Imaginary Dreamsigns?

[Matteftw]

Hello fellow dreamers! I have lately started to understand the power that dream signs possess and wanted to get more familiar with them. I have never really had a good dream recall, mostly due to my own lack of motivation with the dream journal. (Workin on it) I am also well aware that you should dig into your own DJ and try to utilize and find as many signs as possible, but one thing got me thinking, - for instance, I keep dreaming about my old summer place alot. But these days I have no possibility to go there at all. Another thing would perhaps be my brother, he seems to be a recurring dream character of mine, but I meet him only twice a month. I mean, using that as a dream sign wouldn't be that efficient, right? It's a solid dream sign but I simply can't rehearse them as often as I want to. So now to my question: can you imagine yourself being at your summerhouse for a breif moment, and then perform a RC, or imagining yourself seeing your brother around the corner and then performing another RC? If that makes sense.. The thing about trying to do as many reality checks as possibly during the day has never been working for me. I need something to trigger the brain to actually question my surroundings and then perform the RC. I'd also be happy to hear some of your favorite dream signs, like the easy ones. I'm trying to remember to perform RC everytime i step through a door for instance. I need some non-personal inspiration of dream signs that you have been able to implement into your lives and in turn got you lucid. Thanks in advance, Mattias

[Sageous]

You really don't need to physically see the objects of your dream signs during waking-life; you need only remember them when you wake up, and use them when you set your intention at bedtime (i.e., say "when I see my brother, I will know I am dreaming"). Dream signs don't need to be present in waking-life when you do your RC; I think you might be combining two different things (RC's and dream signs), and that would indeed lead to difficulty. If doing this were necessary, then I would feel bad for dreamers who have, say, giant purple dragons as a dream sign! The only time these two things are combined is during the dream, when you should do a RC after you see your dream sign and realize you might be dreaming. If you received an instruction combining RC's with dream signs in waking-life practice from a person or tutorial, then I suggest you look somewhere else for information.

[Matteftw]

Hm, I'm not quite following here. I understand it is not vital to have a dream sign in order to perform reality checks during daytime, but we're on the same page when I say you should definitely perform a reality check when you happen to spot a recurring dream sign during the day? I can't even count how many times i have heard and read that people create their own dreamsigns like; every time you drink water, perform a reality check. Everytime you see a dog, perform a reality check etc, not to mention their own personal dream signs. For me it has not worked just by doing reality checks at random moments throughout the day. I'm probably looking at my phone atleast 30-40 times a day and I never do it in my dreams. Isn't that more or less the same thing as a realitycheck without a trigger? And my thought was to implement something stronger, that would slap me in the face during dreamtime and force me into performing a reality check? Have I gotten this completely wrong or am I just missing your point? I mean, I wont ever doubt or wrong you, I know your impressive background, I'm just trying to grasp!

[Occipitalred]

Definition Dream signs are recurring dream contents that are unlikely to appear in waking life. So, being on your phone, which is very likely to happen during waking life, is not a proper dream sign according to the definition. You will never associate being on your phone with dreaming because it is so mundane. Definition dream signs actually can do their work pretty naturally. For example, getting attacked is something that only happens to me in dreams, and I often realize I am dreaming in those situation. I naturally associate those events to dreams. Uses Waking up, you can go through your established dream signs (also those recurring dream contents that aren't necessarily dream signs), it might facilitate dream recall. (I like this) Before going to bed, you can set the intention to become lucid when noticing your dream signs. (I don't like this one, though it is the main common use for dream signs). Day practice You can practice prospective memory by setting the intention to RC every time you notice, for example, something red during the day. I don't know if that is demonstrably useful, but it at least helps you understand what you are trying to do when setting your intention before bed ('when I come across dream sign, I will know I am dreaming') Because dream signs will not come up during a normal day, it is not practical to practice RC after seeing a dream sign. However, it could be natural for you to think about those things when you come upon them. Visualisation About your idea of imagining coming across your dream signs, yes! I like that train of thought. What I do, is when I notice recurring dream contents or dream patterns in my journal, I will also write a simulated journal entry where I have a similar dream and react in a different way. For example: in the dream, I run away from conflict. In the simulated journal entry, I recognize the dream and I confront the conflict interpreting it as dream content. Also, I will have visualisation/daydreaming sessions where I relive common dream tropes and do that same exercise. Conclusion If you notice, in dreams, we do gain some experience and learn to react in certain ways in certain contexts. I think we need to build our relationship with lucidity in a natural way rather than an arbitrary way. So, personally, I never set intentions to become lucid with a dream sign. I just simply set the intention to notice I am dreaming.

