Your Brain Doesn't Want You To Become Lucid

I have a theory that your brain doesn't want you to become lucid. This may be because of the frustraton I have had lately with becoming lucid while still having very vivid dreams, and good dream recall. Those "Why the heck didn't I realize I was dreaming" type of dreams.

Anyhow, I've started incorporating dream signs. If I see certain people, or am at a certain location, it's a dream. It's worked a few times in the past.

Two nights ago I had one of those types, but NEW people (that I knew from school) were in my dream. I woke up and added those people to my list.

Last night I have another dream with even more people I knew and that I haven't had contact with for 20 years. My brain tricked me again! It somehow knows my dreamsigns and finds others from WAY back in my memory and uses them.

Every night I tell myself I will become lucid, but it seems somehow my brain tricks me making this "just real enough" for me not to become lucid. (I've been using DILD for 15 years or so now, normally with great success).

The frustration doesn't help, I know. :) But curious if anyone else has similar experiences. You say something like "If I see Joe or Jack from high school, 20 years ago, that's a dream sign" and your brain never shows you them again, but shows you Jim and Bob! lol...

Yes I have totally found this to be true. But it's weird because I can kind of trick it with new techniques, but then it's like it catches on to that. I'm running out of things to try, so I hope I find the ultimate inducement technique soon.

The funniest thing is that is should be SO easy to do! I mean, I work all day, play with my daughter, then go to bed. It's winter now, very cold.

My dreams are normally summer time. I have frequent dreams about school, or old jobs. I should see all these easily as dream signs. :) I never see a computer or my daughter... that's 90% of my day. I see my wife sometimes. I see people I haven't seen for years... talk to them like we've kept in touch alll this time.

If my brain really wanted to trick me, it would have me working on my computer or watching my daughter.. lol..

I wish I could remember what I did in college when I first got into LD... easily had them once a week. I think I tied a string on my finger, or put one glove on before bed.... something that when I'd see it in my dream it reminded me, "oh ya, I did that to remember I'm dreaming!"

I wake up and just get frustrated these days. :)

Do you think age could have anything to do with it? Sometimes I wonder if I got into a little late or something, and maybe that is why I seem to have more trouble than most of the people on DV. (I hope not.) Have you been doing it all along and just recently had problems? Or did you used to do it in college, then forgot about it for a while, now trying to get back into it?

I dream about people from the past a lot too, but also people from work now.

Its rlly hard for me to become lucid and im 16.

I did it by accident in college (90s) looked it up and found out some tricks. Did it for a while. Then forgot about it.

Then I got lucid a while back again and remembered how awesome it was. So now I'm trying again. It's maybe not that I cant, but that I want to and am not up to snuff on practice.

I didn't mean to imply that you won't get it back. Maybe some people just have a harder time (thanks ShYne for letting me know it may not be my middle-aged brain that is my problem.)

Actually, I am having the opposite problem right now. Two nights in a row I have dreams about lucid dreams, without becoming lucid! So my brain is trying to tell me but I am not listening. Or something like that.

it's funny this topic came up when it did. Latley my brain has been trying to trick me to become lucid. WHen I first starded doing HAND RC's.. i kept thinking i would have more than 5 fingers in my dream. and what do you know.. the next time I was madly trying to RC in a dream, I only had 4 fingers and didnt' even realize it and didn't become lucid. In my dream last night, I was once again looking for hands but instead in my dream I was looking at a picture of hands and one hand had 10 fingers.. for some reason It didn't cue me in at all because I was expecting the inconsistancy to be with MY hands.. fuckin' hell! it just means we have to keep our minds open and really question reality.

That kind of stuff happens to me all the time. I don't understand why the brain plays tricks like that. Why does it not want to have lucid dreams?

to be energy efficient? I've noticed that whatever i say or suggest to my mind, he always takes the shortest available path - ie when i wanted to have good dream recall, i started waking up after every rem period :)

Man..
It seems like my brain didn't want me to become lucid this morning

One thing that usually always lets me know it's a dream..
are weird times
I'm somehow acutely aware of the time in dreams..

Well.. in my dream my cell phone said it was 17:05
and then said it was like 1:20:08
and I was like hm..
and my aunt came over and explained
how my cell phone has the wrong setting
and it is broken
and how it is a form similar to military hours
I was a sucka
I believed her

I have often felt the same way. I use to have a lot of dreams about dogs for some weird reason until i started doing state checks when i was walking my dog. But then, almost like to stay one step ahead, i started dreaming about casual friends and so started doing checks when i was having casual conversations with people, which is a tricky situation for me to be aware in.

