Thread: Prospective Memory and Lucid Dreaming 4

Previous posts in this series:

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

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

http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...aming-3-a.html

I strongly recommend that you read the first 3 posts in this series before attempting PMILD
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PMILD
(Beta)

"Prospective Memory Induction of Lucid Dreams" or "PMILD", is an update of original MILD. These instructions assume the reader is already familiar with basic lucid dreaming theory and has been keeping a dream journal long enough to have a catalog of at least a dozen frequent dream signs.

A factor vital to lucid dreaming success, but often overlooked is the importance of importance. How much importance do you attach to your usual LD attempts? Stephen LaBerge observed this fact in the lab many years ago, and more than a few long-term successful dreamers stress this idea as well.

Importance is one of the major factors in lucid dreaming success for the simple reason that it’s a major factor in prospective memory success. If what you wish to remember to remember at some future time is trivial, chances are the mental mechanism of prospective memory won’t come into play at all. At the other extreme, if what you wish to remember to remember is life or death, not only will the PM mechanism come into play, but it will nag you mercilessly.

The point is not that you should imagine or pretend your LD activities are important... rather, you should come to realize the potential importance of LDing in your life and treat the subject accordingly. The approach that follows demands more than flopping into bed and thinking the right thoughts. It’s also designed to be fun, but don’t mistake that for frivolity.

PMILD Procedure

PMILD is broken down into two sections, Part A, to be done before going to bed for the night or during the day, and Part B, which is carried out after a WBTB, or immediately after waking up from an LD or NLD. A Journal is required on some of the Part A steps.

PART A – The Flight Plan

STEP 1 – The Destination
In your journal, write a brief statement of what you hope to accomplish this night. Your goals for the session must go beyond just becoming lucid.
(Theory Note: Chances of PM success are increased when the task is other than the last action in a series of actions.)

Example:
I want to become lucid and then practice flying like Superman.

STEP 2 – The Route
With reference to your dream journal, make a list of a half-dozen or so frequent dream signs. Spend a few minutes recalling dreams in which each of these signs showed up, without reference to your journal.

Upon exercising each individual dream sign, put a check mark after it and write the word, “activated.”
(Theory Note: Chances of PM success are improved when the cues for retrieval are well associated with the task.)

STEP 3 – File the Flight Plan
Below the list of activated dream signs write:

“At the appearance of a dream sign I will remember to recognize that I’m dreaming.”
(Theory Note: This is the prospective memory encoding step. A dream sign is the cue, and “remember to recognize that I’m dreaming” is the task.

Write this out a couple more times to fix it in memory.

Put your journal away, and as you go about your daily routine, stop every now and then to anticipate the LDing success to come a bit later.

PART B – The Flight

STEP 1 – The Pre-Flight Inspection
Do whatever you usually do to achieve an appropriate state of mind for lucid dreaming and then briefly study your earlier notes and your activated dream signs.

STEP 2 – The Run-Up
Assume your usual sleeping position and get comfortable.

STEP 3 – Taxi to Runaway
Say to yourself…

“At the appearance of a dream sign I will remember to recognize that I’m dreaming.”

Focus on the words and repeat a couple of times.

STEP 4 – Take Off!
Visualize yourself in a dream in which one of your activated dream signs appears; see yourself remembering to recognize that you’re dreaming, becoming lucid, and then doing whatever was planned… flying, etc. Include what you normally do to stabilize... reality checks, rubbing hands together, or whatever.

Aternate steps 3 and 4.

In each repeat of step 4, use a different activated dream sign from your list. Imagine something or someone, a dream character perhaps, nudging you upon the appearance of each dream sign.
(Theory Note: There’s a dream sign incubation factor in play here, in that the PM retrieval mechanism will be actively searching for these dream signs, and that should help bring them to life.)

Continue alternating steps 3 and 4 until you fall asleep.

Wake up in a dream and have fun!

Very nice work! Thanks for sharing!

Can you expound on what exactly this means?

(Theory Note: Chances of PM success are increased when the task is other than the last action in a series of actions.)

and give examples of task wordings that: 1) violate this, and 2) follow this?

