How MILD Really Works

**Memm** · 06-14-2014 07:03 AM

Introduction

Hello everyone!

For the past couple of years I have been studying mnemotechnics which, on the surface, is about using memory techniques to enhance memorisation and recall. Going into it deeper you can discover how the brain actually stores and retrieves memories, which builds the foundation of mnemotechnics / mnemonics.

Learning mnemotechnics has changed the way I learn, I originally did it out of curiosity and it eventually lead to me being bored by university exams. If you google mnemonics and memory techniques you might find interesting things like how to memorise a pack of cards (or several) in just a couple of minutes, but I originally did it so that I could learn faster and use it in general life (although memorising cards will help you in a casino

).

Now, I will not go into the full depth of mnemotechnics here because I would like to keep this topic to Lucid Dreaming, if you would like to know more I suggest the following links:

This excerpt from Secrets of a Mind Gamer, which will give you a good overview.
The new mnemotechnics forum.
The wikipedia article on the Art of Memory.

How does memorising a stack of cards relate to Lucid Dreaming

You might be wondering what does all this have to do with LDs, well the MILD technique stands for Mnemonic Induced Lucid dream, the key word here being Mnemonic and mnemotechnics is all about mnemonics!

Because the science of mnemotechnics is very advanced in this area, I would like to use it to try and explain exactly what the mnemonic part of MILD really means and exactly how it works. I'm doing this because from everything I have read on MILD I have not found an explanation I thought was good enough, there are lots of parts that are correct, there is also a lot of misleading information and a general lack of why, which I think is important because when you know the why, you know how to use it properly. Even Stephen LaBerge didn't go into enough detail in his book when he described MILD.

The brain and memory

Memory in the brain is not cut up into "short" and "long" term memory. If you would like to understand how memory really works then picture a massive network of roads (links / synapses) that run between locations (memories / neurons). This isn't 100% scientifically accurate but the analogy suffices for all our needs and the needs of mnemotechnics. Because of this the brain learns by association, you associate (link) a memory you already know well with something new that you would like to learn. If you don't do this, the memory will not be very strong.

As a quick example, say you would like to learn a new word from a different language, the correct way to do this would be to find a similar sounding word in a language you already know and link them together! Since I'm trying to stick to LDs I won't go into more detail, you can find all the different techniques for learning languages, memorising numbers or studying in the links above.

So association is important, the other important thing is repetition, the more you use a road (link) to a memory (location), that is the more you remember something, the stronger the road (link) to it gets! So once you have the link in place, the next part is using it in order to strengthen it. You might be tempted to think "I do this anyway when I repeat something lots of times to remember" but you are doing this without doing the association first which means you are trying to form a link from nothing to something, the brain will eventually do it, but it will take a long time.

On the other hand if you form an association, you might not even need to do any repetition and yet all the links formed will be enough for the memory to stay for the next week or month or even year! As an example the last time I memorised important facts for an exam, I couldn't get them out of my head for the next two weeks, even though I only spent a few hours memorising.

Another way to look at it is if you want to add a new location (memory) to your existing network of roads (your brain) you need to build a road to that location that comes from a location that already exists, if you simply add it without doing that it will be a location that hangs in the middle of space and you'll never be able to get / drive to it. The more roads (links) the easier it is to get to (recall) that location (memory). The more you travel (use recall) the road (link) to get to the location (memory) the stronger that road (link) will be.

Mnemonics and Lucid Dreaming

Let's list the important factors from above and add some more:

Awareness
Association
Repetition
Strangeness
Visualisation

In MILD what you are attempting to do is remember to do something in the future. LaBerge called it Prospective Memory, from what I understand the Buddhist perspective is that it is Mindfulness that reminds you of what you should be doing. Being in the present moment is mindfulness / awareness, if you go throughout your day automatically without any awareness, you will not be aware enough in a dream to remember it or remember to do something in it. There are already a lot of articles on awareness in LDing, so I won't go further into it.

