Thread: Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals -- With Q & A

Originally Posted by LouaiB

As I would conclude,ADA, for you to become lucid, is typically noticing the dream "feeling", so next time you have it,you would become lucid. It's like an always existing dream sign. But, I would say that ADA is bad. Maybe it increases the details in dreams so you can get a better sense of the dream feeling, but you can do even better in one LD(set a goal to memorize the feeling)! And, you still need to practice self-awareness and memory, because ADA alone still won't help.
So, I think it's better without ADA, just MILD or WILD, then , after having a few LDs with the goal to memorize the dream feeling, you will use your self-awareness and memory to recognize the feeling that you have memorized next time in a dream, thus becoming lucid.
So, doing this will yield better results than ADA, and will not hinder self-awareness in any way.

That makes a lot of sense, and seems a good direction to take. I'm sure others might disagree with that, given the popularity of ADA, but that's okay, because your path is your own.

Thank you!
I need to know every aspect of something for me to accept it. Techniques shouldn't be just made without allot of work with it. And something involving the psychology of the brain needs years of work. Like what you offer, are the most sensible things in the whole LDing world, truly!
I got the hang of it, except for one more detail(hey, maybe I can become your wingman when I get a hang of all of this):
when we increase the power of our memory, will it become automatically more powerful in our dreams? Or do we need something to activate it, and when we activate it, it still won't be quiet powerful enough, so that's why we also need to train it? Is expectation what activated it? how?

Realizing the relation between every fundamental is important, I think(like, a mapping of things).
I think it is like this:
First, the expectation turns the memory on, then the memory, along with the RRCs done during the day, will increase the self-awareness. So, there are 2 ways to become lucid، either by realizing the weirdness(thanks to memory), or become spontaneously lucid(thanks to the hightened self-awareness). Right?
Also, how does expectation turn the memory on? and is it the only way

Those situations you described sounds really familiar to me. I always am the one that stops the conversation or debate when i know it isnt going nowhere by accepting their opinion and leaving mine to myself. I see people around me repeating the same thing over and over again without realizing the results of that conversation will lead to fight or both ending up creating negative feelings towards others. Sometimes it is just so annoying because i have to always be the one to step back but i always say to myself that they just arent aware what they are causing by saying the things they say.

I think I can answer both those at once:

Originally Posted by LouaiB

...when we increase the power of our memory, will it become automatically more powerful in our dreams? Or do we need something to activate it, and when we activate it, it still won't be quite powerful enough, so that's why we also need to train it? Is expectation what activated it? how?

Originally Posted by LouaiB

Realizing the relation between every fundamental is important, I think(like, a mapping of things).
I think it is like this:
First, the expectation turns the memory on, then the memory, along with the RRCs done during the day, will increase the self-awareness. So, there are 2 ways to become lucid، either by realizing the weirdness(thanks to memory), or become spontaneously lucid(thanks to the hightened self-awareness). Right?
Also, how does expectation turn the memory on? and is it the only way

Memory has no power, on its own. Think of it as a very large hard drive for your life, storing all the bits that your brain has chosen to store over the years, if some it (the brain) did not choose. But like a hard drive it is just a passive participant, waiting with all its information stored until an external driver reaches in to pluck out need information. Though it can become more dense with information, it cannot be made more powerful, and since it is not an active component of mind, it cannot be trained. But it can be tapped.

We have plenty of conscious and unconscious mechanisms for retrieving memories, and most of them work well enough in our normal lives without any attention at all to them. Unfortunately for us, though, LD'ing is not a "normal" activity, so we need to develop some new habits and tactics for retrieving memories at times that they are not meant to be consciously retrieved (dreams), and in ways normally reserved for unconscious activity (i.e., dream schemata created from conscious expectation/intention, rather than from day residue, random memories, or, perhaps, metaphoric data bursts from the unconscious).

