Thread: Memory: the Forgotten Fundamental

Originally Posted by Sageous

So if a RRC is done when not lucid, a false memory that "properly" answers your questions for you is very likely -- just as a false positive is likely when a RC is done during a NLD. I am personally convinced that RC's and RRC's are not tools to induce lucidity, but tools to confirm or enhance lucidity, to be used after you sense that you are dreaming. I'm probably once again an outlier with this opinion, but I have a strong feeling it is correct.

I once put my hand up on the wall in a non-lucid dream, looking at It I noticed that I was missing fingers

My first thought "Oh crap, my reality check is faulty, I'm missing fingers and I'm not even asleep"

I put the hand in front of my face and stared at it in disbelief, thinking what am I going to do if I can't trust RCs

Then my thumb began jumping from one side of my hand to the other and back rapidly

My next thought "OK I'm asleep and I'm dreaming" (trigger) I didn't get stable or survive the void but seemed pretty effective at triggering to me once I was willing to trust the un-reality of it all.

^^ What that tells me is that the RC failed to make you lucid but your mind, being in the right place, overrode the non-lucid response to a positive RC with a bit of self-aware reason. In other words, your head was in the right place, and you probably were on a path to lucidity anyway.

Originally Posted by yaya

really? then what the hell we should do in our DILD practices? so i am doing everything wrong.

i know it is off-topic but if you show me a good link to explain what i am wrong in, then i will thank you so much.

Don't worry, Yaya. As Mimi already said, RC's are an excellent practice for DILD (and WILD). But for me they are more a waking-life practice to develop your capacity to become lucid than they are a tool for making you lucid during the dream.

Paradoxically, I also think that fully expecting RC's to work for you in a dream (aka, causing a DILD) is a very good thing, because you will bring that expectation with you into the dream and find yourself saying, "Hey, this could be a dream; I think I'll do a RC." But again, it was the expectation that promoted that dram of lucidity to appear, and not the RC. I believe that you really must already lucidly suspect you are dreaming for a RC to work in a dream, or else it will just fail, as Cooleymd noted above... but that suspicion is formed from lots of day-work that includes sincere RC's.

In other words, keep doing what you're doing for your DILD's, Yaya; it's probably fine, and you are likely doing nothing wrong.

I remember being a bit surprised myself when I first heard Sageous say this about RCs in another thread (one of the Q&As, probably), because I thought surely I had become lucid before by “just happening” to do a RC in a dream. But on closer inspection, it does seem that in most, if not all, of my cases I am already at least suspecting that I'm in a dream by the time I perform the RC. I try to remember to let anything odd or even just slightly unusual serve as a reminder for RCs in WL, since that seems to be how I usually become lucid in DILDs.

Originally Posted by Sageous

That' sounds like a good idea; I hope you'll let us know how it goes, should you try it. However:

I suggest though that you try not to stay too focused on it; keep it as a sort of back-of-the-mind affirmation rather than something that feels very important during the dream. Considering your sleeping body is one thing, but maintaining a strong focus on your waking-life condition could work against you.

I plan to report back, and that sounds like a good idea. So far I've managed to dodge lucidity the last few days, but I'm working on it. On a side note, it seems (though I haven't actually compiled statistics) that there is a general rise lately in the number of quasi-lucids as well as NLDs where I sense something a bit off but don't quite make the jump to “I'm dreaming”. I even had a NLD last night where I sensed an anomaly in my memory of recent events in the dream, and didn't attempt to rationalize it away, yet I just sort of sat there confused like a dummy instead of RCing, haha. Perhaps I'm going in the right direction, though.

thank you very much guys for your helps and clarifications on DILD! they helped me a looooot! I feel confident now

Originally Posted by Sageous

Cooleymd noted above...

Point was I wasn't doing an RC I just happened to look at my hand and notice missing fingers, I believed I was awake, but just looking at my hand reconvinced me I was wrong.

^^ Sorry for misunderstanding. I guess because the discussion had drifted to RC's, and your post quoted me talking specfically about RC's and RRC's, I assumed the text of your post was about doing a RC during a NLD, or rather consciously reacting to a spontanious RC during a NLD. My bad!

