Thread: A THEORY: We're missing it! (you should read this)

Originally Posted by Aquanina

Turning on your frontal lobe while you are awake is one thing...but it is still going to turn back off as soon as you go to sleep. You need to figure out a way to turn it on while asleep. And you can't solve that by thinking logically while awake. That's why GM works so well, b/c it helps to turn on the frontal lobe while you're sleeping. The only other thing you can do, is remain aware. Or try my trick that involves drawing attention and awareness to the frontal lobe...or prefrontal cortex to enter a lucid dream during the transitional stage.

But don't you agree, that working your logic or frontal lobe during wbtb, will indeed help one become lucid. It has to turn it on to some agree while you fall asleep, otherwise wbtb wouldn't work. I don't know the science behind it, but the frontal lobe is somehow activated if one uses it during wbtb.

I neither agree nor disagree, because I have seen no evidence regarding this to support or falsify the theory. Have you tried researching it for yourself to see if there are any experiments dealing with this matter?

Why don't you start a thread in the research forum and get people to try it as an experiment and see how it goes? I would test it, but WBTBs are too much work for me.

Yea I'm not saying its true either. I'm just saying it could be a possiblity, but I'll look it up. I to don't like wbtb either, which is why I don't do it that often. And when I do, I usually stay up for like 5 seconds and then fall right back to sleep. If I find any information on the subject, I will start another thread.

I think something a lot of people tend to look over is the fact that we all differ from one another. We think differently, act differently, look differently, and behave differently. This sounds obvious - and I'll admit it is - but if people struggling with attaining lucidity (like me!) would take this into account, I believe the potential for them to achieve a lucid would increase. For instance, I frequently have dreams that take place in a room, with almost every aspect of that particular room identical to what it is like in waking life. Because of this, I started to mess around with my OWN idea of how to embrace these dreaming habits and turn them into lucids. Unfortunately, I did not get to experiment with it as in depth as I would have liked, but the point here is that perhaps instead of blindly following the techniques others do, we should all find our own, individual ways of doing them. The only thing stopping us from doing that is knowledge on the matter; if you know nothing on lucid dreaming or how it is induced, then odds are you will not be able to find a way to induce them on your own.

I've been gone for awhile so I feel a bit out of the loop. But I think some people would agree with me when I say we all need to find our own path, especially when it is something as personal as Lucid Dreaming. There is no universal rules for this, there isn't ONE technique that will work for EVERYONE; they're are only individual rules, dictated by ourselves. I'm tired, so I hope this post made even the slightest bit of sense. Good night.

Working on math is logical. But if you have your face shoved to a piece of paper and you're busy working on math problems, then you're not being aware of your environment. How do you know the math test isn't just a dream?

I agree with others, the answer is awareness, not logic. But logic does help you spot the inconsistencies in dreaming, like when a clock doesn't read right. You just can't rely on logic alone though. Reality checks have failed for tons of people, making it easy to logically conclude that you're actually awake.

What you want is awareness. I consider logic a by-product of awareness, but not the other way around.

LiveInTheDream,

This is the most intelligent thread I've read yet, I love it! I can't believe the video you posted hasn't received more comments. It was a real eye opener for me. It made me realize our awareness is similar to a camera. We can "zoom" our awareness in to sharply focus on something. We can also "zoom" out to have a more global awareness. When we "zoom in" our awareness, we often completely miss sensory info we otherwise would have easily noticed, just like the gorilla in the video. When I first watched the video, I did not notice the gorilla at all, JUST LIKE HOW I GULLIBLY ACCEPT GOOFINESS IN DREAMS. When I watched it a second time and saw the gorilla, I had the same Eureka sensation I have when I become lucid in a DILD.

So I find this very thought provoking in regards to reality checks and awareness in general. Thank you SKA for elaborating on awareness in this context - very well put.

The single best explanation I've come across came from Scot Stride. He works at NASA and wrote the forward to Thomas Yuschak's book "Advanced Lucid Dreaming - The Power of Supplements." Here is a quote from Scot:

“The crux of lucid dreaming is the awakening of the aminergic system which allows the person to think rationally enough to recognize the mental hallucinations as dreams. Vividness and memory alone are not enough to overcome the “idiotic” state of the mind during REM dreaming. Unless the aminergic system is above a certain threshold of rational functioning, the dreamer can’t become lucid."

