How does one improve their "suggestive power"...

This, I feel, is the reason why I have such a lame MILD success rate...

How can one improve the effectiveness of their suggestions/affirmations to themselves?
This would have implications for ALL areas of Lucid dreaming.

How do you effectively use autosuggestion...do you combine it with visualisation? do you speak it? do you use internal dialogue? Im not afraid of high detail, step-by-step responses either!

Something I've always wondered on top of this is how well our unconscious mind comprehends language. "I will remember to check reality". Does my mind ACTUALLY know what that means, when in the un-lucid dream-state?

thanks

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Originally Posted by james_jlc

How can one improve the effectiveness of their suggestions/affirmations to themselves?
This would have implications for ALL areas of Lucid dreaming.

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You are asking some very good questions.

Suggestions work to a lesser or greater extent, but whatever their efficacy, there are certain conditions that amplify their effect:

• Repetition. You may have noticed that advertising people have picked up on this.
• Identification with group or parent. You may more readily accept ideas that identify you with a certain group or with your parents.
• Ideas presented by authority figures. E.g., if a parent says to their child "You can never do anything right", the child may come to believe this and fail later in life.
• Intense emotion. E.g., someone who is attacked by a dog may come to fear all dogs for the rest of his life.
• Hypnosis. Hypnosis is the easiest and most effective method to amplify suggestions.

Of these, hypnosis and repetition are the only practical ways of going about it.

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How do you effectively use autosuggestion...do you combine it with visualisation? do you speak it? do you use internal dialogue? Im not afraid of high detail, step-by-step responses either!

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For autosuggestion, image suggestions are more effective than verbal suggestions. You may combine them if you like. If you use verbal suggestions it's sufficient to think them; you don't need to say them aloud. Another point is that when you think or say these suggestions, you should try to do it without emotion or enthusiasm.

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Something I've always wondered on top of this is how well our unconscious mind comprehends language. "I will remember to check reality". Does my mind ACTUALLY know what that means, when in the un-lucid dream-state?

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This is a very good question indeed. A poorly worded suggestion may not work at all, or it may have unintended effects. The reason for this is that the unconscious mind works in a manner that may seem competely foreign to the conscious mind. For example, consider someone who says "Tonight I will become lucid." To the unconscious mind the word "lucid" may very well have a different meaning than "knowing that you are dreaming while you are doing it". There are several other pitfalls. For example, the unconscious mind does not divide time into past, present, and future. So in your example the word "will" is bad, because then you are talking about the future. "I remember to check reality" is much better. So in order to craft effective suggestions you need some basic understanding of how the unconscious mind works. Also, it may be necessary to find out if the unconscious mind has any resistance toward what you consciously want. In hypnotism these things are the hard part. Getting yourself or someone else into hypnosis is the easy part.

Wow Thor, very interesting suggestions on how the subconcious works. I'm going to mostly focus on the autosuggestion stuff for a while, since it has gave me a few LDs quite back.

Repetion is a key =) to improving anything. I'd suggest you autosuggest lol =)

Thor, great post! :)

wow; thanks for the replies everyone (but Thor's post was particularly great)

I will try to remove 'tenses' next time I mild; and I will combine it with more visualisation than usual.

Do you think when I imagine myself checking reality; that doing so in a 'past dream' is better than just a random scene?

And thor...are you hinting that self-hypnosis may be a good thing to try? is it difficult?

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Originally Posted by Thor

For autosuggestion, image suggestions are more effective than verbal suggestions.

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Great write up Thor.

I especially like this part, as it makes perfect sense since the subconscious usually communicates using images rather than suggestions.

My best advice would be to use suggestions in narrative style to evoke and lead visual imaginery. Describe the state you actually target (e.g. being suddenly awakened in sleep paralysis) as it was your current reality. Pretend. Make sure to keep on rephrasing your suggestions without changing the meaning.

Suggestions work best when followed by stable silence. This is very important. Silence keeps random thoughts and doubt from entering your mind and interfering the process. Silence also helps to switch off the cortex and phase into sleep. The best way to build silence is to concentrate on breathing and inner noises at the same time. It begins with intense concentration before it can stabilize.

Repeat the cycle. Your monologue will soon be edited on the fly by your subconscious. Welcome this as an initiative to establish communication. You can charge the feeling associated with the intrusion to inject purpose and determination. Then sort of swallow it into your abdomen. This is a more advanced stuff, though, that you should discover on your own.

This is taken from the book Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain which I highly recommend to all.

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The Technique I'm about to describe has brought some of the fastest and most dramatic changes in my life on many different occasions. It is a combination of writing affirmations and a clearing process. I love it because it is so simple and easy to do yet it gets down to a very deep level.
Writing affirmations is a very dynamic technique because the written word has so much power over our minds. We are both writing and reading them at the same time, so its like a double hit of energy.



