Something Every Newbie Should Read IMO

*Newbies, this could be an example where YOU have the advantage if you set this straight in your mind before reading about some of the challenges that other people have.

Try to not allow yourself to fall victim to any negative schema or poisoning of your schema. The easiest way to reword that is "Try to not allow yourself to fall victim to any poisoning of your expectations." In other words, don't expect to have trouble with something just because others are saying they have trouble with it.

In my experience, if you are avoiding getting excited but are still waking up too quickly, then you may very well be falling victim to having read too much negative schema! Luckily the point of schema's effect on us was driven home to me early on as I realized the truth in it when I saw how some things were difficult that others found easy, but especially how other things were easy for me despite others mentioning them being difficult! Flying was always easy for me and when I saw that some very good lucid dreamers had or have trouble at times, the concept just clicked for me.

I avoid negative schema like the plague, most commonly when reading forum posts or other people's dream journals (i.e. after reading something that could potentially affect my schema or expectations, I might say to myself "nope..didn't see that" or "that's not fact, it's just one person's experience"...or if it comes to it, even better is resolving it by overcoming the challenge from within the lucid dream!).

I have had lucid dreams end while doing certain things...but I choose to say to myself that it was not because I was doing those things in the LD...my REM period was just over, though I may try to do those things a little differently next time. I have also found ways to stay in dreamland longer even if it seems like the dream is ending...again expectation, or more accurately schema, was key in my opinion. I often have lengthy LD's and I have no doubt that anyone else can too. Some of that comes with practice, but I think the above concept is more crucial. I may be able to add to this if anyone has questions or comments.

I agree wholehearted with this.

For me, this has been an important thing to learn, and one that even so many years later, I still find myself making mistakes against. It's just so easy to let your negative expectations get the upper hand.

Its funny Fogelbise mentioned flying. In my lucid dreams, I often had trouble flying. Or rather, controlling my flight. Getting off the ground was always easy, but going where I wanted to go was a lot harder. This started with a few difficulties during my earliest lucid dreams, and developed into an expectation that I would have 'difficulty controlling my flight' whenever I got off the ground. The expectation or the anxiety that I wouldn't be able to fly straight was creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I eventually realized this and learned to just focus on where I want to go, and not on how straight or bend my flight actually is (which ironically gave me complete flight control). But it took quite a while and I still have dreams in which my flight would get off to a 'wonky' start :)

-Redrivertears-

Thank you Redrivertears.

I think that some people have some "skill sets" programmed in whether it is from non-lucid dreams (I did), video games, or waking life experiences but then they read that this or that is hard and then it "infects" their dream control.

Everyone...don't let the negatives infect you.

Thanks, fogelbise, this is very important. Especially for those of us reading and responding to a lot of questions from people asking how to overcome difficulties. I read subject lines like "I have bad dream recall, help!" and I tell myself "Not me, I have excellent recall!" and so on.

The corollary of this is that experienced dreamers need to be very careful when wording responses to avoid making poisoning statements. Try to focus on positive statements rather than negative. Never write "Don't do <something> in a dream, it will wake you up!", instead write "I find that doing <opposite of something> extends my dreams and keeps me grounded in the dream."

Great thread, fogelbise!
I think that reading DJs and talking with others about dreaming can be very helpful and inspire some great new ideas, but it can also come with the risk of developing negative expectations if we focus on those things too much.
I think it's important to remember that dreams are subjective/personal experiences, so they won't be exactly the same for any two people. That means no advice or experience should be taken as a fact or generalisation.
Beware of myths like, "Don't do X, it will destabilise your dream!" Even for a single person, the same thing might result in a positive outcome the next time they try! I was guilty of circulating such ideas in my earlier years of LDing, believing that they were facts because I'd repeatedly read them online. Accepting these myths held back my progress unnecessarily, so I hope that new lucid dreamers reading this thread will heed your advice.
Autosuggestion, whether intentional or unconscious, can be a very powerful force in both good and bad ways, so consciously repeating positive affirmations can do wonders for our LD practices.
There's no need to live in fear of reading negative things, but don't allow them to grab your attention or affect the way you expect things to happen for you.