So what you're doing when, say, practicing MILD, isn't actually making your memory more powerful; just your ability to tap it. In a sense, you are activating your waking-life consciousness, teaching it to navigate places it was not meant to go by nature (dreams), and to see things in a naturally unintended manner (like recognizing dreamsigns, or, more importantly, confirming that the place you are in is your dream). So it is your conscious abilities and routines you are improving, and not memory itself. This might all be semantics, but I think it matters.

Yes, expectation is a primary tool for accessing memory, and it is the one that works without breaking too many rules, if any. This is because our dreams have always been partially based on expectation: basically, your unconscious mind gathers the stuff that seems important to you during waking life, along with lots of day residue, and uses it to form your dreams (I'm sure it's far more complex than that, but you get the idea!), so by spending time each day purposely laying out some of that "stuff" for your unconscious to grab, you are building expectations that might show up in your dreams. Intention works in a similar manner, though it is more direct -- but if your intentions are similar to or based directly on the expectations you've been setting all day, you'll see much more success.

Expectation is not the only tool for tapping memory. Indeed, it isn't even the most powerful. Want to guess which is? That's right -- self-awareness! Self-awareness brings with it into the dream the power to remember, to switch on the waking-life circuits that provide access to memory, to make remembering no harder than it is during the day. This is a far more direct tool than expectation, so if you can start with self-awareness in place, the rest doesn't really matter. But how do you switch on self-awareness, if you didn't bring it right in with you through WILD? Well, since DILD's are as prevalent an entry to LD'ing as WILD's, if not more so, that switch must be accessible.

Yet switch for self-awareness in dreams is indeed a hurdle, isn't it? We are not meant to be self-aware, lucid, in dreams, so reigniting it when it is not present is tricky at best... and tricks are what we tend to rely on to start up DILD's: tricks like RC's, noticing the "odd," recognizing images created from our expectation/intentions, and, of course, simply finding yourself asking those RRC questions that you felt so silly asking yourself during the day. But all these "tricks" are not flashy, read-made gimmicks that we pull from a bag during the dream (a bag often sold to us by folks offering clever short-cut-techniques or machines), but rather find their source not in dreams but in waking-life hard work. You must have the habits of RC'ing, RRC'ing, noticing the odd, etc, well-laid in your waking-life routine in order to have them appear in your dreams. And that you must have spent time building expectation and setting intention during waking life is self evident, I think.

So I guess your self-awareness and memory access are "activated" by waking-life mental prep, which certainly includes but is not limited to expectations and intentions. In the end our success with LD'ing is based on what we do when we're awake... and you are correct, what we do when we're awake tends to be little more than consciously struggling to get expectation/intention, memory, and self-awareness to work together in one smooth motion during a dream, as they do in waking life.

So, memory is like a hard drive, and we need to tap it in dreams. There are conscious and unconscious mechanisms for retrieving memories that work well in normal life, but LDing is not a normal activity, so we need to develop habits for retrieving memories in dreams.
Expectation is a primary tool for accessing the memory, because dreams are partially based on expectations. So, we lay "stuff" during the day hoping they manifest into our dreams. Intention works similarly to expectation though it is more direct, and if based directly on expectations, produces more success.
Self-awareness is a more powerful tool for taping memory, because it switches on circuits in the brain providing access to the memory. So, self-awareness is a far more direct tool than expectations. RRC is a habit that manifests in the dream so we become self-aware in the dream, and since it becomes second nature, it will become easier to manifest.

Q1: If we have to manifest something in the dream, it should activate the memory. What would you recommend( the expectation part not the self-awareness part)?

Q2: How do we make intention based directly on expectation?

Q3: If we managed to manifest something that activated the memory, how can we then activate self-awareness so we can become spontaneously lucid?(we might need that if something dreamlike didn't occur)

Q4: Does prospective memory help intention? So the manifestation becomes easier?

Note: I found a webpage that contains a few self-awareness exercises. Would you like me to PM the link?

