Thread: Struggling with lucid visualization

Well it is easier the closer you are to sleep, so practicing during a wbtb could show some big improvement that might let you know what you need to get better. I don't really see visualization as something that comes quickly. I have been doing it since I was a kid, so I can improve pretty easily, but to get better than I have been before takes months of practice. In order to get back to where I used to be it takes like a week.

Do you alternate between things that are easy to visualize and things that are hard to visualize? That is a good exercise.

Thank you for putting this into perspective in regards to time. I know the path is long but I'm a bit frustrated about not seeing much improvements at the moment. This is what I do: I make sure there is no source of light in the house or in my room and then put on a winter hat. I focus on seeing:

- My arms and hands: I move a finger and follow the grey blob that surrounds it.
- I feel the forniture with my hands and try to outline surfaces and straight lines.
- I grab a pen and write something on the table trying to figure out the text in my mind's eye.
- The door while I open and close it and the door frame: the difference in gray tone between the wall and the wood.
- Whatever I happen to have in my hands.
- I lie down on my bed, focus on my breath and peek on whatever visual image arises. Done this successfully a couple of times.

The canvas is very chaotic but still dull when I wake up and can't make much of it. Occasionally I am able to witness crisp images upon waking but they last only a few seconds. This isn't a result of the training though.

If for purpose of lucid dreaming, visualization is sometimes made out to be more complicated than it really is. Sure , you can use visualization techniques for meditation and other purposes. But for jumpstarting dreaming process, just thinking about your last day or any fantasy is sufficient. When you get close to falling asleep, your dreaming process will take over and change your thoughts into images. Topic may be different than what you have been thinking about, but by then it's purpose have been fulfilled and you are dreaming, while aware.

About the purpose of the thread: I want to be able to bring in the wake state as many as possible of the abilities I have in the dream world. This would certainly lead to a better real and lucid dream life. Think of:

* Listening to music in your head (I can do that in LDs).
* Having a headmate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa).
* Picturing a hud in real life (and configuring it as you wish).
* Developing your memory into being eidetic (https://goo.gl/eNgxfg).
* Increasing your cognitive function (just think of the insane stuff you can do during a lucid dream).
* Developing muscle mass without lifting (https://goo.gl/KUQ1Qp).
* Studying math without pen and paper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Morin), playing blindfold chess (although you can do that with some training).
* Etc...

Originally Posted by gab

If for purpose of lucid dreaming, visualization is sometimes made out to be more complicated than it really is.

You are certainly aware of the fact that not everyone has the same visualization abilities. There are people who never experience imagery and people who can picture an object in their mind and then enter the visualization and walk around that object.

But for jumpstarting dreaming process, just thinking about your last day [...] and you are dreaming, while aware.

Having practiced some meditation before falling asleep, I know how my mind works: I focus on breath; at a certain point I forget what I am doing and dreams thoughts start on their own, then I jump back at being awake, incapable of observing them.

If I just "daydream" my mind will shut down randomly and I will wake up the next morning now knowing where exactly it happened. I've never been able to successfully perform a WILD (WBTB, yes). That's why I am focusing on breath before going to sleep (breath is my FILD finger).

tl;dr I'm exactly trying to do what you suggest but I find it difficult.

Originally Posted by markov

You are certainly aware of the fact that not everyone has the same visualization abilities. There are people who never experience imagery and people who can picture an object in their mind and then enter the visualization and walk around that object.

Sorry, I probably explained it wrong.

Yes, I am aware that we all have different visialization abilities. That's why I said that visualizing doesn't have to mean being able to actually see objects. But this is what most people mean when they say or read "you need to visualize" - to actually see objects in our mind.

For the purpose of jumpstarting a dream when we are waiting for one to enter while we WILD, we don't really need to visualize the way people think visualization is. It's enough to just think of something. For example the day you just had, or some fantasy of yours. Or imagine yourself doing some activity that you are familiar with like walking to school, cooking, doing dishes, swimming...

