Thread: Active Vs Passive (Lesson 1)

Alright, as far as control goes, there seems to be two main categories that people like to put it in, Active and Passive. I feel like this is more of a definition of different dream controls as opposed to a category, but I think that learning the difference is a good step in dream control. I think that many people think that passive is a small category, but I honestly think that it is one of the best ways to control a dream.

I will use the simple act of controlling fire to talks about different ways that you can use dream control. Different types of dream control and categories. You should see what I mean about active and passive here. It is generally good to figure out what you are good at and use that to your advantage in deciding what to do.

Universe Control
Going to a certain universe (or person, place, or thing) in order to accomplish a task. In order to use fire, I am going to say I want to go to Aang (from Avatar the Last Airbender). The reason that he is a good one is that he has 5 different powers (fire, air, water, earth, and spirit), so it would be a good idea to continue visiting him for different elements or a good meditation session.

Active
I can summon Aang or just teleport to him. Then I can just have him teach me and follow his command. Doing what he says and watching him do it should be an easy way to accomplish this! If you are good at following what DCs do, this should be good and easy for you.

Passive
alright, passive can be done many ways with this, but you really need to lock down your strengths for this. For instance. Obviously you will need to teleport to or summon him. When you get him, have him use fire and then you can posses him (if you posses this ability) and you will already be controlling it via the possession. Or have him posses you and control fire with your body. The first one is easier if you can do it, but the second one relies more on the DC.

Item Control
Also Passive, but can be active if need be, or can start out active and move to passive or vice versa
So you might need to teleport or summon for this, but what you need is one of two things (1) something that can create fire or (2) something that can allow you to create fire.

With (1) you are looking at something like a flame thrower. Either go to where a flame thrower is, or summon one. This can turn to you controlling it if you start with a flame thrower and then concentrate on the flames and switch to controlling it with your hands when you have a feel. basically cut out the middle man after using it. This may take some practice, but it is a very good thing with LDing to learn how to stop something from existing by basically having 1-2-3 in your mind and then focus solely on 1-3 and making 2 completely disappear. Now this is actually a rare form of it going from passive to active control, but you gain more hands on control in the process, because though a flame thrower is fun, it is nothing compared to how awesome it is to control with your hands.

With (2) you might need to teleport or summon something. I would generally go with something like this:
Tsuna has some gloves that start out like this

and then when he puts his energy into it, they turn into this:

Now this is a form of passive and active since his gloves automatically turn energy into fire. So if you can move energy, this would be good.
Or you can always go with a mustang approach with these gloves:

Obviously controlling fire is generally going to start with gloves. There are some swords I know as well. You will want to pick something you know very well. For instance, tsuna's gloves shoot straight from his hands, but with a snap, mustang can cause an explosion quite far away, but they won't work when wet. It is good to keep the charade up and keep all the strengths and weaknesses. His just seem to use his knowledge of fire, mark on his glove, as well as his flint on his gloves. So it should be almost completely passive control. Just snap and boom.

Shift Control
Lets say you are good at something like water control. Two major ways pop into my head. One is passive and the other is active

Active
Depending on your ability to control water, you would want to use it to control water and make it look like a flame. Then you look away and say something like "I am controlling flames" it could be changed. Or you could shift it into "Water-fire" a mixture of the two and then forget the water (1-2-3 to 1-3 method).
Keep in mind that if you move it further away or squint, it can make it easier to change it.

Passive
Now this one is passive when it comes to fire, but I don't know about how it would work with your way of controlling something like water, the fire portion is passive, the water portion just depend on you. OK, so we start with water, but instead of water, you are controlling fuel (anything that burns, obviously liquid if you are a water bender)!!! I think this is obvious, but use something like a lighter or candle while controlling something that is liquid and set it on fire. Keep controlling as it burns, and it should be able to switch 100% into fire control.

The most Passive of Passive Controls
Now this one is a little strange, but I must get an idea into your head. I call this Walk Control, I have explained it many times, but it seems to be easiest to explain like this.
Walk to your fridge
open it up
open up your milk (or another thing in there that you have opened many times)
close it
come back to computer

Spoiler for After that is done:

I want you to note how much effort you put into walking their, how much thought went into it. Probably not much. I just watched my son take his first steps, and it took him quite a bit of thought, has walking gotten easier since I am older? A little, but a lot of it is the memorized balance and feelings that I have that just happen with time. When you opened the fridge, it was sealed, but you probably pulled hard enough that it just went the perfect amount open and you stopped pulling perfectly before slamming the door. Then you opened the milk, perfect amount of screws off, and then perfect amount on, without a second thought. You shut the fridge. It puts up a fight due to the fact that it pressurizes, but you don't even need to keep your hand on it the whole time, you might even just do it with your foot or elbow, but it just shuts perfectly and doesn't slam or anything.

