Quick Question for Natural Lucid Dreamers

This is a question to natural lucid dreamers, or perhaps those who have developed the daily regularity of LDing.

Do you spend a lot of time working with your imagination? Either seriously or playfully. And I don't mean random daydreams throughout the day. I mean purposeful manipulation for whatever goal. I'm not asking for you to disclose grisly details, by the way, just whether or not it is an important part of your daily routine.

I ask this because I have started to wonder, after just today reading a necroed ADA Sageous post and a recent post by Dolphin, if working with the imagination during the waking state creates a different sort of sense of self-awareness that easily transitions to the dreaming mind.

Yes, sort of an out-there thought. Thanks for any responses.

I am not personally a natural lucid dreamer, it took me several months to have my first one, what a good day that was. After that it took me perhaps another few months to be able to have them consistently. The first full WILD I had was after reading a copy of the bhagavad gita I just got, I was highly entranced and exited after, I would say my imagination was revved up pretty well at that time. I think reading literature is very good for lucid dreaming, it is a overall brain workout, it stimulates ones imagination, and it requires the brain to construct whole new world spaces in the minds eye.

Most of my visualisation ability has been built up over a long period of time, practising visualisation and tactile imaginational exercises. I use the visual and tactile imagination practices in energy body work, certain types of meditation, lucid dream induction, and when doing a technique I found in a book on Chaos magick involving the creation of thought forms.

I do not know for sure if these things have a direct effect on the neurological correlates fundamental to lucid dreaming, but I know for sure that renovating or strengthening the imaginational faculty increases ones ability to do the methods necessary for inducing a Lucid dream. My visual and tactile imagining skills are much better then they were at the beginning of my journey.

Thank you, Valis1. Great response. We seem to follow a similar path, though i no longer deal with Vedic philosophy. Yogic principles were the first thing I encountered on my path when i was 15: Paramahansa Yogananda: Autobiography of a Yogi. I was lead to it, believe it or not, in a high school class called Mysticism. I love the 60s for that if nothing else.

More to the point, l like the idea that you are using a variety of visualization practices in other areas. I have no doubt, though no direct proof, that they are effective enhancers of the LD experience. Rightly or wrongly, I think they enhance your ability to acquire stronger focus on the Otherworld. The stronger your focus, the more readily you transfer your conscious attention away from the physical and the more completely you become absorbed.

I was thinking that natural lucid dreamers may have a far more active imagination, are far more readily involved in imaginative activity during their waking hours (formally or otherwise) and naturally transition into the dream with their minds still in the mode of reality making, for lack of a better term. This should make them more naturally aware. Though not an exact correlative, I believe imaginal practices act as dream incubators, just not the specific version that you would apply before bed.

I may be completely off base, but I've been in an exploratory mood lately, and I've been using this forum as a white board, so to speak. Unlike personal white boards where responses are internal, I have the chance of getting overt responses here to move me along, which occasionally helps to revise my premise.

Continued success

Hi Madmagus, I'm very similar to Valis1 in that I practice meditation, energy body work and research the occult/esoteric. I often find myself using my mental abilities during the day to do things like make parking spaces available, make queues shorter or non-existent, make people switch lanes when driving or make people get out my way, make traffic lights stay green, etc. I've also been working lately on tantra/psychic seduction which involves visualising that you are touching someone.

I think the thing we natural LD'ers have in common is that we don't accept the reality we are presented with or take it for granted. We are always double-checking our reality and questioning it. I myself am always trying to solve the big question of what exactly is reality and looking for any small puzzle pieces that might lead me to the answer.

Not taking the reality you are presented with for granted is certainly a great perspective. It's especially so if you find ways to apply yourself to making it work for you, making your life more convenient, or more meaningful. This is mean, I suppose, but it always made me smile when my significant other would cross her arms and pout because yet again I slipped into the only parking spot near our shopping point, that 'magically' appeared just as we arrived. Life is good. If we make it so.