Thanks, I think this has a lot of good stuff in it.

The importance of importance: I think this is really important! It pretty much single-handedly explains the "competition effect." And I agree it is not stressed enough in LD material. I think it works for all intentions. I've stopped more or less noticing middle of the night wakings, I think because deep down inside I've started placing more importance on non-interrupted sleep through to morning. So that's something for me to work on, as alarms are really terrible for dreaming.

How to keep importance high, while not succumbing to anxiety or disappointment after repeated "failures," bears perhaps its own discussion. As Sensei points out, strong positive expectation won't guarantee LDs, but strong negative expectation can suppress them.

it also explains why on the days that I had a dozen or more waking PM targets I got lucid dreams at night -- the goal center was activated and left "turned on" probably.

On the subject of the wording, use of the word "will": I've read where "will" can produce a sense of "vague, possibly distant future" to the brain, while omitting the word "will" gives more of a sense of immediacy and "always".

In part B, if steps 3 and 4 are to be repeated, then perhaps substituting the particular dream sign instead of "a dream sign" would be more powerful? But this requires more mental effort to keep changing the mantra that could result in insomnia for some (probably me).

And in regards to the insomnia comment at the end of (part 3?): it is true, when I've done MILD with visualizations, I usually end up awake for long periods of time, which means missed dreaming. I think it's important not to skip the "relax" portion of the LaBerge MILD instructions, and more importantly, to *hold* the relaxation while doing the visualisations, to stave off insomnia.

My own version of MILD which I admittedly haven't done in a while, involved doing this:

+ Telling myself, one time, "The next time I'm dreaming, I remember to recognize..."

Then in a loop I visualize recent/past dreams scenes, and tell myself "I'm dreaming":

+ Visualize scene A, tell myself: "I'm dreaming"
+ Visualize scene B, tell myself: "I'm dreaming"
+ Visualize scene C, tell myself: "I'm dreaming"

in quick succession.

This gets a lot of "I'm dreaming"s close together, associating each one with a sign we want our brains to recognize. For me that seemed to work because in the past I almost always became lucid while speaking or thinking the words, "I'm dreaming".

edit: this is also how I do waking PM exercises: "The next time I see a yellow bus, I remember to recognise..."
+ (visualise yellow bus), "I'm dreaming"
+ (visualise yellow bus), "I'm dreaming"
+ (visualise yellow bus), "I'm dreaming"
...
and so on until I think the encoding has "established."

And I'm wondering, do you have a theory on bringing more awareness/vividness into dreams? Or does a high-importance encoding of PM targets induce awareness in your opinion?

I think it means - don't put LDing last, but instead something you'll do there - like flying.
So LD is not in last position.
I guess?

Thanks for sharing, Nailler! This sounds like a great technique.

Originally Posted by Nailler

The point is not that you should imagine or pretend your LD activities are important... rather, you should come to realize the potential importance of LDing in your life and treat the subject accordingly.

I think the only difficulty I would have with this technique, would be trying to class lucid dreaming as an ‘important’ enough activity for my PM request to be effective. I agree that lucid dreaming can be very beneficial and important in a general sense, but I just wonder if this would amount to the same type of ‘urgency’ importance which would ensure that your PM request acts accordingly on the particular occasion.

I had an idea along those lines, Eamo, which is probably a bit crazy and not the route most people would want to go:

Invent an alarm clock with an alarm that can only be cancelled when you are both in REM and do a pre-decided eye movement (thus can only be cancelled from within a lucid dream). If you don't cancel the alarm in a lucid dream the way it wakes you is horrible: Really loud ringing, splash you with water, electric shock, whatever. You HAVE TO become lucid to prevent the horrible waking.

Originally Posted by Bobblehat

I had an idea along those lines, Eamo, which is probably a bit crazy and not the route most people would want to go:

Invent an alarm clock with an alarm that can only be cancelled when you are both in REM and do a pre-decided eye movement (thus can only be cancelled from within a lucid dream). If you don't cancel the alarm in a lucid dream the way it wakes you is horrible: Really loud ringing, splash you with water, electric shock, whatever. You HAVE TO become lucid to prevent the horrible waking.

