Travelling to the core of lucid dreaming OR why I worry when someone invents a new technique.
Introduction
Learning lucid dreaming seems easy. There's not a huge deal of "beginners" information, regards of what you need to attain lucidity, and you can easily find people with no "idea" of lucid dreaming was back then, and still had a nice success with it. It's the example of the so called "naturals" (not my word, don't judge me lol), that have been lucid dreaming since they were very young.
According to google keyword analysis, we can see that there was a time during the last 8 years that the expression "lucid dream" suffered a huge spike, as seen below:
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/4079/lccf.jpg
Now, many of you probably guessed why that peek in 2010. That reason is the blockbuster movie Inception.
Although the search "intensity" of these words may have gone down, we now may assume (don't ask me for sources I don't have :P) that in the past years, there's been a increase not only of the lucid dreaming community, but also in the past 2 decades (deriving from work from peopel like Paul Tholey, or LaBerge just to mention two of them), of the scientific studies that approach this theme in the subject of psychology. this not only led to the creation of new associations, groups, videos, forums, etc etc, but also to the increase popularity of existing said above terms (one case may be dreamviews, I don't know your statistics).
So, you might think, great right: more people, more research, more exchange of experiences, more learning!
And I agree with you on most of those, except one thing: more learning.
I think we here all agree that is the quality of information and not so much the quantity of information that matters. This post has no intention of criticizing creativity, new techniques, or people that simply comes with new ideas to lucid dreaming. But, this post comes with a reflection.
Part 1: The giant method vs technique misconception or what many people don't know about DILD and WILD
What is the difference between method and technique?
Method is the general or specific way in which an activity is conducted, while techniques are the various methods and processes developed through knowledge, skill, and experience.
Example:
There is a method for changing a light bulb : the switch is turned off, the old one comes out and the new one goes in.
There are many techniques for handling a hot bulb, and for avoiding damage to the new bulb you're putting in.
Now let's apply this to lucid dreaming, and you, as a reader, will now hopefully see the kind of problem I'm talking over here:
So, in first, let's use what is considered by many the "bible" of lucid dreaming:
Now, I don't know exactly how many people readed this book (if you haven't, expect a ban soon :lol:), but to those that did, and use(d) it as a guideline to lucid dreaming - because let's face it, it's indeed a pretty good book - there's pretty a nice few expressions that are included in LaBerges explanation of the lucid dream phenomena that are totally wrecked. Yes, I'm refering to DILD and WILD.
Now, what's begin to spice things up and see one quite nice example (I need to show examples, not to flame people, which will not be tolerated in any comment, but so you can see how you can easily mistake yourself and other people):
So, as you can see (it's enough if you watch till 1:15), there's already a misconception made (some quotes now):
" DILD is (...) when your dream tells you you are dreaming"
"the dream is telling you"
" (DILD) is very similar to reality check induced lucid dreaming (RECAILD)..."
" RECAILD, is where when you get dream signs, and then do reality checks to those"
Now, let's review why this kind of information is wrong (and remember, this is an example!)
-Your dream does not tell you anything. Dreams are product of your sub conscience, they work on very different ways (in the sense they work towards a reality formed by emotions, and expectations, and memories) and they don't really add elements to indicate that you might be dreaming. You do that (more explained later if you still didn't get it".
- DILD is not similar to RCILD, because RCILD is not a method of inducing lucid dreams. It's a technique used to confirm wether you are dreaming or not. So, why call it a kind of lucid dream?
- RECILD is... As above, RCILD is a expression some person invented, which shows the misconception about technique and method.
What's the problem here?
As LaBerge points, out (Page 60, Chapter 4, line 17-20):
"Experiences in
which people consciously enter dreaming sleep are re-ferred to as wake-initiated lucid dreams (WILDs), in
contrast to dream-initiated lucid dreams (DILDs), in which people become lucid after having fallen asleep unconsciously."
So, okay, we got it! There are only 2 methods of inducing lucid dreams!
- DILD, when you become lucid inside of the dream
- WILD, when you enter in the dream already conscious
Now, if you read Dreamviews tutorial, you can see that the information posted goes along this one. But MANY people still think for example that DILD is a technique for lucid dreams, and, like you can see in that guy's videos ahead, tell you tips to DILD which are do reality checks and improve dream recall (??)
This might sound a bit obvious to you, but if you still got the "difference between method and technique" explanation in your mind (okay, go scroll up :roll:), you realize that:
- MILD, EILD, tholey's method, dream signs, etc etc are simply techniques to obtain DILDs.