The last two things on our list are Strangeness and Visualisation, let's go through Visualisation first. The most important part of the brain to memory is known as the hippocampus, the brain is very, very, very good at remembering spacial information. If I asked you right now to close your eyes and list as many things in your room as you could and where they are located, you would be able to. You never specially sat down and memorised this information, it just happens naturally.

Which leads us to visualisation! Basically when I ask you to tell me about your room, what you do is visualise each object and its location. Imagery plays a vital role in our memories. This is probably because of how we have evolved 1) we had to remember where our cave is and where the best animals to hunt are and 2) we had to remember what colour poisonous berries are so we don't die. Since these were very important to our very survival, we became quite adapt at it.

A very important thing to note is that the brain has a filter, it will remember things more easily if it decides they are interesting and conversely, if they are not interesting, it will likely not bother to remember them properly.

To wit, if I said I have an apple and it's red, you would probably forget about this fact very quickly. If I said I had an apple and it was glowing purple, you would find this odd and will remember this for a while. When forming new associations and memories, it is important to make our new memory strange, sexy, weird, f****d up, funny or otherwise odd in some way.

MILD

Now that we have gone through everything, let's see how this all fits together. First let's approach this in real life.

When you go home tonight, stop by the shops and pick me up some eggs.

If I asked you this, you would picture yourself buying the eggs, you might even picture where you are going to buy the eggs, or you might not care at all and forget about buying the eggs since you don't think it's worth your time (the brain filters it because you hate me and don't care about buying eggs, or just don't think it's a very interesting activity).

Whether you remember to buy the eggs later in the day or not depends entirely on how you memorised remembering it.

So given what we know so far, the best approach to remembering to buy the eggs would be:

Picture where you are buying them
Picture the eggs
Make it strange!

If you think about how you are going to go the store around the corner later and throw eggs at every old person you see, visualising this, you won't forget about buying the eggs. In fact the weirder you make it, the more active it will stay in the brain throughout your day. Just like how difficult it can be to forget a really funny story you just heard, or how you keep thinking about that awesome scene from the book you are reading long after you put the book down.

In MILD your intention is to remember to recognise that you are dreaming, or simply to remember that you wanted to recognise that it's a dream. This is exactly the same as the egg scenario, but there are a couple of problems:

You need to be aware enough in the dream
Dreams are not a location and they change frequently

Awareness I will leave up to you to work on, suffice to say the more aware you are during the day the more aware you'll be at night, the idea is fairly simple, the practice is up to you. The second issue is more of a problem, the brain loves locations and "being in a dream" is not a location, you can guess where you might be and that may or may not work since dreams change so drastically but it's okay, because just like with reading a book or seeing something on TV that you find strange, it will still be at the back of your mind during the day even if locations are not involved.

So when I ask you to buy some eggs, all you really have to do is think of a strange story about the eggs, for example about how you are going to walk up to the egg shelf in the shop and smash them all with a giant red hammer!

Visualise this, repeat it a few times to make it stick, make it as weird and strange as you possibly can and voila! You'll be occasionally thinking about it during the day no matter what you are doing, because the brain has now decided that this is strange enough to make a priority in your memory.

With MILD it is the same thing, what you want is to think before going to bed or as you are falling asleep "I need to recognise I'm dreaming tonight so that I can ......" fill in the blank with something strange!

For example:

I need to recognise I'm dreaming tonight so that I can wrestle Godzilla naked!
I need to recognise I'm dreaming tonight so that I can punch a baby in the face
I need to recognise I'm dreaming tonight so that I can fly to the moon and eat its cheesy centre, but I have to avoid the rocks or my teeth will shatter (if your teeth aren't aching right now you're not visualising enough)

You are now associating recognising that you are dreaming with a strange story that you won't forget through visualisation and repetition and as long as you are aware in your dream the brain will continue to remember that you wanted to punch a baby in the face and recognise that are you dreaming.

