How to Effectively Visualize: Part 2 - Incubation

Introduction
Dreams are not based on what we do through the day! You have noticed this before. Just yesterday I was riding my motorcycle, delivering pizzas with my dog that had Sharingan, fending off blackmailers and drug dealers. Not only are basically none of those things here in my regular days in Japan, but they are things I have seen in the past, and actually have some connections. I will explain the connections that the dream has right through here.
Sharingan, the one thing I do see through the day since I am watching Naruto again
The Dog looked like Akamaru from Naruto
Last time I watched Naruto, I watched the first season a few years ago while I was delivering pizza
At Pizza Hut, there were multiple drug dealers, not to mention the people I delivered the pizza to always offering me drugs
I always had cash on me when delivering pizza, always making me aware of the scary comings and going of people that would often make me worried they would try something to steal my money.

So that is the start of the dream, the rest of the things, like the motorcycle were actually decisions that I made while in the dream, causing it to generate weird things, like me riding the motorcycle through the trees like one would run in Naruto.

Here is how I think it works. Your dreams are connected to a thought, or thoughts from the previous day, and spring and connect from there to other similar thoughts. For instance, you may go to the ocean and have a dream connected to a friend that you once went to the ocean with years ago. The thought might even be a thought that happened days before. It is really hard to tell which one it is going to be, even with practice, but you can help it along the way.

Two Major Types
So there are two main types of incubation I can see. Incubating a specific dream and also changing yourself.
Incubating a Dream
This is choosing what your dream is going to be like, through visualization or something similar

Incubating Yourself (or a thought)
This is changing your ideas and how they flow, thus not changing what you dream about, but how you react to what you dream about.

From here on, we are going to talk about them individually, starting with the second one, because I just like to watch the world burn.

Incubating Yourself (or a thought)
So! If you are present in a dream, you actually might notice this, but you usually act rationally. You are making decisions that make sense to the world around you, why would you think it is a dream? The commander definitely said that he needs to pilot this ship around the black hole and we need to make sure the ants don’t see it, or they will try to use it to get back to your home world, so you spend the entire dream trying to keep the ants away from the window. Makes perfect sense. Sometimes, you may even have a fake memory or two to cement it if you start questioning things.

So we, as lucid dreamers, work on incubating this single thought, through RCs, of questioning the world around us. Raising our awareness, thinking about dreams, etc. Making it a normal thought throughout the day, so when we are ourselves during the dreams, we will act like ourselves and RC at times, or at least raise our awareness. Here is how it works with something other than RCs.

16 year old me, loves star wars! I decide… “Dreams are what we think about, not what we do… so I shall visualize using the force all the time and I will see it happen in dreams!” A little simple idea, but every chance I got, I pretended to have the force (Or TK) and lifted things with my mind, in my mind. I could imagine the energy leaving my body and lifting it up. Over and over, all day (I was doing other things, this was more like the moments in between). Then! One night, I had a really present dream and I looked around and said “AHA! I have the force!” and started lifting objects with my mind.

I immediately thought this was even better than expected and considered it “A new skill” that I had acquired in dreams and didn’t worry about trying to keep it. Any time I got in a bind in dreams, it became my go to ability. I then did the same thing with a few other abilities and actions.

So this idea of “pretending to be able to do things” carried into “being able to do things” in dreams. I honestly think that this is what most induction is about as well, we change ourselves into people that reflect upon our surroundings and ask whether or not it is a dream, and we do it. The only extra thing needed is presence in a dream which usually comes with recall. This presence makes it so that we aren’t just “Watching” the dream and we remember it very well.

Incubating a Dream
Alright, so instead of changing how we react to a dream scene, what about choosing exactly what to dream about? This also gets cut into parts.
Something New
Something Old

Something New
We will split this into
Element
Entire scene

And then Element gets split into three parts. Technically Entire Scene could as well, but I aint gonna type it up for both.
Changing ideas
Obsession changing ideas
Direct insertion (MASTER LEVEL)
Element