Here is the source of that quote:

Lucid Dreaming: A Valid Explanation | Oneirology: | Lucid Dreaming | Psychedelics | Entheogens | The Study of Lucid Consciousness - A study into understanding our minds in the states of lucid dreaming and psychedelic experiences.

Apparently Mr. Stride worked closely with Mr. Yuschak based upon what he said in his "LDS" youtube series. So they have obviously augmented strategic use of supplements along with traditional induction techniques. Here is my take on this. I believe that a person who becomes lucid without supplements does so by naturally exceeding the aminergic threshold. This could occur two ways. It could simply happen naturally, as some are lucky enough to experience. It can also happen by using mental induction techniques that we all discuss here. But the bottom line is that our lack of awareness/logic is due to a neurochemical situation. For those that haven't read the book I mentioned, I highly recommend it. Thomas Yuschak has really done a thorough job with his research. I put his work right up there with Mr. LaBerge in educating us about lucid dreaming.

Back to your question though. Your video and the excellent discussion on this thread makes me optomistic for a new and improved reality check. Personally I've done diligent RC's LOTS of times every day for weeks on end without success. So the aminergic threshold concept really rings true to me. I love the idea of simply taking a different mental approach to doing an RC in such a fashion that you "look for the gorilla" instead of count how many times people wearing white throw the ball.

This thread has always interested me,. such a question ♥

I think you are wrong . What we're lacking in LD's is awareness. and using logic (and any other activity of the mind) only distract us from it.
We need to ask such people, who deals with much logic daily, maybe mathematicians (anyone here?), about their luck in lucid dreaming.

Originally Posted by hisnameistyler

I think something a lot of people tend to look over is the fact that we all differ from one another. We think differently, act differently, look differently, and behave differently. This sounds obvious - and I'll admit it is - but if people struggling with attaining lucidity (like me!) would take this into account, I believe the potential for them to achieve a lucid would increase. For instance, I frequently have dreams that take place in a room, with almost every aspect of that particular room identical to what it is like in waking life. Because of this, I started to mess around with my OWN idea of how to embrace these dreaming habits and turn them into lucids. Unfortunately, I did not get to experiment with it as in depth as I would have liked, but the point here is that perhaps instead of blindly following the techniques others do, we should all find our own, individual ways of doing them. The only thing stopping us from doing that is knowledge on the matter; if you know nothing on lucid dreaming or how it is induced, then odds are you will not be able to find a way to induce them on your own.

I've been gone for awhile so I feel a bit out of the loop. But I think some people would agree with me when I say we all need to find our own path, especially when it is something as personal as Lucid Dreaming. There is no universal rules for this, there isn't ONE technique that will work for EVERYONE; they're are only individual rules, dictated by ourselves. I'm tired, so I hope this post made even the slightest bit of sense. Good night.

Totally agree with you.
I stopped writing here a long time ago, but I read this and I said "yeah, let's support this comment"

I'm working on my way to have lucid dreams, and when I'm done with it I'm sure I will tell you about it.

bye!

Awareness is definitely the key issue in becoming lucid. Logic has little to do with it. I didn't realize that awareness was a requirement until I actually started practicing it, and I don't recall ever seeing it being mentioned in any of the official lucid dreaming tutorials that I've read. I think that awareness should be a key component in any lucid dreaming technique.

In fact, awareness does incorporate some form of logic, as in questioning your environment. But if you don't become aware of your environment in the first place you can't logically question it.


That video on the first page just gave me an idea to make an application/program to develop one's awareness.

Yes.Dopamine is released in dreams, psychotic episodes, and hallucinations.You can't stop the dopamine, and if you could, it would stop your dreams altogether because dopamine is what forces your brain to create false senses.

Originally Posted by hisnameistyler

I think something a lot of people tend to look over is the fact that we all differ from one another. We think differently, act differently, look differently, and behave differently. This sounds obvious - and I'll admit it is - but if people struggling with attaining lucidity (like me!) would take this into account, I believe the potential for them to achieve a lucid would increase. For instance, I frequently have dreams that take place in a room, with almost every aspect of that particular room identical to what it is like in waking life. Because of this, I started to mess around with my OWN idea of how to embrace these dreaming habits and turn them into lucids. Unfortunately, I did not get to experiment with it as in depth as I would have liked, but the point here is that perhaps instead of blindly following the techniques others do, we should all find our own, individual ways of doing them. The only thing stopping us from doing that is knowledge on the matter; if you know nothing on lucid dreaming or how it is induced, then odds are you will not be able to find a way to induce them on your own.

