Permanently increase dream vividness?

Hi All,

Having just achieved my first night of LD-ing (after actively intending to LD), i realised the reason I had failed in all my previous attempts - dream vividness.

It seems to me that dream vividness is the key component to me becoming lucid as I am more aware of my surroundings and better able to determine if what i'm seeing is out of the ordinary or not. RC-ing throughout the day or on noticing dream signs does not seem to help me much at all because non-vivid dreams mean I am unable to notice my dreamsigns in the first place.

Which leads me to my question: is there any way of permanently increasing vividness in dreams? This could take on any form including mental exercises, pills, etc etc

Any help would be much appreciated! :)

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i realised the reason I had failed in all my previous attempts - dream vividness.

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And how did you realise this?

I've noticed that awareness helps with vividness of my dreams. If I'm aware during the day and take time to notice what's around me I see my dreams being more vivid too, because I practiced being more observant.

If you haven't checked out KingYoshi's ADA tutorial you should give it a read:
http://www.dreamviews.org/f49/all-da...3/#post1628862

Also if you want to use supplements you can try that, melatonin and B vitamins are the main ones that I've heard of, but be sure to read up on what doses you should be taking.

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Originally Posted by ShadowOfSelf

And how did you realise this?

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A bit of math after going through my dream journal. In the past month i've had 4 'vivid' dreams - of which in 2 I became lucid after reality checking and the other 2 i reality checked but the RC failed. In all the other dreams of the month, I did not even get close to considering to do an RC and in all of those dreams I felt that there was very low 'vividness' so as to speak.

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Also if you want to use supplements you can try that, melatonin and B vitamins are the main ones that I've heard of, but be sure to read up on what doses you should be taking

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Thanks for the mention of the All Day Awareness tutorial, I'll definitely check that out! As for vitamin B's and melatonin - I heard that you can only take them for a short stretch of time after which they lose effectiveness? I'm looking out for pills with B6 and melatonin but they are not so easy to find in my town + I was looking for longer term solutions... Soo, Any ideas?

I agree vividness is key, but that's because vividness is a cause of awareness.

I have very very very vivid dreams nowadays. It can be described as almost being trapped in another persons mind and body and experiencing all he or she does, although never actually realising that is you dreaming. I never reality check during the day or write down all my dreams, I think the important thing is to just to focus on the vivid dreams that you remember. What I mean is that when you can recall atleast 3-5 dreams naturally, don't try to recall even more just focus on what you already remember.

Some dreams are vivid just because you are more aware of them. I am not exactly sure how I got to this point. Just recall the vivid dreams and perhaps it will come naturally.

Good luck :)

Vividness stems from awareness and recall.

If you are more aware in your daily life, you are more aware in dream life, noticing and picking up on everything. It's like when you go on holiday, it's all new to you, so you notice and remember everything a lot more. Pretend your daily life is a holiday, and you're experiencing it for the first time, just like a dream.

Recall, you could have amazingly vivid dreams, but if your recall is poor, or it took you a while to remember it once awoken, the vividness or, the memory of how vivid it was, will fade.

Dreaming and imagination occur in the secondary visual cortices. It would suggest visualization while falling asleep might increase dream vividness (it does for me, anyhoo!) :shadewink:

Like everyone else said, just being aware of more details in daily life, will increase vividness in your dreams. Just become more aware in general. Being aware will not only increase your vividness but will also increase your chances of having more lucid dreams.

I also have found that the more Lucids you have, the more vivid your dreams become. I think vividness also has something to do with dream recall. Your dreams cold be vivid, but you just don't remember it clearly in the morning.

B vitamins are also said to make your dreams more vivid. Especially vitamin B6. You can find B6 in things like eggs, cereal, Potatoes, banana's, ect..

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Vividness stems from awareness and recall.

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It's strange that you should say that, I would;ve thought that it goes the other way round, where vividness affects awareness and recall!

l tend to agree. Vividness is one of the main keys, l think.
Keeping a dream diary will probably make recall and vividness better.
l've tried B6 and melatonin [only 3mg] and didn't really see much difference.
The things that are supposed to create vividness are the Dream Herbs like Silene Capensis [african dream root], Calea and of course Galantamind. l haven't taken these yet because their so hard to find in UK. But, l've located some internet shop's now so l'll be experimenting soon. Galantamind was the hardest to find, but found a place the other day - expensive here, though.

