Prospective Memory and Lucid Dreaming 3

Previous posts in this series:

http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...-dreaming.html

http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...aming-2-a.html


Prospective memory is an incredibly clever piece of mental machinery! It allows us to park simple future tasks and then automatically retrieve them at a predetermined time and/or under predetermined circumstances.

For example, one morning you feed your cat, “Fluff Hole” and notice that’s the last of her food. You do a mental note-to-self number… “gotta stop at Safeway on the way home from school and get food for Fluff Hole.” Then you go on about your business.

That intention initiated a prospective memory cycle by encoding a specific task… get food for Fluff Hole, along with two specific cues… a place, namely “Safeway” and a time, “the way home from school.” Without even thinking about it, you also set an importance level for the task. “I must…”

As you sit through your classes, you have no attention on your no-cat- food situation.

Hours later you’re on your way home, and miraculously out of nowhere, perhaps even before you reach Safeway, a seemingly spontaneous thought enters your mind… “Oh yeah, I’ve got to stop at Safeway and get food for the cat.” And you do.

The entire time, prior to stopping at Safeway, your prospective memory machine was continuously monitoring your awareness, looking for “Safeway” and/or for you to be “on the way home from school.” When one of those cues registered, the machine checked the importance level of the task, and saw fit to give you a little nudge… “Better stop for cat food.” Note that the strength of the nudge was appropriate to the assigned importance level of the task. If it had been less important, the nudge might have been less demanding… “Maybe stop for cat food?”

Notice that you were not looking for cues. Once the task, cues, and importance level were set, the process was entirely automatic until the machine nudged you. After encoding all you had to do is go about your business as usual.

Now consider this… what if you could encode in your prospective memory machine the task to “recognize that you’re dreaming”, and the cues “this night” and a workable “dream sign” likely to show up that night?

Well, maybe you can!

When I first started experimenting with prospective memory, I didn’t understand that after encoding, everything was on automatic. I thought I had to do something with reality checks or whatever… which I always forgot about once asleep. Then one day in an NLD, a little monkey with a tool belt let me know I was dreaming. Even though I at first resisted the idea, he managed to convince me and I became lucid. It wasn’t until much later that I realized the monkey was the prospective memory machine’s “nudge” to remind me I was dreaming. The dream was so amusing that I posted it here:

http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...ml#post2087911

Part of the fun of this technique is seeing the various ways the PM machine incorporates the nudge into the NLD.

My original intent was to update LaBerge’s original MILD technique. In light of what I had learned about how prospective memory works, it’s a near miracle that the approach worked at all. The pioneers who somehow made it work on a consistent basis deserve medals!

The major problem I encountered when attempting to streamline MILD was how to predict what dream sign is likely to show up on any particular night. Once I got by that, it was downhill. There’s a story behind that, which I’ll post after we see how well it works for you guys.

Tomorrow I’ll post my version of updated MILD. I have high hopes for it, but in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that it’s still pretty much an untested approach… although it has been working extremely well for me.

Really enjoying this series of posts. Thanks Nailler.

Certainly it is interesting and well-thought out, can't wait to see the "ultimate" post!

Let me say that I have experienced my own "monkey moments," but not every LD has had them, or at least not to such an obvious degree

• I'm in my childhood home/neighborhood (usually I never "notice" this in the dream while non-lucid, I realize it later from the visual memory after waking up)
• can't pick up cards, can't count something (I set intention to recognize this after it happened several times and got LD #2 from this, a good one)
• DC tells me out of the blue "I love you"
• bizarre/scary/startling scenes
• crazy/bizarre sports: basketball, racquetball, baseball, billiards
• the landscape is wrong or undergoing bizarre transformations
• flying (I've had more and more of NLD flying dreams during LD training, flying is always my reflection/intention dream action, and finally had a few [low lucidity] flying LDs recently)
• close up view of some object or mechanism, I think about it, how it works, how to use it, etc.
• I'm with old friends I haven't seen in years or only very rarely.

as a nod to Sensei's "Who? What? Where?" recall technique, I realized these are the major facets of dream signs: location, activity, people. Where am I? What am I doing? Who am I talking with/interacting with? For each of these there are questions that, given sufficient cognition/memory ("awareness units"? AUs?), should make us lucid: Does this <location/activity/person> make sense (is it behaving as it should while waking)? Do I recognise this <location/activity/person>?

This underlies my latest take on LDing: trying to "catch" every dream. (Almost) every dream has that monkey moment, be it strong or subtle, "all" I have to do is notice them!

But it's not so obvious the most effective way to encode these questions. That's a lot of words/high-level thinking to summarize, especially to cover all the bases, as you note, Nailler. If one had the ability to ask those questions then basically you're already lucid! So it seems a bit of a catch-22: you need to ask these questions to become lucid, but you need to be lucid enough to realize you need to ask them!

