The more vivid the dream, the less control I have.

**Cobalt Storm** · 11-07-2014 08:40 PM

My level of control seems to be inversely proportional to the level of clarity. I noticed that when I'm in a life-like LD, it's hard to expect something to happen; as opposed to a considerably less vivid LD, where it's relatively easy. It's frustrating when I'm doing almost everything I can to make myself expect things I want to happen, and it doesn't work for the most part. Pretty much the only thing I can consistently do regardless of the level of clarity is grow my favorite tail, and even that requires a few seconds of 'reassuring' or something. Help plz

**Sensei** · 11-21-2014 08:48 AM

I don't know what to say, but be confident. The fact that it is super vivid shakes your confidence in the fact that it is a dream. When it is blurry or a little bit of unawareness sets in, then you start thinking "obviously I can do whatever the frick I want!" when it is super realistic and everything feels exactly like it does and looks exactly like it does in real life, the idea that you could change that seems crazy.

Some dream powers you are super confident, enough so that it breaks through the confidence breaker that vividness has on you.

Hope this makes sense. After a while of breaking through this and being like "I FREAKING DO WHAT I WANT!" you should be able to have the confidence without trying.

I had this problem for a while. It wasn't until a couple months ago I realized that I was cured when I was water bending 3 ponds and TKing 3 houses in the air while transformed into a wolf with perfect clarity. I was like "I REALLY AM A BOSS MASTER!" haha.

You can always try walk control though. This helps anything that I struggle with. About to make a thread about it.

**Voldmer** · 11-21-2014 11:59 AM

What if the very vivid LDs were actually astral projections. Then the environment would not just be decided by you, but by everyone, and everything, else - a kind of consensus-environment. That should be much more difficult to change. It strikes me that you could change something about your self (the tail), with greater ease than things not connected to your self. Maybe that is because your will is stronger, when it concerns your self, and only one voice in the choir, when it doesn't.

Just a thought ...

**Yuusha** · 11-21-2014 03:25 PM

It is probably because those very vivid dreams make you feel more like you are awake, and since you know that you don't have any special powers in waking life, you might trick yourself into believing that you "might not actually have any special powers" in those lifelike dreams either, since it feels more close to waking life.

I have had similar experiences with flying - I can fly happily and without any problems at all, but then I become lucid and suddenly gravity is like "you, up there! get down! stop defying the laws of physics!".

**Naiya** · 11-22-2014 01:56 AM

A vivid dream makes you second guess yourself sometimes. When I have a false awakening even after I've RCed once and I am lucid, sometimes it helps to confirm this with myself. So I tell myself a couple of times more, "this is a dream, look that thing shouldn't be there, so this is definitely a dream." Something like that may help you re-assert your lucidity.