Ways to ignore Spontanious thoughts

To WILD and to properly imprint your intention to MILD into your memory you need a Mind clear of spontanious, distracting thoughts, preferably completely empty. This goes for pretty much every ILD-technique. Then the intention to dream lucid will perservere untill you are actually in the dreamstate(WILD) or it will be thoroughly remembered again while in the dreamstate. (MILD)

The problem I, and most people here, have is that the thoughts in your head start living a life of their own and carry you away to a Dream deeply unconscious. I've heard of this being called "The Sandman's Spell" This is very difficult to withstand trying to hold the intention of Lucid Dreaming in mind.


Now I actually came up with a POSSIBLE way to "thwart" these spontanious, distracting thoughts, and in this Topic I would like to hear from you people ways to keep focus and remain undistracted by those subconscious thoughts. Proven techniques, new ideas...be creative and help me out here.

I myself came up with this allthough I haven't fully tested it yet:
Every verbal thought that comes in mind you make a wordless, meaningless noise of it as it passes. Perhaps you could even turn it into non-verbal melodies. As long as you stop yourself from following further down that thought and re-focus on your Lucid Mission. It would go something like this everytime a spontanious thought arose: "Maybe I should go to Jureemaa Jeema haaaama!". Maybe you could add something like "Lucid!" at the end of each "thwarted thought" to stay on the lucid track. If it doesn't keep you aware and focussed on lucidity then at least you'll have a good laugh, but it's so crazy it might just work. ;) Any "testers" for this would be nice. See how this works for you.

Any thoughts on this? And any thoughts and ideas of your own are most welcome.

I'll try it but I'll probably start laughing and break my WILD.

This isn't much of a problem for me since I the only thing on my mind lately is lucid dreaming.

Except one time I was trying to sleep and I kept thinking about everything I would do in a LD and it kept me awake the whole time. Hah.

Arnold Mindell is a renowned Energy/process oriented psychologist that has proposed something similar when focusing on symptoms the body is experiencing. But basically, I think your idea is similar because both of you are pointing to the fact that sounds can be derived from chaotic unconscious phenomena with the goal of creating more order out of them.

He would describe a lot of these random thoughts as "flickers". The problem for me would be picking them out individually.

I WILD pretty easily, probably 2-3 times a week, sometimes multiple in a night. But I rarely, if ever, focus on keeping my mind clear. I love to let my mind wander and see where it takes me. The key for me is just making sure I realize I am thinking about these things (meta-thinking?) instead of just letting the thoughts takeover. For me, that seems to keep my mind aware enough to realize when I am entering the first stages of a WILD, then I concentrate on, well, nothing except getting through to the dreamside.

This topic is mainly for those that have a hard time staying focussed. If you have no such problems and are able to pul it off you don't need any of this. You can help by telling us how it is you remain undistracted and focussed on lucidity.

I drew a simple diagram-image of my idea. I attatched it to this post; Check it out.

I know perfectly what you mean, SKA, and I've found myself doing the same! However, it gets to the point where this method keeps me awake too much to enter the dream state! I'm still trying to achieve that delicate balance between distractions and sleep right now.

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Originally Posted by SKA

This topic is mainly for those that have a hard time staying focussed. If you have no such problems and are able to pul it off you don't need any of this. You can help by telling us how it is you remain undistracted and focussed on lucidity.

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Oh...I tried to do that. Sorry.

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Originally Posted by 3FLryan

The key for me is just making sure I realize I am thinking about these things (meta-thinking?) instead of just letting the thoughts takeover. For me, that seems to keep my mind aware enough to realize when I am entering the first stages of a WILD, then I concentrate on, well, nothing except getting through to the dreamside.

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Isn't that a way to stay focused? Realize you are thinking while letting your mind wander? Oh well...

I've only just realized how my mind's "distractions" end up turning into plain old dreams without me realizing it. As others have said, I'm currently trying to balance between letting these thoughts become dreams while still being aware that I need to remain concious of what's happening, so as to drift into the dreamworld. This is perhaps the most difficult part of WILD'ing I'd say. I'm gunna try your technique though! i'll let you know if anything happens

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Originally Posted by 3FLryan

Isn't that a way to stay focused? Realize you are thinking while letting your mind wander? Oh well...

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Yeah it is; The trick is to detatch yourself from your own thoughts. Observing them as they pass, while not partaking in them. However you might have little or no trouble doing that. I, and alot of other people around here, do and we're trying to figure out how it's done. I always, involunteerly, get caught up in these thoughts and this causes me to lose awareness and dream nonlucid. I still find it hard to not get caught up in these thoughts or figure out how to stay detatched from them. Allthough i've been a successfull "natural" in my youth, I still have a hard time intentionally inducing lucid dreams due to this awareness-problem.

