Intent in Lucid Dreaming; Break that Dry-Spell, Escape the Technique Rut

Introduction

A warning: this is going to be long. most importantly this is not supposed to be any attack or negative criticism of the hard work that goes into the invention and writing of lucid dreaming techniques and guides

This forum is full of threads started by beginners stating that whatever technique they are using just isn’t working for them. To answer the question of exactly why lucid dreaming is difficult we have to consider that to become lucid you are rebelling against a lifetime of conditioning, and a vast amount of mental information, that has programmed you to be unaware and non-lucid in your dreams. While on a conscious level you may be enthused, excited, and fired up for lucid dreaming on your first night, as far as your unconscious is concerned lucidity is a completely foreign concept. You simply haven’t built the bridges and forged the neural connections in your unconscious that say that you are a lucid dreamer.

While this process can be bypassed to some degree through phenomena of auto and hypnotic suggestion (which are designed to feed information directly into the unconscious mind), for the majority of techniques, and the majority of people, becoming a ‘natural’ lucid dreamer is a matter of time and hard work. Time and work is necessary to replace the neural circuitry of a non-lucid dreamer, some succeed, most fail.


Any technique can yield lucidity on a regular basis, all that matters is mindset

Through experimentation with a wide range of DILD techniques, as well as looking at the effects of beliefs, confidence and intention on lucid dreaming, I have come to the conclusion that:

either

Any technique has the potential to yield lucid dreaming on a nightly basis over time, all that is important is the dreamer’s mindset and, above all, self-belief

or

Technique is entirely irrelevant and unnecessary when compared to the importance of the dreamer’s intent and lucid dreaming mindset

To explain why I believe this I’m going to explore the idea of ‘method’. For any lucid dreaming technique to be truly a method it has to be a) valid and b) reliable. No lucid dreaming technique is either of these things. Validity is the degree to which an output is caused by an input, in this case the output is lucidity and the input is any technique (say, ADA). I you practice ADA and you have a lucid dream, was it caused by that technique? You may think so, but the next day you practice ADA and hey wait a second, no lucid dream, what’s going on? You’ve replicated the same input (ADA) and yet the output (lucidity) is different, in other words the technique is not reliable. In a lab if you react oxygen and hydrogen you will always get hydrogen oxide, water. But as we all know from bitter experience, lucid dreaming is nowhere near as clear cut.


Intention

There must be some other cause, some other variable, outside of the technique that caused lucidity the first time and was absent the second time. Intent. The word intent comes from the Latin root ‘intendere’ which means to ‘stretch toward’ or ‘aim at’. As dreamers we intend, we stretch our will toward the goal of lucidity, a technique is a vehicle for this intent.

Silverbullet has written an excellent (if vague) guide to directing intent towards the goal of lucid dreaming: http://www.dreamviews.com/f12/silver...eaming-117015/, but because he kinda didn’t explain intent too well there was a hostile reaction from some towards what was seen as an attempt to attack the hard work of lucid dreamers out there who had worked to write the various tutorials on the site and so it has slipped into relative obscurity. The message behind it was important, lucid dreaming isn’t about any technique, it’s about you, as an individual.

In the ‘Art of Dreaming’ by Carlos Casteneda Don Juan explains that intent is how ‘sorcerers’ ‘do without doing’. That’s one way of putting it, but I believe intent is the active process by which we form the unconscious mindset, the neural connections, (that I mentioned earlier) of being a lucid dreamer.

Techniques are vehicles for intent, our conscious mind needs to attach our attempts at lucid dreaming to some concrete process in order for our unconscious mind to get on with the important work of intending.

That is why I am not saying to abandon technique or that technique is bad, some people can intend without a technique but the vast majority of us need some vector through which to channel our intent.

What’s important though is that you realise that any technique at all can be this vehicle, all the you need is to realise that it is you doing the lucid dreaming, not the technique. The reason we get stuck in ruts, dry spells, there are a number of reasons that we may not lucid dream on any given night (alcohol, fatigue, stress), but what causes you to become lucid? It’s certainly not 10 RCs each day, it’s how those RCs direct your intention.


Making lucid dreaming about YOU again

Review your early goals, we all make the most ambitious and exciting goals when we first learn of the possibilities of lucid dreaming, recapture that excitement.
Repeat to yourself a simple affirmation, make it present tense and positive, ‘I am a natural lucid dreamer’, really feel the meaning behind the words, so that get that excited feeling in your stomach.
Meditate, meditation is a great tool to connect with your inner mental strength and renewing self-confidence. It can also give you access to states at which your unconscious mind is open to suggestion.


See Also:
This should be required viewing: Advanced lucid dreaming: part 6 - YouTube although it’s nominally about meditation, the real message behind is to put faith in yourself, not techniques
http://www.dreamviews.com/f11/how-ta...eaming-120910/

I agree that intent is the key ingredient for lucidity. I also think that a dreamer needs to learn some key skills. Off the top of my head, I would list:
The ability to calm your thoughts.
The ability to relax your body.
The ability to willfully direct your awareness.
These things need to be learned and practiced. Of course, behind any sort of learning is your intention and willpower. You need to want to learn. You need to have the willpower to practice and change your habits. Thanks for the inspiring words :D

Ctharlhie:

You are a god.

Thanks for posting this, and I deeply hope that everyone pays attention to, and cares to discuss at length, your words. Intention, exactly as you describe it, is critical to LD'ing, and is too often ignored, or lost in the glow of all those "promising" techniques.

Nice work!