Originally Posted by LouaiB

So, memory is like a hard drive, and we need to tap it in dreams. There are conscious and unconscious mechanisms for retrieving memories that work well in normal life, but LDing is not a normal activity, so we need to develop habits for retrieving memories in dreams.
Expectation is a primary tool for accessing the memory, because dreams are partially based on expectations. So, we lay "stuff" during the day hoping they manifest into our dreams. Intention works similarly to expectation though it is more direct, and if based directly on expectations, produces more success.
Self-awareness is a more powerful tool for taping memory, because it switches on circuits in the brain providing access to the memory. So, self-awareness is a far more direct tool than expectations. RRC is a habit that manifests in the dream so we become self-aware in the dream, and since it becomes second nature, it will become easier to manifest.

You got it!

Q1: If we have to manifest something in the dream, it should activate the memory. What would you recommend( the expectation part not the self-awareness part)?

First, you are not literally manifesting anything; you're just assembling solid expectations that might encourage your dreaming mind to produce a dream that has something to do with those expectations. But I know what you mean, and can work with it:

What you manifest, I think, is completely up to you. What you manifest will be something that is based on your expectations, and those expectations can be anything at all; nothing "works" better than anything else; except of course that your expectations should (and, likely by their nature, will) be meaningful to you. I think if you spend a lot of time seriously thinking about your upcoming dreams, what you will be doing or seeing, and spend a lot of time just thinking bout LD'ing in general, the images manifest by those expectations will be self-explanatory. Of course, whether you recognize those images during the dream or ruefully remember them after the dream is up to you!

Q2: How do we make intention based directly on expectation?

Simple. If you've been assembling expectations all day long, you should know what they generally are. So, come bedtime, you can focus those expectations into your intention. For instance, let's say you've spent the day (or more; longer is better) imagining yourself lucid on a beach in Hawaii. Come dreamtime, you can remember those expectations, and set an intention like, "I will 'wake up' on a beach in Hawaii tonight." Intentions, to me, tend to be little more than a conscious summary of your accumulated (or perhaps realized) expectations. Intention, then, is really the same thing as expectation, only more focused and more consciously-borne.

Q3: If we managed to manifest something that activated the memory, how can we then activate self-awareness so we can become spontaneously lucid?(we might need that if something dreamlike didn't occur)

If you activated memory, then some amount of self-awareness is already present, so no worries! Remember that it's all keyed on self-awareness. Those expectation/intention-generated images are just so many more images until they cause your dreaming (as yet not self-aware) consciousness to perk up and say, "Hey, this might be a dream?!" After that comes the onset of self-awareness, the recognition of images, the triggering of memories, and lucidity. I really don't think it can work the other way around. Manifest expectations alone won't make you lucid. Nor will other stimuli, like, say, signals from electronic devices or enhanced imagery from drugs like gallantamine; these other things might produce the signals or images that scream "this is a dream," but if your waking-life self-awareness does not come into play, they will lead to nothing more than vivid dreams, or, perhaps, false lucids (NLD's about being lucid)... that last bit might raise an eyebrow or two, but I'm pretty confident it is true.

Q4: Does prospective memory help intention? So the manifestation becomes easier?

Yes.

Note: I found a webpage that contains a few self-awareness exercises. Would you like me to PM the link?

Sure. You could even post it right here; I don't think the mods would mind!

So, expectation is like incubation? You dream of the place you want to be in, then you use that to remember that this is what you incubated. Like a dream sign. But, you need some self-awareness to help you remember(RRC does the trick). So, basically, expectation is a great tool to achieve lucidity when you don't have enough self-awareness to become spontaneously lucid. Well, if you are a little self-aware in the dream, but didn't manage to have the dream you incubated, will that self-awareness help you remember that a dreamlike thing happening(assuming there is one) is unnatural?
So, expectation is like a trick to make you lucid easier, and you can become lucid without it, but always need self-awareness. The more self-aware, the more use you can get from your memory. right?