Please note that if you make up a good story you might actually get too excited about it to fall asleep since your brain will now remain highly active, so you may want to do this before heading to bed, not as you are falling asleep, but that's up to you, experiment!

Since you also now know exactly how mnemonics work, how the brain works and how memories work, you can come up with your own ideas. =]

Happy Lucid Dreams. =]

**Memm** · 06-14-2014 07:38 AM

Some extra random thoughts:

- When people that are new to LDing first find out about it, I think the idea that you can be lucid in your dream is so strange that it becomes its own mnemonic, that idea carries into their next dream and they get that "beginner's luck" type of LD.

- There is a little trick I read about not long ago which involves throwing an object across the room when you want to remember to do something, in the morning or whenever you find the object in a weird location and this jogs your memory for whatever you had to do. This is basically how Dream Signs work, they are meant to jog your memory, but there needs to be a certain level of awareness when you see them otherwise you sort of hazily glance over them and not really think much of it, or don't notice them at all.

- While working on maintaining awareness during the day it may help to use a mnemonic to help you be mindful of it, it's easy to forget when we are busy, so you can perhaps imagine that if you don't remember to be aware every couple of hours a black pit will open up and swallow you whole!

- The key to mnemonics is to be creative, make small things huge, make huge things strangely small, add colour if you are good at picturing colours, come up with stupidly weird scenarios and try to picture them as best as you can. Remember: the weirder it is the better your recall!

- Have fun coming up with mnemonics, give your mind somewhere to start and then just relax and let your imagination do the rest.

[Some empty space, just in case]

**VagalTone** · 06-14-2014 12:45 PM

Good read! Very well written. I will see if your suggestions really help my PM !
PM in my op very much depends on retrospective memory and present memory (awareness).

**Screen** · 06-15-2014 07:45 PM

There is definitely some truth to what you're saying. Speaking of shopping at the grocery store, there was this YouTube video that used association with numbers. That way, I could remember not only the items on my list, but number a specific item was. It was actually quite easy, but you have to make sure your imagination is strange enough.

I've always thought of MILD as nothing more than a simple affirmation before bed. I never thought it had anything to do with the kinds of things I learned about association and strange visualizations. Who knows? You may have just helped pave the way for a more enjoyable way to lucid dream. I'd certainly prefer this over having to constantly perform reality checks. I'm going to work on your example for learning to be more aware during the day. I'll share a rough example.

Every hour that doesn't have the letter "E" in it (every hour except 2, 4, and 6) if I'm not aware, a dark horseman with ten arms will magically come out of a portal from a clock (analog or digital). The portal will be swirling with thunder, and be pitch black and he'll summon me into an eternal abyss.

Stranger the better, right? Either way, thanks for sharing all of this. It's definitely helpful and it won't hurt or be boring to try.

**cptP** · 06-15-2014 11:25 PM

Interesting post! I was actually not really interested in MILD before but your post changed my opinion ( at least I wanna give it a try now

)

I've got one question though: Is it a problem if the strange part of the visualization gets quite 'long'? I can't come up with something short that seems really weird to me.
(sorry if this thread wasn't meant for questions like that)

**Ctharlhie** · 06-16-2014 12:11 AM

Thank you, sir. *doffs hat*

**Memm** · 06-16-2014 05:06 AM

I'm very happy you guys are finding this stuff interesting. =]

Originally Posted by Screen

There is definitely some truth to what you're saying. Speaking of shopping at the grocery store, there was this YouTube video that used association with numbers. That way, I could remember not only the items on my list, but number a specific item was. It was actually quite easy, but you have to make sure your imagination is strange enough.

I've always thought of MILD as nothing more than a simple affirmation before bed. I never thought it had anything to do with the kinds of things I learned about association and strange visualizations. Who knows? You may have just helped pave the way for a more enjoyable way to lucid dream. I'd certainly prefer this over having to constantly perform reality checks. I'm going to work on your example for learning to be more aware during the day. I'll share a rough example.