Then as we are getting closer to falling asleep, our mind will take over and start showing us images in form of dreamlets or HH.

But anyway, this is of no use to you, since in your last post you explained that you don't need visualization for lucid dreaming. So nvm my posts.

I am now making visualisation on some other way. Before it was more focus and concentration. Now it is more about relax. I even don't try to visualise. Just trying to hold the mental picture, without thinking on anything (aka awareness). Mental picture: If I say "hamburger", you see the hamburger, on a way that is not a vivid picture. But you see it somehow, without any effort. If I give too much effort-concentration, than the outcome (vivid HI visual) will be wrong. Bizarre, deformed, or even creepy. If I relax, and hold my mental picture with awareness and patience, then at once there are vivid pictures and scenes popping up from the darkness. If my mental picture was my hands, than I begin to see hands. I can sometimes feel some "whoosh" in my body, when vivid scenes are emerging. This works for me always...except when I loose awareness, and fall asleep (mostly this happens with me...the theory long ago ended for me...practice and endurance (with or whitout the fluctuating motivation) is the main component for successful LD-ing...huh...)

Originally Posted by Gyalogos

If I relax, and hold my mental picture with awareness and patience, then at once there are vivid pictures and scenes popping up from the darkness.

How vivid? Once I was able to visualize plants in good detail (like 70% real likeness as a rough estimate, but not crisp in the hypnagogic or high quality LD sense) before falling asleep. When they are so vivid, images feel less in your mind's eye and more like you're actually seeing them. They are firm and not the usual imagery retrieval. Someone here able to hallucinate at will that could offer some insight?

Seems like you visualize a lot of easy things, this could be stunting your growth.
Thinking of it like a video game, you gotta play some harder levels if you want to level up.

1
You are only visualizing things in front of you, mainly even things that you can get with other senses. Try to think of things that you haven't seen in a while. Start with something you know really well but haven't seen in a little bit and move up to something you have never seen (dreams would be in the middle there somewhere).
2
You are visualizing small things, try visualizing a whole scene. Start with something you have memorized. Your old house or something. Then things like your driving route home from work. Then try places you have never tried before.
3
Of course, detail... faces, maps, things like this are good to try and remember where things are and have them stick in your head. Start with a map of your choosing (middle earth, or the places around you) and the faces around you.

You want to do it easy and hard, go back and forth. After a while, the easy will be really easy and the "hard" will just be another stepping stool.

I don't know if you can call it hallucinations, but I can "see" what I want when I close my eyes. About as vivid as waking, I can change it and add things and move things, but persistence of mind rooms is hard, so when I open and reclose I don't get the same exact place, I have to re dream it up.

Ah, I see now. I am not doing "raw" visualization. When I try something (simple like hands, or komplex like a walk in the park), than I involve all my senses. So, not just seeing my hands, but feeling, and hearing (clapping) them. When I walk in the park I see the trees, feel the wind, smell the flowers...etc. But I must kill out the "want" from my exercises (I want, need to see my hands). It is not an objective. I lay down and I am in the park. Mission completed. Stay there. How much I see? or how vivid it is? Not interesting. There should be just the here and now, in the park, without fantasy and commentaries in my head. For me (!) the relaxing side is the failing thing. To be in that park, totally free from the outside world. Free from thoughts. If I am not thinking about my daytime, then I am "concentrating in a wrong way" on my task: I am dooing it good? How long will it take? Why is it not more vivid?
I think, that the "whoosh" feeling in my body, when I beginn to see realistic images, is because my other senses are attached to the image. When this happens I can see things very real. In this moment I am very close to enter a dream. So, my friend. I was writing here things (nothing new) about the WILD. You are not interested in this. The clean visualization is not my area. Sensei is your man.

Originally Posted by Sensei

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Thank you. I will integrate this in the blindfolding session.