Okay, just had a couple of LDs.

In the first one, I was in my childhood house looking at a Christmas tree, then I looked away for barely a second and the whole dang thing was gone. “I know I feel like stuff constantly seems to violate the laws of physics in my life, but this is going way too far!” After a moment of being incredulous, I remembered to try a RC. “Yeah, thought so. I'd better be dreaming when something like this happens.”

So I took a moment to remember my sleeping body, my state, and my goal to keep this on my mind throughout the dream. It's hard to know for sure how well I did this; I may have started to lose awareness of the idea a bit as I did things during the dream. I practiced mind-controlling my body around in the kitchen for a few moments, trying to pay close attention to what it looked and felt like (because I realized lately I seem to be so used to it that I no longer pay much attention and don't remember clearly what it's like). I seemed to feel slightly anxious, so I remembered to try to shift my thoughts back away from the dream's duration.

I couldn't seem to remember the rest of my LD goals this time and ended up just messing around. I attempted to fly straight through the wall into the front yard but failed to pass through it, even though I tried to imagine that the wall was made of neutrinos or something. (Instead, I should have simply reminded myself of the nature of dreams, I think.) I tried to punch my fist through the front door, and noticed that I seemed to do it weakly at first, as if I was afraid I'd hurt myself, so I reminded myself that that isn't possible in a dream and tried a few more times. I couldn't get it to go through.

I gave up, opened the door, and went outside to fly around some more. I might have briefly tried to summon a UFO or something to appear in the night sky, without success. I discovered that I didn't seem to be moving anywhere when I tried to fly and saw that everything had gone black; I couldn't see anything at all. I wondered if the dream had ended, but it didn't feel like it, so I got down and felt the ground to try to bring back some sensory sensation. I felt the texture of a carpet on my hand, and after a few seconds, I slowly looked up to see a darkened living room or bedroom. I perceived it as being my living room or bedroom, but the familiarity was a false memory, I think. There was a TV cart with a VCR underneath. I took a look at the VCR, saw how the message on the display changed every time I looked away, then considered playing with it to see how it would behave in the dream but woke up.

I think I need some practice with this idea; it's hard to remember if I fully kept memory and self-awareness present in the back of my mind like I meant to. I do like how I took more time to be aware of things, though, like noticing the smell of the air when I went outside.

I tried to set an intention to do another RC in my next dream. For some reason I had trouble fully getting back to sleep for a couple of hours. Then I finally had a dream where I nonlucidly scanned through a TV show for a while and later was at what resembled my aunt's old mobile home where there was a TV technician who had recalibrated a TV. Eventually I started to remember that I was supposed to be doing an RC the next time I find myself dreaming, so I did and confirmed that I was in a dream.

I don't think I remembered the memory goal this time, though I did remember to reconcentrate on what I was doing when I found myself trying to think about the dream ending. I saw that the living room I was in opened into a unfamiliar, interesting-looking building, so I walked down the hall to explore it. The visuals were very blurry, though, and I recall wondering whether my dreaming mind was creating the blurred images “as is” or if they started out clear somewhere in my mind and were just being filtered. I then noticed that I didn't have my glasses but figured that the dream might clear up on its own eventually. I looked around, played with a couple of light switches, then everything went black again. I once again got down and felt the floor. This time, it felt like a tile floor like in a bathroom or restroom, but I couldn't hold the dream and woke up.

^^ Interesting stuff, Travis; thanks for sharing! I have a perhaps counter-intuitive suggestion that might help you, both with your experiment and with your general dream navigation:

Originally Posted by Travis E.

... I practiced mind-controlling my body around in the kitchen for a few moments, trying to pay close attention to what it looked and felt like (because I realized lately I seem to be so used to it that I no longer pay much attention and don't remember clearly what it's like).

You might want to take a step back from this practice. Your lack of attention to your dream body is, in my mind, a very good thing, a sign that your lucidity skills are improving, and a hint that your mind (including the unconscious) is poised for a step up in lucidity (and dream) quality. In other words, you are beginning to understand intuitively during your LD that your dream body is irrelevant.

