People that are Lucid 80% or more of the time, How Do You Do It?

[Baron Samedi]

Seems like some people are lucid most of the time. I'd like to hear from those dreamers mostly. How do you do it? How long have you been mostly lucid?

[rynkrt3]

I am by no means an expert, I am just going off of something I had read once. There was a guy who asked many natural lucid dreamers if they did anything different that most people. I believe they all constantly questioned reality in some way or another. One woman constantly thought about what she was just doing. One guy always observed his environment for abnormalities. All of the behavior exhibited wasn't normal and maybe even slightly schizophrenic. They didn't consciously do these things because they chose to. As I said, this is just a study I had read a long time ago, most of the information is missing XD

[TestingProNinja]

I don't think that my opinion counts, being at the measely half LD count, but I'm pretty sure it's just how everyone gets good at everything, dedication and practice, it's kind of like a sport, you can be good without trying, but in order to be the best you need practice.

[LouaiB]

I am not an expert LDer, but I would say it is heightened self-awareness.

[dutchraptor]

I think it partly plays with said persons affinity towards lucid dreams. I just can see it being possible for every human to be in a near constant state of lucidity. Maybe it is possible with just sheer determination, but I'd say you are much further off from constant lucidity if you start from scratch than from a natural lucid dreamer state.

[StephL]

Well - two names come to mind - Sageous and Sivason - both have put on extensive tutorials and reported years and years (decades, if I am not mistaken..) of doing their methods. Then there are the ones, who didn't stop it from childhood but went on with it. But you want them - not us philosophising - hope they come along - cool thread!

[Sageous]

Okay, I'll bite, but you won't like the answer, Nomad! Seems like some people are lucid most of the time. I'd like to hear from those dreamers mostly. How do you do it? How long have you been mostly lucid? I'm not sure what that 80% figure means; if it means that there is some sense that "this is a dream" present in most of my dreams, then yes, I suppose I do fit into that category. If you mean that full-blown-high-end lucidity occurs in 80% or more of my dreams, then no, I don't fit. Indeed, as I get older and my body continues its relentless drive to stymie my lucid efforts, the dreams I consider "truly" lucid (waking-life self-awareness and memory are present) are conjured less than once or twice a week now, and I manage a "goal" dream -- the really high-end stuff -- maybe once or twice a year at best. So if it's the former -- just a "background noise" of knowledge that I'm dreaming -- you're asking about, I think the way "I did it" was by simply being fully immersed in the practice of LD'ing for so many years. So no technique but time, I guess; time and a chronic daytime focus on self-awareness, my dream goals, and dreaming itself. That, and the many thousands of LD's that may have conditioned my mind to be accustomed to dreaming, as though a dream were just another time and place for my consciousness to be. I think I've been this way for about 20 years now, though I haven't had a sustained nightmare in over 30 years, so that subtle knowledge has been around for quite some time. If its the latter, it has been many many years since I was averaging 100 or so "true" LD's a month (definitely in that 80% range), which I think was more a result of my mindset, energy levels, and curious sleeping habits (upwards of 12 hrs a day, most days) than to any particular technique -- and of course this is especially true because I was doing all this back in the 1970's and '80's, long before the "techniques" were codified. Lately I am in a place where I must be deeply in the mood to LD in order to have decent dives... but when I am in that mood they are unavoidable! I do make a point, though, of setting aside one or two days per week, and one solid month per year, to nurture that mood. So I guess I'm no help Nomad. I also have a feeling that the "naturals," if they truly exist (I am decidedly not a natural -- to reach this point took a great amount of work), would be of little help either, because they would simply tell you that they are just aware that they are dreaming. A person born to the art would by definition not need techniques, and, just as we don't give much thought to how we go about walking or breathing, they likely would have difficulty explaining how they manage an essentially automatic process. Perhaps someone else will chime in with something more specific?

