Do you have a nightly goal with what you are going to do when you get lucid.

I just remember that Stephen Laberge was talking about that it was pretty important to have some simple goal or vision about what you are going to do when you are going to get lucid. For exampel that you are going to fly when you get lucid.

This is just my speculation in why the nightly goal can be of importance.

I think that the subconscious need to have some valid and important reason to even listen or bother to what you want to happen when your awareness is not in place. For example: You go to bed and you know that you just have to get up in a certain time, because it's very important. It really matter for you. What happens is that you wake up just before the time you have set your alarm on.

By this example I just mean, why would your subconscious get you lucid without a single reason at all? just for fun? Then what is fun your subconscious might try to ask itself? Maybe you get lucid sometimes if the feeling of just getting lucid is very strong. But often when you have this really strong feeling about that you just need to get lucid and it works, you might also have a good enough reason behind that strong feeling, just because the feeling is getting strong.

Maybe one could motivate the subconscious with something like "I cant fly in the awaken world, so I really need to fly tonight when im in my dream, I AM going to fly in my dream tonight. I just know that I will fly when I get lucid tonight".

So do you just try to ask your subcounscious about permission to get lucid, or do you give it a really important reason to demand it to get you lucid?

For you to become lucid at all, certain areas of the brain need to be active. During a certain stage of dreaming, the brain's faculties are altered in such a way that won't allow you to recognize the reality of the situation. It is a natural cycle that needs to be fulfilled in order to keep your brain healthy, but don't ask me why; no one really knows the answer to that.

Sure, the unconscious mind could give you signals when you are (non-lucidly) dreaming, but you would probably not be able put two and two together—during the tail end of the dream cycle, you will develop more self-awareness and have an easier time recognizing what is going on.

However, be that as it may, what you are referring to is called 'incubation.' Whenever it comes to attaining lucidity, I'm not sure how effective this method would be. Let me know how it goes.

I once did FORCE my self pretty much to have a lucid dream by just thinking it like this: "Man i just HAVE to get a lucid dream tonight!" And then i had two lucid dreams. But yeah i think it works by asking/encouraging your subconsciousness to give /let you realize you're dreaming. For the next month i have simple/not so simple LD tasks for every night , hope it works, had worked before.

Interesting: I hadn't considered this before. Maybe it'll help if I concentrate more upon what I will do when LD, and why I want to be lucid. Thanks, Dreamybear, you've stimulated my thinking.

I'm interested to know others reactions, comments and experiences on this - it had honestly never occured to me before :)

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Originally Posted by Mikasan527

I once did FORCE my self pretty much to have a lucid dream by just thinking it like this: "Man i just HAVE to get a lucid dream tonight!" And then i had two lucid dreams. But yeah i think it works by asking/encouraging your subconsciousness to give /let you realize you're dreaming. For the next month i have simple/not so simple LD tasks for every night , hope it works, had worked before.

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That sounds pretty sweet! May I ask what made you feel that you just got to HAVE a LD?:) I guess you had a pretty good self-confidence in what you said to yourself. Mikasan527, I wish you good luck with your tasks, and It would be interesting to hear from you with your progress!

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Originally Posted by pog

you've stimulated my thinking.

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Im glad to hear that Pog:) Well this tought just hit me yesterday, but I have actually known this for a while already. So I've been sloppy to apply this in my own progress to become lucid in dreams. But that will change from now. I do think this could be one important piece in the puzzle to get lucid.

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Originally Posted by Mikasan527

I once did FORCE my self pretty much to have a lucid dream

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Same here, i have managed to force lucid dream with the right mindset, though in my case it was during a nap. :zzz:
As for goals, i have a whole lot of them, i write down some before going to nap and concentrate on them while falling asleep, otherwise i might end up being lucid without memory of waking world. :P

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Originally Posted by Earthatic

For you to become lucid at all, certain areas of the brain need to be active. During a certain stage of dreaming, the brain's faculties are altered in such a way that won't allow you to recognize the reality of the situation. It is a natural cycle that needs to be fulfilled in order to keep your brain healthy, but don't ask me why; no one really knows the answer to that.

Sure, the unconscious mind could give you signals when you are (non-lucidly) dreaming, but you would probably not be able put two and two together—during the tail end of the dream cycle, you will develop more self-awareness and have an easier time recognizing what is going on.

However, be that as it may, what you are referring to is called incubation. Whenever it comes to attaining lucidity, I'm not sure how effective this method would be. Let me know how it goes.

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I totally agree with you the awareness-part. If I had to only one practice, It definitely would be ADA. But with this simple practice to have a goal to take with you within the dream, I think maight be a killerCombo. Well im going to practice this for now. But I think it will be a lot harder than it sounds. Just to try to forget about the doubt when things dont goes as plan is not the easiest.:P

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Originally Posted by DreamyBear

That sounds pretty sweet! May I ask what made you feel that you just got to HAVE a LD?:) I guess you had a pretty good self-confidence in what you said to yourself. Mikasan527, I wish you good luck with your tasks, and It would be interesting to hear from you with your progress!

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Well i DID have a good reason, I was going to have my 100th night after starting to writing down all my dreams. It had to be something SPECIAL.:) and it sure was(about 35-40min LD in two sections)

It's very important to set your intent. And you set your intent stronger, if you have exact plan. In other words, your intent is stronger, if you say "Tonight I'm flying to the moon and then I'll hang around in the orbit before visiting Puma Punku", than if you just say "tonight I'll lucid dream".

A specific goal will give you a head start. In the moment you get lucid, you can start interacting with your dream, rather that just stand there thinking what should you do. And believe me, if you not ready, you will probably not know what to do. You will lose precious time.

Even if you have a few things on your mind, pick just one for the night and concentrate on that. Unless you are really good at it. I have a few places I want to visit, and today, I was standing in front of the rack with postcards and couldn't decide wheather to visit Stonehenge or pyramids in Giza. They didn't have the Stonehenge postcard, so I tried the pyramids. But I got nervous taking so long to decide. Didn't wanna lose lucidity before I make up my mind.

Although I don't know when it's going to happen again, I use to have certain goals in mind for the next time I become lucid. sometimes I remember to do some of them, sometimes I don't. I think that when it's a constant every night, it helps get more LD.
Nowadays I don't focus too much in having a lot lucid dreams, perhaps because of I have other worries in mind, like that one of waking up at a certain time which, unfortunately for me, has become more important than let my self just sleep with no worries of not waking up at the time, or that I must fall asleep soon because it's getting late, etc. Perhaps that's the main reason why I have just a few in months.
Anyway, I'm looking for a proper schedule to re-organize my sleep in order to have the time to start focusing again, I agree with the fact that thinking about it before going to sleep helps a lot.

Cool info/advice here. Will try to be more definite about dream-goals from now on :)

Sometimes, but not always. E.G. tonight I am going to talk to my dream guide/ recurring dream character, Tibb.

Also, I do not believe that the unconscious mind has to permit lucidity. Occasional/unintended lucid dreaming is just anomalous. If dreaming is preconscious individuation (making conscious of unconscious functions) then I guess lucid dreaming is fully conscious individuation because you are aware of the entire process itself.

However, mantras and subliminal encouragement such as "tonight you will LD" really does help.