External Reminders

Has anyone ever found success by using an external object to remind them that they're dreaming whilst they're within a dream?

I read Exploring The World of Lucid Dreaming, and LaBerge said he tried using blindfold devices with a light attached to the inside that was designed to turn on during the REM periods of the user.

The results showed that people did in fact notice the light within their dreams, but it was translated into something reasonable and understandable to the user by the subconscious mind - such as a sunrise, headlights - anything bright. If you were to teach yourself to recognize such an instance, wouldn't this be an extraordinary invention for the advancement of lucid dreaming and general LD awareness?

If anyone used a technique similar to the one above or even completely different I'd love to hear your ideas. If you could somehow perfect something to remind you that you're dreaming within a dream, it would effectively cut out all the anxiety due to technique and method learning and let people who want to lucid dream get down to business.

Even with such a device, I think it would be important anyway to know how to lucid dream without the need of a device, because therefore you can do it without the need of anything but your own head. But for people who can't seem to LD at all and have spent ages learning and trying a wide array of techniques (Like myself, sadly enough :() it would be nothing more than a godsend.

Opinions? Facts? Info? I want it all!

I'm pretty sure it works. Since you read the book, you should also have noticed that Laberge did scientific studies on it and the result was positive if properly trained.

Nevertheless I wouldn't want to rely on external aids.

So he did, you're right. But if you could start becoming lucid with an aid - then train yourself to do it without the aid - sort of like trainingwheels on a bike, you know? Once you know what lucidity within a dream is like, i'm assuming it would be easier to achieve the state, am I right?

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Originally Posted by Sony86

So he did, you're right. But if you could start becoming lucid with an aid - then train yourself to do it without the aid - sort of like trainingwheels on a bike, you know? Once you know what lucidity within a dream is like, i'm assuming it would be easier to achieve the state, am I right?

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Nope, I don't think it gets any easier if you know what it's like, because the difficulty lies in becoming lucid. It doesn't help to have been somewhere when you don't know how you got there. Besides external aids don't work without proper training, so you need to invest some effort too.

Practically external aids and dream signs have something important in common... you need to train to recognize them. External aids cause artificial dream signs and are embedded in the dream content in various ways. If you miss that, you don't get lucid, so you need to find out, how the external signal appears in your dreams. You could start with an external aid and switch to dream signs later, the only difference is the type of sign you're looking for.

Nevertheless it pays of to write down dreams and analyze them for individual frequent dream signs. A detailed and regular dream journal is the primary key, no matter if recorded or written.

Devices like the one you are talking about are usually called dream goggles, or dream masks. They're a little on the expensive side, but if you search for a little while, there are schematics on the internet to make your own. If only I knew how to read them...

From what I gather, they have some part in them that tracks when you enter REM and are set to flash the lights in time with it. This isn't completely necessary.

You begin a new sleep cycle roughly every 90 minutes, which is why blocks of time like 6 hours are chosen for WBTB, because they coincide with REM. If you can figure out your personal REM time, you could set some type of alarm to go off, like one of those automatic timers for lights. Just connect a low-watt lamp to a timer and set it to turn on when you enter REM.


Also, it is possible to use dream goggles/masks to learn to dream without them. Dreams just feel different from reality, I can't describe it, but when you first get that rush upon finding yourself lucid, you will understand what I mean. If you can use the goggles to get lucid, and memorize what it feels like, there are some techniques built around using the dream feeling as a dream sign/reality check or as a focus for a WILD.