Thread: What makes a LD vividly realistic?

I've found that self awareness for at least 3 hours straight that one day will boost my vividness of the dreams that night, and my recall would be great.

But I've never been able to go lucid during those nights.

That was fast. Thnx for the rply
You mean like RRC? Or do you use another tech for self-awareness?

Maybe say mantras or something if that works idk. Lol but yea, try self-awareness

Mmmmm could be!
Maybe SSILD too increases the awareness in the dream?

As you suggested Louai, a WBTB ( some minutes is enough ) combined with some kind of meditation usually does the trick

Edit: not a coincidence that WILDs are more vivid

Originally Posted by VagalTone

As you suggested Louai, a WBTB ( some minutes is enough ) combined with some kind of meditation usually does the trick

Edit: not a coincidence that WILDs are more vivid

Thnx!
Does meditation have a special effect? I watch tv during a WBTB(that is a yes yes for me cuz it makes me more aware but I can still fall asleep) so I become more aware. Does more awareness during the WBTB mean more awareness during dream?

I believe it is heightened awareness as well, but more on the idea that you're conscious which makes you aware. My WILDs are always most vivid because there's never one point in a WILD where you lose consciousness--you are always "awake." In DILDs you still need to "wake up" once you become lucid, which can be helped by stabilization or reminding yourself that you're dreaming, taking in the dreamworld, wondering what it means to be in a dream, testing your waking life memory, etc. I don't have any solid evidence for this, but by personal experience I think this encourages your consciousness (and as a side, your awareness) to kick in more than what's required to just be lucid.

Originally Posted by LouaiB

Thnx!
Does meditation have a special effect? I watch tv during a WBTB(that is a yes yes for me cuz it makes me more aware but I can still fall asleep) so I become more aware. Does more awareness during the WBTB mean more awareness during dream?

Meditation activates brain areas associated with self awareness so i'm sure you like to hear that There's some other reasons why it maybe a good thing to do on a WBTB..Your second question is a bit tricky i guess..but i feel there are some different kinds of awareness. You know that watching TV doesn´t necessarily stimulates your self-awareness otherwise we all would have it.. I think it's pretty standard to say that more awareness during the WBTB mean more vividness during the dream, so yup TV is good for that , maybe you can watch TV and do some RCs when you find yourself more emotionally engaged or just check how you feel and think while you watch TV ??

Originally Posted by VagalTone

Meditation activates brain areas associated with self awareness so i'm sure you like to hear that There's some other reasons why it maybe a good thing to do on a WBTB..Your second question is a bit tricky i guess..but i feel there are some different kinds of awareness. You know that watching TV doesn´t necessarily stimulates your self-awareness otherwise we all would have it.. I think it's pretty standard to say that more awareness during the WBTB mean more vividness during the dream, so yup TV is good for that , maybe you can watch TV and do some RCs when you find yourself more emotionally engaged or just check how you feel and think while you watch TV ??

Like achieving tholey's 7 conditions for a LD?

Originally Posted by Maxis

I believe it is heightened awareness as well, but more on the idea that you're conscious which makes you aware. My WILDs are always most vivid because there's never one point in a WILD where you lose consciousness--you are always "awake." In DILDs you still need to "wake up" once you become lucid, which can be helped by stabilization or reminding yourself that you're dreaming, taking in the dreamworld, wondering what it means to be in a dream, testing your waking life memory, etc. I don't have any solid evidence for this, but by personal experience I think this encourages your consciousness (and as a side, your awareness) to kick in more than what's required to just be lucid.

Yeah I like hearing that
So it is self-awareness we are aiming to increase to have a vivid dream?

Lol, Louaib did you switched questions by mistake ?

I would say that any kind of awareness is good to have a vivid dream. But with self awareness you probably achieve lucidity and vividness at the same time !

And if you take in consideration that self awareness can make you lucid, then you can control the vividness of the dream, instead of letting the dream itself control the vividness of your nonlucidity

RRC

No idea what RRC is but what I do is basically try to focus only on what is happening NOW, not even consider what I'm about to do or what I did a couple minutes ago. Sometimes though it gets me in trouble since someone will ask me to do something and I'll forget what it is in about 3 seconds =)

But if it helps, why not do it?

Mmmmm could be!
Maybe SSILD too increases the awareness in the dream?

I personally didn't have good experience with SSILD, partly because I have tinnitus that gets worse when I try to focus on hearing, and I kept forgetting to do the cycles when I was nearing sleep.

So it is self-awareness we are aiming to increase to have a vivid dream?

I've found that self awareness helps the most. But I never was able to use self awareness to help with becoming lucid since when I do self awareness my dreams are usually more ordinary looking than real life so I never think to question it.

Yeah I did switch the questions
Thnx! Also, doesn't achieving all tholey's 7 conditions (be lucid then achieve the other 5) mean more self awareness?

I don´t know exactly what they are ( although i have glanced at them on a Zoth's post ). From what i remember yes, they are the hallmarks of a fullblown LD, so yes the peak of self awareness training.

can we actually put a goal to do in a Ld, the goal being us becoming lucid then considering these conditions, all of them(like remember we are actually sleeping in bed), then when we intentionaly remember in the LD, our self awareness increases and the LD becomes lifelike?

