Thread: Countering Dream Logic to Become Lucid

Forgot to practice what I preach: "Just plop them down, doesn't have to be right or wrong" so...

• Keep track of the ways things change illogically within the dreamworld while journaling with a separate list and eventually during the dream perhaps. (basically dream signs) DC changes, room changes, inanimate object moves, house changes from yours to grandmothers, etc..
• Synthesize the way a DC changes in a dream with a slideshow to "practice" catching the switch during the next dream. The image is literally changing slightly right before your eyes! (Like OpheliaBlue's Avatar, or did I dream that it changed come October?)
• Could thinking way outside the box in ways that some people consider illogical help somehow?

I will try to think on it some more perhaps during some of my "in between" states...

Originally Posted by fogelbise

Forgot to practice what I preach: "Just plop them down, doesn't have to be right or wrong" so...

• Keep track of the ways things change illogically within the dreamworld while journaling with a separate list and eventually during the dream perhaps. (basically dream signs) DC changes, room changes, inanimate object moves, house changes from yours to grandmothers, etc..
• Synthesize the way a DC changes in a dream with a slideshow to "practice" catching the switch during the next dream. The image is literally changing slightly right before your eyes! (Like OpheliaBlue's Avatar, or did I dream that it changed come October?)
• Could thinking way outside the box in ways that some people consider illogical help somehow?

I will try to think on it some more perhaps during some of my "in between" states...

I'm just watching the goings on... A lot of your list is correct except most of the time it don't work for me. Like.. I'm an old fart. but I seem to attain the age required for the dream plot like, I can be any age from 9 to 90 and run for miles or drink gallons of beer, Or have a seemingly unlimited supply of money, I have been shot full of Indian arrows and laughed about it never once thinking there is no way possible I could do these things anymore, It usually comes from more mundane real life things like "That's not my cat" Or "I don't have one of those"

Here's a small twist to your OP, Fogelbise: There is nothing wrong with dream logic.

Our cognition and logical faculties are operating at pretty much the same speed during a dream that they do in waking life. It's memory that is switched off. It wasn't flawed logic that caused you to think it okay that your son was the wrong age in the dream, it was that you did not remember how old he was supposed to be. [by memory I mean most long-term and all short term]

With memory shut off, during a dream your entire universe was created five minutes ago, so, since there is no benchmark memory to reference that might refute your dream schema, you accept things that wouldn't make sense in waking life. In other words, during the dream there is no memory for Woblybil to tap in order to question being shot with Indian arrows, so it seems perfectly logical at the time.

So the trick here isn't to restore logic in a dream, but memory.

That said, I couldn't help but notice that your three "plopped down" thoughts work just as well with testing and restoring memory as they do logic.... so maybe you were already in the right court?

One of the things LaBerge pushes in daytime work is looking for the "odd," and doing a reality check, so that during a dream when you see something odd you'll do an RC. The flaw in that is that there tends to be nothing odd in a dream, because you have no memory reference to find something odd, say, in a fat naked man standing on your ceiling. If you do spot an oddity in a dream, like Woblybil's cats, you likely were already close to lucidity, if only because a bit of memory stayed on for your dream.

How to fix this? It isn't easy -- nature has done a good job in programming us to have memory shut off during dreams -- but I've found that including memory tests in RC's (ie, asking what I did ten minutes ago) is very helpful because if you ask yourself during a dream what you were doing ten minutes ago, and draw a total blank, you might be able to logically assume that this is a dream -- because logic works fine!

Also, setting an intention before sleep to remember that your actual body is still asleep in your bed is very helpful, as doing so might oblige your dreaming mind to keep the door to memory cracked a bit so that the intention can be fulfilled. So, even though remembering where your real body is is supposed to be a LD prolonging tool, it might also be instrumental in getting you there in the first place.

This sounded a lot better in my head.

That makes sense to me Sageous.
I find quite often that my dreams are fairly logical. There might be surprising things that happen, but they are not usually completely strange and illogical.
For instance, I might dream about an elephant in the street, but it is a normal looking elephant in a normal looking street, so not completely illogical.
I did wonder if it was that that made my become lucid more difficult, but your idea about memory makes sense.
In fact I've never even thought of it like that. I suppose when recalling a dream you have all your waking memories intact, so the idea that while you were dreaming you did not have memory is difficult to comprehend.

I will try your idea about checking what you did 10 minutes ago while doing an RC.