Now, if you let this understanding develop, in time you won't have a dream body during higher-level LD's at all, nor will you care or notice*. This is most helpful in several ways, one of which is that navigation becomes much easier: If you are operating from a baseline of knowing that your dream body is in no way a physical object, then knowing that those walls and doors are just mental constructs will not be far behind. So you won't bother trying to imagine neutrinos, punch doors, or even to think about something hurting; you will just pass through those walls and doors as if they aren't even there -- because you know they aren't. This, I think, is a very powerful tool for navigating your dream world; and creating a dream world, for that matter.

And, back on topic, if you possess that kind of surety that your current body does not exist, subtly remembering your actual body -- and where it really is -- will be much easier, I think. Also, since memory really needs to be accessed to constantly confirm the non-reality of your dream body, your quiet remembering of your sleeping body might be a good method for maintaining that constant access... so you have a sort of self-sustaining memory machine going on (self-referential too, but that sort of paradox seems to fit well into the world of LD'ing).

Full disclosure: I never have a dream body during my high-end LD's, so this could all just be a personal bias; but I don't think so!


* Unless you want to notice, of course! If you ever need your body, or some part of it, during the course of your dream, it will likely appear for you upon request... you might get a little shock at first when you watch a pair of hands appear in front of you, but you'll get used to it!

Post sent and missed the posts in the meantime - going to read back a bit later, soz!

Originally Posted by Occipitalred

This is a very interesting theory, and I should watch the video before I comment but I don't have the time now.

It is hard for me to believe that we create more and more stability in our dream world as we visit it, because the opposite has happened to me. When I was a kid, I had a lot of those experiences, almost every night, where I would go to places that were mine and I would recognize them. But now it never happens anymore. I am always in new places, and I do miss my childhood dreams where I had a relatively stable world. For example, when I was a kid, I had the whole village where I lived mapped out but only my own house was accurate, the rest was an invention of mine, but I always liked to explore beyond my house and recognize the other times I had went there (in dreams). There was a path in the forest that was always the same. I had a "house" that was my own. You had to cross a river infested with beavers to get there. My second house had a third floor with a ghost in it. And the basement also had ghosts. These extra places in my house didn't exist in waking life. The garden outside my house was always the same in my dreams, but not the same as in real life. There was a very awesome giant snow slide park that I liked going to in my dreams. And the list goes on. I have lost all of these stable places with age.

So, it doesn't seem intuitive to me that dream-to-dream memory stabilizes our personal dreamscape. But maybe I am misinterpreting something.

Well - it seems you had exactly the same state of affairs I talk about in your childhood, prior dreams melting together with following ones and a landscape to re-visit with features staying (quasi) stable. You do not have it anymore, but you did have it, so I don't think it contradicts my experiences.

I believe I am a bit hung up psychologically with that time and location in my life, that's probably why I built a whole "world" to dream about this. Maybe if I resolve what was going on back then and how it impacts my thinking today, I will also cease dreaming of it.

I do have many completely different and new dreams as well, but also really many of these recurring-theme ones.
So I would say it is something which can happen, but maybe is not typical, since I don't usually read about it, but I would count young you as an example.

Originally Posted by Sageous

[Sorry about all the separate posts, guys & mods; I hadn't planned it that way!]

I can only shake my head about that you feel you shouldn't respond in detail and to certain aspects of posts so that it is clear what you are referring to.
It is absurd that it would be horribly impolite to "rip posts apart" when we are taking care and time to specifically answer to the different points people make in posts, as has been claimed.

I absolutely like it when my posts, or certain parts of my posts, are valued and/or taken seriously so much as to be taken on step by step!
If I don't want somebody to react to what exactly I write, then maybe I shouldn't write it in the first place.
I fail to see how it is impolite and I don't believe it is abhorred by members either.

Please do go on doing that - I experience it as somebody taking my thoughts seriously and taking care with answering!

No problem if I don't get read or answered to of course - I don't expect anything from anybody, might suddenly disappear myself.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Not so much hard facts and context, Steph, as remembering the simple fact of your current waking-life condition (being asleep in bed), with that action of remembering being far more important than the thing you are remembering. The important part about remembering your sleeping body is that you are not retrieving a specific memory (we really don't store a memory of being asleep in bed), but nudging your memory with a reminder of waking-life reality. This reality will both help pull your memory into your dreaming self and act as a reminder that the body you are currently occupying is not real.

