A question about experience

[Eamo24]

I’m just wondering…if you relied mostly on “techniques” to become lucid (like dream signs, triggers etc. as a way of becoming self-aware in the dream state), would you ever get to the stage that you don’t need them anymore, but become lucid easily based on sheer experience of having LD’s? For example, if someone had become lucid a lot from consistently occurring dream signs, and didn’t resort to any other “technique” - could they ever abandon the technique and find it easy to continue to LD simply from the experienced they’ve amassed of being lucid in dreams so much? Or would they still always need their technique? As an aside: I understand that LD'ing is about mindset (not technique), but often techniques can and do contribute to the mindset, which was another reason I was curious if you could eventually leave them behind, in light of general experience and skill.

[Burke]

Leaving behind techniques and using purely experience will only be as successful as you were with the techniques. In addition, once you start actively trying to improve and have more lucid dreams, you will only have less lucid dreams. Your success may remain fairly constant, but over time, you're ability to lucid dream will fade just as with anything else. The primary way I've heard of people being successful while 'stopping' any and all techniques is to not actually stop at all. They make the techniques become second nature with almost no effort. The most common example of this being reality checks. The main point of a reality check is to question your reality and check if you are dreaming. You can make it practically effortless to be constantly questioning whether you are awake or not (I believe the gravity RC is popular for this) and having become part of your daily life. You're not taking time out of your day to actively RC, per se, but instead you're basically subconsciously performing RCs. There may be some naturally skilled lucid dreamers who can have immense success with no outside effort, but they likely put a lot of effort into it originally and I doubt they'd be improving without actively trying.

[Eamo24]

Leaving behind techniques and using purely experience will only be as successful as you were with the techniques. In addition, once you start actively trying to improve and have more lucid dreams, you will only have less lucid dreams. Your success may remain fairly constant, but over time, you're ability to lucid dream will fade just as with anything else. The primary way I've heard of people being successful while 'stopping' any and all techniques is to not actually stop at all. They make the techniques become second nature with almost no effort. The most common example of this being reality checks. The main point of a reality check is to question your reality and check if you are dreaming. You can make it practically effortless to be constantly questioning whether you are awake or not (I believe the gravity RC is popular for this) and having become part of your daily life. You're not taking time out of your day to actively RC, per se, but instead you're basically subconsciously performing RCs. There may be some naturally skilled lucid dreamers who can have immense success with no outside effort, but they likely put a lot of effort into it originally and I doubt they'd be improving without actively trying. Thanks for your response That does make sense. I guess many people have internalized some type of practice(s) which allows them to confidently lucid dream. Personally I've began working on using reality checking in response to common dream AND reality elements, as a means of induction...but given the inconvenience it sometimes causes in waking-life I had wondered if I could ever give it up. I will continue with it however, in the hope that it does become a subconscious activity that doesn't interfere quite so much with waking-life.

[MadMonkey]

In a sense what your talking about is possible, I have known of a few members of this site who use 24/7 awareness meditation to automatically become lucid in almost every dream they have. It has been a while since I was active so I can't remember what their username was. hmm They always had the highest number in the LD count under their avatar that I ever saw. I can tell if I am dreaming without a reality check, for the most part. Now that Burke mentions it, I am actually doing the gravity RC. I have just become accustomed to the subtle differences between what my body feels like in waking life and in dreams. Now, this doesn't mean I can stop using techniques. I have had a very long dry spell with only random lucids here and there because I focused on other things in life and stopped dream journaling. Without RCing all the time there is no habit of questioning if your dreaming in the first place. Likewise, if you get good at dream recall you should keep dream journaling because doing it reinforces the mindset that dreams are important and familiarizes yourself with your dreams. Most techniques are there for discipline and honing our subconscious like you said. What you should do is continue doing nose plug RCs all the time and constantly be aware. If you get good at the gravity RC you will know you are awake before your hand even reaches your nose but you should plug it anyways out of principle. You will still be wrong sometimes so it's good to have a back up. Its pretty uncommon to be wrong about actually being in a dream though so if the gravity check passes you can take or leave the nose plug and start having fun.

[MadMonkey]

In a sense what your talking about is possible, I have known of a few members of this site who use 24/7 awareness meditation to automatically become lucid in almost every dream they have. It has been a while since I was active so I can't remember what their username was. hmm They always had the highest number in the LD count under their avatar that I ever saw. Spock just reminded me in the chat. His username is Hukif and he is awesome. Here is his guide to gravity RC. Here is what he has to say about this very topic!

[Eamo24]

MadMonkey Thanks for the advice (and the links)! I have actually entertained the notion of using the gravity reality check before - it seems like a great constant check, however I had a few lucid dreams (mostly due to MILDs), in which I actually tested gravity in the dream, only to find it was exactly the same as reality ><. I would like to master it, but I think I may be one of those that the technique may not work for. I was the same with Mylynes’ breathing RC - in some of my MILDs I remembered this technique and tried to see if I didn’t have to breathe in the dream (so as I could figure out whether it was a good basis for a technique), but lo and behold I felt the need to breathe in the dream! It’s like my dreaming mind just does everything it can to prevent lucidity. It is certainly something I would look into though, if I could get to the stage of frequent lucid dreams using a different method (to have a comparison on gravity in both dreams and reality).

[Hitokage]

I use techniques mostly just to confirm I am in dream while I already know that i am most probably dreaming.

[Oneirin]

The link to Hukif's post was awesome! Just what I needed to read. Thanks Madmonkey. I've definitely been respecting the way in which my mind uniquely processes things lately, and noticed that lucidity has been more frequent, with more enjoyment of the practices as well. It's almost as though you're being rewarded for identifying/respecting/and honing in on your own strengths and unique perceptions.