Thread: Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals -- With Q & A

Thank you Seamus, i might get a sleep mask ive been thinking about the novadreamer or dreamwaver aid for ques.
Even if you happen to fall asleep they could wake you
Up, activating your brain.
But i will check some relaxition techniques. Because i get all excited by repeating my mantra.
I have to take heavy breaths to prevent my heart from going crazy.

This is the most helpful post I've read on the subject of lucid dreaming and I have only read up to the 3legged stool analogy. I was discouraged, but now the importance of recall and self awareness is so much more apparent and vivid after that analogy that I can see the methods in a whole new light. I don't know if the message I'm attempting to convey right now is coming across properly, but simply, this has made my understanding of lucid dreaming that much clearer. Thank you (:

^^ And that is exactly why I started this thread!

Thanks for sharing, for reading, and for listening...

Ok, I have a question... What does it feel like to enter a dream? Like, what exactly do I do? I've gotten past REM-A, but after that I don't know exactly what to do?

^^ You're going to hate this answer, Brent, but here you go:

You have to be there. What the initial "ah-ha" moment of realizing you're in a dream feels different to each person entering this new experience.

I can tell you how I felt -- amazed, in awe, excited, and deeply aware of the potential for exploring this new world. Others have felt much different.

That's all emotional feelings, of course. Physically, I honestly don't remember what my first LD "felt" like, as it's been a long time and the physical part of all this is fairly meaningless to me. There is no official "physical change parameter" to look for, regardless of what people might tell you on these forums. At best I can say that you will know that you are "present" in your dream, and might have a distant awareness of your physical body, if you are close to waking when you have your lucid dream (which happens a lot).

From you're question it seems you might also be looking for some technique for continuing your lucid dream attempt. If that's the case, then I suggest you read some of the classes in DV Academy, , including OpheliaBlue'sIntro Class, Gab's DILD class, or my WILD class. I highly recommend that you do not try to learn to lucid dream based solely on conversations in these forums, as they tend to carry much unnecessary or incorrect information, and heading bad advice (like having to "get past" REM-A, whatever that means) only slows your progress.

I hope this helped, though I have a feeling it might not have!

Good luck with your efforts!

Ok, I've read your WILD tutorial twice over and will read the other tutorials you provided. So what your saying is that it's similar to that "HOLY CRAP, I'M IN A DREAM!" feeling in DILD, right? Like I won't need to RC or anything, I'll just know?

Originally Posted by Brent1938

Ok, I've read your WILD tutorial twice over and will read the other tutorials you provided. So what your saying is that it's similar to that "HOLY CRAP, I'M IN A DREAM!" feeling in DILD, right? Like I won't need to RC or anything, I'll just know?

Yup. You got it!

In fact, except in "accidental" DILD's, I find RC's, and RRC's, much more useful in waking-life self-awareness practice than they are in dreams.

Wow Sageous, this class has really taken off! I sort of faded from the site around the time this was just getting started, but I do believe the best thing I did when I was a mod was to talk you into doing this!

I'm renewing my efforts to achieve lucidity again, and I've read through all your lessons. This seems like a really great no-nonsense approach, and I especially like the focus on mental prep. As I was reading I wanted to start right away to establish new habits of self awareness, but one problem - if I think back over what I've done for the last hour or so it was mostly just sitting at the computer visiting various sites and reading your tutorial! But I came up with something that I think might work in that kind of situation - tell me if I'm on target with this or not.

What I would do every 10 minutes or so (approx) was to try to guess what time it is without looking, then glance up at the clock to see how close I am. It involves remembering what time it was when last you looked and trying to figure out how much time has passed, so I'm thinking that's a good effort in self-awareness, or am I wrong?

My thinking is, this could be a good approach for those times when you've been doing nothing but sit at the computer or watch TV - cause otherwise what have you got to be aware of? "Let's see - House was a total dick to everybody but he ended up saving the pregnant nun's diabetic baby but in the process lost his bet with Wilson.. " (wait - actually now that I think about it, that actually could work too.. ).