The weird thing is, every now and again i will have a dream with so many blatently obvious dreamsigns a DC might as well slap me and say `you´re dreaming!!´ Almost like there´s something pushing me to be lucid.

Quote:

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Well.. in my dream my cell phone said it was 17:05
and then said it was like 1:20:08
and I was like hm..
and my aunt came over and explained
how my cell phone has the wrong setting
and it is broken
and how it is a form similar to military hours
I was a sucka
I believed her[/b]

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lol....
yeah it happens the 2 ways....either you want to LD and you don't or you don't care and your brain wants you to (or it just want's to make you go mad :D )

Hi:
I was going to post this as a starter-thread (probly still will) it also seemed appropriate to post here.

My experience with LD's started when I was about 5, at that time I had a dream where I was in a boat on a lake there was another person, I can't remember who it was but it was someone I knew, an older male. We where fishing with two gorillas (at this time in my life I had an obsession with monkeys, it seemed to me they could do anything, like climbing etc.) suddenly I knew I was dreaming, and sadly, my excitement to be with these gorillas faded at finding out I was dreaming. I was disappointed cause the experience wasn't real, from that point all I wanted to do was wake up c I knew I was dreaming, it was hard to wake up and this scared me (not being able to wake when I wanted to)

This just dawned on me a few days ago when I had a dream where there was a paper in front of me some words allot of swirls and swirling patterns I was looking at it as a piece of art bam I suddenly realize that my eyes are closed almost at the same instant I knew everything would go blank and I'd wake up, well I kind'a argued with myself and held the paper there just to delay the blank from coming on. I held this for maybe 7 seconds every thing went white and I woke up. I thought maybe from that experience I've conditioned myself to wake up when I start to become lucid.

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Originally Posted by someweirdsin

The weird thing is, every now and again i will have a dream with so many blatently obvious dreamsigns a DC might as well slap me and say `you´re dreaming!!´ Almost like there´s something pushing me to be lucid.
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in one of my first lucids w/ great vividness i was in a school and a kid walked up to me and said i've got a surprise for you. then he kneed my in the nuts and said, "you're dreaming!" :bigteeth:

maybe there is something pushing us to become lucid, and maybe it's not limited to our nightly lives in the dream world. last night i smoked w/ some friends for the first time in 6 weeks (and i kept count because i only quit for so long to help w/ LD's) and i could feel that i was lucid in the waking state; meaning i could make the connection between my thoughts about my current 'reality' and where i live and who lives w/ me and the things in my life. what i'm trying to say is i've had dream events happen in our physical reality that have tied different parts of my life or questions that i've been wondering about life together and i do half a dozen reality checks because i know that those are the same things that happen in my dreams night after night, only to find that it happened in 'real life'. i've been trying to LD for 3 months now and have had about 10 DILDS, 15 FILDS, and 15 WBTB and about half were controlled w/ great success. i use the law of attraction as described by Abraham, meditation, and becoming lucid during the day. i think the problem w/ us missing the dream signs is we are in a trance all day so we just trance along w/ the dreams that don't make sense. being lucid while awake is kind of like an active meditation, clearing the mind of the trance thought and really being here in the now and realizing that it's our own thoughts that create the reality around us ( the same way that our mind creates the dream reality around us). i've found that most of the days i do this, i have some kind of LD that night ( about 85%). maybe this could help you to become lucid enough to do a RC; or, like for me it just hits like a train that i'm dreaming.

sorry it's so long :yumdumdoodledum:

i'm 21

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Originally Posted by whereami

i've been trying to LD for 3 months now and have had about 10 DILDS, 15 FILDS, and 15 WBTB and about half were controlled w/ great success. i use the law of attraction as described by Abraham, meditation, and becoming lucid during the day.
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Do you have any good links that describe the methods you've been using? sounds interesting!

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Originally Posted by taltho

. I thought maybe from that experience I've conditioned myself to wake up when I start to become lucid.
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Waking up when becoming lucid seems to be a common problem. so maybe that's all it is. I have recently successfully gone back (twice in the same dream) to an LD as it faded and I started to wake up by imagining the scene I had just left. I read about the technique in EWOLD I think; I actually remembered to use it and it worked. Maybe you can remember to try it next time.

