Thread: Conciousness: Give in order to Get. Falling asleep easily for LDer and non-LDer

I'm going to share a technique that brought me from regular lucids (2 per week on average I think) to almost nightly. I am not exactly certain why it works, but I might post a theory later on in this tutorial (don't worry, it won't be a long one).
Now, every night we humans go to sleep. Even the best of natural LDers loses conciousness between falling a sleep and his first REM. Most of us don't regain it during REM either (or only a part of the time, we LDers aim to get this conciousness in ofcourse). So basically, we all temporarily lose our conciousness. What you want to do, is to just give it up right away. Accept that you are going to lose it, and then lose it yourself, instead of waiting for it to happen. A little metaphor to make this more clear:
View yourself as a person, your conciousness as an object held in your hand and sleep as a person who comes to take the object from you. There are multiple things that can happen. Some people are really afraid to lose conciousness, so they grip tightly onto the object. That makes it harder for Sleep to take it, but it happens either way ofcourse. Not a lot of people have that.
The biggest part of humanity just holds it until Sleep comes and takes the object. They don't particularly grip it tightly, but they don't really let go of it either. Some grip a bit tighter than others (concious or unconcious). These people fall asleep faster than the people in the former category, but not as quik as the ones in the follow, namely...
The people who throw the object at Sleep before he is even standing before you. You know you are going to lose conciousness temporarily either way, so why waste effort on holding the 'object' in your hand?

That is really all there is to it. Just 'give up' your conciousness. Basically, you will know you have thoughts, but you don't really 'hear' them. It is a lot like the free-floating state of mind you need for WILD. If you really have no idea how to achieve it, even after trying to 'just throw your conciousness away', meditation can be a great help to teach you this.

The good thing is that it can be combined with any technique. Why does it work though? It could be because your lose your concious with more confidence. 'I'm going to lose it either way, so let's go ahead and lose it already' is quite similiar to 'I'm going to get lucid either way, let's go ahead and fall into my dreamworld already'. but I'm not really sure. All I know is that is helped with my LD count and might help you too, and that it is certain to help you fall asleep more quikly.

Please let me know how it goes. Any comments, questions, etc. are welcome! Questions about unrelated subjects are also welcome, but plz PM those instead of posting them here. I'd prefer this thread to be about this only Good luck!

That is a great metaphor for sleep. Instead of thinking of sleep as something you are chasing, think of awareness as something that you already have, and can give up at will. I love it

This is cool! If I remember I'll try this tonight, maybe with my WBTB.

So wait, what are we doing? Did you visualize this, or is it just a thought, or mindset you are in? Either way, it's great

Awesome post! I'll see how I react to your metaphor

Awesome! I never really thought of it that way, but I do seem to sleep better in general when I just let go and drift off to sleep. I also really like your metaphor. I'm a fan of using them whenever I can to try and make my point clearer, and that's perfect I'll have to keep this in mind tonight when I go to sleep.

Good post I liked the metaphor. But yeh.. this helped you have more lucids by allowing you to wild easier? or?

Like others have said, this is a cool little thing to think about, but how would I use this to do a MILD?

I do this when initially falling asleep. It's not like visualizing, it is just knowing you will lose your conciousness, and then deliberately throwing it away to speed up the process. Why it helped me get more lucids, I don't know. A theory why has been given in the initial post. Whether it helps your LD count or not, it certainly helps falling asleep quikly, which is always useful.
As for how to do this combined with MILD: confirm your mantra first, then 'throw the conciousness away', knowing and feeling you will succeed. Don't forget that MILD is about the setting of your intention and really feeling it, not just about the recited words themselves.

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone! Sorry for my slow reaction, I've been a bit busy with my studies.

hey spyguy, great post!

one question: do you think about consciousness as something you are giving up now, but will return to you when you are dreaming?

Originally Posted by Flying Spaghetti Monster

hey spyguy, great post!

one question: do you think about consciousness as something you are giving up now, but will return to you when you are dreaming?

Since it has given me a boost in my LD count, I do (which explains the name of the thread, I forgot to explain that ). But it is not necessary to view it that way to use this as a way of falling asleep. Whatever technique used, even if it is WBTB-WILD, this can be added to fall asleep quikly when first going to bed. If one were to stop with LDing completely for whatever reason, this could still be applied.

P.S. I love that name

Originally Posted by Spyguy

Since it has given me a boost in my LD count, I do (which explains the name of the thread, I forgot to explain that ). But it is not necessary to view it that way to use this as a way of falling asleep. Whatever technique used, even if it is WBTB-WILD, this can be added to fall asleep quikly when first going to bed. If one were to stop with LDing completely for whatever reason, this could still be applied.

