A simple test: Inducing to you're hearts content.

[cyaelO]

Just recently have i started documenting my shamanic practices. In other words, my dreaming practices. In this world, as in many states of consciousness, ask and you shall receive. This also can pertain to your dreaming practices. Before going to sleep, i find writing out my goal for my dream state to be quite helpful. For instance one night i typed out.. "tonight i will find my hands". Sure enough that night i found my hands and was able to become lucid. The evening after, i had a similar, yet a little more challenging goal to set. I said to myself, "Tonight i am going to find my hands, i am going to switch my dreaming attention from one item or person to the next with the goal of keeping lucidity, and last but not least.. if i find myself on the verge of awakening, i will twirl my energy body around in circles to change dreams. Therefor not waking up at all. Sure enough that evening/early morning, i did exactly what i was trying to do. My reason for this post is simple. I would like to get a few separate opinions on the idea that voicing your intent to do what you want in a dream before going sleep, can actually induce such activity. So please, try it for yourself and let me know how this works out for you. Set a goal, repeat the goal before you go to sleep, and see what happens. Thanks!

[Zoth]

Since you got no replies so far, I'll give you a quote of a meta-analysis study made on several lucid dreaming techniques: 3.4.3. Intention Intention technique requires that a person – before falling asleep – imagine himself or herself as intensively as possible being in a dream situation and recognise that one is dreaming (Tholey, 1983). Therefore intention technique is fairly similar to MILD, however it does not involve ‘‘mnemonic’’ component, i.e. while the emphasis in MILD is to remember that one is dreaming, in intention technique it is to recognise that one is dreaming. The technique was employed in four field studies; however, three of them were not specifically concerned with lucid dream induction, but used it as a means for nightmare treatment (Spoormaker & van Den Bout, 2006; Spoormaker et al., 2003; Zadra & Pihl, 1997). The fourth one compared intention technique with other induction methods (Schlag-Gies, 1992). The average methodological quality for these studies was 10.3. About a half of nightmare sufferers who were taught lucid dreaming with the intention technique had lucid dreams within one to 3 months (Spoormaker & van Den Bout, 2006; Spoormaker et al., 2003; Zadra & Pihl, 1997). The other study showed that intention technique can be successfully used for lucid dream induction; however, it seems to be somewhat less effective than reflection technique and similarly effective as autosuggestion (Schlag-Gies, 1992). 3.4.4. Autosuggestion In autosuggestion technique a person suggests to himself or herself to have a lucid dream during the night while being in a relaxed stated before falling asleep (Tholey, 1983). Only two studies empirically explored autosuggestion technique (Levitan, 1989; Schlag-Gies, 1992), with an average quality score of 13.0. The findings regarding effectiveness of this technique are inhomogeneous: While in one study autosuggestion technique seemed to increase the number of lucid dreams (Schlag- Gies, 1992), in the other study no such effect was found (Levitan, 1989). Autosuggestion appears to be less effective than reflection/reality testing, but similarly effective as intention technique (Schlag-Gies, 1992). There are some indications that autosuggestion might be slightly more useful for frequent lucid dreamers, who have one or more lucid dreams per month (Levitan, 1989). Hope this helps.

[dutchraptor]

This is a well established techniques already in the community. The power of intent is extremely strong if used in the right circumstances.

[Sageous]

Indeed, setting intention is central to pretty much all LD induction methods, especially MILD. Doing so aloud is as time-honored as Dream Yoga itself. Still, it is nice to see it pointed out now and then here...

[Seykloren]

This is basicly the only tehnique that I ever used and it always did wonders for me.

[cyaelO]

I've always been bad about doing my research on forums before posting whats on my mind :3 But thank you all for your input Been using this technique just about every night with a lot of success.