[DarkestDarkness]

I wont' go into dream-sign specifics or basics since I don't think I can really be that helpful in that regard just right now anyway; I think Sageous and Occipitalred are giving good advice here and I also agree with the Occipitalred's conclusion about setting intentions to become lucid from a specific sign, despite what I'm about to say... Regarding creating your own dream-signs, from my experience you can indeed "create" or insert "artificial" dream-signs into your dreaming mind and like Occipitalred pointed out they should still follow the rule of not being too mundane and I believe that they should be personal to you and really have some meaning to begin with for you. The only artificial sign I use has a very deep network of complex symbolic meanings to me, despite being a mundane thing for many people around the world. Anyway, you can, in simple terms, turn a symbol or situation that's unusual in waking life to you and that has some deep or personal meaning to you into an artificial dream-sign. By artificial, I mean that this sign might even not have appeared in your dreams at all until now or was extremely rare. From my experience, the mind will eventually become consciously (and otherwise) focused on this personal symbol for the very purpose of using it as a dream-sign and I'm now far more likely to question reality and what's going on around me when I notice this particular dream-sign; importantly, if I even just think about my artificial dream-sign I start to question reality and wonder why I'm thinking about it, as I have a few times over the course of writing this out. And if you want more specifics/details about my own context with artificial signs, just let me know here or PM me. Although I haven't updated the extra info part of my DJ here on this, I've actually stopped trying to track every single little natural dream-sign I have, so I mostly stick to my artificial one as the only one that is very specific and generalise my natural specific dream-signs into over-arching concepts. This is because I have found over time that my specific and natural dream-signs change and they do this often enough that it feels like wasted time trying to keep track of all of them now. Instead I now actually try to pay more attention to general contexts that are unusual for waking life such as "seeing a dead relative", this would be a good generalisation of a more specific dream-sign like "seeing my dead grandmother from my father's side". Paying more attention to those concepts and situations that definitely have a "wait, what if I'm dreaming?" feel to them, instead of trying to remember every single thing that might be a dream-sign, such as a being in a train, seeing a dragon or whatever. I didn't mean to make my reply so long... I really can't explain anything in short sentences.

[Matteftw]

First of all, thank you all for spreading some light in my foggy mind and I apologize beforehand for my repeating questions.. I wont' go into dream-sign specifics or basics since I don't think I can really be that helpful in that regard just right now anyway; I think Sageous and Occipitalred are giving good advice here and I also agree with the Occipitalred's conclusion about setting intentions to become lucid from a specific sign, despite what I'm about to say... Regarding creating your own dream-signs, from my experience you can indeed "create" or insert "artificial" dream-signs into your dreaming mind and like Occipitalred pointed out they should still follow the rule of not being too mundane and I believe that they should be personal to you and really have some meaning to begin with for you. The only artificial sign I use has a very deep network of complex symbolic meanings to me, despite being a mundane thing for many people around the world. Anyway, you can, in simple terms, turn a symbol or situation that's unusual in waking life to you and that has some deep or personal meaning to you into an artificial dream-sign. By artificial, I mean that this sign might even not have appeared in your dreams at all until now or was extremely rare. From my experience, the mind will eventually become consciously (and otherwise) focused on this personal symbol for the very purpose of using it as a dream-sign and I'm now far more likely to question reality and what's going on around me when I notice this particular dream-sign; importantly, if I even just think about my artificial dream-sign I start to question reality and wonder why I'm thinking about it, as I have a few times over the course of writing this out. And if you want more specifics/details about my own context with artificial signs, just let me know here or PM me. Although I haven't updated the extra info part of my DJ here on this, I've actually stopped trying to track every single little natural dream-sign I have, so I mostly stick to my artificial one as the only one that is very specific and generalise my natural specific dream-signs into over-arching concepts. This is because I have found over time that my specific and natural dream-signs change and they do this often enough that it feels like wasted time trying to keep track of all of them now. Instead I now actually try to pay more attention to general contexts that are unusual for waking life such as "seeing a dead relative", this would be a good generalisation of a more specific dream-sign like "seeing my dead grandmother from my father's side". Paying more attention to those concepts and situations that definitely have a "wait, what if I'm dreaming?" feel to them, instead of trying to remember every single thing that might be a dream-sign, such as a being in a train, seeing a dragon or whatever. I didn't mean to make my reply so long... I really can't explain anything in short sentences. What this is telling me from the last senctence from you is that you focus on a broader dream-sign theme, highly unlikely to happen in waking life, while focusing on one or two artificial general dreamscenarios that might spark lucidity, i.e your dead realative? That makes sense to me, for sure. Say I'd do that, with very limited DJ entries and lack of recall, what would be the most ideal type of daily training? I still believe in projecting a dream-sign in my mind during the day, imbued with a sceptical approach combined with reality checks in order to snap out of zombie-mode dreamtime as well as waking time. Simply remembering the few dream-signs in the morning feels to vague for me at the moment. Wouldn't this after some time of practice force my mind the very second I hear his voice or feel his presence lead me to critical thinking and awareness? Combined with repeating mantras before bed of course. I'm just a bit confused about how I could utilize and spice it up when it comes to my dream-signs, because i feel i need to rehearse it and expose myself to the said dream sign as much as possible due to the fact that my overall memory and vividness is in such a bad shape. Maybe I'm all wrong on this and ought to change my perspective/focus elsewhere, but it feels like you are somewhat on the same path even thought I'm probably missing the bigger picture due to my lack of experience. Anyway, thanks to you all for taking the time. I hope this makes some sort of sense to you, haha.