P.S. I love that name

sweet as, i'll try it tonight and let you know how it goes.

p.s. thanks man! it's from this: Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Originally Posted by Flying Spaghetti Monster

hey spyguy, great post!

one question: do you think about consciousness as something you are giving up now, but will return to you when you are dreaming?

Think of it as a boomerang?

I never realised you had a tutorial! I loved the metaphor and the advice! I guess this can be applied to DEILD, also?

Originally Posted by yuppie11975

I never realised you had a tutorial! I loved the metaphor and the advice! I guess this can be applied to DEILD, also?

Thx Yes, it can be used for DEILD. It can be used for the initial falling asleep ofcourse, but I also use it while DEILDing in a slightly ajusted form. That's because this is the free-floating state of mind used when visualizing the dream you just exited, except that it's purpose is to ditch the conciousness rather than sort of staying with it passively.

I only wish I could change the name of the thread to something more catchy ('Conciousness: Give in order to Get. Falling asleep easily for LDer and non-LDer' sounds so much better, and the current name doesn't really show anything about the content )

Ask a mod to change it?

It is done.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

It is done.

Thank you so much!

I would very much like a tutorial on how to medidate at a level i could atleast execute "throwing away my sleep"

Originally Posted by CallmeSkarr

I would very much like a tutorial on how to medidate at a level i could atleast execute "throwing away my sleep"

First of all, I should tell you that you do not fall asleep the second you 'throw it away'. When you do that, it still takes a bit of time to fall asleep, just a lot less, and you lose your sense of time. I think void meditation might be a good help for you. There is a tutorial on it in the dreamviews academy. I got this idea from hearing 'you can do void meditation while lying on your back too, but this isn't recommended because it is likely to make you fall asleep'. Not sure if that sentance comes from the tutorial on dreamviews or from somewhere else though. But after some practice with void meditation I noticed that I (almost unconciously) stayed concious to be able to notice stuff like my phone ringing. 'Throwing that conciousness away' was the key. That, combined with the risk of falling asleep, led to trying this, and it works If you find this hard to understand (I can kind of imagine that), but you want to use it, I think void meditation is a great place to start.

Hey spyguy

how do you maintain concentration on what your doing? how do you stop the mind chatter so you can let your counciousness go, as the chatter keeps coming back?

can you give detailed mental procedures on how what you think after you lie down and what do you think about, how you deal with mind chatter, do you keep focued ont he visualisation?

also you say either way you loose conciouseness but iv done WILD few times before, and i go from wake to dream in front ofmy eyes with no intrupton ?

Originally Posted by Mrsf0011

Hey spyguy

how do you maintain concentration on what your doing? how do you stop the mind chatter so you can let your counciousness go, as the chatter keeps coming back?

can you give detailed mental procedures on how what you think after you lie down and what do you think about, how you deal with mind chatter, do you keep focued ont he visualisation?

also you say either way you loose conciouseness but iv done WILD few times before, and i go from wake to dream in front ofmy eyes with no intrupton ?

First of all, I make sure nothing of big importance is on my mind. If you have to remember something seriously important, make a notition about it and place it somewhere you will certainly notice it. So I would say that the first step is making sure that you have no worries like that. Then, when actually lying down, it is important to know that stopping your mind from chattering is not the point of this technique. I'd say that it is almost impossible. Your goal is not to stop the mind entirely to fall asleep, the brain is highly active during sleep after all, so there is no point stopping it entirely before sleeping. The goal is to rather not really pay attention to them. It could be compared with 'getting lost' in them, or 'sinking through' them. They're there, and they always will be. To be precise: get rid of the conciousness, not the thoughts. It is really hard to explain this, but it is highly similiar to doing void meditation, so practicing that will probably make you understand what I mean if you don't understand it after this post.
So, to summarize what I've said so far: start by getting rid of any worries. Then, when lying down, get rid of the conciousness, not the thoughts, as those will come back either way.
Next, I do not focus on any visualizations, as I don't visualize while doing this. The 'throwing away' is a metaphor to make it easier to understand, I do not visualize throwing it away. That being said, visualization can really help with anything sleep-concerned, so you're free to experiment ofcourse

Lastly, about the WILD: it is true that you don't lose conciousness when you WILD. But WILDing is (usually) done after a WBTB. So one would have to fall asleep and wake up before doing a WILD. During that initial falling asleep, losing conciousness is inevitable. Even if you do manage to WILD before initial sleep, when the REM ends, another sleep cycle will begin, and you will (temporarily) lose conciousness again.

