Quote Originally Posted by Rothgar View Post
Just want to point this out....I also tend to think my lucid dreams are random occurrences. I can't point to any specific thing I am doing that works. Try as I may, nothing that I try seems to matter or affect the outcome (directly). As a computer programmer I expect a given input produces a given output and I just don't see it.

But here's the thing. Before trying to lucid dream, I had a total of 3 in my entire life of 50+ years. After trying, I have had over 300 in 4-5 years. So although there isn't a formula I have found, the disciplines DO work somehow. You took 4 years...well, some people have never had a single one, remember. To you it may seem like they just happened, but that doesn't mean you didn't indirectly cause it.
Lucid dreaming requires a "perfect storm" of prior preparation and current conditions all coming together. We have good ideas about the preparation (awareness in all its forms, dream recall) and the conditions (WBTB, supplements, basically going to sleep with a more awake mind at the right point in your sleep cycle), but the mind is not a deterministic computer, so input A does not necessarily give output B, at least not on the schedule that we'd like. Either that, or we just haven't discovered all the right inputs yet.