[Meskhetyw]

I am certainly not lucid 80% of the time, but I also have that "background noise" that Sageous speaks of most of the time. In my opinion this alone is very satisfying as it influences decisions in dreams and can make things very interesting. It also allows for DEILDs, and effects a great many other things I am too tired to think of at the moment. I do get a satisfying amount of LDs from DILDs but I have never bothered to count them; surely it is nowhere near 100 per month. I do get a huge amount of DEILDs however, but keep in mind that I have been known to sleep up to 16 hours at times. I am not sure exactly how I achieved the "background awareness", but it is either due to self-awareness in general, or what I call "state awareness", which is a dream yoga alteration that involves setting certain hours of the day aside to continually look for dream distortions and sensations, all the while seeing myself from the outside in a way (way over-simplified version). This obviously also involves self-awareness, and since arriving at this forum and reading about Sageous's experience, I think it is apparent what is at work here. I assume that I recognize the dream state because of my personal place within it (how it relates to ME) and the frequency of my daytime practice, and since incorporating techniques from others, like MILD and RRC, I am beginning to understand the process more as I struggle to achieve that pure self-awareness and memory in dreams more frequently. Basically; practice, practice, practice, and this: you have to love the process. I remember when I wanted to kick high for martial arts. I decided to train for a split in my twenties and stiff as a board. I taught myself over time, and after stretching for an hour and a half per day for four years, I finally did it. If I did not love the small gains, I do not believe I would have held out so long. Unlike a split however, the gains need not be small if you truly throw all you have (or can) at lucid dreaming, and do it in such a way that you love doing so.

[Renyao]

I'm definitely not lucid 80% of the time, but with adequate sleep (like 9 hrs) and the intention to become lucid I have about a 50% success rate, which isn't too terrible. I use MILD every time I go to sleep, and WBTB at one-hour intervals after I've gotten 6 hours' sleep. I wouldn't say I'm a "natural" by any means, though when I was young I did discover that I could avoid nightmares by flying away from them (which implies I had some knowledge that I was dreaming.) Perhaps for this reason I've almost never used RC checks or failed to answer correctly if I asked myself "am I dreaming?" -- if I remember to question at all, I go lucid right away. Dreams "feel" different from waking life. Not very helpful, I know! but this is what I've gathered from the other posters who've got thousands of lucids under their belts: like rynkrt3 said, you have to learn to constantly question reality. Be vigilant for anything that seems unusual or unexpected, and remember that your dreaming brain will make excuses for everything no matter how odd ("Why is this baseball in the fridge? ...oh, my friend must have put it there.") Ideally you want to be aware of what you're doing at every possible moment; you don't want to let yourself coast through the day on 'autopilot' because you'll coast through dreams the same way. This sounds exhausting (and it does take practice!) but it actually turns out to be a very soothing and relaxing mindset. I starting practicing All Day Awareness http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...kingyoshi.html and noticed that it made me feel much calmer; then I realized that the constant-awareness approach is very similar to mindfulness, which is a kind of meditation you can do throughout the day without having to sit and close your eyes. I believe this is the key to increased lucidity and so this is where I've been focusing most of my efforts; in theory you could be constantly aware (with lots of practice, of course) and therefore highly likely to become lucid in dreams.

[LouaiB]

I'm definitely not lucid 80% of the time, but with adequate sleep (like 9 hrs) and the intention to become lucid I have about a 50% success rate, which isn't too terrible. I use MILD every time I go to sleep, and WBTB at one-hour intervals after I've gotten 6 hours' sleep. I wouldn't say I'm a "natural" by any means, though when I was young I did discover that I could avoid nightmares by flying away from them (which implies I had some knowledge that I was dreaming.) Perhaps for this reason I've almost never used RC checks or failed to answer correctly if I asked myself "am I dreaming?" -- if I remember to question at all, I go lucid right away. Dreams "feel" different from waking life. Not very helpful, I know! but this is what I've gathered from the other posters who've got thousands of lucids under their belts: like rynkrt3 said, you have to learn to constantly question reality. Be vigilant for anything that seems unusual or unexpected, and remember that your dreaming brain will make excuses for everything no matter how odd ("Why is this baseball in the fridge? ...oh, my friend must have put it there.") Ideally you want to be aware of what you're doing at every possible moment; you don't want to let yourself coast through the day on 'autopilot' because you'll coast through dreams the same way. This sounds exhausting (and it does take practice!) but it actually turns out to be a very soothing and relaxing mindset. I starting practicing All Day Awareness http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...kingyoshi.html and noticed that it made me feel much calmer; then I realized that the constant-awareness approach is very similar to mindfulness, which is a kind of meditation you can do throughout the day without having to sit and close your eyes. I believe this is the key to increased lucidity and so this is where I've been focusing most of my efforts; in theory you could be constantly aware (with lots of practice, of course) and therefore highly likely to become lucid in dreams. Keep in mind that self-awareness is different from ADA awareness( which is environmental awareness)

[Azul]

