Getting lucid with The Mendez Effect

Hello everyone,

I am new to the group but I have been having success with a method of lucid dreaming induction called The Mendez Effect.

It works on the premise of association. It also requires some discipline but if you are willing to commit to practicing these steps, you will get lucid.

I developed this "effect" as I call it because it incorporates so many forms of "lucidity by association" that there is a definite effect people experience. It is described as a "dropping in" to the lucid dream. This is self explanatory as you read the steps that follow.

1. Get a tennis ball. Bounce the ball on the ground and on the wall. Throw it up the air and catch it too.
Periodically, stop and ask yourself if you are dreaming. You can do this anywhere but it is best to do it in an area that you are familiar with
such as your neighborhood or your apartment. If you have a location that is frequent in your dreams as a dream sign, practice bouncing the ball there if it is a physical
location you can go to do this.

2. For example, If you have dream signs that are your apartment and you always hear music in your dreams, practice bouncing the ball in your apartment with music playing.
If you can bounce the ball on tile floors or concrete it is even better which will be explained in a following step. Likewise, bounce the ball in an area where a light is present such as a lamp, a streetlight or overhead lighting. This is another method of association that is explained in a following step.

3. The longer you can do this before going to bed the better, but most achieve lucidity if this practice is done 15-30 minutes before going to bed or laying down to induce lucidity. Remember as you are bouncing the ball to frequently ask yourself if you are dreaming. As you do this, look around. You hear music? That is a dream sign. You are in your apartment. That is a dream sign. Are you dreaming?

4. Now you lay down to go to sleep or induce the lucid dream. Keep the tennis ball in your hand. You can tape the ball in your hand with duct tape if you have trouble with it falling out. The idea is to keep the ball in your hand all night or throughout the sleep experience.

5. Fall asleep normally. Your subsconscious mind will always feel the tennis ball in your hand throughout the night. At some point, it will induce lucidity as you feel the ball.

6. This is the step explaining why you bounce the ball on tile or concrete and why you bounce the ball in the vicinity of a light. This step is optional and it is another method of association for people who use light devices and binaural beats.

If you use a light device like the Nova Dreamer, chances are one of the flashes of light will become associated with the light source where you were bouncing the ball. So as you are sleeping, your Nova Dreamer flashes, you think of the light source where you were bouncing the ball, you feel the ball and your mind asks if you are dreaming.

Likewise, if you use binaural beats, these beats sound alot like the "tic, toc" monotonous noise of bouncing the tennis ball.

Again, step 6 is optional.

I would like to hear if anyone tries this "effect" as we call it and achieves lucidity. You will notice the "effect" is a pulling or dropping into the lucid state due to the fact that it incorporates so many different levels of association. It causes the consciousness to be fully directed to the lucid state once you realize you are dreaming.

Good luck,
Juan

If I don't have any consistent dream signs will I still incorporate the tennis ball in my dreams?
How old is this technique?
How many people have tried it?
How often do you have LDs if you try every night for 30 days?

Thanks

The tennis ball really is what makes the effect so successful because it brings feeling or what is known as induced emotion into the dream state, so you always use the tennis ball.

You do not have to have consistent dream signs, but as you begin to discover what your dreams signs are you can incorporate them into the practice and it makes it even more powerful.

I developed this system last summer after taking a lucid dreaming class. I realized that all "systems" are based on association such as light and sound like when you use binaural beats or lighting systems.

The Mendez Effect brings another level of association into the experience which is feeling or emotion.

I have had several friends try this and it works for all of us. In fact, it worked so well I began teaching the method.

If I do this everynight for at least 15-30 minutes I can get lucid.

Juan :lol:

Cool man! Thanks :)

Cool, Don! Will Try! I was planning on trying MILD only every night, but this sounds MUCH more interesting! Nice! :D

Let me know if I can assist you with anything.

This is a system that I am now teaching and it is new (about 18 months old).

I am sure that it will develop even further based on different individuals experiences with the system.

