Thread: Why do these techniques work?

Everyone has their ways of staying lucid, the most well known ones are spinning, rubbing your hands together and interacting with dream characters. but I don't understand why these things work
is it only as simple as immersion and expectation? because I've tried several times to keep my lucidity and nothings been working so I'm thinking I'm just in the wrong state of mind when i try dream controlling techniques

I do the hand rubbing thing quite a bit. The trick is really focusing on the sensation. I think it works because it anchors my awareness completely in the dream reality, rather than letting my mind drift off to lose lucidity or to wake up.

I can't find a link right now, but Stephen LaBerge explained nicely why these things work. I'm talking about spinning, hand rubbing etc.

As far as spinning goes, it always takes me to a new dream scene, but never the one I want, but instead something completely different. This morning I had a DILD, and while spinning I imagined to be on a special place... yet the scene simply "ended", and after about 10 seconds I had a false awakening.

Rubbing your hands won't change your dream scene, but it will most likely prolong your dream, prevent you from waking up too quickly. Although I must say, the rubbing hands technique doesn't always work for me.

Yo and welcome to dreamviews!
As far as i know, stabilization techniques pretty much work on either on activating dream senses one way or another and thus anchoring us to dream and making us focus, or using commands and expectation for similar result. Either way, when using them don't think about dream being unstable, instead expect your dream to be nice, vivid and long, think positive! Also stabilization technique that works best varies from person to person, so try different ones.
Also check out this tutorial: http://www.dreamviews.com/articles/9...-tutorial.html

It's about anchoring yourself in that experience. When you're laying in bed, there are all sorts of sensory input feeding you information about the outside world. You feel the pressure of the bed, the sounds of the house and everyone in it, the temperature of the air around you, etc. When you're dreaming, you focus more on the sensations within the dream. If you start to lose those sensations, then you begin to become more aware of those related to the waking world.

Now, as for those specific techniques. They work well because they are particularly strong senses. We have a lot of nerve endings in our hands and large portions of our brains are dedicated to both moving and sensing our hands. Rubbing them together roots us in the action. It anchors us to the sensations in the dream. The same with spinning. The sensation of movement is a very strong one. Our brain even has a dedicated system to resolving differences between the visual and balance systems. This is what makes us motion sick because differences between the visual balance and the kinesthetic balance systems are an indication of poisoning. When we dream, both those sensations are being invented, so instead that system gets both to reflect one another. As such, spinning activates both the visual and physical senses of balance. Once again, those sensations are not occurring in the waking world and so we are anchored within the experience of the dream.

Hope that helps.

Anchoring by sending sensations... I do that some times, but what really works the best for me is expectation. I put all of my ability (touching things, spinning, shouting, and others) into a dream watch with a button on it. I hit the button and the watch does all those things for me in a split second, anchoring me to the dream. much easier than having to take time. Just press the button.