Playing-Dead Induction of Lucid Dreams?

[SKA]

This is not so much a said N done method, but rather an experiment based on an insightfull lucid experience that I hope will lead to such a method. Last night I briefly became lucid. Only for less than half a minute, but the way I got there completely contradicts any previous notions of and approaches to Lucidity I had before. I was just falling asleep and, having had my usual wintertime insomnia all winter, I was glad to just be sleepy enough to sleep at all. I didn't even briefly think of Lucidity. Totally wasn't my intention to attain lucidity last night. I was lying on my right side, turned around and saw it was very dark in my room. This gave me the creeps. An eerie feeling. So I sat up and tried to switch on a lamp next to my bed; It didn't work. I first thought: "oh no, power must be out" And then immediately, memorising a previous dream in which the lights failed to work and I had reason the same power-out, I thought "wait a minute...am I dreaming?" So to test it finally I jumped out of bed into my room to test the gravity. As I hovered down to the ground I noticed Gravity had severely changed and concluded I was dreaming. I wanted to stabilise myself to get ready to travel around in my dream clearminded when, for no appearant reason my eyes opened again and I was awake. It seemed that Dreams start sooner when I "play dead". That is to say: when I make NO efforts at all trying to stay conscious, totally allowing myself to drift off to sleep. I had always thought focus was essential, but found out I have a much better chance if I just drift off and then regain consciousness while I suddenly find myself in a dream. So My idea to build an ILD-method from this would be: Drift off effortlessly, without focus, be completely off guard. Dreams start ALOT faster and there seems to be no transition at all this way. Just suddenly a Dream. Like hunting; Play dead, drift off and when you find yourself in a Dream, concentrate on it and get your focus back up. Sneaky huh? I will be trying this every night from now. Any folks would like to join me to test this, develop this further and post back results in this Topic that would be great. Any thoughts?

[Mariano]

mm, it's a good idea, but it's a little difficult, because ¿if you enter to the dream and you are unable to Check reality or something? mmm, I don't know...

[SKA]

mm, it's a good idea, but it's a little difficult, because ¿if you enter to the dream and you are unable to Check reality or something? mmm, I don't know... Actually I, and many others, never experience any Transition. To me it's just: The one moment I'm awake trying to fall asleep in bed, the next moment I sit up and try to switch a light on and it turns out I'm dreaming. The transition is seemless. I have spent well over an hour awake on my many previous attempts using Conscious/Focus-ILD methods and no signs of a Dream. Now serveral times I got into a Dream Lucid, pretty much within 15 minutes after hitting the pillow, while just dozing off to sleep not focussing on anything at all. So the whole point of this is to let yourself just fall asleep, off guard and totally unaware of the Transition phase. To me it seems: The lower my awareness, the sooner I am in a Dream. Bottomline:To be off guard all the time you're falling asleep and to suddenly regain consciousness when you are just in the beginning of a dream. To regain Consciousness suddenly you need a trigger of some sort. The trigger is to frequently check if your lamps are working while in bed, morning or night, to make it a habit as strong as nicotine-addiction so that you condition yourself to do that and that one of these check-ups will be in a Dream, making me Lucid like it did last night. Also setting a lucid Intention in your memory, before alowing yourself to fall sleep with low awareness, could also help serve as such a trigger. As a back-up Trigger, might the Lamp-RC fail. This will need some tweaking before it can be called a real ILD-method, so help me out with your thoughts. I think it'd be best if some of you guys joined me in experimenting with this and then we could evaluate and see what needs to be changed and finetuned.

[night_watcher]

It would seem to me to be a DILD....I fail to see the difference. But, I do like the idea of testing the lamp as a RC. I will gladly help you out by testing it, but it seems to just be a new type of RC.

[Xaqaria]

This is the only way that I WILD. Sometimes the transition is accompanied by a low pitched throbbing in my mind and a sinking feeling (first time I felt it I thought I was dying; kind of like shrinking inside of myself) but most of the time it is a seemless transition.

[SKA]

It would seem to me to be a DILD....I fail to see the difference. But, I do like the idea of testing the lamp as a RC. I will gladly help you out by testing it, but it seems to just be a new type of RC. How is that a DILD? I thought DILDS were Dream Initiated Lucid Dreams, where a Dreamer who just awakes from a Dream, stays motionless and stays Aware while he/she falls asleep into the next Dream again. Perhaps physically you play dead, but the point of my Play-Dead-method/idea is to play Mentally dead. The Point is to NOT focus and so to be off guard and to allow yourself to drift further and further to unconsciousness and to regain Awareness suddenly JUST before you're totally asleep and unconscious, when a Dream begins. I think I'm gunna illustrate this method and scan the drawing to give you a better idea of what I mean.

