Thread: Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals -- With Q & A

Sorry to quote you back at yourself, but I really liked what you were saying in these two paragraphs:

Originally Posted by Sageous

It's also very important, in self-awareness-land, to be true to yourself. That openness that you mention is a very good thing, and very important, but it must be honest. To get into a habit of doing things that are opposite of the things you think you do opens some doors to intellectualism and second-guessing that might not be very helpful both to correctly appreciating your self-awareness, and also to holding onto that self-awareness in a dream. Indeed, doing the opposite, especially (and oddly, I guess) with an open mind, leads you to create personas of your self that might not exist, and perhaps shouldn't exist; instead of heightening your self-awareness, creating new personas only muddles it. And, of course, what is an artificial persona but a waking-life dream character? So, this action might just create expectations that convince your dreaming mind that a DC "you" can and should trump the actual "you." Not good for lucidity, I think!

Instead of doing the opposite, I suggest you do what you think is right, and notice yourself doing so -- even if it's something you've done a thousand times before. The action of realizing that you're doing the right thing should be enough to fire up your introspection without needing to invent whole new, often counter-intuitive things to do. And, at those times when you want to run away, but you know the right thing to do is stand and face an issue, you'll fluidly discover (rather than artificially define) that doing the right thing is the opposite of what you normally do, which is a good thing. Taking this approach I think will also help you in "...creating some space for me to react with a bit more awareness and a sense of freedom."

The thing is, I feel like I have been trying to do what you suggest here. When I said doing the 'opposite of what I normally do', I think I meant opposing my tendencies to do what seemed easiest rather than what felt 'right' and to try to create an ideal "self" to aspire to rather than simply being. But you're right, I do get a bit serious and intellectual about it all, which came out in the way I tried to describe what I've been doing. So thanks for picking me up on that - it's taken me a while to digest, but that's probably a good sign.

I was watching the most recent episode of "Hanibal" and thought of this thread and Reverse Reality Checks. Also interesting in the episode the main character "Will" drew a picture of a clock as requested by Hanibal Lecter and it looked like a dream like representation of a clock and was diagnosed as being a problem with spatial awareness I think. He also mentioned starting to doubt if his halucinations were not dreams but happening in waking life...Anyway...Hanibal suggested that he daily think of Where he was, When, and Who. That is the part that reminded me of the RRC. Though not identical, the post that Ctharlie pointed to in a recent post on this thread, had similar components that you suggested to add to an RRC. It got me thinking of whether it would be of benefit to ask those questions and more (or less for that matter)...Where I am, When, Who I am, Why I am here or I Why left where I was 15 minutes ago, How I got from there to here, What I am doing. The who would become rote but the others should vary. What do you think Sageous?

By the way, I am also still using the perspective thing where I see my self from various vantage points. Have you ever tried Hukif's gravity reality check?

Originally Posted by fogelbise

...Anyway...Hanibal suggested that he daily think of Where he was, When, and Who. That is the part that reminded me of the RRC. Though not identical, the post that Ctharlie pointed to in a recent post on this thread, had similar components that you suggested to add to an RRC. It got me thinking of whether it would be of benefit to ask those questions and more (or less for that matter)...Where I am, When, Who I am, Why I am here or I Why left where I was 15 minutes ago, How I got from there to here, What I am doing. The who would become rote but the others should vary. What do you think Sageous?

I think those are some pretty complex questions, especially when considering that you must ask them during the fog of a dream! Also, I think they are actually closer to a standard RC, because they lack the RRC's "reverse" bit that helps you unite your self-awareness with your dream.

However: If you can handle the complexity, that would be a very excellent RC indeed! After all, those questions lead you to confirm your state from numerous angles (i.e., realizing that you actually did not get from there to here in the first place), to seek explanations for why you are in a dream scenario, and to fire up your memory. Just honestly asking yourself those questions would likely be enough to determine your state -- and might lead to some fascinating introspection during waking-life practice!

Very interesting idea, fogelbise!

By the way, I am also still using the perspective thing where I see my self from various vantage points. Have you ever tried Hukif's gravity reality check?

Sorry, I never heard of Hukif's gravity reality check; what does it entail?

Originally Posted by Sageous

Sorry, I never heard of Hukif's gravity reality check; what does it entail?

I hope I don't get this wrong, but basically it involves training a constant awareness of gravity's effect on you. Constantly noting that feeling of gravity with the idea that distorted gravity is one of the most common dream signs...especially floating, flying, being able to lift things easily (or not as easily as normal), running like the wind or having a hard time running anywhere as if held back by very heavy gravity, REM atonia, etc... If properly trained, you could possibly notice the dream sign as soon as you enter the dream.

^^ That is a clever RC, and it avoids the waking-life RC side-effect of looking a little silly when you're practicing it.

Again, though, it must be done without letting it get too intellectually complicated... like just feel the pressure of your own weight on your heels as the test, without thinking about why that pressure exists. That way, in the dream, with your memory still switched off, you don't have that "why" presented in the most reasonable of terms by your dreaming mind. Better to simply not feel that pressure on your heels, which is extremely likely, and realize you're dreaming. Clever!

Thanks for sharing, fogelbise!

Hey Sageous (and the rest of the community of course),

After being a lurker for about a year now (and I have to add that I am of the kind who likes to soak up information and online post if I got the feeling that there is no way to obtain the information otherwise) I basically came to the conclusion that there are two methods or techniques that really fit me well. I didn't have that many lucids yet, but when I did it usually just happened to be so for no apparent reason and that's why I think training self-awareness explained by you (or ADA by KingYoshi which is really similar) and SSILD by CosmicIron works best for me.