Any ideas about more reliably deciding to do an RC while dreaming?
I have done that once (nose block RC) which made me lucid, and another time I looked at my hands that had very long fingers, but that didn't make me lucid.

Originally Posted by Goldenspark

Any ideas about more reliably deciding to do an RC while dreaming?

Just one: do them often and with meaning during waking life, to get your mind in the right place.

Ultimately it is not the RC that "makes" you lucid, it is your state of mind while you're performing the RC. So, if you do a RC during a dream, your focus shouldn't be on looking at your hands and waiting for results. Instead it should be on wondering if this is a dream, and then looking at your hands for verification rather than action.

Ironically, if your head is in the right place to do a RC during a dream, you'll very likely not need to do one. Go figure!

The dream logic question has been on my mind quite a bit recently. I've got a couple thoughts.

In a dream, we see something unusual and without skipping a beat, we insert whatever explanation seems right. So let me break it down in how I see it.

First:

There are plenty of times in my dreams when completely insane things have happened and I never batted an eye. That makes me think there is some kind of trigger, perhaps a switch that says something is not right.

Second:

This suspicion is then satisfied, in most cases by some kind of logical justification.

I see a parallel with this and waking life. It relates to cognitive dissonance. When something is introduced into a mind that is contrary to the logical framework hitherto established, a logical justification must be made in order to preserve equilibrium and prevent dissonance.

This in my view, is what is happening in the dream as well.

The solution to both the dream and waking life dilemma is awareness. One must bring awareness to that initial feeling of suspicion. Once the justification does its work, the suspicion is suppressed and awareness will more than likely be ineffective.
So that is my 2 centipedes.

Originally Posted by Chimpertainment

First: There are plenty of times in my dreams when completely insane things have happened and I never batted an eye. That makes me think there is some kind of trigger, perhaps a switch that says something is not right.

There is, and that switch is memory. The only way to know, even to assume, that something is not right is to have a benchmark of truth to which to compare it. Without memory, that benchmark is inaccessible.

Second: This suspicion is then satisfied, in most cases by some kind of logical justification.

I see a parallel with this and waking life. It relates to cognitive dissonance. When something is introduced into a mind that is contrary to the logical framework hitherto established, a logical justification must be made in order to preserve equilibrium and prevent dissonance.

This in my view, is what is happening in the dream as well.

I'm not sure about this. Cognitive dissonance is a similar event, but, as it is a conflict of beliefs, and both the dissonance itself and its resolution cannot happen without some self-awareness present. In other words, yes, you can (and likely will) experience cognitive dissonance in a dream, but only after you're lucid. In regular NLD's the lack of a self-aware "You," and all your requisite (memory based) intellectual and emotional baggage, prevents cognitive dissonance from existing, I think. In a sense, cognitive dissonance is a higher-end logical mode, which requires not only the presence of memory but of self-awareness as well.

Now that last paragraph makes it sound like logic does not work just fine in dreams, but suffice it to say that cognitive dissonance is a condition that doesn't exist without a little self-aware help in waking life, either.

The solution to both the dream and waking life dilemma is awareness. One must bring awareness to that initial feeling of suspicion. Once the justification does its work, the suspicion is suppressed and awareness will more than likely be ineffective.

Yup. Self-awareness in a dream is the necessary tool for accessing memory and getting things mentally organized. Keep in mind, though, that even that initial suspicion requires unnatural self-awareness or memory* to be sparked.

* This BTW is why we do all that mnemonic work in MILD, as it creates a rote trigger that slightly cracks the door to memory in a dream, and allows you a chance to become aware of the dream -- suspicious, as it were -- through a failure in the logic that was working just fine before the crack appeared.

Sageous, I am sure someone has thought of this before but what about a mantra reminding us that, as you said elsewhere in some variation, our sleeping body is somewhere back there/sleeping in bed? Do you think that could be a good way to spark our memory while dreaming? Perhaps going to sleep repeating "October 23, I am sleeping in bed"...or some variation..?

^^ Yes, yes, and sure.

Indeed, the single word "remember" is my most often chosen mantra. You can also set an intention of remembering that your body is still asleep in bed. And, per my WILD class's Reverse Reality Check, if you're in the habit of remembering where you were a few minutes ago, during a dream you might just remember, "Hey, I was in bed!" and thus nudge memory back into action...

