Why not every time we try?

I know this question has probably been asked before. I did a search but the results were too vague...maybe I didn't ask the question properly.

My question is: Once we have learned to do Lucid Dreaming, why can't we do it at will? What prevents us from having a Lucid Dream every time we try?

I've noticed that the amount of Lucid Dreams that I have decreases slightly after I've had a good week or month. The same techniques that produced 7 LD's in February for me have produced only 2 so far in March. My average is about 3-4 per month.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to why it's such a hit or miss thing when you use the same techniques every time?

State of mind? Physical condition? Any ideas? Maybe it's better not to be able to have them at will...it makes it that much better when we do have one.

6

I'm no natural and I LD just by wanting to. Took me quite a bit of work to find out how, but it's basically confidence and a little bit of mindset switching. You have to know that you can LD on will, consciously and subconsciously. That's the essential bit of your mindset. Just a feeling of self-control and maybe a lack of internal-conflict too.

Good Question:

My theory on that is that our minds tend to react to things that are new ie. the new techniques we try. If we try an old technique rather than a new one our mind (atleast mine) tends to see it as an ordinary routine, which makes the mind unintentionally reject it as used and uneffective, making us non-lucid. However when we try a new technique we're instantly more likely to dream lucid, simply because the mind thinks it will work and proceeds to do so.

If we were 100% sure of having a lucid dream every night, our minds would have a lucid dream, every night. We've had so many non-lucids that we simply made a habit of it. Its like that saying too, "the rich get richer the poorer get poorer" same is true with LDs, the more of a habit it is, the more you have, and the more the non-lucid dream habit is, the more of those you have instead.

As Gothlark said, its all in your confidence and the feeling of being able to do it without effort that truely will bring you LDs every night based on how confident you are. But for many of this, its the chicken and the egg. You can't really have confidence without alot of LDs to back it up, and you can't really have alot of LDs without alot of confidence... So we usually end up somewhere in between... A few LDs every once and a while. You have to build that up, and after all success breeds success.

Another theory is that our conscious mind is untrained in simply staying conscious as we fall asleep... if we could simply do this with ease, we'd be sure to be lucid the whole night, everynight.

Hope that helps.

-Daniel

LD'ing is just like any other skill. The basics can be learned and applied quickly, but with mixed results. With time and practice, you'll get better. True mastery requires effort, time, and dedication. For example, almost everybody can ride a bike. We learn fairly quickly. Some of us leave it at that, and may be a little wobbly. For those who ride more often, it becomes second nature, and they have great stability and control. Then there are the truly dedicated technical riders (like trials and extreme mountain biking) which require years to become proficient at.

The reason for all of this is that we subconcsiously take note of what works and what doesn't, in almost every little detail, and continually apply it. Techniques that are altogether new must be learned consciously, but they are improved through time mainly by trial and error that occurs below our conscious thoughts. While you can tell a computer how to do something, and it will do what you tell it perfectly, it is limited to that, because it does not learn. Through the learning process, we can adapt to varying conditions and situations, but not instantly.

At least, that's my theory. Habit definitely plays a roll too, like Syntex said, though in a different way.