Now after reading through most of your threads and a lot of other topics I still got two questions I was hoping you could answer:

1. Although I know your opinion of techniques in general I would really like to hear your opinion on SSILD especially looking at the underlying principle explained in one of the threads by CosmicIron.
2. I tend to have quite a few moments of lucidity, but what usually happens is that a few seconds after, my vision turns black and another dream (in which I am not lucid) or a false awakening follows even though I know this is going to happen. Is it just a lack of experience or am I focusing my thoughts in the wrong direction?

I am really looking forward to hearing from you.

Welcome, Era! Here are brief answers to your questions; I hope they help:

1. I don't see anything wrong with SSILD at all, and if it works for you, then go for it. SSILD seems to be a clean, simple (not in a bad way) technique for WILD, and if used as instructed -- with that requisite chunk of self-awareness, memory, and expectation -- it seems an effective technique. [Quick note: WILD is not actually a technique, but the description of a state of mind (same with DILD).]

A nice thing about SSILD, I think, is that it doesn't waste time on rules and regulations, as so many other WILD techniques do, and its primary function is getting you to the dream, regardless of whether the route is WILD or DILD. This is important, because too many techniques are focused on the technique, rather than the results. So yeah, SSILD is just fine.

... Indeed, whatever technique you choose is fine, and it likely will work as long as the fundamentals are in place.

2. I would chalk this up to lack of experience, meaning that in time you will find that "sweet spot" where your self-awareness and your dream are on the same page. Why this specifically is happening could come from a number of things, like timing your LD attempt poorly (ie, you are becoming lucid at the end of a REM period, so there is nothing to dream -- that blank spot could be a brief period of NREM, and its understandable that lucidity vaproizes during it), that you are too excited or confused, you're simply not paying enough attention to the dream itself (aka focusing your thoughts in the wrong direction), or something else altogether. As you become accustomed to the presence of your self-awareness in dreams, I think you'll find it fairly easy to identify what's going wrong and put a stop to it. There are threads and tutorials on prolonging the dream here at DV's but I suggest that you hold off on going there for advice until you've got a few more LD's under your belt.

Thanks a lot! This actually was exactly the kind of answer I was looking for!

Originally Posted by era

Thanks a lot! This actually was exactly the kind of answer I was looking for!

Sageous is very good at that! Sageous, I don't know if you remember my over-analytical tendency in relation to the RRC and I think we agreed on a good way to handle that but I did want to ask you another question to see if you think I may be drifting off track. I still use a variation of Lidybug's perspective where I basically look back at myself from different vantage points (through imagination, not reflections/mirrors) and have found myself looking right at myself in dreams and triggering lucidity a few times. I do that at the same time as my RRC and RC. Yesterday I started thinking about specifics again for the RRC/self-awareness check-in and just wondered if you thought I might be heading back to my over-analytical tendencies. I was thinking about how as I touch things like a piece of cloth it can crease, take a new shape, or make a sound and create heat from the friction and then trying to make a more dream like connection I was thinking about how you can bring emotions into a room (like you bring emotions of joy, love, fear, anger or jealousy into your dreams it seems)..happy emotions can bring up a group of people just as negative ones can bring down a group of people..or how a great smile can often light up the room, in waking life. What do you think?

^^ The bit about touching the piece of cloth on its own is a good idea; I do similar things myself, because sometimes the simplest exchanges with reality are the best indicators of your presence in it. But I would leave it at the action itself, and wonder about just that action (i.e., do no more than wonder "about how as I touch things like a piece of cloth it can crease, take a new shape, or make a sound and create heat from the friction").

To then go into an abstract like how you can bring emotions into a room is to attach too much intellectual thought to the moment, I think. Such thought might force you to add things that simply were not there, and thus do not truly reflect your interaction with reality. You might save thoughts like this for RRC's that happen just after you actually did bring emotions into a room (not a bad time for a RRC anyway!), because, if you just experienced such a vectoring "for real," you can wonder about it honestly without needing to add "deeper" thoughts to the interaction.

So yeah, I guess you may have been dipping into that over-analytical well again! Be careful of that...

Hey Sageous, and other fellow LDers

I've been practicing DILD primarily and might give WILD a shot if the opportunity presents itself. Although I feel my question I'd relevant to DILD

I've been working hard on recall and getting results, but onto my question...

When I do the self awareness training or rrc, should I just realize that I'm here and I affect things and things affect me?

I might overthinking it... For instance should I think,"I affect joe if I call him names", or just realizing "I affect others."

I guess what I'm asking is should it be personal to your life?

Thanks

^^ Yes, it should be as personal, or directly related, to you and your immediate locale. Indeed, it shouldn't be "I effect Joe if I call him names," but something like, "Look how I made Joe feel when I called him that name, and what made me do it?"

In a RRC, you're wondering about your interaction with reality recently, now, and in the near future; looking into the specifics of that interaction makes it real, while simply acknowledging that you interacted ("just realize that I'm here and I affect things and things affect me?") may be too abstract to help you get in the proper mindset. This holds come dreamtime as well, because it's those specifics that'll help you remember that this "reality" is all your own dream!

