NEW and EFFECTIVE method to Lucid Dream! (CILD)

(I missed these discussions ^^)

LouaiB said several interesting things I think are important to consider:

Quote:

---

About the "we never know that we are dreaming while we are in a dream, so saying I want to know I'm dreaming next time I'm dreaming doesn't make sense" is something I think about too.

---

There are 2 mechanisms at work in here:

1. Prospective Memory based on time: I don't know the exact neurobiological mechanism of the process, but I assume it's related (at least partially) to working memory: your ability to organize and retain information. It's exactly like when you want to remember that football starts at 7pm: your brain holds that information and tries to retain attention on it, but it's natural that something else diverts that attention away from the intention...what may happen is that at some point the intention/memory will return, and the person will be like "what time is it?! I need to watch the game at 7pm!". At the same time, even if the current model doesn't support a link between time-based and event-based prospective memory (I bet it does), the 2nd mechanism would still be able to explain why we can indeed remember when we don't know we are dreaming, which is:

2. Priming. I'm sure that most people here heard about how if you read the word Doctor and I put you a N_ _ S _ you'll have a relatively easy time identifying it was NURSE. But if I put the word CAR then guessing the word _ C_ _ UN_ becomes harder (it's account btw). The bonus of priming is that, being a type of implicit memory, can be processed unconsciously: that means, if I primed you be more self-aware, chances are that you wouldn't even notice it: and the example above are with words, but the dream can go so much further: maybe you saw some event that you'd consider weird, making you more suspicious, making you notice more irregularities with the dream, increasing prefrontal activity, culminating in a full-out questioning of the situation. Priming can be used to trigger PM, and this relates to lucid dreaming mostly (but not only) by the process of incubation. A quote of a recent conversation Sensei and I had:

Quote:

---

If you think about it: It doesn't matter what exercise, the intentional action itself determines that you're increasing chances of said scenario showing up in your dreams. This of course raises immediately a very interesting question: might it be that the harder you practice, you might not necessarily increasing the effectiveness of the technique, but increasing your incubation chances?

---

Quote:

---

In my experience, incubation works on your belief of the world (part), day residue (part), emotional connection (part), and experience (part). All of these are easily changeable by some practice except for the first one. The first one would take belief actually changing, and that is "expectation." Expectation doesn't just work like "I expect I am going to have a dream about spaceships tonight", but expectation is changed by experience. This is why nothing happens overnight, it might be the most important part. It is hard for me to see becoming lucid aside from incubation.

---

Quote:

---

Might these be the cues that cause the "next time I'm dreaming" cue? As explained in the OP, when I'm dreaming isn't a cue, but add to it these elements of powerful emotions (70% of dreams), and next time I'm dreaming actually has a uniqueness, or is it because our PM indeed does know when we are dreaming?

---

I think the first step, like Sageous would say, it's to consider that you might be dreaming at any point: this opens a possibility practical shut down by any regular person: when do you consider that you might be dreaming if not for radically bizarre or improbable events?
Even if we aren't conscious of it, the brain has always a theory on what's happening: even if you don't know the game is rigged, it's possible to test and demonstrate that you unconsciously know it based on your actions (which you might think are "random"). Being this possibility now in the table (you might be dreaming) you're already one step ahead when it comes to considering queues (especially dream queues): you don't necessarily need to be self-aware, you just need to question the event. It's that questioning that in many cases represents the bridge to lucidity: Cue is presented, Cue is noted (this is the questioning): if memory is retrieved even at a subconscious level, lucidity will ensure due the increase on self-awareness.

Like I mentioned in the previous post, emotions aren't telling you that you are dreaming, they are signaling something that diverts your attention to yourself: if that isn't self-awareness, then I don't know what is :)

So, I like to list it just so I would get it all, It works like this:

PM gives us lucidity by:
1)DS
2)Time based
3)Also, Falling in doubt and thus becoming more self aware, or in other words searching for an explanation and dreaming is it if we cultivated the idea of the possibility of us dreaming at any given time. But, if we don't cultivate this, then becoming self aware will not assist us because we would find another answer that is not "I am dreaming", but still the prefrontal cortex would activate allowing a bigger chance for us to remember our intention to LD since PM is now more active.
4)The intention might incubate a LD, which is a nice side effect of thinking about LDing and our intention to become lucid.
5)Priming : pretty much the same as number 3, wait it is number 3.
6) Other than strong emotions being like DSs, they increase our prefrontal cortex activity, thus increasing PM activity.

So, emotions or doubt make us self aware, and thus activate our prefrontal cortex, thus increasing PM activity. Also doubt can lead us to the explanation that we are dreaming if we cultivate it, making us lucid without the need for the PM.

But, can this gained self awareness due to doubt or strong emotions lead us to lucidity without the prior intention or preparation to accept that this might be a dream? No. Increased self awareness help us become lucid because it increases the prefrontal cortex activity, and thus the PM, and also the readiness to accept the dream as an explanation.

Interesting stuff zoth.


This also explains kids that have nightmares and their parents tell them to wake themselves up when they get in a nightmare. Somehow this works as a very easy trigger for kids.

Quote:

---

Also, Falling in doubt and thus becoming more self aware, or in other words searching for an explanation and dreaming is it if we cultivated the idea of the possibility of us dreaming at any given time. But, if we don't cultivate this, then becoming self aware will not assist us because we would find another answer that is not "I am dreaming", but still the prefrontal cortex would activate allowing a bigger chance for us to remember our intention to LD since PM is now more active.