Juan :lol:

Very interesting Juan! Thank you. I will look into this!

cool, i am going to try this. maybe not with a tennisball, i can juggle though ;)

interesting...sounds sorta annoying to do though..i'll give it a try..maybe...i dont have a tennis ball and if i do get one, i cant bounce it in my house because my parents will yell at me or i will annoy my tenants and i refuse to do this outside. its to cold and i hate the snow. wow..i complain a lot :P

Do u think this would work with some activity other than bouncing a ball? what if there is a computer game that u play alot. every time u play it u could ask yourself if u r dreaming. for example, i find myself playing tetris in my dreams alot, so if i could remember to check if im dreaming everytime i am playing tetris, then mabey it would work.

anyone think we should add this to the tutorial page?

Thanks Juan, as I mentioned in email and dreaminitiative, I'll try it out :)
I don't need to post this anymore cos, well, you did ! :D

Placebo

Yes, I know this is a double post. But you slackers aren't saying anything :P

I've started doing all this, but I've modified it a bit. I'm squeezing a stress-ball instead of bouncing a tennis ball around.
When I go to sleep, I keep the stressball in my hand with a sock. Much better than duct tape :P

By the way, this technique is very similar in concept to what I called 'externally triggered DILDs', where I used sound (instead of touch, as in this case) - of water together with a water dreamsign.
It took me a few days before it worked, but then it worked quite well ;)

I expect this to have about the same sort of success for me

this sound like a good induction technique, i will definetly try this sometime this week 8)

I've been using a yo-yo for this. I play with it quite often during the day doing reality checks on it and I had a lucid last night. As I was going to bed the up and down motion was stuck in my head (sort of like the riding the bike thing) but I wasn't lucid until like 4-5 hours after my last session.

'The feel of the ball in your hand' seems to be a bit of a flaw for me.
When sleeping with the ball, the feeling in my hand goes numb (SP) and thus I don't feel it, and don't dream it.
The sensation of throwing, or yo-yo-ing might still have an effect, but that's more akin to MILD, and an externally triggered DILD.

The NovaDreamer is basically the same as this, but for the sense of sight. In my opinion, this ball needs to move, or produce a sensation, from time to time.
Eg. a timed mild shock on the finger makes more sense to me, but what worries me is that when I'm lucid, a shock to the finger will probably wake me

Any advice for this?

I think that the feeling of it in your hand as you fall asleep is possibly enough if you keep your mind on it and carry it into your dream. I'm also trying to use my yo-yo enough that I will start to dream about it hence making it into a dreamsign.

I think one key is to do something that really engages your attention.

Yes, but even mentioning that I should duct tape the ball to my hand, if it falls out... means that the ball is important to KEEP in my hand, even while already sleeping.
Not just the moments before falling asleep.

And sure, it can be a dreamsign, but if fails to be a unique technique then. It's just a dreamsign that you practice, and cause intentionally while awake.

I was interested in using the technique as an easy way for your senses to activate dreamsigns

that sound like a great way to train your subconcious. I will definitely try it out when I get the chance. I like playing with balls, I think a raquetball would work well lol

Quote:

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Originally posted by donjuandominguez
I developed this system last summer after taking a lucid dreaming class.

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Lucid Dreaming Class? :huh2:

Where'd you take that?

Quote:

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Originally posted by captain ahab
Do u think this would work with some activity other than bouncing a ball? what if there is a computer game that u play alot. every time u play it u could ask yourself if u r dreaming. for example, i find myself playing tetris in my dreams alot, so if i could remember to check if im dreaming everytime i am playing tetris, then mabey it would work.

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That's a time-proven technique called a Reality Check (RC) This technique expands on that, involving the senses more intimately so that the mind associates more accurately to situations that are likely to be a dream.

Good technique, by the way! I'll try tonight, but I'm gunna need that duct tape.