However you do it, be it mantras, intentions, or daytime work, getting your DC self to notice that his world's entire history started five minutes ago may be enough to draw in self-awareness and initiate the LD.

^^ Woohoo proud that I chose myself a mantra that Sageous himself uses . It was "remember.... I am the dream" but I think that was too complex for that particular WILD attempt. Or maybe I was just too alert. I'll try switching just to "remember," But "I'm dreaming" seems to be working really well now so I may just stick with that.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Ironically, if your head is in the right place to do a RC during a dream, you'll very likely not need to do one. Go figure!

In my 4 DILDs (just woke up from #4 two hours ago, woohoo!), I have yet to do an RC . I thought to do one in DILD #3 but then I immediately transitioned to awake in bed. For me the trigger is saying or thinking "I'm dreaming." In this morning's DILD, I thought "I'm dreaming..." then realized, whoa, yes, I AM dreaming!

Sageous and anyone else with thoughts or examples...I wanted to revisit the idea of memory while sleeping. This is from my early morning thoughts:

"I wake up lying in bed thinking about why some short term memories come through to our dreams? And how some dreams are influenced by that very day's events. I wonder if it could be like one theory holds that dreams are part of the filing away of memories process. Perhaps during the filing away of the memory it gets included in our dream."

The idea of incubation or just having a dream influenced by that days events seem to point to the idea of short term memory playing a part, but what factors are involved in making the difference in this happening to the same person one night but not the next? I have seen suggestions that memories tied to strong emotions play a part, but even some seemingly mundane things also seem to. Perhaps the mundane ones are triggering a subconscious reaction that is stronger than we realize.

I am fascinated by the idea that neuroplasticity could explain *one reason (there are definitely others) why regular lucid dreamers seem to get better over time...understanding that if you stop using your brain regularly or staying aware or mindful regularly things will likely decline.

I am also interested in which types of memory exercises are useful to lucid dreaming, besides prospective memory. I am sure there are answers or theories somewhere in these forums and elsewhere. Will have to research it further when I get the chance...

^^ On reading your post, Fogelbise, I realize I may have slightly misspoken. As it is an integral our brain's activities, memory is never completely shut off. In other words, memory and memories are always functioning. What is not functioning is your waking-life conscious ability to tap your memory files.

So memory, as we would use it to define our reality -- or understand that this is a dream and is not reality -- is effectively switched off from our conscious perspective in dreams. It is certainly still functioning, as you clearly note, and your dreaming mind/unconscious accesses it throughout the night to build schemata for your dreams (though it does so fairly randomly and with little concern for accuracy or waking life references)... and yes, your dreaming mind might also bump into the occasional lingering bit of day residue and include that in a dream as well.

Originally Posted by Sageous

There is, and that switch is memory. The only way to know, even to assume, that something is not right is to have a benchmark of truth to which to compare it. Without memory, that benchmark is inaccessible.


I'm not sure about this. Cognitive dissonance is a similar event, but, as it is a conflict of beliefs, and both the dissonance itself and its resolution cannot happen without some self-awareness present. In other words, yes, you can (and likely will) experience cognitive dissonance in a dream, but only after you're lucid. In regular NLD's the lack of a self-aware "You," and all your requisite (memory based) intellectual and emotional baggage, prevents cognitive dissonance from existing, I think. In a sense, cognitive dissonance is a higher-end logical mode, which requires not only the presence of memory but of self-awareness as well.

Now that last paragraph makes it sound like logic does not work just fine in dreams, but suffice it to say that cognitive dissonance is a condition that doesn't exist without a little self-aware help in waking life, either.



Yup. Self-awareness in a dream is the necessary tool for accessing memory and getting things mentally organized. Keep in mind, though, that even that initial suspicion requires unnatural self-awareness or memory* to be sparked.

* This BTW is why we do all that mnemonic work in MILD, as it creates a rote trigger that slightly cracks the door to memory in a dream, and allows you a chance to become aware of the dream -- suspicious, as it were -- through a failure in the logic that was working just fine before the crack appeared.

I agree with everything you've said however I think you are missing something.

What causes the memory to be a trigger? If it were only the memory, would we not experience that trigger every time equally across every experience?
There has been science done that suggests that a memory which has more emotion attached will be remembered more clearly and longer. This is particularly advantageous knowledge for the advertising industry.
Applying that to our dreams, we can infer that depending on the emotional quality or intensity of memory, that trigger could be more or less powerful. This would lead to our experiences where in some cases, only a throw away explanation is needed, and in other cases, a massive logical sequence is needed to justify the discrepancy.