Changing Ideas
Changing ideas is really the base for this whole thing. If you change your ideas, the world in dreams changes, right? Yes and no. Well… you may have noticed before that the dream doesn’t exactly take an idea directly and insert it in exactly like I want it, it just picks and chooses from the day, but if you change what you believe about something, you can “react” in a dream to how you feel. But this is a long process, right? I said before that it took about a month of all of my moments in between. But here is something I have noticed that happened back then and more recently.
1 month => 3 weeks=>2 weeks=>1 week=>1 week=>6 days=>6 days=>5 days=>4 days=>3 days=>2 days

And I got stuck at 2 days and used it at 2 days for a long time, thinking that this was the limit one could reach. It took me 2 days to put something into a dream. About a year and a half ago, I decided to work hard on being able to change that and it looked like this.
Wake up in the morning, pick something, try really hard to change my idea of it, and then by the night I could dream about it, it worked alright, but it was closer to obsession (I will talk about this later) than just changing the idea, so it took too much effort. I started focusing on the specifics of my dreams and what they usually were spawned from. Usually if I can find the “Seed” I could remember the whole dream and see how it had at least originated. Every time I found this “Seed” I knew that I had it and a feeling came over me. I then added up all the things that had spawned dreams and different times of the day and realized that it didn’t seem to matter much what time of day that thing had been, it could have even been days before. I relied on the feeling like I usually do and tried to try and insert the thing I wanted to either do (I will fly to the moon!), the change in my mind I wanted (I can use rasengan!), or the thing I wanted to see in the dream (I want to see a dragon!). It would take about 30-60 min to get it “Planted” but when it was planted I knew it was planted, because I could feel it. I would forget about it and I would generally dream about it that night, though sometimes it would be the night after. This 30-60 min was too much tho! So I move on to the next thing without being able to finish this one.

Obsession Changing Ideas
This one is very similar and much different. It relies heavily on visualization, but was found out without it, I just discovered it one day.

Have you ever spent too much time on a thing that every time you close your eyes, you can see it on the back of your eyelids? I remember when I was young and played guitar hero and went from beginner to expert in a week of practice, at the end of the week I would close my eyes and see the buttons scrolling down and I could hear the music all the time. I remember falling asleep with my phone in my hand and my hand was playing it like it would a guitar hero guitar. I dreamt about it in every dream I remembered.

When returning to dreaming later, I remembered this and decided to see if I could do this same thing. I grabbed a video game and played it until I could see it every time my eyes closed. This “Obsession” took about a week to get on there. A week of hardcore gaming for a few dreams about the game wasn’t too much help. Though this was helpful in seeing a dragon that frightened the crap out of me, I love things that can scare me. So anyways, I practiced this obsession idea until I could get it with just one day of obsession over an idea. But even so, choosing what to dream about if it takes all day is too much! I want to dream to extend my time, not to waste hours trying to create a 30 minute dream.

Direct Insertion (MASTER LEVEL)
So I don’t want to Meditate for 30-60 minutes and I don’t want to obsess with something all day. What do I do???
I decided to work on the two together! Of course!
The first thing I did was to pick a thing and pull up the seeding feeling while doing it, but it still took time to get this done. Too much time and I would often not be able to concentrate on the feeling during video games and the like.
So then I decided to focus on the obsession idea with just visualization and bring the feeling into that.
I took about 5 sets of 1 minute each day, thinking that the differentiating times would help and then a 5-10 minute visual session before bed. This made me dream about the thing, but each time I pulled out the seed the next day, it was the time before bed, so I dropped the 5 sets of 1 minute throughout the day and just focused on the before bed part. I could always “feel” when it was planted, so I always knew when to stop. I could change it so that every time I close my eyes I saw the same image, this and the seed at the same time was a good marker for stopping. This couples with the belief again and the changing ideas. If I believe that that is when it stops, then I can also believe that it is going to happen. My dreams are now completely connected to this thought/feeling when I can see something perfectly, I will dream about it.

With practice, I have brought this down to an immediate decision before bed. If I try to do two things, or second guess it, I can fail, but I usually am pretty solid on doing this. I just think for one second, imprint this on my mind and go to sleep. A big drawback is also wanting to do something. If I pick a random dream goal, then I am not able to do this. It is a bad drawback and I have been able to change it a little, but it always works better if it is something that I made up and/or really want to do.