Very interesting thread, you appear to be quite the guru. I have a medley of questions that are sort of all over the place, they might not all be within your area of expertise, but I'm really quite curious as to your opinions seeing as you're quite possibly one of the most seasoned and perhaps even skilled lucid dreamers on the internet.


1. First I just wanted your opinion on what I've been doing in attempts to maximize my lucidity. I'll include both what I do, and my reasons for doing it, so if you think that my expectations for a certain technique are flawed, or that I could be better served practicing something else, I'd truly like to know.

I try to write down all of my dreams with reasonable amounts of detail, and then every night when I go to bed (usually takes me awhile to fall asleep) I'll think about those dreams from the night before, and imagine myself becoming lucid in them, and then doing something creative if I can think of something. I figure that this exercise should help both my visualization and dream creativity skills, and I also like to think that many repetitions of 'becoming lucid' in my reimagined dreams would lead to my becoming lucid more often in real time dreams, but that's really just speculation on my part.

Throughout the day I try to be aware of my current context, in both broad and narrow terms, for instance, when I remember, I'll think something like "home for the summer 2013, eating breakfast in the morning", in hopes of increasing my situational awareness so that when I have dreams where I'm at the university rather than home for the summer like I am in real life, or even dreams back in high school, I'll know that something is amiss as question my reality. And since reading this thread I also plan on trying to keep in mind what I was doing 15 minutes ago.

I try and meditate as much as I can (vipassana) both seated closed eye breathe and open eyed walking styled, which I do to increase my more general awareness and concentration abilities. (more on this in question 2) And I also do some sort of ADA styled external awareness type stuff just throughout the day, mostly with the visual sense noticing the oddities of light/reflection, just in hopes to made my dreams more vivid.


2. Reading/skimming through this thread, I had noticed that you said that you had practiced some vipassana yourself, and I of course also noticed your very common theme of promoting 'self-awareness' as critical for consistent high level lucid dreams. One of the main realizations that comes out of vipassana is how we tend to spend all day just thinking, thinking, thinking, being lost in thought without knowing that we're lost in thought, and when you observe this stream of thought closely enough you lose the sense that there is a 'self' doing the observing, and sort of lose your feeling of being an 'I' seperate from the rest of the world. This view of the self as an illusion is consistent with the current view of most neuroscientists who see the self as a construct, sewn together from thoughts, memories, and emotions, like a story being told to put ourselves in relation to others. I was wondering how this jived with your strong advocacy of cultivating self awareness, and am curious as to your opinion both to the truth of the 'self as an illusion' point of view, and to it's relation to lucid dreaming, just intuitively I would imagine that a dualistic view is more conducive to lucid dreaming in general, and that even if it's true that the self is nothing more than a story (which I think that it is) that it would be better to not bring that attitude into the 'lucid game'.


3. In regards to extending lucid dreams, I was wondering if this is something that really just increases with experience, or if there is something that one can actively be doing to cultivate the skill. And also if there is any relation between ones ability with 'dream control' and the ability to extend a lucid dream, or if these are two completely seperate entities.


4. I had noticed that you somewhat commonly evoke a sort of evolutionary theme in your posts on this forum, which made me wonder if you had an opinion as to the function of dreams. There has obviously been a lot of controversy in this area over the years, from the abstract meanings that Freud adovated to REM consolidation to the more recent activation-synthesis hypotheses.


5. And finally, since lucid dreaming has obviously been on your radar for decades, I was curious as to how often you bring it up in conversation in real life, how people usually respond to you when you do, and to why you think that lucid dreaming is a relatively unknown to the general population.


6. Oops I thought of another one. In the early life of this thread, you wrote a lot about your current, transcendental goals, something involving a trinity I believe, so I was just curious as to whether you've made any progress towards those goals in the past year. And also, now that I think of it, I'm curious as to whether your lucid skills in general are still improving at all noticeably after all these years of training.



I know this is an awfully large amount of questions, and while I eagerly await your reply to any of them, I'll understand if you don't have time to get to them for awhile.

^^ Yes indeedy, PresentMoment, that is a large amount of questions, and very well constructed ones at that! I promise to properly answer them all as soon as I can, but please be patient...

Originally Posted by Sageous

I had to google that bad boy; my knowledge of video games pretty much ends with Tempest.

Heheh, sorry, Sage!

PresentMoment:

Very interesting thread, you appear to be quite the guru. I have a medley of questions that are sort of all over the place, they might not all be within your area of expertise, but I'm really quite curious as to your opinions seeing as you're quite possibly one of the most seasoned and perhaps even skilled lucid dreamers on the internet.

Not a guru at all; merely a long-time dreamer who continues to pay attention. I sincerely hope your kind words are sustained after you read my answers below, though, as I have a feeling I may only generate more questions:

1. First I just wanted your opinion on what I've been doing in attempts to maximize my lucidity. I'll include both what I do, and my reasons for doing it, so if you think that my expectations for a certain technique are flawed, or that I could be better served practicing something else, I'd truly like to know.

I try to write down all of my dreams with reasonable amounts of detail, and then every night when I go to bed (usually takes me awhile to fall asleep) I'll think about those dreams from the night before, and imagine myself becoming lucid in them, and then doing something creative if I can think of something. I figure that this exercise should help both my visualization and dream creativity skills, and I also like to think that many repetitions of 'becoming lucid' in my reimagined dreams would lead to my becoming lucid more often in real time dreams, but that's really just speculation on my part.