---

This is a critical point: if self-awareness was the same as lucidity, then every expert on meditation would experience a huge loads of dreams. This also indirectly explains why the idea behind the mantra is more important than what you say, but we still encourage the right words, due priming: "I am alert" might have as much significance as "I am lucid" if you're thinking about the same idea, but the latter one has the bonus of priming you to think about lucidity (aka, dream). And finally, it also reveals the mindset for reality checks: you don't have to remember to do a reality check, you have to remember to check if you're dreaming. Wanting to "do a reality next time I'm dreaming" it's an empty concept, because the emphasis is in "Brain: dude, you can be dreaming at any time, why don't you do a reality check instead of trying to remember to do one?".

(This reminds me of studies that indicate that practically all types of psychotherapy seem equally effective when compared to each others: one or other might indeed work better than the rest, but just the fact that patients are in therapy already primes them to believe change can happen. Just like just by surrounding yourself with lucid dream ideas can already you prime you to more easily recognize you're dreaming).

Quote:

---

The intention might incubate a LD, which is a nice side effect of thinking about LDing and our intention to become lucid.

---

Another plus to the theory, this actually makes it falsifiable: think about this thread ;)

Quote:

---

6) Other than strong emotions being like DSs, they increase our prefrontal cortex activity, thus increasing PM activity.

---

Not necessarily. What I'm saying is that a certain range of emotions (negative ones) can act as a self-monitoring exercise because they are personal (read, about the person herself), general (typical stress response that arises from many different scenarios), and as a communication signal (they are reactive, as in surge in answer to something). I bet there are other universal dream signs that have their own advantages, and I only mention emotions because they are one of the easiest universal dream signs to identify :)

Oh, so priming helps us by making us closer to the idea of LDing before bed, making it easier for us to react to dream situations with "hey this is a dream" ?
So, what was off in my post anyways?
So priming increases the chance of recognition about dreaming and LDing, which is helpful.
So when in doubt, priming helps us realize it's a dream, but this realization is still based on our schema that we might be dreaming at any time. Recognition only boosts this.

Does doubt increase the prefrontal cortex's activity?

Quote:

---

Not necessarily. What I'm saying is that a certain range of emotions (negative ones) can act as a self-monitoring exercise because they are personal (read, about the person herself), general (typical stress response that arises from many different scenarios), and as a communication signal (they are reactive, as in surge in answer to something). I bet there are other universal dream signs that have their own advantages, and I only mention emotions because they are one of the easiest universal dream signs to identify

---

So emotions are reliable DSs, but also experiencing strong emotions increases the prefrontal cortex's activity, and thus the PM's activity, right?

Try not to think of it in black-and-white terms: these observations that we've made here are correlational, and we can't say for sure one is causing the others. Meanwhile, the neurocorrelates of lucidity don't seem bound to a particular area of the brain, but an increase of several areas involved on self-monitoring. In the end, while that kind of thinking makes it easier for practical purposes, you might risk ignoring some fundamental aspect. Still, not like we lucid dreamers can be blamed for that, who of all people deserves the title of onironaut more than us?

Quote:

---

Strong negative emotions have lots of roots that can be primed to lucid dreaming.

---

I agree with you and Sensei here, but it's perfectly possible for there being another explanation:
A) Nightmares make people wake up;
B) Lucid Dreaming is located between states of sleep and wakefulness;
C) Conclusion: nightmares might increase chance of lucidity simply because they put the person closer to a wakeful state.

Quote:

---

So emotions are reliable DSs, but also experiencing strong emotions increases the prefrontal cortex's activity, and thus the PM's activity, right?

---

Don't oversimplify it to that point :P I'm talking about how "being aware of" your emotions can be considered self-awareness. Forget any direct influence emotions have towards lucidity, it's an indirect contribution, just like meditation doesn't make you lucid but makes you more self-aware which can lead to lucidity.

Quote:

---

But where does the PM stand in all this? If the priming already reminds us about lucid dreaming, the PM's job is to remind us that we might be dreaming next time we end up with the idea of lucid dreaming?

---

Ahahaha, that's what we all would like to know :) It's impossible to determine the weight of each factor....It's like we find an unknown liquid that we think might contain water and oil...regardless of those two substances being distinguishable, so far it's only possible to conclude that they must be there, we're still too far from measuring their individual amounts.
Prospective Memory is what allows you to remember an intention/action based on appropriate cue/time. It doesn't have to be a explicit intention (might simply be something as ordinary as remembering to close your door when you leave home), but it refers to a future scenario (remembering you forgot to close the door when you reach work is retrospective memory, remembering you need to close the door AS you're about to leave home is prospective memory). Applied to lucid dreaming,
PM is:
- You remembering to do a reality check when you see something strange;
- You remembering to stay calm as HH occurs while you attempt to WILD;
- Remembering to stand still as you wake up in order to remember a dream;
- Remembering a dream task (this is actually a great example of the small link between prospective and retrospective memory: you remember you had something planned for when you became lucid, you just can't remember what it was);
PM is NOT:
- Remembering your mantra in the middle of a dream;
- Becoming suspicious that you might be dreaming;

It's obvious that PM is important to LDing: the moment you have an intention to be performed under certain circumstances, you're already making use of PM. Yes saying "I will do a reality check the next time I'm dreaming" is a bad PM exercise, but that's because you have no cue for your PM to pick on: that's why you rely on specific elements which when observed will evoke the intention/action. But one way or another, you'll always need PM: it doesn't change if you're a beginner or an expert, as doing a reality check in response to something is already your PM working. And of course, PM has a (crap, forgot the name)...erm...basically, the more lucid dreams you have, the less and less value PM will have: because you no longer need to remember to perform an intention/action on response to cue: you already are used to it enough that the cue alone triggers the realization that you're dreaming. In the cases where you're not entirely sure and you do a reality check "just in case" that's prospective memory once again.