If I am right, then there would be like 3 "stages":

1. Your self-awareness is high, so you become spontaneously lucid.

2. You see a dreamlike thing, and you have medium self-awareness, so you remember it is unnatural and become lucid.

3. You have low lucidity, see a dreamlike object but don't become lucid, but the thing you incubated appears and you remember it and become lucid.

The link:
How to Improve Your Self Awareness

Originally Posted by LouaiB

So, expectation is like incubation?

Not expectation, but setting intention is just like incubation.

I think you're looking for too much from expectation. Expectation is very much a passive rather than active activity. It's sort of like mental gravity: an accumulating force formed by thoughts, wishes, daydreams, plans, etc. I don't think you can switch anything on with expectation, but a solid bout of accumulated expectation can coax your dreaming mind to produce dreams that reflect those expectations -- and a dream that says "I'm dreaming!" or directly matches the stuff you were hoping to do in your dreams, will be very helpful in bringing you to lucidity. However, no matter how obliging your dreaming mind is, expectation alone will not be enough to trigger lucidity.

You dream of the place you want to be in, then you use that to remember that this is what you incubated. Like a dream sign.

I've always seen this the other way around -- that deam incubation is a handy way to have your lucid landscape resemble your dream goals for that night, and maybe make them more achievable. I really think that if you rely too much on incubation, you risk just dreaming about being lucid, without any self-awareness present at all. And yes, above it all you still "need some self-awareness to help you remember!"

So, basically, expectation is a great tool to achieve lucidity when you don't have enough self-awareness to become spontaneously lucid.

Yes... but it can only be used to aid self-awareness, not to replace it.

Well, if you are a little self-aware in the dream, but didn't manage to have the dream you incubated, will that self-awareness help you remember that a dreamlike thing happening(assuming there is one) is unnatural?

Yes.

So, expectation is like a trick to make you lucid easier, and you can become lucid without it, but always need self-awareness. The more self-aware, the more use you can get from your memory. right?

Right! Just not so much "trick" as "aid."

If I am right, then there would be like 3 "stages":

1. Your self-awareness is high, so you become spontaneously lucid.

2. You see a dreamlike thing, and you have medium self-awareness, so you remember it is unnatural and become lucid.

3. You have low lucidity, see a dreamlike object but don't become lucid, but the thing you incubated appears and you remember it and become lucid.

That all works. I would avoid concepts (or hopes) like "spontaneous," though. Because it is an event of self-awareness, lucidity will rarely, if ever, be a spontaneous event. There are exceptions to this, of course, but in general lucidity is going to be your fault, and not an accident.

The link:
How to Improve Your Self Awareness

Thanks!

So, you need self-awareness to activate your memory so you can see dreamlike things as they are, unnatural. RRCs will make you more self-aware in dreams so you can achieve that. So, you can't activate your memory without self-awareness present. Expectation and Intention aid you because, uhm, they form a dream revolving around LDing, so it's easier to see that you are in a dreamlike environment??

What do you think of those techniques in the link? Should I do them?

Edit: Wait a second! I think I realized what expectation/intention do. They show your sub how important LDing is to you, and how you want to LD, so it works harder to achieve that. right?

Originally Posted by LouaiB

So, you need self-awareness to activate your memory so you can see dreamlike things as they are, unnatural. RRCs will make you more self-aware in dreams so you can achieve that. So, you can't activate your memory without self-awareness present. Expectation and Intention aid you because, uhm, they form a dream revolving around LDing, so it's easier to see that you are in a dreamlike environment??

That's it ... and nicely summarized, I think!

What do you think of those techniques in the link? Should I do them?

What do I think of them? Well, aside from the author's definition of self-awareness coming up a bit short (to be self-aware you must acknowledge that not only are you separate from other people and your environment, you are also one with them), I guess, with the exception of #2, the exercises would certainly be useful on some level. Keep in mind, though, that they don't seem to have a lot to do with self-awareness; they seem more methods to sharpen your physical awareness, with minimal attention to your own impact on your local reality. They would be a fine supplement for Ld'ing, though, just as ADA is.

