A New Lucidity Method (Alternative ADA)

[DalaBudz]

Here's an idea My Problem With Reality Checks: You know how a good method for MILDing is to do reality checks? Well that's great method! I use it all the time! But it never works in actually initiating my lucidity . Oddly, every time I've had a lucid dream through MILD, it's been from me randomly just realizing that it's a dream. Even though it's at random, it has happened quite frequently. Where do these random realizations come from? Well my theory is that the reality checks ARE working, but in a subliminal way. (Later in the thread I'll explain an alternate use for reality checks) Every time I do a reality check in waking life, it is provoking me to question reality. I don't really focus on the actual act of checking reality (like plugging my nose and trying to breath, or double checking the time), instead I focus on the questioning part: "Am I dreaming?". After reassuring myself that I'm not dreaming, I go straight back to my real-life business. At that point I totally forget about if I'm dreaming or not, because I'm focused on my normal everyday life things. Until I do my next reality check. My point is that the amount of attention I put into checking reality is minimal. Therefore it never ends up getting any attention in dreams. So I never end up lucid dreaming through reality checks. So obviously this minimal attention towards reality checking doesn't work to well. My Idea: Now some people would say that instead you should do ADA (All Day Awareness), which brings a whole lot of your attention towards the question "Am I Dreaming?". Way more attention than reality checks offer. BUT I have an alternative to ADA. It's more of a variation of ADA. To me it's a more fun and interesting way to do ADA. May add that it is also WAY easier, for me at least. And it breaks down the question of "Am I Dreaming?" and builds upon the affirmation of "I Am Dreaming." Telling yourself "I Am Dreaming." is way more straight forward right? The moment you realize your lucid dreaming, that's the statement that crosses your mind. If you had this statement crossing your mind constantly, the chances of becoming lucid would increase. That is my theory. Because when your in a lucid dream, your awareness shoots up and your way more focused (Focused on staying in the dream and being aware that you can literally do anything you want). So through out the day, tell yourself "I Am Dreaming.". Look around and envision what you'd be doing if you were in a dream. (This is after the fact that you subliminally know for a fact that you are awake.) Continue through out the day telling yourself that you are dreaming and feel the rush of excitement that washes over you. The same excitement that usually happens to someone who is exposed to the fact that they are in a dream and can do whatever the hell they want. Even in waking life, when I tell myself I am dreaming, I become way more interested in what's in front of me and I get a minimal feeling of that "Dream Euphoria". Im theorizing (and I really hope) that constantly being familiar with the experience of "Holy shit I'm dreaming!!" will cause someone to do it in their dreams. Skepticism: Yeah I know. Multiple things could go wrong with this. The main thing I feel like someone could address is the fear, that constantly telling yourself through out the day "I Am Dreaming!" can really make a person actually believe that they are in fact dreaming (When in reality they are awake). Well this is why I said reality checks are a great method. Use reality checks to make sure your awake. THEN you can pretend that your in a dream. Another problem someone might bring up is that the excitement you feel when becoming lucid may numb over time when doing this (Like a drug.) therefore the excitement of becoming lucid may never happen in your dreams. Well to me I feel like this could be a good thing. Losing this extreme excitement can help someone stay calm once lucid, making it easier to stabilize your lucidity. I will indeed test my theory and post my findings on this thread. I'll keep you updated

[realdealmagic]

I think that if you tell yourself you could be dreaming is a better idea. Otherwise you'll end up telling yourself "I'm in a dream!" when you're in a dream, feel a rush of excitement, then carrying on with whatever you were doing. Tell yourself, "I could be dreaming," and then you will do a reality check, and continue on with your day. It's a lot more likely to make you lucid. Good luck!

[JadeMace]

I think that you're on to something with this theory, and I would love to hear some updates in time! However, everyone functions differently when it comes to lucid dreams, and I don't feel that forcing that exciting euphoria would have any real benefit for me. Instead, I plan on thinking I am dreaming! and then do one of my personalized reality checks. I wouldn't have thought about this if you hadn't have posted this, so thank you very much!

[DalaBudz]

I think that if you tell yourself you could be dreaming is a better idea. Otherwise you'll end up telling yourself "I'm in a dream!" when you're in a dream, feel a rush of excitement, then carrying on with whatever you were doing. Tell yourself, "I could be dreaming," and then you will do a reality check, and continue on with your day. It's a lot more likely to make you lucid. Good luck! Oh I haven't thought about it that way! I'll have to try that soon. However saying "I could be dreaming" doesn't initiate the same feeling I get when actually telling myself that I am dreaming. It's more of the feeling I am aiming for. Yet your idea does interest me and once my theory has failed me, I'll try yours and post my findings on this thread . Thanks for the input!

