Is my mind trying to fight back?

I've recently started a dream journal, where I have noted the details of the dreams and underlined any continuous patterns. I've been doing it for the past four days.

Prior to finding out about lucid dreaming and creating a dream journal, my dreams were very similar and involved the same characters and themes.

However, since creating a dream journal, my dreams have (so far) been different. They have produced new characters and new themes.

Strangely enough, one pattern that has been very strong in past dreams involves a family member of whom I have vicious arguments with. She cropped up in my dream last night, but for the first time I was being kind and sympathetic to her. Therefore, I presume my mind did not recognise this as a sign.

It just feels like my mind knows I am trying to inflict lucidity by recognising patterns and signs, and is trying to prevent this.

I have yet to reach lucidity, by the way.

What do you think?

I think that as you pay more attention to your dreams, the stories change for a reason. You're consciously giving attention to the things your mind has been "telling you about", so you subconsciously create more stories to tell yourself. This isn't a bad thing; it's a natural evolution that should be encouraged, more than anything else.

It's also possible that your dreams didn't remain static before, but that you're just remembering more of them now.

Quote:

---

Strangely enough, one pattern that has been very strong in past dreams involves a family member of whom I have vicious arguments with. She cropped up in my dream last night, but for the first time I was being kind and sympathetic to her. Therefore, I presume my mind did not recognise this as a sign.

---

It's also possible that on some level, you're beginning to recognize that you're in a dream, and that you're acting as such. You're avoiding conflicts and settling disputes (possibly dealing with your own unresolved emotions), which is really beneficial to yourself.

Quote:

---

It just feels like my mind knows I am trying to inflict lucidity by recognising patterns and signs, and is trying to prevent this.

---

I don't think so. Your mind is your own, and it's working in your interests. That said, "your mind" might not recognize that you're aiming for lucidity, at this point. On one level (subconsciously), you're trying to resolve conflict. On another level (consciously), you're aiming for lucidity. These two goals don't need to be in opposition to each other.

Allow your dreams to change; the patterns will still be there. Even if the end result is different, you should still be able to find common themes in many of your dreams. Above all, keep your dream journal, improve your recall, and don't give up.

You should use the sudden change of direction in your dreams as a dream sign.

I've found that most of the dreams I remember when I don't keep a dream journal are pretty similar. As my recall improves, the stories change because I simply remember more of them. I don't think your mind can fight lucidity. People dream the same things all over the world for a reason. Nobody know what reason, but these are my favorite theories...

Random processing (your brain discarding/assimilating all the random thoughts and feelings of your life)
Memory consolidation (when you dream of themes from recent events, studies show your memory improves after REM sleep)
Emotional processing (when you face extreme versions of emotions you feel in real life such as love, betrayal, guilt, kindness, etc. Sometimes these become nightmares).

Check out Dream - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for the low down on other theories.

I've been developing the same dream sign!

vicious hostility towards my family members, and others really.. quite worrying, but whatever helps the lucidity cause eh

I would suggest that anyone who believes that they are not mind, or that they are different from themselves has a much larger problem than they realize.

You're trying to "inflict" lucidity and your mind is "fighting" back?

This sort of language implies that you're thinking of achieving lucidity as some sort of struggle that you need to force, a conflict that you need to win. You might try to thinking of it more in terms of "allowing" it to happen, naturally, on its own.