Though each exercise seems okay in general, here is my extremely brief take on each: #1 is straight ADA, for better or worse; #2 dramatically complicates RC's, and I don't recommend trying to make things happen in waking-life when they cannot, because then in the dream you will do the exact same thing, and they still won't work... stick the the basic RC's we all know and love, I think; #3 is way too physical at first, then way to intellectually abstract at the end, and this could be very confusing -- simple is always better with this stuff; #4 is fine, but has nothing to do with LD'ing, and could run anathema to it by incubating NLD's; #5 is just ADA in the dream.

So do them if you'd like, but keep in mind that lucidity does not appreciate complication. I would avoid doing #2 altogether, though...

Edit: Wait a second! I think I realized what expectation/intention do. They show your sub how important LDing is to you, and how you want to LD, so it works harder to achieve that. right?

Right again! It all sort of makes sense now, doesn't it?

It does make sense, really! Thank you very much!
Also, after stumbling over your course, I said to myself:"what the hell do those exercises have to do with self-awareness!?"
It's truly a shame, since that website is also a popular website for learning LDing.
Dang, it seems like a minority only shares your perspective(I know I do!). I've been teaching LDing to my brother. That darn boy has had 9 LDs with most of them ranging 15-30 minutes. Only 4 months of RCing and mantras. Well, I guess his sub is very "acceptable" to new ideas.
I told him that I will do much better when I get a full hang of this.
And now, it's time!
I really appreciate all your hard work you've pulled on what seemed as a lost cause like me. I am actually much smarter in real life, honestly(average of 80% on scientific and mathematics subjects, just sayin')
Wow, it really feels like a huge load got off my shoulders. This year is gonna be productive.

I'm glad I was some help, and best of luck with your search!

I've reread all the posts and summarized everything in a sleek and neat peace of writing. Her we go:

{LDing is the issue of memory. Since you memory is off during dreams, you need to turn it on so you can remember that a dreamlike thing is unnatural. How? By increasing your self-awareness in dreams.When you are self-aware in dreams, your memory will be much more accessible.
RRCing is a great way to improve your self-awareness during the day. The nice thing about it is that , with practice, it becomes second nature.
What you want to do is to use that advantage to your benefit. Since dreams are partially made out of our daily experiences, we hope that the self-awareness increased by those RRC will be a part of those experiences that will be lucky enough to be a part of the dream, thus making you more self-aware in the dream. As mentioned above, self-awareness , with practice, will become second nature, so it will be more likely for it to be a part of the dream(that's why it is more effective than RCing). So, more self-awareness= bigger chance of it being a part of the dream(expectations). Also, intention is a more direct way to let those RRCs appear(or their effect(self-awareness)) in the dream. Even better, if you strengthen your prospective memory, the intention will be much more powerful. That's why MILD is a good technique that goes with these fundamentals(especially that it doesn't involve environmental awareness, which would hinder self-awareness).

long story short: More self-awareness in waking life= more self-awareness in dreams= access to memory in dreams= lucidity.

Plus, there is this something called "dream feeling". It's like an always occurring dream sign. With the heightened self-awareness, and access to memory in dreams, it will be very easy to become lucid due to this "feeling". Like some people put it:"I just became lucid out of the blue/spontaneously lucid.

Also, self-awareness in LDs will make the experience much better, and dream control much easier, since you are fully aware that this is YOUR dream world, and it plays by YOUR rules.

Good night gentlemen, and sweat lucid dreams! }

I hope I got everything right, and didn't miss anything.
If not, pretty impressive, no!?