That is an interesting technique, sort of a MILD variety I think, where you are focused on setting intention and building solid expectation. It seems to me it would work just fine -- as long as you are still doing mental prep involving self-awareness and memory.

Why? Because focus on expectations and intentions alone, without including the other two fundamentals, could lead your dreaming mind (aka unconscious) to oblige your wishes and give you the dreams and formats you are asking for, in the form of false lucid dreams (“dreaming,” that you are lucid without a hint of self-awareness). There must be components of self-awareness at least, and self-awareness plus memory at best, in order to become aware that you are dreaming. So, your personal levels of self-awareness and memory must be high enough (and yours probably are) to snap to attention when you remember during the dream that you had made all these preparations, or else you might just wind up dreaming that you are lucid. [Yes, I'm already blathering on about self-awareness; more on that in a minute.]

Throughout the day I try to be aware of my current context, in both broad and narrow terms, for instance, when I remember, I'll think something like "home for the summer 2013, eating breakfast in the morning", in hopes of increasing my situational awareness so that when I have dreams where I'm at the university rather than home for the summer like I am in real life, or even dreams back in high school, I'll know that something is amiss as question my reality.

This again sounds more like setting intention and building expectation to make a DILD more likely, which is a fine thing to do. But it may only seem that way, unfortunately. Be aware that if you spend a lot of waking time confirming where you are and what you are doing, and explaining to yourself that this is the way it is supposed to be, you might be inadvertently training your mind to do the same thing during a dream. In other words, this practice might cause your DC “you” to explain to yourself during the dream that this grammar school that you are attending on the moon is exactly where you are supposed to be; you’ll be thinking that “I’m at school, doing my lessons on lunar farming,” and, for lack of memory and awareness, you’ll be content with that as reality.

It might be better to question, rather than confirm. Ask yourself if this is a dreamscape you're in: if this kitchen is really your home, if it really is 2013, and if these flakes before you are really breakfast. Then, after the question is in place comes the time to confirm that this is reality (or not!). Your dreaming mind is hard-wired to convince you that the schema you are experiencing is real; you might not want to reinforce that conviction in your waking-life wiring as well. This, of course, is the foundation of LaBerge’s state testing (RC’s).

And since reading this thread I also plan on trying to keep in mind what I was doing 15 minutes ago.

That’s an excellent idea, and might be just what you need to augment the other practices!

I try and meditate as much as I can (vipassana) both seated closed eye breathe and open eyed walking styled, which I do to increase my more general awareness and concentration abilities. (more on this in question 2) And I also do some sort of ADA styled external awareness type stuff just throughout the day, mostly with the visual sense noticing the oddities of light/reflection, just in hopes to made my dreams more vivid. .

Both are fine things to practice, I think. Also, if you are “watching your breath” while practicing the "Reverse Reality Checks (RRC's)" that I repeatedly mention in my WILD class, you will likely have a heightened, more productive experience.

2. Reading/skimming through this thread, I had noticed that you said that you had practiced some vipassana yourself, and I of course also noticed your very common theme of promoting 'self-awareness' as critical for consistent high level lucid dreams. One of the main realizations that comes out of vipassana is how we tend to spend all day just thinking, thinking, thinking, being lost in thought without knowing that we're lost in thought, and when you observe this stream of thought closely enough you lose the sense that there is a 'self' doing the observing, and sort of lose your feeling of being an 'I' separate from the rest of the world. This view of the self as an illusion is consistent with the current view of most neuroscientists who see the self as a construct, sewn together from thoughts, memories, and emotions, like a story being told to put ourselves in relation to others. I was wondering how this jived with your strong advocacy of cultivating self awareness, and am curious as to your opinion both to the truth of the 'self as an illusion' point of view, and to it's relation to lucid dreaming, just intuitively I would imagine that a dualistic view is more conducive to lucid dreaming in general, and that even if it's true that the self is nothing more than a story (which I think that it is) that it would be better to not bring that attitude into the 'lucid game'.

Okay, this one’s a lulu, so bear with me:

I think you and I are on a different page regarding self-awareness, so I’m not sure if my answer to this question will help or interest you, but here it is anyway:

I see self-awareness as very much a non-dual form of thought, actually, and in all honesty feel that duality is very bad for LD’ing, especially LD’ing of the advanced variety. If you look closely at the RRC, you will notice that it is nothing more than a first stride toward uniting your self with your local reality, at least in terms of direct causality or, better, interaction. This is very important, because in a dream there is no duality, only you.

If during the dream you find yourself establishing a “self” that is just a story while also being within a story created by, yes, your self, then confusion and non-lucidity stand a good chance of following. Indeed, by allowing a dualistic viewpoint to reign in a dream, you are allowing the dream itself to be elevated to a level of importance and “reality” that might exceed the importance of your own presence; the constructed "reality" of the dream trumps the actual reality of your waking consciousness. Bring an attitude like that into a dream with you, and lucidity will be very difficult to hold onto, I think, especially because this dualistic acceptance of the dream as reality is essentially the definition of the non-lucid dream experience.

Also, this non-duality approach is one held not just by me, but by folks like the yogis of dream and sleep. This concept -- that you must be aware that you have a position in reality, and are always a participant in, never just an outside observer of, reality -- is not a new one, and forms the foundation of a great many (if not all) of the higher-end transcendental philosophies (I personally place LD’ing and what it represents in that category).