Anyway, let me know if either of these would work for those times when you're just veggin out in front of a monitor rather than actually doing anything to be aware of?

(Just what I think )
I think that what you are doing will work. Perhaps though, instead of just trying to remember what was on the computer screen, or what happened, add a little bit of yourself into it. For example, maybe when you try and guess the time, also try and remember what you were doing when you last checked the time. Were your hands on the keyboard? Was your right foot crossed over your left food? Did you itch your ear? How were you affecting what was around you, and how are you doing so now? Maybe just a little bit of self-awareness into it, similar to the Reverse Reality Checks

Darkmatters:

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Wow Sageous, this class has really taken off! I sort of faded from the site around the time this was just getting started, but I do believe the best thing I did when I was a mod was to talk you into doing this!

Many thanks for convincing me to somnapontificate for a hundred-odd posts; it was an interesting time for me... I'm not sure if I made a difference, given for instance the continuing reign of SP as the crown jewel/holy grail/ultimate goal on the DV boards, but it was an interesting time.

Now...

I'm renewing my efforts to achieve lucidity again, and I've read through all your lessons. This seems like a really great no-nonsense approach, and I especially like the focus on mental prep. As I was reading I wanted to start right away to establish new habits of self awareness, but one problem - if I think back over what I've done for the last hour or so it was mostly just sitting at the computer visiting various sites and reading your tutorial! But I came up with something that I think might work in that kind of situation - tell me if I'm on target with this or not.

What I would do every 10 minutes or so (approx) was to try to guess what time it is without looking, then glance up at the clock to see how close I am. It involves remembering what time it was when last you looked and trying to figure out how much time has passed, so I'm thinking that's a good effort in self-awareness, or am I wrong?

My thinking is, this could be a good approach for those times when you've been doing nothing but sit at the computer or watch TV - cause otherwise what have you got to be aware of? "Let's see - House was a total dick to everybody but he ended up saving the pregnant nun's diabetic baby but in the process lost his bet with Wilson.. " (wait - actually now that I think about it, that actually could work too.. ).

Anyway, let me know if either of these would work for those times when you're just veggin out in front of a monitor rather than actually doing anything to be aware of?

Not quite on target, I think.

First, carefully read DragonMaster21's post above, as it succinctly and accurately answers your question as well as I ever could...almost brought a tear to my jaundiced eye.

But of course I cannot leave it at that:

The RRC is meant to be a moment of introspection, of really wondering about where you are right now, where you just were, and where you'll be shortly; it's a moment's pause to reflect on your impact on your immediate reality, and its on you.

But you know all that. What an RRC is not is a rote exercise, like the RC, to train your mind in a mnemonic sort of way to test your state of consciousness. No, this is a check of your "presence," and an attempt to consciously acknowledge the significance of that presence.

An RRC should span just a few minutes in either direction -- don't try to look at your last or next hour, five minutes will do, and for God's sake don't do one of these things every ten minutes; you'll either beat the exercise to meaninglessness in a matter of days or drive yourself crazy; I don't think either of those doors is a good choice! Think about doing an RRC every hour or two, or whenever you happen to think of it. Should you never think of it, then make up an artificial reminder schedule.

Now here's the funny bit that was actually all I meant to say: If you're doing something "empty" or tedious like staring at a screen, you'll likely not bother or remember to do an RRC anyway, and that's okay. But should you happen to remember, take DragonMaster's advice and wonder if maybe there was something unique you were just doing, are doing, or will be doing shortly. More important, remember that doing something as reflexively mundane as, say, attending my class online, involves some amazingly big stuff, reality-wise.