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Originally Posted by Sanjayb

It's strange that you should say that, I would;ve thought that it goes the other way round, where vividness affects awareness and recall!

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Possibly, it's just my opinion. Everyday life is 100% vivid, but some days you may be less aware, your thoughts are elsewhere and you're not focusing on what's going on around you, leaving you unable to recall fine details that happened say two days ago when you were upset and distracted. Would you say you were less aware, or everything was less vivid?

I think you guys might be wandering a dead-end path here.

I've been doing this for a very long time, and many of my most powerful lucids have been extremely un-vivid, while many of my hands-down most vivid dreams have had no lucidity at all, or chance of it.

Indeed, now that I think of it, I would say that high levels of vividness might prevent lucidity, because very vivid dreams are often too interesting "as is" to bother with remembering self-awareness, and on occasions when I've increased vividness in a LD, I've had a lot of trouble holding onto awareness. All anecdotal, I know, but it's what I got.

So I'm not sure your logic follows here, guys. Awareness is very important in LD'ing, but awareness and vividness (in waking life as well as dreaming) really have little to do with each other. You can be just as aware in a dull, dark world as you can in a bright, shiny world. I have a feeling that attaching awareness to vividness might harm your chances at lucidity, or at best do nothing at all.

Sorry to not be excited about this...

Sageous - mhmm, so you agree that awareness is a key factor for lucidity, not vividness, yes?

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Originally Posted by Fuzzman

I've noticed that awareness helps with vividness of my dreams. If I'm aware during the day and take time to notice what's around me I see my dreams being more vivid too, because I practiced being more observant.

If you haven't checked out KingYoshi's ADA tutorial you should give it a read:
http://www.dreamviews.org/f49/all-da...3/#post1628862

Also if you want to use supplements you can try that, melatonin and B vitamins are the main ones that I've heard of, but be sure to read up on what doses you should be taking.

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Originally Posted by Blackfox

Possibly, it's just my opinion. Everyday life is 100% vivid, but some days you may be less aware, your thoughts are elsewhere and you're not focusing on what's going on around you, leaving you unable to recall fine details that happened say two days ago when you were upset and distracted. Would you say you were less aware, or everything was less vivid?

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Thats a really good question and it got me thinking about something.... I guess it all boils down to how you believe dreams are made? If you think that the dream world is like the real world in the sense that it is an external construct that you need to discover, I would imagine in this case that it is awareness that leads to lucidity. If, however, you think that the dream world has as many details as the brain power your mind is devoting to the dream (i.e. the dream is an invention whose potency is related to your brain activity), then vividness and awareness would be almost one and the same thing? Or at least, the more brain power devoted to the dream -> the more vivid it becomes -> the greater your potential for awareness in the dream?

In short i guess what i'm trying to highlight is the question of discovery vs. invention. I take it from your argument that you subscribe to the former?

As for your question "Would you say you were less aware, or everything was less vivid?" -> My gut reaction would be to say that everything was less vivid, but there is no way I can tell for sure. I will be mindful of the difference next time around and see if i can make sense of it!

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Originally Posted by whitenight

l tend to agree. Vividness is one of the main keys, l think.
Keeping a dream diary will probably make recall and vividness better.
l've tried B6 and melatonin [only 3mg] and didn't really see much difference.
The things that are supposed to create vividness are the Dream Herbs like Silene Capensis [african dream root], Calea and of course Galantamind. l haven't taken these yet because their so hard to find in UK. But, l've located some internet shop's now so l'll be experimenting soon. Galantamind was the hardest to find, but found a place the other day - expensive here, though.

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Have you had the chance to take B6 at 100mg yet? I think I read somewhere that that makes a big difference if taken in WBTB. Also, did you manage to find Galantamind in London or elsewhere in the UK?

I take B6 at 100mg and melatonin at 3mg, but I usually do it before first going to sleep and I notice it has an effect throughout the night. I only take the B6 about 2 or 3 times a week at most because I heard it starts to decrease in effectiveness if taken too often, not sure if that's true or not though. I had wondered if taking it during WBTB would be useful, I didn't know if it took a while to kick in and have an effect, but I'll try it sometime and see.

Check out my thread I just posted on ADA (all day awareness). It talks about an amazing technique which will greatly increase your DILD frequency. It is through acknowledging every small detail of your environment that you normally ignore and take for granted, but through intervals and slowly work your way up. Check the thread and I hope it helps :)

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Originally Posted by Blackfox

Sageous - mhmm, so you agree that awareness is a key factor for lucidity, not vividness, yes?