Every hour that doesn't have the letter "E" in it (every hour except 2, 4, and 6) if I'm not aware, a dark horseman with ten arms will magically come out of a portal from a clock (analog or digital). The portal will be swirling with thunder, and be pitch black and he'll summon me into an eternal abyss.

Stranger the better, right? Either way, thanks for sharing all of this. It's definitely helpful and it won't hurt or be boring to try.

What you saw in the video was probably what's known as a Peg List. Which works on the same basic principle of association as every other method but in this case you are associating with an ordered list of some sort, for example numbers. Because they are in order, when you recall each "peg" (number) your memories will be in order as well. It's a nice easy method for short lists of things that you probably won't need to remember for that long, like a shopping list.

And yes, the stranger the better! Eventually your brain might get used to your story as well and you will have to come up with something new. It's interesting to note that mnemonics will gradually turn into "normal" memories, that is; you will not need the mnemonic after a while. The mnemonic you start with is an "obvious" link to your new memory, eventually there will be many more links that will come up naturally and you won't need a specific one anymore. In other words you won't need the mnemonic as a reminder anymore.

Also the way I see it, reality checks are just a way of keeping you aware during the day, the purpose isn't the reality check itself but in maintaining the idea that you might be dreaming. You could even think of them as a type of mnemonic.

Originally Posted by cptP

Interesting post! I was actually not really interested in MILD before but your post changed my opinion ( at least I wanna give it a try now

)

I've got one question though: Is it a problem if the strange part of the visualization gets quite 'long'? I can't come up with something short that seems really weird to me.
(sorry if this thread wasn't meant for questions like that)

It doesn't really matter how long it is as long as you can visualise it. If you look at the first link in my original post you'll see that Joshua used a very long story to memorise the deck of cards. Your brain is creating the story, you're not reading it from somewhere, so your brain can recreate it very easily. Only down side would be the time it takes to repeat it, in the end whatever comes naturally to you is perfectly fine. The more natural the better, for example often when it is difficult to come up with an image for something you want to remember, you just use the first thing that pops into your head, trust your imagination.

You're not forcing your brain to do anything, you're actually using it the way it likes to be used. I think this is a very important idea behind mnemonics; it's not so much about learning a new technique but more about going back to how the brain is actually built to function.

**Memm** · 06-16-2014 07:30 AM

Something I didn't mention in the original post but is everywhere in MILD tutorials is the use of WBTB. Obviously using mnemonics after waking up is better than going to bed since when you first go to bed your next proper length dream is maybe ~3 to 4 hours away but if you wake up after 5 or 6 hours your next dream is only 1-40 minutes away, so there is less of a chance that you'll stop thinking about wrestling Godzilla in that time due to other thoughts (in the mnemotechnics world this is known as interference, when similar memories get jumbled up and you lose the one that you wanted, which is why when you are memorising something you try to make the visualisation unique, I didn't think this was worth mentioning for lucidity since it has more to do with memory techniques and is unlikely to happen in MILD)

The topic of WBTB is everywhere anyway so I'm keeping this to just the mnemonic part of MILD, but it's worth a reminder. Don't want to talk about everything in MILD since there are more than enough topics on the overall technique as it is, mostly I just want to unravel the mystery of the "mnemonic" word.

A lot of people have the notion that MILD is about having some kind of "conversation" with your subconsciousness, but it's really just the simple idea of trying not to forget something, which in this case is that you wanted to stay on the lookout for a dream. The dream world will try its hardest to make you forget and be generally unaware and you have to try your hardest to stay aware and not forget; a strong mnemonic that follows the mnemotechnic "rules" is a lot more likely to succeed.

**Ctharlhie** · 06-17-2014 12:53 AM

I've used the peg system to remember up to 8 dreams in a single night. I can also see the obvious usefulness of a mnemonic system in say remembering goals in an LD, but I'm still confused how such a system can be adapted to LD induction?

