Thread: forcing control?

I know exactly what you mean. I've had the same problem where it feels more like a daydream. Have you tried spinning or rubbimg your hands?

At any rate, something that I've tried and came up with is to focus out some things and transferring that focus to something else. For example, I want a pair of girls to seem very real. They (the girls) do not seem real, yet the background does. Therefore I focus out the setting entirley and put my attention into the girls. Now we, the three of us, are in this white blank void. But since my mind has less to worry about and to imagine the girls seem very real and intense (as are the sensory feelings...) Anyway, that's one tip.

Until you get better, I'd suggest dropping some stuff behind (unimportant things) so the stuff that is more important can seem more real.

It's worked for me.

Spockman has some good tips there. Rubbing your hands together and/or spinning should help.

I have a similar "problem" when I WILD. I use HI/visualization to enter the dream scene, and as I then "seamlessly" enter the dream, it can be hard to tell HI from dream. I have recently come up with some simple tests to see if it's HI or dream, and they always work. First, I see if I can find my hands. If I can see them, then I'm sure that I at least have a dream body. I then move my hand in a fluent motion in front of my eyes, and see if I can fix my eyes on my hand and also move them in a fluent motion. To be able to move your eyes in a fluent motion, you will have to be looking at something actually moving, either in real life with your eyes open, or in a dream. I've tried to do these eye movements when looking at moving HIs or just moving mental images (as in daydreaming) often, and I just can't do it. Maybe doing this will help your problem.

I wonder if the reason your LDs are not very vivid and are unstable because you expect it and because you pay attention to the lack of vividness and how unstable the dream is. I know this sounds weird, but if you've read The Nature of Dream Control thread by The Cusp, you should get what I'm saying. If you haven't read at least the first few pages of that thread I seriously reccomend it.

I know that when I pay attention to some aspect of a dream it becomes more pronounced, especially when it is an aspect I don't want or don't like.