Excellent post! I agree, that intent, believing in yourself and positive mindset is huge part of success. That's the 'dark matter' that's invisible, but makes everything work. This should be a sticky, or a tutorial. Happy dreams:)

Looks pretty good , does saying 'tonight I will have many lucid dreams' work If I haven't had a lucid in awhile, my uncon. mind probably doesn't even know what lucid dreaming is anymore lmao

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I agree that intent is the key ingredient for lucidity. I also think that a dreamer needs to learn some key skills. Off the top of my head, I would list:
The ability to calm your thoughts.
The ability to relax your body.
The ability to willfully direct your awareness.
These things need to be learned and practiced. Of course, behind any sort of learning is your intention and willpower. You need to want to learn. You need to have the willpower to practice and change your habits. Thanks for the inspiring words

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Yes those are excellent skills that an aspiring oneironaut should learn, but they aren't essential. When I had my first lucid dream I didn't know how to calm my thoughts, relax my body, direct my awareness, and my lucid dreams after that weren't caused by those skills. What I'm trying to address is what newbies lack when they can't achieve a first lucid dream, what more experienced lucid dreamers have lost when they have a prolonged dry spell.

Intent isn't motivation, intent can be perfectly present without motivation. Look at natural lucid dreamers, many of whom find it mildly comical when they learn about the extraordinary lengths some of us oneironauts go to in order to attain what they take for granted. In other words, their unconscious has been so strongly hardwired for lucidity over they years that they don't even need to try. They are 'doing without doing'.
I define intent as 'I want and know I can', when you start out your want may be very high while your know I can may be very low, that's how newbies get stuck in a cycle of going from technique to technique without success, they mistakenly put all their belief in other's work rather than their own ability. In cognitive psychology this is called 'loci of control', how far you think your life is subject to your internal abilities, or external influences. A related concept is 'self-efficacy', how much you believe you are capable of imitating an observed behaviour, in this case successful lucid dreaming.

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Looks pretty good , does saying 'tonight I will have many lucid dreams' work If I haven't had a lucid in awhile, my uncon. mind probably doesn't even know what lucid dreaming is anymore lmao

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If you are able to intend easily without needing to channel it through a technique then simple auto-suggestion like that will be very successful. Otherwise find a technique you like and are comfortable with and use that. Like I said, any technique will do, the most important thing is to believe in YOU. :)

@Sageous and Gab, thanks for the positive feedback :D

Intent increases with success and declines with failure, I went through a dry spell recently when I had a phase of unsuccessfully trying to WILD, I literally lost my 'I know I can'. This is why the more lucids you have and the more frequently you have them builds exponentially, you learn to access the neural pathways of 'I am a natural lucid dreamer' more easily each time and the pathways get stronger. I think that's what Silverbullet was trying to get across in his thread. He had 200 lucids in one year or something crazy, simply because he knew he could.

Very excellent tutorial :)
When I was in dryspell, I thought maybe the dryspell comes when intention lacks because IT IS the BASIC key to all things you wanna achieve. But I wasn't really motivated enough to have LD so I kinda forced myself to set strong intent to do WILD during night, and guess what... I did WILD that night :P
Sometimes it's hard 'not' to think simple, but the answers are always simple! just set your intent with positive emotion and confidence. that's really it. all these -ILD misc lucid dreaming techniques are just there to help you to succeed for one night only... why not have LD everyday just by having the right mindset? :)

I love you and silverbullet now.
But I feel for some (like me) this knowledge can be harmful to your strife.
'Knowing' that I will lucid dream tonight is tough. The doubts only come to me because I don't want them to.
When school ends I will dump a ton more of effort into this though.

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Originally Posted by Aeolus

I love you and silverbullet now.
But I feel for some (like me) this knowledge can be harmful to your strife.
'Knowing' that I will lucid dream tonight is tough. The doubts only come to me because I don't want them to.
When school ends I will dump a ton more of effort into this though.

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I can't see how knowledge can be harmful. In many situations in life it's useful to be able to 'step outside' of your circumstances and see things from a more objective viewpoint, such as when you're in a job or relationship that isn't working out. Recognition of a problem allows you to take active steps to change things.

It's ok to doubt, we rationalise things to make sense of the world, part of that is to take alternate viewpoints and questions things. You can doubt, acknowledge that doubt, and then return to (what should be your default) stance of relaxed and utmost confidence. When I'm on a roll (more than 3 nights of consecutive lucidity) I can doubt and still believe and still achieve a lucid dream that night. It doesn't really take any effort, it should be the kind of knowledge and confidence that you have in the self-evident truths of the world; the earth is round, the sky is blue, etc. Lucidity can be something you don't even need to think about.

I'll stress again that the key is to find a technique you enjoy and are comfortable with, and that means not too mentally taxing, you can't expect to lucid dream (or achieve much else in your life) if you're mentally exhausted from reality checking every five minutes, and then direct confidence on yourself not the technique.

The simplest advice I can give you is find your own technique and then follow the steps outlined in Silverbullet's thread. :)

So, in a basic sentance: Believe in YOU, go with a technique you are comfortable with, and go for it?.

Yes :)

Ok,... Ok... Thank you. I believe you helped me alot, I ... hope. :)

Thank you Ctharlhie, you did a great job at helping people understand this concept! I can not fully express my gratitude.
You are an intellectual god.

Why does this thread get so little attention? I had no lucid dream for a week and just read SilverBullets whole thread yesterday and set my intent. I had a LD again. Before going to bed I really knew I would have a LD.
I found listening to a song that gave me a great feeling while imagining that awesome feeling of becoming lucid helped a lot. This is like Inception :D Plant an idea into your subconscious.
In the dream I just realised that I am dreaming. Didn't even had to do a reality check, the dream was crystal clear and that chocolate ice-cream I had was just amazing! :D Thank you!
I am definitely going to continue to do this and will report my success.

Is this basically just a strong version of MILD?

Omg omg omg! I've read your thread yesterday and last night I had a LD after 6 months of dry spell! :banana:

I've also read ‘The Art of Dreaming’ by Carlos Casteneda and it's very interesting, but after the second gate of dreaming it becomes a little wild. I'd like to read someday a review and thoughts about the book by a more experienced member of the forum, from our point of view.

