Abstract Dream sign?

After having 1 lucid dream about 20 years ago, I now find myself again trying to develop LD. From what I remember of that past LD, what brought me to lucidity was becoming aware that something odd or very strange seemed to be happening. I then found myself saying in the dream, "I must be dreaming!" and became lucid. Now as everyone knows, almost anything can seem normal in a dream as our mind seems to find some way to justify the strangeness of something being odd and out of place. There seems to be a short period of time just before our mind justifies the strangeness where we can become lucid. Thinking of "something being strange" or "odd" would seem to be a very abstract and unreliable dreamsign because of the way our minds so quickly make everything seem normal. Any suggestions on a mantra or a way to develop that short period of time before "strangeness" turns into being "normal"? I know that something concrete like "seeing a dog" would be much easier to use as a dream sign, but I have been noticing a lot of odd things in my dreams and upon recall, remember how odd or confusing it was in the dream, yet it so far has not lead to lucidity. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

In order to become lucid during a dream, we have to know what a dream is during the dream. The problem is, in many ways, dreams are similar to waking life so we mix the two up. It is more risky to assume we are dreaming while we are awake than it is to assume we are awake while we are dreaming, so if during a dream we don't know the difference between the dream and waking life, we assume we are awake.

When a difference between waking life and dreaming presents itself during a dream, we call it a dream sign. So, to know the difference between waking and dreaming is to know the dream sign you experience is a dream sign. To know that a dream sign is a dream sign, we first have to learn that it is a dream sign.

How do you learn that a dream sign is a dream sign? You rehearse! Learning that a dream sign is a dream sign is just like learning the cues to perform your lines during a play you are starring in. Think of the dream as a play: during the dream, you are to perform a particular action during the dream (something like a reality check) upon experiencing a dream sign. The catch is, you don't know exactly what the dream sign will be. However, you do know that the dream sign will present itself either out of your inner awareness, or out of the action, form or context of the dream. You also have an idea what kind dream signs might occur based on what dream signs have occurred in the past.

Once you start learning what are some of the cues that you're dreaming are and once your attention is on those same cues during the dream, you'll start to at least consider the possibility that you are dreaming during the dream.

Thanks Dolphin. About rehearsing. What I'm considering doing is to rehearse(visualize) noticing some of the strange things that have showed up in some recent dreams and the feelings these strange things generated within the dream. I have also been trying to decide on a mantra to use during the day to help set my intention to become aware that I am dreaming. Something basic (but a bit long) like "tonight when I'm dreaming, when I notice something odd or confusing, I will know that I'm dreaming". I've also been setting awareness cues for the day and when one shows up, I look at my hands and say "when I see my hands in a dream, I will know that I'm dreaming". I then do a couple of RC's. Don't know if I'm making things to complicated. In any case, my dream recall has been improving. I'm retired, so I've been spending a lot of time reading about LD and working on many of the basics to have an LD. I think that in my anxiousness to have another LD, I may be trying to do to much to quickly.

I think you're on the right track with your plan.

If you're in doubt whether or not you should be doing something to become lucid, ask yourself whether it is helping you to learn to associate dream signs with dreaming. If it isn't, then you don't need to do it.

RCs are an example of this. You only need to do an RC if you are genuinely unsure whether you are awake or dreaming. Upon experiencing a dream sign, you will often already know you are dreaming so there will be no need to do an RC. That said, an RC can still be used as a dream goal to help stabilize lucidity. But you can also use dream goals other than RCs to serve this same purpose.

If you think you're doing too much, then you're doing too much, so do less. You don't want to burn yourself out.