This is walk control. Instead of doing the anime thing of trying soooooo hard to do something, just put as much effort into it as you do when walking. Just do it without thinking. Think about the result rather than the means. The biggest problem with this is that it is not as enjoyable. But when stuck, I do this. I have always had trouble flying in dreams, but when I realized that the difference between walking and flying is... nothing. I was able to do it at will. I can now fly many different ways, but every once in a while, I will try to fly to something and it won't happen. I then have to stop and erase flying. It is almost like... Starting at 1-3 at the beginning. It can be applied many ways. It is the mindset, don't just put your hands up and control fire, think about how cool it is going to be when that wall is burned down, because you control fire like always.

Memory Control!
This one shifts back and forth depending.
The idea for this is just to remember a time that you used fire. It is one of the most common uses of control, though few realize that they are doing it. They do it the same way that they did last time. If they did it with a flame thrower, they go for flame thrower, if they did walk control, they do walk control. If they learned it from Aang, then they remember his teachings and continue. It is usually quite easy to do things that you have done in the past since you remember doing it!
Now! The more active and awesome way to do this! You find yourself in a dream. You want to control fire and you have never done it before, remember a time that you did control fire and do it that way! Use surroundings or anything that you can to make the memory stronger. Now instead of grabbing a memory that you have, grab a memory that doesn't exist. Maybe something from a TV show or just your imagination. Do it exactly like you remember, believing that you are doing it, not for the first, but some time later. Hope this makes sense.

Program
This is a new control that I have been working on. It is something I have done before with "item control", but it goes through many other different controls and can bleed into passive, active, memory, walk, shift, etc. This is one of the big problems with categorizing dream control, it never seems to quite fit. Lots of things involve lots and lots of different types of control. I apologize for the mass amount of pictures to illustrate this point.

It started with item control. I read somewhere (the previous dream control class) that maxツ was talking about how to fight, you need to learn how to use multiple dream controls at the same time. However, when someone is punching you and it is making you lose the stability of the dream, and you are needing to use fire to fight him, then how can you stabilize and control fire at the same time?

The way I have decided to deal with this is my watch, it is programmed that all I have to do is press a button and it stabilizes a dream. In the middle of a fight, using one hand to touch a button should take less than a second and it would restabilize everything, and even prevents destabilization. This is the basis of a program, you do something and it sets off a preset string of events without needing your focus, just a little attention (you can focus only at one thing at a time, but attention is split between many things at any given time). So I realized that I need to use it more on my powers after reading this manga. It has been like 5 years or so since I have read Psyren, which is before I LDed, so I knew I had some awesome things coming.
So the main character had an ability that took a strain on his mind and put everyone around him in danger when he used it because it was big and powerful. So he trained with people with a few different abilities to get it manageable.

Here are some of the pages about how it works.


The ideas is
Create a simple program, if it is too complicated it could do its own thing.
If it gets crazy and does its own thing, then add a "different" program to keep it in check.
Let It fly.

Now with this, you could release a simple program, say something like, Control fire, turn into a dragon, attack anyone I see as an enemy and dissipate. Practice it, if I doesn't work right, change the program around and create a new one to control it more if need be (maybe take the dragon part out and change it to attack where you are looking. Try it a few times while paying attention, and then try it without paying attention to it. Set the program and then take off running looking at something far away. It should work.
The better you get the more complicated things can get, but here is the good part. Fire off five of them. Or create five different programs and fire them all off in succession. Maybe one is ball that surrounds the person, and another that explodes when it gets inside of the other ball. You could fire both of these off and prepare for another attack while the enemy is smoldering.

Let me know what you guys think, and what ideas you have concerning dream control. There are many other types of dream control and even some more "higher up" ones that I might get into later, but this is just the first lesson! I know a lot of people think that it is easier to tackle expectation and schema earlier, but I would be willing to answer any questions you have concerning these and I think that creativity trumps all, and these are much more creative methods.