Simple. If you've been assembling expectations all day long, you should know what they generally are. So, come bedtime, you can focus those expectations into your intention. For instance, let's say you've spent the day (or more; longer is better) imagining yourself lucid on a beach in Hawaii. Come dreamtime, you can remember those expectations, and set an intention like, "I will 'wake up' on a beach in Hawaii tonight." Intentions, to me, tend to be little more than a conscious summary of your accumulated (or perhaps realized) expectations. Intention, then, is really the same thing as expectation, only more focused and more consciously-borne.

I found this a very useful and clear description of the differences and the relation between intention and expectation, that defines both clearly.

a detail about expectation/intention:
If you set up strong expectation with intention, and the thing(lets say a person) appears, it would trigger self-awareness, which will trigger memory so you remember that this person is the person you wanted to see in the dream, so you become lucid. this is one way to coax self-awareness. The other 2 are WILD and RRC.

So, there are 2 general ways to do a DILD:
1. Do a RC or RRC during a dream(thanks to expectation/intention.
2. coax self-awareness so you would have self-awareness and memory to become lucid(using those three ways(with out WILD lol)).
Right?

Originally Posted by LouaiB

a detail about expectation/intention:
If you set up strong expectation with intention, and the thing(lets say a person) appears, it would trigger self-awareness, which will trigger memory so you remember that this person is the person you wanted to see in the dream, so you become lucid. this is one way to coax self-awareness. The other 2 are WILD and RRC.

It's probably more complex than that but yes, that's pretty much how it works. Keep in mind, also, that WILD is not a technique, but rather a term for the transition of wake to sleep without losing waking-life self-awareness, and you can use "strong expectation with intention" and the rest for it, too.

So, there are 2 general ways to do a DILD:
1. Do a RC or RRC during a dream(thanks to expectation/intention.
2. coax self-awareness so you would have self-awareness and memory to become lucid(using those three ways(with out WILD lol)).
Right?

Sounds good... I wish I had been so succinct way back when. For what it's worth, my DILD's are all in the #2 category; I never RC or RRC before becoming lucid.

Sageous,

I was just slightly unsure about the ‘link’ between the fundamentals:

In a few of my past lucid dreams, I became lucid not because of a ‘technique’, but simply because my awareness in the dream just happened to be very high for some reason, and I was better able to question the oddities of the dream, which in turn created lucidity. My expectation was also high at the time.

1. From these experiences, would I be right in saying the following?:

While memory has no real power of its own, high self-awareness is the real driver of it, allowing it to make connections and retrieve information much better in light of the oddities you’re experiencing (usually leading to lucidity), whereas with low self-awareness, your memory would not be ‘sparked’ to make that connection because your ability to question such oddities would be too low (e.g. a hard-drive cannot fulfill a search request if the computer is switched off). Finally with expectation, things are greatly enhanced as the ‘request’ you want to fulfill is pre-planned, making it a lot easier to validate ‘lucidity’ (i.e. to notice inconsistencies between what you’re currently experiencing, and your knowledge of reality).

2. Secondly, if self-awareness is the driver of memory, and memory itself is greatly complemented by expectation, how should the memory aspect be practiced exclusively as part of the fundamentals?

Thanks.

^^ I do like this new trend of posters answering their own question; what a time-saver!

Still:

Originally Posted by Eamo24

1. From these experiences, would I be right in saying the following?:

While memory has no real power of its own, high self-awareness is the real driver of it, allowing it to make connections and retrieve information much better in light of the oddities you’re experiencing (usually leading to lucidity), whereas with low self-awareness, your memory would not be ‘sparked’ to make that connection because your ability to question such oddities would be too low (e.g. a hard-drive cannot fulfill a search request if the computer is switched off). Finally with expectation, things are greatly enhanced as the ‘request’ you want to fulfill is pre-planned, making it a lot easier to validate ‘lucidity’ (i.e. to notice inconsistencies between what you’re currently experiencing, and your knowledge of reality).