Think about it: you might just be reading and tapping keys, but you're doing it while connected to a system currently being used by a billion other souls, all of them inserting their consciousnesses into it and extracting your consciousness from it, in some small (or possibly very big) way. Not only that, but right now you're feeding your head with information gleaned from a virtually bottomless well of human knowledge. And in a few minutes you might add a bit of your own unique knowledge or experience to the mix. Every key you hit makes the slightest difference to something, somewhere. In other words, metaphysically speaking, your interface with reality during even the most mundane moments online is extremely impressive; try to consider this, and really wonder about it.

This might all sound like a bunch of hyperbole -- because it is -- but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. The RRC is all about self-awareness, and your "self" is always existent no matter how empty the places it just visited might seem on the surface. If you can master identifying your position in your local reality (even if that identification is totally fictitious), then come dream-time you'll have a much better time holding onto that self-awareness because you'll have an easier time understanding the nature of your local dream-reality... namely that it's all you.

I hope that made sense ... the RRC, or rather the philosophy behind it, can be most helpful in not only getting you through WILD but, more importantly, making your LD more meaningful. Try to remember that it is not a technique, but a momentary state of mind.

tl;dr: No, though that 10-minute exercise is a good mnemonic exercise, and will definitely help your awareness hard-wiring, which is always a good thing, and it might help you with your sense of subjective time, it won't do much for your self-awareness. The difference, in terms of LD'ing (and life in general) is critical: There is always something to consider, no matter how empty your moments might seem at first glance. And remember, don't look back or ahead a whole hour; it might not be healthy!

Let me know if I confused, overstated, or said something that doesn't jibe with my class (I haven't been there in months).

Ok, I think I was confusing your technique with a different awareness technique, where you're supposed to occasionally stop and think about how you got where you are, remember the sequence of events leading all the way from getting up in the morning to where you are now.

After what you guys have said, I went back and re-read your section on self awareness, and I think I have a better idea now of what you mean. It's a moment of feeling your cosmic connectedness to the universe... a sort of "I'm Here - and I'm ALIVE!!!" - in fact pretty much the same feeling you get the moment you become lucid, right? Maybe sort of exercising your mind to feel that lucidity.

Lol and the only reason I was doing it every few minutes last night - well 2 reasons. 1st just the thing everybody does when they first decide to try a new lucidity technique - at first they overdo the hell out of it and RC every few minutes, ya know? And #2, I realized it would be a lot easier to get a feel for how much time had probably passed if I checked every few minutes - trust me, today I only did it 6 or 7 times (and my estimates were a lot farther off then they were yesterday!). But yeah, anyway, I know that's the wrong way now, so forget that.

Real quick:

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

... After what you guys have said, I went back and re-read your section on self awareness, and I think I have a better idea now of what you mean. It's a moment of feeling your cosmic connectedness to the universe... a sort of "I'm Here - and I'm ALIVE!!!" - in fact pretty much the same feeling you get the moment you become lucid, right? Maybe sort of exercising your mind to feel that lucidity.

Not so much "feeling your cosmic connectedness to the universe... a sort of "I'm Here - and I'm ALIVE!!!" " as understanding that you are a part of your local reality, you influence it, and it influences you.

Dreams are about here and now; not the entire universe... try to keep the RRC's focused so that you don't find yourself trying to see something of universal importance every time you do one (unless you're the Dali Lama, that likely wouldn't be possible). In a sense you're prepping your self-awareness for what follows the "ah-ha" moment of an LD, so that you are ready to understand where you are, and what you can do. And BTW, remember that in WILD there theoretically is no "ah-ha" moment, because you're not supposed to lose touch with your self-awareness.

[Edit: I just realized that my hyperbole about all those souls you connect with on the web might have misdirected a bit... I wasn't thinking cosmically; sorry if that seemed a mixed message.]

Lol and the only reason I was doing it every few minutes last night - well 2 reasons. 1st just the thing everybody does when they first decide to try a new lucidity technique - at first they overdo the hell out of it and RC every few minutes, ya know? And #2, I realized it would be a lot easier to get a feel for how much time had probably passed if I checked every few minutes - trust me, today I only did it 6 or 7 times (and my estimates were a lot farther off then they were yesterday!). But yeah, anyway, I know that's the wrong way now, so forget that.