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Originally Posted by Moonbeam

Waking up when becoming lucid seems to be a common problem. so maybe that's all it is. I have recently successfully gone back (twice in the same dream) to an LD as it faded and I started to wake up by imagining the scene I had just left. I read about the technique in EWOLD I think; I actually remembered to use it and it worked. Maybe you can remember to try it next time.
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Cool thank you. :) I don't understand "EWOLD" did you mean EWLD?

Yes please "wereami"Do you have any links explaining your meditation/ or techniques. I would litterily kill to have that many lucids in 3 months.

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Originally Posted by taltho

Cool thank you. :) I don't understand "EWOLD" did you mean EWLD?
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What's EWLD? :wink:

Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LeBarge (LaBerge?) I am having a dryspell so I've got it back out again and try to glance thru and do some exercises before sleep, most nights.

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Originally Posted by taltho

Yes please "wereami"Do you have any links explaining your meditation/ or techniques. I would litterily kill to have that many lucids in 3 months.
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:bowdown: Yea me too, do tell!

Always reassuring to see I'm not the only one who has all these frustrations.

Sometimes I just want to scream at my brain: "All I'm asking for is a lucid dream! I'm not asking for supernatural powers, I'm not asking to reverse time, just a tiny, little realization that I'm dreaming!"

I do think that this thread has hit upon a truth, legbuh.

I've found my dreams getting increasingly like real life recently and I'm sure theat this is simply because my brain doesn't want me to realise I'm dreaming.

Gone are my usual giant flying machines and impossibly huge buildings. I can't even breath underwater anymore!

It's like my brain is being very careful to make sure that my dreams feel as much like reality as possible.

I actually think it's the work of your Guardian Angel.

If your angel has doubts about your motivations, and/or is generally uncomfortable with you, it is doubtful that they will let you into their realm. However, it is entirely possible to come into balance with your angel's needs etc. as well as to dis-illusion the dis-trust you may have built.

Often times, people have amazing relationships with their GA's without even noticing it. It is a necessity, IMO, for each person who is an experienced Lucid Dreamer, to come to know their GA on a personal level.

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Originally Posted by Alban

I've found my dreams getting increasingly like real life recently and I'm sure theat this is simply because my brain doesn't want me to realise I'm dreaming.

Gone are my usual giant flying machines and impossibly huge buildings. I can't even breath underwater anymore!

It's like my brain is being very careful to make sure that my dreams feel as much like reality as possible.
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Couldn't have said it better myself. "More life like" dreams.

Although when you wake, the "story" may have been weird.

Like the other night I dreamt I had to go to JC Pennys... no idea why. When I get there, there are literally thousands of college students lined up so I can't get to where I want to go. I ask someone what is going on. They said something to the affect of "well, it's the last day of 2006, and we all need new driver's licenses for 2007 or we won't be able to go out to the bars for new years." lol... that was funny. I remember feeling like "shoot, I better get in line too!" But I found a shortcut to where I needed to go.

So, while realistic, things were obviously wrong.

1. You dont renew your license at JC Pennys
2. You don't need a new license every year

haha.... oh.. I must just be getting old.

Hmm...can't say I experience the same problem. My dreams haven't changed a bit since I started trying to LD. They're always crazy, most of the time impossible, and usually have a plot similar to whatever's currently going on in my life.

For example, I&#39;ve been playing Starcraft recently since my sister got into it, and two weeks ago, I had a dream that I was in a game of Starcraft (I was the hero with an army of zerglings defending my castle from another hero with an army of zerglings....I died >.<)

lol, anyway, that&#39;s how my dreams have always been, and I hope they stay that way because it really helps me get lucid.

On a personal side note, I became lucid during the Starcraft dream (yay) and it was one of the greatest lucid dreams of my life.

Sometimes I feel as though people embelish their dream lives here. If you aren&#39;t a master dreamer, it is nothing to be ashamed of.

(Not pointing any fingers at anyone specific, just a general observation)

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Originally Posted by Dragos

(I was the hero with an army of zerglings defending my castle from another hero with an army of zerglings....I died >.<)
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Oh that is fantastic&#33; Zerglings are one of my favouritest things in the universe&#33; So manic and intense, like an army of my little sister :eek:

Back on topic, though, my dreams have become pretty much exactly like yours legbuh, strange storylines but only strange enough to be noticeable when I&#39;m awake.