[Caradon]

It's not that complex and confusing, really. Remember the goal is just to get yourself to think about it when you're in a dream. You do that while thinking about it while awake. You keep the thought on the forefront of your mind as much as possible. Keep an eye out for any kind of abnormalities/dreamsigns. whether they might be something common that you are trying to catch, or something completely random. And practice the standard RC's while awake so you can remember them in your dream. I always recommend practicing the standard RC's after becoming lucid too. Because at least for me that helps to remember to do them in my dream when I need to. Plus gets you used to how they work in your dream. As you progress you tweak things here and there as you figure out what works best for you personally.

[Sivason]

Sageous and Occiptalred gave spot on answers so I will not labor to repeat that. I have heard the term also used for what you first said, the idea being you will always RC when you see such and such. If that works, I have not heard it from the the regular crowd of long time dreamers. Instead, you notice some frequent dream themes that pretty much are only happening in dreams and program a response, and so on as described above. Examples of how I use this: My father is dead, my cousin is far away but they used to be in my life and still are in my dreams. If I see my dad, who is dead, I must be dreaming, repeat 1000 times. If Todd is there it must be a dream, repeat a thousand times. I lived in a big red house for a decade, many parties and moments of life were there. I often am in that house in my dreams, but never in life. I spent 20+ years of my life going to school and taking classes with deadlines and impending tests. That has not been part of my life for 15 years. It is not unlikely for me to be upset because I did not study for a test, but it is always because I am dreaming.

[DarkestDarkness]

It's taken me a while to get back to this thread but I've been meaning to give you a further reply, Matteftw. What this is telling me from the last senctence from you is that you focus on a broader dream-sign theme, highly unlikely to happen in waking life, while focusing on one or two artificial general dreamscenarios that might spark lucidity, i.e your dead realative? That makes sense to me, for sure. I think that in the way I'm understanding you, that's almost about right; I wasn't suggesting that seeing a dead relative for example be your artificial sign. It could be I guess, but as I said, whatever your artificial sign is, it needs to have a very deep meaning to you, so if that did have such a meaning, I guess could see it working. The broader dream-sign theme is definitely spot on for regular/natural signs. For context, my artificial sign has a very deep significance to me, as I tried pointing out. Maybe artificial signs don't need to be that important to others, but for me, it has been a benefit to make it a very deep thing and whenever I see it, I almost always do a reality check of some kind. As for the second part of what you said; I know you are asking in a scenario where you have a very limited dream journal, but if possible you should try to keep a dream journal, as even a very loose one, only making note of some points, will be beneficial in my opinion. Not overcommitting yourself to it is a good idea anyway since it prevents it from feeling like a chore or annoyance, especially if you haven't got much time or will in the morning that you can dedicate to it. It's late and I'm tired so I can't really think on how to explain a daily training part for this, so I'll come back to this at some point. But as a quick point, the deep significance of an artificial sign in my opinion becomes important for the part where you are effectively training all of yourself to react to it, be it as a sight, a sensation, a sound or even a thought. It's basically very specifically targetted conditioning; the second part of the training involves getting it to appear in dreams. Anyway, I'll get back to this in the next few days as I said.