...Okay, that’s the important bit for me, and sorry if making it the priority left the answer slightly out of sequence; now back to the rest of this complex question:

I have and do practice a form of Vipassana meditation, though I had no idea I was doing so until many years after I had begun the practice. Regarding the Vipassana experience, keep in mind that, by realizing we (all) “tend to spend all day just thinking, thinking, thinking, being lost in thought without knowing that we're lost in thought, etc,” you create an opportunity to recognize your presence in reality, your impact on it and its on you, and that all that empty thought is a distraction. Yes, you have a unique identity, but that identity (and it’s source in the self) is interacting with the greater reality all the time and in both directions. The whole point of Vipassana-like meditation, I think, is to take a moment to realize that “you” do exist, in spite of all the time you waste ignoring that existence, and that you are a part of reality, and not just an observer. Carry this mindset into the dream, where you literally affect everything around you and everything around you is literally you, and lucidity and dream control will be virtual no-brainers. So Vipassana meditation is more a first step than a method for defining what I practice.

Next:

Though for different reasons, I am fine with a view of the self as an illusion, as a construct formed by “thoughts, memories, and emotions, like a story being told to put ourselves in relation to others.” Why not? After all, whether the self is an illusion created by our physical body’s experience or there is some higher-consciousness-borne being driving that experience, the end result is still the same: There is a “self” that we consciously and actively identify with, and that self, be it story or entity, is what defines our position in reality. In other words, whether self is an illusion or not, self-awareness still matters. So, if the neuroscientists are right and this “story of self” is all that defines us, self-awareness would still make a fine tool for lucidity – simply adjust that story to include an ability to know you are dreaming!

As you may have noticed by now, I don’t tend to agree with the neuroscientists. Their understandable view (they are neuroscientists) seems to belittle sentience and self-awareness, making it a function of firing neurons rather than the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, which to me is the root of consciousness, spiritual growth, and the neuroscientists’ ability to posit their theories in the first place.

3. In regards to extending lucid dreams, I was wondering if this is something that really just increases with experience, or if there is something that one can actively be doing to cultivate the skill. And also if there is any relation between ones ability with 'dream control' and the ability to extend a lucid dream, or if these are two completely separate entities.

I personally think that the length of your LD tends to be the result of experience or very good luck. So, barring that luck, only by becoming well-accustomed to being aware in your dreams will you also have a tendency to easily prolong lucidity on a consistent basis. In other words, you must practice in order to know that the dream will last. The same goes for dream control, which I suppose makes them related in their need for experience and solid self-awareness and memory. Beyond that: no, there is no relation between the two. You can have a very long LD without a moment of control, and be omnipotent in your LD yet unable to keep yourself from waking up after five minutes.

That said, I am a somewhat lonely voice when speaking this opinion. If you browse the Dream Control forum on this site, for instance, you’ll find many, many threads replete with techniques and testimonials promising instant god-like control or methods for prolonging dreams with the simplest of spins.

4. I had noticed that you somewhat commonly evoke a sort of evolutionary theme in your posts on this forum, which made me wonder if you had an opinion as to the function of dreams. There has obviously been a lot of controversy in this area over the years, from the abstract meanings that Freud advocated to REM consolidation to the more recent activation-synthesis hypotheses.

I used to give a lot of thought to the function of dreams, but not so much anymore. For me they are simply another vehicle of consciousness which, when sentience (self-awareness) is applied, allows me to explore depths of my being that are simply not accessible to me during waking life.

I think the evolutionary theme you noticed is my opining that the potentials of dreams, be they real or imagined, changed for humans the moment we became sentient, or aware that we were aware. The function of dreams, in terms of brain activity during sleep, is the same as it ever was (as I’m fairly sure it is with all mammals), but once we gained the ability to remember our dreams and even consciously participate in them, we began to attach meaning, importance, spiritual value, and even mythology to them. I suppose that is an evolutionary thing, but I think it was actually more an imaginative thing, once we could train our imaginations on where we just were when we were asleep.

5. And finally, since lucid dreaming has obviously been on your radar for decades, I was curious as to how often you bring it up in conversation in real life, how people usually respond to you when you do, and to why you think that lucid dreaming is a relatively unknown to the general population.

I never bring it up in conversation, and haven’t for many years.

About five minutes after I first started breathlessly proclaiming my lucid discoveries back in the 1970’s, I noticed my friends' and family’s eyes glazing over with startling speed. I learned quickly that most people aren’t terribly interested in dreams at all, and those who are hold very specific viewpoints of them which rarely dovetail with mine. So, since trying to tell them about my experiences was both perfectly alien to them, and more than a little dull, I ceased bothering. There was no point, save listening to myself talk.

More importantly, though, I hold dreaming as a very personal event, to the point where others -- even other accomplished LD’ers -- simply will not understand what I’m saying because they lack the context of my experience in specific dreams, and vise-versa (which is the main reason I don’t post DJ entries, BTW).

These days, people who’ve read my work or similar ask me about dreams and I will respond (duh), but I’m not sure that counts. Funny thing about even those folks, though, is that even they lose interest quickly. It could be me, I suppose!

6. Oops I thought of another one. In the early life of this thread, you wrote a lot about your current, transcendental goals, something involving a trinity I believe, so I was just curious as to whether you've made any progress towards those goals in the past year. And also, now that I think of it, I'm curious as to whether your lucid skills in general are still improving at all noticeably after all these years of training.