Quote:

---

Also, emotions increase self awareness, and whether that alone triggers lucidity (seems not or else everyone becomes lucid), or it increases PM activity, it seems that it does in fact do something to help us become lucid. Due to intentions? Priming?

---

Read response to the nightmare part.

Quote:

---

I'd say priming helps while in doubt, or when facing a dream cue. Well isn't that using schemas ("I am dreaming" cultivated as the explanation) and DSs?

---

Honestly, when you say it like that, I begin to think that "association" might be more accurate than priming. But yeah, in the practical sense it's exactly that: establishing associations (like you do with reality checks), makes it easier to recognize cues, and also in situations where you're still in doubt (think like when you do a reality 2 or 3 times until you become sure you're dreaming: you already associated the cue to the possibility of being in a dream, so it's much harder for you to let go of that concept which facilitates the exercise of self-questioning).

Quote:

---

I agree with you and Sensei here, but it's perfectly possible for there being another explanation:
A) Nightmares make people wake up;
B) Lucid Dreaming is located between states of sleep and wakefulness;
C) Conclusion: nightmares might increase chance of lucidity simply because they put the person closer to a wakeful state.

---

So strong emotions make us more awake, or aware, which increases our brain functions, thus allowing an easier time figuring this is a dream. Whether because we used intense feelings as a DS, or because our reasoning caught up with us (due to thus extra brain activity), we become lucid (it's ambiguous what exact elements help become lucid in this case).
Makes perfect sense.

Quote:

---

Try not to think of it in black-and-white terms: these observations that we've made here are correlational, and we can't say for sure one is causing the others. Meanwhile, the neurocorrelates of lucidity don't seem bound to a particular area of the brain, but an increase of several areas involved on self-monitoring. In the end, while that kind of thinking makes it easier for practical purposes, you might risk ignoring some fundamental aspect. Still, not like we lucid dreamers can be blamed for that, who of all people deserves the title of onironaut more than us?

Strong negative emotions have lots of roots that can be primed to lucid dreaming.
I agree with you and Sensei here, but it's perfectly possible for there being another explanation:
A) Nightmares make people wake up;
B) Lucid Dreaming is located between states of sleep and wakefulness;
C) Conclusion: nightmares might increase chance of lucidity simply because they put the person closer to a wakeful state.

But where does the PM stand in all this? If the priming already reminds us about lucid dreaming, the PM's job is to remind us that we might be dreaming next time we end up with the idea of lucid dreaming?
Ahahaha, that's what we all would like to know It's impossible to determine the weight of each factor....It's like we find an unknown liquid that we think might contain water and oil...regardless of those two substances being distinguishable, so far it's only possible to conclude that they must be there, we're still too far from measuring their individual amounts.
Prospective Memory is what allows you to remember an intention/action based on appropriate cue/time. It doesn't have to be a explicit intention (might simply be something as ordinary as remembering to close your door when you leave home), but it refers to a future scenario (remembering you forgot to close the door when you reach work is retrospective memory, remembering you need to close the door AS you're about to leave home is prospective memory). Applied to lucid dreaming,
PM is:
- You remembering to do a reality check when you see something strange;
- You remembering to stay calm as HH occurs while you attempt to WILD;
- Remembering to stand still as you wake up in order to remember a dream;
- Remembering a dream task (this is actually a great example of the small link between prospective and retrospective memory: you remember you had something planned for when you became lucid, you just can't remember what it was);
PM is NOT:
- Remembering your mantra in the middle of a dream;
- Becoming suspicious that you might be dreaming;

It's obvious that PM is important to LDing: the moment you have an intention to be performed under certain circumstances, you're already making use of PM. Yes saying "I will do a reality check the next time I'm dreaming" is a bad PM exercise, but that's because you have no cue for your PM to pick on: that's why you rely on specific elements which when observed will evoke the intention/action. But one way or another, you'll always need PM: it doesn't change if you're a beginner or an expert, as doing a reality check in response to something is already your PM working. And of course, PM has a (crap, forgot the name)...erm...basically, the more lucid dreams you have, the less and less value PM will have: because you no longer need to remember to perform an intention/action on response to cue: you already are used to it enough that the cue alone triggers the realization that you're dreaming. In the cases where you're not entirely sure and you do a reality check "just in case" that's prospective memory once again.

---

I would say that it depends on which cases we are talking about:
If we are talking about PM cases (DSs and intentions), PM is everything. Priming would only give a boost, a little reminder for the PM about the intention since dreaming would be in the front of our minds now.
But, if talking about situations like rationaling, or when in doubt, PM has not much role if at all. We would mainly rely on our cultivated idea that we might be dreaming at any time, and also priming would only be a boost in this case, helping us remember better that dreaming is a rational explanations.

Truly LDing can't work at all without priming, because we can't LD without the idea of LDing initiated in our minds, but I can't see it exceeding the level of just boosting, unless you consider "I could be dreaming at any time" a thought fully based on priming, but I don't think so.

Quote:

---

onestly, when you say it like that, I begin to think that "association" might be more accurate than priming. But yeah, in the practical sense it's exactly that: establishing associations (like you do with reality checks), makes it easier to recognize cues, and also in situations where you're still in doubt (think like when you do a reality 2 or 3 times until you become sure you're dreaming: you already associated the cue to the possibility of being in a dream, so it's much harder for you to let go of that concept which facilitates the exercise of self-questioning).