[Zoth]

Interesting theory, thanks for posting, enjoyed reading I do think there's some confusion with some stuff, like reality checks having to do anything with MILD. The deal is even though reality checks are encouraged to pretty much every method/technique, they're a exercise on their own. They don't substitute questioning (but the good thing is that many people have started to link one of the other, which is great!), and they don't make relevant significance to techniques like MILD. The reason you see them so much is because they are a simple concept that works, and it's easy to combine with any technique/approach. But many people only use reality checks inside a dream. Where do these random realizations come from? Well my theory is that the reality checks ARE working, but in a subliminal way. Those realizations come from something called prospective memory. It's the most important expression mentioned by LaBerge when he introduces the technique (MILD), but the high majority of people completely ignores it. Between a person that made 50 visualizations a day, plus 50 mantras, and one person with great prospective memory, it would be the second one with the best chances of having a DILD through MILD. This is because the mantras and the visualizations are there to help you developing your prospective memory regarding your intention of becoming lucid. Subliminal messages on the other hand, let's just say that they are a lot less effective than you'd think. Extensive research shows that while they might affect something...they don't produce significant results in creation of habits or decision making, etc etc. I recall a video of subliminal messages for lucid dreaming, but never heard people reporting that the simple visualization of it gave them lucids. But prospective memory oh boy...I'd suspect is in fact involved in practically almost every Lucid dreaming technique, even things like WILD. His effectiveness is also shown in lucid dreaming studies, putting MILD with quite a score on a review of many lucid dreaming techniques (none of the techniques analysed were proven to give regular lucids, but since the study was a meta-analysis...) And it breaks down the question of "Am I Dreaming?" and builds upon the affirmation of "I Am Dreaming." Telling yourself "I Am Dreaming." is way more straight forward right? The moment you realize your lucid dreaming, that's the statement that crosses your mind. If you had this statement crossing your mind constantly, the chances of becoming lucid would increase. That is my theory. I agree with your theory, but wouldn't it be way more simple if you called things by their names and said "I question myself"? Just because simplicity makes things so much easier to "understand" (yes, at a deeper level). Again, it's your technique, but grasping the essence of it seems an improvement. Food for thought The main thing I feel like someone could address is the fear, that constantly telling yourself through out the day "I Am Dreaming!" can really make a person actually believe that they are in fact dreaming (When in reality they are awake). Well this is why I said reality checks are a great method. Use reality checks to make sure your awake. As someone who reached a period in which my average day would include a reality check + questioning every 5 minutes (that's a bit under 200 per day), I'd say numbers don't make much change (because at a certain level, something more "permanent" shows up. That is, you're not talking about repetitive actions, more like a fluid state of mind, which I like to call awareness.). The reason is it doesn't matter if you make 50 or 200 reality checks: if you're doing them as a mechanical action, they count as nothing. It's easy to perform the action and it's "quite fast" (read: for the average creation of habit time) to integrate naturally, but when you talk about conscious and reflective reality checks, with the solid questioning, then you shouldn't worry about believing that you are dreaming. I do like your use for reality checks in this paragraph Again, this is just my personal view, not some attempt to bring you over to the dark side, but it's always enjoyable to read this kind of threads and contribute to the discussion, even if we disagree ^^

[Linkzelda]