Thanks again Ctharlhie, you're the Boss! :cool:

^^ Want a brief review from an arguably very experienced LD'er? I'll bite:

I've read thousands of books in my life, and have a rule of reading them to the end, no matter what I thought. Castaneda's book, The Art of Dreaming, is not only one of the very few that I stopped reading before finishing, it is the only one that I ever threw against a wall in disgust.

It was as if Castaneda was sitting in a bar one day and, after a few drinks, was told by a friend about lucid dreaming. Then, after jotting a quick definition of "the art" on a cocktail napkin, he went home that night and wrote his book about it, making up pretty much everything that wasn't on the napkin. Then he brought it to his publisher the next day who, after writing a fat check to Castaneda, sent it straight to the presses without even a thought to double-checking the content. Why bother? Anything Castaneda wrote at the time sold; he didn't care if it was all made up.

The man knows nothing about LD'ing, period, and used his reputation as an ersatz pop-mystic to sell lots of copies of this very misleading, disingenuous book. That was wrong. From this we got a legion of fans whose personal LD growth may have been hampered from buying into the crap Castaneda invented (like those gates). That is very wrong. He should have left the bar without the napkin... come to think of it, maybe he did, and that book was based on what he remembered hearing...

I doubt you'll see much agreement with me on this forum, but you asked.

Say what you may, I have learned many things from the carlos castaneda books.
One thing I'll say is that Carlos can be as much of a dumbass as any average man.
But the quotes he writes down from Don Juan are very helpful.
For example:

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Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary.

This question is one that only a very old man asks. Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.


Before you embark on any path ask the question: Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him. At that point very few men can stop to deliberate, and leave the path. A path without a heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.

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I think it's funny that you would throw it at a wall in disgust. IMO Shows that you have some worldviews that need breaking.
I have noticed that if something VERY true comes up to me in my life I won't want to accept it more than anything else.
It will nag at me in the back of my head, while I go, "nah that's totally wrong"
Only to later realize, its oh so true.
But whatever man, believe what you want, why should I give a shit.

^^ Hey, the guy asked for a review, and I gave it. No need to insult, I think, or to assume you can understand or judge my (or anyone's) world view from a single post on a website.

You really believe Don Juan was real?

It does not matter even a little, if don juan is real. Not to me.
The information I have learned matters.

I know he asked for a review, and truly, there is no need for anything.
You say what you think and I say what I think. What we think is just what we think.
I haven't experienced what your life was like, so I can't see from your point of view so easily.
I have had my own life experiences, that have lead me to believe certain things.

^^ Fair enough, and very true.

Also, and for what it's worth: I was reviewing a single book by Castaneda, and not his entire body of work. Some of his stuff, as you noted, is truly insightful, whether Don Juan is real or not. I just think Castaneda may have overstepped his own bounds in his attempt to discuss lucid dreaming in that one book.

:cheers:

CTHULHU RISING!

Yeah, once I lost my motive, I stopped having LDs because of many different factors

I love "The Art of Dreaming". Sageous, what was that to upset you so much in the book? Most experienced lucid dreamers i know dont use any techniques at ll. They simply lucid dream.

What upset me was global, I think, not specific. If you really read what Castaneda has to say about lucid dreaming, it appears he understands very little about its experience and, rather than investigate in order to offer his many followers some legitimate knowledge, he simply made up a bunch of mystical-sounding things and presented them as The Truth. That struck me as extremely disingenuous, especially by a guy who whose readers tend to accept as true anything he says.

Though this may be a bit of a dodge, I read the book many years ago, and memory and general laziness prevent me from going into specifics. If you'd like to present reasons why The Art of Dreaming is a valid take on dreaming and lucid dreaming, go for it -- I'm interested, could certainly be wrong, and others might appreciate the defense.

Also: Yes, I personally don't stand too firmly behind any of these techniques (I was LD'ing long before most of them were invented in their modern forms), have a real problem with the elevation of technique over experience on these forums, and always thought I simply lucid dreamed. So I agree; but what does that have to do with Castaneda's book?

That video has really boosted my self confidence. I also watched part 7 which was equally about not relying on a technique as a "gateway" to lucidity, but more the affirmation that YOU know you can do it. Thanks!

first off - YES YES YES AND YES!! thank you for writing this @Ctharlhie... more words like these need to be written. the intention behind your efforts drives you forth towards the goal. setting your intention and knowing it is true and pure. now that can be the hard part..

all i would like to add is that meditation helps.. to set your intent, to realize your intent. raising your general awareness, through meditation. no matter what technique you use. will also raise your awareness during sleep. as a person that mainly has DILD through natural occurrence (i almost NEVER do RC's) the raised awareness helps me to just suddenly "realize" that hey, i'm dreaming.

I dont think "The Art of Dreaming" needs a defender at all:)
I read the book many times and it always struck me how my experience corresponds to the one described (to the certain extend). There are lot of things in the field of lucid dreaming that can not be described in words. So Carlos did it in the best way one could. And i tell you i read a lot of books on the subject.
It's a pity you took the book this way.
Sometimes circumstances like lighting in photography. The same thing might look different depending on where lights are.

Fair enough.

In terms of defense, though, I meant less a fending off of attacks (which in this case are incredibly rare here), but more a clear description of why the book has value, and what exactly Castaneda brought to the table.

Okay if you don't bother, though!

I used this technique now since my last post 3 weeks ago and I had a lucid dream almost every night. This night I had 4. They were all Dreams were I just knew I was dreaming. They were all very long and I don't remember anything before I became lucid.

This is just amazing! :) My subconscious mind seems just to know when I am dreaming. Before I fall asleep at night I know that I will recognize I am in a dream. And I think the same when I wake up during the night.