Okay, I forgot!

Ok, that makes more sense. Good, because thinking about a cosmic connectedness to the universe hurts my brain!

Your local reality - Ok I get it - because in a dream that's all there is. So, something like - if I glance around a room in my house I can see my impact in it in pretty much every detail - I brought the furniture here and put it where it is, and all the crap sitting around (that I should probably put away properly one of these days) is there also because I put it there.

Thanks, I appreciate the help and advice.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Your local reality - Ok I get it - because in a dream that's all there is. So, something like - if I glance around a room in my house I can see my impact in it in pretty much every detail - I brought the furniture here and put it where it is, and all the crap sitting around (that I should probably put away properly one of these days) is there also because I put it there.

That's more like it, especially if you've truly got nothin' when you think about where you were a few minutes ago.

Thanks for playing!

Hello there ! Your first post was extremely insightful I am very happy that I happened to stumble upon it. I am brand new to the "lucid dream scene " though when I was a child I could control my dreams at will. I thought it was funny how you said that you are past the adventure and exploration stage of lucid dreaming just because I didn't even think about that when I first caught wind of LD'ing, i was strictly going to use it as a tool for my studies and theories. But now that i know of the possibilities i am extremely excited. If you are still answering question it would be much appreciated to a newbie like me.

Q1: from what I have read this is very much a process and there is no absolute paths to achieve it, it will take a good deal of time with much trial and error, which I am fine with. But if you were to restart from the beginning of your lucid dreaming life what would you start with and what would you have cut out to make to make your path as efficient as possible?

Q2: As a beginner what are habits that I should not get into and what are habbits that I should get into?

Q3: What would you say is the most general way to attain and continue to consistently have lucid dreams.

Again it would be greatly appreciated to hear back. I find it much easier to get information from a person who many people believe is a very trustworthy source of information such a as yourself, than sifting through the thousands of posts getting myself into all kinds of bad habits.

Greetings Doodben!

Thank you first for blowing some dust off this old thread; it's nice to know that someone is still paying attention to it.

Sure, I'm happy to offer up a few answers for you:

Originally Posted by doodben

Q1: from what I have read this is very much a process and there is no absolute paths to achieve it, it will take a good deal of time with much trial and error, which I am fine with. But if you were to restart from the beginning of your lucid dreaming life what would you start with and what would you have cut out to make to make your path as efficient as possible?

If I had to do it all over again, how would I do it? Probably in the exact same way, believe it or not.

I think the inherent inefficiency in not really knowing what you're doing or where you're going is a very valuable tool for developing self-awareness: if you're alone on a raft in a strange sea of unconscious information and images, it's much better to figure out for yourself how to navigate than to have someone do it for you. This is especially true in the case of dreaming, which is by its nature extremely personal and perfectly subjective -- sometimes the efficiencies, like the endless parade of techniques that wander across these forums, can do more harm than good... in other words: sure, you might get a lot wrong on your own, but an outsider stands an excellent chance of getting everything wrong.

When I first started seriously doing this stuff I studiously avoided books and other information on the subject, for fear it would corrupt my vision and send me on a dead-end path. In retrospect, I think I chose wisely. For instance, I think that if the internet existed when I was 20, I would have risked abandoning my slow, time-consuming self-awareness work for some of the sparkly-shiny techniques, machines, and supplements that everyone talks about, thus missing my chance to "get it right." I also might have taken the all the hype surrounding crap like "SP" seriously, and forgotten that it's the dream that matters, and not the noise.


