I have some thoughts regarding a potential alternative to the current line-up of LD induction methods. I haven’t developed a method in detail - at this point, it is just an idea.
MILD, WILD and other such ‘ILD’ methods are one-off methods that, for most people, may or may not work on any given attempt. I say one-off in the sense that achieving WILD on one night won’t help you attain lucidity the next night - you’ll have to use the method again for another chance at lucidity.
What if there was a way to adjust your mind, so that the conscious mind would naturally activate at the beginning of each dream state? Instant lucid dream, without having to wait for the inspiration of a reality check that may or may not come. No WILD effort required either.
Lets start with a relevant examination of what happens when you go asleep at night. Conscious mind turns off, and the subconscious comes out to play. Dreams begin, and the creative subconscious takes great pleasure in generating reams of nonsense to keep us entertained (or terrified if its a nightmare this time round) until morning. So wheres the conscious mind when you need it? Its off. It is programmed this way by default for most people. It flicks off when we go to sleep, and back on again when we wake up.
So heres what I’m curious about - would it be possible to reprogram your conscious mind to flick on as soon as a dream state begins? If you made a habit of this, then chances are the habit would stick and the behaviour would remain - which would mean plenty of lucid dreams without the need for induction methods. The problem is, how do you make a habit of this when you have no control over your conscious mind by default while you’re asleep?
I’m not experienced with meditation, but I do think it could potentially hold the answer. By concentration (and perhaps some binaural beats), one could attempt to emulate the subconscious state as closely as possible during meditation. A deep state of relaxation, random creative thoughts and binaural beats in the theta range could do the trick. Then comes the important part. Once a pseudo-subconscious state is achieved, one could subtly introduce some logic to the chaos. You could consider some simple mathematical equations, or perhaps time itself - where were you yesterday, and so on.
With more meditations, you could gradually increase the level of logic introduced, until you attained a form of balance between the logical conscious and creative subconsious. Then when you went to sleep, your mind may recognise the onset of the subconscious state and respond by introducing a slice of conscious logic, just as was done in the meditation while you were awake. If this were to occur, the lucid state should immediately be achieved upon entering the dream-state. It is possible that more meditations would be required to sustain the changes, since the mind may revert to its factory setting otherwise.
So, in summary: by training the conscious mind to activate upon the onset of subconscious activity, one could perhaps attain instant lucidity every night.
I feel that it is relevant to explain how I was originally lead to consider this possibility. I know someone with extraordinary lucid dreaming abilities - she essentially attains instant lucidity every night, and has long lucid dreams with no problems in maintaining control. She doesn’t require the use of MILD, WILD etc (though she does meditate, and she claims it is helpful). To her, lucid dreams are as natural as normal dreams are to most of us. Unfortunately, she had no ‘holy grail’ technique to share with me - it appears to be a natural ability.
However, my idealistic side tends towards thinking that while some people may naturally be tapped into this level of ability, others could potentially develop the same mental prowess. Methods such as MILD strike me as ‘hacks’ - quick and dirty methods of attempting to trick the mind into allowing lucidity. Instead of trying to beat our own system, why not change it to suit our purposes?
I open the floor to opinions Do you think this line of reasoning has any practical merit? Any thoughts on the matter are welcome…
-Xine