Keep in mind that self-awareness is different from ADA awareness( which is environmental awareness) Self-Awareness is a bxtch at first! LOL Seriously, ADA was a cake walk for me after many repetitions. Then I started a Gravity RC which was literally hell for the first 2-4 weeks. It does all boil down to awareness though, just different variations of it anyway. There is no magical trick to becoming lucid its an art and skill just like any other. I'm practically lucid daily now, but what I've realized is once your technique is a habit it becomes second nature. You then start to carry it over into dreams without even realizing it. What's interesting is that the people I've met recently who are ALWAYS lucid weren't like that in their childhood. I tend to find their strategies for success more interesting rather than a person "naturally" doing it. I say naturally for lack of a better term because everyone's definition of it will be different. Most of the time as a child you don't know how you do these things, but just simply do them. Then again, there are a few who remember what they did in those early years.

[LouaiB]

Self-Awareness is a bxtch at first! LOL Seriously, ADA was a cake walk for me after many repetitions. Then I started a Gravity RC which was literally hell for the first 2-4 weeks. It does all boil down to awareness though, just different variations of it anyway. There is no magical trick to becoming lucid its an art and skill just like any other. I'm practically lucid daily now, but what I've realized is once your technique is a habit it becomes second nature. You then start to carry it over into dreams without even realizing it. What's interesting is that the people I've met recently who are ALWAYS lucid weren't like that in their childhood. I tend to find their strategies for success more interesting rather than a person "naturally" doing it. I say naturally for lack of a better term because everyone's definition of it will be different. Most of the time as a child you don't know how you do these things, but just simply do them. Then again, there are a few who remember what they did in those early years. But self-awareness is a different awareness than ADA awareness. Indeed, they have both distinct jobs. Both have different effects. Each one has its own region(s) of the brain.

[transflux]

Actually, environmental awareness is inherent part of true self-reflexive awareness, and for me to get the hang of "lucid dreaming" was all about recognizing the true nature of space. For example the self I use for OBE-style (you'd say false awakening style) lucid dreaming stems from a consciousness associated with room sized volumes. Everyone can get familiar with this consciousness by extending their perceptual awareness from the chest. It's not necessary to shut off your mind and invert your senses - this and laying down might put you into unconscious sleep.

[Bobblehat]

Everyone can get familiar with this consciousness by extending their perceptual awareness from the chest. It's not necessary to shut off your mind and invert your senses - this and laying down might put you into unconscious sleep. Not quite 100 percent on what you mean there. Can you expand on that a little please?

[transflux]

Not quite 100 percent on what you mean there. Can you expand on that a little please? That I can do, even if it does not make any sense. What I wanted to get at is that there's a procedure quite similar to SSILD that you can use to zoom out of your current awareness. So you basically switch the self we're all familiar with to a bigger self of which the thinking-planning-worrying self is just a small part. The resulting state of consciousness is drastically different from what we've been used to yet you'll find it surprisingly familiar. I believe it to be the superposition of the waking, sleeping and dreaming self and is in command when it comes to lucid dreaming. Here you wouldn't want to throw no dragonballs anymore but you can set up dreaming for good or leave your body, if that's what you want. The process involves relating to your environment in a loving, caring way as if it were an extension of your self. It shouldn't be a long stretch to most lucid dreamers as many of you guys look at your dream environment as a projection of your self. Which I think is correct. Also this is the mindset you want to have when getting started with this exercise. You basically rotate your awareness through items that belong to different levels or aspects of your self (external sensory, body sensations, emotions, thoughts, awareness of time passing, and self-reflexive awareness in the present moment) until you pick up enough awareness to hold entire levels of these parts of your being in your present awareness. By this point you're ready to zoom out and add the next level to your awareness or you find yourself in the interdream space or a false awakening type scenario. The process involves, in a great part, getting aware of your body as a heavy, buzzing, waving field of single field with the naturally emerging awareness of its center and a loving-kind sort of awareness that seems to come with it. The body appears to be both a conduit and a barrier of some sort separating "inside" from "outside," yet it seems to extend beyond our normal perceiving capabilities. To simply put, the concept of inside and outside loses its meaning during this process. At one point for example, the body image seems to turn inside out pivoting around the chest area and becomes a projection of the brain upside down. Have you ever find yourself lying in bed in the opposite direction while coming out of sleep?

