Another approach to achieving lucid dreams?

Quest for Lucidity
1

Hey there.
I have a little theory of my own about how to achieve lucidity. I wondered what other people think about it, especially the people that already achieve lucidity often, to see if it works like that for them.

I will have to give a little bit of my history.

A long time ago I was a member of this website, for a very small period of time. A couple of days… something like that. I tried to dream lucid and had a half lucid dream (knowing I was dreaming, but doing nothing with it). I lost focus on my tries to become lucid, left the website and did other things. I am an ADD like person and lose focus easily (no excuse :razz:)

Then, a lot of time passed in which I never thought about lucid dreaming. I did always love remembering dreams though. I already do that for 6 years or so. But never tried to be lucid. But last week I found a youtube series of video`s about lucid dreaming and the WTBT technique. I decided it would be fun to try. I more or less forgot about it when I almost went to bed. I did not give it that much thought, only that it would be fun.
Before going to bed, I took a long shower, which I almost never do (that long) but I felt stressed and wanted to feel more restfull. It worked like a charm, I pretty much got into such a relaxed state that I almost meditated. Then I thought one more time about lucid dreaming, and an idea came up about what I wanted to do in such a dream. What I came up with was attached to a longing, I ‘really’ wanted that. But, a longing with a smile, without stress or without the internal ‘pushing myself’ to achieve it.

I went to bed, extremely relaxed and went to sleep. Somewhere in the night I woke up and remembered the WTBT technique. I took it half serious, I did not go out of bed and kept myself awake for an hour. No, I just wrote down a dream (of some nights ago) and thought about what I would like to do in the lucid dream I would have. I was, oddly enough, pretty much completely sure it would be easy. I thought it would be easy to achieve, in that current state of mind I thought to myself that for a person like me its almost natural to do.

I fell asleep, and had my lucid dream :happy: . I flew and tried several different things. Maybe I will put the dream in my dreamjoural here. But its long, so I am not sure if anyone will read it.

But anyway. I woke up only realizing half what had happened. But the more I woke up, the more clear it became. I actually had a good lucid dream on the first night I tried! I felt elated, very very happy. I suspect… but am not sure, that lucid dreaming causes that? (I mean, not only because you succeed in something but because it causes a feeling of happyness on its own?)

After this, I wanted more lucid dreams but this past week, I did not succeed anymore. I used techniques, and worked on it hard. This morning though,… I wondered. My fist lucid dream happened simply because I was extremely relaxed when I went to bed, and because I had an idea in mind for the lucid dream, that made me happy. That was all… I was not focussed on it, did not work hard on it, did not even follow the technique very well…

So, my thought is that lucid dreams might happen easily when the state of mind is truly relaxed. Simply ‘aware’ and… happy.
And that combined with having simply faith that doing it is natural and easy.
No focus on big techniques and big effort, no strain.

Can people that have lots of lucid dreams agree with that? Do you think it is about right, or does it work differently for you?

2

Actually, I’m a bit of the opposite. It was first fear and stress that brought me lucid dreams, by realizing that I was dreaming during nightmares around the age of 3. In general, my lucidity has been at its highest during times in my life when I’ve been anxious, because it made me more aware about what was going on around me, which carried into my dreams and made me lucid from a young age. Now it’s more stable, and I still have a lot of lucid dreams. My anxiety is gone, and I’m relaxed, but I’m still aware in both my waking life and dreaming life as all the anxiety and nightmares I went through at a young age conditioned me into awareness.

People become lucid in different ways. It seems to me, that no matter how we do it, regardless of whether we are naturals or rely on techniques, awareness plays a big role in how successful we are at lucid dreaming.

3

I think that makes sense to me. In my opinion when people try “too hard” to get lucid and fail it’s not a problem with the techniques or the actual “trying hard”. I think it’s more of an emotional thing (since the SC understands emotions very well), I think it’s the demanding too much of yourself, that stress, the “tonight I will get lucid and won’t take no for an answer!”. (I’ve been doing this, actually, the past few nights :shy: and it doesn’t have great results.) The SC doesn’t usually work with force… you have to be gentle and friendly!