I can't believe that it's even possible. From no LDs and no Recall I went to severeal LDs almonst every night in under a month.
I find those threads most helpful:

http://www.dreamviews.com/f12/lucid-...-later-139114/

http://www.dreamviews.com/f12/silver...eaming-117015/

Loooo, it's really amazing. Keep it this way:)

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Originally Posted by Loooo

I used this technique now since my last post 3 weeks ago and I had a lucid dream almost every night. This night I had 4. They were all Dreams were I just knew I was dreaming. They were all very long and I don't remember anything before I became lucid.

This is just amazing! :) My subconscious mind seems just to know when I am dreaming. Before I fall asleep at night I know that I will recognize I am in a dream. And I think the same when I wake up during the night.

I can't believe that it's even possible. From no LDs and no Recall I went to severeal LDs almonst every night in under a month.
I find those threads most helpful:

Be lucid now, so you can be lucid later.

SilverBullet's Newly Revised Key to Lucid Dreaming

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This is really heartening to see, great stuff, Loooo. When I'm 'on a roll' and basically intending I too get most of my DILDs from being lucid straight from the beginning of the dream without need to reality check, it's just so clear that what I am experiencing is a dream. Seeing as people are still finding this thread useful I'll outline a few of my more recent ideas.

I have, however, changed my stance. As such there is no 'non-technique', everything and anything you do to lucid dream is technique, even thinking about lucid dreaming is effectively informal auto-suggestion. As far as you actively lucid dream, there is no getting out of technique.

Building on this, intent is not a 'thing' per se, it is not a technique or process in itself but an effect of technique. As I elaborated in the original post the brain is plastic and will engineer itself according to stimulus, lucid dreaming is a positive feedback loop, the more lucid dreams you have the more you will have, as Percylucid said in his MILD class. You practice technique, which leads to LDs, which leads to a lucid attitude, which forms a feedback loop. It is my theory that we can get in the middle of this process. Biological psychology asserts that emotion, cognition and behaviour arises from physical conditions of the brain. However, it is becoming increasingly clear in neuropsychology that thoughts and behaviours also influence the brain in the other direction. Establishing a 'lucid mindset' brings about lucid dreaming.

I now see intent as interacting in a reciprocal relationship with awareness. To use an analogy, your awareness is like a bow, the brute strength of your lucid dreaming, while intent is the arrow, the more refined the straighter and truer the arrow will cut through the air. Both the bow and the arrow depend on each other for success. Awareness is the main work of lucid dreaming, reality checking, reverse reality checking, ADA, mindfulness, lucid dreaming, meditation, are practices in the active element of lucid dreaming. Intent can be 'helped along' by building the attitude of a lucid dreamer, ala Silverbullet and as Loooo has discovered.

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I'll also chuck in a few words on Castaneda. The Art of Dreaming has a massive bullshit quotient. Those abstractions of the 'gates', the 'inorganic beings', the metaphysics, all harmful alike to anyone getting into lucid dreaming who may pick it up. I only find the second chapter to be truly useful in the way it details the attitude of a lucid dreamer.

From http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...-dreaming.html

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7th- This is a dream. For the first couple weeks, when you begin to get serious, go outside, in a place away from everything, and state to your environment, this is a dream. If you are around a tree, state aloud, that is a dream tree, and know it inside your mind. Feel the dreamlike state of reality around you. Reality is a dream. The body you possess right now is a completely temporary body, it will be gone from your location in 7 years, all the atoms substituted for another. Know this, don't think it, feel the dream, and know it is a dream. Doing this in reality is the first step to doing it in the dream. Once you begin to do it daily in the dream state, you can stop doing it in reality, as then you will feel the difference. First, do this for about 30 minutes every day for a couple weeks. It will cause a dramatic shift in your awareness, and allow for it to be activated in your dreams. Its kind of like a primer on the engine.

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O. M. G. I *did* this, I thought it up myself! I think I did this leading up to one of my best LD hot streaks ever. I somehow thought it wasn't showing results and so stopped it....time to return!

That's a great post!

^ Yeah it's a really powerful concept that crops up in a lot of the literature.

Quote from Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen Laberge:

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1. Day practice
During the day, "under all condition" think continuously that "all things are of the substance of dreams" (that is, that your experience is a construction of your mind) and resolve that you will realise their nature.

2. Night Practice
At night, when about to go to sleep, "firmly resolve" that you will comprehend the dream state - that is, realise that it is not real, but a dream.

Commentary
Because we dream of things that have concerned us recently, it is likely that if you spend enough time thinking during the day that "everything is of the substance of dreams," then eventually you will entertain that thought while you are dreaming.

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And, from The Tibetan Yogas of Sleep and Dreams by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche:

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Throughout the day, practice the recognition of the dream-like nature of life until the same recognition begins to manifest in your dreams. Upon waking in the morning, think to yourself "I am awake in a dream." When you enter the kitchen, recognise it as a dream kitchen. Pour dream milk into dream coffee. "It's all a dream," you think to yourself, "this is a dream." Remind yourself of this constantly throughout the day.

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A powerful but simple practice is to try to maintain presence in the body continuously throughout the day. Feel the body as a whole. The mind is worse than crazed monkey, jumping from one thing to the next, it has a hard time focusing on one thing. But the body is a source of experience more stable and and constant, and using it as an anchor for awareness will help the mind grow calmer and more focused.

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^^ I always had a small problem with this activity.

I want to say it's because I don't think it is a good idea to question reality while definitely in reality. calling a place that you know is real a dream, and then trying to believe it, is grounds for cognitive dissonance, I think. Doing so might feel a little silly (and thus not work), and when doing this exercise during a NLD you will simply experience the exact same thing you do in waking life (i.e., you will think that all things are the substance of dreams while knowing that the scene you are in is real).

This activity also has a potential ADA-like problem: focus too much on your surroundings, and you run the risk of elevating their importance over that of your own presence, and lucidity might accidentally become more elusive while false lucids more likely.

