Theory: Why We Don't Lucid Dream Every Night

Intro (My story; feel free to skip):

I'll start with a short recap of my personal experience with lucid dreaming.

From the very beginning, reality checks were a big part of my lucid dreams. I was confident that they would work, and I was pretty desperate to start LDing on purpose (I had already had a few lucids on accident). Sure enough, the RC's did the trick, time and time again.

Then there came a time when I dropped the reality checks purely for the sake of exploring my other options. I continued to learn about dreaming in general and different methods for going lucid. Eventually, however, I was at a low rate of LD success, so I returned to the faithful RCing in hopes of restoring my consistent lucid dreams.

To my utter surprise, after a month of constantly reality checking, I had absolutely no RC-based lucid dreams. By chance I'd stumble upon a lucid every once in a while, but they had nothing to do with the reality checks.

It grew quite discouraging for a while. It seemed my ability to lucid dream was drawing to a close...until through one random lucid dream I happened to learn what was really going on. It was a bit strange...I was in the dream, I was thinking about dreams, and I thought to myself, "I sure wish I could turn this into a lucid dream. I'm tired of just having normal dreams all night!" That's when it hit me: I could turn it into a lucid dream! I didn't have to reality check or anything, just know that I was dreaming.

DUH, right? Well, maybe, maybe not.



The Theory:

So why was it that I couldn't go lucid all that time? And why doesn't everyone with a little lucid dreaming experience go lucid every night? Is it because we truly don't know that we're dreaming?

I'm here to challenge that last question and say that it is not. Instead, I propose we do not lucid dream every night because we've trained ourselves to think lucid dreaming is a difficult thing to attain.

In my experience, I've done so many reality checks, learned a lot about dreams, etc., so that I don't even have to think twice to know if I'm awake or not. And I'd imagine it could be the same way for many of you as well. In fact, I'd say every night I know in the back of my mind when I am and when I am not dreaming.

The problem is, because I've spent the past several months fighting to achieve lucidity, I've convinced myself it's hard to LD, and thus my sleeping mind is fighting against itself with the notion that it can't just go lucid based on this simple knowledge alone.



If this is true, how do I fix the problem?

Lucid dreaming is obviously heavily mental. But at the same time, I don't think this "I'll try to convince myself that I'm going to LD tonight" thing is really all its cracked up to be. And that is not what I'm advocating here. Think about it. If you try to convince yourself that you will lucid dream, that means you honestly believe that without the self-convincing, you wouldn't LD at all! What I'm trying to say is, provided you are pretty aware of your state, you don't need anything to lucid dream, because you practically do it every night, just without being consciously aware of it. So remove the obstruction of "lucid dreaming is hard" from your mind, accept the fact that you can lucid dream every night without following A, B, C, and (hopefully) things will get better.

I'm certainly no doctor, though :P Feel free to think up your own solutions. I'd imagine it's a little different for everyone, anyway. This is simply what I have done and am beginning to see results with.



So what do you think?

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Discuss at will.

Interesting. The thing is, I personally don't think LDing is difficult. Infact, I think it's fairly easy. I've only had 4 LDs so far but I think that's more of my dream recall being bad than anything else since I think I've had more. Like you mentioned, I also believe that doing RCs during the day will lead to lucidity and I don't see anything wrong with that. It's just providing an extra boost. Reason I say this is because at least two of my LDs were just awareness, so, 50%, possibly 75% aren't related to RCs. One thing to mention is that most people have no clue that one can become conscious in dreams and that they can be controlled which leads one to the idea that its difficult to do when it's very simple if one learns to question their surroundings and be aware IRL. I think meditation can also help in LDing if one is able to implant the idea whether through some type of MILDing or some other method when they are deeply relaxed and that is what I'm trying to accomplish along with benefits of meditation in my meditation experiences thread :)

Right, and I tried to mention that...probably didn't do the best job of it, though.