I really believe we are all on the same page here, and what is the difficulty is actually also still a difficulty for neuroscience - what exactly is memory, how come there are several aspects to it. It really isn't possible to think without any memory. Would be good to read up on it a bit, got to agree with Zoth there.

Well said!

Thank you!

A difficult side-effect of WILD is that you assume, especially intellectually, that you have entered a dream with your entire waking-life Self intact. I do not believe this is true: your regular functions of sleep are robbing you of bits of Self every moment of the way, the biggest bit being memory.

So yes, you are confident of your circumstances, and well aware that you are dreaming, but this awareness is being done without memory, almost a case where you are simply telling yourself this is a dream without innate confirmation. So those preconceptions and their requisite limits can indeed be present. That you were able to occasionally trump them probably indicates those rare events when, like I mentioned above, your entire Self is indeed present in the dream.

Again I think, we are aiming to find the aspect of memory which facilitates the Self to be aware of itself, metacognition. Maybe it is not even a special kind of memory, it is more about which brain-centres access memory. And when the regions involved with metacognition retrieve memory, then it is this sort of memory.

Ah - but what is the Self in any way? We are getting into deep scientific and philosophical waters here, have been in them for a while.
Maybe and probably it is necessary to have memory for a Self to be apparent. This assumption fits with reports of deep meditation where there is neither memory nor "Self". I believe all thinking entails memory, and when they both come to a halt in deep meditation, people report dissolution of Self. But despite this, "they" are still conscious, so consciousness actually doesn't require memory, but Self does..?

As you know I had my first WILD yesterday and had been planning to ask myself the hard data and episodic memory from recent real life.
And so I did, I thought of this thread and remembered where I was for real, in this same looking bed, which funnily I took with me into the LD and space, that it was February 2015 and why I had been so tired and lay down for an afternoon nap.

But - I was not my clear waking life self, impairment like chemically induced, not a bad comparison, see below. Swimmy thoughts, and an elation which was not only due to the scenery but inherent in the state, it felt. Anyway - test fully satisfactory, did not wake up and went on to have an epic LD: First ever WILD - Hukif's Galaxy Collision Dare - Oh My - What a Ride!!

Originally Posted by TheUncanny

This makes sense. Perhaps the transition from wakefulness to dreaming is comparable to the transition from sobriety to drunkenness; a gradual decline in mental faculties that can leave one with an false impression of how cognizant they actually (fun fact: I'm drunk right now ).

Yes, a very good comparison, which had also come to my mind lately!

That being said, part of me still wonders where these waking preconceptions exist in the mind. The higher-level functions that we are discussing, such as logic and working memory, are all executive functions of the prefrontal cortex. But, I suspect that these preconceptions may exist in a lower and less accessible part of the brain. For example, when in a lucid dream, do you have to actively reason that matter is solid in order to walk on the ground or open doors? Of course not, that is being enforced by something "outside" of those executive functions. I think this is why logic/reason is sometimes not enough to have complete control over a dream.

I agree that these preconceptions seem to underlie all our actions, incl. conscious thought. We have a model of the world and one of ourselves, and both are apparent in normal dreams, but often impaired. The world in my case is less impaired than the Self, sometimes people fly with a sofa and I explain it away, but usually not.

It is still not even clear how intelligence comes to pass, that's why we are not in the singularity, if you will, having built "proper" AIs. And I also believe it is on a much smaller and more generalized level than usually talked about where memory is at work. We read that the hippocampus does this and that, but there is more basic entwinement, I think. Been reading some articles around this thematic lately, need to search for what was explicitly about how memory's workings and also location are only known in rough terms and how thinking and memory depend on each other.

But what I have found on a quick look is something maybe not entirely fitting, but I feel like linking through, maybe somebody has thoughts on it - how intelligent behaviour might come to pass: Practopoiesis

But this is just me speculating out loud. I'm going to make it a point to access my waking memory at the beginning of every WILD and see what effect is has, not only on my dream control, but also on dream recall. I think it may help in that area as well.