I like OneRyt&#39;s guardian angel idea, but in my case I&#39;m more inclined to think it&#39;s my subconscious.

Dreams have always been a very prominent part of my life and maybe some minds (eg. mine) just need to make use of them to sort things out.
I&#39;m guessing my SC is saying: "This LDing is fine but for the moment I&#39;ve got a lot of things to say to you and when you&#39;re lucid I can&#39;t get through."

EDIT: By the way, what&#39;s JC Pennys?

Well, had my first WILD last night. Maybe complaining works&#33; This was by FAR the best lucid experience to date, even though I lost control after my hormones took over. lol.. Next time I&#39;m groping I&#39;m gonna stare at my hands.. lol


My WILD

The coolest thing about it was, I was only out for an hour... trying to WILD for at least 30 minutes, and WILDed for maybe 10 minutes. Woke up feeling like I had just got the best night&#39;s sleep ever.

Can&#39;t wait to try it again tonight&#33;

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Originally Posted by someweirdsin

The weird thing is, every now and again i will have a dream with so many blatently obvious dreamsigns a DC might as well slap me and say &#96;you´re dreaming&#33;&#33;´ Almost like there´s something pushing me to be lucid.
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that is pretty much every dream for me. it&#39;s so god damn blatant :mad:

Sorry, Alban.. I missed your question. JC Penny&#39;s is a department store. My SC must have chosen it because it&#39;s more classy that Wal Mart, but not as classy as Sacks... lol

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Originally Posted by whereami

in one of my first lucids w/ great vividness i was in a school and a kid walked up to me and said i&#39;ve got a surprise for you. then he kneed my in the nuts and said, "you&#39;re dreaming&#33;" :bigteeth:

maybe there is something pushing us to become lucid, and maybe it&#39;s not limited to our nightly lives in the dream world.
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First of all, that dream is awesome&#33; hahaha. I would have made sweet sweet love to that DC. That´s if your dream nuts were okay of course. hahaha.

Also, i do get that impression that something is pushing us to become lucid. I have also had a lot of really weird experiences with mediation and just general weird perceptions of reality and know exactly what you´re talking about when you say being lucid while awake.

I read a strange story once, that talked about moments of realisation, of clarity, when you stop and shut up and answers just seems to come to you. You realise things that you´ve looked over so many times before. That we think all along that this is US thinking, our own mind and our own thoughts, when it is actually other elements and energies influencing us, and turning our heads to see things in another light.

I know this is probably a bit on the trippy end of the topic, but i thought i would mention it.

Talking about your brain wanting you to become lucid when you don&#39;t care: I even wonder if you can tell yourself in a dream "I&#39;m dreaming" and not realising you are dreaming (do you get it?)....I think it happened to me before but unsure...

I&#39;m sure it could happen to me. I&#39;ve had every variation of almost-lucid possible, so that one is probably next.

P.S. I like your signature, that has happened to me a lot too.

Thanks...
Last night was one hell of a night for me: I think I had all in all 10 dreams, including 2 which I both dreamt twice....In these dreams at some point "I" knew I was dreaming (because "I" saw twice the same situations, like in The Matrix) but I (the real I) wasn&#39;t lucid (hem.....).
I know I didn&#39;t personnally know I wasn&#39;t dreaming because I would have become conscious and probably excited.....or maybe you can be lucid and still not conscious.....dunno...
It&#39;s at this point I don&#39;t know anymore the definition of lucidity.....maybe it doesn&#39;t care :D

There are real lucids without any of the confusing semi-lucid scenarios. I have done it before. Hopefully all the semi-lucids are just practice for your braind leading to lots of real lucids.

What is the reason why it&#39;s so hard to get lucid?

Is it only because your brain doesn&#39;t want you to?

Is it because the techniques are just hard?

Or is it because during your dream your subconsious is dominating so much that your consciousness is having a hard time getting lucid?

What is the main problem?

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Originally Posted by BohmaN

What is the reason why it&#39;s so hard to get lucid?

(snip)

What is the main problem?
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There are lots of possible problems. Off the top of my head:

- trying too hard
- not trying hard enough
- giving up too easily
- unable or unwilling to dedicate the attention and effort to becoming disciplined
- getting inadequate or low quality sleep
- working too much and just plain being too tired or exhausted
- mysterious dry spells (I&#39;ve been in one for a while now, even though I&#39;ve managed or two LDS a month)
- physical problems
- emotional/psychological problems