Ha ha, I may consider it, Bobblehat! It’s certainly one way around the problem!

Well I did this last night. Doing the before-bed prep I think helped me focus on lucid dreaming for the night.

No lucids, but my sleep was a bit lighter than usual, which is good on the one hand (the night felt *long*), for example, I woke up and thought "well crap, no recall!? This sucks" then I checked the time and it was only about 4 hrs into the night

I *did* have a shock (maybe monkey?) moment: my first dream I recall, early in the night, very short, I was walking in what I thought was my bedroom, and there was a very very loud electrical "POP!" sound like a lightbulb burning out, which shocked me awake (at least I think I was awake, may have been FA?). That may have been the PM mechanism trying to urge me to get lucid. It was similar in feeling to the "BANG" dream I had a month ago but in that one I managed to stay asleep and got lucid.

I had some detailed dreams towards morning, usual for me, but recall of them was a bit below typical detail levels. I *almost* flew in one of them, which was one of my dream signs I established in part A. Whenever I am located in a dream in a high place or located near a valley or tall descent, I have the urge to step out into it and launch myself into flying/gliding out over it. But this time I told myself "I wouldn't have the energy to climb back up to the top" so I didn't. Doh!

So I tried the technique, but it didn’t go so well.

I didn’t have much dream recall, but I do remember a few moments where I was in a dream thinking “I must remember to notice these dream signs”. So I was basically dreaming about my intention to notice the dream signs, but not actually noticing them in the dream!

For some reason, I find that using PM to ‘notice’ something in a ‘dream’ seems a bit vague, and it’s difficult to take the intention seriously. It’s not as straightforward as, for example, remembering to carry out a task later, like remembering to buy cat food.

About the ‘importance’ factor, I would usually remember to carry out the most trivial of tasks in reality, however, regardless of how important I make the task of noticing dream signs, I never remember to notice them. I could be wrong, but I think PM, just like regular memory, is a lot more difficult to access in a dream than in reality, and this may be why MILD is so difficult.

I still prefer this technique over traditional MILD, though.

Originally Posted by Eamo24

I could be wrong, but I think PM, just like regular memory, is a lot more difficult to access in a dream than in reality, and this may be why MILD is so difficult.

Yeah.

I do wonder if we might be wasting our time (ish) by thinking about PM and trying to get it to kick off in a dream. Could there be another cognitive ability we're overlooking that opens up the avenue to lucidity? I constantly question if lucidity is only possible by some kind of "cognitive switch". There could be loads of cognitive switches possible that we haven't looked at. Or a better route to lucidity that doesn't involve thinking. All speculation. My brain usually comes up with solutions to problems. Not with lucidity though

Eamo24, I wouldn't call that "not going so well" at all! In the run up to my very first lucid dream, I started dreaming *about* lucid dreaming: my mother would say "oh, that guys is a lucid dreamer," or I'd "see" the neighbor woman's lucid dream images appear on a board. Or someone says "this is the lucid dreaming club." The fact that you got that idea on the very first attempt shows it's *really close* to working for you! Now, if you never ever moved beyond that, you could have a complaint.

Nailler didn't mention it but it's part and parcel of every LDing approach: you must be consistent and give it time. Months if you have to, if you really want to be a lucid dreamer.

Yes I dream ‘about’ lucid dreaming quite a lot, Fryingman. I’ve had so many dreams where I’ve been telling people about the importance of reality checks, including having conversations with dream characters about lucid dreaming techniques ! Nailler’s technique does seem like a good one; I’ll certainly keep at it and see how it goes.

Originally Posted by Eamo24

Yes I dream ‘about’ lucid dreaming quite a lot, Fryingman.

That's great. I've more or less stopped dreaming "about" LDing, but then again my LDs seem to come in streaks: 3 weeks off, 1.5-2 weeks on. Maybe coinciding to "importance" cycles, I'm thinking now after reading Nailler's notes about importance.