I've been gone for awhile so I feel a bit out of the loop. But I think some people would agree with me when I say we all need to find our own path, especially when it is something as personal as Lucid Dreaming. There is no universal rules for this, there isn't ONE technique that will work for EVERYONE; they're are only individual rules, dictated by ourselves. I'm tired, so I hope this post made even the slightest bit of sense. Good night.

I very much agree with your statement here. Allow me to add that there are universal lucid dreaming phenomena. For example WILD and its variant DEILD. They describe the same events. It is how you get to these events is what requires personal technique. Some people will misinterpret your statement and will rebel against common techniques and seek their own, which will take them a very long time. There are indeed techniques which do not work well with individual dreamers. For example I spent 3 months trying Castaneda's "look at your hands" lucid dream induction technique. No results. Then I found dreamviews and had a lucid dream within 10 days.


The short story is: stick with conventional techniques, when you get a feeling for lucid dreaming, find your own for intentional induction.

EVERY lucid dream i have ever had has come from this method, all just me thinking "Man, what the hell is going on?"

Originally Posted by NrElAx

Well that's not fully true, because I believe that logical thinking and things that involve logical thinking can really help during a wbtb to become lucid. I mean it can help turn on your frontal lobe which will help a lot. That's what galantamine does as a lucid aid, which in return helps a lot with becoming lucid. But I definatly agree that awareness is the number one thing. I believe the best way Is to go throughout the day being as aware of yourself and everything around you as possible. I think that stopping a few times a day and really observing your surrounding and recognizing what and where you are in that period of time.

I think your right.
So maybe try mixing ADA with Logic, and see what happens.
Also maybe try WBTB, and during the period, focus of logical thinking, and be aware of your surroundings?

I also feel like it's an awareness thing and that awareness allows us to apply logic to what we're seeing. Most of the time in a non-lucid it's almost like I'm watching a movie and I'm in it at the same time... And in movies we take whatever is spoon-fed to us as reality and let ourselves be absorbed into that created reality regardless of how silly the whole thing seems when you look back at it. If during a movie you become aware of the fact that certain things are pulled out of someone's ass as a plot crutch, you start to look at that movie in a completely different light, right? I do at least. I think it's a similar concept.

Originally Posted by NightSpy2

Also maybe try WBTB, and during the period, focus of logical thinking, and be aware of your surroundings?

I'm not sure how necessary the focus on logic and awareness is for a WBTB? If that helps then thats great since we're all different, but for me personally when I had a successful WBTB I immediately went back to sleep (less than 5 minutes after waking up) and focused only on creating the dream I was about to enter and reminding myself that I was about to be in a dream. Even though the WILD failed I very quickly gained that awareness in the dream.

I'm not sure how necessary the focus on logic and awareness is for a WBTB? If that helps then thats great since we're all different, but for me personally when I had a successful WBTB I immediately went back to sleep (less than 5 minutes after waking up) and focused only on creating the dream I was about to enter and reminding myself that I was about to be in a dream. Even though the WILD failed I very quickly gained that awareness in the dream.

So did you become lucid? I dont understand what you mean by <>I very quickly gained that awareness in the dream<> ??
And what Im trying to say about the logic, is like, for example,
If in a dream, you see something.. No, hold on. For example, during your daily day to day life, you see a chair in the middle of a room. You know that this chair can stand, because it has a physical presence, and it is supported by four legs, somewhat equidistant from each other, so therefore, 'Logically' it can stand, right? So then, if your in a dream for example, and you some random, irregular shape or object, Impossible object then, if your used to thinking logically, you will know that its not possible. Therefore, it will probably be a dream sign, and you will become lucid.. You know what I mean??

I dont know if it will work, but eh.. Just a thought.

Yes, I did become lucid. What I meant was I gained awareness of the fact that I was dreaming, sorry to be confusing. I shouldn't have used that word in that sentence.

I do get what you're saying. The steering wheel in my car being on the wrong side jolted me into lucidity one time (but I woke up) so I'm not disagreeing with you per se, just trying to point out that for the most part no matter how logical we try to be we still overlook those things. Which is why I've noticed some of the members here saying that reality checks generally don't cause you to become lucid and are useful only after you think you are lucid.. That didn't make sense to me at first, but I've got plenty of things written down in my personal dream journal that I would have absolutely called BS on in real life but because I was floating through the dream with no awareness, logic did not apply.

