There are various levels of lucidity. We can be loosely aware, fairly aware, or we can be ware enough to recall everything that had happened the previous day.Quote:
However in dreams we're as much aware of them as in waking life.
Printable View
There are various levels of lucidity. We can be loosely aware, fairly aware, or we can be ware enough to recall everything that had happened the previous day.Quote:
However in dreams we're as much aware of them as in waking life.
Actually that's what I intended to say. Thanks for confirming that however.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arutad
I figured that you were, just used your words as a comfortable demonstration :)Quote:
Originally Posted by gigaschatten
Nicely put! Yet another way to describe the human condition.Quote:
Are you a person, or a dream of a person, who dreams they aren't in control?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arutad
Everything that is alive is aware of it's surrounding to some degree. A person is going to be more aware than something like a worm. An adult is more aware than a child. There are varying levels of awareness. Lucidity is just a road sign to let you know where you are at. "You are now entering Lucidville, Population: you!"Quote:
Originally Posted by gigaschatten
Ever been in a fight? In those moments before it happens, when you it's going to go down, you become hyper aware.
Ever been hungover? No so aware.
Now I'm going to have to write a piece about what awareness is, and that ain't gonna be easy! Suffice it to say for now that there are different ways to deploy your awareness. You could have an expanded peripheral vision, zoom in on something in a sort of tunnel vision, become hypersensitive to sounds or smell. You can focus on one thing so much, it doesn't leave room for you to be aware of anything else.
For instance, I'm certainly not aware enough at the moment to tackle this subject. Or perhaps it's just that my thoughts are too scattered at the moment, and I lack the proper focus. Either way, I'm not ready for this just yet.
Magic is using the dream state to your advantage
So far I've tried explain how dream work in general without getting into too many specific methods of control, and also touching on how they might apply to real life. Now I'd like to do the exact opposite, and show how to use RL methods of control in dreams.
This stuff is still new to me and I've been having a hard time conceptualizing different ways to focus my awareness. Fortunately, the idea that reality is a dream is thousands of years old, which has given people plenty of time to figure out how to use it.
Any type of magic that might actually work could only function as the result of life being a dream, and would use the rules of dreaming. So I'm going to explain how every single type of magic works.
I don't expect anyone to actually believe me when I say that life is a dream, all I ask is you consider the following an analogy of dream control. People once believed the sun and moon were gods. The type of magic I'm talking about here is the kind that can turn a god into a cold rock or ball of burning gas. Which is still pretty powerful stuff, depending on how you look at it, which is exactly the point.
Magic, There can be only one...
Any type of magic that could possibly work in the real world does so only because life is a dream. Therefore, they should work exceptionally well in dreams.
There weren't as many types of magic as I though there were, but each one makes for a perfect method of exerting control over your dreams. If you understand what's happening.
Shamanism.
Might as well start here, since shamanism is where I learned of LDing. I'm going to use Carlos Castaneda as an archetype for the genre, which in essence about controlling awareness. Wether his particular story is true or not, there is a goldmine of info in there on how to skillfully work with awareness.
It does mirror a lot of what I've been trying to explain so far, but is based on the ability to see energy directly. He also claimed that our wold was just one of many, existing along side each other like the layers of an onion. The world we inhabit is just the result of a habitual way of deploying our awareness. I only recently understood that by figuring out how identical hell realms could exist for different people.
(Hell Realms) http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=70716
One last thing from Castaneda's work I'd like to note is a distinction he makes between the Sorcerers of Antiquity, and Modern day Sorcerers. The old school wizards were hellbent on replicable results, and developed overly elaborate rituals and methods to obtain them. The modern day sorcerers are more about kicking it free style.
Make that three...
Stage Magic
Your run of the mill stage magic works pretty much exclusively with the first rule of dreaming. Everything requires your attention to exist. Mix in a bit of redirection, and that's all there is to it really.
http://www.lesjones.com/www/images/p...let_Test-1.gif
Your dreaming attention is what fills in the blanks for optical illusions, in the exact same manner as things get created in your dreams. Magic is using the using the dream state to your advantage. While stage magicians perform mere tricks, there is still some magic in what they do.
Next we have the three basic types of magic distinguished by anthropologists:
(Italics taken from here: http://www.articleswave.com/articles...-of-magic.html)
Homeopathic Magic
Homeopathic Magic is based on the assumption that like produces like. It means that if some form of action is performed on something, it will have a same impact on the intended real thing.