Entire scene
We will split this into:
Old Dream Scene
New Dream Scene

Old Dream Scene
When I was really young, I remember waking from a nightmare and not wanting to go back to sleep, because I would still be in the nightmare. I remember thinking “If I am afraid of going back to a nightmare, then why not be able to jump right back into a different dream too?” I was always really ticked off that my dreams ended without a proper ending anyways, so I took this opportunity to continue the dreams. Funny enough, my dreams seemed to correct over time and instead of continuing to sleep if the dream ended, the dream would come to a good ending and then I would wake. Haha. Then I stopped caring about the ending and when I was starting to wake multiple times at night, I would just continue one long strand and just enjoy the dream that continued with less of a plot or another plot after the end, instead of chasing the end. This made it so that all night every night, I would have a dream start very early in the night and continue through the whole night!

So this was actually really simple.
Step 1. When waking, think of your previous dream and go directly back to sleep while still thinking about it.

Simple? Yeah. but you might see the problem here. Not being able to write down your dream or increase awareness too much, you would usually just stay at the same presence the whole night through and not have any lucids. :/ So big problem there. Thankfully, while growing up, I did take matters into my own hand, but mainly so I could go to the bathroom.

Step 2
Step 1 is actually a good tech in and of itself, so these next two are more like different techs for learning something cool.
I would force myself to stay up just a little while longer with the previous dream “Feel” still there, all the way until I could get up, use the restroom, and then come back to bed. Then with practice, I sent the feeling away and brought it back. Then I realized I could do this over prolonged periods of time. Even up to about 3 hours (basketball practice! Drive there and drive back).

Problem here didn’t come until LDing years later. I would always enter the dream with similar awareness states. So if I was lucid and went back, I would be lucid. If I wasn’t lucid, I wouldn’t be lucid. This made it nice, so if I was able to LD during the night, I just had to go back to sleep and I could always LD more (even if I took a 3 hour waking), sometimes the awareness would be too much less though and I would lose “Full lucidity” and it would just be either a non present lucid, or a present non lucid. Still the problem of not being able to up my awareness during the WBTBs that I use this, so I couldn’t continue dreams that were non lucid and try to make them lucid, unless they were “Almost lucid” So onto:

Step 3
I keep meaning to perfect this, but it takes a lot of work for some reason. I haven’t tried this part much, but it seems to be something that just needs practicing.
Continuing the previous dream from the previous night
Just like the last one, but stretching the dream from one night to the next. Lengthening it from 3 hours to the whole day. I have been able to do this a couple times, but mainly it left me with too many non lucid dreams. It needs perfected at a time that I can stretch my sleep schedule instead of just jumping to 16 hours. With practice, I could not only go to the same place (Zödra) but also to the same exact spot I left off in the last dream every single dream with full awareness. I was here when I realized that the practice had left me without a lucid dream for weeks last year and that I would need to approach it differently. Haha. Either that, or I can try to approach it like a “new dream scene and work on it from there. If I can perfect “A new dream scene” then I can take the old one (like a new one) and achieve the same result, not worrying about the time lapse.

New Dream Scene
A new dream scene is basically like “I want to dream about this specific lake” and then dreaming about it.
I can pick an entire dream scene or something like “I want to fight Sauron”. Etc. I can get an action, place, and other people there. I can get these things created, but what I do there is usually gonna be exactly what I planned, unless I am very present or lucid, then I make the decisions, so it is important to me to pay attention to what I would generally want to do in my dreams. This was one big problem with dream goals I picked in the past. I cared too little about the dream goals and when I became lucid, I would leave the plot of a dream that I started. Now, if you look at my dreams, you will notice that I sometimes even sound like I am not lucid because I am following a plot I developed either at the beginning of the dream or even in a previous dream. Take for instance this dream:
"Week" of dream time, leaving Zödra, TOTY ★★★★★ - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

You will see that I started a dream goal, and over the course of a week (maybe only 21-35 hours or so), I stuck with it. I enjoyed the dream world, present and aware that it was a dream the whole time and keeping track of my dream goal progress. Even though this was a DILD, you can see that the whole start of the dream was done through incubation and I controlled the whole of the plot after that needed fixed for the task I wanted to complete. I knew going in that “The journey is the reward” So even if I didn’t make it to the place in that dream, my dream self (when I am in control) is always patient and might even wait one or two lucids to finish a dream goal without worrying about the time it takes. So instead of forcing the goal to a finish as quick as possible, I let the dream take care of that and I took care of enjoying the dream! Haha. Waking me made a goal and the plot, the dream interpreted it a little and I enjoyed!