There was a time a few months back where every single night I was located in my childhood home/neighborhood for at least one recalled dream. I decided that I would do daytime MILD (encoding PM triggers basically I think you could call it) using the visual memory of those dreams and using waking life visual memories. And the results were pretty good: 3 LDs that I "caught" in/around my childhood home (only one was "good", the other two felt like beginning of dream lucidity that faded to black right away after realizing I was dreaming). If I could catch this one every time I'd have pretty darn frequent LDs, it's still holding at several per week at least.

I also realized that incubation efforts could be spent on those subjects that were dreamsigns to boost their frequency and so that MILD using those targets would "hit" more often. I have not pursued that in earnest however with my time spent on ADA/RC.

So now I'm still working on general awareness, but with the notion that I'm always evaluating the "Who? What? Where?" without all the verbalization of the questions, just trying to "feel" them.

It will be interesting to see if your "new & improved MILD" covers any of these bases.

I have also generally come to the conclusion that I need to return to the "LaBerge" system, or at least include its basics again (PM triggers). My first LDs were pure LaBerge and PM I believe, my LDs occurred on the days where I had a high number of PM targets and I hit a lot of them.

Improvement in MILD could just be through showing enough examples of dreams to your brain, so that "the next time I'm dreaming" can be properly evaluated over a wider variety of dream scenarios.

Anyway, looking forwards to what's next!

Quote:

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That intention initiated a prospective memory cycle by encoding a specific task… get food for Fluff Hole, along with two specific cues… a place, namely “Safeway” and a time, “the way home from school.” Without even thinking about it, you also set an importance level for the task. “I must…”

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...and the great thing is that when you do strong and effective encoding and believe in very urgent importance level, you don't even need a clue. In your case, it would pop up on your mind at school or at the bus with no cues required. So this imply that when you do PROPER encoding (enhanced by your visuallization) with high level level of importance (according to your motivation level) you became lucid without any dream signs needed, just as you remembered to buy cat food in the school.

This is basically MILD. The problem is that Stephen Laberge in his book didn't describe it clearly. Many people think that ''mantra'' or whatever stupidly they call it is the main factor of mild. NO!

I did this aproach last night and I did strong encoding with high level of importance, but PM already come to my mind when I was falling a sleep in unconscious hypnagogia. It wakes me up so I have to start fall asleep again. After 1,5hrs of trying to fall asleep I finally managed to have 30 minutes lucid dream *dild* :)

The next thing is that deep sleep is PM eraser by my hypotesis.

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Originally Posted by Nfri

...and the great thing is that when you do strong and effective encoding and believe in very urgent importance level, you don't even need a clue. In your case, it would pop up on your mind at school or at the bus with no cues required. So this imply that when you do PROPER encoding (enhanced by your visuallization) with high level level of importance (according to your motivation level) you became lucid without any dream signs needed, just as you remembered to buy food in the school.

This is basically MILD. The problem is that Stephen Laberge in his book didn't describe it clearly. Many people think that ''mantra'' or whatever stupidly they call it is the main factor of mild. NO!

I did this aproach last night and I did strong encoding with high level of importance, but PM already come to my mind when I was falling a sleep in unconscious hypnagogia. It wake me up so I have to start fall asleep again. After 1,5hrs of trying to fall asleep I finally managed to have 30 minutes lucid dream *dild* :)

The next thing is that deep sleep is PM eraser by my hypotesis.

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Interesting. Do tell more, did you use any verbal phrases? Visualizations? I always use visualizations when setting PM targets and this makes me remember them way way better. Man this whole thing is getting me all hot & bothered about PM again!

Say, I drive past the supermarket and remember I need to stop for cat food. Then the next week I realise I need milk on a Thursday. Then the next week I need bread on a Monday. Eventually I become habituated to think "Do I need to stop to use the supermarket?" every time I drive past the supermarket. Does that still come under a prospective memory task? Or habit? Or what?

I’ve often found that prospective memory is a lot weaker in dreams than in reality. For example, before going to sleep, if I set an intention like: “In the morning I need to look for a pen”, I always remember it in the morning. However, on MILD attempts when I would think: “I want to recognize when I’m dreaming”, I never remember it in dreams. The strange thing is, though, I do remember it when I wake up, regretting that I didn’t think of it in the dream. So I’m thinking that retrieval of prospective memory requests is much more difficult in a dream. I could be wrong, though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

Interesting. Do tell more, did you use any verbal phrases? Visualizations? I always use visualizations when setting PM targets and this makes me remember them way way better. Man this whole thing is getting me all hot & bothered about PM again!