**Lmrhone** · 06-17-2014 06:39 AM

Hey dude, thanks for this post, it's made it into my "notable DV post" list and I'm 95% sure I'll save it as a bookmark, along with the links you've added, if you need to know, yes they've helped at least one lucid dreamer out here. Today I've remembered to gain self awareness more times than I can count because I "remembered" that a mass of dark energy or a dark energy being's hand would come out of the vents and grab me and possess my body, if I didn't have total awareness of Mind, Body and Spirit. I feel like my mind is working at 1000x the pace as usual, so I'm not gonna make this long. Essentially what I wanted to say if that we have very similar, possibly identical goals, you said "want to unravel the mystery of the "mnemonic" word." I want the same thing! Except with everything, I want to see the world, words, feelings, emotions as exactly what they are, I want to know the origin of it, I need to know what it truly means and digest it's essence to see it as exactly what it is, because words only seem to dilute what something is and I'm better with working with the "feeling" of a thing, it's energy. But at the same time I want to be able to express this thing through the use of words. (Going far off topic)

Anyway, thanks dude, I can't form a cohesive post right now but thanks, this is going to help me a LOT on the long run. Honestly I'm not supposed to be on DV right now because I forced myself away from it to enhance my LD consistency.

As for how this would help with lucid dreaming, I had the same question. Until I realized that this was a concept that you had to combine with awareness, that the concept of enhanced memory alone wouldn't aid with lucidity until you combined it with awareness. Which would over time bring you to a state of constant awareness through your enhanced memory always "reminding" you to be aware. At least that's how my mind has put it into words right now, maybe tomorrow I'll look at this post and say "What was I thinking?" (And just in-case, future me, your mind was working in a place beyond it average processing power and you didn't know how to handle it so basically you can't form ideas into proper sentences and you aren't thinking about what you're posting. You're living in the moment! You have no clue what brought you to this point and you aren't even thinking about where you're going with this whole thing, just going there and not looking back, isn't this what you wanted? Quite a bittersweet blessing.)

Thanks Memm! (This whole brain thing isn't really related to your post, it just gets like this sometimes, kind of like I've put pure caffeine into my blood and it's pushing my brain to a place it isn't used to going.) I'm gonna go draw!

**Memm** · 06-17-2014 01:23 PM

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

I've used the peg system to remember up to 8 dreams in a single night. I can also see the obvious usefulness of a mnemonic system in say remembering goals in an LD, but I'm still confused how such a system can be adapted to LD induction?

I'll see if I can simplify it; basically you're creating an interesting story that you can visualise, because it's interesting it will stay at the back of your mind for a good amount of time, this is your mnemonic. To this you are associating lucidity; thus the story will recall lucidity.

The original MILD method basically said:

1) wake up after a dream
2) think about your dream
3) visualise your dream but this time imagine you are becoming lucid in it and visualise what you want to do once you are lucid
4) keep this in your mind as you are falling back to sleep

#3 is trying to say that you are using your last dream as a mnemonic and associating it with lucidity, you are also imagining something cool to do in your lucid dream, the problem with the original method is a dream is too vague of a mnemonic and nobody said anything about visualising something strange, as in; deciding to take a walk in your LD is not strange enough, the brain won't care. Creating your own story like you do in memory techniques is a more thorough approach.

LaBerge also talked about strengthening prospective memory through remembering 3 things to look out for during the day exercises before you start doing MILD, which is another way of saying that you need to develop mindfulness first.

However, a well crafted mnemonic should speed up progress by a huge margin because like I have said earlier; you start with a mnemonic but the brain will absorb the rest very quickly, a very big difference to not using mnemonics at all.

How many times do you need to repeat a new phone number in your head before you memorise it? 10? 100 times? Can you guarantee you won't forget one of the digits next week if you don't give it much use? Using a mnemonic based technique it can take even a person that has never heard about mnemonics before just a couple of minutes and they won't forget the number for a month.