I did have control in the above dream, but not really, I was more on a ride, getting to what I wanted, accomplishing a lucid dare, but not easily and not directly. Doing the memory-check didn't impair me notably, though. At least I'm not sure. Thing is I enjoyed it all, even if it wasn't what the Steph had ordered consciously. Is it maybe also dream control to give oneself a marvellous show?

Sorry I can't stop writing about it, but I will one day have done enough of it, promise...

Originally Posted by Sageous

You might want to take a step back from this practice. Your lack of attention to your dream body is, in my mind, a very good thing, a sign that your lucidity skills are improving, and a hint that your mind (including the unconscious) is poised for a step up in lucidity (and dream) quality. In other words, you are beginning to understand intuitively during your LD that your dream body is irrelevant.

Now, if you let this understanding develop, in time you won't have a dream body during higher-level LD's at all, nor will you care or notice*. This is most helpful in several ways, one of which is that navigation becomes much easier: If you are operating from a baseline of knowing that your dream body is in no way a physical object, then knowing that those walls and doors are just mental constructs will not be far behind. So you won't bother trying to imagine neutrinos, punch doors, or even to think about something hurting; you will just pass through those walls and doors as if they aren't even there -- because you know they aren't. This, I think, is a very powerful tool for navigating your dream world; and creating a dream world, for that matter.


* Unless you want to notice, of course! If you ever need your body, or some part of it, during the course of your dream, it will likely appear for you upon request... you might get a little shock at first when you watch a pair of hands appear in front of you, but you'll get used to it!

I was curious as to hear more about these no-body lucids. Why do you think they are more lucid? Simply because they are not limited by the body? But does that not mean that the experience is reduced from 5 senses to only vision? Why is vision superior to other senses? Or is it possible to have all 5 senses without the body? Or is the importance of this, the ability to be fluid, in and out of body: the body becomes a tool of dream-control, rather than a limit you put on yourself because you don't have a complete understanding that this is a dream?

I am curious because in one of my most recent dreams, looking for a dream guide, an older woman led a picnic and everyone was jovial. I was trying to figure out the meaning of this, if any, and then, as she said "us", I realized I had no body, and wasn't truly part of the event, and somehow, this no-body experience seemed meaningful. It felt like I had to ponder this no-body thing, when the dream ended.

Originally Posted by StephL

I believe I am a bit hung up psychologically with that time and location in my life, that's probably why I built a whole "world" to dream about this. Maybe if I resolve what was going on back then and how it impacts my thinking today, I will also cease dreaming of it.

That's interesting StephL, I'm curious to find out more about this topic, but the puzzle pieces aren't fitting perfectly for me still. When these things stopped, I did not feel like I had finished a part of my life and was moving on, it didn't feel like I was letting go on anything or as if I was progressing to other things in my life. It just stopped, like all the other atypical things going on in my life at that time. It seemed to me more like using my child sensitivity or something, although I don't have any idea at all what it might truly be. I'll read your article about practopoiesis when I no longer have exams. .

Lol! No body dreams obviously have audio. ' I had one of those and there's also a sense of touch. I'm sure the other senses are also present (And able to be explored in marvulous detail and depth a human body might possibly not allow) You can go in and out of body. It works both ways. It definetely opens up new possibilities inside the dream.

The topic probably could be branched off in to a new O.P. as it risks pulling us way off topic.

That said, I can not resist throwing in my 2 cents:

I normally like stabilizing a very realistic dream body. No, it is clearly not needed, but I like it.

Originally Posted by sivason

The topic probably could be branched off in to a new O.P. as it risks pulling us way off topic.

That would be nice.

OccipitalRed: In the name of keeping this thread at least nominally about memory, I think I'll take a pass on answering all your questions above in detail. Suffice it to say that yes, all your senses work just fine without a body (even taste), and the rest of your comments seemed mostly agreeable to me. However, if you should start a separate thread on "body-free" LD's, I would probably enjoy a conversation about it; seems a worthwhile topic.

All that said, I'm not sure whether the OP's topic has run its course or not, but I really would appreciate it if we could somehow stick to it... and yeah, I'll do my best not to stray as well!