Here's an idea My Problem With Reality Checks: You know how a good method for MILDing is to do reality checks? Well that's great method! I use it all the time! But it never works in actually initiating my lucidity . Oddly, every time I've had a lucid dream through MILD, it's been from me randomly just realizing that it's a dream. Even though it's at random, it has happened quite frequently. Where do these random realizations come from? Well my theory is that the reality checks ARE working, but in a subliminal way. This is the the biggest cons with MILD, the mantra/mnemonic is only as useful as you make it out to be. If you start stating the traditional mantras like “I will have a lucid dream tonight,” or whatever laconic phrase newcomers and experienced lucid dreamers blindly go through, you're going to get random results. It's pretty simple, the more specific you are, the more likely you'll have your mantra work out for you, but it doesn't just stop there, you have to actually visualize yourself having the mantra successfully working. The mantra/phrase in itself is just a guide towards shifting yourself in the right direction in visualization and shifting to your dream senses. You have to think about how the mind works when you're worried that MILDs only happen with you having a “random” realization. If you state something like, “I am going to become aware of my dreams tonight,” chances are, you're going to have something random, because the mantra itself was vague. Compared to something like, “I am going to become aware of my dreams the moment I descend into deep relaxation" combined with visualizing yourself doing that. (Later in the thread I'll explain an alternate use for reality checks) Every time I do a reality check in waking life, it is provoking me to question reality. I don't really focus on the actual act of checking reality (like plugging my nose and trying to breath, or double checking the time), instead I focus on the questioning part: "Am I dreaming?". After reassuring myself that I'm not dreaming, I go straight back to my real-life business. At that point I totally forget about if I'm dreaming or not, because I'm focused on my normal everyday life things. Until I do my next reality check. My point is that the amount of attention I put into checking reality is minimal. Therefore it never ends up getting any attention in dreams. So I never end up lucid dreaming through reality checks. So obviously this minimal attention towards reality checking doesn't work to well. My Idea: Now some people would say that instead you should do ADA (All Day Awareness), which brings a whole lot of your attention towards the question "Am I Dreaming?". Way more attention than reality checks offer. BUT I have an alternative to ADA. It's more of a variation of ADA. To me it's a more fun and interesting way to do ADA. May add that it is also WAY easier, for me at least. And it breaks down the question of "Am I Dreaming?" and builds upon the affirmation of "I Am Dreaming." Telling yourself "I Am Dreaming." is way more straight forward right? The moment you realize your lucid dreaming, that's the statement that crosses your mind. If you had this statement crossing your mind constantly, the chances of becoming lucid would increase. That is my theory. Because when your in a lucid dream, your awareness shoots up and your way more focused (Focused on staying in the dream and being aware that you can literally do anything you want). So through out the day, tell yourself "I Am Dreaming.". Look around and envision what you'd be doing if you were in a dream. (This is after the fact that you subliminally know for a fact that you are awake.) Continue through out the day telling yourself that you are dreaming and feel the rush of excitement that washes over you. The same excitement that usually happens to someone who is exposed to the fact that they are in a dream and can do whatever the hell they want. Even in waking life, when I tell myself I am dreaming, I become way more interested in what's in front of me and I get a minimal feeling of that "Dream Euphoria". Im theorizing (and I really hope) that constantly being familiar with the experience of "Holy shit I'm dreaming!!" will cause someone to do it in their dreams. Skepticism: Yeah I know. Multiple things could go wrong with this. The main thing I feel like someone could address is the fear, that constantly telling yourself through out the day "I Am Dreaming!" can really make a person actually believe that they are in fact dreaming (When in reality they are awake). Well this is why I said reality checks are a great method. Use reality checks to make sure your awake. THEN you can pretend that your in a dream. Another problem someone might bring up is that the excitement you feel when becoming lucid may numb over time when doing this (Like a drug.) therefore the excitement of becoming lucid may never happen in your dreams. Well to me I feel like this could be a good thing. Losing this extreme excitement can help someone stay calm once lucid, making it easier to stabilize your lucidity. I will indeed test my theory and post my findings on this thread. I'll keep you updated Your theory isn't really that much of a variation/deviation/alternative way of what ADA was meant to be defined as. The conflict lies in the person trying to practice it not really giving much effort into it; or just being too lazy to have to acknowledge their experience with looking forward to a lucid dream after going through the frequent checks in waking life. Like you've stated, the more you envision yourself being in a dream like state, the more likely you'll have a lucid dream, that's not really anything different from ADA. People have good intentions of trying their best with ADA, but they mostly go through a mental conflict on whether or not it's going to work. And the reason behind that (presumably), is