[SinisterDezz]

I focus on lucid dreaming so much that I get lucids about 90% of the time, unless it's a dry spell and I am focused on school work and other stressful things. It's just such a big part of my life that I strive for lucidity, and therefore, I obtain it! Hope I helped. -DezzyPooh

[LouaiB]

Of course. Self awareness is being aware of your existance, and we exist in the real world. We cannot neglect the environment when practicing self awareness. We should look at the environment as the place we exist and effect, and be aware of what existance is. We evolved to having self awareness, and being self aware means being aware of our current state of existance, meaning we know when the environment around us is from our creation because we have awareness of OUR presence. Essentially, practicing self awareness means nurturing a sense of awareness of our existance and our effect and that sense makes us lucid during dreams because we know our existance now is in the dream. It is different than ADA environmental awareness that is being aware of entities. Self awareness is the awareness of ME, so we know when the environment around us revolves around ME(dream). Hope I made sense. So, self awareness is like an alert that detects when WE are not in the usual world where we are being effected and are effecting.

[astralboy]

It is simply a matter of belief, of conviction. You have to program yourself. In the same way some people programed themselves that they don't dream. They do dream but their conviction block the memory of dreams. If you convice yourself that it is easy and that you can and will have lucid dreams every day then you will. Techniques are secondary. No technque will help you if you don't believe that you can do it. And no technique is needed if you program yourself that you can lucid dream. BELIEVE

[Sibyline]

You're right, astralboy, but you cannot simply order people to believe. Imagine a person with muscle atrophy sitting in a wheelchair. Do you tell him, "Get up and walk around, that will strengthen your legs?" No, because although exercise does indeed strengthen muscles, he cannot get up yet. So he has to find a way to strengthen his muscles to the point where he can get up and walk a few steps every day. And then build from there. That's what techs and tricks are for. Looking forward to hearing more from the 80%'ers now.

[astralboy]

You don't need muscles and legs to lucid dream. It's not a great exemple.The muscles for lucid dreaming is believing that you can. That's why affirmations or autosuggestion is for... You program your mind for lucid dreams and that's all. Of course it may take some days. But everything you need is a conviction that you can. Often when you do this you get vibrations every morning and you enter the LD. It takes no other effort.

[Sibyline]

I respectfully disagree. Now let's leave this issue and not pollute the thread with petty bickering. Feel free to PM me if you wish to continue.

[DreamyStivi]

Hi Transflux, I read your post with much interest, although I didn't understand much about it, but I kept pondering about your post in the evening and during the night. In the evening I was experiencing my surroundings as part of myself, it is actually like this according to Tibetan dream yoga, even when awake, although you have "real" external stimuli at that moment, the reality that you experience is something your mind constructs (on basis of these external stimuli) and is different for every individual. The only difference between dream reality and waking reality is that the latter is based on external stimuli, but in both cases it is our mind that constructs our reality, so yes, whatever we see, hear, experience, comes from our own mind. Anyhow, based on your explanation and what i knew about dream yoga, i felt motivated to expand my identity somewhat, feeling that whatever I saw was a construct of my mind, also my body, so I could identify with things out of my body. While sleeping this thought came back to me once and awhile, I tried what you described without really understanding, "rotating" (?) my awareness through different thoughts, moods, visuals, understanding that it all are different parts of myself, and growing my awareness. I don't know if it was because of this, probably, but at one point i dreamt and suddenly realised i was dreaming and had a nice lucid dream. But after i woke up from this LD something special happened. I pondered again on this awareness that can grow bigger then your body, this brought me in a state where it seems like i was clear awake, not be able to fall asleep, but anyhow not really awake, some kind of false awaking, but definitely not in REM, rather in non-REM, no visuals, just feeling being awake, while not really awake. I have this often and has frustrated me allot, cause it looks like insomnia. But now i realised that it might be my mind tricking me into believing i was not sleeping, so i tried to be more aware of that state and feel how different it feels like being really awake, this brought me closer to waking, I could here my real body breath, but when I switched my awareness to that other state, I felt in that state I needed no breathing (finding out if i need breath or not is a RC for me), so I knew that this state was some kind of vague dreamstate, and the other state where i was concious of my breath was the state of being aware of my real body, but i could switch between the two states. Very strange, it was like i could switch to a semi-lucid dream state without dream to my almost awake state, and the former felt very nice, meditative like. I finally switched to the dreamlike non-dream state and tried to build a dream from there, but this costed me to much effort and it woke me up, for real this time. So Transflux, i really want to know more about the process you describe, can you give me some more background information, some link to some more explanation, or can you describe it in more detail? Thanks in advance and thanks for sharing it in the first place.