This school of magic clearly all about rule 2.
2. The more attention you give to one element, the more detail it creates in relation to what you are focused on.
Sympathetic Magic or Imitative Magic
Sympathetic Magic on the core principle that if it is performed on some object(s), the same would happen to the person or object which is under influence. The relation is made between the objects based on the presumption that one can influence something based on the attachment.
This school of magic takes advantage of the third rule.
3. Any new elements or changes follow strict personal schemata and archetypes.
These schemata and archetypes are the sum total of links between one main theme or object, and the things related to it that define it. This school of magic works directly with those links.
Contagious Magic
Contagious magic supports the notion that if a person has contact with certain things, they will influence the person who is under contact with those things. The most common example of this type of magic can be seen in use of voodoo dolls. Voodoo dolls are attached with a part of fingernails, hair or teeth of the targeted person. The voodoo doll, then is assumed to be the person himself and it can be used of to hurt the victim. This type of magic falls under black magic, since it is practiced to cause harm or injury to others.
All rules in play for this one.
Rule 1 Everything requires your attention to exist:
Good focal points to make things real
Rule 2 The more attention you give something, the more related detail it creates: Again good focal points.
Rule 3 Any new elements or changes follow strict personal schemata or archetypes: Obvious associations present.
Rule 4 Strong emotions are a powerful force in shaping your dreams:
Emotional element Involved.
Who's counting? Getting even more specific
* Divination
Seeing or predicting things under divine influence and intervention.
That definition kind of blends into ESP, so let's take Dowsing as typical example of divination. Finding water with a stick, classic! Lets start with an excerpt from this article on brain function to better understand what's happening(http://discovermagazine.com/2009/feb...ing-us-smarter).
...What’s even more remarkable about our brains is that they actually search for new things to make part of this feedback system. Imagine you are poking a stick into an animal’s burrow. As you poke away, you are aware of what the far end of the stick is touching, not the end you’re holding in your hand. This kind of extended sensation appears to be the result of a reorganization of the brain. Scientists have found that when test monkeys spent five minutes learning how to use a rake, some of the neurons in their hands began behaving in a new way. They began to fire in response to stimuli at the end of the rake, not on the monkey’s hand. Other neurons, in the brain, respond to things that appear to lie within arm’s reach. Training the monkeys to use the rakes caused these neurons to change—reacting to objects lying within rake’s reach rather than arm’s reach.
Like the magic wand, or even pointer sticks used in schools, the dowsing rod is simply meant to focus awareness. Not some mystical magical energy, just plain old awareness. I think that's why there are so many old paintings of Jesus holding a magic wand. To show that he was focusing his awareness. Any of his miracles would be easy to do in a dream.
While following a stick around may seem like a useless dream skill, I think it could be both a useful and fun way of finding things or people in dreams. Up until now, I haven't come up with a reliable way of finding people for my shared dreaming attempts. I think using this stick method will help with that big time!
* Ceremonial or Ritual
This depends on religion to religion and is generally performed for both positive and negative purposes. This involves but isn't limited to removal of spirit possession, prosperity, injury to some party or parties, better next life form, etc.
These types of magic work within certain predefined contexts, as allowed by the third rule of dreaming. People expect magic to follow unchanging physical rules and work like a machine. But the rules it follows are schemata and archetypes.
Take the Crowley type of cults, Order of the Golden Dawn ect. It involves reading and memorizing tons of books about gods and demons, which they invoke in their rituals. It's everyone learning the same stories that creates the common ground where the magic can happen. Buy building up specific archetypes, they are able to come up with ways to use and manifest them through ritualized focus of their attention.
It's the same kind of magic that allowed for the rise of rap music. They created a complex culture or system, complete with awareness focusing techniques to make things happen within that system. Successful hip hop artists are magicians are sorcerers. Explicit knowledge of that system give them the ability to make things happen within it.
It's basically like a religious person calling of Jesus to save them in a dream. Of course going to come to someone with a well developed religious archetype. But you might not always want jesus's pacifist style. If you were to familiarize yourself with greek mythology, you would have a whole array of gods you could call to, each with unique bents of character and specialties. If in a dream you have slow legs or need to run faster, invoke Hermes, or even the Flash for that matter.