that they're too busy with other life goals, like you stated when you become distracted with normal things again in real life. So to have practical application of the ADA, you'd have to get yourself in a relaxed state that enables you to have a stronger concentration on a goal that it becomes difficult to become distracted. And with any skill or concept to grasp, that takes practice. This is why I personally use self-hypnosis when I want to have a lucid dream, and although I haven't made a detailed script for myself for it, when I go through a session, I get into a deep state of relaxation pretty quick, which enables me to get into the suggestive state faster than I did months ago. And if I were to read a script aloud that's custom-made for the goal I had in mind, it has a higher chance to bypass the critical factor (the part of your mind that takes in new info and compares it to currently accepted belief systems and schemata). I started realizing that it was easier to be focused on a goal because I would go through a calm, relaxed, and confident tone of voice while visualizing what I want out of this experience as well. When I do this, I also let my subconscious do the imagination for me rather than me putting conscious will in imagining. If the subconscious is aware of things we take for granted, it surely can be a threshold in helping you foresee/envision the excitement, the thrill, the joy, the state of being in complete happiness when you become aware that you're dreaming. And the more you do this, the more you condition yourself into naturally being interested in having optimism in all results you get from practicing ADA, the easier it gets. The drug analogy you stated, based on the logic of what you stated before, there can't be a tolerance if the person shifts themselves into a suggestive state that promotes optimism. Which brings me back to why self-hypnosis is more consistent than using only affirmations or going through mantras in a monotonous and rushed tone of voice. When you can get yourself relaxed and into the suggestive state, the easier it is to have those pleasure surges because the subconscious makes it a habit, it becomes part of the program of how you prepare with ADA, and it becomes natural. And instead of thinking you're “pretending” that you're lucid dreaming, try going with the idea that you're merely practicing how you're foreseeing yourself being aware in the dreaming state, just like you stated before with imagining the thrills and excitements of being lucid in a dream. I personally believe there's nothing wrong with doing this since it is a form of dream incubation, and if you put motivation and effort into it, there isn't going to be a “plateau effect,” simply because, Self-Hypnosis (which is just getting yourself into a gradual relaxation towards a clearer mind) + Giving post-hypnotic suggestions when you're in a suggestive state (where your mind is clear and open to suggestions) so that you'll have increased assurance of what will happen after you're out of the hypnosis + Having a natural condition to be motivated and excited with ease on foreseeing yourself being aware in the dream life state + Being descriptive in your experiences, using all 5 senses if possible, and speaking to yourself aloud (if possible), or mentally + Letting your words be a tool for the subconscious to imagine rather than you consciously trying to imagine + Foreseeing yourself accomplishing the state of lucidity and sustaining it for as long as you want, and continuing to acknowledge your actions/emotions/etc. = Higher chance to become aware in your dreams since you bypassed the critical factor, and it's ingrained into your subconscious. Your theory isn't flawed honestly, and personally, from going through months of finding how I can apply self-hypnosis to have a relaxed but focused concentration towards my lucid dreaming goal, I can tell you that as long as you have motivation and effort that comes naturally after relaxing, and with repetition, it's going to become easier. There's no tolerance or plateau that is built up, think about that analogy you used before a bit more. Let me use an example: = Let's say you wanted to stop eating chocolate bars (Snickers, Hershey's , etc.). You would go through imagining how eating chocolate bars won't be a benefit towards your life, so you would go through methods that will eventually become natural to the point where it's a reflex. So how would you go about doing this? You could imagine the chocolate bars representing fecal matter, something the majority of people don't really like eating (hopefully). And if you were to use gradual relaxation techniques, have suggestions (both pre- and post-) that you'll envision all chocolate bars as less rewarding and disgusting (because of the fecal reference), you'll find yourself with repetition (and I don't mean mechanical actions), you'll stay away from the chocolate bars without even thinking about it. And once it's in the subconscious' programming, it'll be difficult to change it, which means in the perspective of the subconscious (or unconscious if you're into Old Term thinking), there is no “tolerance” through repetition or “plateau effect,” it just happens naturally. I know the example is far-fetched in some way, but I hope you get what I mean. Anyway, I wish you luck! I'm pretty sure you're going to get positive results, because that's what ADA is all about. It's just just about awareness, but about applying that along with visualizing and foreseeing yourself benefiting and accomplishing whatever goal you want from it. ***Also, try to imagine yourself and not just mostly the environment around you. Imagine your level of clarity as you go around in you dream body and such, and you'll have an easier time to solidify yourself into the dreaming state and having as much awareness as you want from the dream. Again, good luck!