Okay, that's what I want to say. Unfortunately, I think my real problem with this exercise is that it never worked for me... so maybe I'm biased. I simply cannot move through reality while assuming everything is a dream with any sincerity. and besides, I very very rarely dream of anything that had anything to do with what I was doing during the day, so these exercises are fairly useless for me.

I also thought I heard Laberge backpedal on this concept a bit, deciding that it is not such a good idea to question reality when you are definitely in it, but I may have heard him out of context.

Sorry for the negativity on this; I hate disagreeing with dream yogis, but I felt it worth mentioning that there may be possible setbacks to imagining everything is a dream or, worse, convincing yourself that everything is a dream...feel free to ignore!

I practiced until I started getting persistent feelings of unreality/depersonalisation, then I stopped it pretty quickly. Imagining your life is a dream probably isn't something that should be mixed with generalised anxiety..

People have been known to go mad or fall into depression when biting off more than they could chew with meditation / following the buddhist path. There's a reason they teach you things in steps.

I imagine that if you just suddenly started thinking everything was a dream without fully understanding what meanings lie behind it, that it might very well mess you up.

Besides, I'm not fully convinced of forming "habits" that are meant to make their way into your dreams. I hardly ever remember any habits of mine appearing in my dreams and even if it might, forming such a strong new habit that it makes its way into every dream would take a ridiculous amount of time I would think.

I don't believe in "take 10 years to master lucid dreaming", even consistent meditation shows signs of changes within just weeks to months, it's just not as persistent. The awesome part of the brain isn't just how it can change but also how quickly it can change.

The key, I believe, is to do something correctly and mindfully. For example if you throw a ball every day without thinking about it (mindlessly), you can spend the next thousand years throwing the ball and you still won't learn anything knew. You have to be aware of what goes on when you are throwing the ball and make conscious changes to the way you throw it if you want to improve your ability, this goes for everything we do, if you do it mindlessly through shear repetition, you won't get anywhere.

Same with LDing, the way I see it if you just grow into the habit of doing something LD related every day and do it mindlessly, it won't improve your LD abilities. Repetition is important, but not mindless repetition.

Well I just woke from a short but sweet LD, breaking my almost-month-long dry spell, and went to bed thinking along the lines of Ctharlie's recent Intention post, and reading his links to posts about "abandon technique, know you can do it, be confident, relax, don't stress, meditate, etc.", so I think I will continue firmly along this path to see where it leads. It seems very promising (I'll still keep my vigilance and RRC, etc.).

When I did these dream walks, I usually added in a sense of "here *I* am in this dream." "Here I am, on a dream street, with dream cars and dream people, look there's a dream cloud in the dream sky, it's all a dream, I'm dreaming..." and so on. I never felt a sense of losing a grip on "reality" (for what is reality?).

And isn't it anathema to dream state recognition to have a mindset that *knows* you're not dreaming? I do not want that thought anywhere near my dreams: in my dreams I want to *know that I'm dreaming*. Maybe self-awareness is supposed to take care of that all by itself, but I'm not seeing that fruit yet, it seems a ways off.

When I'm dreaming non-lucidly, I don't feel like I'm dreaming. This leads me to the conclusion that at any time, I could actually be dreaming, and I want to be continuously vigilant of this possibility, so that I catch the dreaming moments. "Knowing" that I'm awake seems also completely counter to this, and to the mindset the dream yogis are talking about.

I've avoided the dream yogi book up to know, reading that it's really confusing, but I think that's a mistake, I'm going to get it pronto.

And also I can't believe I missed that part from LaBerge, time to re-read ETWOLD to see what else I notice now, 10 months after my first read of it.

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

When I did these dream walks, I usually added in a sense of "here *I* am in this dream." "Here I am, on a dream street, with dream cars and dream people, look there's a dream cloud in the dream sky, it's all a dream, I'm dreaming..." and so on. I never felt a sense of losing a grip on "reality" (for what is reality?).

And isn't it anathema to dream state recognition to have a mindset that *knows* you're not dreaming? I do not want that thought anywhere near my dreams: in my dreams I want to *know that I'm dreaming*. Maybe self-awareness is supposed to take care of that all by itself, but I'm not seeing that fruit yet, it seems a ways off.

When I'm dreaming non-lucidly, I don't feel like I'm dreaming. This leads me to the conclusion that at any time, I could actually be dreaming, and I want to be continuously vigilant of this possibility, so that I catch the dreaming moments. "Knowing" that I'm awake seems also completely counter to this, and to the mindset the dream yogis are talking about.

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You may have missed my point. It isn't about knowing that where you are is a dream, or reality. It's that, unless you have some mental illness or have made some curious global esoteric/religious decisions, you will know, on a visceral and very real level, that you are in reality no matter what you try to tell yourself during your walks. That knowledge goes very deep, to unconscious, even instinctual places. So, no matter how effectively you intellectualize that "I actually could be dreaming," your unconscious is saying "The hell we are! This stuff is real."

So, come dreamtime, your unconscious might just give you a NLD dream schema that mirrors this exercise... right down to an excited DC You believing that this is all could be a dream while you unconsciously know it is all real; not a very good combination for lucidity, I think. The unconscious is a very powerful engine, and fueling it with still more things to build an imagined external world that seems consistent to your DC self is not a great idea. And of course convincing it that reality is not real could be a troubling fuel in itself, for some.

Better, I think, to focus on your Self, and not on global observations that the entire external world is either real or a dream; it is more important than to remember that this dreamworld is you than it is to make the dreamworld something important in its own right (which I think is exactly what this exercise might do).

I'm not sure any of that made sense to anyone but me, and I may be the only one who finds it important, but I hope you consider it. And of course if it works for you on a consistent, post-placebo basis, than forget everything I said and have at it!