Hope this helps

Originally Posted by Spyguy

Lastly, about the WILD: it is true that you don't lose conciousness when you WILD. But WILDing is (usually) done after a WBTB. So one would have to fall asleep and wake up before doing a WILD. During that initial falling asleep, losing conciousness is inevitable. Even if you do manage to WILD before initial sleep, when the REM ends, another sleep cycle will begin, and you will (temporarily) lose conciousness again.

Hope this helps

some good points there which i will experiment with.

i think what im talking about and trying to achieve is little bit diffrent.

I have done WILD straight from initial sleep as in i lied down, oddly managed to quite my mind, saw my body going unconciouse but not mind and then entering Sleep pralysis/hypnagogic where time/space stops to exist and you cant move your body and all sorts of sounds, music visualisations apear in front and around you, but throught out all of this your 100% aware of whats happening you never loose councioussness. Then dream landscape starts to form infront of your eyes and you sort of hop into it and your in a LD. i have done this couple times, also sometimes by accident so i have no doubt you can enter a LD without loosing councioussness. normally when you go to sleep everynight everyone goes through that process but usually not aware of it as they are uncounciouse.

the reasone for quitening the mind is you need your brainwave to drop to 8Hz to be in that state and thats what im trying to achieve. when your awake your brain wave is on 16-20Hz with full of thoughts/chatter etc, the less the chatter the lower your Hz will be. those buddhist monks and expert meditators are very good at this because they know how to keep mind quite for prolonged periods. i can keep my mind quite for minutes maybe and i even know how its done but i was wondering maybe you have a better method.

however im very curiouse about what you say aboout letting the chatter go on and not paying attention to them. few times i have had some expriences where i mentally wasnt paying attention to my thoughts but i was sort of lost in them where it sort of turned into visualisations and eventually felt like i was in a dream but snapped out of it, and that was only because i was very tired so i dont really know how i did it. will also look into void meditation.

basically right now i really want a solid way i can be in touch with my subcounciousse and iv tried meditation but iv been hopeless at it due to mind chatter where i get caught up in thoughts.

Originally Posted by Mrsf0011

some good points there which i will experiment with.

i think what im talking about and trying to achieve is little bit diffrent.

I have done WILD straight from initial sleep as in i lied down, oddly managed to quite my mind, saw my body going unconciouse but not mind and then entering Sleep pralysis/hypnagogic where time/space stops to exist and you cant move your body and all sorts of sounds, music visualisations apear in front and around you, but throught out all of this your 100% aware of whats happening you never loose councioussness. Then dream landscape starts to form infront of your eyes and you sort of hop into it and your in a LD. i have done this couple times, also sometimes by accident so i have no doubt you can enter a LD without loosing councioussness. normally when you go to sleep everynight everyone goes through that process but usually not aware of it as they are uncounciouse.

the reasone for quitening the mind is you need your brainwave to drop to 8Hz to be in that state and thats what im trying to achieve. when your awake your brain wave is on 16-20Hz with full of thoughts/chatter etc, the less the chatter the lower your Hz will be. those buddhist monks and expert meditators are very good at this because they know how to keep mind quite for prolonged periods. i can keep my mind quite for minutes maybe and i even know how its done but i was wondering maybe you have a better method.

however im very curiouse about what you say aboout letting the chatter go on and not paying attention to them. few times i have had some expriences where i mentally wasnt paying attention to my thoughts but i was sort of lost in them where it sort of turned into visualisations and eventually felt like i was in a dream but snapped out of it, and that was only because i was very tired so i dont really know how i did it. will also look into void meditation.

basically right now i really want a solid way i can be in touch with my subcounciousse and iv tried meditation but iv been hopeless at it due to mind chatter where i get caught up in thoughts.

Getting lost in thoughts without really noticing them is practically what this technique induces. The difference is that you don't snap out of it and if you do, you can pick up where you left quite easily.
As for meditation, I'm not an expert, but I think it's important to note that there are different types of meditation. Stopping the mind from chattering is a way I've heard of before, but if you focus too much on it, it will have no effect. I once read that you need to sort of 'detach' from the chatter. At first it will speed up because it finally has a chance to roam free. When it's done it will slow down significantly and eventually, you'll be in some sort of different state. But again, I am no expert on meditation.

Nice post!

Somehow it sounds very logical. I also like your theory.
I think that it this can really help with subconsciously accept the sleep/dreamstate.
this will make it a better and well-known part of yourself in which you can "move" more freely and with more confidence.
I think it helps you be more yourself in your dreamstate, and that should boost lucidity