Thread: Pavlov - Conditioning effect

Well if anyone ever herd of Ivan Pavlov than you know about his experiment with the dog and the bell. If not here is a quick run through. Pavlov would feed his hungry dog with food. When he would bring out the food he would ring a bell. He did this for some time. Eventually one day he rung the bell but did not bring out food for the dog. The dog howhever began to salvate. This was because the dog made the connection between the food and the bell. It's brain was conditioned subconciously to make the connection. People and animals are capable of conditioning our brains the same way. Here me out...

My question is, Is it possible to condition the brain to Lucid dream subconciously. The way I thought of doing this is rather simple. If we took a song of our choice and played it on a continuous loop. Every time we would read or talk about Lucid dreaming we would listen to that song. Simple enough to do while on this site or browsing the interent on dreaming. Continue to do this for some time only listening to that one song. Now that one song needs to be something that you would not normally here when your out or driving around in your car. Obviously you can't whip out dreaming material to read if your song of choice comes on the radio, so it should be something unique or original.

After some time of doing this (maybe a week or more, depending on how often you read and talk about Lucidity and dreams) your brain will condition it'self to making the connection between your song of choice and dreaming/lucidity. Now we can try to listen to that same song of choice while sleeping on the same continuous loop. While in our sleep our brain will subconciously (just like Pavlov's dog) make the connection to the song and Lucid dreams. This effect can help promot Lucid dreams. Hence the Conditioning Effect.

Well I would love to hear what you guys have to say on the matter, or an ideas and suggestions you may have.

This is an interesting idea actually.

Listen to the same song while reading, talking or thinking about lucid dreaming.

Play the song while sleeping to trigger you to think about lucid dreaming which hopefully will cue you to realize you're dreaming.

It's so simple.. it might work!

Hey there,

Do note that Pavlov and the early "behaviorists" detested the use of the word unconscious or subconscious

Pavlov's experiment was about instinctual reflexes and behaviours in reaction to conditioned triggers. They had nothing subconscious about them. It involved a purely physiological reaction. What you're talking about is about creating mental associations between various conscious concepts. The method that you propose is in fact not Pavlovian Conditioning at all, but is closer to modern day condition.

Just to get the semantics right

That said, your idea is interesting, but I predict if it works at all the effects will be temporary. Try it out I'd say though, I'd be interested in hearing your results.

Do be careful of what song you pick, because realize that any song *already* has associations that come with it. The words, the phrases, the style of the music all have certain associations with them already, that might interfere with what you're trying to do (don't pick the song they played on the night you asked your wife to marry you for instance!).

Incidentally, personally I think the use of reality checks operates pretty much on the same way, by trying to condition yourself to do a reality check every hour or every time your watch beeps or simply as much as possible, with the hope that this 'conditioned' response will carry through in your dreams. The results so far, if you ask me, are highly variable. For some people it works excellently, for some people it hardly works at all.

Just my 2 cents,

-Redrivertears-

Originally Posted by Redrivertears

Hey there,

Do be careful of what song you pick, because realize that any song *already* has associations that come with it. The words, the phrases, the style of the music all have certain associations with them already, that might interfere with what you're trying to do (don't pick the song they played on the night you asked your wife to marry you for instance!).


Just my 2 cents,

-Redrivertears-

Exactly, that is why I suggested something original. Such as the dreaming mp3's people created on here. My luck I would pick a song I got beat up listening too or something and totally forgot hahahaha.

No but seriously though. I would love to try this out but have been at a stand still with my Lucid dreams lately. Maybe someone who has them a bit more often would have better luck than I. Of course maybe this is exactly what I need....

Originally Posted by Lucid Dragon

Exactly, that is why I suggested something original. Such as the dreaming mp3's people created on here. My luck I would pick a song I got beat up listening too or something and totally forgot hahahaha.

No but seriously though. I would love to try this out but have been at a stand still with my Lucid dreams lately. Maybe someone who has them a bit more often would have better luck than I. Of course maybe this is exactly what I need....

Agreed.

Exact opposite suggestion. Find a song that is played often on the radio or you listen to everyday. Then train yourself to use that song as a RC.

Originally Posted by Clairity

This is an interesting idea actually.

Listen to the same song while reading, talking or thinking about lucid dreaming.

Play the song while sleeping to trigger you to think about lucid dreaming which hopefully will cue you to realize you're dreaming.

It's so simple.. it might work!

Thanks for your positive out look as well Clairity. These are the things I happen to think about at 2 in the morning.