anyone ever hear of this technique?
the technique i use to prepare myself for a LD experience is different than anything i've seen mentioned here, so i thought i'd throw it out here for people to hear of, at least. it's another visualization technique, and as such not so different from many, but the specifics are interesting.
first you have to decide what elements it would take for a place to be the most perfect place for you to relax, because in the end everything boils down to that. the more detail you can give this place, the better. imagine sitting comfortably in this perfect place, and exactly what's there, and where those things are. it's important to eventually become intimately familiar with it, so before taking the process any further, spend some time creating it in your mind. while this is best done while you're lying in bed, getting ready to sleep, you can spend as much time as you like during waking hours refining it. the point is to choose something that's so perfectly suited to your relaxation that you won't want to change it later; familiarity is crucial, the less changes the better.
by way of example, my perfect place is an outdoor setting with a glassy lake, from which flows a small stream with a rocky bed, meandering through a forest where i've placed many of the trees and rocks, etc., in specific places. i always sit at the base of one tree by the water, so i can hear the stream gurgling over the rocks as it rounds a bend at my feet. this place is off any paths, and i'm invariably alone there. it's very warm and there's a slight breeze rustling the branches of the trees nearby, and the sun is visible through the canopy, which creates shadows that kind of weave around on the forest floor.
this description could describe any number of places, but this particular one exists only in my mind, and nothing changes there.
the second part of the technique is another type of visualization, called the 21 steps. you create a staircase in your mind, it can be anything really, but again, it's got to remain constant. at the bottom of these 21 steps is a door, also of your creation. this door opens on the world of that perfect place you've already created.
the person who taught me this technique used a series of wide, polished stone steps that lit up as he stepped on them and went dark as he stepped off them. his door was a fancy metal thing with an electronic palm-reading device that would open only for him.
while my friend's steps worked perfectly fine for him, i soon learned that the more specific the whole thing was, and the longer it took me to 'navigate' the whole thing, the better it worked for me, so eventually i made the whole process longer and more complicated than his, and everything in it is symbolic to something that holds personal meaning for me:
my steps lie behind a weathered wooden door set into a hill. to get to this door i walk down a well-used dirt road through a forest, and at just the right place i veer off the road, up a small rise and down the other side, and veer left around another small hill, on the far side of which is my door. during this short walk i'm usually watching the ground, taking in the leaves and wild grass, avoiding the odd tree, etc. i walk the same way every time; after visualizing the same path many times, the whole place is quite real and familiar. when i reach the door i invariably look around to make sure there's no one watching (there never is) and then pull it open enough to slip through, pulling it shut behind me. in an iron post on the left is a small torch, always lit, in an old iron fitting mounted to the rock wall. i'm standing at the top of a flight of rough stone steps leading down into darkness- the torchlight isn't bright enough to reach far. i always glance at the torch and then stare down for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. as i start descending (fairly slowly, i'm in no hurry) i count the steps off, 1, 2, 3....and the light from the torch gets weaker until by the seventh step i can barely make out where i'm standing. taking one more step, down to the 8th step, i'm in darkness, and i have to make my way carefully, as the steps are rather large, and it's a long, steep way down. for the next 7 steps i'm in total blackness. i can just barely make out the 15th step as i arrive there, and it continues getting brighter as i make my way down, toward the 21st step which is the bottom of the passage, where another torch, identical to the first, is mounted in the right wall, and the passage simply ends a few feet in front of me, facing a rock wall. this wall is my door. it shows no seams of any kind, but i have only to push on it and it will fall away into a void. i invariably put my palm on it and feel the cool roughness of the stone for a moment before pushing. when i finally push, it just noiselessly falls away, tumbling end over end into the dark until it's gone. when i step through, it's more of a dive, really, and i sort of dive forward rather than down. i'm always holding my breath when i do, because the moment i pass through the opening i'm below the surface of the lake in my perfect place, and i have to swim up to the surface.
if this all seems rather involved, it's meant to. forcing yourself to visualize a complex or lengthy series of events focuses your mind (the same way other self-hypnosis techniques do) and alters your brain activity into slower, deeper patterns. also, while you're completing the visualization, you're occupying your mind with a series of thoughts that have the underlying common purpose of achieving the result you're aiming for (lucid dreaming), and helping you avoid the free-obsessing that otherwise comes about naturally as you go to sleep.
i used to work for an electronics manufacturing company that created a bio-feedback device which would help people relax, by beeping at a certain interval that was affected by your body chemistry. the more relaxed you were, the slower it would beep. i got the job of testing the prototypes in development, and using this technique (which i'd been working on anyway) i could actually max the thing out on the low end of the scale within 5 minutes in the middle of a work day, and i regularly fell asleep during the process- a neverending source of amusement for my bosses and co-workers, to be sure. but i digress.
in any event, i break the surface of my lake into sunshine, and (wet clothes and all) swim a short distance to shore, walk over to a certain tree and pick myself a piece of fruit that looks something like a pomegranate. taking it with me, i walk along the bank of the lake to the mouth of the stream, and follow it to my perfect place, taking my spot at the base of my favorite tree. i break that little fruit open (easily) and pull out one of the seeds. i know that when i put this seed in my mouth, things are about to happen. i take in the scenery for a bit, relaxing, just sort of smelling the air, then pop that sweet little seed in my mouth and everything instantly takes on a red hue. looking up at the sun, shining crimson in the sky, i watch it slowly change colors along the spectrum from red to blue. by the time it's completely blue i'm going to be asleep, and i'm going to find myself somewhere else- dreaming- and i'm going to be lucid.
the funny thing about this technique is that, in the beginning i used to take it all the way through and then sometimes have to do it again before i actually fell asleep. but the more times i did it, the more it worked out to where i was falling asleep at the time i wanted to. eventually i got so good at inducing sleep that i actually couldn't finish the whole process no matter how hard i tried- but i'd still (usually) get lucid. when i was most committed to doing this every night, it got to the point where i rarely made it down the steps. i think you just get trained, and get better and better at ramping your mind down to where it needs to be to recall and/or get lucid in your dreams.
if anyone's having trouble getting lucid, give it a shot, it might work for you- it certainly works for me.
incidentally, i wrote a song about using this technique a looooong time ago called 'Escape'; my old band (called....you guessed it 'infidel') recorded it a million years ago. it's posted at the music link below my signature if anyone's interested in hearing it.
DREAM ON!
