Pathetic dream control

So I had a LD last night. It started off with a false awakening.
My room was dark so I tried to turn on my bedside lamp... didn't work
Then I tried to turn on the regular lighting... didn't work
I even tried shouting out loud: "LIGHTS, ON!"... didn't work

And then I tried to pull up the rolling shutters... but everytime I would stop pulling they would fall back down...
It was as if my subconscious was trolling me... :chuckle:

It's funny because people always say that for increasing dream control you need to expect and just know that something will happen or is possible.
But obviously I expect my light switches and my rolling shutters to work... but even that seemed to fail for some reason :disconcerted:

Expectation is not necessarily that shallow. Just because we are thinking a thing doesn't mean that we believe it. And just because we believe that we believe a thing doesn't mean that deep down we believe it. If you think of your mind as having different layers, for the most part, we use the surface layer of thoughts to guide us through waking life. In dreams, however, we are able to confront much deeper elements of our psyche. All of these elements are us, but the elements in dreams we often (more obviously, anyway) have less control over.

Just because I say, "I really expected it to happen!" doesn't mean that on a deep level, I really expected it to happen. I think the more relaxed we are, the better chances we have of seeing movement when it comes to dream control, which will lead to a kind of confidence in doing certain things. Some people know they can fly and it never is an issue. Others know they can walk through walls. But another person may think they can walk through walls, but lack the confidence to allow the dream to change.

But I don't think that deep down I don't believe that light switches work...? :? that doesn't really make any sense
And how could I improve my dream control?

How to have better dream control:

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I think the more relaxed we are, the better chances we have of seeing movement when it comes to dream control, which will lead to a kind of confidence in doing certain things.

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You will become more confident the longer you do this. There is no "how do I do it" because what works for one may not work for all. There may be techniques to get you started, but the technique is not what makes the dream change--your confidence does. After a while, you will find yourself doing dream control. That is how it happened for me. Someone else may have a better way of saying "how to do it." My advice is relax, let some stuff change (because it will, because that is what dreams do) and gain confidence in your ability to change the dream. The more we see dream control as a problem to be solved the more the mind will dish up problems to be solved. There is no end to it, and since you see it as a problem, you will not be able to enjoy your own lucidity.

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But I don't think that deep down I don't believe that light switches work...?

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At the level of mind we are talking about, this is almost not relevant. That is to say, you don't know what your unconscious mind believes or doesn't believe right now in this moment. That's why it's called "unconscious": we are not conscious of it. If you are saying to yourself, "Why of course I believe that light switches work and I'm not so sure about this advice" then that is your conscious mind. Your unconscious mind doesn't have any real thoughts like that (at least none that we are aware of) and is going to express itself in different and irrational ways (dreams, sudden bursts of emotion, possibly poetry and art). I don't know what it means that you couldn't turn on the lights, and if you wanted to do some interpretative work with this dream, it's likely you could connect your inability to turn on the lights with some personal issue.

But you're asking about dream control. So I say relax, keeping lucid dreaming, gain experience. The control will come with time. There really is no problem. Trying to force some outcome in a dream (and in life) is really just a big drag. Dreams are more open to change so just relax and see what happens. That's my advice.

MemeViews - hello and welcome to Dream Views :) I love the advise ThreeCat's giving it's awesome and well worth thinking about - alot

Stay positive and keep going with the LD practice - it takes time and a positive mental attitude is deffinatelly something I recoment - coz it helps big time :D you can do it!

Yeah I think dream control is a little tricky and there's the added trickiness from the fact that the clarity of your mind is highly variable in lucid dreams, so sometimes there is a solution but it just doesn't occur to you because you're an idiot in that state of mind :P. I honestly don't know what to do when something just doesn't work. Someone here once suggested to use some reasoning to fool yourself into thinking it will work. I'll make up some examples:

Oh I know why the light switch isn't working, I just have to clap 4 times! I remember my aunt telling me about this. Or let's say you want to fly but you jump and you don't go up (this never happened to me). You say to yourself Maybe there's something in my pocket to give me flying powers, this is a dream after all. And voila! Well you see the point.