But it only works if you know hermes is supposed to be fast with those winged sandals on his feet. If you don't know Thor is the god of thunder, you won't be able to use him to strike down your enemies. They require a well developed, stable schemata system to function in.
* Thaumaturgy
Thaumaturgy is a term which denotes the art of magic which invokes supernatural powers
Good old Invocation!
Equivilant to yelling lucid commands (More light!) but with the power of a god behind them, and is just a more simplistic and focused form or ritual. Lucid commands fail because you have no well developed precedents for doing impossible things to draw on. Invoking specific gods, saints, whatever with a solid background to them is a lot more reliable.
* ESP
ESP is the power to perceive things which are not present to the senses
That definition is a little vague as well. But it seems to be awareness focused in a certain way and the good old dream rules. Remote viewing could be explained by the second dream rule, the more attention you give something, the more related detail it creates. Which describes precisely what happens with remote viewing.
* Theurgy
Theurgy is a part of white magic performed with the help of spirits. It is basically performed by Neoplatonists to bring in supernatural or divine intervention in human affairs.
Another form of Invocation within predefined set of archtypes.
* Tantra
Tantra was introduced by Hindu and Buddhist religions. Tantra involves use of elements such as mantras and mudras (spells) from Vedas (sacred texts) recited for getting things done magically.
An even more basic form of Invocation, functioning in much less developed, simpler archtypes.
* Voodooism
Voodooism is a religious cult which involves use of voodoo dolls, witchcraft and animistic deities for inflicting effects on selected targets.
Voodoo in and interesting one in that it's so brutally simple and direct. I find voodoo one of the best schools of magic that applies directly to dreaming, and it uses all four rules very well.
First you have the freaky fetishes that are meant to capture and focus your attention. They are usually made from bone, feathers, dead things, invoking the image of death and using the emotion fear to fuel the magic. Voodoo dolls are a mere focus point for your attention as well.
They say voodoo only affects you if you believe in it. That's not quite true. It only affects you if you focus on it. That's why the general tools of voodoo are somewhat theatric in nature. You don't need to believe you've been cursed, but if you think about it all the time, that is the curse.
* Alchemy
More than magic, alchemy was considered to be a science, very rare people new during medieval times. Alchemy was supposedly performed by alchemists who had the ability to turn ordinary metals into gold.
There's a lot of hogwash out there when it comes to alchemy. First, it's lead into gold, then nooooo, it's transmuting yourself, then there's all this philosopher's stone crap. None if it sounds like dreaming to me, but the general theme of alchemy is transmutation.
Transmutation makes a pretty kick ass dream skill, but I don't know enough about alchemy to find anything that applies to dreaming. I guess intense emotions would be the best way way to transmute things.
Although if you're into Calvin and Hobbes, you should have enough of a well developed schemata in that area to make a working Trangmografier in your dreams.
* Necromancy
Necromancy involves conjuring up the dead for prophesying or delivering a sermon. Necromancy is performed along with use of evil spirits to produce supernatural effects in the world.
Ok, I don't know how reanimating corpses has anything to do with dreamng. I suppose it could be a fun in a dream, but not very productive or useful overall. An undead army could come in useful now and again, but they are just as likely to turn on you. Plus it implies even worst things for them to fight.
I will say this about zombies, they don't reproduce through infection, bites or viral diseases. They multiply through attention they command, which is true in dreams, in movies, and even accounts for the existence of so many zombie movies.
As for working with dark spirits, just more invocation within a predefined system.
* Occult
Occult means beyond ordinary understand and which is difficult and hidden to see. Chaldean, in the occult philosophy is referred to the person skilled in occult learning.
Well, that's a little general to work with. But then I guess it can be difficult to see how life is a dream.
*Prayer
Same as most of the other magics, invocation within a predefined system.
Conclusions
-Devices that focus your attention in dreams can be useful. Using a magic wand as a general purpose tool while dreaming should in theory make everything easier.
-Taking advantage of well established systems and archetypes will greatly increase the chance of success for whatever you are trying to accomplish. They can also provide links to things that might not otherwise be accessible to you.
-Understand how focusing your awareness, like on a voodoo doll, fetish or totem, affects dreams through the second and third rule of dreaming. It doesn't have to be a voodoo item, it can be anything in your field of vision.
There was too much ground to cover here to go into as much detail as I would have liked, but I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Great article. You should insert link at the end of first article to it.