[SKA]

What I want to make clear is that this method is most of all intended to make the Dreams start ALOT sooner than usually. I usually try to fall asleep concentrating on breaths, hypnagogic imagery, my Lucid intentions, or otherwise trying to stay aware of something. This night I wasn't thinking about anything at all, but I was letting myself fall asleep with the kind of surrender I find hard to describe. This very Calm, Entranced state of surrender made the onset of my Dreams Appear ALOT sooner than usually. Within 15 minutes instead of the usual more than 30 minutes it takes me. And I didn't even sleep beforehand. I fell into a dream, before I fell asleep at night with no prior sleep. Basically an unintended, accidental, non-WBTB, nighttime WILD. In my experience the Consciousness gradually fades out when we fall asleep. Lasting about 15 to 45 minutes from the time we hit the pillow till the time we are unconscious. Because of this entranced state of "minding nothing, letting thoughts flow, total surrender" I incidentally got into my Dreams started so soon that my Consciousness hadn't even faded out yet. And this got me to enter a dream with "still some consciousness left" whereas usually I'm already unconscious by this time in the process. It's this rather peculiar, hard to describe, detatched state of surrender I found out by accident that is the key to this method. It's much like properly trying to imagine and play/act out falling unconscious; You are still Conscious, but you behave like an unconscious persion would. Totally nonresponsive, Physically and Mentally, thoughts flow through your head yet you don't feel responsible for them, physical itches occur yet "you're unconscious" so you don't respond, mental itches/psychic excitement occurs yet you stay non-responsive. Acting as if totally knocked unconscious. As if you're totally not there. That's the point, because you actually ARE still there. It's much like the thread of "fooling your mind into thinking the body's gone to sleep", but then more like Fooling the Mind itself into thinking IT has gone to sleep. And doing this I found that this mental passivity, being conscious & "acting" as if one's unconscious, makes the Dreamstate start a whole lot sooner, when you're still conscious enough to be significantly aware when a Dream suddenly starts. And this way they start Really Sudden and Really Soon.

[eppy]

Worth a try. I feel like I would RC way too much and waste all the time I had spent just laying there.

[Arutad]

I don't understand the method. The dream that served as inspiration for it was this one: I was lying on my right side, turned around and saw it was very dark in my room. This gave me the creeps. An eerie feeling. So I sat up and tried to switch on a lamp next to my bed; It didn't work. I first thought: "oh no, power must be out" And then immediately, memorising a previous dream in which the lights failed to work and I had reason the same power-out, I thought "wait a minute...am I dreaming?" So to test it finally I jumped out of bed into my room to test the gravity. As I hovered down to the ground I noticed Gravity had severely changed and concluded I was dreaming. I wanted to stabilise myself to get ready to travel around in my dream clearminded when, for no appearant reason my eyes opened again and I was awake. But it sounds like you were already asleep when turning around to see that it was dark in the room. The transition is seemless. I have spent well over an hour awake on my many previous attempts using Conscious/Focus-ILD methods and no signs of a Dream. Now serveral times I got into a Dream Lucid, pretty much within 15 minutes after hitting the pillow, while just dozing off to sleep not focussing on anything at all. So the whole point of this is to let yourself just fall asleep, off guard and totally unaware of the Transition phase. To me it seems: The lower my awareness, the sooner I am in a Dream. Bottomline:To be off guard all the time you're falling asleep and to suddenly regain consciousness when you are just in the beginning of a dream. To regain Consciousness suddenly you need a trigger of some sort. Now I understand why the transition is seamless. You don't notice any transition because you had no lucidity to notice it, there was a black-out in-between. Perhaps the one experience above was of the same nature. You didn't even notice SP coming, after all, so I conclude that there was a brief stage of blacking-out, after which you dreamt of lying in your bed. And I always thought that in order for that to happen all you need is greater desire to be lucid than normal, it will serve as a sort of mental trigger then and will "wake" you quick. But how it can be made into a method is beyond me. How do you make having greater desire into a method...

[Arutad]

Wait, I know! About the first dream. turned around and saw it was very dark in my room. This gave me the creeps. An eerie feeling. That must have been where SP came in and a transition happened.

[Black_Eagle]

Now I understand why the transition is seamless. You don't notice any transition because you had no lucidity to notice it, there was a black-out in-between. Nope. He means what he means. I have experienced the same thing in a brief half-hour period of sleep. The difference being I did in fact go through about 5 hours of sleep beforehand

[Arutad]

Now I understand why the transition is seamless. You don't notice any transition because you had no lucidity to notice it, there was a black-out in-between. Nope. He means what he means. I have experienced the same thing in a brief half-hour period of sleep. The difference being I did in fact go through about 5 hours of sleep beforehand Please read carefully what he writes: To regain Consciousness suddenly you need a trigger of some sort let yourself just fall asleep, off guard and totally unaware of the Transition phase To be off guard all the time you're falling asleep and to suddenly regain consciousness It was the first dream he described that seemed different, and I was surprised why he brought it into this thread and made an example of it. But upon examination I think he did experience SP in that dream without noticing it, so there was a non-lucid transition phase, too, and so it makes sense to make it an example for "regaining consciousness" thread.

[SKA]

BUMP! Hi fellas, I've been inactive on DV and in the field of Lucid dreaming for a while. Had some issues to take care of. But Now I'm in shape again and I will resume this method as it has been very reliable and effective for me. I will not only keep trying this at night time as a WILD method, but will also be meditating uppon this Apathic, Play-dead state of mind in day time. I will do this to practice this non-responsiveness so I can become better at it. Anyone here care to join me? I was thinking: First to meditate on this apathic state for 10 minutes every day, then when ready, increase it to 2 sessions of 10 minutes a day. And eventually 3 sessions..etc And off course every night as we go to sleep. Anyone?

[SKA]

Does anybody feel like joining me in this method and help me improving and finetuning it? Rome wasn't built in a day you know. I really feel like developping and improving this method further and further, using the information gathered from our collective experiences with this techniques, Trial and Error-style.