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Absolutely. Check out my Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals thread for details, if you're interested (and feel free to ask a question there).

I remember LaBerge once lamenting that he'd ever used the term "lucidity" in the first place, because its raised so much confusion over the years. When he was talking about "bringing light" into dreams (lucidity), he was speaking of awareness and not, well, bright light (vividness).

I see, I will check out your thread, thanks.

I have also noticed, that in vivid dreams I have done things, that I believe were precursor to becoming lucid.

Like in my last vivid regular dream, I was sitting on a sofa on the sidewalk and marveled at the colors, texture and pattern of the sofa, thinking how clean it is considering it being on the street and also inhaling and smelling the air. I have never done anything like this in my regular, non-vivid dreams, only in lucids.

But I'm far from claiming, that this is a rule for everybody. Maybe it was just a coincidence. But this coincidence was impressive enough for me to go out and buy 5-HTP, that's suppose to give you REM rebound towards the morning and thus the dreams may be longer and more vivid.

First time I took Vitamin B6 100mg, I had 3 incredible vivid, interesting, longest dreams of my life. But not since then. I have found, that 50mg does better job for me. I take it around 2 pm.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

I've been doing this for a very long time, and many of my most powerful lucids have been extremely un-vivid, while many of my hands-down most vivid dreams have had no lucidity at all, or chance of it.

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Sounds like we have different experiences when it comes to LD's. My most powerful lucids are virtually identical to reality in vividness and detail. I have been so lucid in a dream that I examined the veins in tree leaves for a few minutes... amazed at the detail. As far as detail and vividness are concerned, my LDs blow away generic dreams. Of course, we are all different and LD's come to us in different ways. Mine are life-like.

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Originally Posted by faceonmars

Sounds like we have different experiences when it comes to LD's. My most powerful lucids are virtually identical to reality in vividness and detail. I have been so lucid in a dream that I examined the veins in tree leaves for a few minutes... amazed at the detail. As far as detail and vividness are concerned, my LDs blow away generic dreams. Of course, we are all different and LD's come to us in different ways. Mine are life-like.

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Not so different, I think; I probably should have included a sentence in my post that confirmed that many other of my strongest LD's were hyper-vivid, just like you described...that would have helped me make my point, which was that awareness in a dream does not equal vividness in a dream. I've been full-on lucid in both the dullest of dreams and the most vivid of dreams -- in a sense the quality of the dream itself is not part of the awareness equation.

In other words, the fact that your your strong LD's (and many of mine) are vivid is excellent (because it can be great fun), but that vividness is caused by your lucidity, and not the other way around. I still believe that if you hope that vividness will induce LD's, you may be hoping for the wrong thing.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Not so different, I think; I probably should have included a sentence in my post that confirmed that many other of my strongest LD's were hyper-vivid, just like you described...that would have helped me make my point, which was that awareness in a dream does not equal vividness in a dream. I've been full-on lucid in both the dullest of dreams and the most vivid of dreams -- in a sense the quality of the dream itself is not part of the awareness equation.

In other words, the fact that your your strong LD's (and many of mine) are vivid is excellent (because it can be great fun), but that vividness is caused by your lucidity, and not the other way around. I still believe that if you hope that vividness will induce LD's, you may be hoping for the wrong thing.

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Im going to play devils advocate here. I do believe that dream vividness CAN increase your chances of becoming lucid in a dream. It is truly the basis of the ADA technique in my opinion. You train to notice every little detail in the waking world, which will convert into the dreaming world. Your mind will then create more vivid dreams naturally, which is the purpose of the technique from my experience. It is this increased vividness that makes you become lucid in the dreams (hence the dreams becoming dream signs themselves). Your mind will observe more and pick out details.

Through practicing to become more aware of things while your awake, it in turn trains your mind to create more vivid dream environments. Its like experience. Once your brain notices the millions of details throughout the day it can replicate that in a dream. More vivid dreams = better chance of noticing oddities = lucidity.

This is not to say that becoming lucid can of course increase the vividness even further. So I believe that it works both ways. Vividness can increase the probability of becoming lucid and lucidity can increase dream vividness.