It is funny, today I was reading pantheon of Greek mythology to refresh my knowledge in this area - with exact goal to use it in dreams somehow to my advantage.
Here's an article on attention.
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2...ntionlost.html
A couple more articles.
Attention and Awareness in Magic: Turning tricks into science
http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/va...l/nrn2473.html
Magic tricks reveal gaze and attention not always linked.
http://bps-research-digest.blogspot....ction-and.html
And this short video, The psychology of attention in magic.
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/blog/...gic-18398.html
Some common advice on dream control is to be confident in what you're doing. I've never understood how you are supposed to be confident. I always thought of it as something you do, like straightening your back and speaking in a certain manner.
I now realize confidence is an emotion, and treating it as such makes it an all purpose tool for dream control. Again, the stronger the emotion, the more effect it's going to have.
Should work for RL as well.
Was an epiphany for me, just never thought of it as an emotion before. Another weapon to add to my emotional arsenal.
great work.
I saw the movie Paycheck for the first time last night, and it's all about the kind of dream control I've been trying to explain. Actually, it only uses the second rule of dreaming, the more attention you give something, the more related detail it creates.
Ben Affleck even sums it up once he figures out what's going on, saying something like "By getting me to focus on certain objects, it changes the outcome."
I don't want to ruin the plot for anyone who hasn't seen it, but that movie is a lesson in using the second rule of dreaming for control. It's what the entire plot is based on.
In light of what I've learned from RL magics, mainly they all take advantage of schemata in some form, lets take a another look at what happens when you do a reality check. Say you decide to do a reality check every time you walk through a door.
Remember, we're working with systems of associations that define things. For a door, you have the door frame, a door knob, maybe a lock, different styles of door and different materials, wood, metal. The sum total of these things is your conception of what a door is. There are major and minor associations, for instance a door is almost always going to be in a wall, but it might not always have a christmas wreath hanging on it.
What happens when you do RCs everytime you pass through a door is that you begin to forge a new association for the concept of door. A link to lucid dreaming. The goal is to make LDing as much a part of the concept of door as a door knob is. Hell, if you can make it the main purpose for a door's existence, so much the better.
When you dream of a door, it automatically gets assembled according to your own personal concept of a door. By altering that conception and making LDing an integral part of it, it also creates opportunities for you to become lucid.
So doing occasional reality checks is not really enough, you can never look at a door in the same way again if you really want it to be effective. You have to fundametally alter what a door means to you. Which is pretty much the basis behind most of those types of magic I went through earlier.
Well, thanks Cusp for the article and the this tech.
First thanks goes for an idea to adopt a some magical system. As it was stated in another article about dream control on this forum, direct control (i.e. thinking "it is just a dream, so I can do what I want") is bad, so we (my subconcious and I) have to make an agreement that I am mage (obviously, it is obvious :wink: ). First idea was to adopt something from Greek mythology (as I am Phantasos after all), but at the end it was decided that Rune magic will do better.
Second thanks for "Magical door tech". I will include it in the second stage of my LD training schedule. Seems like it should help :).
Thanks for that giggle.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Cusp
Containers
I've stumbled upon another little dream control gem. Haven't used it enough to master it as of yet, but I think I've got a grasp on the general concept.
Nothing in dreams is independent, everything is connected to something else in some fashion. People usually don't just dream of vampires, first they dream of a spooky old mansion or castle, which then leads to the vampires (RL influences aside). The beach sand you walk on in a dream of the ocean is not independent, it's fundamentally linked to the ocean. Or both the ocean and beach can be viewed as individual elements of an nautical theme.
When trying to exert control over a dream, sometimes it's best not to treat what you are trying to control as an individual element, but to think of it as part of something else.
Say you have a glass of water, and you want to move the water to the other side of the room. Trying to pick up and move just the water is going to be almost impossible. It's much simpler just to pick up the glass that contains the water and carry that across the room.
The same holds true for dreams. I'm at a loss to come up with specific dream examples, as the dreams I had on the subject were very confusing, but that's how it works. It's basically just a little shift in the way you conceptualize things, but it opens up a lot of finesse for dream control.
Perhaps you'd dream you're in a classic hell scenario. Instead of battling each of the countless demons individually, you could just freeze hell over, taking care of all of them at once. Just like carrying the glass of water.