Mostly right. I would say that a high level of self-awareness will allow you an opportunity to recognize, to remember, that you are in a dream, regardless of the oddities present. Learning to identify oddities is a handy tool for sparking lucidity, but it really is best to have a "program" in place to have you notice the "odd" during the NLD, before you are lucid, so that your self-awareness has a stimulus on which to grab. This is where expectation comes into play, I think: If you are able to assemble some expectations during waking life that influence your unconscious, dreaming mind, it will indeed provide them during the dream. Again, you will recognize those expectation-driven signals before self-awareness kicks in, but self-awareness must kick in eventually in order for you to be lucid -- and access those memories!

As an aside, this is exactly how -- and why -- LaBerge's NovaDreamer works. It isn't making you lucid, but rather is offering a stimulus (that flashy light) that you will only notice if you've prepared yourself (mostly through building expectation) to notice it -- and, of course, you won't be lucid until after you remember what that flashy light is.

2. Secondly, if self-awareness is the driver of memory, and memory itself is greatly complemented by expectation, how should the memory aspect be practiced exclusively as part of the fundamentals?

That's an excellent question. I would say that the memory aspect cannot be practiced exclusively, without concern for self-awareness or expectation/intention. I think this is because when you are doing memory exercises, what you are really doing is exercising your ability to access memory with the active tool of self-awareness and the passive tool of expectation. For instance, that Reverse Reality Check I mention in my WILD class includes actively exercising your memory access through self-awareness. If you are able to train yourself, perhaps through MILD exercises, to build expectations that influence your dream, those expectations (mingled with matching intentions you may have set at bedtime) might become manifest in the dream by unconsciously tapping relevant memory... and then you become self-aware.

There is an extremely interesting thread going on elsewhere right now that talks in depth about MILD, memory, and prospective memory (aka: intention). It might be worth checking out.

the expectations you build are for , when in a dream and if they occur, activating the memory, because if the sub choses to incorporate the expectation to the dream, it has to activate the memory while dreaming. Right? I'm guessing it is the episodic memory, right? Then, it since the episodic memory activated, your self-awareness increases, thus activating the semantic memory. Since you have access to the episodic memory, you have a sense of time(if you prepared correctly), thus activating the time based prospective memory cue, thus becoming lucid(I'm guessing that's how pros pecome lucid most of the time). Also, if the prospective memory didn't fulfil its job, then you'ld still have semantic memory to let you recognize dream like entities and become lucid.
Again, all this is suggestions, but I don't know if there is enough info to back them up. What do you think? Is there a direct study on how this works? A detailed explanation to it?

Edit: The idea of kidnapping you and putting you in an fmri is starting to seem more appealing:p
Seriously, why doesn't anybody do more studies and tests about the relation of memory to other aspects!?

^^ Louai, I think it might be time for you to step back and take a breath! You're gathering up so much information, I fear you're going to drown your chances of lucidity in a flood of knowledge -- much of it quite unnecessary! If FryingMan is still browsing, maybe he can PM you with a few words about thinking too much about this stuff?

But you asked, so:

Originally Posted by LouaiB

the expectations you build are for , when in a dream and if they occur, activating the memory, because if the sub chooses to incorporate the expectation to the dream, it has to activate the memory while dreaming. Right?

Right enough. I'm not sure the unconscious actually chooses to incorporate, or manifest, your expectations in a dream, as much as it simply does so, because you spent so much waking-life time making those expectations a priority (and, also, you hopefully added a kicker of setting an intention relevant to those expectations).

Hopefully Zoth'll answer this following bit in better detail, but here's my take (fair warning: you won't like it!):

I'm guessing it is the episodic memory, right? Then, it since the episodic memory activated, your self-awareness increases, thus activating the semantic memory. Since you have access to the episodic memory, you have a sense of time(if you prepared correctly), thus activating the time based prospective memory cue, thus becoming lucid(I'm guessing that's how pros become lucid most of the time).