Before I told you I could pick a single element. But this is much more than that. If I want to dream about my childhood home, I could easily do that, but to dream about it in its actual place in the world with a plot that I choose (instead of trying to fix the roof in space) then it is a whole new ballgame. I use 3D modeling and time changes.
I am actually not very good at this. It usually takes me a lot of time to do it unless I WILD, and my WILD tech is… complicated and going to come out after part 3 of visualization.

I have to go back to the creation again so you can understand. Sorry about all this backstory.
I have always had insomnia, so I used to spend the time thinking of the books I could write, but instead of coming up with a book and just writing (since I couldn’t turn my light on or my parents would get angry) I would imagine the whole story and place myself as the main character. I would then go through the plot and try to come up with fun things to do. I never actually dreamed about these, but my memory of them is almost as vivid as dreams because of the amount of time I spent visualizing on them. I would then restart the whole plot in my head the next day and go through the whole thing and think of something else fun to do. All sorts of fun shenanigans to be had. But anyways, this “creating an entire scene and plot and going over and over it in my mind” made my visualizations very three dimensional and I could even replay a visualization that I had gone over a few times in my head without forgetting anything. Creating this as a backstory and using the dream feeling I have had before (the seed feeling and dream feeling are inseparable) I can create a plot and then pick a starting point, replaying the backstory over and over in my head. I need to try for longer, but for DILDs I usually try for a 10 minute visualization session and then try to incubate. I am probably about 25% on this, but I could make it a lot easier if I spent time on it (I have done this before and spent time until I was 100% sure) but I don’t like wasting day time.

I think that clears most things up, but let’s get to some extra incubation for lucid dreaming

EXTRAS
I talked about this before, and this is actually something I find interesting, since I find it to be the same idea as DEILD, but extended.
Fixing control problems
Let’s say I can’t use electricity or teleport or summon people and I really want to use electricity. Usually, I would tell you to go somewhere that it is common, like 木ノ葉隠れの里 (Konohagakure no sato, or Konoha, or Village Hidden in the Leaves), but if you can’t teleport, you can’t get there. If you didn’t want to do that, then I would tell you to summon Kakashi, but if you can’t do that, then he won’t be there. That is two options right there, incubate Kakashi or incubate Konoha and tada! You can have him teach you. Or! The option I used when I was 17 and didn’t know about LDing, I memorized the hand motions for Chidori and told myself that I could do Chidori, tada, non lucid about Chidori. If you have read my tutorials before, then you know that being able to do something in a non lucid first is actually nice, because then you already know how to do it, because you have already done it before! (Queue Harry Potter 3 music).
A dream sign
Do you have something in your dreams that every time you see it, you get lucid? Incubate that.
A dream sign
Make something that happens all the time in a lucid that gets you lucid!
A thought
I used to incubate “I’m dreaming” into my dreams and I would have the thought and immediately slow down and assess my situation. I even went so far as to have a 1 minute alarm that would alert me say “I’m dreaming” I wasn’t trying to think “I’m dreaming every minute though, but to think about dreams for the entire duration of the minute. This lasted two weeks and led to amazing results, as well as the worst headache I have ever had. Haha. It is actually a lot harder to get a single idea in every dream than a single dream through the night, or keep an idea going through the night, or an item/place/thing in every dream. But that might just be me and I might be limiting myself. Doesn’t matter tho since I have surpassed the temporary high that that gave me.

TL;DR
In changing our thoughts about who we are, or how the world works, we change how we react to the dream
Believing that it is possible is very important
realize when you have succeeded
Obsessing until you can see something every time you close your eyes can make you dream about it
What you incubate can be an idea as well as something tangible
It is possible to continue dreams by their feeling
It is possible to create a new dream and "feel" it and then "continue" it

Great post!

Isn't MILD also kind of an Incubation. When you lie down in bed and visulize becoming lucid while repeating your mantra.
You could see this like incubating the thought of becomming lucid in your dreams?!
That would make MILD a combination of prospective memory and incubation.

Thoughts?

Great stuff once again Sensei! I can't wait to see your next post! We miss seeing you here on a regular basis.