Aside from keeping my global settings intact, I can think of two things that would have helped me:

First, I always wanted a guru... someone who was already "there" who would guide me through example, encouragement, and maybe the occasional kick in the pants. He or she wouldn't have to teach me anything, only keep me treading a narrow path from which it was so easy to stray. Speaking of that:

The other thing I would have liked was to have had the wisdom and experience I possess now back when I had a sharp, fully-functioning 25-year-old brain. As I age (I'm 51 this year), I'm discovering that the slow decay of an aging body (punished, of course, by years of happy neglect) is taking a toll on my LD'ing. Things that once came easily, like memory, focus, or long periods of deep concentration, are now only achieved through a combination of very hard work and extreme luck. In other words, I know exactly want I want to do, and know there was a time I could do it with minimal effort, and I know that time is long gone. More attention paid on this stuff when I was young and strong would have been a very nice thing indeed. (Aside: This bit may be more rant than advice, but I think it might carry some cautionary meaning).

Q2: As a beginner what are habits that I should not get into and what are habbits that I should get into?

The most important habit you can get into is developing a solid sense of the fundamentals, of course! A waking life with self-awareness on constant tap will lead to a most excellent dreaming life.

A habit of doing memory exercises, even if its just crossword puzzles or similar, will help as well. Pausing now and then to remember where you were and what you were doing an hour earlier would be a good habit, too.

Spending a lot of time imagining is a great habit. Set aside some serious time, every day, to imagine what you might do in your dreams, what mystical doors LD'ing might open for you, all the new worlds your dream life will create; really let your mind go. Doing this will establish a powerful sense of expectation, make setting intention second nature, and make dealing with the transcendental stuff that comes with high-level lucids much easier. And it's a lot of fun!

And, of course, the "standard" good habits like doing RC's and keeping a dream journal are very important as well.


Some habits to avoid:

Don't overindulge on echo-chambers like these forums, and when you are on, try not to take what you read too seriously (even stuff I wrote!).

Don't let techniques become more important than the dreams.

Don't take yourself too seriously -- though you should keep that dream journal, try to just write down what you remember and nothing more: don't fill in forgotten moments, add interpretations, or dismiss any bits as unimportant.

Another thing you must avoid is making RC's -- and the thoughts that accompany them -- too habitual. Every RC should be interesting to you, and that important question, "Is this a dream?" should always be asked with great interest... it is extremely important to avoid letting this (or any of this work) become rote.

Q3: What would you say is the most general way to attain and continue to consistently have lucid dreams.

Stick to the fundamentals, period.

I suppose if you also developed a good sense of timing -- learning which sleep periods are most conducive to your dreaming success, and then actually seeing that you enjoy those sleep periods regularly, that would help.

Also, a deep understanding that Ld'ing is not the result of any technique, trick, or drug trip, but rather is a state of mind that make take years to establish and a lifetime to perfect. This, I think, is the most important bit.

Oh, and did I mention that you should stick to the fundamentals?


That's all I got for now. I hope at least some of it made sense, and also hope that if it didn't you'll ask me to clarify.

Best of luck in your journeys, Doodben!

Thank you very much Sageous ! Your knowledge is like a breath of fresh air compared to most of the info on this forum. As you said I shall take everything with a grain of salt and truly carve my own path. I will be sure to hop back on if I come across anything special or hit any bumps, thanks again !

Hello there again!

First off, thanks again for the great advice before. I have had a good amount of lucid dreams sense my first post here, one being an extremely high level lucid dream starting with a false awakening, (what a great experience that one was). But I come back to this thread because I'm having a bit of trouble engaging the true lucidity after realizing I am dreaming. More often than not, I will realize I am dreaming take a quick look around something will catch my attention and I will be pulled right back into the dream plot or the dream will start to rapidly degrade. I know this is quite typical for beginners but I am curios to know if you know where this comes from or have any advise to overcome it?

Oh and great WILD class! I have not yet tried to WILD but I believe I have had such great success noticing I am in dreams because of the reverse reality checks and my mantra (alwase aware) which I use while I meditate before bed.

^^ Congrats on your successes, Doodben!