I'll make a thread about it since i've been meaning to make one about this very topic. Just not limited to dream experience, going in the BD. I guess i'm not known around here to make flawless threads and attend it but this topic is too good to pass it on





Well not now, LOL. I want to play video games and sleep soon

Don't worry Dthoughts, I will join the thread when you make it.

Meanwhile, because I did know I was going off topic when asking my question, I will repair the harm by proposing something on-topic:

1. What do we do when we exercise a muscle? We contract and relax.
2. To learn how to make the Spanish RR (tongue roll), I had to learn how to loosen my tongue so the airflow would make it vibrate (people's tongues are normally too tense to roll). The way I learnt it (it's really hard), I would use my fingers and move my tongue with my finger and I had to learn to relax my tongue and let it be guided by the fingers. Tongues are resistant to that. Again, it was all about forcing in one direction and in the other, while staying relaxed.

This brings me to the idea: could learning to access memory be done by "contracting" and "relaxing?", that is, by accessing and then losing access repetitively?

My idea: As an exercise, we could, in waking experience, think of our past (in a general sense) and become aware of our context in the present moment. Then, we shut this knowledge out, and observe our experience without knowledge of our past or future. We only know the present.

I realize cognitive abilities are not muscles but this could work. I will try it out. (Well... I got the idea by doing this accidentally. It's trippy, I like doing it while looking at objects from close.)

Originally Posted by Occipitalred

What do we do when we exercise a muscle? We contract and retract.

Muscles don't retract (landing gear retract after being extended), muscles relax. They most often work in opposing pairs, such as adductors and abductors. When one is relaxed it is stretched back out by the contraction of its opponent.

Thank you for the correction cooleymd, something about that word kept bugging me!

Originally Posted by Occipitalred

This brings me to the idea: could learning to access memory be done by "contracting" and "relaxing?", that is, by accessing and then losing access repetitively?

My idea: As an exercise, we could, in waking experience, think of our past (in a general sense) and become aware of our context in the present moment. Then, we shut this knowledge out, and observe our experience without knowledge of our past or future. We only know the present.

I can see why Sivason gave this a "like," as this seems right down his alley!

I'm assuming here that there is a next step to this where you then think about your past again, to be sure that cognitive muscle flexes in both directions with each exercise? If so, then this seems like it would be an excellent exercise to practice, if you can pull it off: Thinking of your past and then fully shutting off the memory you just accessed reminds me of telling yourself not to think of elephants, and then finding that that is all that is on your mind.

Still, if you can flex your memory muscle in such a way, I think it would help come dreamtime, because you will be in a mental shape that both invites accessing memory with a thought and gets you accustomed to that "Here & Now" mindset that defines consciousness in a dream.

I hope you'll share your results if this works for you...

Originally Posted by Sageous

I'm assuming here that there is a next step to this where you then think about your past again, to be sure that cognitive muscle flexes in both directions with each exercise?

Great insight by Occipitalred! Here's my thoughts on how I would attempt to pull it off.

So the past couple of months my sitting meditation has transitioned from mindfulness of breath to simply attending awareness. I find I can comfortably rest in awareness after a few short minutes of attending breath, and if I want I can transition back and forth pretty much effortlessly. So in theory I should be able to do the same with transitioning between resting in awareness and mindfulness of a memory from the past. Over the course of a 30 minute sitting that's a lot of mental muscle flexing alternating from attending awareness to attending memory and then back to awareness.

Yes, Sageous, you would do it repetitively.

If you were to think of elephants, stop thinking of elephants, think of elephants, that would be very hard (perhaps not), because the whole process is focusing on elephants. This differs in one way, it is a shift of attention. First, you put your attention on your context: Who am I? What's my story? What has brought me here and where am I going? Second, you focus on the environment, yes, pushing all your knowledge out of focus, but the fact that you have a new center of focus, that is, your environment, the here and now, it's not as hard. Then you repeat.

Maybe I need to expand on the second part of the exercise. I took it from the fact, that sometimes, I like to look around me, and pretend I have never seen these things. I'll look at a pencil and try to look at it as if I am an alien and know nothing of it. You have to eliminate any type of feeling that makes you feel like you recognize the object. I find it fun because I could look at familiar objects as if they were new.