I think what you did can have a powerful effect (depends on the person, I see Luminous’ LD’s work different :wink: ). I think I’ve been slowly becoming aware that when I go to bed and simply lay there “feeling” good feelings that it works. Exactly what you said, happy LD’ing feelings, feeling like it’s easy. I’ve seen so many master LD’ers say that… LD’ing is EASY, you just have to want it and it works.

Ok, I’m rambling here :shy: I’ll remember to try this again tonight. I think the trick is: good feelings, trust in your ability and that it’s easy and natural and not take it too seriously. (I think this should even be stickied perhaps! :happy: )

4

mattias, If I would’ve read your post just before I went to sleep, I’m pretty much sure I would’ve a LD tonight.
It just got me into the MODE.

I’ll just try and get into the mode again later. :smile:

5

Luminous, you are right. You made me remember childhood dreams in which I became a little bit lucid. I just knew I dreamt for a moment, changed it, and then lost that knowledge again. I even killed myself once in a dream :razz: to go into another one :eh:
So that (fear/nightmare) is indeed also a trigger. So the awareness behind a dream is out there always,… hiding :razz: until it becomes too scary. Then suddenly we become able to understand that its just a dream. Mmm… :smile: thats interesting.

But, I almost never have scary dreams now so that is not going to work for me hopes that the scary ones will stay away

Mattias,
Yes! That is what I mean. You really get my point.
I was thinking that being awake and aware during the day, might also lead to lucid dreams. Its almost the same as what we talked about already. Because being really restfull and happy, is often such a state. Its like just sitting and looking around with open eyes ‘seeing’ everything. Really ‘seeing’ it, hearing it, feeling it. Just being really present in whatever situation you are in. If a person does that in a dream as well (because he/she is used to doing it in the awake life), will it cause a lucid dream?
Will it make the person able to ‘really’ look around and ‘see’ what is going on? That would make a person recognize dreamsignals right? Just being quietly alert, something like that.
How is that for others that had lucid dreams?

6

yeah! I also try that, but get easily distracted and/or forget about doing it in the first place. I should try it more often… Like meditating. I’d love to try to really meditate ina LD, just look around, see, hear and feel everything without judging or worrying I might wake up (which is a big problem for me :lol:)

And I’ve noticed the more LD’s I have the more LD’s I have :tongue: It gives confidence and keeps you in the LD’ing state of mind. Whenever I go some time without a LD I start getting a kind of thought in the back of my head like “I haven’t had a LD in x days, so tonight I really should have one!”. And that’s putting some pression on the SC.

Anyway, I’m going to try to use this tonight as my only “technique”. I’ll simply tell myself and feel that I can and will get lucid, etc. :smile:

7

I hope it works for both of us! :content: I would love it.

8

huh, this sounds pretty good. :dream: the way you did WBTB is just like me; i don’t like getting out of bed. :tongue:

i’m definitely trying this for a couple of days and see what happens. ^^;

9

Ok :smile:!
But remember that I am not a regual lucid dreamer at all yet. I had only one so far!
It was just my observation with that one.

10

i know, neither am i. :no: it just sounds like something that could really work for me. :yes:

and even if it doesn’t, the shower + relaxing sleep = happy Crooked :good: in the morning, as opposed to grouchy Crooked. :down:

11

A happy Crooked sounds very good to me :content:

It did not work for me this night, as far as I know… blush I actually have no dream recall at all this morning! That is odd, because I pretty much always remember 1 or 2 dreams and sometims 3 to 5. So :razz: maybe I was a little too relaxed :grin: (just kidding, I did not manage to feel very relaxed due to some problems during the day before).

But I will try again.
And maybe I will recall my dreams later today.
How did it go for you two?

12

I guess the thing is, just to belive and trust yourself.
Have patience, and dont push it.

Our mind, Is the most powerfull thing there is.
It is the one single thing that you can say surely - it exist.
It is the one single thing that you can say surely - it controls what exist.

Lucid dreaming isn’t nececerly easy for everyone.
But it can be, if you, your mind, know it is.