And on an unrelated note, the Feb 27th Coast to Coast AM show got into dreaming, and the guest Rosemary Ellen Guiley really knows her stuff when it comes to dreaming. I was seriously impressed. Her website gets into all kinds of fringe stuff, but damn that woman knows her dreaming. She even got into shared dreaming!
OK i have tried to read through all 11 pages of this thread b4 replying...
My main Crit is that:
Rule #4: There is no random in dreaming. All changes and newly created dream elements follow our own personal schemata and archetypes without exception.
is wrong ...
Shouldn't it be ;
Dreams and dream elements can be produced either by our subconscious (normal dreaming) or by our conscious mind (lucid dreaming).
If you want to create a complete model of dreaming there are probably a few obvious but elementary factors you should note...
Also, on point 3;
3. Strong emotions have a devastating effect on everything around you.
I find that in life i am not emotionaly driven. Someone can do something really annoying like being late and i will happily say "nevermind". The only emotions i fell are a deep happiness and anxiety. I would like to say i only feel happiness and a deep sense of fullfillment but i do feel anxiety when going for job interviews .etc. i do find this internal happiness to be a great factor in my life and i would suggest anyone to pursue it. It will change your life. Dont let emotions rule your life, its immature.
FunK
I don't see how your point differs from mine. Both the conscious and subconscious assemble dreams in the same manner, by using archetypes. Since this happens naturally in normal dreams, or subconscious dreams, I'm trying to illustrate how to use that in lucid or conscious dreams.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunKtion
I just read something about three major types of archetypes. Personal archetypes, which hold meaning only to you, Social Archetypes, which hold meaning to a specific group of people, and Universal Archetypes, which are pretty much the same for everyone.
I think it's important to make the distinction as to which type you're trying to use in a dream, as each one has different implications.
i read all of it. excellently articulated. so many of my thoughts on the questions of dreaming spellout for me in a few pages worth of info. very well done.
and the totality of existance, as you hinted towards earlier up, yields great contemplation too. havent formed a concrete thought about it yet
Thanks for the praise and the bump Cam.
Anyone watch the TV show Fringe? Last night's episode entitled "Bad Dreams" was about exercising emotional dream control. I couldn't have asked for a better demonstration of how it works. Even if you don't watch Fringe, that episode is worth finding if you're interested in dream control.
Actually the character in question had a decided lack of control, like someone in a regular non lucid dream, and his emotions influenced the behavior of everyone around him, exactly like it happens in dreams.
I recently learned the difference between REM dreams and non REM dreams. It seems non REM dreams we are less prone to having strong emotions than in REM dreams, where strong emotions run rampant. Of course that distinction is not absolute, it is possible to induce strong emotions in NREM dreams. It's just that generally speaking, dreamers in NREM experience a low emotional state. Which is just as well when you look at what happened to that guy on Fringe last night, also considering the majority of dreams happen in a non rem state.
I don't watch Fringe regularly, but my suitemate does. I saw last night's episode, though, and couldn't help thinking about this thread in particular.
And, yeah, this thread kicks ass.
I do have one gripe, though. In your theory that this reality is simply one giant shared dream, how does death play into that? The more I think about it, the less the concept of death, and dying, fits in with the rules. I would go into more detail, but I would like to know your thoughts on this matter first.
Death? Well you see... Ummmmm... Uhhhh... Pfffft, I don't know. Never really gave it any thought.
Perhaps it giving up, where you no longer have the desire to sustain certain things with your attention. With sudden death it would be grievous wounds, with old age it would be your broken down body, and with suicide it would be all those shitty things you make bigger than life by focusing on them too much.
After death? Maybe you find new things to focus on? Slip into another dream like the transition between sleep and waking?
Ask me again after I'm dead.
This is the only answer I could have really hoped for.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Cusp
There are obviously too many unknowns. If I continued with my argument, it would bring even more unanswerable, off topic, questions into play. The big ones are the questions of 'self' and consciousness, and how the attentions of others play into that.
However, I don't believe those specific topics are out of the scope of this thread. For example, I could easily tie them into the whole Fringe discussion, but better safe than sorry methinks.
Love your thread Cusp, it only keeps getting better and better, this is were all the true info on dreaming can be found! This is on a totally different level than all those other tutorials, compared to them you're like the Einstein of dreaming and they are the scientists from the dark ages.. be careful to not get burned on the stake someday tho.. lol.