My point is only that there is an emotional and energetic element to the process. That is why in my opinion, mantras work so well when you believe fully in what you are saying. Repeating words is great, but without the strong weight of intention behind them, they fall on deaf ears.

That is the basic premise. It gets more complicated when you consider that emotion and memory are not specific or linear. Emotions and memories are also very intertwined with one another. The logical aspect in my mind is only part of the justification and explanation process.

Originally Posted by Chimpertainment

I agree with everything you've said however I think you are missing something.

Perhaps I am:

What causes the memory to be a trigger? If it were only the memory, would we not experience that trigger every time equally across every experience?

Yes. every time a dreamer consciously taps (aka: switches on) his memory during a dream, he will become lucid. Every time. This tapping of memory is very difficult to cause, however, and to do so requires a strong sense of self-awareness in the dream or, perhaps, some well-established waking-life mnemonic exercises. I'm not sure you meant it that way when you said "the memory," but keep in mind that this is not about tapping any particular memory, but the function of memory itself. So yes, we would experience that trigger every time equally across every experience...just like waking life.

Now to what I missed:

There has been science done that suggests that a memory which has more emotion attached will be remembered more clearly and longer....Applying that to our dreams, we can infer that depending on the emotional quality or intensity of memory, that trigger could be more or less powerful. This would lead to our experiences where in some cases, only a throw away explanation is needed, and in other cases, a massive logical sequence is needed to justify the discrepancy.

My point is only that there is an emotional and energetic element to the process. That is why in my opinion, mantras work so well when you believe fully in what you are saying. Repeating words is great, but without the strong weight of intention behind them, they fall on deaf ears.

Agreed. Emotion, desire, intensity, a meaningful mantra, etc are definitely powerful amplifiers of self-awareness and, consequently, lucidity.

I guess I left out that important bit because emotion comes at the front end of lucid dreaming, when you're still awake. Once you're asleep, and memory is unavailable, that emotion's power lies not in exciting memory but in goading your unconscious into constructing a schema that screams at you to become lucid. That is a good thing, of course, but has little to do with consciously connecting with your memory. Or logic.

Also and again, this is not about individual memories, no matter how emotional they might be. In fact, I believe that powerfully emotional memories might serve to deflect lucidity rather than help out. Why? Because powerfully emotional memories are very real, and that realness will likely trump a dreamer's limited ability understand that the world created by the emotional memory is not real.

That is the basic premise. It gets more complicated when you consider that emotion and memory are not specific or linear. Emotions and memories are also very intertwined with one another. The logical aspect in my mind is only part of the justification and explanation process.

True. And, once memory is tapped by a self-aware dreamer, emotion can become a powerful tool for creating meaningful or even transcendental dreams, especially if its unique energy is carefully blended with memory and self-awareness. One caveat, though: because of that non-linear nature you mention, emotion is a two-edged blade; if not controlled or understood during the dream, it might lead a dreamer away from lucidity by clouding his mind with feelings that cement the reality of the dream (did I already say that?).

Logic as part of the justification and explanation process is another two-edged blade, I think. Because logic works just fine in a dream, you could just as easily -- no, you could more easily -- non-lucidly convince yourself that there is nothing unreal about having dinner with dead relatives at the bottom of a filled swimming pool. That logic, when mixed with dream schemata, can be hazardous to lucidity as well: I've had many NLD's, too many, wherein I was arguing logically and quite thoughtfully with DC's about lucid dreaming, and why this was not one.

Bottom line: I perhaps could have mentioned emotion, because it is important, but its impact as a tool is strongest during waking-life, and it can indeed be an obstacle to lucidity during the dream. After you're lucid, though, emotion can be the key to learning what it is all about.

I don't know. Memory is always present in dreams whether you are lucid or not. It is the level of awareness attached to that memory that really counts.
But what we are talking about here is that trick the mind plays, telling us that everything is normal, despite an underlying doubt to the contrary.

Perhaps at the end of the day what we are really talking about here is awareness. There is an awareness block that prevents us from accessing a particular memory. Then the logic centers go into action in order to fill in the missing information. Each step of the process is most likely accompanied by emotional triggers that provide context and activate new functions of the developing dream schematic.

How bout that?