But also don't worry too much about dream control. Because to enjoy lucid dreams you don't need much dream control, you just need to control your actions, right? Whether you have control or not, a dream is still a wacky place :P But I'm sorry I don't have good advice for how to control dreams, because when something doesn't work after 1 or 2 tries I do something else :P


PS: you have a funny name :chuckle:

I had 2 lucid dreams yesterday (FILD) but I ran into an unusual problem regarding dream control. Usually I don't have too much problem. I can walk through walls and fly and summon objects passively.

But yesterday was different. In my first dream I decided to get really close to the bathroom floor and and really inspect it. My lucidity shot up and became so realistic I found it incredibly difficult to differentiate between reality. (Not helped because I was literally in an exact copy of my house). For example the palm push reality check simply didn't work and I felt my body was solid, completely different to my normal lucids.

In fact the only reason I knew it was lucid at all was because I was able to breathe through my pinched nose. I wanted to continue to practice my flying but I couldn't fly. I tried literally floating up through the ceiling.

I had a second lucid an hour or so later and I thought that this time I would get on with my flying practice. Unfortunately it was the same. I tried to poke my fingers through the window, but instead of going through it just really hurt.

This is not normal at all! What happened?

Wow. DreamSwimmer, your lucid experiences are like mine. Yes I found things that might be a good check for many does not work for me if the dream is determined to be the one in control. If the dream wants to keep me in line I'll be able to pinch myself and cause pain, read just about any writing, even flip on light switches (I gained that ability in one dream after a friend told me that was his way to check if dream or reality.) But yeah the level of realism I can relate. I can touch, smell, even taste in some supposed non lucid dreams.

I've finally come to accept I (and maybe you too) lucid dream differently. It seems in order to gain dream control is to not control the dream. Oddly enough a paradox. Each dream has its own laws of physics right? Like some dreams you can fly, but others you can't? Some dreams you might not fly but you can climb into the clouds and walk in the air? Or some dreams you're indoors but unable to get out or underground the whole time?

Instead of bothering to change the setting, I get better results treating the dream like I would as if I were in the waking world. If I fight it, the dream will quickly remind me its laws of physics (like if there is gravity for instance). The more I fight, the worse it gets. But going along with the dream, I can sometimes be granted choices to make. Sometimes it might be as simple as what side of the street to walk on. Do I look left or right? Look up at the sky? That one usually is rewarding because the weather is almost always very strange in Dreamland. Whether it be square shaped mammatus clouds (yesterday's dream), or a very out of the world vivid sunset or it might be night. if night I might get to see surreal star formations, even spaceships.

It seems the less I fight, the more into the dream I get and the more rewarding it gets. It may or may not be as fun as getting what I want, but the experience seems more genuine. The few rare total control dreams I get feel more like I was just imagining the whole thing and more less guiding imagery through my imagination than actually experiencing it. Not to say it is bad. I've had some great story like dreams. it seems the most vivid dreams are ones I have only partial control but get an epic story from, just by following along making decisions when i realize they are available.

Another thing I noticed, an ability I gain dreaming this way, is the ability to think just as logically as I do in the waking world. I can think about what I just saw and react. I can pull up memories. Sometimes from the waking world, other times from dreams. It seems if I am in a recurring setting I will know this in my subconscious and be able to recall that dream. When I do it flashes through my head as a memory just like pulling up a memory in my waking world. I find it fascinating. Often these aren't dreams I remember when I am awake. But because I recalled them and remember the recall, I sometimes get chances to remember dreams I forgot just because I was able to recall it in a recent dream. There were also a rare dream I recalled that was a forgotten real life memory, from when I was like 2 years old feeling like I accomplished something, (climbing down the stairs on my own) discovered a new place: the basement) And then there's also "parallel universe" dreams where instead of living in an apartment I seem to be seeing a future self living in my own house. The house appears in enough dreams that it's got me curious of its origins.
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Re: The window dream - you might be able to open the window like you would normally in real life and then jump out it to fly. I think I did that with a flying dream once. It helps that irl I live on an upper floor, so the jump wasn't that hard to generate once the dream let me open the window. Or if you fall, maybe try to grab onto the wall and climb or see what happens after you fall. Or if you feel too afraid to do so, like feels too real life like, then maybe it would be better to just skip the window thing and just find another way to get around in the dream.