I hadn’t realized that I had mentioned my “trinity engine” here, but I guess it’s been such a large part of my life this last year that I couldn’t help it. The trinity engine is a difficult metaphor to create and employ, so I’m still working on it and probably will be for a while… it might take the rest of my life to get it to work properly. I suppose I can safely say that I’ve made progress, but I manage to set goals that may be literally unattainable, so that progress is incremental, and often frustratingly slow.

Are my skills still improving? I want to say yes, because my global skills –- the fundamentals, as it were –- are becoming more a part of my being every day, my high-level lucids are better than ever, and (with three rarely recurring exceptions) I tend to be mildly lucid in almost all of my dreams. But I honestly cannot say so, because, unfortunately I’m in a race of sorts that I hadn’t counted on 30 years ago: I’m competing with age.

As my body ages, it seems to cough up every day some new obstacle to impede my progress – i.e., difficulty with memory and holding focus, physical impairments, the amazing speed with which the days pass, and a very unhelpful disinterest in going to sleep. These new obstacles are threatening to stymie my progress and possibly cause regression (especially in the memory department). Still, it’s a race I expect to win by making adjustments to my waking life activities and more cleverly scheduling LD’ing attempts.

Okay then, that’s what I have for now. I hope some of what I said made sense (ask again if it didn’t), and all apologies for the extreme brevity -- time was not on my side, I’m afraid.

Hey Sageous,

I've noticed when I first go to bed(NREM), I just sit there and sit completely still(even with the knowledge that NREM WILDs are rare), and I try to see things behind my eyelids. Usually patterns form into a very patterny image, or I sometimes feel like I see colors for a mere second, and when this happens my eyes start twitching a bit and sometimes open ever so slightly.

Do these patterns sound like WILD 'noise' to you? Basically, should I aim for these/see them as progress?

When I wake up for WBTB I usually try to WILD right upon waking but do it VERY lazily. I can't seem to get the same patterns and then fall alseep, I plan to actually walk around my house and think dreamy for next WBTB and wake myself up a bit and try to get those same patterns.

>Also

When I'm in bed I enjoy doing the weird physical illusions such as making my body feel REALLY light, then making it feel heavy, imagine bed is sideways and I'm rotating constantly, are these helpful in any way at all? I've been wondering for a long while, especially since knowing that you shouldn't focus on the physical world while WILDing.

Always smooth,
-EmptyBucket

Originally Posted by EmptyBucket

I've noticed when I first go to bed(NREM), I just sit there and sit completely still(even with the knowledge that NREM WILDs are rare), and I try to see things behind my eyelids. Usually patterns form into a very patterny image, or I sometimes feel like I see colors for a mere second, and when this happens my eyes start twitching a bit and sometimes open ever so slightly.

Do these patterns sound like WILD 'noise' to you? Basically, should I aim for these/see them as progress?

Well, they are noise, but they're not WILD noise,simply because you're not in the midst of a WILD. You're certainly going to experience hypnagogic imagery (HI) if you maintain awareness when falling asleep at night, because that is part of the process of falling asleep whenever you nod off. However, if your chances of staying self-aware through early (and very long) NREM stages are slim to none, or perhaps you have no expectation of an NREM dream at all, then what you are doing and seeing will not be part of a WILD. WILD by definition is nothing more than the transition from wake to sleep without loss of waking-life awareness; if you're not making that transition, you're not in a WILD.

That said, since seeing these noises represent your improving ability to stay aware as sleep approaches, sure, you could see them as progress. But try not to see experiencing them as goals or achievements, but rather signposts of your improving ability to maintain your awareness. In other words, don't "aim" for them; always aim for the dream. Remember also that if you're doing this practice at bedtime (or, better yet, during the times you naturally wake up during the night) while also having intentions set and expectations strong, you stand a pretty good chance of a DILD. So, though what you're doing may have nothing to do with a WILD beyond a little extra training, it could still be helpful to get you to lucidity. Just be sure to stay focused ton the actual goal, which is the dream!

When I wake up for WBTB I usually try to WILD right upon waking but do it VERY lazily. I can't seem to get the same patterns and then fall alseep, I plan to actually walk around my house and think dreamy for next WBTB and wake myself up a bit and try to get those same patterns.

Walking around your house is a good plan. Trying to do a WILD right upon waking is better done with DEILD, I think. Also, because WBTB stands for "Wake Back To Bed," and not "Stay In Bed and Fall Back To Sleep," you're actually not doing WBTB at all. However, if you get up slightly wake up, and reinforce your waking-life awareness by getting up and moving around for at least ten minutes (and hour might be better), dreamy thoughts in mind, then you are indeed including WBTB in your WILD attempt, right where it belongs.

Bottom line: don't be lazy! Get up, walk around, and give your mind and body a chance to work together to help you achieve that LD.

When I'm in bed I enjoy doing the weird physical illusions such as making my body feel REALLY light, then making it feel heavy, imagine bed is sideways and I'm rotating constantly, are these helpful in any way at all? I've been wondering for a long while, especially since knowing that you shouldn't focus on the physical world while WILDing.

They're helpful at least because they're stirring your imagination, but not much more. Indeed, just like the noise, if you make what you're doing too important it will overshadow your desire to be awake in your dream at a time when that desire needs to be strongest.

About the only other way they could be helpful for LD'ing is if you can somehow use the activity as a sort of mantra that keeps you in focus while your body falls asleep -- all the while keeping the upcoming dream at the forefront of your mind. Be careful of this, because you might just wind up with a non-lucid dream about rotating around in your bed while you get heavier and lighter!