---

Yes, association is a better word. I would say that priming might not be association in this sense. While priming is association basically, I'm talking about associating oddness with "I'm dreaming". In this case, priming serves merely as a boost to help reach that association more effectively; increase it's chances.

I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents to share some results of following a similar technique some time ago - it wasn't exactly the same as yours jblb2424 so I can't say that yours wouldn't have better results - and of course different people will have different experiences.....
anyways about 18mths ago I got back in LD'ing after several years away in the wilderness, and I wanted to start with a successful technique, having tried several in the past with little success.


I thought about dreamsigns and finding something as a trigger to question my dreaming/waking state. La Berge had suggesting choosing out of the ordinary things, like dead relatives, or two headed people - which makes a lot of sense, but unfortunately these never really occurred in my dreams. My 'unusual' dream signs tended to be far more subtle, like equipment not working, or buildings being an unusual architectural style and uncommon enough and subtle enough and varied to be unlikely to trigger lucidity regularily.


So I thought about what occurred regularily in my dreams that I could use a sort of anchor and I decided a common thing was 'people' and to try and make this a more stand out dreamsign I decided I would do a reality check everytime I encountered someone dressed in red. So 'a person in red' became my dreamsign for daytime practice and hopefully would be something to trigger lucidity at night. Anyways within a few days I started to get better at this, as I walked to work I would see someone coming up in something red and do a RC, at work I might see someone out the window in the street or a patient dressed in red, and at home I might spot someone on tv in red and do a RC. Most of the time I did pretty well (I thought) at picking these up during the daytime practice (the exception being if someone was dressed in red at home, it was difficult to decide if I had to do a RC EVERY time I saw them, or just the first time).
But the problem was I didn't get lucid from this AT ALL. I figured it would just take time, I even rewrote the dreams I had had and inserted myself recognizing the person wearing red and becoming lucid to try and reinforce this. But nothing. After about 4 weeks I went on a holiday with my family and some other friends families and it became apparent why this wasn't working (for me). As soon as I was somewhere where there were a lot of distractions and multitasking going on (chasing after children, catching up with friends and also people I didn't know) I would completely forget that someone in the background (or foreground) was wearing red.


After the holiday I returned home and thought I'd give it another try. Again at home and at work in a familiar routine it was much easier to remember to do the RC's. Then we had another short trip away. In the car ride to our destination I was doing pretty well, keeping a look out whilst driving for other people (other drivers, pedestrians) in red. Then we stopped for a break a small but busy museum. My son ran in and disappeared and I ran in after him to find him, there were loads of people there, in all different coloured clothes but I didn't stop to do any RC's as I was so focused on finding my wife and then dealing with my son, and after that just spending time with him and my daughter trying to keep them engaged in the activities (they're both young and so require a lot of attention).


This (to me) showed me why I never got lucid in a dream from this technique. In short the reasons were:

1. using a dreamsign that occurs in everyday life requires vigilance to spot

2. when you are distracted it is hard to stay vigiliant, especially as the dreamsign in itself is not especially noteworthy (in otherwords someone dressed in red won't leap out at you like someone with two heads, or a blue cat)

3. most of my dreams are very action based where I am distracted, or dealing with people, or trying to work out (reconcile) whats going on - and just like my experiences in real life I found I couldn't 'afford' the lapse in attention required to do r/c's in these situations.

so for me after 6-8 wks of doing this in real life it never translated to lucidity in the dream world. But I think for people who have more relaxed dreams, or dreams which occur in environments which take place in places they spend time in in real life the results could be different.

Hope this might be of interest! Sorry it was long!

Quote:

---

This (to me) showed me why I never got lucid in a dream from this technique. In short the reasons were:

1. using a dreamsign that occurs in everyday life requires vigilance to spot

2. when you are distracted it is hard to stay vigiliant, especially as the dreamsign in itself is not especially noteworthy (in otherwords someone dressed in red won't leap out at you like someone with two heads, or a blue cat)

3. most of my dreams are very action based where I am distracted, or dealing with people, or trying to work out (reconcile) whats going on - and just like my experiences in real life I found I couldn't 'afford' the lapse in attention required to do r/c's in these situations.

---

Yes, vigilance/mindfulness is the key. The more you work on it, the more you realize the situations where you traditionally zone out. Mine are also interactions with people, *especially* work meetings where I'm totally focused on what I'm saying and what the other parties are saying. I've started becoming mindful in interpersonal interactions: arguments, dealing with annoying officials/clerks, in stores.

I can stay tuned in for long periods of time when I'm not speaking/interacting, but my dreams, too, are mostly all about interacting and the cycle of action/reaction/action/reaction/etc.

Maintaining continuous mindfulness/vigilance under all circumstances I think will lead to leaps in LD frequency (and generally a better life as you are more aware of and able to better manage your reactions to unpleasant situations).

Thanks for sharing Tlalok!
But...why people in red? Maybe you never saw people in red in your dreams. What about doing reality check for a specific gender? I mean something that occurs more in your dreams. By the way, if you forget to do RC for sometimes, it means it is not still in your subconscious so it won't work.
You have to be addicted to your RC like a maniac. You never forget to breath because it is controlledby your subconscious. RC should also should be like breathing, as part of your nature.

Interesting post Tlaloc :) At work, so this post will have to be short:

I have an explanation for your results, check this study: Prospective memory: when reminders fail.