- WILD is a method to induce lucid dreams and a technique (because below)
- DEILD is a technique
- Things like FILD, SILD, are merely variations of the WILD technique.
Part 2: Going to the core of lucid dreaming
I am not qualified to give you the scientifical wording, much less to tell you all about lucid dreaming, but I'll put it into a short text what we KNOW (based on scientific sources):
Everyone can lucid dream.
v
Indicators or factors that might influence you lucid dreaming frequency rate:
v
Positive influences: good pattern of sleep, goal oriented habits, good diet, practice, happiness levels
Negative influences: bad pattern of sleep/lack of sleep, lack of practice, ingestion of alcoholic drinks or use of drugs that result on a inferior time of REM sleep, stress levels.
v
Methods: DILD or WILD
DILD: based on (techniques that are based on):
- Prospective memory
- Retrospective memory
- Pattern Recognition
- Other memory techniques (like association)
- Critical thinking
Now, from what you can read, it seems (from our part) all about memory. Well, it is. I've seen many people saying "The more you stick to a technique like MILD, the more chances it will work. You just need to give it time". This is incorrect. It's not the technique, it's all about memory. And specifically prospective memory.
Prospective memory is one of the pillars of lucid dreaming. And it doesn't take too much research to get that: it's all over the place! If not, let's see:
- Famous MILD. LaBerge mentions prospective memory in the same page(s) he mentions MILD. He even gives you prospective memory exercises in his book. Why? Because he knows MILD is only a technique that relies heavily on prospective memory.
- Tholey's method (or critical state testing technique) that many people split into concepts like "ask yourself if you're dreaming many times per day" require prospective memory. It's simple: you either push it by habits, or you develop prospective memory to ask this in your sleep. Either way, you end up using prospective memory
- Any action you plan to do in the future requires prospective memory. It's called the memory of the future for some reason. The interesting part is that, although prospective memory shares traits with some other memories (like the counter-part, retrospective memory), is much more powerful for lucid dreaming because the way it works (I would gladly explain exactly what's so good about prospective memory, but it's not the purpose of this article, I'll make a new topic on it if it justifies, people want me to)
(Now, before you say "it's not all about memory! It's putting your will into the thing as well", let's be honest: that is irrelevant to say, because that's a requirement of pretty much ANYTHING you want in life.)
WILD
Anytime you enter conscious in a dream, you've achieved a WILD. Simple, that's it, that's the method. Now about the technique:
- LaBerge, in it's book, refers to WILD (Chapter 4, right in the beginning):
(...)This (idea of falling asleep consciously) involves retaining con-sciousness while wakefulness is lost and allows direct
entry into the lucid dream state without any loss of re-flective consciousness. The basic idea has many varia-tions.
While falling asleep, you can focus on hypnagogic (sleep onset) imagery, deliberate visualizations, your breath or
heartbeat, the sensations in your body, your sense of self, and so on (...)
As you can see, once again, we (as global community of lucid dreamers) create often misconceptions: we might perceive certain techniques as "revolutionary techniques" when they're mere variations of a technique, and all we did to make it work, was make use of self-fulfilling prophecy, or even placebo.
About WILD, I also recommend everyone to take a read at this excellent article, written by Mzzkc, named Sleep paralysis Demystified. In my own judgement, it simply is one of those threads that support my view of lucid dreaming: let's go by facts and information, not just by "reports".
Conclusion: More techniques= bad thing?
My point is not that these techniques shouldn't deserve their categorization as techniques, but that we need to be more cautious to see why something is working or not with us. We should not define the put the emphasis in the "technique" we should put it on the person, and on the work they do. As a friend of my (hopefully you're reading this ^^) said once:
"it's all about achieving a lucid dream: we shouldn't care how, As long we achieve it" (not exact quote, but you get the idea)
If a lucid dream is not working for someone, sure, give him another technique to try. Sure, tell him to do something differently. But please, if you want to help that person to achieve a lucid dream, teach him the important of basics, and repetition, and memory. That's all he needs, because in reality, those aspect form the true core of lucid dreaming.
Hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I did writing it. Thank you for your time, and please, remember to encourage new techniques if they seem worth it, because one way of explaining a WILD against another, simply by using different words, might be the difference between achieving a lucid or not. But remember, remember the core of lucid dreaming and it's true pillars, because want it or not, this is how we all edify our ability and chance of reaching lucidity.
