Thread: The Power of Belief

Originally Posted by Sageous

Change "believe" to, say, "know..."

I find those terms rather interchangeable, in the case of lucid dreaming at least. The feeling you get when you "believe," or "know," that you will have a lucid dream before you go to bed is the same, even though the definitions are slightly different. The best way I can describe it is that it feels like the purist form of confidence in yourself, like you cannot allow yourself to fail. Once you have that feeling, and you fall asleep with it, I'd be more surprised if you didn't have a lucid dream.

I've recently "discovered" this for myself, OP, and I'm glad you made a thread about it. The power of your own belief is amazingly strong if you can harness it properly. Many people seem to skip this, or don't pay much attention to it, but this is probably the most important thing in lucid dreaming next to raising your awareness, because it's all tied into your mindset. In the past two weeks, I've had more lucid dreams than I've had in the whole month of May because I realized that I needed to believe, or know, that I could have a lucid dream. Beforehand, I was just waiting for it to happen without really doing anything. My attitude was "it'll come when it'll come," but I changed that to "I want it to happen now, tonight!" and things actually got better.

Also, a bit off topic, but I think people need to stop thinking that lucid dreaming is "hard," because it really isn't. The hard part is getting yourself motivated to write dream journal entries, do reality checks, stay aware, meditate, or whatever it is. And getting motivated is hard, I know this, trust me, but after you get going it's almost hard to stop. Thinking that lucid dreaming itself is hard is nothing but a hindrance on the mindset you need to achieve. Just do what you need to do, or what you have been doing, and add in more confidence in yourself.

If you're reading this and you're having trouble... Do. Not. Give. Up. Build yourself and don't put yourself down. Look at the bright side of things all the time. Look at what you did right, or how much you remembered from last night, you'll feel so much better. :P

Originally Posted by Starlightpaw

I find those terms rather interchangeable, in the case of lucid dreaming at least. The feeling you get when you "believe," or "know," that you will have a lucid dream before you go to bed is the same, even though the definitions are slightly different. The best way I can describe it is that it feels like the purist form of confidence in yourself, like you cannot allow yourself to fail. Once you have that feeling, and you fall asleep with it, I'd be more surprised if you didn't have a lucid dream.

I've recently "discovered" this for myself, OP, and I'm glad you made a thread about it. The power of your own belief is amazingly strong if you can harness it properly. Many people seem to skip this, or don't pay much attention to it, but this is probably the most important thing in lucid dreaming next to raising your awareness, because it's all tied into your mindset. In the past two weeks, I've had more lucid dreams than I've had in the whole month of May because I realized that I needed to believe, or know, that I could have a lucid dream. Beforehand, I was just waiting for it to happen without really doing anything. My attitude was "it'll come when it'll come," but I changed that to "I want it to happen now, tonight!" and things actually got better.

Also, a bit off topic, but I think people need to stop thinking that lucid dreaming is "hard," because it really isn't. The hard part is getting yourself motivated to write dream journal entries, do reality checks, stay aware, meditate, or whatever it is. And getting motivated is hard, I know this, trust me, but after you get going it's almost hard to stop. Thinking that lucid dreaming itself is hard is nothing but a hindrance on the mindset you need to achieve. Just do what you need to do, or what you have been doing, and add in more confidence in yourself.

If you're reading this and you're having trouble... Do. Not. Give. Up. Build yourself and don't put yourself down. Look at the bright side of things all the time. Look at what you did right, or how much you remembered from last night, you'll feel so much better.

Exactly dude. I just read an old thread by SilverBullet which basically teaches the power of belief and that Lucid Dreaming isnt hard at all, but that people keep spreading the lie that it is and its like a disease and people listen to it. Its crazy what believing can do and now that Ive learned more about it I can only agree 100% with your reply Starlightpaw. The ability we have within us to Lucid Dream at will is definitely present, we just have to believe it.

Originally Posted by Starlightpaw

I find those terms rather interchangeable, in the case of lucid dreaming at least. The feeling you get when you "believe," or "know," that you will have a lucid dream before you go to bed is the same, even though the definitions are slightly different. The best way I can describe it is that it feels like the purist form of confidence in yourself, like you cannot allow yourself to fail. Once you have that feeling, and you fall asleep with it, I'd be more surprised if you didn't have a lucid dream.

The terms, to me, are not so much interchangeable as they are different degrees of the same thing.

You hold a belief about something as true until you know it is true. So, if you believe a thing, you still do not yet know it is true, and once you know it is true, then you no longer need to believe in it. I also think that this is not a matter of semantics; that we have an intrinsic knowledge of these two words, that the conditions/degrees they describe are reflected in our very nature.

So, in the context of this thread, I think it makes more sense to know that you will LD tonight, rather than believe in it, because then you are telling yourself in a genuine way that the possibility of an LD tonight is something real, rather than something you are hoping for.

... and yes, if you can go to sleep knowing you will be lucid, the process is dramatically easier!

Originally Posted by Sageous

The terms, to me, are not so much interchangeable as they are different degrees of the same thing.

You hold a belief about something as true until you know it is true. So, if you believe a thing, you still do not yet know it is true, and once you know it is true, then you no longer need to believe in it. I also think that this is not a matter of semantics; that we have an intrinsic knowledge of these two words, that the conditions/degrees they describe are reflected in our very nature.

So, in the context of this thread, I think it makes more sense to know that you will LD tonight, rather than believe in it, because then you are telling yourself in a genuine way that the possibility of an LD tonight is something real, rather than something you are hoping for.

... and yes, if you can go to sleep knowing you will be lucid, the process is dramatically easier!

Hehe, I guess I can't really argue with a guy who has had thousands more lucid dreams than me, you make a strong point. :P So I will have to agree, the terms aren't as interchangeable as I thought, guess that means I'm going to have to make a few changes to my little personal diary. To add on to what you said, since knowing and believing are different degrees of the same thing, the feeling of knowing can be easily achieved if you already believe enough, it's a step up. Knowing is just a stronger feeling than believing and will help much more, so yeah, don't stop knowing! ^^