And yes, JustaSimplyGuy, I don't think this exercise should be any harder than your type of meditation.

My two previous weeks were busy with a lot of deadlines which is never good for me and lucid dreams, but now I am done and can get back to it. I'll see how it works.

(What, I have done this morning, is I did use the "become very aware of the present moment and forget the rest" state this morning to focus and then, remember my dreams. I sometimes am in too much of a sleepy state while remembering my dreams and get lost in other thoughts and then forget everything, so this helped me get back on track. Although, that's not the exercise itself.)

I see this thing a little bit as if, in a dream, I alternated between having a body and then not having a body.

Originally Posted by Sageous

I can see why Sivason gave this a "like," as this seems right down his alley!

Thinking of your past and then fully shutting off the memory you just accessed reminds me of telling yourself not to think of elephants, and then finding that that is all that is on your mind.

yep, a quote from here, http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-yoga...-thoughts.html

Originally Posted by sivason

Remember that in the end you cannot stop thinking, by thinking about it!

Step 5: Remove the advantage of using your internal voice to interrupt the emerging thoughts. Do this by learning any of the intermediate lessons and using a simulated sensory experience instead of your internal voice. If you can get to a point where you can simulate motion or the flow of energy, it can be used to suppress the forming thoughts. I can create a sense of pressure gently pushing from the inside of my head out. When a thought attempts to form I can use the sensory experience of gently applying pressure to the portion of the brain that seems to contain the bud of the thought. Another method would be using the simulation of energy flow. You can pulse energy out your palm to cause enough sensory experience to interrupt the formation of the thought.

This awesome thread has been on my mind a lot lately, and this morning I was able to EILD and try out some memory checks. Full dream: Accessing Memory

Here's the TLDR breakdown:

-It seemed redundant to try to remember where my real body was sleeping, because most of my dreams that are induced more or less directly from the waking state (so WILD/DEILD/EILD, pretty much anything but DILD) start out with me with me still lying in bed and having to "get up," so I never really lose track.

-I correctly remembered what month it was. I didn't press myself for a precise date, but I usually have to give that some thought in waking life too. I'm not so great at this memory thing in WL either, by the way. I am profoundly "absent-minded." For example, yesterday I made cashew chicken for dinner and forgot to put in the cashews! But I didn't even realize it until after dinner was over.

-Next I asked myself what I was reading in WL. Although in the dream I was satisfied with my recollection, I found that in writing my report, my WL knowledge was "overwriting" the dream memory to the point where I couldn't be sure how specific my recollection actually was in the dream.

-I noticed that although my memory access and identity seemed to be operating on a high level, the visual clarity of the dream remained terrible, as typically is soon after WILD transitions.

-The strangest thing was when my husband appeared and started talking to me, and I was entirely convinced that it was "really" him and shocked that he could see me, to the point where I began to doubt whether I was dreaming at all. Despite the otherwise high level of mental clarity, my thinking about this was very irrational.

-In the dream conversation, my husband alluded to something we were planning to do today in WL, which shows that despite my confused thinking I still had good memory access. In fact, he just came by and said he's ready to leave on our errand right now, so I'll wrap this up!

Interesting dream, Verre, I liked imagining myself in your dream... I thought the carpet was so vivid!

It seems to me, that from your account and other accounts such as Sivason's memory cut-offs, that the simple act of accessing some part of memory will not open all of it up. There's not only one door. Maybe this technique is just as hard as dream recall as in, even with lots of practice, you can have really good dream recall on one day and then nothing on the next (at least, that's how I am.)

I am not going to stop my plan though, I will try my exercise for 10 minutes per day before sleep, and I will combine it with reverse RCs, Environment Awareness, relationship with Life, intention before sleep, dream "journaling", etc.

Originally Posted by Occipitalred

Maybe this technique is just as hard as dream recall as in, even with lots of practice, you can have really good dream recall on one day and then nothing on the next (at least, that's how I am.)

The point of working on dream recall is not that you will have awesome recall every night, but that you can ever recall dreams at all, with hopefully a consistent average performance on most nights. All mental functions fluctuate naturally depending on how well rested you are, level of stress/anxiety, etc.