After going through 6 hours of trying to get to sleep :shakehead2: (which I gave up on an hour ago) I tried this, I was "Sort-of Dreaming"(dreaming while you're about to go to sleep) and I was sort of dreaming I was at the same bon fire I was at New Years Eve, suddenly I became attracted to the fire and the next thing I knew my left hand(the one the ball was in) was burning, so I woke up out of my sort of dream, and jumped around throwing the ball half way across the room.

Quote:

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Originally posted by captain ahab
Do u think this would work with some activity other than bouncing a ball? what if there is a computer game that u play alot. every time u play it u could ask yourself if u r dreaming. for example, i find myself playing tetris in my dreams alot, so if i could remember to check if im dreaming everytime i am playing tetris, then mabey it would work.

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Every single time I go paintballing, I think I'm still at Paintball Quest right before I start to go to sleep. I think to myself "OMG TEH I'm sort of dreaming!?!?@!one~`11eleven!!" but ofcourse I wake up, which is very easy to do once you obtain lucidity in a sort-of-dream.

Gneh, snot fair, I know so much about lucid dreaming and still I can't do it :(.

Last night I was playing Half-Life 2 for a few hours before I went to bed. Before I went to sleep I could see images of HL2 in my mind. When I was asleep I actually had a dream of actually being in HL2. I think I was Gordon Freeman, and I had to radio another Gordon Freeman - in the future.

I think this works better with fast-paced games, though, as I remember a few years ago I was playing a fast paced game (I think it may have been Sonic the Hedgehog, or something similar) and I had images of that game in my mind before I went to sleep. With games becoming more photo-realistic, it's a good idea to make RCs while playing games.

I'm going to try it with a stress ball, my retriever has a tennis ball fetish so if she hears bouncing shes bound to freak out if she can't play :D And there are plenty of stress balls around my house, and plenty of socks too :)

Has this worked for anyone yet? I've tried it 3 times with 2 metal balls that you rotate around in your hand. It took me ages to fall asleep each time and I kept putting the balls away so I could get to sleep.

Hey Placebo - Sleep Paralysis doesn't prevent you from feeling stuff, if it did then we would be easy prey because we wouldnt be able to feel when some animal is eating us. To my knowledge, SP only stops you from acting out your dreams.

I think I might try this with wearing a watch on my left hand instead of my right (which is the norm for me), because I dont wanna hold a tennis ball all night.

Good point, Lewis. But SP does make your hand go numb.
Or perhaps its the effect of the sock.
Point is, if I stay lucid while falling asleep, the feeling of the ball in my hand starts going away
My senses begin to normalise to the sensation of the ball... :?

Pressure from the sock might cause a totality sensory effect on your hand ?

I haven't tried this in a while again, but will start again tonight.
Holidays have left me lazy :roll:

I am getting some good ideas for reality checks..... :)
I have an astrojax, which is toy kinda like a yo yo i often play with at work so I'll have to remember to ask if i'm dreaming while i play with it. I don't think i would need to hold/sock/duct tape it in my hand all night because anything repetitive I do during the day tends to seep into my dreams anyway, especially if I let my mind wander while i do it . (but it really sucks to ring up sales all night sometimes.......*sigh*:()
My only concern would be getting used to the bouncing or whatever so that you no longer dream about it, if you know what I mean.... I'll try it and see. Maybe I will try cycling toys if they get old, like bouncy ball, astrojax, juggling sticks, reapeat, or whatever.
hmmmmm. cant wait to try this! :D

I'm not sure if that'd work for me, but if I ever find a tennis ball or a stress ball, I'll be sure to try that Mendez effect! :D

Well, SP only inhibits your brainstem so that it doesn't transmit messages TO your muscles, but I'd imagine that it somewhat dulls the messages it recieves from them as well, if not entirely blocking them.

As the member who started this thread said that he and his friends had great success with this I am going to have to buy myself a tennis ball.

This sounds good but I cant bring a tennis ball to school and start bouncing it around. lol :)

Are you at a boarding school then?

No I just go to a normal school but I had the day of today because there was too much snow. :D