Abstract:

Quote:

---

A frequent assumption in the area of prospective memory is that a reminder to do an activity in the future improves the likelihood of doing the activity. The results of four experiments indicated, however, that the most general version of this assumption is incorrect. Subjects were either reminded of a prospective memory task several times during a retention interval or not reminded of the prospective memory task. The most effective reminders referred both to the prospective memory target events and to the intended activity. Reminders that referred only to the target events did not improve prospective memory (relative to a no-reminder control). Reminders that referred only to the intended activity did improve prospective memory, but not to the level of reminders that referred both to the target events and to the intended activity. Instructions to imagine oneself performing the prospective memory task did not further improve prospective memory. Neither the delay between the prospective memory instructions and the prospective memory cover task nor the delay between a reminder and a prospective memory target event significantly influenced performance. The results, which are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications, support a new theory of prospective memory and suggest surprising conditions under which reminders fail to benefit prospective memory.

---

PS: and in case people are thinking about the "imagine" sentence, it's true: according to the study, visualization would have no impact on your ability to perform a reality check given the cue. But it's a bit more complex than that, especially if you take into consideration the effectiveness of implementation intentions exercises, which if I recall correctly, are a very effective way to boost PM. Besides, even if visualization is way less effective than previous thought, it still might increase incubation chances. Back to work :(

Frying man I am very much in agreement with you.

Quote:

---

I can stay tuned in for long periods of time when I'm not speaking/interacting, but my dreams, too, are mostly all about interacting and the cycle of action/reaction/action/reaction/etc.

---

I've often thought I become lucid more in dreams which are less active because I've had more time to assess the situation and dwell on the oddness enough to gain lucidity. Its hard to do this if you are rushing.

Hiya yaya - I liked your points

Quote:

---

But...why people in red? Maybe you never saw people in red in your dreams. What about doing reality check for a specific gender? I mean something that occurs more in your dreams. By the way, if you forget to do RC for sometimes, it means it is not still in your subconscious so it won't work.
You have to be addicted to your RC like a maniac. You never forget to breath because it is controlledby your subconscious. RC should also should be like breathing, as part of your nature.

---

although I guess I would argue that the reality check has to be conscious inorder to for it to work, whilst we breathe subconsciously we are typically unaware we are doing until we actively think about like in meditation or are reminded of it - for example an asthma attack. I had wanted to choose something which would occur at a hopefully pretty practical frequency in real life in order to do RC checks mindfully - and would hopefully occur at a similar level in my dreams without doing them every minute, I choose red just because in nature it tends to be a colour that alerts us to things. I think I did remember to do the checks always in my 'routine' life, but in those situations I mentioned it when I was in a more unfamiliar environment or situation where a lot was going on it just became too rushed and I became too involved in what I was doing to be able to stop and do them - - which suggested to me why I wasn't doing them in my dreams and why I didn't get lucid, as my dreams most resembled not my 'controlled, routine life' but those more unfamiliar chaotic stressful multitasking holiday situations.

But I get what you are saying, do it as often as possible - my initial thoughts had been to try and make something like google glass - a small clock on some glasses in my line of sight that would allow me to subtly check the time on a VERY regular basis (being constantly in my line of sight and avoiding people being aware I was doing this, as I don't want to be seen as obsessively clock watching!, or nose plugging etc), as I figured if you wore this all the time (as people are with googleglass) it would eventually transfer to the dreamstate. But the device is too expensive to buy for this purpose alone (and I think its still not available to the gen public?) and difficult to build on its own in a way that you could wear! (but I reckon this could be a goer in the future when the price goes down). So I settled on people in red.

Who knows the experiment may have worked on reflection even by choosing a different form of reality check....I tended to (from previous experience) use a digital watch, or text to do a RC, but the disadvantage of this is that it obviously means you have to look away to do this, which didn't work well in some of the situations where I found I had problems doing it - eg having conversations with people where looking away might seem rude - especially if I was having to do multiple checks within a short span of time (eg lots of individuals going past in red clothes whilst I was talking to people where I had to concentrate on what the conversation was about, and give them my full attention), or scanning the environment to look for my son, wife etc in a busy environment whilst doing something else. Perhaps a nose plug would have been easier to apply, allowing me to maintain visual contact whilst simultaneously doing a RC?

That's why I like these threads - they definitely make you think!

And thanks Zoth for the abstract - something to chew on! I believe the visualisation did help alittle, I certainly had a few situations where I went to bed doing a mantra 'I must find people in red' (my daytime one whilst I was doing this) and visualising seeing this. And sometimes I would wake up after 2 hrs or so (in probably my first REM period) having had HI with something red in it - once a person, once a tree with red fruit. I would wake from these - thinking 'its red - its a dream' but these unfortunately weren't full blown dreams, but rather HI dreamlets, still images but it does suggest my visualisation and intention were present in my subconscious especially in the early part of the night. I did recall at least one dream with someone with a red dress on, but I failed to do a RC due to the fact the dream centred on me being lost in a city and being anxious and rushing to meet friends - again - a similar situation to why I didn't do the same RC in real life when things got crazy.
ps Zoth I think I partially solved my previous issues with the vibe :)

Yes indeed very interesting! I think the continuous vigilance / continuous RC / ADA/RC approaches beats the "wait for a trigger event then RC" approach. You never get enough of those trigger events I think, even if it's something like walking through a doorway which happens dozens of times in a waking day. Well, in dreams, I don't go through very many doorways! Maybe 10 or less out of approaching 2000 recalled dreams this last full year of LD practice.

Waiting for random trigger events is a good PM exercise but for lucidity in dreams I think "always lucid" in waking is the way to go.

