Experiment: Building a New Dream Sign

At the beginning of this past holiday I started noticing some odd inconsistencies within the contents of my dreams. I started noticing that almost all of my usual dream signs weren't appearing anymore. Before this month my dreams had a very monotonous feeling to them. They would almost always take place in a school (it could be elementary school, high school or college), involved at least a friend or two and I would almost always be doing nothing worthy of noting. This happened, of course, while I was studying during the past semester. But then came the holiday season, and with it the classes had ended, vacations had started and I had almost two months of free time before the next semester took place. Now, for the first three weeks my dreams continued to portray almost the same content, except for a few here and there which took on a much more creative direction. However, by the start of the second month I began noticing that the number of times I found myself in school were reducing, and now the content took to much more creative grounds. To this day, just a day before starting next semester, the dreams I've had about school have fell to zero. What were my "usual" dream signs now ceased to exist. But now school is starting back again, and with it I assume the content of my dreams will return back to their previous condition. It occurred to me however, that just maybe it could be possible for one to create or fabricate his/her very own dream signs.

I've always had problems using dream signs as a means to induce lucidity being that you never knew whether such signs could remain consistent throughout the entirety of one's dreaming journey. On top of that, when looking at dream signs I often found myself in a difficult position whenever one got out of my personal reach, this case being, whether one dreamed of a certain person or place in particular. Such dream signs pose a problem because more often than not I find they're out of our personal control. So, I began thinking, why not create my own dream sign instead? But let's not make it a place, and let's not choose some person in particular. In fact, let's avoid any person or place when creating said dream sign. So, I thought, why not choose an object instead? Small, perfectly conceivable and easily within one's grasp, an object will always be within my reach, and it's something I can be perfectly comfortable with and use.

But now the big question came, can one plant something inside of the dreamer's mind? Could I take something as simple as an object, and make it so that it constantly appears in my dreams? If such an idea were to be possible, then such an object could become my very own personal dream sign, and use it as a personal induction method of lucidity. Now, before I did anything I began searching for any information that could point me to the right direction if I were to embark in such an experiment. Unfortunately, my search brought short threads from multiple websites, with some believing it could be a great idea if possible, while others claiming such a thing to be nothing but wishful thinking. Nonetheless, the way I see it, such a thing wouldn't be that crazy of an idea. Upon writing my dreams every day I've come to realize that most dream signs are created by the dreamer itself, whether or not the dreamer is aware of it. And even better, the way I see it, dream signs are very much susceptible to how we approach them and the use we give them, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Based on this sole idea I've decided to test whether or not it's possible to purposely incubate/create a new dream sign so that it appears in my dreams. For such an experiment I focused on a simple object, one that would be small enough for me to carry and that's easy enough to manage. Now, as for the how I am going to conduct the experiment, for the moment I've established some basic guidelines. First of all, I'm thinking that whatever the object is, I must be constantly reminded of it and thinking about it, it must be fully ingrained in my mind for it to make its way safely into my dreams. How I'm going to accomplish this is still questionable. For now, I've thought of using simple methods of autosuggestion, dream incubation, visualization, among other activities.

Now, I began the experiment just 6 days ago, and I'm already starting to see the results of it which I'll share in a little bit. Initially, I was going to conduct the experiment alone, just for my own amusement, being that for the moment I'm focusing on training awareness to improve my lucidity rate but, because that could take time, this experiment could prove useful as a secondary practice. Now, as for my actual progress:

At the beginning I kept thinking about what object I could use, until I ultimately decided on a card, more specifically the Ace of spades. Why a card? Well, I've always loved playing cards and collect them, and I felt the card was easy enough to carry and conceal in my wallet and take it with me wherever I went. So, I decided I was going to render the Ace of spades directly into the dream world. As for the actual experiment, I decided to outline it like this:

I must have the card at all times with me. This is to send the message to my mind that I care for the card and it's important to me. I want to be reminded of it wherever I am. I don't have to actually think about it, but seeing or touching it is sufficient enough. To further support that action, I decided I could perform some simple incubation exercises throughout the day. I outlined the practices to be conducted three times a day for no longer than 30 minutes each. During each practice session I am to write some simple affirmations and write them physically on a piece of paper. I chose these two particular affirmations: "Tonight I dream of the Ace of spades." and "The Ace of spades always appears in my dreams." I chose to write these affirmations 10 times each, for each practice session. So, I am to write 60 affirmations for the day (30 and 30 for each affirmation). After the affirmations, I thought I should use the object in some way, play with it, whatever. This could further consolidate the idea of the object in my mind. So, I worked on shuffling the Ace of spades with the rest of the playing cards and drawing the specific card on a piece of paper. Finally, once this activity is finished, I visualized the object in my mind and reaffirmed my intention to see it in my dreams.

I began my experiment this past Monday, the 19th of January, 2015. The first day of doing the experiment I woke up in the morning with some great recollection of my nightly dreams but no memory of any card whatsoever, much less the Ace of spades. The next day, Tuesday, followed with the same result. Wednesday came and for that day I had slept very late therefore I had no recollections of my dreams for the night. But then Thursday came and something interesting happened. I woke up and remembered a short snippet of a dream I had, close to the morning. I dreamed I was in some kind of short room and there was almost no light inside except in the center. I could see nothing except for a large rectangular shape which was facing me just a few inches from my face. Upon close examination, I realized it was the Ace of spades! In the dream I was carefully examining the card with my fingers. I kept touching the edges, seeing how both the top and bottom of the card was starting to peel off (in waking physical reality the card is in perfect conditions). But I could see it perfectly, the design of such card reflecting in my eyes. There was no doubt this was the actual Ace of spades I had been drawing and carrying these past days! It was a little damaged in the dream, but there was no denying it was the object I had worked on incubating all along.

The following day, Friday, I had no recollection of the Ace of spades in my dreams. But just yesterday I had another interesting dream. I was in a room with a round table in the center. This time however, instead of seeing the Ace of spades in particular I could see an endless number of playing cards scattered around the floor and on top of the table. Although the dream didn't showed any specific card this time, the fact that I could see playing cards in my dreams were enough for me to classify this as some form of progress. In both of these dreams I remained non-lucid, but that is because my objective isn't to use the object as a trigger for lucidity, just yet. My goal first is to prove (at least personally) if one can consciously create dream signs. If I'm successful, then my next course of action is to use the "artificial" dream sign as a trigger for lucidity.

Seeing how the experiment is going, I'm planning to continue with it for at least 4 months. I'll first try to recreate my dream with the Ace of spades and gradually progress from incubating the object once a week until I can successfully dream about it for 5 straight days each week. If I finish early, then I'll immediately conduct the next part of the experiment: making the object as the trigger for lucidity.

*Forgot to add that I will continue posting my progress for the whole experiment here.