Thread: Do daydreams affect lucid dreaming?

Daydreaming is a form of visualization, and visualization is an important skills for any lucid dreamer.
So, yes, daydreaming does to at least some degree have a positive effect on your chances to become lucid.
The reason why you feel like you don't become lucid more often could be because your dream recall isn't good enough yet, so make sure your dream recall is as good as possible;
think about your dreams immediately when you wake up, try to write down some keywords for them, and be generally curious about what your dreams are like.
This will also make it easier to recognize them as dreams later.

Awareness can be practiced in many different ways, for example you can make it a habit to regularly ask yourself if you might be dreaming, and try your best to find any signs that could show you are dreaming, or you can choose to just pay more attention to your surroundings and pretend that you already are in a lucid dream, just to see what it would feel like to be lucid and in control of yourself.
You can also ask yourself things like "where am I going now? why am I going there?", "where am I right now?", "how did I get here?", "what was I just doing?" and similar questions, so that you become more self-aware.

Your imagination absolutely can have an effect on your awareness in dreams; particularly if you put your focus there. I usually employ my imagination to test out the extent to which I can affect my surroundings. If you are very aware of how you affect things, you will begin to notice in dreams that you have power over everything, and if you practice this "power" during the day with your imagination, it will begin to appear more obviously in non-lucid dreams, which can have a snowballing effect; sort of like training wheels until your perception becomes sharper. The most important factor in my opinion is being aware of your influence.

If you want to use daydreaming to improve lucid dreaming, I think the best way is to rehearse becoming lucid. I think with daydreams, you tend to get lost in the imagination, which is the opposite of what you want for lucid dreaming. Instead you can use daydreams like a practice run, where you imagine a situation where you can recognize a dream sign, question the dream, perform a reality check, and become lucid. That's similar to MILD where you revisit the previous dream to rehearse becoming lucid.

uhm

I create adventures and stories, and characters. A whole planet! A SPECIES!
In my mind!

I litterally create adventures when I am bored

yet

never had one dream with my alter ego, redstar, which is VERY odd

Originally Posted by TwitchLucidity

uhm

I create adventures and stories, and characters. A whole planet! A SPECIES!
In my mind!

I litterally create adventures when I am bored

yet

never had one dream with my alter ego, redstar, which is VERY odd

Do you actually do this actively in your daydreams?
My daydreams just happen and I am not 'lucid' during them so I can't just create adventures. It's kinda what happens when I fail at keeping myself conscious and aware. The moment I do realize I'm daydreaming I snap out of it.
Maybe I should train myself to become a lucid daydreamer

Anyway, at first I thought being aware was to look for strange things but I've realized that (for me) it's better to look if something is strange, if you understand what I mean. I'm not actively looking for dreamsigns but I'm looking if something could be a dreamsign.

I find daydreaming affects my awareness in general. I have a habit of daydreaming all the time and I love it, since I'm able to create different worlds and characters. But since awareness is needed for lucid dreaming I'm trying to get out of that habit.

Originally Posted by Silentium

Do you actually do this actively in your daydreams?
My daydreams just happen and I am not 'lucid' during them so I can't just create adventures. It's kinda what happens when I fail at keeping myself conscious and aware. The moment I do realize I'm daydreaming I snap out of it.
Maybe I should train myself to become a lucid daydreamer

Anyway, at first I thought being aware was to look for strange things but I've realized that (for me) it's better to look if something is strange, if you understand what I mean. I'm not actively looking for dreamsigns but I'm looking if something could be a dreamsign.

Well, I am lucid. I just literally create the thing, and let it play in my mind. Never drifted off and spaced off with it though, so :3

It's all fine! Don't change it! I have been paradoxically doing all day awareness and a lot of daydreaming for a long time. Just think about it. You are in a non lucid dream and start daydreaming in the dream, the daydream will become the dream, therefore, if you have a good level of awareness when not daydreaming IRL it should carry on and there isn't any reason why it would have a negative effect. Sorry for the super messy post and waaayyy too clear explanations

I tend to daydream a lot, but at least for me, I it seems to have the opposite effect than that I'm looking for. When I daydream, I usually just get lost in it and lose awareness of my surroundings, but I see by looking at the replies to this thread that some people do manage to combine daydreaming with awareness. I'll try it as well.