[DalaBudz]

Interesting theory, thanks for posting, enjoyed reading I do think there's some confusion with some stuff, like reality checks having to do anything with MILD. The deal is even though reality checks are encouraged to pretty much every method/technique, they're a exercise on their own. They don't substitute questioning (but the good thing is that many people have started to link one of the other, which is great!), and they don't make relevant significance to techniques like MILD. The reason you see them so much is because they are a simple concept that works, and it's easy to combine with any technique/approach. But many people only use reality checks inside a dream. Those realizations come from something called prospective memory. It's the most important expression mentioned by LaBerge when he introduces the technique (MILD), but the high majority of people completely ignores it. Between a person that made 50 visualizations a day, plus 50 mantras, and one person with great prospective memory, it would be the second one with the best chances of having a DILD through MILD. This is because the mantras and the visualizations are there to help you developing your prospective memory regarding your intention of becoming lucid. Subliminal messages on the other hand, let's just say that they are a lot less effective than you'd think. Extensive research shows that while they might affect something...they don't produce significant results in creation of habits or decision making, etc etc. I recall a video of subliminal messages for lucid dreaming, but never heard people reporting that the simple visualization of it gave them lucids. But prospective memory oh boy...I'd suspect is in fact involved in practically almost every Lucid dreaming technique, even things like WILD. His effectiveness is also shown in lucid dreaming studies, putting MILD with quite a score on a review of many lucid dreaming techniques (none of the techniques analysed were proven to give regular lucids, but since the study was a meta-analysis...) I agree with your theory, but wouldn't it be way more simple if you called things by their names and said "I question myself"? Just because simplicity makes things so much easier to "understand" (yes, at a deeper level). Again, it's your technique, but grasping the essence of it seems an improvement. Food for thought As someone who reached a period in which my average day would include a reality check + questioning every 5 minutes (that's a bit under 200 per day), I'd say numbers don't make much change (because at a certain level, something more "permanent" shows up. That is, you're not talking about repetitive actions, more like a fluid state of mind, which I like to call awareness.). The reason is it doesn't matter if you make 50 or 200 reality checks: if you're doing them as a mechanical action, they count as nothing. It's easy to perform the action and it's "quite fast" (read: for the average creation of habit time) to integrate naturally, but when you talk about conscious and reflective reality checks, with the solid questioning, then you shouldn't worry about believing that you are dreaming. I do like your use for reality checks in this paragraph Again, this is just my personal view, not some attempt to bring you over to the dark side, but it's always enjoyable to read this kind of threads and contribute to the discussion, even if we disagree ^^ Damn I love you Zoth. Your a very insightful guy! You really break apart the things I say and that shows you actually pay attention and have interest in what I have to say. People like you, make posting on this site fun since I have others to debate with and challenge my theories so thanks . The whole thing you said about prospective memory really interested me! Just knowing what it is gives a lot of explanation to attaining lucidity. I don't think I ever would of heard of it any time soon if you hadn't of brought it up! What interested me most is when you said to call things by their names and say "I question myself". Could you explain more, I really want to understand what your getting at. I read that over at least 20 times and still can't understand what your trying to say ahhahah. Enlighten me Also, to address the last thing you said about conscious reflective reality checks an solid questioning; I think the reason I resonate so well to my theory is because usually when I do the average reality check, I do it the "mechanical" way like you said. I'm not too good at doing it reflectively for some reason (maybe I haven't practiced it enough ), so my "cheat code" is to just tell myself I'm dreaming, which for some reason builds a strong feeling in me of becoming lucid. I can really understand and feel it when I say it. When I ask myself "Am I Dreaming?" it just doesn't have as strong a kick. It gives me something to ponder and not something I urgently feel. Hahah I can't really describe it but I feel like you understand my point