But Fryingman, I am very doubtful about the continueus vigilance approach. Be vigilant about dreamlike things and interactions during the day NEEDS our logical and rational mind systems to actually detect when these things occur. You get good at it during the day, but you lack rational thinking in the dream for it to be effective anyways! I think the only benefit of this is when you are vigilant and notice things generally like intense emotions, because since intense emotions are excellent DS, what you are doing is actually practicing these DSs. Sadly most of the things you encounter during the day that are dreamlike or intense don't work as DSs, also the ones that are, you are approaching them using awareness and not PM. So it's better to focus on these good DSs like intense emotions instead of bombarting the whole area and hitting less effectively.


Also thnx Zoth for the links, these are definitely VERY useful, like upgrading from steel to Elvin sword lol Skyrim reference.

Mindfulness / vigilance is not based around "looking for dream signs," it's more about watching yourself and your mind. Notice how you notice things. Staying tuned in, rather than allowing yourself to zone out and run on autopilot. It's about choosing how to respond to interactions rather than letting knee-jerk reactions rule you. And yes, when you're tuned in, you also can notice odd things that are out of place or could be dream-like.

Lucid in life, lucid in dreams.

If you read some of the descriptions of lucid dreamers who very frequently lucid dream, they share a tendency to constantly reflect upon their state. They don't set PS triggers, they're always actively on the lookout. Mindfulness/vigilance is on that side of the spectrum. It's also why meditation is so valuable to lucid dreaming practice.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Mindfulness / vigilance is not based around "looking for dream signs," it's more about watching yourself and your mind. Notice how you notice things. Staying tuned in, rather than allowing yourself to zone out and run on autopilot. It's about choosing how to respond to interactions rather than letting knee-jerk reactions rule you. And yes, when you're tuned in, you also can notice odd things that are out of place or could be dream-like.

Lucid in life, lucid in dreams.

---

Yes, but to get results out of watching yourself and your mind, that needs rational thinking. We miss that in dreams. Instead, Priming and schemas seem to be the blame for these reflective moments. You see, it's not about being vigilant in the dream. While it might help to notice a little more, autopilot does notice most of the things a vigilant mind notices, but the mind lacks rational thinking, semantic memory, ...
Just practice increasing the likelihood of rationalizing your doubt in dreams as "this is a dream" by priming the idea of LDing and having a mindset that you might be dreaming at any time, which both push up the explanation that you are dreaming.

Note: I need to explain that we do fall in doubt often in our dreams when our rational minds happens to catch it, but we often don't remember it since most things that pass through our minds and are resolved quickly tend not to be remembered, especially in dreams!
So, we DO already fall in doubt in dreams. It's not about extra vigilance, it's about, well, chance of the rational mind to catch the weird event(it already does see it whether with extra vigilance or not). It's not about the rational mind seeing it. It already does, extra vigilance won't help much, but it depends on chance if the rational mind happens to doubt it. I don't think you can increase the rational mind's activity so you would get a bigger chance of making it doubt weird things, unless you do CAT for example (which also it's extra awareness/brain activity helps MILD/PM too). All you can really rely on is making the doubtful moment count, and derive to the conclusion that you are dreaming using daytime practice that enhanced the schema that this might mean it's a dream (using priming and state criticality).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LouaiB

Yes, but to get results out of watching yourself and your mind, that needs rational thinking. We miss that in dreams. Instead, Priming and schemas seem to be the blame for these reflective moments. You see, it's not about being vigilant in the dream. While it might help to notice a little more, autopilot does notice most of the things a vigilant mind notices, but the mind lacks rational thinking, semantic memory, ...
Just practice increasing the likelihood of rationalizing your doubt in dreams as "this is a dream" by priming the idea of LDing and having a mindset that you might be dreaming at any time, which both push up the explanation that you are dreaming.

Note: I need to explain that we do fall in doubt often in our dreams when our rational minds happens to catch it, but we often don't remember it since most things that pass through our minds and are resolved quickly tend not to be remembered, especially in dreams!
So, we DO already fall in doubt in dreams. It's not about extra vigilance, it's about, well, chance of the rational mind to catch the weird event(it already does see it whether with extra vigilance or not). It's not about the rational mind seeing it. It already does, extra vigilance won't help much, but it depends on chance if the rational mind happens to doubt it. I don't think you can increase the rational mind's activity so you would get a bigger chance of making it doubt weird things, unless you do CAT for example (which also it's extra awareness/brain activity helps MILD/PM too). All you can really rely on is making the doubtful moment count, and derive to the conclusion that you are dreaming using daytime practice that enhanced the schema that this might mean it's a dream (using priming and state criticality).

---

No, LouiaB, in order to get results out of being mindful, you just need to be mindful :). I've done both approaches, and I tell you, being mindful is *different*. There's absolutely no way you can convince me that mindful and zoned out are even *close* to being similar, they are simply *not*! The highly technical priming, schema, PM, etc. is one path of understanding, vigilance/mindfulness is another. To say one is right or wrong is pointless. If you choose to follow the technical path, more power to you. But I tell you I've noticed much more of a difference in the mindfulness/vigilance path, and I have a gut feeling that it is right. You don't have to know how it works, just that it works. And it makes complete sense: being aware in waking leads to being aware in dreams.

If you want a scientific explanation I believe that there are articles about how meditation produce measurable differences in the areas of the brain that affect dreaming.

