Thread: My new trigger - sheets!

Due to a laundry mix up, I currently have one black sheet and one white sheet on my bed. This morning it served as a trigger. I dreamed I was in a hotel room and noticed that the bed had a black sheet and white sheet on it.

"Wait," I said. "Why would a hotel have this weird combination of sheets? Isn't that how my bed at home is? Oh ... I'm dreaming!"

So it was kind of funny. I guess having something unusual near your bed may serve as a trigger

oooooooooo that's good!

Good idea. Change stuff up a bit and see if it leaks into the dream.

I'll try it tonight.

thats not wierd enough to trigger me.

Lucidity can be attained by simple suggestion -- "I will become Lucid".

But the Books and Seminars have convinced this entire Generation to complicate their Suggestion with these picture puzzles -- triggers and reality checks. Instead of your dream presenting you with the idea "This is a Dream", you force your Dream Mind to provide these silly and most indirect little clues.

If you are going to use Suggestion, why not use a direct and simple suggestion instead of this silly roundabout stuff?

Instead of suggesting, "I will examine my dreams for funny little inconsistencies which will allow me to discern I am dreaming", why not suggest "When I am Dreaming, I will know I am Dreaming". Would that not be simpler? It is in both the same power of suggestion, so why dick around with silly overcomplications?

Leo,

For some people it is not easy to simply imbed in the subconscious that when you dream, you will be aware you are dreaming. Dreams can be fast-paced and highly visual and because that thought is not visual, it may not serve as a reminder once the person falls asleep. For more learned lucid dreamers, they may have discovered ways to properly plant suggestive seeds in their mind to achieve lucidity, but for a lot of neophyte lucid dreamers, visual is the first step. Once they inject a visual clue into their subconscious, it may be likely to show up and trigger a lucid dream. Once they become experienced with that, they can move on to non-visual reminders, such as simply "I will know I'm dreaming. Because of already having experience in their Dreamworld of achieving lucidity, it will be much easier for a non-visual reminder to trigger a lucid dream.

I agree with what you say, but not as a beginner's step to lucid dreaming. Simple mental reminders didn't work for me at the beginning, and may not for many others as well.

I agree with Leo, but i would like to add some points to both:

I believe that Suggestion should be complemented with conscious actions. We should have something to aim for, and not just rely on the subconscious to know when we are dreaming. A phrase like "I will be more lucid" seems to be purely suggestional and lacks direction on the surface.

Still, that phrase could be interpreted to have an idea contained within it, in order to add some direction. Thinking of "I will be more lucid" in a suggestional sense and in a literal sense would be a good thing to do. So, think of "I will be more lucid" as "When I am dreaming, I will know I am dreaming - I will be naturally aware of the dream state" and "I will consistently be aware of reality, perception, and the situations around me." The first one speaks to the subconsious, and the second serves as a conscious decision.

IMO, Seeing inconsistencies feels like a side effect, or a small part of the latter phrase. Even though it is an obvious way to express increased awareness and give conscious direction, this idea alone is narrow, and doesn't speak to the subconscious. This technique should be expanded! Perhaps to something like what i decribed earlier.

So, don't dismiss dream signs as useless, but don't restrict yourself to them either. They are merely part of the bigger picture!

Originally posted by Matchbook
Leo,

For some people it is not easy to simply imbed in the subconscious that when you dream, you will be aware you are dreaming. Dreams can be fast-paced and highly visual and because that thought is not visual, it may not serve as a reminder once the person falls asleep. For more learned lucid dreamers, they may have discovered ways to properly plant suggestive seeds in their mind to achieve lucidity, but for a lot of neophyte lucid dreamers, visual is the first step. Once they inject a visual clue into their subconscious, it may be likely to show up and trigger a lucid dream. Once they become experienced with that, they can move on to non-visual reminders, such as simply \"I will know I'm dreaming. Because of already having experience in their Dreamworld of achieving lucidity, it will be much easier for a non-visual reminder to trigger a lucid dream.

I agree with what you say, but not as a beginner's step to lucid dreaming. Simple mental reminders didn't work for me at the beginning, and may not for many others as well.

I understand what you are saying, and I understand why all the Books and the Seminar Industry puts out stuff like "reality check", but then you have to look at what then happens in the Dreams. The Dreams feed the dreamer back these little clues, and then the dreamer thinks he is the one who is so smart. Duh! People could use the same Power of Suggestion to simply have the Dream BECOME Lucid. Look at how much work people put into all of this rinkidink Dream Signal and Reality Check hocus-pocus. If they would put the same time and effort into simply Autosuggesting that their Dreams BECOME Lucid, then people would not have to go through all that indirect silly crap. But people seem to feel the need to work techniques, and the Books and the Seminars have to keep coming up with new and different crap so they have something they can Copyright.