Again, right enough, but way too much information! Though I don't think accessing episodic memory equals having a sense of time (subjective time is a very tricky subject, especially in dreams), the sequence you've outlined seems to make sense. However, I honestly don't think "pros" do much with prospective memory or MILD work at all, much less time-based prospective memory cues, as they have likely developed their self-awareness to a point where they can recognize that they're in a dream simply because they planned to do so that night. I suppose they are sort of following the sequence you describe, though without the prospective memory bit (aside, I guess, from what was accessed by setting an intention before sleep), and certainly not by thinking about all those steps every night! I also think pros and amateurs alike are accessing both episodic and semantic memory in their LD's because their dreams contain both in the first place (though, yes, short-term episodic memory is missing in NLD's, and semantic memory is chaotic at best).

Also, if the prospective memory didn't fulfill its job, then you'd still have semantic memory to let you recognize dream like entities and become lucid.

Not really. Remember that your memory, in whatever format, is not "letting" you do anything. You still need to recognize your dreaming condition on your own, regardless of the images being presented. In other words, if your prospective memory attempt failed, and that was all your were relying on to become lucid (i.e., skipping the self-awareness portion of the exercise), then you likely will not become lucid. All the weirdness in the universe could pass before you unnoticed in a dream, if you have no self-awareness on hand -- or at least a technique, like RC'ing, to cue it up. That, after all, is what NLD's are, isn't it?

Again, all this is suggestions, but I don't know if there is enough info to back them up. What do you think? Is there a direct study on how this works? A detailed explanation to it?

I think you might consider backing off all this information rather than struggling to back it up. Sometimes less is more, especially in an art as serenity-based as lucid dreaming. Get your head in the right place overall, and the pieces will fall into place for you -- even if you can't identify them all! Again, hopefully Zoth, or someone, will supply you with all that extra info you want on the other thread, but I hope you'll consider the thought that maybe you really don't need it all...

Edit: The idea of kidnapping you and putting you in an fmri is starting to seem more appealing:p

They probably wouldn't find anything anyway.

Seriously, why doesn't anybody do more studies and tests about the relation of memory to other aspects!?

I'm sure they do, though not with dreaming, or LD'ing, in mind.

wow! Thanx
When I started training, it was very simple, but when I started to learn the mechanism, the more I learn, the more I think "How am I gonna pull that off!?", but I still do it hoping I can be aware of what to do exactly to focus my efforts on the important aspects and details. I will not worry so much about the details(but still may be active on the other thread ). Yeah, all will fall into place, or at least I hope so. But surely slowing down will help me process everything better.
Thanks again!
I'm gonna leave this thread for a while before I make you jump off a bridge

Originally Posted by LouaiB

I'm gonna leave this thread for a while before I make you jump off a bridge

Haha! I felt the same way. I think you have me beat though for (over?) analyzing this stuff. I too am the type where I must understand everything there is to know about something. The thing about dreaming though is that it's all so "fuzzy," not sharp and clear and well-defined. Take the fundamentals, and build a practice that works for you. It's the dreams I want, not to write a PhD in LDing. The precise scientific relationship between the fundamentals, which one comes first, which one causes the others, etc., really doesn't matter. Do RCs, RRCs, stay mindful and (self)-aware, pay attention to your dreams, build expectation and intention, stay positive, and be consistent. That plus knowledge of the techniques available (try them out, find what works / doesn't work, create your own). That's the road to LD success .

Originally Posted by Sageous

If FryingMan is still browsing, maybe he can PM you with a few words about thinking too much about this stuff?

Yeah I'm still here. Focusing more on practice rather than reading more theory . I'd just say what I wrote above: stop thinking so much about it, just do it. Still have yet to experience a full-on WILD, but did get my first DEILD 2 weeks ago which was veeerrrry interesting, and whetted my appetite for classical WILD.

I made a flow chart of your fundamentals. I want to post it in my thread to spread the word, and maybe make readers understand the fundamentals easier:

18012014079.jpg

Sorry for the quality.
You think it nails it?

Originally Posted by LouaiB

You think it nails it?

I do indeed; Nice work, and thanks for sharing!