[DalaBudz]

This is the the biggest cons with MILD, the mantra/mnemonic is only as useful as you make it out to be. If you start stating the traditional mantras like “I will have a lucid dream tonight,” or whatever laconic phrase newcomers and experienced lucid dreamers blindly go through, you're going to get random results. It's pretty simple, the more specific you are, the more likely you'll have your mantra work out for you, but it doesn't just stop there, you have to actually visualize yourself having the mantra successfully working. The mantra/phrase in itself is just a guide towards shifting yourself in the right direction in visualization and shifting to your dream senses. You have to think about how the mind works when you're worried that MILDs only happen with you having a “random” realization. If you state something like, “I am going to become aware of my dreams tonight,” chances are, you're going to have something random, because the mantra itself was vague. Compared to something like, “I am going to become aware of my dreams the moment I descend into deep relaxation" combined with visualizing yourself doing that. Your theory isn't really that much of a variation/deviation/alternative way of what ADA was meant to be defined as. The conflict lies in the person trying to practice it not really giving much effort into it; or just being too lazy to have to acknowledge their experience with looking forward to a lucid dream after going through the frequent checks in waking life. Like you've stated, the more you envision yourself being in a dream like state, the more likely you'll have a lucid dream, that's not really anything different from ADA. People have good intentions of trying their best with ADA, but they mostly go through a mental conflict on whether or not it's going to work. And the reason behind that (presumably), is that they're too busy with other life goals, like you stated when you become distracted with normal things again in real life. So to have practical application of the ADA, you'd have to get yourself in a relaxed state that enables you to have a stronger concentration on a goal that it becomes difficult to become distracted. And with any skill or concept to grasp, that takes practice. This is why I personally use self-hypnosis when I want to have a lucid dream, and although I haven't made a detailed script for myself for it, when I go through a session, I get into a deep state of relaxation pretty quick, which enables me to get into the suggestive state faster than I did months ago. And if I were to read a script aloud that's custom-made for the goal I had in mind, it has a higher chance to bypass the critical factor (the part of your mind that takes in new info and compares it to currently accepted belief systems and schemata). I started realizing that it was easier to be focused on a goal because I would go through a calm, relaxed, and confident tone of voice while visualizing what I want out of this experience as well. When I do this, I also let my subconscious do the imagination for me rather than me putting conscious will in imagining. If the subconscious is aware of things we take for granted, it surely can be a threshold in helping you foresee/envision the excitement, the thrill, the joy, the state of being in complete happiness when you become aware that you're dreaming. And the more you do this, the more you condition yourself into naturally being interested in having optimism in all results you get from practicing ADA, the easier it gets. The drug analogy you stated, based on the logic of what you stated before, there can't be a tolerance if the person shifts themselves into a suggestive state that promotes optimism. Which brings me back to why self-hypnosis is more consistent than using only affirmations or going through mantras in a monotonous and rushed tone of voice. When you can get yourself relaxed and into the suggestive state, the easier it is to have those pleasure surges because the subconscious makes it a habit, it becomes part of the program of how you prepare with ADA, and it becomes natural. And instead of thinking you're “pretending” that you're lucid dreaming, try going with the idea that you're merely practicing how you're foreseeing yourself being aware in the dreaming state, just like you stated before with imagining the thrills and excitements of being lucid in a dream. I personally believe there's nothing wrong with doing this since it is a form of dream incubation, and if you put motivation and effort into it, there isn't going to be a “plateau effect,” simply because, Self-Hypnosis (which is just getting yourself into a gradual relaxation towards a clearer mind) + Giving post-hypnotic suggestions when you're in a suggestive state (where your mind is clear and open to suggestions) so that you'll have increased assurance of what will happen after you're out of the hypnosis + Having a natural condition to be motivated and excited with ease on foreseeing yourself being aware in the dream life state + Being descriptive in your experiences, using all 5 senses if possible, and speaking to yourself aloud (if possible), or mentally + Letting your words be a tool for the subconscious to imagine rather than you consciously trying to imagine + Foreseeing yourself accomplishing the state of lucidity and sustaining it for as long as you want, and continuing to acknowledge your actions/emotions/etc. = Higher chance to become aware in your dreams since you bypassed the critical factor, and it's ingrained into your subconscious. Your theory isn't flawed honestly, and personally, from going through months of finding how I can apply self-hypnosis to have a relaxed but focused concentration towards my lucid dreaming goal, I can tell you that as long as you have motivation and effort that comes naturally after relaxing, and with repetition, it's going to become easier. There's no tolerance or plateau that is built up, think about that analogy you used before a bit more. Let me use an example: = Let's say you wanted to stop eating chocolate bars (Snickers, Hershey's , etc.). You would go through imagining how eating chocolate bars won't be a benefit towards your life, so you would go through methods that will eventually become natural to the point where it's a reflex. So how would you go about doing this? You could imagine the chocolate bars representing fecal matter, something the majority of people don't really like eating (hopefully). And if you were to use gradual relaxation techniques, have suggestions (both pre- and post-) that you'll envision all chocolate bars as less rewarding and disgusting (because of the fecal reference), you'll find yourself with repetition (and I don't mean mechanical actions), you'll stay away from the chocolate bars without even thinking about it. And once it's in the subconscious' programming, it'll be difficult to change it, which means in the perspective of the subconscious (or unconscious if you're into Old Term thinking), there is no “tolerance” through repetition or “plateau effect,” it just happens naturally. I know the example is far-fetched in some way, but I hope you get what I mean. Anyway, I wish you luck! I'm pretty sure you're going to get positive results, because that's what ADA is all about. It's just just about awareness, but about applying that along with visualizing and foreseeing yourself benefiting and accomplishing whatever goal you want from it. ***Also, try to imagine yourself and not just mostly the environment around you. Imagine your level of clarity as you go around in you dream body and such, and you'll have an easier time to solidify yourself into the dreaming state and having as much awareness as you want from the dream. Again, good luck! Woah this helped a lot! That was intensely informative. Thanks for that! I've been lucid dreaming for a while (Countless lucid dreams) and it's literally been a miracle due to the fact that I am extremely LAZY. Hahah as I said to Zoth, this theory is mostly like a "cheat code". All of my lucid dreams have literally come from strong belief and a sickening amount of self-talk (mantras as a lot of people on here call it) before I fall asleep. I have a hard time staying persistent with redundant things (Like reality checks), so this just happens to work tremendously for me (At least I feel it will, I still have to test it out ). But I just react more to it. I just really feel the sensation of being in a dream when I say "I am dreaming!". I really hope it works cause this theory would be one hell of a shortcut for other people like me hahah. I'll have to try out the Self-Hypnosis! I never really looked into it, but now you've intrigued me. My meditation and relaxation has been non-existent these past couple of months for various reasons, but I'll be sure to get back into it soon since that seems to relate to self-hypnosis. I know my theory isn't completely new. I feel like the way I presented was more straight forward and easy to follow. I mean all it is, is a simple mantra of "I Am Dreaming!". What's more simple than that? A lot of my theories (And I can't wait to post most of them on this forum!) are straight forward and don't take a lot of thought. I don't really like to have step by step guides and routines that have to be memorized. I do understand the importance of them and see the benefit in them, and the hard work pays off no doubt. But lucid dreaming came (Some what) easy to me and I just want to give people my a taste of my theories and ways of thinking so that they may tackle lucid dreaming with the ease that I experienced when doing it myself. The only huge problem I find with the way I do things is that, if step by step guidelines aren't revealed and talked about, then there is no real science behind the dreaming. There are just strange theories that seem to work well just based of the way our brains work. And something inside me doesn't like that. I really want to get into the depth and science of lucid dreaming! But I'll leave that to some one else for the time being since I really feel like my theories can give people quick, fun, easy tastes of lucidity . I battle with the urge to crack the code of quick lucidity, and the urge to get into the deep, true, logic behind this mysterious dream-state. I strive to achieve both

[DalaBudz]

Update: I tried my method out and experienced no lucid dream last night. My dream recall was not affected either (I didn't expect it to but I just thought it would be informative to note). One variable that could of caused the absence of lucidity last night was the fact that I didn't begin the method until much later in the day. Today I have been telling myself that I'm dreaming constantly through out the day followed by reality checks. So I can't wait to see the results!

