was to make the dream, and my experience of it, the priority, and nothing more.  If that experience can be extended by a bit of hand-rubbing, then fine, rub away...but if the hand-rubbing becomes the dream, then I think a question ought to be raised.

I don't think you understand. This is not for the sake of a few more seconds of crawling on the floor, or in my case, examining my hands or using verbal commands...it is because the stabilization technique will allow you to remain in your precious LD for even longer, and increase its clarity. When I sense my LD fading out, that I'm going to wake up, or things become blurry, I use a stabilization technique, and instead of waking up...I am then able to remain in my LD for several more minutes, and as a result of stabilization, the LD is also crystal clear, extremely vivid and highly enjoyable. So what you label as counter-intuitive, is very counter-intuitive to me.

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I do understand.  You.  Had CosmicIron used your words and tone, I likely would never have posted.
While I dislike your overall sardonic tone towards CosmicIron, I agree with what you've said here.
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  For what it's worth, I disliked my overall sardonic tone too; sometimes it is unavoidable, at least for me.  

Sorry again for eliciting all those words from you, Nina, they were not, in the end necessary (though they certainly were appreciated).  And, if you're still with me, sorry you had to read all these words here, as I feel I spent most of my time repeating myself. I fear that I may have wasted all of our time by reacting poorly to CosmicIron; I'll try next time to leave things like this lie.  

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie:
Did you feel any fatigue after that, did it take effort? I'm wondering if it's possible to have fully restful sleep after 4 hours of lucid dreaming.

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For what it's worth, I just came off a 2-1/2 to 3 hr LD session and my head is pounding and I'm exhausted (I am in a really good mood, though).  I think this response sort of corresponds to what Nina said about her afternoon naps, as the session was well after my night's sleep. Oh, and yes, the last hour or so was a long series of hard-fought extensions, so there was definitely some effort; if that was what you meant.

Since it happened this morning, I thought I'd throw it in, even if a bit late.  

Nina:

I should have mentioned this earlier -- like after you said it, but Ctharlhie makes an excellent point about the sleep yoga thing:

I'm sure you already know this, but if you are able to carry your awareness through NREM, you're effectively practicing dream yoga. If you are able to essentially WILD right when you go to bed at night, carry your awareness through that first long stretch of delta phase sleep (NREM), and then through the night, you are indeed experiencing sleep yoga.

This is significant, and I think it would be nice if you might lend your experiences to Hermine_Hesse's (my favorite moniker here, BTW) Dream Yoga Experiences thread.  Dream yoga is an achievement in itself, but if you're doing sleep yoga, even accidentally or occasionally, I think we'd all win if we could both hear about and pick your brain about your experiences.  Especially me, because sleep yoga is a long-term project of mine. So I guess my request is a bit self-serving... oh well.  Plus, if those monks living in Tibetan caves trying to just master sleep yoga have computers (and I'd bet some do) happen read about it, it'll really piss 'em off!

So if you have the time, it would be great if you could share.  Sorry I didn't ask earlier!