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I've avoided the dream yogi book up to know, reading that it's really confusing, but I think that's a mistake, I'm going to get it pronto.

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That is an excellent idea! I also think that at this point you will like find it more simplistic than confusing...

PS: You know, I did these last few posts without ever once reading the subject of this thread! I suppose that anything that breaks a dry spell is a good thing, so, though my caveat still stands, I do agree that this exercise might at least help a bit to get you back into dreaming mode. Dry spells are also a time when anything lucid is welcome, even dreams about being lucid, so I guess that exercise might make sense to do -- until the dry spell ends, of course!

It's great to hear that you managed to break your dry spell, FryingMan!

Your statement about 'knowing' you're dreaming reminds me of an idea I had a while back linked to the practice of imagining your life as a dream. Laberge once said:

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In the dream state, the only essential difference from waking is the relative absence of sensory input, which makes dreaming a special case of perception without sensory input.

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Which lead me to the conclusion that, rather than imagine that waking life as a dream, it would be more useful to recognise that all experience is synthesised by the brain.

This is to be found in the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who inspired by his readings of Hinduism and the concept of Maya (illusion) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, wrote that 'What we know is not a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees the sun, a hand that feels the earth.'

Could the attention to the constructed nature of all experience be the critical vigilance we have been discussing? Also, this mindset does not carry the same threat of mental illness (because it is simply mindful of the condition all experience).

EDIT: And certainly pick up the dream yoga book, it's no more confusing than the matters we preoccupy ourselves with here! I would also recommend Herman Hesse's Siddhartha which, while not directly about lucid dreaming, is certainly about waking up.

^^ What he said.

I get what you're saying. The quote from the Dream Yoga book seems pretty clear, though (dream kitchen, dream milk, dream coffee). What, Sageous (or Ctharlie, or anyone), do you think the dream yogis would say in response to your warnings of false lucids from this practice, and from it being counter to the goal of achieving lucidity?

Here it is again for convenience:

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Throughout the day, practice the recognition of the dream-like nature of life until the same recognition begins to manifest in your dreams. Upon waking in the morning, think to yourself "I am awake in a dream." When you enter the kitchen, recognise it as a dream kitchen. Pour dream milk into dream coffee. "It's all a dream," you think to yourself, "this is a dream." Remind yourself of this constantly throughout the day.

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And let me say that I have had maybe 1 or 2 false lucids, maybe. It is not a problem I have. My problem is t hat my "powerful unconscious" is just not cooperating and is keeping me non-lucid for very long periods of time. I just need that nudge, that hint, and boom, I'm lucid. So small a thing, yet so elusive, for so long. That's why I keep my mind on dreaming all through the day.

Maybe that's why I stopped before, I just couldn't maintain the enthusiastic illusion for long. ("The hell it is!").

But yeah, I definitely needed to shake things up.

Oh and I saw a dream crab last night (well, I saw a crab in a dream and said "oh look there's a crab", I did *not* think "there's a dream crab") after seeing a giant crab shaped cloud IWL previous in the evening and thinking "dream crab!"

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

I get what you're saying. The quote from the Dream Yoga book seems pretty clear, though (dream kitchen, dream milk, dream coffee). What, Sageous (or Ctharlie, or anyone), do you think the dream yogis would say in response to your warnings of false lucids from this practice, and from it being counter to the goal of achieving lucidity?

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I think the dream yogis would shake their heads and say, "Well, everything is a dream, isn't it?" The dream yoga perspective is drawn from a religious metaphysics that assumes that the world we encounter in waking life is not the real world, but a construct just like that of a dream, so it follows for them to assume that dreaming life is exactly like waking life, metaphysically speaking, and that you should approach both with the same non-dualistic perspective.

Also, I think lucid dreaming is very much a side-effect of dream yoga practice, and not its goal. That goal is essentially preparation of the mind for sleep yoga, which involves maintenance of consciousness in any physical state including death, as well as understanding the world through which that consciousness moves, eternally and non-dually. Or at least that's a brief summary of what I think the dream yoga perspective is, and I likely made a hash of it. If you're really curious, ask Sivason....he might even be able to tell you what I mean!

Though I admire the non-dualistic dream yoga approach to establishing your Self in dreams (where "reality" is non-dualistic), I am not a complete fan of the religious side of their practice... our physical world is one of energy and matter, and it moves along just fine without us, whether we like it or not. So I will find myself (often reluctantly) attaching mundane, probably unavoidable problems to some dream yoga practices, like pointing out that a mentally healthy person cannot truly convince herself that she is in a dream while awake; I think even the dream yogis probably spend much time doing this convincing.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Better, I think, to focus on your Self, and not on global observations that the entire external world is either real or a dream; it is more important than to remember that this dreamworld is you than it is to make the dreamworld something important in its own right (which I think is exactly what this exercise might do).

I'm not sure any of that made sense to anyone but me, and I may be the only one who finds it important, but I hope you consider it. And of course if it works for you on a consistent, post-placebo basis, than forget everything I said and have at it!

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I can definitely see your point, but I also want to explore this idea of mindful ADA with added critical reflection as far as we can, so with that in mind...

I don't think that false lucidity is a concept that really crops up in dream yoga. But then their whole concept of lucidity is radically different to the attitude found on this forum. For dream yogis lucidity is not the end goal pursued through the deployment of intricate techniques, for dream yogis lucidity is the technique, a tool to be used on the path to enlightenment. The achievement of non-dualistic rigpa, a dream state without dream scene or dream body, is a lucidity that makes even waking life look like a non-lucid dream (which it in many ways is), and the achievement of which would make regular old WILD a doddle.

Total control of the dream is practiced by dream yogis from their first lucid, there's no conception of the limitations we have imposed on ourselves as a community, such as sex waking you up, because the dream is understood on a philosophical level as without substance. Total dream control is exercised as a tool to increase mental flexibility and help on the path to enlightenment.