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Originally Posted by Chewnie91

Im going to play devils advocate here. I do believe that dream vividness CAN increase your chances of becoming lucid in a dream. It is truly the basis of the ADA technique in my opinion. You train to notice every little detail in the waking world, which will convert into the dreaming world. Your mind will then create more vivid dreams naturally, which is the purpose of the technique from my experience. It is this increased vividness that makes you become lucid in the dreams (hence the dreams becoming dream signs themselves). Your mind will observe more and pick out details.

Through practicing to become more aware of things while your awake, it in turn trains your mind to create more vivid dream environments. Its like experience. Once your brain notices the millions of details throughout the day it can replicate that in a dream. More vivid dreams = better chance of noticing oddities = lucidity.

This is not to say that becoming lucid can of course increase the vividness even further. So I believe that it works both ways. Vividness can increase the probability of becoming lucid and lucidity can increase dream vividness.

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Okay. I can agree with all of that. But you're not going to like why ...

I think that your dreaming mind adding more details to your dream is a side-effect of ADA, and not its intended effect. What ADA really does is hard-wire your brain to be aware. And of course, if you are more aware generally then the world becomes more detailed; more vivid. So, by extension and by virtue of day residue, would your dreaming world. But what is really happening here is that your mind is becoming comfortable with the condition of awareness and from that comfort self-awareness ultimately comes into play, which is truly the root of lucidity. So yes, you are more able to spot oddities in a dream, but you still need self-awareness and memory to know to question those oddities.

So everything you said is absolutely right, but I wonder if you might be drawing the wrong conclusion from it. This is a problem I've always had with ADA: it focuses on the wrong kind of awareness, making the observation of everything else a priority, rather than the observation of your self, your impact on reality, and reality's impact on you. By taking "you" out of the equation, and making all the objects around you "important," you're diminishing your sense of participation in reality, and this will follow you into your dreams. Fortunately, awareness in general is a first step toward self-awareness, so ADA is not a bad start. But by making it the only thing, you run the risk of just having more vivid dreams with no self-awareness all. Judging by your listed LD count, I'm assuming that this was not a problem for you. But it could be one for someone else, especially if they tend to believe that lucid = vivid, rather than lucid = awareness.

I don't mean to be argumentative here, Chewnie91, I'm just trying to hold to my point that lucidity is not about vividness. The two are often together, sure, and you can certainly develop a "vividness" scheme that will bring about LD's, as you've successfully done with ADA, but the vividness was only a tool toward achieving lucidity, and not lucidity itself. So I'd refine your formula slightly by saying more vivid dreams = better chance of noticing oddities = the potential to achieve lucidity. This is obviously not a bad thing, and I'm not trying to disparage it -- I'm simply putting out a caveat: if, like Sanjayb, you are new to LD'ing, and you establish a fundamental mindset that vivid dreams = LD's, you might have some trouble becoming truly self-aware in your dreams.

I can agree about the misconception people have about the ADA method. You are delving into the heart of lucid dreaming, self awareness. Yes, this is the true driving force behind lucidity and mastering it. I did not touch on this in my post because I feel that "self awareness" is differently achieved by everyone. I was putting it into a more simple form :) I believe we have reached a middle ground we can both agree on. Yes self awareness is the true key to lucidity. And both of our opinions on the topic are both correct in their ways.

^^ Agreed, understood, and very cool.

Nice chat!

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Originally Posted by Sageous

I don't mean to be argumentative here, Chewnie91, I'm just trying to hold to my point that lucidity is not about vividness. The two are often together, sure, and you can certainly develop a "vividness" scheme that will bring about LD's, as you've successfully done with ADA, but the vividness was only a tool toward achieving lucidity, and not lucidity itself. So I'd refine your formula slightly by saying more vivid dreams = better chance of noticing oddities = the potential to achieve lucidity. This is obviously not a bad thing, and I'm not trying to disparage it -- I'm simply putting out a caveat: if, like Sanjayb, you are new to LD'ing, and you establish a fundamental mindset that vivid dreams = LD's, you might have some trouble becoming truly self-aware in your dreams.

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The refined formula you mention here rings true to me, and I think I mentioned something similar in another post.

Thanks for linking your Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals thread here too - it was a great read and based on your arguments and experience I'm pretty convinced that awareness should be the goal to strive for while attempting to LD. I'm gonna do my best to shake the idea that vividness is all important.

That being said, I can't deny the fact that all my LD's so far have been driven by noticing oddities in extremely vivid dreams (or do you think here that i'm using the word vividness as you would use awareness?). Do you have any suggestions as to how I could be more aware / move my focus away from vividness?