^^ If you've read any of my stuff here or elsewhere, you'll know that I cannot argue with the suggestion that "at the end of the day we are talking about [self-]awareness," as that is my constant drumbeat. Lucidity is all about self-awareness; in fact, lucidity's very definition is, simply, the presence of waking-life self-awareness in a dream. So yes, we are talking about self-awareness, and I suppose that there could be an "awareness block" that prevents us from accessing memory... but then it all gets a bit crinkled.

For instance, in waking life, most people spend their entire day outside the company of their own self-awareness. And yet while awake they are able to tap their memory reserves as needed, and logic works just fine (indeed, I know several scientists who can do their work and math with high proficiency, and yet possess not one iota of self-awareness). In a sense, self-awareness itself is blocked almost all the time in waking life, yet memory works fine. How can that be?

Sure, self-awareness can trigger a search for a particular memory; that could be the main reason we bring it into a dream in the first place. Indeed, strong self-awareness in a dream can switch memory completely back on -- but it had to be off in the first place to be switched on, right? And isn't the reason memory is inaccessible sort of moot? Sure, it could be an awareness block preventing memory from being tapped, but memory is still not being tapped.

You may have put the cart before the horse up there regarding logic. Sure, our logic centers (do we even have logic centers?) go into action because memory cannot be accessed; our active consciousnesses always need some defining explanation for our environment, I suppose. But is the logic they produce really flawed because they must work with extremely limited information (i.e., the entire universe was created five minutes ago, with no background history or established structural hierarchy)? I don't think so; indeed, logic might be operating at 110% in dreams rather than at a diminished capacity, because it must do all the work defining this dream reality.

Finally, though I agree that emotion can be mightily influential in pushing you toward lucidity, I think it's more that, rather than provide contextual and operational triggers, emotion provides a powerful energy burst to your efforts (caveat: it can also provide a powerful energy burst to thwart your efforts, if you, say, allow fear to dictate your reactions to novel events). Emotion is very powerful, but source it as the only tool for building schemata or accessing memory and you might wind up with a dream that has nothing to do with your original plans, and still no access to memory (or self-awareness, for that matter, as emotion exists quite well without self-awareness). In other words, emotion is a powerful force, but may be a bit too wild to help in the precise work of establishing, navigating, and understanding the condition of dreams while you are in them.

So I guess what you say makes sense, and I understand your support of emotion. But I also understand that memory is not available in dreams (even many lucids), and that lack of access to reality-based benchmarks -- for whatever reason -- is what allows us to frankly believe and explain with sound logic impossible stuff in dreams.

Bottom line: Yes, it's all about self-awareness, because self-awareness is the engine for organization in dreams -- organization of schemata, of logic, of emotion, and, yes, of memory.

Since I overthink things in general and look at the weird logic when recalling my dreams and sometimes seem to notice it during the dream(but usually don't become lucid), do you think there might be a good mantra for catching these things? Sometimes I notice something as strange during the dream but don't become lucid...as if, as Chimpertainment called it, "the trick the mind is playing" is coming into play. I am guessing that it doesn't help to think of any of this as a trick the mind is playing on me but I have wondered the same thing before. Sageous, your great recap above definitely makes sense and seems like a great way to analyze what actually seems to be happening. I guess I am looking for one more way to increase my chances at lucidity other than my self-awareness work. Do you think there is a good mantra in relation to the odd/weird/wrong logic in my situation other than a mantra based on self-awareness?

Originally Posted by fogelbise

...I guess I am looking for one more way to increase my chances at lucidity other than my self-awareness work. Do you think there is a good mantra in relation to the odd/weird/wrong logic in my situation other than a mantra based on self-awareness?

Aside from something simple like, "Remember," or perhaps "question the odd," no, I'm not sure I can come up with a mantra that will resolve this. That doesn't mean there isn't one, of course; only that it might need to come directly from your own experience. For instance, if you're tracking dreamsigns, you might form a mantra around your most common, or weirdest, recurring dreamsign.

Beyond that, keep in mind that the power of a mantra, though substantial, is still limited. It will help focus your self-awareness before and (hopefully) during a dream, and could be a real help in securing lucidity, but it will not replace self-awareness.

The real key to resolving this is your gathered and retained self-awareness. If the mantra you're currently using does good things to that end, keep using it, and rely on your empowered self-awareness and patience during the dream to sort out the odd and/or forgotten.