How long would it take you to LD regularly without mnemonics? Hmmmm.....

With the exception of WILD I think just about every technique we have for inducing LDs is based on mnemonics.

**Ctharlhie** · 06-17-2014 05:03 PM

Rhymes play an important role in mnemonics, could they be incorporated into a MILD affirmation?

Thanks for all the advise, but could I be pain and ask you to do a write up of your MILD procedure, step-by-step?

**Memm** · 06-17-2014 06:37 PM

What I have in the original post is pretty much it, you can incorporate rhymes if you want, if it helps make your mnemonic stronger then why not! Try things out, see what works for you. =]

**Djaxup** · 06-18-2014 04:11 AM

I used the presented info yesterday to not forget about two important errands and also for the later half of the day to set up a dream scene. I was saying in my head something along the lines of "when I'm dreaming this night I will hop up the stairs to my old attic room while crashing panlids together every hop, while confetti rains down on me as I do"... what can I say, it seemingly did the trick. LD again, the first time after five weeks. I did not dream of the panlid crashing or confetti, but the location was part of the dream. That was one of my first goals, so I'm happy now

**Screen** · 06-18-2014 04:43 AM

I've yet to try this on a lucid dream, but this is helping me remember to become aware.

I imagined that if I failed to become aware during the day, the walls around me would grow spikes with maniacal laughing clowns and bubbles everywhere as they'd slowly crush me.

Before, I had to really "try" to remember to become aware with reality checks. But with this, it's like a sudden spark or realization to check, "Where am I, is this real?" Kind of like the same spark people get that make them lucid. So this alone is very reassuring, and it certainly makes the awareness-throughout-the-day process feel less tedious.

Since this accomplishes the same goal as a reality check but with a stronger lasting impression, I think more (if not everybody) should be trying this. Whether or not it makes you lucid, it definitely helps with the daily awareness as I've just experienced, and it hasn't been three whole days yet, so fast-acting!

I'm going to share a random scenario on the spot to help people form their own. It'll be for when I try to have a lucid dream. I'll remember to summon pink potato chip bags that shoot bright, purple water while a grand piano is playing classical music, and I'll do this all on the beach while it's snowing. Now, if that's not strange, tell me what is

**Memm** · 06-18-2014 05:58 AM

Originally Posted by Screen

I've yet to try this on a lucid dream, but this is helping me remember to become aware.

I imagined that if I failed to become aware during the day, the walls around me would grow spikes with maniacal laughing clowns and bubbles everywhere as they'd slowly crush me.

I read your post and decided today I'm using "a mime will come crashing through my window and shoot me with an imaginary gun", it's fun isn't it. xD

Also whenever you recall the mnemonic, spend an extra second visualising it again quickly, often you don't even need to "visualise" in detail, just a quick "feeling" of it is enough to make it strong again, this is the repetition part. In a way the mnemonic is actually recalling itself helping you to recall the mnemonic, it just goes around in a circle and whatever you have associated with it gets caught up in the process.

Originally Posted by Djaxup

I used the presented info yesterday to not forget about two important errands and also for the later half of the day to set up a dream scene. I was saying in my head something along the lines of "when I'm dreaming this night I will hop up the stairs to my old attic room while crashing panlids together every hop, while confetti rains down on me as I do"... what can I say, it seemingly did the trick. LD again, the first time after five weeks. I did not dream of the panlid crashing or confetti, but the location was part of the dream. That was one of my first goals, so I'm happy now

Congrats on the LD! I'm assuming because something strange was happening at this location it crept into your dream, I'm going to try your idea tonight as an experiment.

**Ctharlhie** · 06-18-2014 11:41 AM

@Memm; Do you have any tips for using the peg system with recall? I use it during micro awakenings so that I don't have to reach for the old dream journal during the night. In theory all you need to do is visualise placing the peg in the dream scene upon awakening, and it'll be there in your memory in the morning waiting for you to write it down in your dream journal. Last night I woke at 4:30ish in a natural WBTB and I visualised my dream and the first peg in the system, but when I woke in the morning and called the peg to mind the dream was gone. Not enough repetitions?