Also, I highly recommend you read the Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, but you won't find much in the way of priming and schemas there :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FryingMan

No, LouiaB, in order to get results out of being mindful, you just need to be mindful :). I've done both approaches, and I tell you, being mindful is *different*. There's absolutely no way you can convince me that mindful and zoned out are even *close* to being similar, they are simply *not*! The highly technical priming, schema, PM, etc. is one path of understanding, vigilance/mindfulness is another. To say one is right or wrong is pointless. If you choose to follow the technical path, more power to you. But I tell you I've noticed much more of a difference in the mindfulness/vigilance path, and I have a gut feeling that it is right. You don't have to know how it works, just that it works. And it makes complete sense: being aware in waking leads to being aware in dreams.

If you want a scientific explanation I believe that there are articles about how meditation produce measurable differences in the areas of the brain that affect dreaming.

Also, I highly recommend you read the Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, but you won't find much in the way of priming and schemas there :)

---

You aren't actually zoned out as much as you think you are. Vigilance helps, but it's all about the rational thinking.

I personally think priming and schemas are the way to go with exploiting doubt. What you say is that vigilance/mindfulness increases in your dreams as it does in waking life. Even if so, isn't rational thinking the key to mindfulness? What's the use of more if it's essence is missing? It helps you and works for you, great, but if you understand it's basics, you can focus your efforts and drastically increase your LD rate.

To explain further: Being in autopilot during waking doesn't negate rational thinking. In dreams, we are also in autopilot, but rational thinking is impaired.
In dreams, our rational thinking is impaired, so mindfulness is an almost automatic off.
Vigilance does increase our scope, but rational thinking is still impaired, so not much use.

Plus, Tibetan Yoga does involve priming and schemas ("realize everything is the substance of dreams" for example), maybe not the exast words, but it does.

I'm using the rules that rational thinking is impaired during sleep, whether vigilant or autopilot, we do "see" while in autopilot, mindfulness depends on rational thinking thinking, and schemas/priming increase the likelihood to use the explanation that this is a dream when in doubt, assuming that rational thinking isn't completely impaired during sleep.
Yup, I'm pretty sure of these rules.

I think I know where Fryingman is coming from. He might be thinking of cases like Hukif's, whose "only" LDing day practice is checking if gravity is right 24/7, no mantras, no questioning of reality, no dream signs, etc. He does not even rationalize 'gravity is normal so I'm not dreaming, when it is weird I will be dreaming'. Just checking constantly gravity's effects on his body got him to "natural lucid dreamer" levels. Then Azul followed that technique and got at least daily LDs from that as well. So looks like that constant vigilance, mindfulness, awareness or whatever we call it does work somehow, although they both acknowledge is really difficult.
LouaiB, you can google "DILD - GRAVITY RC" for the tutorial, and "Decayed, horrid tree journal of Hukif" for prove that it works.
But obviously each one has to practice something one feels comfortable about, and maybe more importantly, something we believe will work for us.

Yeah if you read through many different people's experiences, especiallyy those who achieve high levels of LD frequency after working on it for a long time, they all have some point where they write "it's so simple, all you have to do is XYZ!!! XYZ is the One True Way to LD!". What you're doing, LouaiB, as far as I can see, is framing the discussion in a way that makes sense to YOU, and saying that's the only way that others can frame it because it's the One True Way. Just realize that you're missing an important qualification: "for me."

There are many paths to awareness. The things I've seen in common among all practitioners who achieve success are not technical:
They maintain frequent/continuous levels of awareness/reflection/what-have-you while awake
They are dedicated and determined to succeed
They don't give up
They invest years of time into the practice.

And Hukif's gravity is not only noticing it, but constantly asking/answering "does this feeling of gravity mean wake or dream?"

The thread is sufficiently hijacked so... can't hurt.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LouaiB

I'm using the rules that rational thinking is impaired during sleep, whether vigilant or autopilot, we do "see" while in autopilot, mindfulness depends on rational thinking thinking, and schemas/priming increase the likelihood to use the explanation that this is a dream when in doubt, assuming that rational thinking isn't completely impaired during sleep.
Yup, I'm pretty sure of these rules.

---

So tell me, how is a simple "I'm alive" deep rational thinking? Considering an approach like constant self-awareness (like the weird RCs some of us use) I wouldn't go for the whole explaining the question but just the simple, instinctive understanding of why feeling stuff = being alive. More onto that down there...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FryingMan

And Hukif's gravity is not only noticing it, but constantly asking/answering "does this feeling of gravity mean wake or dream?"

---

Yes and no frying; perhaps I did a poor job explaining it before but gravity RC is not centered around answering or asking anything. It is the instinctive check of a certain state and the linking of such a thing to a state of the mind; ie "Weird gravity = dream" and "Normal gravity = awake". So while technically you could be asking/answering these things, that has little importance compared to the linking.

It is not supposed to bear any deep, rational thinking like "Gravity is weird right now, that must mean I am in a dream!" that would be too difficult for someone as lazy as myself. If I am to think so much then it would be meaningless to begin with, I will just go with "weird gravity... therefore dream" without any more critical thinking in dreams. It is not like we are much of deep thinkers in dreams so it would seem like a wasted step. And as I said, lazy as hell... asking/questioning that can be helpful at the start to get a bit more familiar but should not be kept on the long run (Which is why I said keeping too many of these awareness RCs was bad/too difficult IMO), I was also a teen in middle school at the time of developing this RC, so it had to be something that required little personal "mind-space" so to speak in order for it to not hinder daily needs, but rather to enhance them.

I think LouiaB that your mind is too ingrained with the common way/concept of doing a RC, which requires people to be rational about things by critically questioning reality; stuff like dream feeling (Oreo), gravity RC, that omnilucidity thread and you know is less about thinking and more about knowing through a familiar feeling.

