Self-inception experiment

**martakartus** · 12-13-2014 03:04 PM

I'm quite sure someone must have posted about this before, but I wanted to share my experience. Having been into lucid dreaming for a year and a half, I hadn't had a great deal of success before, but it occurred to me some months ago that I could try and repeat a mantra within a lucid dream and see if it was more efficient. After a dry spell of two months (during October and November I only had two lucid dreams), I decided I'd try it.

So, when I got lucid on the 21st of November, I said "all of my dreams are lucid", and the aim was to repeat the mantra every time I got lucid from that point on. In the three weeks that have passed, I have had nine lucid dreams, which is by far the most successful I've ever been. The last three days in a row, in fact, I've had a lucid per night. Could it be a coincidence? Yes. Could it be placebo, because I was quite sure it'd make a difference? Yes. But I'd rather think it has indeed made a difference.

Has anyone tried and had it working? I'm curious, please post your opinions and feel free to try it out if you haven't and report back

**VagalTone** · 12-13-2014 04:33 PM

That's a very interesting experiment! You didn't use the mantra while falling asleep, only while LDing?

**KlarTraeumer** · 12-13-2014 04:48 PM

I don't think it has been coincidence, but I'm pretty sure every conviction about things you're able to do are either Placebo or Nocebo. So I think this is the reason.

I didn't try it out that way, but I used self hypnosis with affirmations, which were pretty close to your mantra. They worked very good for me and I'm still impressed by their power. Actually I'm even convinced, that everything within our mind is changeable.

**ThreeCat** · 12-13-2014 04:55 PM

This is very interesting, Martakartus. I have practiced reciting a sankalpa duing yoga nidra, and I feel that it has slowly taken effect in my life. But I have not tried reciting a mantra while asleep. Very cool idea!

**martakartus** · 12-13-2014 06:32 PM

Originally Posted by VagalTone

That's a very interesting experiment! You didn't use the mantra while falling asleep, only while LDing?

I couple that with WBTB and MILD, which is my favourite combo, to get me lucid when I go back to sleep. I had used this combo a lot in the past with little success, so I thought maybe using the mantra while lucid when I first had a chance could make the next lucid dream come sooner, then I would use it again to make the next one come sooner, and so goes... Well, this was the original idea, of course with dreams it's hard to think it'll be a linear progress, but it seems to be helping

**Bharmo** · 12-13-2014 11:54 PM

Indeed an interesting idea!
I'm checking your DJ for more details. Congrats on TotM by the way!

**InnerVision** · 12-14-2014 02:23 PM

Very interesting! I do not think this is only placebo; it might actually work. When in a lucid dream, conscious and subconscious parts of your mind are in closer contact than in any other state (apart from meditation of course). Therefore I think that any kind of mantra/affirmation/autosuggestion is much more effective when in a lucid dream. You can 'speak to your subconscious' much more directly, causing the message to come across more clearly and more effectively.

Of course this is no proven fact and please correct me if I'm wrong in making these assumptions

**martakartus** · 12-14-2014 10:51 PM

Originally Posted by InnerVision

Very interesting! I do not think this is only placebo; it might actually work. When in a lucid dream, conscious and subconscious parts of your mind are in closer contact than in any other state (apart from meditation of course). Therefore I think that any kind of mantra/affirmation/autosuggestion is much more effective when in a lucid dream. You can 'speak to your subconscious' much more directly, causing the message to come across more clearly and more effectively.

Of course this is no proven fact and please correct me if I'm wrong in making these assumptions

Actually, that was my idea. Of course when it comes to the mind and dreams everything is possible, but if mantras and hypnosis work because the idea sinks in the subconscious, with dreams it should work in a similar way.

**cooleymd** · 12-18-2014 10:11 AM

What about stabilization Martakartus did saying this line seem to stabilize the lucid? I think I'll try the trick of telling DC its a dream to see if that helps, some people claim it does. I only have a few lucid on weekends, but most of them like 2 out of 3 are brief. I like to last at least 3 minutes or I don't have time to remember stuff I should do