That is what it comes down to. An author or a Seminar Baron cannot tell you what is BEST. They can only tell you what they have copyrighted.

So the heck with all that silly crap. Simply suggest to yourself that you will go Lucid in your Dreams, and then without any of this "I saw this, I saw that" crap, you will simply KNOW you are dreaming. And it will be easier on your dreams to. your dream won't have to make all those silly stupid clues.

Originally posted by muse.v
I agree with Leo, but i would like to add some points to both:

I believe that Suggestion should be complemented with conscious actions. We should have something to aim for, and not just rely on the subconscious to know when we are dreaming. A phrase like \"I will be more lucid\" seems to be purely suggestional and lacks direction on the surface.

Still, that phrase could be interpreted to have an idea contained within it, in order to add some direction. Thinking of \"I will be more lucid\" in a suggestional sense and in a literal sense would be a good thing to do. So, think of \"I will be more lucid\" as \"When I am dreaming, I will know I am dreaming - I will be naturally aware of the dream state\" and \"I will consistently be aware of reality, perception, and the situations around me.\" The first one speaks to the subconsious, and the second serves as a conscious decision.

IMO, Seeing inconsistencies feels like a side effect, or a small part of the latter phrase. Even though it is an obvious way to express increased awareness and give conscious direction, this idea alone is narrow, and doesn't speak to the subconscious. This technique should be expanded! Perhaps to something like what i decribed earlier.

So, don't dismiss dream signs as useless, but don't restrict yourself to them either. They are merely part of the bigger picture!

Good points!

Agonizing over how to deliver Autosuggestions to your Subconscious Mind is one of the most powerful components of Suggestion -- your Mind loves to see you struggle and work hard. That is what influences the Subconscious Mind... not so much the Ideal Suggestion as the time and willpower spent creating, editing, and polishing that Suggestion. and in the end it probably does not matter whether the Suggestion is technically very good or not, but only how much Work and Intent went into it. The Mind rewards hard work.

And yes, I have had dreams in which I went Lucid like a toggle switch. No clues. No nothing. I simply knew in an instant that I was Lucid. the Mind is the Mind is the Mind. You can play with stupid little hide and seek clues, or you can have it up front like an adult.

For Heaven's Sake, people, show some Dignity!

What is your understanding of how autosuggestion works? After thinking briefly about the way you've described it as being based on willpower or intent, I believe it would work by the same functions as memory.

Suddenly having that 'switch turn on' sounds like you were 'remembering' that you are dreaming, via your earlier intent. In a book (sorry..) i own, it suggests strengthening your ability to remember things in the future solely on willpower alone will increase autosuggestion abilities.

Leo, could you elaborate and explain to me how you understand autosuggestion? (I enjoy your writing so much!)

Originally posted by Leo Volont
Lucidity can be attained by simple suggestion -- \"I will become Lucid\".

But the Books and Seminars have convinced this entire Generation to complicate their Suggestion with these picture puzzles -- triggers and reality checks. Instead of your dream presenting you with the idea \"This is a Dream\", you force your Dream Mind to provide these silly and most indirect little clues.

If you are going to use Suggestion, why not use a direct and simple suggestion instead of this silly roundabout stuff?

Instead of suggesting, \"I will examine my dreams for funny little inconsistencies which will allow me to discern I am dreaming\", why not suggest \"When I am Dreaming, I will know I am Dreaming\". Would that not be simpler? It is in both the same power of suggestion, so why dick around with silly overcomplications?

Ok, Leo. I can appreciate your points but I'm going to be honest with you: your bedside manner is really lacking. (No pun intended)

When I made this post, I was mostly just amused but figured, hey, it might help others. Instead of judging what happened to me as "overcomplicated" and "silly," perhaps you should politely state your experience and accept that not everyone's mind works in such a way that saying "I will become lucid" is enough. I know that, and that's why I posted this little dream.

FWIW, my technique is WBTB and repeating "I will have a lucid dream now." This particular lucid experience didn't have any set-up at all. The trigger itself was not deliberate and completely spontaneous. So I can hardly consider what happened to be "silly" (amusing, maybe!) or "overcomplicated" because it happened without any effort at all.

Leo, I was not saying which technique was better or which was worse, I was simply trying to remind you that learning lucid dreaming is a progression, and certain things work better for beginners, so saying "this is silly stuff", even though it may help newer people, is a bit ignorant. Would you try to teach a 3rd grader algebra? But I do agree that the power of suggestion in the form of thoughts and mental reminders IS a more powerful tool for lucid dreaming, but a tool that needs to be worked up to. So perhaps you misunderstood me. Or I could still be misunderstanding you.