Initially, I'd say most new lucid dreamers will need the RC's and all that just so that they learn to be aware all the time. But there comes a point when you know enough that doing so much work and relying on it for lucid dreams is overkill and focusing in the wrong area. And the more your focus is wrong, the more you fail. The more you fail, the harder you feel it is to have an LD, so the more work you put into it. The more work you put into it, the more your focus gets wrong...and on it goes :P

Put it this way.... i've had a few experiences which seem like they were OBE's. But I'm not sure... every time I go to sleep with the intention of having one of these, it happens. So I don't know.

Good topic and a nice theory.I think there is surely some truth in the idea that beliefs and thought patterns can become self limiting feedback loops. Though many of our actions and experiences are governed below the level of our conscious minds,we are still able to modulate them through conscious decision making. We can make decisions that are redundant and ineffective,or make properly timed ones that are more concise and effective. [ Like a RC while encountering a dreamsign in the day instead of randomly RCing all day long ]

I think one day we'll have a sort of physics or science of LDing that will explain alot. For instance:I would guess that the conscious self reflective mind that comes online in a LD is like a low entropy state of information [ organized with the ability to do work] The noncritical, regular dreaming self is disorganized and unable to effect the dream [ Higher entropy state ] It may be necessary for our bodies - minds to regulate these states to rejuvenate -refresh.Maybe our waking minds need to have down time [standby mode ] to divert available energy resources for maintenance and memory storage.This could be why we tend to LD in the morning hours and why our waking neurotransmitters in the brain rise as the day approaches.

I think memory must be a big key too.To LD you must have some sense of your waking life to compare against your dream state to know that you're in fact dreaming. When this happens to me it has a certain feeling of energy like getting booted up or something. When this happens I just know I'm dreaming,it's a definite feeling or qualia that literly tingles like an electric charge in my apparent dreambody. When I wake,my physical body feels it for a bit too. What's up with that?

Maybe the ideas of "entanglement" and "decoherence" in quantum information theory can be applied to the mind too. Or maybe we really live on a 3-D hypersurface of higher space and our dreambodies and minds are real extensions in the bulk space.There are people out there that have cool ideas like this,Thomas Campbell,Fred Alan Wolf,Ed Kellogg to name a few.Who knows for sure?Science and understanding just has to evolve within our limitations.

I wish that I had the time and $$ to become better educated in science. I would definitely try to come up with some paper on LDing :) I bet someday someone will...

Actually, I do LD every night. I was born with the ability to control and be aware in my dreams, and it just happens as I go to sleep. There is no assuring myself I'll be able to LD or anything. However, to back up your claim that the way you think about dreams, lucid or otherwise, affects your dreams, when I first came to this site, I had NO dream signs. There were no consistencies whatsoever. After I discovered this site however, and changed my thoughts about dreams to include the fact that there are small consistencies between dreams, they suddenly started popping up!

Interesting theory. I haven't thought about it that way, but it certainly seems more than plausible. I don't think people are consciously thinking, "Oh, I've heard lucid dreaming is hard. I won't have a lucid dream tonight.", but the subconscious mind always works its wonders whether we know it or not.

Good idea.

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Originally Posted by Serpentine

Actually, I do LD every night. I was born with the ability to control and be aware in my dreams, and it just happens as I go to sleep. There is no assuring myself I'll be able to LD or anything. However, to back up your claim that the way you think about dreams, lucid or otherwise, affects your dreams, when I first came to this site, I had NO dream signs. There were no consistencies whatsoever. After I discovered this site however, and changed my thoughts about dreams to include the fact that there are small consistencies between dreams, they suddenly started popping up!

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I don't necessarily agree with people saying that they were "born with the ability". Everyone is born with the ability to control their dreams. There is no chromosome that controls whether someone can control their dreams or not. It's just a matter of if they know that controlling their dreams is possible. When someone is aware that they are in a dream, they can control it.

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Originally Posted by andrewp

I don't necessarily agree with people saying that they were "born with the ability". Everyone is born with the ability to control their dreams. There is no chromosome that controls whether someone can control their dreams or not. It's just a matter of if they know that controlling their dreams is possible. When someone is aware that they are in a dream, they can control it.