[Matteftw]

Hey! Sorry for the late reply. Alright, sounds interesting to me and definitely something I could give a shot! It feels like something that absolutely could be strong enough with the right approach! Looking forward to hear more and how I can utilize this and make it my own version. I am currently on my 9th day on my DJ, with varying results. The main problem is that literally 99,9% of my motivation is gone with the wind when I awake and my drowzy mind wins sooner or later. No problems during the waking hours. I guess what puts me off is when I am struggeling and the results are getting weaker and weaker. Like now, this night was my poorest dream recall of all nights. I am perfectly aware of that it is all about pushing through and keep on doing it until a habit is established, but dang, this one is tough as hell and I'm almost always tripping somewhere before i actually get any firm results.. Well, I hope I can just find the right motivation and keep on moving!

[DarkestDarkness]

Anyway, I'll get back to this in the next few days as I said. Life has been busy and so this has mostly just been in the background but I haven't forgotten about it. I have been thinking about these posts of yours recently and have been trying to figure out how a daily/more step-by-step approach would be laid out; in truth I may have to write it out as a short document, trying to type it up as a spontaneous forum post hasn't been working. There are other dream/inner subjects I've been wanting to type up about, so this is of some motivation as it may be a good project for me to fit into the new year -- I take some time typing things out. And honestly, at the moment my journaling is not as good as I'd like it to be either. For me, the time of year and weather has a lot to do with it, but a bad bed hasn't been helping any. Even so, my dreams have been fairly vivid, it's just my recall is going easily right now. In my case I just accept that at the moment I needn't focus on my DJ since it's being difficult to do so. My RC practice has taken some of the focus instead, which will be good in the long-term anyway. In essence, don't worry about it; you're thinking about it as a whole and that's good for the time being anyway. Don't put yourself down for doing "poorly" or anything like that, you will find the right motivation, it will just take some patience.

[TheUncanny]

I'd even go as far as to say that your RC triggers SHOULDN'T be something you habitually come across. Doing something too habitually or repetitively creates automatic behaviors, and behaviors done automatically are not done lucidly. How many times have you drove or walked the same route to work/school/wherever, only to find you have arrived without really being cognizant of the trip there? What you need is something that snaps you out of auto-pilot, and that can't be done by instilling a habit. Any habit, LD-related or not, is just more auto-pilot. Even your dream finger can fail to penetrate your dream palm if you expect it to fail, and that expectation is reinforced in your mind everytime you try it, and fail, in waking life.

[Sivason]

I'd even go as far as to say that your RC triggers SHOULDN'T be something you habitually come across. Doing something too habitually or repetitively creates automatic behaviors, and behaviors done automatically are not done lucidly. How many times have you drove or walked the same route to work/school/wherever, only to find you have arrived without really being cognizant of the trip there? What you need is something that snaps you out of auto-pilot, and that can't be done by instilling a habit. Any habit, LD-related or not, is just more auto-pilot. Even your dream finger can fail to penetrate your dream palm if you expect it to fail, and that expectation is reinforced in your mind everytime you try it, and fail, in waking life. Thought provoking. Very nice.

[TheUncanny]

That of course leaves the question, what can people do to make questioning the nature of their experiences/environment easier to do? How do you do it more regularly without making a habit of it? I have to admit, I'm not sure what the answer is. With DILDs, I've almost always just had a sense something was off, THEN did the RC to confirm a preexisting suspicion. I'm not sure I've ever became lucid as a result of an RC by itself. The lucidity already emerged somehow and the RC was more of a reassurance than the thing that triggered it. Could just be me. This is why I like WBTB WILDs and DEILD chaining -- I just skip the amnesia part and maintain lucidity throughout the transition. Seems like a dice roll any other way.

[Sivason]

That of course leaves the question, what can people do to make questioning the nature of their experiences/environment easier to do? How do you do it more regularly without making a habit of it? I have to admit, I'm not sure what the answer is. With DILDs, I've almost always just had a sense something was off, THEN did the RC to confirm a preexisting suspicion. I'm not sure I've ever became lucid as a result of an RC by itself. The lucidity already emerged somehow and the RC was more of a reassurance than the thing that triggered it. Could just be me. This is why I like WBTB WILDs and DEILD chaining -- I just skip the amnesia part and maintain lucidity throughout the transition. Seems like a dice roll any other way. Me to. I usually notice the graphics are weird or that basic things do not make sense. After the general nature of the dream has tipped me off the RC is just to confirm my suspicions.

[dolphin]

It's relatively easy to remember to do a DEILD attempt upon waking up, even if we dream of waking up instead of actually waking up. Maybe there are experiences that we consistently dream about that are similar to the experience of waking up that are similarly easy to notice that could similarly be used as a cue to remember to do something.