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Originally Posted by SKA

Yeah it is; The trick is to detatch yourself from your own thoughts. Observing them as they pass, while not partaking in them. However you might have little or no trouble doing that. I, and alot of other people around here, do and we're trying to figure out how it's done. I always, involunteerly, get caught up in these thoughts and this causes me to lose awareness and dream nonlucid. I still find it hard to not get caught up in these thoughts or figure out how to stay detatched from them. Allthough i've been a successfull "natural" in my youth, I still have a hard time intentionally inducing lucid dreams due to this awareness-problem.

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funny how i have the oppisite problem, im TOO aware. if i could get into a dream, i would have no problem knowing it.

sounds interesting but it would probably just keep me awake because I would be focusing so much on making weird sounds during my spontaneous thoughts.

But does anyone actually think verbally, or is that just a trick they use in films? I know I certainly dont think with words.

Somethings I think in words and other things I don't. These other things are usually more abstract impulses that contain a huge amount of abstract knowledge and/or feelings. I can think this way and I nfound that if I think like "Hmmm" rather than in words, meaning in wordless meaningfull thought, I have a much lower chance of getting distracted. However I find it hard to think like this and remain undisturbed by vocal spontanious thoughts.

Any tips?

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Originally Posted by SKA

Somethings I think in words and other things I don't. These other things are usually more abstract impulses that contain a huge amount of abstract knowledge and/or feelings. I can think this way and I nfound that if I think like "Hmmm" rather than in words, meaning in wordless meaningfull thought, I have a much lower chance of getting distracted. However I find it hard to think like this and remain undisturbed by vocal spontanious thoughts.

Any tips?

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Well, one way is to focus on some object, which is what done in virtually all meditation and WILD techniques. ( respiration, counting, mantra, visualization, sensations etc. ). After a lot of practice on a given technique, you get really good at getting into a concentrated state. This is a process which is hard to achieve, but it's possible given enough practice.

Here's a suggestion: Instead of trying to hush those thoughts altogether, or to let them pass by without getting entangled in them, which is difficult for many people, try to concentrate just during the time between the thoughts. Try to extend this time so that the thoughts become more and more fragmented. For example, if your object of concentration is respiration, then when a thought arises you can let it continue only between breaths: "tomorrow" - breath in, breath out - "I need" - breath in, breath out - "to buy.." - breath in, breath out -.
And then change it to twice breath in, breath out and then the thought fragment, and after a while 3 times, etc. until the thought gives up because it can't keep a coherent flow, and when a new thought comes, do the same. The more concentrated you are, the greater the space between the thoughts will be, until the time in which you are focused on the object of concentration is consistent enough and you become very concentrated ( a trance state ). When you reach this stage than the thoughts will not bother you so much, because you will be able to either "break" them as I described above very easily, or you will be able to think them on a separate channel than the one in which you are concentrating, so that you will be able to both think the thoughts, and focus on the object of concentration at the same time without a problem.

EDIT: You idea of turning the thoughts into sounds or into lucid thoughts is interesting. Please post if you have any progress with it.

Wow, that's really weird. I think almost COMPLETELY in words most of time. When I think in images and feelings, it most often makes me feel much happier. I dunno, I just never noticed it before! My mind tends to wander a LOT, so maybe this is related! I'm going to try to catch myself thinking in words, i.e. having conversations etc... in my head, and start thinking differently. Maybe this will help stop wandering thoughts?

I don't know if I revived a "dead" topic, but I found it an interesting topic, so... :D

Maybe instead of hushing these thought one could learn to detatch themselves from these thoughts by conecting all these random thoughts with a narrative storyline: As if instead of your thoughts they are lines in a book telling a story. And every "I", "mine" and "me" should be changed into "You", "His" and "He" Let's say these are 2 spontanious thoughts:

" I should get some more of that Capre Diem Ginkgo drink tomorrow"

and

" Most of my friends don't know what I'm talking about"

Instead you could make this out of it:
"He should get some more of that carpe diem ginkgo drink tomorrow" It strengthens his senses. He tried to share this helpfull drink with his friends, but most of his friends didn't know what he was talking about"

Not only do you make a continuous, narrative story of your thoughs, which I assume would be easier to focus on than just loose, random thoughts. You also take on a 3d person perspective by dissociating yourself from your own thoughts.

I guess the closer you are to sleep the stranger the story sounds, but you should try your best to make out of your thoughts an at least Somewhat sense-making story. This way you also hold on to your sense of Rationality. I'm going to try this soon. Anyone else willing to try this?