Obviously this is my own ignorant, orientalist take.

@Sageous; but to address your issue with the practice, there is an element of critical self-reflection, and I can't believe I didn't quote it earlier with the other material!

In the tibetan yogas of sleep and dreams there are two daytime practices. One of these is regarding everything in waking life as of the 'nature of dreams,' the other is to:

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direct the same lucid awareness to emotionally shaded reactions that occur in response to the elements of experience [...] when a reaction arises, remind yourself that you, the object and your reaction to the object are all dream. "This anger is a dream, this desire is a dream [...]" The truth of this statement becomes clear when you pay attention to the inner processes that produce emotional states: you literally dream them up through a complex interaction of thoughts, images, bodily states and sensations. Emotional reactivity does not originate "out there"in objects. It arises, is experienced, and ceases in you.

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Enough of a focus on the self? :)

I think that this practice, in addition to the dream awareness practice, or ADA, may add the crucial critical reflection to make, what has been tentatively called elsewhere, All Day Self-awareness.

EDIT: Ninja-post by Sageous!

So now having actually read up through the dream yoga practice section of the Tibetan book I understand more fully what people are saying about it. I have less of a problem with the "it's all a dream" practice, perhaps I'm internally modifying it to be "this is all *like* a dream" so that I object less to it.

I had two lucid dreams the very night I read this section for the first time, performing the preparatory practices: strong intent to lucid dream, day memory review thinking of the memories as of being dreams, quieting the mind/meditation before hand, "praying" for lucid dreams.

I'm very inspired by this and will continue it for a while to see where it goes. They're also huge WBTB proponents, actually instructing the practitioner to wake up every two hours and fall asleep with a particular visualization (WILD basically as I see it).

There is a mention in the Tibetan book I glanced over quickly about the benefit of having the mind present in the here & now attentive to what the body/senses is/are experiencing that struck me as being a sort of goodness that can come with King Yoshi style ADA (at least to an extent). Instead of being zoned out thinking about work, etc. while walking in the park, instead be fully present and mindfully experience your surroundings. It did not have the sense that you're "giving power to the environment" at the expense of the self at all (of course their view is that it is all an illusion/dream anyway).

^I agree with all of this basically. Right down to the Tiebetan techniques all being predictions of techniques that we have formulated as a community (wbtb, WILD, ADA, they're all in there).

Also, I found that when I carried out a micro-wbtb last night (natural awakening from drinking water) and meditated during my WBTB I started recalling lots of dreams that I hadn't upon immediately awakening (often happens in the shower, too).

I basically see the tibetan method as:

Daytime - (modification of) ADA, Zhine/Shamatha meditation
Nighttime - micro-wbtb and SSILD/WILD

This is what I am currently basing my practice on.

EDIT: apologies for the appalling grammar of the above post.

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Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

^I agree with all of this basically. Right down to the Tiebetan techniques all being predictions of techniques that we have formulated as a community (wbtb, WILD, ADA, they're all in there).

Also, I found that when I carried out a micro-wbtb last night (natural awakening from drinking water) and meditated during my WBTB I started recalling lots of dreams that I hadn't upon immediately awakening (often happens in the shower, too).

I basically see the tibetan method as:

Daytime - (modification of) ADA, Zhine/Shamatha meditation
Nighttime - micro-wbtb and SSILD/WILD

This is what I am currently basing my practice on.

EDIT: apologies for the appalling grammar of the above post.

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Yes it was quite an epiphany. I too almost never have dreams immediately in mind upon waking unless I was lucid or close to it. The recall process is like meditation, I agree, with the addition of some some gentle probing. I almost never have day recall, it comes to me in bed or not at all, except a few times, as you note, in the shower!

I've started thinking about my day as I'm falling asleep when I first go to bed now, basically just think in chronological order from the time I woke up to now that I'm falling asleep again, I've noticed a couple of things:

- My memories of what happened today are only a bit stronger than my memories of dreams, in fact some old dreams I've have left much stronger impressions. So memories of reality and dream reality are not really all that different. If you also think about your day today, at which points did you think "am I dreaming?", all the day-time memories seem like a dream when we're recalling them but how much of it was lucid?

- I've stopped keeping a journal (except for really interesting dreams, my dreams lately have been somewhat boring), just doing the above (and some micro WBTB) seems to be enough to make me recall at least in part most of the dreams during the night.


I think we tend to think that dreaming, or just sleeping in general, is somehow separate form the rest of our reality, but really it's just a 24 hour thing, whether awake of asleep you can either be concious or not.

I have also stopped keeping a dream journal in the traditional sense, I now use the tagging or 'dream seeds' technique: Throw Away Your Dream Journal: Remember Your Dreams The Easy Way

The other night I remembered 2 dreams and around 10 fragments this way.

My aim is to use this and micro-wbtb in the mode of Sensei to have multiple SSILD sessions a night, and to eventually have such strong recall that I am aware as I am waking from a dream.

In fact, recall is the only thing I will actively intend going to sleep from now on, I will leave lucidity to passive intention (trusting in my daytime awareness work and SSILD).

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Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

I have also stopped keeping a dream journal in the traditional sense, I now use the tagging or 'dream seeds' technique: Throw Away Your Dream Journal: Remember Your Dreams The Easy Way

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Can I offer a caveat here?

I did that dream seed thing for a while many years ago, and now I have a pile of notebooks filled with small groups of meaningless words. I was sure at the time that all I needed to do was jot down some important cues (just like that guide to which you linked suggested), and my brain would have the memories on hand when I summoned them, based on those cues/seeds. My self-confidence at the time was fairly strong, as was my general recall ability, so I figured just jotting those few words down would be more than enough to store the dreams forever (it also satisfied my laziness streak immensely, BTW). I also have a pile of dream journals filled with extensive, multi-page records that succeed, even 30 years after written, to bring back vivid memories of the dreams I painstakingly recorded in them.