[VagalTone]

This method actually works, specially if you can feel the dreaminess of waking life. If you just use it to arouse your attention it´s a good ADA approach. If you really mean «i am dreaming» then you can call it Dream Yoga ( daytime practice ).

[DalaBudz]

This method actually works, specially if you can feel the dreaminess of waking life. If you just use it to arouse your attention it´s a good ADA approach. If you really mean «i am dreaming» then you can call it Dream Yoga ( daytime practice ). That's great! Since now I know that it works, I'm going to keep trying out this method until it works for me and see if I like it better than my previous, main method. I heard that dream yoga was an actual thing from my brother one time. Do you know if there is a thread about it anywhere on here? (Pardon my laziness for not searching it myself). Or maybe you could give me a brief explanation of what it is, that'd be perfect!

[VagalTone]

I know DV has a Dream yoga class by Sivason, but i don´t know much about it. Basically, dream yoga is a set of practices that lead you to change your mindset of reality. Of course we have huge conditioning. So it´s a gradual and slow process. I don´t think it has a quick effect on lucidity, so it´s good to practice more traditional LD techniques until you have some practice of dream yoga. There are some few interesting books about dream yoga, altough they may have religious biases sometimes. I think there is a lot of helpful stuff, and also scientific material that can really cast doubt on conventional reality. Ultimately i feel this is a very personal research journey. Lucid Wishes

[DalaBudz]

I might try out that class. I've been meaning try out some of the classes on this website, just haven't gotten around to it yet. Soon though! I feel like dream yoga is something that I can devote myself to since the sound of it even sounds interesting to me. Thanks for the info

[Ctharlhie]

This is pretty much the daytime practice of dream yoga.

[Ctharlhie]

Ok, having read all the replies in the thread: @Dalabudz; it's great you have an approach that works for you, as long as you are training your self-awareness, anything works. @linkzelda; your singular view of effort just doesn't stick given the example of natural lucid dreamers who expend little to no effort and are have nightly lucidity rates, see also oneironauts such as Hukif and Naiya who trained lucidity and now achieve similar results with very little effort. Also, I just disagree on the matter of affirmation specificity, both practically and efficacy, in fact I doubt the wording matters at all in comparison with the importance of prospective memory, awareness, intent, recall (a result of increased dream awareness, really). There are lucid dreamers who try less hard than you or I who achieve significantly higher results. It's the fundamentals of awareness and memory that ultimately matter. Dismissing people as 'lazy' seems to take a rather dim view of things (I'm massively lazy!) Oh, and behavioural psychology and conditioning, and hypnosis and the unconscious, isn't the be-all and end-all of human psychology. I'd recommend practising something other than hypnosis, which is a rather inefficient way of training self-awareness (based as it is on inducing a state of liminal awareness, compared to meditation, RCs and ADA that heighten awareness). People like Kingyoshi don't become lucid from randomly RCing in the dream based on a habit built in waking life, he has trained himself to be intimately aware of the different phenomena of waking and dream and how they feel. Contrary to MILD leading to a 'random' realisation without RCing, it is a testament to the strength of MILD in training awareness and memory. My best DILDs are when I know as soon as the dream begins that it is a dream, because it feels like a dream. At the very highest level of lucid dreaming RCing becomes largely unnecessary because the realisation is that full, stabilisation an afterthought because you are already pouring your attention into the dream. I do not believe that self-hypnosis teaches that kind of self-awareness (at least in my experience, I would be very interested in hearing more about how you use it). @Zoth; an important issue you raised there in prospective memory, one I have to confess I've neglected as one of the less glamorous aspects of lucid dreaming.

[Linkzelda]