I need help with a problem that's been a long time coming but has only now come into full effect, I can't remember my NLDs. When I started out LDing I never had to try to remember my dreams, I wanted to and I did, after a few months I remembered 2-5 dreams on an average night. Because I never had to carry out any particular technique to recall my dreams so now that they've gone I'm at loss as what to do. I'm still practising the fundamentals at a level sufficient to lucid dream, but those are the only dreams I recall now in a more than fragmentary way.

I have no great love of my NLDs, so if I can get away with not journaling them then cool, but somehow that seems like cheating.

^^ Want to know the very best, and likely only reliable, way to remember your NLD's?

Write them down.

Sorry, Ctharlhie, but there is something very special about writing down your dreams by hand that converts them from wispy fading moments to recoverable memories. But you already knew that, didn't you? Hell, I'd bet that you even know why writing down your dreams is effective.

Keeping a dream journal really is the best way to do it. You can try things like repeating a mantra like "I will remember my dreams" at bedtime (never, ever worked for me, BTW), or popping a couple of B-6's at bedtime (has worked for me), or learn to hold still upon waking and repeat everything you remember about your dreams several times (has occasionally worked for me), but in the end the best answer is to simply pick up a pen.

Full disclosure: When my dreaming career began a lifetime ago, I too had amazing dream recall (or at least that's how I remember it), but these days my NLD recall is horrifically bad. I blame my age, or the fact that my brain whirls into action a lot faster than it used to upon waking, but none of that matters, beyond the suspicion that I may not be the best source for recall techniques these days. Also, many of my NLD's are far more intriguing than many of my LD's, and I too get annoyed that I can't seem to retain them... of course, I never care enough at the time of waking to reach for a pen either!

That's what I got on this; perhaps I was the wrong person to ask? There may be techniques for dream recall that work better than a pen and paper, but if they exist, they are beyond my purview, and perhaps, my immediate belief.

I hope that helped, though I'm guessing it didn't!

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

I have no great love of my NLDs, so if I can get away with not journaling them then cool, but somehow that seems like cheating.

I'd add that, in my experience anyway, it seems important to have some genuine interest in your NLDs if you want to remember them. That sounds totally obvious now that I've just typed it, but you said you have 'no great love' of them which suggests that that's what you're missing. After all, it's easier to remember something that you feel engaged with intellectually or emotionally, and it makes sense that your waking consciousness would discard your dreams if you don't feel much for them. I'm interested in (Jungianish) dream analysis so that's what gets me writing them down, and I get a kind of emotional repayment every time I feel like I've understood what's going on in one of them (as far as that's possible...). My suggestion would be to find your own reasons for remembering them - as a starter, you couldn't become lucid if you didn't dream, so even your NLDs should be important to you: they're the foundation of lucidity. You could start by just thinking over your dreams and wonder why you didn't become lucid, despite the fact that in one of them your dad wandered into your bedroom with a joint, got completely stoned and turned into a dinosaur (a recent example).

Anyway. Opinionrant over.

Sageous, I was wondering what interest you have in the content of your dreams. This comes back to the question about what you believe their function to be, so I know you don't think about that so much but I'd be interested if you could expand a bit. Do you find them purely entertaining, or useful in some way (such as some kind of psychological or spiritual dream analysis)? For example, you said you have had some very 'intriguing' NLDs - what made them so, if that's not too personal/complicated a question?

Originally Posted by branestawm

Sageous, I was wondering what interest you have in the content of your dreams. This comes back to the question about what you believe their function to be, so I know you don't think about that so much but I'd be interested if you could expand a bit. Do you find them purely entertaining, or useful in some way (such as some kind of psychological or spiritual dream analysis)? For example, you said you have had some very 'intriguing' NLDs - what made them so, if that's not too personal/complicated a question?

My interest in the content of NLD's? Well, it's been all over the place through the years, but, in terms of meaning, currently I can pare it down to one sentence:

A moment of NLD carries exactly the same potential for meaning as does a moment of waking life.

... Think about it; it may be less cryptic than it sounds.

Because of that, I do find NLD's entertaining, and occasionally do find some meaning in them, and sometimes they are useful in psychological and spiritual ways (just like moments of waking life can be -- but almost always are not).

Regarding function: A very long time ago I had a great interest in interpreting dreams, and, humbly, got pretty good at it. But I discovered eventually that during the act of interpretation the content of the dreams actually meant nothing at all; rather, it was the meaning the dreamer attached to the dream afterword that mattered (this is of course still a good thing, BTW -- and a place Jung often went). After that I kind of stepped away from interpretation.

More recently, I've come to wonder about this whole concept of the unconscious using dreams to help you sort out problems, review the previous day, etc. I find it hard to believe that, after millions of years of evolution and cognitive development, the best our minds can do to interface the unconscious and conscious is to summon up extremely vague, arguably random images that are immediately forgotten upon waking most of the time and, when remembered, those images can be interpreted in any manner of ways, many of those ways incorrect. That just seems too inefficient. Instead, I've come to see NLD's as simply the unconscious filling in the space of sleep with memories, reflections of day residue, and fulfillment of conscious expectation -- with occasional bursts of actual meaning, just like in waking life. Kind of dull, I know; and who knows? A little more lucid diving into the ocean of unconsciousness, and I might slide right back into the "they mean something" camp! I hope this lines up with other things I've said about this recently; if not, it's where I'm at now.

