Summoning versus Transmutation

I think just about every lucid dreamer has had difficulties summoning objects or people while lucid. I believe the problem is in the approach, trying to create something from nothing. Far easier to transmute something already in the dream into what you want to summon.

So how do we transmute dream objects? By taking advantage of archetypal associations. Everything is an archetype, and archetypes are nothing more than a series of associations or links. The trick is finding something in your dream that you can associate with what you want to manifest. This can be an obvious, direct association, or a series of abstract links. It doesn't have to be done with in one step, you can transmute something several times, each transmutation bringing you closer to your desired goal.

For example, in a recent lucid, I needed a female presence to balance something out, and I found myself standing next to myself holding a shotgun pointed at my double's feet. The path I decided to follow to manifest a woman was menstrual blood. So I shot my double in the feet, and the blood began to flow. But I conceptualized that blood as menstrual blood, and zoomed in on the bloody feet. When I pulled my focus back, my double was now a woman.

All summoning methods are just a variation of archetypal transmutation. Like the door trick for summoning people or teleporting yourself to a desired destination. Doors have to lead somewhere, that is the link, the association. But archetypes have many associations, and you have to choose the one you want to use before hand or you will end up with a random outcome.

Same goes with reaching into your pockets to summon something, or reaching to your hip for a gun or a sword. Pockets have a major association with carrying objects, that is their main purpose.

In order to properly transmute an archetype, you have to first make the association you want to use your main focus of attention. Zoom in on it visually so that it eclipses everything else in the dream. Then tweak your conceptualization of that element so that it is better suited to your purpose (Like how I changed bleeding feet to menstrual blood). The pull back your focused attention to take in more of the dream scene and the changes should have already taken place.

It's not always obvious associations either. When using this technique, you will often find yourself traveling down associative paths that are anything but obvious, connections you weren't even aware you made. But the paths are there none the less.

A word of warning, once you get the hang of this technique, it can completely destroy the narrative of your dreams.

I second this. This is a really great concept to keep in mind. I used to struggle with making something appear out of nothing. I find that even if you are gifted at doing that, it makes your lucid dream more fun and more realistic if you create "explanations" for having things appear.

For example, if I'm being chased by zombies, I could easily just snap my fingers and make a shotgun appear, but I believe that your mind makes the dream more real when you choose not to overuse the "this is just a dream" mentality. So I might run through a shopping mall where there's a gun store, I break in and take a shotgun.

This, in my opinion, is coherent with BillyBob's explanitory post about passive versus active control in dreams. If you decide to do something with the simple logic that "this is a dream, I can do whatever I want," (which is, of course, true,) you may find that your subconscious responds to that mentality as a loss of appreciation for what is happening in your mind.

That's obviously not true for everyone, but it was true for me. I like this post. Well written, Cusp.

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Originally Posted by The Cusp

A word of warning, once you get the hang of this technique, it can completely destroy the narrative of your dreams.

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What do you mean?

I had a dream where I was in a baseball field and I thought of someone I wanted there, and I had a strong feeling and want, and he was immediatley there. So, I don't know if it's just easy for me, or maybe there needs to be strong will involved?

I thoroughly enjoyed this read, and feel that it will come in quite helpful with dream control. I normally would use the "this is my imagination, and therefore I ought to be able to do anything I imagine" approach, which honestly did not work as often as I would like. In fact, it seemed that the more lucid I was, the less often that worked. I believe the issue may have been that doing this can create sense of detachment from the dream…as opposed to a sense of dominion… which often times can result in a lack of ability rather than greater ability.

What is being said in here seems to revolve around the same idea, in my mind. It seems it may be easier to accept the dream as being real to a certain degree in order to have this level of control instead of denying the reality of the dream itself. It is like dream judo… redirecting the momentum of the dream itself to fit your desires as opposed to trying to directly oppose it.

Good stuff.

mortal mist.......only the cusp will understand

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Originally Posted by Phantasos

What do you mean?

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Dreams form through a process I call Archetpal Chaining. Everything in a dream is an archetype, the sum total of associations to any given topic. As you focus your attention on something in the dream, it begins to manifest it's varied association. For example, the beach could manifest life guards, bikinis, dogs catching frisbees, sharks. This will continue until one of those manifested items captures your attention, becomes your new focal point or seed, and then it begins to manifest it's associations. So from the beach example, two likely manifested attention traps (for me at least) would be the bikinis or the sharks. Changing focus from the beach to the shark will dramatically change the dream from a relaxing beach dream to a potential nightmare (depending on how you feel about sharks)

Most of the time the focal point is something visual in the dream, but it doesn't have to be. You can interrupt the "natural" process of your wandering attention randomly locking onto various things as seed points, and insert something new instead. Forcibly inserting new things can disrupt the narrative of your dream because what you insert is usually not at all related to the dream so far. When the process happens naturally, the chain of associations are closely related similar to the concept of Seven degree of separation.

Basically all your dream elements are closely related, which is what forms the dream narrative. If you go monkeying around and inserting new things that are not closely related to the current narrative, you could drastically change the dream. It could be as drastic as changing channels in the middle of watching a TV show.

Although I wrote that 2 years ago. These days I'm wondering if it's even possible to come up with an idea that hasn't been influenced by your current dream scenario, thus keeping a smaller degree of separation.