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I didn't use verbal phrases. The key to successful mild is truly visualize your self non-lucid for 5 minutes (the best is to be based on you fresh non-lucid dream which you just recalled) and then in this non-lucid visualization see this transition to lucid by picturing dream sign which induce lucidity. Then 5 minutes see yourself doing whatever you would TRULY want to do in the lucid dream. You desire and really look forward to it. AND FALL ASLEEP. With this method I achieved LDs every day all week long, I must add that I was really motivated by sex horniness and competition. So two factors are main for successful MILD:

MOTIVATION - comes from our human needs (maslow's hiearchy). I used my sexual physiological need for buffing my motivation. I milded by imagine sexual fantazies with desired girls, even if I didn't intended to have sexual lucid dreams. i just used that for motivation. Since now I have beautiful blonde girl and rich sexual life this buffing is kind a problem for me, but I'm compensating that with galantamine :)

VISUALIZATION - when you wake up from a non-lucid dream, your visualization is 5 times boosted that normal, so with good dream recall, you are able to visualize MILD correctly with appropriate motivation.

To be accurate: correctly executed mild with wbtb stands for 80% chance increasion of having a lucid dream
and correctly taken galantamine is 80% channce increasion of having a lucid dream
These factors together= 100% of having a lucid dream (notice that this is my subjective rating related to my person)

As nailler suggested and I totally agree that lucid dreaming induction is all about PROSPECTIVE MEMORY. Let me tell you a secret: Prospective memory in this context is the same thing as AWARENESS OR CONSCIOUSNESS. The difference is only in people's view - analogy is Lucid dreaming and Astral traveling or whatever those people call it.

I've been always having a bit of a bad consciousness in the back of my mind for not giving classical MILD a proper go.
Really looking forward to your version, since following LaBerge in this respect always sort of made me lazy from reading it.

On the other hand, I am convinced, that recall and PM are the actual doors to lucidity. Self-awareness surely is key to quality and control - but the doors, I feel, are made of memory.

I still need to finish translating my hypnosis script - I might just give it one more English shot today - but I started out journalling - and not a lot - and I feel already, that it helps. Even had a short lucid moment last night.

And I can rely on an actual bunch of DS showing up every night - really every night, esp. since I don't recall a lot, and have the same things over and over anyway. So I must do this. Yepp.

:yddd:



Funnily enough - I've been following a system called "Getting Things Done" - worked great - the only thing still in active practice is my filing system, though.
But that's quite an important factor, and I'm happy I went to some hassle to install it like he proposes.
I mention this, because one of his tips is to write anything down immediately, which comes up in your mind, and which you eventually want to come back to.
In the end in order to free your mind from most of all the PM background activity.
And also to go about stuff like phone-calls and going shopping and mail by collecting these PM items on paper, and review them, before using the opportunity to the fullest. Probably counter-productive for our context, in a way.

Thing is - even if you remember everything and on cue - you keep having to ask yourself, if you feel, you got it under control. And that seriously does take up thinking time and might endanger well-being.
If you can trust yourself to even write down trivial things and big things - make it a true habit - you can get a feeling of freedom and safety. Forgot, how I came to stop that. Maybe because my life doesn't go at that pace in the moment - I was a lot more active then.

While I agree that this prospective memory thing may have a lot to do in lucid dreams, I'm not sure it's just all about that.

I have some repeating dreams, that no matter how many times I tell myself that I will recognize them, I still I'm unable to do so. It's true that it's been months without them now, and who knows if now, that I managed to have some small frequent lucids, I would become aware...

One is the building I lived until I was around 20. I moved to another building then for 1 year, then to another one for some years, and finally I've been 4 years in the one I live now. But anyway, I still dream with that first home, a 17 floors building. The dream is mostly always about going "home", opening the mailbox and find lots and lots of advertising, envelopes.. (well obviously, as I've been out for years!), and also going into the elevator. Usually dream stops soon, but I'm once and again entering the hallway and opening the mailbox.

On this same building I also had lots of nightmares when I was a kid, while living there. In fact, one of my first lucids was some years later thanks to this (didn't happen again in years). I just wanted to go to the 17th floor (my home) and the elevator would stop at 7, or go down again, then up, then go to 19th floor (non-existant)... if I reached 17th floor my door wouldn't exist... it was a nightmare, as it was stressing and oppresive, and always the same... And the first lucid happened when I didn't live there anymore. I suddenly said "what am I doing here??.. oooohhh... the nightmare... well, lets have some fun...", and I just did that, exiting on every floor the elevator would leave me and check what surprise had my head for me.