An intriguing NLD for me is one that leaves me thinking about it upon waking, or perhaps a little breathless from the adventure I just had, or the DC's I met. Because of a dreamer's tendency to accept them as real, NLD's have a potential to be powerful experiences, especially if the imagery, DC's, or memories tapped are particularly outstanding. And no, I'm not a big fan of sharing my dreams specifically, because I'm confident that they won't make much sense to other readers.

That's what I have on this. I can see how you might find it less than clear, and might even spot some contradictions, but it's what I have. Also, though I'm sure you might take issue with much of what I said, I must warn you that I don't want to get into a conversation here about the validity of NLD's or their interpretation, since this is a thread about LD'ing fundamentals. I hope you don't mind.

I was just advised (thanks F0rceez!) that this thread has been inadvertently closed since yesterday. It's open now, in case anyone wanted to post... sorry for the inconvenience!

Thanks for the reply, Sageous. It means a lot to hear from an expert that my lucid techniques aren’t completely off base. Your suggestion about questioning rather than confirming made a lot of sense and I’ve been trying to incorporate that.

I was a bit disheartened to learn that even you have given up talking to people (in real life) about lucid dreaming. I had thought that perhaps because you seem quite adept at describing them on the forums that you’d have a higher chance of success at making them sound interesting to people who have never heard of them. I was also curious, though, as to if you had a theory as to why most people have no interest in lucid dreaming? I also take issue with you being so quick to deny the title of guru! All it has to mean is someone who gives other people advice on ‘spiritual’ matters, which you certainly seem to be doing

Now, concerning the more interesting issue. It’s clear that there’s a philosophical difference between us regarding the nature of our existence. I tend to be about as scientific as it gets when it comes to these matters, where as you seem to be holding out hope that there’s more at play than the neuronal activity of our brains. First I have to say that my (neuroscientific) view does not have to belittle anything about our experience, just like understanding the molecular constituents of chocolate doesn’t stop us from enjoying it. It also doesn’t rule out the possibility of humans being capable of truly rare or even transcendental experiences (which I think that we are).

Top down processing is a recognized principle in both neuroscientific and psychological processes, and I don’t think most neuroscientists would deny that the phenomena emerging from the complete brain is greater than the sum of its parts.

I was glad to hear that you didn’t think that the ‘vipassana’ mindset was detrimental to lucid dreaming. Being ‘lucid’ in waking life is actually much more important to me than being lucid while dreaming, but I very much want to have both, and while I suspected that it was possible (if not probable), it was nice to receive some confirmation of this.

Originally Posted by Sageous

The whole point of Vipassana-like meditation, I think, is to take a moment to realize that “you” do exist, in spite of all the time you waste ignoring that existence, and that you are a part of reality, and not just an observer. Carry this mindset into the dream, where you literally affect everything around you and everything around you is literally you, and lucidity and dream control will be virtual no-brainers. So Vipassana meditation is more a first step than a method for defining what I practice.

Back to the philosophical difference between us. I actually don’t think that ‘I’ exist, at least not in the way that it feels like I exist. I spend most of my time feeling like an autonomous individual with a coherent identity and a sense of free will, but (in my opinion) it’s nothing more than just that, a feeling, or an illusion, which is not to say that it may not be a beneficial illusion in some ways. The self that wakes up in the morning feels a lot like the one that went to bed the night before, but they’re actually different, the change is just usually too slow to notice. We don’t actually make our thoughts, memories and emotions, they make us. The brain just puts the self together like it does a kanizsa illusion.

220px-Kanizsa_triangle.svg.png

I was also under the opinion that Vipassana, at least in the way that I practice it, is used primarily to break this illusion, by looking at the ‘self’ so closely that it fades away, if only for a moment.

When you say that “everything around you is literally you” in a dream, I have a tough time relating to that. It’s of course true that my sense of self, and the rest of the dreamscape are both coming from the same place, the brain, but ‘I’m’ not my brain, and neither is the dreamscape, they’re both coming from the brain, and subject to its every whim, but not coterminous with it. And while it’s true that lucid dreamers often have the feeling of control over their dream world, what I think is actually happening is an intention arising within the sense of self, and if strong enough, that intention leads to the changing of the dream world into what the ‘self’ intended. But I don’t think that the ‘self’ can take any credit for this, because both the intention and then the resulting change (or perhaps not) in the dream world are still coming straight from a brain that isn’t the self. (I don’t claim to have the requisite dream control to change the landscape, I don’t, so I’m speculating here)

Now one might ask whether I think that we are “just observers”, I’m not exactly sure. What I think that ‘we’ are is consciousness, or awareness of a lot of different things, thoughts, feelings, emotions. And while intentions are real, and while these intentions often do line up nicely with thoughts and actions, all of these mental processes are coming out of a subjective darkness. You don’t know what you’re going to intend next, you can only consciously intend what you’re intending right now, whatever comes next is coming to me straight from a brain that isn’t ‘me’, and that I have no awareness of or control over. So perhaps I do think we’re observers, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think that nothing is real, I may not choose what I’m happy about, or know what I’m going to be happy about next, but the happiness is still real.


I realize that there isn’t a coherent question in there, and that this isn’t meant to be a ‘everyone debate Sageous thread’, I guess I just wanted to lay all of that out there and see if you had an opinion on it, because like I said in my first post, I am interested in your opinion.