**Memm** · 06-18-2014 12:46 PM

It's the other way around, you take something from your dream and associate it with the peg. So if you were dreaming of, say, chickens, you visualise a chicken doing something with your peg; like let's say your peg for the number 1 is a tree, you can visualise a giant chicken sitting on top of the tree.

When you get up in the morning, you recall the tree and see the chicken on top of it, the chicken reminds you of the dream you had about chickens. It may or may not be enough to recall the rest of the dream.

I still use a dream journal and when I can't be bothered getting up, I record myself talking about the dream on my phone and write that down later.

**Ctharlhie** · 06-18-2014 01:18 PM

Ah, thanks for clearing that up!

Do you go on the mnemotechnics forum? Is there much discussion of applying mnemonics to lucid dreaming there?

**Memm** · 06-18-2014 01:26 PM

I don't remember seeing any lucid dreaming topics over there but I haven't been very active for a while, there is a lot of discussion about different techniques though, I'm sure some of them could be applied to LDs in some way.

Mnemotechnics can be applied to many everyday things such as remembering peoples' names, learning things like languages faster, studying, passwords and anything else that requires a good memory so it's well worth checking out all the different methods even if it's not for LDs. =]

**Ctharlhie** · 06-18-2014 02:37 PM

I used the method of loci to remember my essay plans and quotations for my literature exams, after an afternoon of work I could remember all my quotations better than my friends who had spent days learning them by rote, and I had the essay plan memorised to boot. Even now I can remember my plans when usually exam material just goes from my head after the fact. It's incredible everybody doesn't use the art of memory.

**Memm** · 06-18-2014 03:15 PM

Yeah, mnemotechnics is a bit like lucid dreaming, really cool but it takes a bit for people to get into it.

I think it should be part of the curriculum in every school really, people should be taught to read, write, basic maths and mnemotechnics!

And possibly meditation and lucid dreaming also.

There was a girl at my highschool that used mnemotechnics and everybody thought she had photographic memory and was some sort of genius (including the teachers). Years later after I found out what the method of loci was I was quite angry for a while because that's obviously what she used. Felt like everybody else got cheated out of something fundamental.

**Memm** · 06-24-2014 01:01 PM

Bring your senses into your visualisations!

Okay so I feel I should update this thread because there is one thing I failed to mention about visualisations and that is to bring your senses into it; touch, smell, taste, hearing etc....

I think particularly touch because that is probably the easiest, the reason I didn't mention this before is because I have gotten used to just imagery for my mnemonics and get by fine with just that, it's also faster when you don't have to spend a lot of time on each visualisation, but seeing so many threads on tactile sensation induced lucid dreams and also remembering that stabilisation revolves a lot around sensation such as touch I fear I should have mentioned this in the original post.

Using the senses is mentioned in mnemotechnics, it's definitely part of mnemonics but I feel it would have a much greater impact on lucidity. I tried to be as thorough as possible but forgot about this part, my apologies.

So do bring your senses, especially sense of touch, into your visualisations, the more senses the better.

Once again I apologise for not mentioning this in the original post, given that it's such an important part of LDs I really should have, it's a shame I can't edit it now, I think this covers everything now.

**Bobblehat** · 12-19-2014 08:57 PM

Have people carried on applying this? What has the success rate been like?

**Memm** · 12-20-2014 07:18 AM

I think people have already been applying it in one form or another even before I wrote this, for example deciding what you're going to do in your LD (which is part of some MILD guides) generally contains all of the above.

My post doesn't really contain anything new, it's just the reasoning behind what a mnemonic actually is and why simply repeating words in a mantra isn't helpful; but this only helps memory, I think awareness is still the larger more important key to LDs.