I do wonder if we might be wasting our time (ish) by thinking about PM and trying to get it to kick off in a dream.

I don't think so! MILD *works*, you have to give it enough time, and be consistent. As for the other cognitive switches, sure, read Sageous's LD fundamentals thread in the WILD DV Academy: self-awareness, expectation/intent, and (access to) memory.

It is a serious question, though: how to *best* spend our waking life practice time to result in frequent and high-quality lucids meeting our frequency goals? It is something I've been wondering about all my months of LD training. It's difficult to resist the temptation to try a bit of this and a bit of that. But doing just a bit of this and a bit of that can result in a lot of nothing since you don't give your brain enough time to adjust to it.

It always comes back to (self)awareness and memory. The super frequent LDers are reportedly *always* thinking about the environment and whether or not they're dreaming, always evaluating their state. I think that is one of the main keys.

MILD and it's near relative reflection/intention are training the brain in the response you want (lucidity) from the given stimulus (the dream state): given enough time, the brain catches on and lucidity comes more and more easily and frequently. The more lucid minutes one wracks up (so the theory goes), the more the neural pathways in the brain become lucid dream friendly.

It's just this pernicious kickstarting period that must be lived through! Well I for one am not giving up. It seems to me the really consistent success comes only after a few years for "normal" people, other than perhaps for closet naturals.

One thing's for sure: if you DON'T do day work, if you DON'T actively try every night, the LDs won't come.

Quick question for you Nailler (I'm not 100 percent with your PM model yet, so sorry if this is a silly question): Have you given any thought to if your findings on PM can be applicable in some way to the DEILD approach?

My position at the moment, FryingMan, is that nothing out there is good enough for me. It's a position I think about a lot, and it's a position I'm comfortable with.

Originally Posted by Nailler

STEP 4 – Take Off!
Visualize yourself in a dream in which one of your activated dream signs appears; see yourself remembering to recognize that you’re dreaming, becoming lucid, and then doing whatever was planned… flying, etc.

Would it help (and when I say this I mean "Would it increase your lucidity rate long long term?" if, when you recognise you're dreaming because of a dreamsign, you chose an action that involved that dreamsign some way? So that the dreamsign is involved in the action for the rest of the dream? It reads like this:

Visualize yourself in a dream in which your dead dog Bessie appears; see yourself remembering to recognize that you’re dreaming, becoming lucid, and then grab Bessie and take her for a flight.


Also, could you skip the "recognise you're dreaming/become lucid" part if you vow that, on spotting and recognising your dream sign, you vow to do some task that presupposes you are lucid? It reads:

Visualize yourself in a dream in which your dead dog Bessie appears, grab Bessie and take her for a flight.

Hey Nailler where'd you go? Off LDing all day long? Interested in the follow-up to the points made here....

Originally Posted by Nailler

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.

Just to follow-up on this aspect of your method, did you ever solve this particular issue? I see above that you talk about listing, reviewing, and activating your dream signs, but is there an alternative that does not require you to accurately predict what you'll be seeing (even if by incubation or intention you increase the likelihood of seeing an activated sign)?

I would like to propose trying cue-independent, or at least dream sign independent PM training. There are a couple of ways that I could see this working, but please let me know how it could be improved.

1) I think it is hard to train a traditional time dependent PM as you would in waking life (e.g. I will call my friend at 10:00). There is no easy way of transmitting such data through a dream and it is not easy or maybe even a possibility to keep time in your head as you transition into a dream. That said, I could imagine doing time interval training IWL. For example, doing a quick RC every 30 minutes, regardless of external stimuli. This would eliminate the requirement that you prepared for the correct dream sign and did so in an effective enough way. Ideally, with your mind running this routine in the background, you would every once in a while perform a RC in a dream unprompted.

2) Another alternative would be to develop a PM of doing an RC when confronted by any unusual or dream-like stimulus, rather than a specific one that you have planned out. This likely requires having higher levels of awareness and assessment of your surroundings, but has the benefit of not failing completely if you do not encounter your prespecified dream signs.

Please see my diagram below for of an integrated overview of the idea:

ld model 1.JPG