Thread: Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals -- With Q & A

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.

Thanks

Originally Posted by Sageous

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.

^^This in particular really clarified things.

This may be unrelated but it just got me thinking….. do you think the fact that high self-awareness being the driver of lucidity, might be the reason why the SSILD technique apparently works so well, as it aims to induce high awareness for when you get into the dream, in other words, it aims to ‘temporarily’ induce the very thing that drives lucidity? (just a thought)

Anyway, thanks again for your help!

Originally Posted by Eamo24

This may be unrelated but it just got me thinking….. do you think the fact that high self-awareness being the driver of lucidity, might be the reason why the SSILD technique apparently works so well, as it aims to induce high awareness for when you get into the dream, in other words, it aims to ‘temporarily’ induce the very thing that drives lucidity?

Sure. Though I'm not personally comfortable with the amount of "basic" awareness -- almost intentional distraction -- used in SSILD, anything that manages to keep your mind active and focused through the WILD transition would be helpful. In other words, though SSILD doesn't intentually encourage it, self-awareness will very likely come along for the ride...

I’ve almost got it. Just a final word about the fundamentals:

While I’ve never been much good at doing ‘techniques’, I did manage to have some lucid dreams. The reason, I think, was that I had a high sense of awareness in these dreams and high expectation at the time. I’m guessing that these 2 things were what ultimately instigated the ‘memory response’ that made me lucid; as you said previously, while memory cannot be practiced exclusively, you need to work on your access to it, which is powered primarily by self-awareness and passively by expectation. So really, with these 2 things in place, memory will automatically follow, and this self-instigating memory response will happen continuously in your dreams if self-awareness and expectation are consistently practiced/maintained?

Thanks, I was just looking for your approval on this.