There's also another repeating dream, not nightmare, but almost. When I was a kid and until I was around 26, I had two turtles. They eventually died. Last one was possibly by starvation, an infection, or maybe both, my fault I think, because I didn't take all the care I should... so my conscience decided to not forgive me.

I have this repeating dream from time to time, where I'm in my room and when opening a wardrobe, or a drawer, I find both turtles there, forgotten, and I go pick some food fast to the fridge. On another one I was going to clean it puting it under the water tap, and it melted like ice on hot water, in my hand... another time I found it on the balcony, and it just jumped as I was going to grab it... Also some "pleasant" ones were I see they are not so bad and I manage to feed them... or just that I them almost dieing, I try to feed, but they won't eat... It's always the same, me finding the turtle in a bad situation, wanting to fix it, but not able to (like in real life I guess, where I spent the last days giving vitamins suplements, etc. with no results)...

No matter how much I say "next time I'm in my old house, or next time I find my turtle... I'll realize it's a dream". It doesn't happen.
Not related to topic, but you know something I would love to do? Ask the turtle what it means, what it wants to tell me.

Maybe it only works if I tell it myself everynight... but honestly, I rather not dream about that. Maybe prospective can also be heavily trained to work in farther distance in time.

I'm thinking on doing some experiments, like "at 11am I will remember to.. whatever", and see what happens.

the issue I see with this, maybe not even an issue but more of a confounder, is that we aren't really the same person in our dreams. It's not like telling yourself to remember to pick up something at the store later, with dreaming we have to bridge the gap between our waking self and dream self, thats the make or break moment. Our dream self has amnesia and really isn't us. Think about it, your dream self isn't you in the sense that it doesn't have the same past, the same memory, one dream you are a secret agent infiltrating a north korean base, the next you are a prisoner on an alien planet, both characters are experienced as "you" entirely, there is no knowledge or memory of waking life at all.

Becoming lucid is having your waking self "wake up" in the dream. With prospective memory built when your awake, doesn't it require your waking self to remember it? It's like sending out a phone call to a different person's house and expecting it to show up on your answering machine at home for you to find later... I think this is why reality checks and telling myself to remember to do them has never resulted in anything. By the time I am awake in the dream, I don't need to remember to do a reality check(although it does show up then), I already know I'm dreaming, and before that I'm someone else entirely who never remembers to do anything, and who doesn't have any of my waking self's habits either.

I haven't once had prospective memory aide or cause lucidity. It's always just a recognition of the fact that I'm in a dream, it's present moment observational awareness that does it. THEN I go "what did I decide I was going to do now that I'm lucid...(and even then the memory can be really sketchy)". Before the lucidity hits I'm not "me", not operating on the same memory as when I'm awake(or any memory really, total amnesia is the name of the game).

Maybe this is just me and how I dream, but I'm really not the same person in dreams, there is a huge disconnect between waking self and asleep self. The thing that I've found prospective memory works well for is remembering to lay still upon waking up, to focus on my last dream, to write down dreams, etc. All things done when I'm awake, because when I'm asleep my memory isn't online.

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Originally Posted by tofur

the issue I see with this, (...)

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100% agree with you. I also always say that "it's not me". And also in some dreams that I went (what I call) semi-lucid, I had the same feeling. Knowing it's a dream, but at same time not even thinking on what I wanted to do, just did random things like climb a building jumping from balcony to balcony, or showoff flying... though I was lucid, but when waking realized that "that wasn't ME".

But also I have to say that sometimes, even if it's few times, your real memory, and your real self, can come into the dream, even if its a non-lucid dream. Who hasn't dreamt on waking up late when having to catch a plane next day. And ohh... yes, it's YOU... not some amnesic being. Those are really stressing dreams, looking at the clock and see its 10am, you're on bed, and the plane was at 6am... "how could this have happened to me... how... I don't understand...I really f**P up...", then you wake up and think "phewww...".

Maybe (hard to test) in these types of dreams, this prospective memory could work... "I have to travel tomorrow. When I wake up I'll do an RC, just in case...". So, those things you say that only work on waking up, possibly would work here too, as they are some kind of false awakenings.

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Originally Posted by StephL

I've been always having a bit of a bad consciousness in the back of my mind for not giving classical MILD a proper go.

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I hate MILD with a passion. It's a confused mess and a recipe for insomnia.

http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...ml#post2096374

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Originally Posted by Bobblehat

I hate MILD with a passion. It's a confused mess and a recipe for insomnia.

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What's so confused about it? What's messy?

As for insomnia, I've experienced insomnia doing:

+ MILD
+ WILD (this one takes the cake, doing a WILD attempt 5 days in a row messed up my sleep for several weeks)
+ SSILD
+ deep/active dream recall
+ any stimulating visualization

so I think insomnia is not unique to MILD.