Sorry if I mis-wrote, Hukif, I recalled a message you wrote to me about not just feeling the gravity, but also thinking about why you're feeling it (to conclude: dream/waking).

But yeah, I think the continuous mindfulness/vigilance is aimed at recognizing the dream feeling, which is different than the RC/PM approach. Mindfulness is just about being present in the here and now.

In my 4 LD night 3 nights ago (woohoo!), every occasion of lucidity was just "knowing" I was lucid and in a dream. This happens more and more. The cases where lucidity comes via "Whoa, that's weird, <RC>, hey I'm dreaming!" become fewer and fewer.

Just a small off-topic, but cannot be stressed enough:

Our current knowledge regarding the science of lucid dreaming is severely lacking, making it impossible to draw causal relations between X factor and lucidity. Not disregarding the expertise of veteran lders, but just because X behaviour makes you lucid, it doesn't necessarily mean you know why you're becoming lucid. This is extremely relevant in ADA: if awareness of the surroundings was all that was required, loads of people would have lucid dreams, but the author of the technique himself points to exercises of questioning/reality checking within the practice. You may feel like X works for you, but maybe X incorporates some aspect that you totally dismiss...I believe the best way to approach this is to simply observe the facts, draw conclusions, and then test to see if those concepts apply to lucid dreamers.

Personally, I think the best answer is the middle ground between the edges of LouaiB and Frying Man: First of all, mindfulness is not a direct way to way to lucidity, and this is proven by the thousands of people that perform one and don't report the other. Mindfulness has similar (especially because many times they are entangled in one another) effects as meditation does: increase on awareness/self-awareness, increased control over your emotional state, etc. This works towards lucidity but it doesn't trigger lucidity: for lucidity to arrive you need insight (just like in that study mentioned recently!) to understand you are in a dream.

Like I said 2 pages ago, it's hard to pinpoint what exactly is triggering lucidity, even if it seems clear to YOU. But from Hukif's example, it's very clear rational/logic thinking isn't the only way to reach lucidity....PM is based on non-automated responses, and is especially prominent in early stages of lucidity: when you train yourself to respond in a fixed way. When Hukif is making his gravity reality check, he's not answering to anything: he's just performing an automated habit, an unconscious action that is deep rooted on his normal behaviour (correct me if I'm wrong Hukif). This is not to say PM wasn't involved on his behaviour: first of all, he had to remind himself for the first times to perform the gravity reality check, he didn't born doing it all the time.

This bridge between rational vs mindless is a false dichotomy (not saying people are making it one), because most people can't recognize when they performed a MILD or had a normal DILD (for example): it isn't obvious right off the bat, but there is a difference between doing a reality check in a dream facing a dream sign/weird occurrence vs gravity reality check. In the end, we're essentially talking about 3 different components that can induce lucidity individually or merged together:

- Insight of dreaming (in here, mindfulness won't get you lucids if you don't consider the possibility of being in a dream, but having considered that "possibility, things like mindfulness/meditation/critical thinking can act as shortcuts to lucidity);
- PM towards reality checking (reality check is all and every act of questioning whether you're dreaming or not, doesn't need to be a physical action) which eventually can/might involve to....
- Habit (unconscious and automated behaviour that doesn't necessarily rely on cues).

If you notice, natural dreams seem to report they know they are dreaming (insight), and people that practice lucid dreaming seem to gain both insight (that involved from PM oriented to questioning their dreams), or have habits (automated behaviour like Hukif has, but it's also observable in lucid dreamers that get lucid in every false awakening they got, or in dreamers that respond to scenarios by questioning themselves). It isn't a matter of X vs Y vs Z, it's simply conditioning and habit formation doing their job, tunnelling people into more specific ways of achieving lucidity. But one thing is for sure true: awareness encourages self-awareness, self-awareness encourages insight, and insight results on lucidity (you don't need to question yourself, after many time dreamers can process dream cues unconsciously effectively becoming lucid without needing to do things like reality checks). And then there's people like Hukif who manage to turn behaviors that work as reality checks into habits, skipping any need for cues/awareness.

(like Sageous would say)...just my two cents :)

I never claimed mindfulness alone gets you lucid, but I believe it is the main day-work ingredient in lucidity. I basically defer to the Tibetan monks who've been doing this for (centuries? Millennia?): their day work isn't just mindfulness, it is mindfulness focused on recognizing all experience is a dream. So their mindfulness is thinking constantly all through the day about dreaming. Of course it includes meditation, but also setting STRONG INTENT at bedtime to become lucid during the night, among other practices (praying to master/gurus/deities to help them get lucid). They also perform a day memory review at bedtime, letting the memories arise themselves (since these are likely to be strong enough for the mind to consider important) considering all memories as dreams. At night they WBTB every two hours and then WILD using particular visualizations. In the morning they do a dream recall review of the nights dreams, feel joy and happiness at recalled dreams and lucidity, and set strong intent to perform the day practice all throughout the day.

I suppose you could call the day and dream reviews as "priming" but I'm not sure enough about what exactly it entails. In any case, it seems like the dream Yogas basically cover all the bases!

I actually agree with you Zoth; and that is also why the reason I don't actively promote gravity RC, because there has not been enough data for me to work with and propose it as a formal thing or ponder about why/how it exactly works, still waiting on that data.

And I think I remember frying, the one about duality if I am not mistaken. Seems like it was just a confusion then.

Now then, enough hijacking from my side.