Thanks guys - :D for all the positive :offtobed:

Great points Dreamer! I also like the idea of some kind of pledge for the more experienced dreamers to do things like put potential schema infecting material in a spoiler tag...read at your own risk or only after preparing yourself how you will counteract it...this is where a non specific clue in the spoiler tag label might be helpful. I used a spoiler for potential negative schema in my DJ at least once but mentioned in the label that I overcame it within the dream.

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

The corollary of this is that experienced dreamers need to be very careful when wording responses to avoid making poisoning statements. Try to focus on positive statements rather than negative. Never write "Don't do <something> in a dream, it will wake you up!", instead write "I find that doing <opposite of something> extends my dreams and keeps me grounded in the dream."

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I meant to respond and add to this earlier, but better late than never. Sageous said something that helped me on a number of occasions, when he said: "For DILDer's, and everyone else, the process is there as well: simply continue paying attention to your environment after the dream fades, and your current REM cycle ends, and do so (here's the tricky part) without following your body's normal path to awakening..." quoted from this post: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...ml#post2132889 . It just clicked for me in a way that helped me realize that I should not expect that I am waking up and it helped me build more successes from any fades or trips to the void. I previously had success extending dreams through focusing on DEILD and also just through the suggestion of there being a thing called the void, but I am currently still using the mindset that I may not have to wake quite yet even if it feels like I am losing the dream...simply hovering in the space between dreams. Vigilantly watching for false awakenings is another method, but the mindset of staying in dreamland and not expecting to "exit" as in DEILDs seems to stick in my head with much less effort. I think that I was affected early in my adult lucid dreaming practice by reading about other people's brief lucid dreams, despite the experiences of my first lucid dream in childhood or decades later of my first lucid dream in adulthood, which were not super short. (Maybe I can say that more succinctly later.)

This... is a valuable thread! Thank you for the thoughts, all.

Good initiative to start this thread. Remember that there are universal principles to follow for progress in anything:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOyBQZTisJY

"All that we are is a result of what we have thought" - Buddha.

So never think of something as something bad, only view things in a way that helps you.

The problem with life is that it's just like a lucid dream, you ARE in TOO MUCH control.. The difference is that in real life it's just a slower change and in a dream it happens in an instant.

So yes be very aware of what kind of beliefsystems you allow into your mind.

Peace :meditate:

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Originally Posted by MasterMind

The problem with life is that it's just like a lucid dream, you ARE in TOO MUCH control.. The difference is that in real life it's just a slower change and in a dream it happens in an instant.

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Holy... I...

Okay, wow. That blew my mind a little, there. Well-put! (and thank you for saying that.) o.o

That initial post means a lot even if applied to life while awake.

Very interesting idea. It's true! Expectations breed results, in both negative and positive fashion.
Nice read, thanks for sharing!

I wonder if the first promoters of DEILD intended something just like in my last post a little ways back (above), instead of: dream -> wake -> re-enter? If not, it is at least a happy side effect that can be turned into one of your primary LD initiation methods.

I picked up and started going through Robert Waggoner's LD: GTTIM. He talks similarly about expectation before going into some more "out there" ideas. It has been inspiring some interesting LD's for me. Also, his mention of different types of flying has got me expecting new ways that flying will work and they have. :)

im just gonna keep up to date in my dj, be conscious, and so where it takes me.

Fogelbise, thank you a lot this is true, sometimes our success is limited by our negative thoughts certainly in the Lucid Dreaming field, it has an impressive effect because it is a direct reflection of our inner self .
Thank you so much i'll make sure to be careful ^^

I just stumbled on this thread, Folgelbise, and now I hope that lots of other dreamers, newbie and veterans both, hit on it as well... a belated "nicely done!" to you!

^^Thank you! That means a lot coming from you Sageous, one of the all time greats! (and someone who I learned a lot about proper LD'ing from) You mention newbie and veterans alike and I was thinking the same thing after I started this thread, thinking I should have opened up the title of the thread a little. It does seem to be a good reminder for more than just newbies. I do feel that newbies can come into LD'ing with a special advantage in this department. It is also rather satisfying for those more experienced to, within the LD, overcome a challenge that you read about. It seems to help to be creative within the dream especially and there are often many different ways to resolve a challenge, but first and foremost is to stay calm and keep an "I got this" attitude.