Ok, having read all the replies in the thread: @linkzelda; your singular view of effort just doesn't stick given the example of natural lucid dreamers who expend little to no effort and are have nightly lucidity rates, see also oneironauts such as Hukif and Naiya who trained lucidity and now achieve similar results with very little effort. Also, I just disagree on the matter of affirmation specificity, both practically and efficacy, in fact I doubt the wording matters at all in comparison with the importance of prospective memory, awareness, intent, recall (a result of increased dream awareness, really). There are lucid dreamers who try less hard than you or I who achieve significantly higher results. It's the fundamentals of awareness and memory that ultimately matter. Dismissing people as 'lazy' seems to take a rather dim view of things (I'm massively lazy!) Oh, and behavioural psychology and conditioning, and hypnosis and the unconscious, isn't the be-all and end-all of human psychology. I'd recommend practising something other than hypnosis, which is a rather inefficient way of training self-awareness (based as it is on inducing a state of liminal awareness, compared to meditation, RCs and ADA that heighten awareness). People like Kingyoshi don't become lucid from randomly RCing in the dream based on a habit built in waking life, he has trained himself to be intimately aware of the different phenomena of waking and dream and how they feel. Contrary to MILD leading to a 'random' realisation without RCing, it is a testament to the strength of MILD in training awareness and memory. My best DILDs are when I know as soon as the dream begins that it is a dream, because it feels like a dream. At the very highest level of lucid dreaming RCing becomes largely unnecessary because the realisation is that full, stabilisation an afterthought because you are already pouring your attention into the dream. I do not believe that self-hypnosis teaches that kind of self-awareness (at least in my experience, I would be very interested in hearing more about how you use it). I typed a long reply to this, but my laptop made me press the back button somehow. So I guess it's a sign for me to shorten my response. Anyway, I understand that people like Hukif and Naiya are talented in accomplishing their lucid dreaming endeavors (though I think the reason behind that is that they got the concepts at a younger age, and they became proficient as the years progressed. If I remember correctly, I remember Hukif stating how he learned about doing the gravity RCs at an early childhood, and I'm sure the state he's in now, everything is ingrained). And I admit that I was too harsh with the term 'lazy' there, and I find it hypocritical for me to state that as well since of what I'm currently experimenting with Hypnosis (using customized scripts where I literally just have to get in a comfortable position, read and visualize, and bam, lucid dream). I understand that Hypnosis isn't the magical cure-all or the ultimate form for a person building self-awareness. The totality of a person's experience and their knowledge from reading all sorts of dreaming concepts, techniques, mindsets, etc. definitely matter. For me, Hypnosis becomes easier to comprehend after filtering out its misconceptions, and using it for what it's really for. Hypnosis does have its flaws since it is extremely goal-orientated, and based on the person's experience, they might have to work at one goal at a time instead of multiple to have more efficacy. However, when I saw doing hypnosis sessions with a member on Dream Views, and making a guide for other tasks different from dreaming, people were able to get into the suggestive state much faster. I see self-hypnosis as easing yourself into the suggestive state and temporarily distracting the critical factor in your mind to get what you want. Like KingYoshi and others, I definitely don't ignore their efforts in becoming the prodigies that they are to this day, in fact, the concepts with his WILD guide and from others are all packaged neatly for me when I use self-hypnosis. Self-hypnosis (all forms of hypnosis are self-hypnosis, at least from personal experience) is what you make of it, just like MILD. It's because I can easily think of many scenarios (and I mean many that it does get concerning at times), and with self-hypnosis, it controls those surge of thoughts and makes me focus on what I want. And since I lived most of my life being the typical child growing into a young adult that didn't fixate on dreaming as much, I didn't have the "natural" ability like others have had (OctoberWind is another person who can LD really easily). Like you, I'm assuming you started LD around the later years of your current life instead of your childhood, we had to work hard for getting things in our head and making things work for us. After battling through all those mental conflicts I had with myself with dreaming (self-fulfilling prophecies, solipsism, apophenia, and other tendencies that occur when I tried to balance reality and dreaming), hypnosis was the method I found to be effective for me. Hypnosis doesn't cover everything, I do agree to that, and with how it's interpreted with aspects of Psychology, it usually falls under Pseudoscience since there's a lot of misinterpretations with people thinking the Traditional stage hypnosis from the past transcends to what Hypnosis overall really is. I just figured that if I really wanted to make a decent link to collaborating with my subconscious, I had to use hypnosis to temporarily distract the critical factor, and to get myself into the suggestive state with ease, and with gradual practice, it's practically a no-brainer. If I want to go into a lucid dream, I can get up right now, sit on my bed or somewhere comfortable, read a script (or use gradual relaxation methods and visualizations I memorized and becomes easy to remember), and I have a lucid dream, or at least a more intense non-lucid dream that I can recall to great detail. So for me, and what I had to battle with, I realized that there's people that use autosuggestion and subliminal messages to hopefully get them to ease into their mind, there's people who do all sorts of things with affirmations, meditation, etc. and keep at it even if it gets tough (and they end up with what they want, but just a major backlash), and there's people who use self-hypnosis. Again, my view is narrow-minded, but that's how I really see things in terms of how to work with your mind so that you know when you see how it works, and using a method that makes it crave more suggestions that could be beneficial to your life, the easier and faster it gets. It's something that works for me, and I encourage people that can put in time to describe what they want out of their sessions, but I am aware that other methods can work. But I've tried those methods, even if they refuted my beliefs with religion and life, and this one is as simple as it can get (when you see what it teaches you).