Confused about vizualizations

[mBULXfhgBBwO]

So today around 30 minutes after I woke up I decided to try visualizing a preferred dream scene. During this attempt i meditated for around 5-10 before i started forming a scene and while i was forming a scene i noticed that some of my senses are much more vivid than the other ones. During the visualization i pretended that the room i was in currently was my dream scene. I would go into the mental map i had of the room and change it to my liking 1 thing at a time. Let's say there is a blank white wall to my right. The first thing i would do is change it to a different color in my mind's eye, then i would add something that gives it a 3-D effect so that it doesn't feel like im looking at a 2D plane, something like a pillow or a pattern that curves out of the wall. I do this pretty quickly and once i have a mental map of the dream scene i can start to deeply empathize what it would feel like to be inside of that room. I notice every detail in my minds eye and i apply it to my sense of touch. This carries over to my dreams pretty well as with most of my dreams i recalling them in my dream journal as "feeling just like real life." Touch is definitely my strength, but on the other hand sight is my weakness. I get a picture of what it looks like in my minds eye, but it just doesn't carry over into my physical body eyes, not even slightly. If i take my focus off of my minds eye and focus on the blackness in my real eyes, i don't really see anything. My sense of hearing, smell and taste are both up to par with the all around standard of imagination. (like if i told you to imagine the smell of perfume or recall the last song you really liked. You can grasp the general gist of the the sense in your mind if you get what i mean.) This again carries over to my dreams, but sight is the issue. In my dreams my sight is just how it is when i tried visualizing. I got the grasp of it in my minds eye and it's enough so that i can recall it in my dream journal, but it isn't really enough to enjoy the dream. Is there any way i can get my sense of sight up to speed with my vivid sense of feel?

[Sageous]

^^ I'm not sure if this will help, but here is something you might consider: When you are seeing with your eyes closed (aka, visualization), you are not using your physical eyes at all. So moving your focus from your mind's eye to your physical eyes is never a good idea. In fact, many instructors (myself included) suggest that, when visualizing something, you actually turn your eyes up in your head so that they are facing in a direction toward which you are not "looking;" doing so helps you to avoid the natural tendency to try to use your eyes while visualizing. In other words, if you try to use your physical eyes when visualizing, you will certainly see what those eyes see: the backs of your closed lids. I suggest that you stick to your mind's eye throughout the visualization ... after all, since that's where your dream imagery occurs, why leave your front row seat? I think that, since most visualization tutorials are created by folks who are already very good at the process, this small step (turning your eyes up in your head) tends to be left out, simply because people who can visualize easily also don't need to remember that they're not using their physical eyes when doing so. Also, if you can visualize well with your other senses, then I suggest that you keep on working with them, even after your "sight" skills improve; having the rest of your senses on hand during a visualization is a very good idea, because it makes it a lot easier for your unconscious to fill out a particular scene. This is especially true with smell, because smell has a special relationship with memory, and of course, maintaining your contact with memory is critical for successful LD'ing.

[mBULXfhgBBwO]

Okay i can see now where that "turning your eyes up in your head" comes from. I can kinda visualize better, but after about 5 mins my eyes start to hurt and dip back down to it's normal spot. Is there a way to avoid this? and also will this help with making my dreams more vivid? since in dreams you aren't using your physical eyes, maybe improving your focus on the minds eye can help with vividness?

[Sageous]

^^ Try not to force your eyes up as far as they will go; instead, just sort of cast them up a bit, so they're not aimed directly forward, and not trying to see what you are visualizing. It might be a bit difficult to maintain this at first, but it should never hurt. I'm pretty sure this will do nothing toward making your dreams more vivid, though, because your eyes are already not too involved by the time your dream starts up. But yes, you can certainly use your "mind's eye," or simply your own will, to increase vividness. It will take some practice, but simply remembering that everything in your dream is You, and under your control, and then expecting that you want more vividness or light during the dream tends to brighten things up to whatever level you can imagine. I think there are also techniques for increasing vividness, but they tend to only work if you have already set your mind to know that vividness is up to you (I imagine that such techniques can probably be found with a quick search, though).