Less common techniques/tricks (stabilisation, DC, etc) you use instead of the usual ones?

[Tipharot]

So basically I've discovered over time that many of the most commonly advised dream control techniques and dream stabilisation techniques simply don't work for me in the way others describe, or are far less effective than other methods that I intuitively discovered. So I thought I'd share some of these methods in case they'd benefit anyone else - but also, I'd like to ask you guys, what are some of the more unusual techniques you use to do things in dreams, whether it's to stabilise in a way other than the normal spinning/hand rubbing/shouting "clarity" etc - or a unique way of spawning dream characters or items, or a weird way that you move about etc I'd love to hear. --- So first things first, stabilisation. For me, rubbing my hands together and touching objects does work but only for a short time and also generally fails if the dream is already slightly unstable because one of the first things to destabilise for me is usually my control over my dream body. Spinning around simply doesn't work because I find moving fast/suddenly/turning around in my dream body to be very sluggish and hard to do unless my dream is already completely 100% stable. So just today I finally found a technique that works for me, and managed to up my usually short 1~ minute dream duration to a good 20+ minutes my first time trying it. Basically I asked my subconscious, in the form of one of the dream characters, to tell me how I could make my dreams longer and more stable - he told me to sit down and be quiet, so I did, and waited for him to say more, but he didn't so I asked again, and he pointed out that I was already doing it and we'd already been sitting there for 2 minutes. So I stayed sitting and then played around with exploring but sitting down for a couple of minutes each time I entered a new setting, and bam I found this works way more effectively than any other stabilisation method I've used, and I could have made that dream easily last 1+ hours if I hadn't got distracted and forgot to do the technique when I entered the last room before waking. Then there's entering a new dream. I hear a lot of people saying to wait behind closed eyes, but this is actually where rubbing your hands comes in handy for me - when a dream breaks down and I'm in the blackness I rub my hands together really furiously (because my brain associates it with lucid dreaming) and then I stop, wait 15-30 seconds, and I'm in a new dream and always lucid. Just today I had 6 lucids using that. Another one is moving around - most people choose to walk/run/fly in their dreams based on what I read from people, but I figured one day that since movement strains the stability of my dreams vastly, and since one of my induction techniques involves me not being able to move my dream body for the first 1-2 minutes of the dream, I needed a way to move about without moving my limbs whatsoever - so I learnt to zoom forward/up/down/sideways just using my thoughts to imagine myself being x metres forward or up etc, it seems to strain the dream way less, be faster and more controllable than regular flying, and even gets me across the ground much faster. Plus it enables cool tricks like zooming up walls and across buildings Matrix style. For dream character control I do the old "jedi mind tricks" thing and just tell them something assertively to be true about themselves or what I want them to do, and bam they repeat back to me the same thing and then go and do it. If for whatever reason it doesn't work I just repeat the same phrase again once or twice and I've never had it fail me yet. For talking to and asking my subconscious questions as in the above example where I found out about stabilisation, I just look to the closest dream character, and say "Hey subconscious I wanna know ..." and listen to their reply. Sometimes that DC will reply, other times it'll be in my head or something else - but I always get the reply I want by directing my question in such a way. For developing new powers/abilities, like how I first learned to fly, I always use the "take the first movie that comes to mind" approach - in the case of flying, the first movie of a person flying I could think of was one of the Superman movies, so I did the whole cliche thing with my fist pointing up to the sky, jumped, and took off like Superman. I've found emulating movie/anime/comic characters works well for pretty much any power you can think of, whether it's shooting lightning from your hands like Palpatine or doing some DBZ style spirit bomb attacks. Never leaves you having to figure out/believe something'll work again, just pick a favourite character that can do it, and do it how they do. Another unusual one I've found is concerned with spawning in friends or specific dream characters - usually it's difficult for me to make an actual person appear in certain environments where I wouldn't expect to see anyone else, so when that's the case I quickly travel to the nearest location that has DCs in, and if I can't make them appear as one of them, I use another trick and instead find one that's turned around facing the other way, and imagine that their face is my friend/the specific DC in question, then I say "Hi [name]!" and go up - bam, they'll always be the person you wanted to encounter, though occasionally their face then changes back/into something else after. For getting to far off places, rather than trying to change the dream world I usually just let my dream destabilise, rub my hands together in the blackness for a few moments, then when I stop rubbing them I just visualise clearly the location - and it'll always appear around me and I'll be standing right there. This works for inducing LDs to begin with too, if you're in REM you can just visualise a location and if your visualisation skills are adequate you'll find yourself appearing there in just a couple of minutes - though you usually need to engage the other senses before you fully get through, i.e. imagining yourself touching the grass, or smelling the flowers, etc. For spawning items I either ask DCs for the item, in a jedi mind trick style way of assuming they have it - or I'll "expect" it in my pocket or bag, or to be in a nearby cupboard or container. ---- Tl;dr version of the above list for people who don't want to read the whole post: To stabilise I just sit down quietly for 1-2 minutes each time I enter a new scene, and repeat as necessary if stability is lost. To enter new dreams I rub my hands in that black space you go to after the dream ends (which actually isn't quite you back in bed yet) for a few moments, then let go, and I'll always enter an LD straight after. To move around fast without destabilising things I imagine myself moving forward with my mind rather than my body, and zoom around at Sonic speeds. For DC control I use Obi Wan style "jedi mind tricks", i.e. "Ah, so you're the police officer I was looking for, that means you must have the gun I wanted, hand me it" if I want to get myself a gun and only have plain clothes citizen DCs wandering around For talking to my subconscious I just say "Hey subconscious [question]?" to the first DC I see For learning new powers/abilities I just pick a movie I like in which the character can do what I do, then I emulate them (doesn't even require you to believe it'll work!) To make specific DCs/friends appear if I can't spawn an actual person, I'll find a DC facing away from me, and imagine that their face is going to be my friend's face, then say "Hi [Friend's name!]" and approach them, usually resulting in them becoming my friend For getting to far off/made up locations, I just let my dream destabilise, do the hand rubbing thing in the black space, then visualise in my imagination the place I want to be, and start involving my senses until I appear there For spawning items I either do what I mentioned above with the jedi mind tricks to get them off a DC, or expect them to be in my pockets or a nearby container etc ---- Anyway so yeah those are a few of my own tricks, some of them unusual, some of them standard. What about you guys - do you do anything different from the norm dream control wise and if so what techniques work best for you?

[LucidRanma]

I actually do something similar sometimes with DCs. Just transform them into someone else, though I can't specifically target someone well. I find that many DCs faces like to change often, but if I think about a person, the DCs face will change multiple times until it lands on who I thought about, usually a few seconds later. In fact, I found a lot of my dream control seems to have a few seconds delay to it. For stabilization, I'm not sure if it even qualifies, but besides some normal stuff, I just "feel" the dream. One thing that I've found is constant motion is key to keeping my dreams alive. I often walk about, rubbing my hands and touching everything in sight to stabilize the dream. But constant movement seems to keep the dream alive for me. I probably don't do anything too out of the ordinary. I have licked stuff in my dreams to stabilize it though. Engaging any of the five senses seems to help keep the dream stable. Oh, and also, Rain. Walk into the rain and your dream can become like a thousand times clearer. It's as if you were watching a grainy black and white TV, then upgraded to HD. Activates your sense of touch as well. At least in my case.