The only thing you need to master, is YOURSELF.
How easy is that?!

13

Yes, but what is ‘yourself’, its not the mind. To me, its the awareness behind it. When you are with that awareness, instead if ‘being the mind’, then it becomes easier to steer the into doing what you want. Its like being drowned in the mind + emotions instead of being with yourself.

14

I had great results! :woo:

Last night I only told myself once what I wanted, not as auto-suggestion or MILD, but just like thinking to myself, so I wouldn’t forget. Then I just tried to feel good feelings, no tension, no pressure. I woke up in the morning after a dream without moving, which isn’t that common for me :tongue: after that I had a great LD :smile: I was actually able to feel the peace, happiness and confidence last night! I was anticipating my LD. Now if I can remember this every single night… I’ll try it again though.

Sorry to hear it didn’t work for you Little snowfox :sad: maybe those problems during the day got to it? Maybe it’s something that needs some practice? I mean, I haven’t exactly practiced, but last night I magically knew where I had to go “emotionally”. :bored:

Again, thanks for this topic :grin: it’s subtle but it’s better than those topics I’ve read where they say simply something like “completely believe you’ll get lucid”. Because it’s hard to “fake” confidence, to get rid of the last drop of doubt. I’m seeing this clearer now :happy: it’s not about convincing your SC, pretending you believe 100%. (or maybe it is…)

hm, I just noticed (see if you agree :grin: ) there are two types of convincing and they both “feel” slightly different. One is when you try to convince a friend of something simply because you want them to believe you (you convince them but are thinking more about yourself, about your image or whatever (ego maybe? dunno)). The other is when you try to convince a friend of something because you know deep down inside it’s right, or best for them (your not doing it for yourself). I hope this makes sense, I feel it’s important :lol:

a quick example. Imagine a person on drugs and all his friends want him to stop. Maybe all of them care equally for him, but what kind of person ‘helps’ most: the one that will use any argument he can think of, because convincing that drugs are bad and he should quit is the most important, or the one that makes him feel wanted and that “it’s ok”, etc.

It’s as if the first type is like convincing, changing the other person’s mind or opinion so it will match our own, and the second one is openning their eyes so they can see clearly.

I believe MILD and auto-suggestion are the first type of convincing (I’m not saying they don’t work though!) and what I did last night was the second.

It’s more about working WITH your SC, letting it know you’re on it’s side and there’s no pressure, if you don’t get lucid, that’s ok! I think it’s time we stopped figthing our SC’s, I don’t think it likes it :rofl:

sorry for all the rambling and for taking pages to not be able to express exactly what I wanted and a normal person could put in a paragraph! (Argh! :bored: )

15

^^ very good post. :good: that’s all i have to say. :silent:

i didn’t get to do it :cry:, because evil Algebra took over my night. :devil: then i went to bed late :clock:, and slept in. :yawn: sigh. :sigh:

but i’ll definitely do it tonight. :thumbs:

16

Hey Mattias that is great! I love that it worked :happy:

17

I again had had a stressed day and that really makes it harder to come into that happy awareness mood.
But, today is a better day :smile: so maybe tonight.

18

Yeah… didn’t work for me last night :tongue: I wasn’t able to reach my “happy place”. I was kinda tired and without energy and concentration. I’ll keep practicing though :content:

19

Hmm, this looks interesting. I went to sleep very late last night, and woke up pretty early for going to bed at 4 AM, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to take a good nap today. I want to try this, it sounds like something that could work for me. I’ll post the results ASAP. :smile:

~Namine

20

Yes, do that! I hope it works :smile:

Mattias, yes, I have that too when I am tired. Then also its difficult to concentrate on where you want to go with your mood. Its more difficult when you are feeling sleepy and fuzzy :smile:

I did try WILD combined with the happy awareness feeling for the first time this morning, but it was already late and I was just too awake to fall asleep again. I did feel the happy awareness though, that was easier because I had just slept a night long and still felt restfull because it was just that restful moment of waking up.

I am a tiny little bit scared of WILD by the way, but I guess I should write that down in a topic that is specificly about WILD.