Now how to move forward, you ask? How to hold your self-awareness, or your attention, long enough to both enjoy real lucidity in the dream and have the chops to push the dreaming envelope a little further? Well, I have a two-part answer for you.

The first part might sound like a dodge, but it is not: Let time do its magic. As you continue to successfully LD, you'll find yourself more and more able to hold your Self in the dream, drawing on resources that you know work for you, based on your accumulated experiences and continued development of the fundamentals. In other words, be patient; in time you'll be able to recognize when you're being distracted by the events of a dream, or when your self-awareness is ebbing, and in that recognition you will have a cure.

Second, a more practical tip: Remember! Next time you're lucid, and feeling yourself drift (or, better yet, just before you feel that drift), try to remember a few practical things, like where your sleeping body really is, what is the day and date, and maybe some specific goal you had set for this dream... it's harder than you think! Doing this exercise during the dream will rally your self-awareness and help keep your memory switched on and, with your mind firmly in that state, it will be much easier to avoid distractions (and false lucids, but that's for another time, I think) and much more likely that you are able to pursue your lucid goals.

I hope that helped; let me know if it didn't...

It most defiantly helps,

I saw part one coming from the start so it defiantly doesn't sound like a dodge, time is normally the solution to most of my problems. But like most other humans I tend to look for the quick fix if there is one to be found. Haha. And part two makes a lot of sense but does sound like it will be a challenge.

One again thanks for the advise, I am sure I will have more questions in the future !

Originally Posted by Sageous

I haven't spoken directly about stabilizing because I am sure that strong self-awareness and memory skills will make stabilization an afterthought. In the meantime, though, I do have one odd suggestion...

Instead of avoiding flying, teleporting, and summoning, why not try to do them instead? The effort you make to get these things to happen might take your mind off a struggle to stabilize and at the same time you'll be doing the things you really want to do. Sometimes thinking too much about a thing -- like stabilization -- will guarantee that it never happens. Sometimes "just walking around" is by far the hardest thing to do in a dream.

So I guess from this post you've sensed my general opinion of all these stabilization "techniques." Sure they might work, but do they work because you're rubbing your hands or spinning, or is it because your awareness and memory are strong enough to create an expectation of stabilization that must be adhered to because it was your expectation? I have a feeling it's the latter. So then if you care a little less about losing lucidity, and more about enjoying it, you might find your LD's both lasting longer and including the stuff you want then to include...

What a great thread! I think I will hold my questions until I finish reading the full thread(going slow; jumping around the forums - probably too much; on page 2 of the thread currently). I have been working mostly on awareness lately and feel I am making good progress thanks to this and various threads including Lidybug's clear light perspective(found thanks to this thread!). In the meantime, I hope no one minds me referencing the quote above from all the way back on page 2. I just wanted to say that I used Sageous' suggestion quoted above in my LD last night, though I didn't remember to at first.

Spoiler for what I did in the LD:

There was a woman I wanted to interact with on some romantic level(to be determined) but knowing it was a dream my kneejerk reaction was that I told myself to stabilize first and was examining my hand..This time it did look weird and was quite vivid (the previous time I did this in a Lucid FA my hand looked quite normal). I think there were 6 fingers but as I started to count them the dream started fading so this is when I remembered the suggestion above and no longer seeing the woman, decided to take off flying and enjoyed it. I was flying in a white scape with nothing to see so I tried to think of some place interesting and it starting turning grayish, still flying. Not satisfied with the progress, I imagine I am in space and I see a planet and start looping around it from pole to pole. The planet most resembled earth.

Stumbled upon this video and thought of this thread: Shikantaza (Just Sitting) - YouTube

Shikantaza seems like a meditation more in line with your approach to awareness.

^^ I can understand the association, Ctharlhie, thanks for sharing!

Oh, and yeah, I didn't know it had a name, but I guess I practice Shikantaza quite often, as "just sitting" without the "aid" of techniques or other rules truly is one of the things I do to help my self-awareness along.