Thread: My progress (not)

How familiar are you with your own dreams? Have you recalled a good amount and got a feel for how your dreams behave and play out? This is important because when you become more familiar with what your dreams look like you can better recognise when you’re having one. The more dream signs and recurring themes you can identify the more trained your detective mind will be at spotting dreamlike subtleties in dreams and waking life to RC to.

When you do an RC ignore that voice that says “nah, I’m awake” it’s not evidence. Look around and reflect on your current situation and like a detective, gather evidence that identifies it is or isn’t a dream. It doesn’t have to be something obvious like a Dinosaur is in your kitchen, it can be as subtle as your coffee mug isn’t where you thought you’d left it, or you can’t quite remember what you were just doing. Those are dream signs. If it’s not enough to convince you you might be dreaming, reflect on the situation further to see if you can find more evidence. Then do the check itself at the end to confirm. (The tutorial linked above sums it up nicely).

It is tricky to convince yourself, you just have to be at least open to the possibility this may actually be a dream. Like I said before, it gets easier the more lucid dreams you have because you learn just how easily you can be fooled.

Are you familiar with the MILD technique? This is arguably the best lucid dreaming technique to learn and goes hand in hand with RCs and may help you greatly.

Originally Posted by Tiktaalik

How familiar are you with your own dreams? Have you recalled a good amount and got a feel for how your dreams behave and play out? This is important because when you become more familiar with what your dreams look like you can better recognise when you’re having one. The more dream signs and recurring themes you can identify the more trained your detective mind will be at spotting dreamlike subtleties in dreams and waking life to RC to.

When you do an RC ignore that voice that says “nah, I’m awake” it’s not evidence. Look around and reflect on your current situation and like a detective, gather evidence that identifies it is or isn’t a dream. It doesn’t have to be something obvious like a Dinosaur is in your kitchen, it can be as subtle as your coffee mug isn’t where you thought you’d left it, or you can’t quite remember what you were just doing. Those are dream signs. If it’s not enough to convince you you might be dreaming, reflect on the situation further to see if you can find more evidence. Then do the check itself at the end to confirm. (The tutorial linked above sums it up nicely).

It is tricky to convince yourself, you just have to be at least open to the possibility this may actually be a dream. Like I said before, it gets easier the more lucid dreams you have because you learn just how easily you can be fooled.

Are you familiar with the MILD technique? This is arguably the best lucid dreaming technique to learn and goes hand in hand with RCs and may help you greatly.

This is the problem, I can't tap into critical awareness. It's like I can't get out of "auto-pilot" mode and enter "detective" mode. idk if there's a solution to this, but I thought that perhaps faking criticality will over a period of time lead me to being genuinely critical/lucid/observant.

About MILD: tried it, didn't work.

Originally Posted by WildWolf1

This is the problem, I can't tap into critical awareness. It's like I can't get out of "auto-pilot" mode and enter "detective" mode. idk if there's a solution to this, but I thought that perhaps faking criticality will over a period of time lead me to being genuinely critical/lucid/observant.

About MILD: tried it, didn't work.

You are your own obstacle here. You need to open your mind to that fact that right now, this very moment while you read this post, you could be dreaming. I could be a dream character right now. Whose to say I'm not? Let go of your assumptions. Start thinking, maybe I could be wrong. It's a sort of humility - develop this humility. It is very helpful to have the experience happen to you in a dream, because you realize just how silly and stupid we humans can be. We are absolutely certain we are awake, and are completely dumbfounded when we find out we're actually dreaming. The experience is unforgettable, and teaches a very strong lesson: you really don't know. You really don't.

I still stand by the idea that "feeling" your way through a reality check can really help boost mindfulness. Obviously, you've stated that's not something you're able to do, but *feeling with thinking is so much more potent than thinking alone because it bypasses the ego's defensive excuses as to why this is not a dream. Should you reality check, and just for a moment you do feel a little scared or nervous - then you've done it right.

I hesitate to offer this tip. However, if nothing else works, one thing that can help is to drink a beer or a glass of wine. I'm not talking getting drunk. And obviously, only if you're of legal age. A slight buzz during the evening can get one out of the "left-brained" mentality that blocks us from truly questioning reality. It can make it easier to feel what a truly mindful reality check is like. Then, hopefully, you'll be more open minded during future reality checks. It can also be a good idea to take a little walk during this time, focus on your senses, and reality check often (especially double-reading street signs). Pretend it is actually a dream world. Pretend you're walking through a lucid dream.

You dismiss MILD as not working for you. How long did you try it for? Many techniques take multiple attempts before success happens. Also, you may need to tinker and alter techniques to find exactly how it can work with your own mind and body. Additionally, it may not work for you right now because of a lack of foundational skills (critical reflective attitude, prospective memory, etc.). Build those skills and it just may work for you.

Have you invested in books about critical thinking? I'm sure there are helpful hints there. It's a skill that you can not be lazy on as a lucid dreamer. No one said that lucid dreaming is easy. Also important is resilience!! It is an underrated thing in lucid dreaming because you really need to do that when things go wrong. For most people that are starting out, it isn't easy... Even if you are an experienced lucid dreamer, you can run into problems. Get back up and dust yourself off and try again.
EXPERIMENTATION- This subject is very much a young subject that we don't know much about. Sleep research is very limited and lucid dreaming research is even more limited. So you need to be willing to do new things. But, you probably want to put in the work. Also, note that what works for me may not work for you.
Also, How well do you know your own sleep cycle? Maybe know your learning style. Perhaps you may want to start from there and record what you are doing.