Take any affirmation you want to work with and write it ten or twenty times in succession on a piece of paper. Use your name and try writing it in the first, second, and third persons. (For Example: I, Chris, recognize im dreaming every night. Chris, you recognize your dreaming every night. Chris recognizes he's dreaming every night.

Don't just write it by rote; really think about the meaning of the words and focus on the excitement/joy it brings. Notice whether you feel any resistance, doubts, or negative thoughts about what you are writing. Whenever you do (even a slight one) turn the paper over, and on the back write out the negative thought, the reason why it can't be true, can't work ect. ( for example: I’m not good enough. This isn't going to work.) Then go back to writing the affirmation.

When you are finished, take a look at the back of the paper. If you have been honest, you will have a good look at the reasons why you keep yourself from having what you want, (in this case lucid dreams).

With this in mind, think of some affirmations you can do to help you specifically counteract these negative fears, or beliefs, and begin to write out these new affirmations. For example, if one of your negative beliefs is, "I can't be more successful than my father was" you could affirm, "My father is proud and happy about my success." Or you may want to stick with the original affirmation if it seems effective, or modify it slightly to be more accurate.

Keep working with writing the affirmations once or twice a day for a few days. Once you feel that you've really looked at your negative programming, discontinue writing it out, and just keep writing the affirmations.

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You will find with more experience of the technique fewer negative thoughts occur. Wow that took ages I’m going to go have a lie down....

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Originally Posted by Bushido

This is taken from the book Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain which I highly recommend to all.

Take any affirmation you want to work with and write it ten or twenty times in succession on a piece of paper. Use your name and try writing it in the first, second, and third persons. (For Example: I, Chris, recognize im dreaming every night. Chris, you recognize your dreaming every night. Chris recognizes he's dreaming every night.

Don't just write it by rote; really think about the meaning of the words and focus on the excitement/joy it brings. Notice whether you feel any resistance, doubts, or negative thoughts about what you are writing. Whenever you do (even a slight one) turn the paper over, and on the back write out the negative thought, the reason why it can't be true, can't work ect. ( for example: I’m not good enough. This isn't going to work.) Then go back to writing the affirmation.

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That sounds like a fantastic method Bushido.

I'm going to start using it.

In addition to writing the words in the 3 tenses which is excellent, I think I will try reading them enthusiastically to get them into my spirit, eg, CHRIS, YOU RECOGNIZE YOU ARE DREAMING EVERY NIGHT!!!!!

eg:Realize he is dreaming, Chris will.

Yoda Style! Cause there is no way anyone, or anything will want to defy Yoda. Including your sub-conscious.

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Originally Posted by james_jlc

Do you think when I imagine myself checking reality; that doing so in a 'past dream' is better than just a random scene?

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Personally, I don't think it should matter. The important thing is that you see yourself remembering to do a reality check.

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And thor...are you hinting that self-hypnosis may be a good thing to try? is it difficult?

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Yes, if you want to use autosuggestion to the fullest effect, self-hypnosis is the way to go. And as I said, hypnosis is not particularly difficult to achieve. In a typical textbook on hypnotism, maybe only 5-10% of the text is spent on how to get into a hypnotic state. The rest is usually spent on formulating and using suggestions, and on examples of suggestions for specific goals. Some books I recommend are:

• Self-Hypnosis for the Life You Want by Charles Henderson. This is easily the most comprehensive text on self-hypnosis I've read. As far as I know, you can order it only from Charles Henderson's web site.
• Self-Hypnosis and Other Mind Expanding Techniques by Charles Tebbetts. For being only 140 pages this book covers a lot of ground.
• Self-Hypnotism by Leslie LeCron. Old, but pretty good. I think it's out of print now.
• Self-Hypnosis - The Complete Manual for Health and Self-Change by Brian Alman and Peter Lambrou. More than half of this book is a catalog of suggestions for particular goals (but unfortunately none for lucid dreaming).

Getting into a hypnotic state is a skill, and it will probably take a little time to learn. The most efficient approach is to get a hypnotherapist to hypnotize you first. A competent professional should be able to hypnotize almost anyone. Then, when you have learned how hypnosis feels, it will be easier to hypnotize yourself. If you don't have access to a hypnotherapist, the next best thing is to use an induction recorded by a professional. And if you don't even have that you can try practicing the inductions found in textbooks.

Recordings that you can buy or get for free on the net are of highly variable quality. If you want to try a recording to see what it's like, I recommend this free recording by Paul McKenna, which is of outstanding quality.