I think this seeding thing is not a solution to disinterest in journaling, but a fairly leaky bandage at best; sure, it's an appealing idea, but -- at least in my experience -- it is an extremely inefficient tool, especially in the long term. If you want a document that you can look back on, forget it; those seeds will be nothing more than meaningless words when you look at them in the future, while the dreams you wrote down in full will likely come right back to you as you reread them.

Also, when you jot down those seeds, rather than try to record everything you can remember, you stand a chance of only recording the stuff that mattered to you at the moment; by trying to write down everything, you stand a good chance of bringing in details, forgotten seeds, that may carry great import (or be the real keys to getting stored in long-term memory), but that you just hadn't thought of at the moment of waking.

So yes, this seeding idea is very appealing, and probably does work to a degree (especially at this moment, while you are actively following your dream life), but in the long run, for the sake of both long term memory and collecting the stories of your dream life, it might be better, I think, to write it all down.

I suggest you try to tough it out, Ctharlhie (and Sensei) and record as much as you remember. This seeding might work for you in the short term (it certainly will seem like its working, at least it did for me), but making it your technique for remembering dreams might really does risk forfeiting some very important memories.

So, consider this carefully before you risk sacrificing your adventures to the ether. I could be wrong, sure, but what if I'm not?

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Can I offer a caveat here?

I did that dream seed thing for a while many years ago, and now I have a pile of notebooks filled with small groups of meaningless words. I was sure at the time that all I needed to do was jot down some important cues (just like that guide to which you linked suggested), and my brain would have the memories on hand when I summoned them, based on those cues/seeds. My self-confidence at the time was fairly strong, as was my general recall ability, so I figured just jotting those few words down would be more than enough to store the dreams forever (it also satisfied my laziness streak immensely, BTW). I also have a pile of dream journals filled with extensive, multi-page records that succeed, even 30 years after written, to bring back vivid memories of the dreams I painstakingly recorded in them.

I think this seeding thing is not a solution to disinterest in journaling, but a fairly leaky bandage at best; sure, it's an appealing idea, but -- at least in my experience -- it is an extremely inefficient tool, especially in the long term. If you want a document that you can look back on, forget it; those seeds will be nothing more than meaningless words when you look at them in the future, while the dreams you wrote down in full will likely come right back to you as you reread them.

Also, when you jot down those seeds, rather than try to record everything you can remember, you stand a chance of only recording the stuff that mattered to you at the moment; by trying to write down everything, you stand a good chance of bringing in details, forgotten seeds, that may carry great import (or be the real keys to getting stored in long-term memory), but that you just hadn't thought of at the moment of waking.

So yes, this seeding idea is very appealing, and probably does work to a degree (especially at this moment, while you are actively following your dream life), but in the long run, for the sake of both long term memory and collecting the stories of your dream life, it might be better, I think, to write it all down.

I suggest you try to tough it out, Ctharlhie (and Sensei) and record as much as you remember. This seeding might work for you in the short term (it certainly will seem like its working, at least it did for me), but making it your technique for remembering dreams might really does risk forfeiting some very important memories.

So, consider this carefully before you risk sacrificing your adventures to the ether. I could be wrong, sure, but what if I'm not?

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I mostly agree but I have a few remarks:

1. I have "tags" back from over 4 years ago in my DJ (I guess I was already doing it before it was cool?) and they still make me recall the dreams quite well.

2. Often I still write out in detail the dreams I really, really want to keep (like some of the more awesome ones) but even so, reading over them again several years later doesn't give me that much more of an impression than tags. It helps recall more details, especially good for ideas you came up with in dreams, but that "wow" factor is unfortunately lost either way at first glance.

3. Some of my most awesome dreams aren't even in my DJ, I still haven't written them down because I no longer know the date and I like to keep the DJ dated, but I still remember them extremely vividly and basically they're just cherished memories of sort; for dreams like these a DJ would be the same as a photo, sure it's nice to look at but it was the experience that matters and that you'll never forget, written down or not.


Also from a mnemotechnic point of view, if you want to keep memories "fresh" you need to go over them every now and then. For really vivid memories it might be once a year, for dreams you have a little trouble with you might want a few times a year, but the point is if you want to keep the "wow" factor you need to drive some juice into those memory links! So if you read over your DJ every few months, even tags should be fine as long as you jolt the memories often enough.

If there are some tags you don't "feel" anymore, might I suggest reading over them a few times while relaxed and trying to let the memories come back, it might take a little while but you'll probably be able to rejuvenate those links given enough (relaxed) effort. The memories are there, it just takes a bit for them to float to the surface.

@Sageous; Just to assuage some of your concerns, perhaps I was slightly melodramatic in my claim.

Because the tags I am keeping are entirely digital I will not be clogged with reams of useless tags.

I will type out in full any interesting and (of course) lucid dreams in full.

I see dream tagging as a useful tool to catch those dreams that are simply to banal and mundane, or too hazy and short for me to be motivated to fully journal. I've already recalled a lot of dreams that would have been lost to me otherwise.

No doubt dream tagging would be a fatuous exercise if that was the only recall you practised (and wouldn't address the fundamental of memory).

By the way, what do you (also aimed at Memm) think of the idea of going over your recall multiple times a day strengthening dream memory. Yuschak also discusses in Advanced Lucid Dreaming that you should try to remember really mundane details from your day, like what you had for lunch, as a way to strengthen your dream recall.

I think that's a given and goes back to being mindful, if you can remember the little details that means you weren't spaced out, going over the little details is basically what I do as I fall asleep, it seems to set the brain into "recall" mode which helps during the night.

Remembering things helps you remember things. =P

I couldn't agree more with what you are trying to say. Intention will open your mind to the possibilities.