I agree 100% with the OP. This applies not only to lucid dreaming but to everything else. How many times have I started reading online about a fascinating subject only to find the limiting beliefs and negative expectations of others. People always seek validation from outside (yes myself included) and while you should be doing that to a certain degree, at the same time you should branch off and do your own thing no matter what everyone else says. So what if the expectation of everyone else is that it's impossible to have shared dreams? so what if everyone thinks that you can't really dilate time (or the perception of time) in dreams. Most people don't think for themselves unfortunately.

What a great post :) I wish I would've read this before getting into lucid dreaming. This might play a big role in the struggles I now encounter...

When I was really young, I used to have a lot of recurring dreams. One of them was being captured by pirates on their ship. One time, I had that dream again and I realised "Wait, I've been here and done this before. It's a dream!" After this realisation I proceeded to fight off all the pirates with kung-fu worthy roundhouse kicks and ultra-strong punches that made the pirates fly at least 10 metres away. When I woke up I felt so excited and amazing, but I never had a lucid dream again before coming here.

Something I have had trouble with recently is stabilizing my dream once I become lucid. Only now, when reading this thread and thinking of the dream above, it occurs to me that I might only find stabilising difficult because I have read here that some find it to be. When I was lucid in that dream I never even thought about losing the dream or losing lucidity, so this didn't happen!

Thank you for helping me realise this. I feel like this realisation might turn my attitude around!

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Originally Posted by razvanlucid

So what if the expectation of everyone else is that it's impossible to have shared dreams? so what if everyone thinks that you can't really dilate time (or the perception of time) in dreams.

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That first comment, I needed to hear. Why should I not keep an open mind, considering that some people don't even believe LD's are possible, ha! The second item I have experienced to some degree but I also need to remind myself to be open-minded to greater possibilities in that arena.

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Originally Posted by EddieDean

What a great post :) I wish I would've read this before getting into lucid dreaming. This might play a big role in the struggles I now encounter...

When I was really young, I used to have a lot of recurring dreams. One of them was being captured by pirates on their ship. One time, I had that dream again and I realised "Wait, I've been here and done this before. It's a dream!" After this realisation I proceeded to fight off all the pirates with kung-fu worthy roundhouse kicks and ultra-strong punches that made the pirates fly at least 10 metres away. When I woke up I felt so excited and amazing, but I never had a lucid dream again before coming here.

Something I have had trouble with recently is stabilizing my dream once I become lucid. Only now, when reading this thread and thinking of the dream above, it occurs to me that I might only find stabilising difficult because I have read here that some find it to be. When I was lucid in that dream I never even thought about losing the dream or losing lucidity, so this didn't happen!

Thank you for helping me realise this. I feel like this realisation might turn my attitude around!

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You absolutely, positively can!! See post #8 in this thread. When I read the idea I mentioned in that post, it really opened up my expectations and made a tremendous difference. Know it is possible, get excited about it during your day practices and instead of worrying about stability you will be stretching your mind back into dreamland and away from waking before long!

Had a recent dream where I was teaching an extending technique like the one discussed above: I am talking to a friend who I don't think I've discussed lucid dreaming with before and ask him if he's ever had one of them moments where he said "pinch me I must be dreaming." (They could either give you a waking example or dreaming one.) He says yes, I was in a movie theater and the projector started coming down from the projector box above and I'm freaking out like what's going on? He is describing it with such wonder in his eyes that I wonder if he had vivid dream that he's mistaking for waking memory but it becomes more apparent he knows it was a dream. He says he then sees a little blonde girl in a white dress and earrings and it was just so bizarre. I said what if I told you that you could take control of that dream, you rescue the little girl and she takes you back to her mom who is so appreciative that she has sex with you right there and then asks you if you still have energy because she has a sister, a twin sister. I then tell him that I have had some amazing dreams on some mind blowing beaches, alien beaches and I tear up a little just starting to picture them in my mind as I talk. I can go there when a dream seems to be fading...see when you think the dream is ending, never say I'm waking up, instead start thinking and imagining where you want to be next! In those situations I often like to think of a beautiful beach hearing the gentle waves lapping but often end up in the water.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by razvanlucid

People always seek validation from outside (yes myself included) and while you should be doing that to a certain degree, at the same time you should branch off and do your own thing no matter what everyone else says.

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True. I should also clarify that I owe a lot to DV and don't advocate avoiding DV at all!

good thread......

bumpage