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Sorry, I don't really know how else to say it.

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Originally Posted by andrewp

the subconscious mind always works its wonders whether we know it or not.

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Yep, that's really the key here. You have to foresee the subconscious results of your conscious actions. If you consciously work really hard all day for weeks on end just to have one lucid dream, your subconscious automatically starts saying: "Hey, that's a lot of effort. Lucid dreaming must be difficult. I don't know if I can do it :panic:" or something like that :P

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I don't necessarily agree with people saying that they were "born with the ability". Everyone is born with the ability to control their dreams. There is no chromosome that controls whether someone can control their dreams or not. It's just a matter of if they know that controlling their dreams is possible. When someone is aware that they are in a dream, they can control it.

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Originally Posted by Serpentine

Sorry, I don't really know how else to say it.

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I can understand both sides to this one. While andrewp is right, it's kind of obvious Serpentine just meant he/she's been able to LD as far back as is memorable. ;)

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Originally Posted by LiveInTheDream

Yep, that's really the key here. You have to foresee the subconscious results of your conscious actions. If you consciously work really hard all day for weeks on end just to have one lucid dream, your subconscious automatically starts saying: "Hey, that's a lot of effort. Lucid dreaming must be difficult. I don't know if I can do it :panic:" or something like that :P







I can understand both sides to this one. While andrewp is right, it's kind of obvious Serpentine just meant he/she's been able to LD as far back as is memorable. ;)

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Yeah, I was just trying to point out that everyone can lucid dream, because that is a common misunderstanding that only certain people can lucid dream. It might be easier for some people, or harder for others, but everyone can. And some people have been doing it since they were a really young child, and some have just started.

Interesting, I would say that it plays a role, but not that much of a big one, for example, I always tell my niece and nephew of how cool and easy it is, and they try, but even so can't seem to get it right, maybe not enough motivation? I don't know.

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Originally Posted by Walms

Interesting, I would say that it plays a role, but not that much of a big one, for example, I always tell my niece and nephew of how cool and easy it is, and they try, but even so can't seem to get it right, maybe not enough motivation? I don't know.

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Maybe it's because they don't have a sufficient enough knowledge/understanding of how to have LD's yet? Can't say for sure, since I don't know them...but for the sake of fitting it in with the theory, that would be my first guess. You have to be able to lucid dream in the first place to have the right level of confidence for taking a more hands-off approach.

I think of it like trying to get to the point where you can lift a particular object. You have to work out initially so that your muscles are strong enough to lift it...but once you are able to lift it, if you keep on working out, it won't benefit you any for lifting that object, since you already are quite capable of doing so. And since you are still lifting an object, your muscles don't get flabby, they just stay at the right level of strength to accomplish a particular goal.

Maybe a weird analogy, but hopefully it helps get across the idea I'm trying to convey. :)

I don't know. I think there might be some kind of genetic factor in lucid dreaming. I have always done it and didn't know it was different from anyone else. I found out later that my mother does it as well without thinking about it. She also claims to have prophetic dreams. When my son was little and having nightmares I told him to pick his dreams and control them. He just started doing it. He says he doesn't do it anymore though. My husband on the other hand has very rare dream recall and says he has never had a lucid dream. I am here trying to learn some technics to improve my experience because even though I have always been able to become aware, make choices, and have some control in my dreams, I am sure with some practice and technics I could do even better and have more fun in my dreams.

What I am trying to say is that our brains are wired differently based on our genetics or experiences. We all know that we can rewire them to some extent on our own, so it makes perfect sense that someone who hasn't ever had a lucid dream could learn to do it with practice. However, it is clear that some people are basically born doing it and don't know any different and that others must train their brains to do it. There may be some out there who can't do it at all...ever. We are all here on this site because we have an interest or have experienced one before or someone else got us excited to learn. What about all the world who is not on the site? Can they learn? We don't know, because they haven't tried or like my husband, simply don't care. Maybe everyone can't learn to do it... Sorry for rambing, lol.