Originally Posted by Maxis

I believe it is heightened awareness as well, but more on the idea that you're conscious which makes you aware. My WILDs are always most vivid because there's never one point in a WILD where you lose consciousness--you are always "awake." In DILDs you still need to "wake up" once you become lucid, which can be helped by stabilization or reminding yourself that you're dreaming, taking in the dreamworld, wondering what it means to be in a dream, testing your waking life memory, etc. I don't have any solid evidence for this, but by personal experience I think this encourages your consciousness (and as a side, your awareness) to kick in more than what's required to just be lucid.

It's difficult to know if it's the memory that's vivid or the dream itself, but I've found that being well-rested and stress-free seems to result in vivid dreams more often. My longer LDs come from nights full of vivid, long dream recall. And I'm not sure I agree about DILDS and "waking up," it may be the other way around in fact, that lucidity comes at the times where awareness is high or on the rise.

In EWOLD, it is stated that stabilization is enough to make the dream more vivid. Couple it with increasing your self awareness and BAM! I like Sivason's stabilization techniques, but a question rises:
If it is as simple as stabilization and increasing your self awareness, then all the LDs of the experts must be lifelike, since these actions are easy for them to do in the begining of a LD, but I'm not sure that most of their LDs are lifelike.
You have a dream yoga workbook in Sivason's class, Fryingman. Would you mind asking him? He gets so much LDs he wants to reduce them!

Waking up from a dream straight away at the end of a rem period instead of going into delta sleep. That's what produces dream recall on par with waking memory. If you try to recall your dreams in the morning you'll only be retrieving the last two sleep cycles of dream material, tops, and the memoris will be 'second hand' on account of passing through a period of NREM unconsciousness. If you want to have waking level vivid recall start training yourself to wake after each sleep cycle and recall your dreams.

Ctharlhie, I agree, but I think if we start with the assumption that one is already waking from one's dreams after each sleep cycle, is there anything else that can be done to raise the vividness of LDs? I have never (that I know of, unless I totally forgot some LDs after losing lucidity) not woken up directly from an LD, and they're mostly very vivid, but some more so than others. My last one was very very unstable so even though I woke up from it directly, it felt "not vivid." My head felt like it was buzzing and I felt dizzy. I think additionally when we're very well rested, the dreams are also very vivid, assuming some stabilization/solid self-awareness. Expectation must also play a role, since I've seen numerous reports of people with vision impairments and doing some dream control to make the "visuals" clear and bright.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Ctharlhie, I agree, but I think if we start with the assumption that one is already waking from one's dreams after each sleep cycle, is there anything else that can be done to raise the vividness of LDs? I have never (that I know of, unless I totally forgot some LDs after losing lucidity) not woken up directly from an LD, and they're mostly very vivid, but some more so than others. My last one was very very unstable so even though I woke up from it directly, it felt "not vivid." My head felt like it was buzzing and I felt dizzy. I think additionally when we're very well rested, the dreams are also very vivid, assuming some stabilization/solid self-awareness. Expectation must also play a role, since I've seen numerous reports of people with vision impairments and doing some dream control to make the "visuals" clear and bright.

I believe that achieving full lucidity in the LD is the action that determines vividness through increasing self-awareness. By 'full lucidity' I tend to think in terms of Deirdre Barret's 'corollaries'.

The dreamer is aware that they are dreaming
The dreamer knows that objects/character/locations disappear after waking
The dreamer knows that physical laws need not apply in the dream
And the dreamer has a clear memory of the waking world

Self awareness and memory are key. Any awareness practice and the improving dream recall.

More entities in the dream mean more subconscious work, meaning less stable dream. Well then, intention might help in vividness cuz we intend for the sub to produce clearer image. It would be like dream control, in a way, I think.

Originally Posted by LouaiB

More entities in the dream mean more subconscious work, meaning less stable dream.

What would lead you to believe that? On the contrary, I have found the most difficult state to maintain is a dream without visual, or other, input.

Well then, intention might help in vividness cuz we intend for the sub to produce clearer image. It would be like dream control, in a way, I think.

In an LD I had the night I chanted 'clarity' like a mantra, and the dream progressively increased in apparent tangibility. Not many people know that mood and cognition determine biochemistry, as well as vice versa. It makes sense that auto-suggestion has impact on vividness.

Originally Posted by Maxis

I believe it is heightened awareness as well, but more on the idea that you're conscious which makes you aware.
My WILDs are always most vivid because there's never one point in a WILD where you lose consciousness--you are always "awake."
In DILDs you still need to "wake up" once you become lucid, which can be helped by stabilization or reminding yourself that you're dreaming, taking in the dreamworld, wondering what it means to be in a dream, testing your waking life memory, etc. I don't have any solid evidence for this, but by personal experience I think this encourages your consciousness (and as a side, your awareness) to kick in more than what's required to just be lucid.

This is very much that, what I try to aim at, too.

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

In an LD I had the night I chanted 'clarity' like a mantra, and the dream progressively increased in apparent tangibility. Not many people know that mood and cognition determine biochemistry, as well as vice versa. It makes sense that auto-suggestion has impact on vividness.

I like the idea of chanting - sounds very useful - and nicer than shouting about something - incant it!

Originally Posted by StephL

I like the idea of chanting - sounds very useful - and nicer than shouting about something - incant it!

Yeah, I quite enjoyed it at the time. It became quite rhythmic, and bigger than my physical voice. It was effective beyond all expectation, too.

Originally Posted by StephL

incant it!

Or as a scientist you might want to inKant it…