I think intention, and creative attention towards becoming lucid have a lot to do with becoming lucid...though I'm no authority on lucid dreaming.

I'm not sure if "awareness" is a distinct thing at all. I think it's built up by attention, logic, knowledge, and focus. Maybe some more. I haven't thought too hard on the subject. You need logic and knowledge to understand something. You need attention and focus to know it's there. If you don't understand it in some respect, you'll dismiss it and lose your focus of it and forget it is there. So for lucid dreaming, you need to pay attention and focus on your surroundings and you need to know that you are dreaming, know what you want to do, and reason out how best to accomplish the task.

Originally Posted by Rawracookie

I'm not sure if "awareness" is a distinct thing at all. I think it's built up by attention, logic, knowledge, and focus. Maybe some more. I haven't thought too hard on the subject. You need logic and knowledge to understand something. You need attention and focus to know it's there. If you don't understand it in some respect, you'll dismiss it and lose your focus of it and forget it is there. So for lucid dreaming, you need to pay attention and focus on your surroundings and you need to know that you are dreaming, know what you want to do, and reason out how best to accomplish the task.

Very true. I feel like awareness has a lot to it and is a combination of exactly what you said.

Originally Posted by NrElAx

Very true. I feel like awareness has a lot to it and is a combination of exactly what you said.

Allow me to disagree. Awareness does not equal to logic. Awareness is being a passive observer of what is happening, it is a very broad overview, without a particular focus or intent. At the same time, logic seeks to rationally prove or disprove something. Awareness is "just being", while logic is more like an intent to be logical. The distinction betwen the two becomes quite obvious as one goes deeper into a meditative/visualization state (for example HI). Let's say I have a glimpse of an HI Image. With awareness I may be aware of that and the fact that I'm seeing HI. But if I try to be logical about it, the attention instantly snaps to the image, and the image disintegrates.

Now, while deep in a dream, a dream scene may be able to survive such violent onslaught of logic, focus and intent, which may even bring lucidity as a side effect. While awareness brings the fact that you are dreaming just as another variable into the equation.

Awareness in its most basic usage means attentiveness. If you're aware, you're paying attention. In terms of lucid dreaming, however, the goal is to be actively attentive of your environment. Meaning, you need to pay attention to your environment and, in addition, be able to determine whether or not it's a dream (which requires logical processes). So the meaning of awareness is kind of skewed when you describe it as a tool in becoming lucid. But essentially the latter is what is being referred to in the context of lucid dreaming. I hope this settles the confusion.

Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

I've been rather frustrated lately by my almost constant inability to lucid dream. Since pretty much the beginning of my attempts to intentionally lucid dream I actually noticed a decline in my ability to easily slip in and out of dreams, and now I am almost altogether unable to lucid dream on-demand. Couldn't I just go with DILD or MILD or one of those other induction techniques? Well, sure, and I have. And I've even discovered some of my own techniques along the way. And they really do work. But I've just realized something lately that makes me wonder if all these techniques are kind of missing the point.

The reason for this is not complicated...in fact, I discovered it by just going back to the basics to see what I was working with, instead of just trying to do ANOTHER technique. So I started with the question: what is a lucid dream, in the physical sense? I know what a lucid dream is in the definitive sense, but what does a lucid dream consist of in our real, physical world? And, more importantly, how can I activate this part of my existence every single night, without having to ruin my life during the day just so I can have a few minutes of excitement at night?

The answer: logic.

That's where lucid dreams consist: the logic portion of our brains; that part that shuts down during the night unless otherwise forcibly re-activated via external means (i.e. reality checks, for example).

But wait, there's more. It gets even simpler. If the logic portion of my brain is where lucid dreams are drawn from, and all I have to do in order to become lucid in a dream is to switch this part of my brain on one way or another...then do I really have to focus on dreams at all in order to go lucid? If I think logically in any way, shape, or form, I will know when I am dreaming and when I am not, as a natural side-effect.

Now, the question is, then, how can we cause ourselves to simply become more logical in our thinking to the point that we are habitually making logical observations about our environments without even making conscious effort to do so?

Discuss.

I love you.

Peolpe are saying that they have non lucids where they think logically and this wont work but what my belief is that maybe they do alot of logic thinking during the day so it carries on into the dream but for people who are like me who watch cartoons and read fictional things most of the time without questioning anything or thinking logically, unlogical things will carry on into their dream so when they practice thinking logically they will pick it up and question it and There Goes the big RC