Thanks again for sharing the knowledge! Hope you don't mind answering a few more questions!

I say the above because in the subsequent days to my first post, i've been focusing my mantras on increasing vividness - and while my vividness has certainly increased, my self awareness has not increased proportionately. That kind of led me to think that I may be barking up the wrong tree!

Your not barking up the wrong tree :) vividness is still important. Which is why you have achieved Lucids through the dream environment. However self awareness will truly induce more lucids. Self awareness is the ultimate goal of lucid dreaming. Its not the easiest to explain how to achieve or how you know you've achieved it. Which is why I said it differs from person to person :)

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Originally Posted by Sanjayb

That being said, I can't deny the fact that all my LD's so far have been driven by noticing oddities in extremely vivid dreams (or do you think here that i'm using the word vividness as you would use awareness?). Do you have any suggestions as to how I could be more aware / move my focus away from vividness?

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First: in the end, Sanjayb, anything you do that induces successful LD's is a good thing; don't get me wrong. Now:

I'm pretty sure you're not confusing vividness with awareness, but that's more for you than me to work out -- I could be wrong. That really doesn't really matter, though. What does matter here is that you have vividness in your dreams, and you've already proven to yourself that you can use it as a tool for lucidity. Might as well put it to work for you...

What I would suggest is using that vividness as a tool to build your self-awareness; instead of trying to push it away, gather it in close to you: during waking life ADA practice (which you might consider doing if you're not already) or in dreams try to include yourself in the many many things you notice. When you do, ask yourself, thoughtfully, what you have to do with all this stuff, and what it has to do with you. Really build your involvement, your presence, into your observations, making your "self" not just an additional detail, but the detail around which all the details are emerging. This "center of your own universe" stance might sound a bit selfish, especially in waking life, but only if you take it that way. What it really is is a way to center all the complexity (vividness, in the dreams) that you're observing while remembering that a dream is your own universe, so if you're in the habit of recognizing your place at its center, your sense of self, and lucidity, will likely improve -- thanks entirely to vividness! If you can do that well, I have a feeling you'll be able to eventually incorporate stronger self-awareness into your life and your dreams -- without stepping away from the valuable, exciting tool that is vividness.

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I say the above because in the subsequent days to my first post, i've been focusing my mantras on increasing vividness - and while my vividness has certainly increased, my self awareness has not increased proportionately. That kind of led me to think that I may be barking up the wrong tree!

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Perhaps the modification above will help. Also, with all apologies to Chewnie91, you might indeed have the wrong tree, but it's a very nice tree with excellent fruit, and it's not the only one in the forest. Trust me, I could build a sizable mansion with the wood from all the trees I've barked up over the years! Also, vividness is an excellent tree to discover, don't leave it behind.

I hope that helped; if not, feel free to ignore!

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during waking life ADA practice (which you might consider doing if you're not already) or in dreams try to include yourself in the many many things you notice. When you do, ask yourself, thoughtfully, what you have to do with all this stuff, and what it has to do with you. Really build your involvement, your presence, into your observations, making your "self" not just an additional detail, but the detail around which all the details are emerging. This "center of your own universe" stance might sound a bit selfish, especially in waking life, but only if you take it that way. What it really is is a way to center all the complexity (vividness, in the dreams) that you're observing while remembering that a dream is your own universe, so if you're in the habit of recognizing your place at its center, your sense of self, and lucidity, will likely improve -- thanks entirely to vividness! If you can do that well, I have a feeling you'll be able to eventually incorporate stronger self-awareness into your life and your dreams -- without stepping away from the valuable, exciting tool that is vividness.

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Great advice there.

Thanks! I hope Sanjayb considers it.

Don't eat for an hour or two before bed. Drink water before bed. This usually increases vividness for me.

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you might indeed have the wrong tree, but it's a very nice tree with excellent fruit, and it's not the only one in the forest. Trust me, I could build a sizable mansion with the wood from all the trees I've barked up over the years! Also, vividness is an excellent tree to discover, don't leave it behind.

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Regardless of whether vividness is the wrong tree to be barking up, I'm still glad its in my forrest, as you would say Sageous. I've started working on ADA but will also have a look at more of your links to understand what u mean by your 'center of your universe' stance as I don't think I fully understand exactly what that entails yet.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Thanks! I hope Sanjayb considers it.

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Just wanted to say Thanks to all for the advice especially Sageous and Chewnie91!