Thread: Critical thinking during dreams allows for lucidity.

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

Not always, the majority of my LDs it is just suddenly obvious to me that I am dreaming.

I had a number of these, as well. But can we ever really understand the actual process that takes place? Maybe the cognition of dolphin's steps 1 and 2 still took place, but below the level of our minds noticing it. Or maybe it's prospective memory recognizing the dream state (somehow? "feel?").

Anyway, I have had at least a few LDs via explicit critical thinking in the dream:

1: see girl, think "I wish I was dreaming right now!", then "… hmm, why do I think I'm awake?" *nose pinch* "woohoo!"

2: see weird thing, study it for a while (I do this a lot, up-close study of odd devices/things), scene transitions, I keep thinking about it "that was a weird thing, I've never seen a thing like that before"…."wait, weird thing? never seen it before? DREAM!"

3: (LD #2) I'm dropping things and can't pick them up, they keep falling through my fingers, after trying for a while I realize, "oh, haha, this is one of those times where you should check to see if you're dreaming….DREAMING!". This was a fun one, I "stood bolt upright" in shock realizing I was in fact dreaming.

Unfortunately I don't produce thinking like that very often in dreams recently.

So the questions I get from my experiences, which I try to ponder in the waking state as much as I can, are:"

"Why do I think I'm awake?"
"How odd is this / have I seen this before / has something changed?"
"Is this a dream-like situation/scenario?"

Something I work on periodically when waking is performing:

"STOP! Who/what/where?"

The STOP is to prevent the urge to just keep flowing with the plot and to kick start some critical thinking.

Who: who am I with? alone/friends/strangers? (strangers is a dream sign for me)
What: what am I doing? Does this make sense?
Where: is this a waking location?

But I have yet to perform one of these in my dreams.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I had a number of these, as well. But can we ever really understand the actual process that takes place? Maybe the cognition of dolphin's steps 1 and 2 still took place, but below the level of our minds noticing it. Or maybe it's prospective memory recognizing the dream state (somehow? "feel?").

I now feel that to LD I need to "remember to remember" I'm dreaming.

ie. once your dream awareness is at a certain level you are implicitly aware you are dreaming, you just need to remember that this state is significant and why. So many LDs I'm pre-lucid for ages until I remember that I want to lucid dream and my lucidity starts "leveling up"

You may counter that you often dream of talking to people about how you want to lucid dream. Obviously in those cases self-awareness is lacking.

But I'm standing by my awareness+intent=lucidity formula. Everything besides is complication.

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

I now feel that to LD I need to "remember to remember" I'm dreaming.

ie. once your dream awareness is at a certain level you are implicitly aware you are dreaming, you just need to remember that this state is significant and why. So many LDs I'm pre-lucid for ages until I remember that I want to lucid dream and my lucidity starts "leveling up"


You may counter that you often dream of talking to people about how you want to lucid dream. Obviously in those cases self-awareness is lacking.

(Note: I get occasional meta-dreams, but not all that often).

This may in fact be my main block right now. With high recall and very frequent vividness/presence in many dreams, I'm wondering why I'm not lucid more. Dream awareness is pretty darn high I think (certainly higher than it was last year), yet lucidity seems seriously stalled.

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

But I'm standing by my awareness+intent=lucidity formula. Everything besides is complication.

It's all a matter of one's mental framing ("schema?"). That's why discussions like this can't really go anywhere when you have people who disagree -- there *is no* "right answer" that applies to everyone. LDing is a highly individual practice. Maybe there are larger groups of common framings, like the "notice weird things" group, and the "just need to remember to remember" group.

And my thing is I don't know which group I'm in and I keep bopping back and forth between different approaches appropriate for different groups.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Who: who am I with? alone/friends/strangers? (strangers is a dream sign for me)
What: what am I doing? Does this make sense?
Where: is this a waking location?

But I have yet to perform one of these in my dreams.

Because to remember to do is to already be lucid.

Perhaps critical reflection is useful in the beginning, then the mere moment of questioning is enough.

The reason why we engage in these exercises in the waking state is to raise our critical state awareness, not to ask them in dream. But you knew that already.

When I become lucid the moment of wondering is often enough, and then it's obvious. Sometimes even the moment of wonder is not needed.

It's also my belief that these 'I just know' lucids are of a higher lucidity at the outset, and that the lucids attained via in-dream reasoning require additional work on cognition levels.

Of course you are right about individual differences. I seem to have better memory than most, and don't find it difficult to remember goals once lucid (at least in the 'dream feeling' DILDs).

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

Because to remember to do is to already be lucid.

Perhaps critical reflection is useful in the beginning, then the mere moment of questioning is enough.

The reason why we engage in these exercises in the waking state is to raise our critical state awareness, not to ask them in dream. But you knew that already.

When I become lucid the moment of wondering is often enough, and then it's obvious. Sometimes even the moment of wonder is not needed.

It's also my belief that these 'I just know' lucids are of a higher lucidity at the outset, and that the lucids attained via in-dream reasoning require additional work on cognition levels.

Of course you are right about individual differences. I seem to have better memory than most, and don't find it difficult to remember goals once lucid (at least in the 'dream feeling' DILDs).

I find my goal memory is also quite good, in those lucids where I have any memory of the waking state at all. That is, dreams beyond simply "I'm dreaming so that means I can fly, yipee!" I did the Sageous "remember your sleeping body" in a LD very shortly after reading that thread, without much waking preparation of it.

I call these lucids "TOTM-worthy" -- where I understand I'm in a mental fantasy environment, and that I have goals. In these LDs my memory is quite good.

Yes, in the dreams even the beginning of the question usually results for me in instant lucidity, I do not just stand there going "Who am I with? Where am I?" In fact I think not once have I ever done that.

But my thing is....what's happened? Why have I "back-slid?" This is why I concentrate on the state tests so much when awake: I think I need to simply to reclaim my earlier frequency. There's no doubt, my dreaming's great and at an all-time high vividness and presence-wise....but I'm just not remembering to explicitly notice the dream state with full awareness.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Anyway, I have had at least a few LDs via explicit critical thinking in the dream:

Yay had another one last night (critical thinking LD). Short since it was in the late morning dozing period where all dreams are short and transition often. But I was a passenger in a car in a very complicated freeway "pretzel" interchange and we'd taken the wrong turn. We stopped at the peak of one path with a good view and I was looking all around trying to find the right road. I observed the very complex interchange around us in all directions, paths moving above/under other paths. Other cars stopped behind us with the same problem, trying to choose the right road. I was sitting in the car with several other DCs when I realized "This is a dream-like scenario, I should check." I felt a little bit silly because I was so obviously awake. Nose pinch a bit vague at first, then I paid it more attention and decided I was dreaming. Got out of the car trying to decide what to do and decided to jump up into the air and the dream transitioned and I lost lucidity.

Before bed I set very long, very intense intention to remember to recognize the dream state. I tried falling asleep with this intention running in my head but couldn't, I ended up having to take some melatonin since setting very strong intention tends to keep me awake.

I'll take all styles of lucid that I can get, critical thinking LDs are very welcome. Since I have this very strong conviction that I'm awake (or just simply not caring about the dream state) in dreams lately, this very strong intention and emphasis on remembering (PM) to recognize the dream may be my path out of this current rut.

It is a never-ending source of amazement: that total conviction of feeling awake at the moment of lucidity. It's the wrong emphasis of course: it's *consciousness* that I'm feeling. And consciousness does *not* imply the waking state (as I've been saying for some while now). Getting that notion firmly into dreams is also the key.