
Originally Posted by
Redrivertears
Hey there,
I'm not a big fan of techniques myself. They're good for people who are new at lucid dreaming to have a lucid dream and experience what its like, but in the long run, like you I believe there's more.
I often like to make the analogy to dieting. Lots of people diet... in fact, lots of people get caught in this pattern where they gain weight, diet, gain weight again, diet, gain weight again, diet, do this several years, eventually give up and in their old day just dont care anymore.
Techniques, to me, are pretty much the same thing. Lucid dreamers get caught in a pattern of 'moments of lucidity' followed by long dry spells, then go back to 'moments of lucidity' and so far. All the while their interest waxes and wanes, but they never really seem to improve.
Why is this? Several reasons. Like diets, techniques tend to be hard to maintain for a long amount of time, because of the amount of mental effort and discipline they require. Additionally, our minds adapts, our sleeping rythmes adapt, and techniques which give you lucid dreams every night for the first two weeks, start losing effectiviness in the third week, and stop even giving you results in the fourth. Which is then followed by another dry spell, by the lucid dreamer searching for a new 'miracle' technique, which then starts the whole cycle again.
But really losing weight for good works differently, its about changing lifestyle, eating habbits, getting more exercise. Its about making radical and true changes in the way you live your life. Likewise, this is what I think is needed to truly increase your overall dreamawareness.
Like the 'lifestyle changes' in the diet, you need consistency, patience, knowing that fast results often net very little, but that persistance is a key. Doing things like paying attention to all your dreams, giving dreams an important 'role' in your life, making sure you have consistent sleep patterns, symbolising your dreams, writing about them, thinking about, coming to understand them, etc. These are actual lifestyle changes that will result, in my opinion, in a slow but certain increase in dreamawareness. It won't give you lucid dreams next week, probably won't even next month, but in the long run, you will find that more and more, the ideal of constant lucidity becomes something that looks like it's actually achievable (if only to a certain degree).
Just my 2 cents,
-Redrivertears-
Bookmarks