Charting Dream Consciousness

Quest for Lucidity
1

I recently came across an article in Electric Dreams that got me thinking about charting dream consciousness. The actual article is below (his dreams are majorly whacked but his consciousness reasearch is quite good):

improverse.com/ed-articles/kellogg/

I thought about it and decided on my own categories. I decided to rate the level of consciousness as:

  1. Unconscious
  2. Dream Cues (subconscious dreaming indicators)
  3. Semi-lucid (tacit mentioning of dreaming)
  4. Pre-lucid (conscious awareness of the dream state)
  5. Lucid (full conscious awareness of the dream state)

I figured that a method to symbolize the level of consciousness would help me to communicate my goals for full consciousness to the subconscious.

Here is an example of my chart for 01/18:

stratego.sphosting.com/Lucidity_Lair/graph.html

[EDIT] The chart has been updated – please see post below

If you like this idea you can easily design your own charts very efficiently and download them to your HD from this site:

nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph

My dream journal allows me to paste images directly into the journal and so I paste each days chart at the top of the journal entry. If you’d like to use this software it can be found for free at the following site:

csoftlab.com

Once we have symbols for our consciousness we can use those symbols to better communicate with the subconscious.

Have fun,

Reyth

2

This is an interesting idea. And one that could also be applied over a long period of time, like months. Perhaps patterns would emerge that would indicate the most optimal times for Lucid Dreaming. And it could be used to make comparissons with other behaviors (like exercise, meditation, etc.) to see what helps to produce LDs.

3

I was thinking the same thing! :beer:

I first thought that I would start breaking it down by month and making notes on any significant change in my practice.

Reyth

4

I have lost my focus over the last 3 days.

I have noticed this phenomenon happens from time to time and I have thought of a way to combat it through the charting technique. It gives me a way to fight the lag in a way that is objectively measurable with a kind of built in reward system.

I’ve expanded the chart to include 2 more categories for a total of 4:

  1. Consciousness (see first post)
    1a) Number of dreams recalled (1 point for each dream recalled)
  2. Sleep Transfers (1 point for each sleep transfer performed)
  3. Focus (the sum of 1-2)

Number of dreams recalled is reflected in the width of the chart and Focus is the value that demonstrates how well I am doing; the higher the focus rating, the greater the chance of lucidity.

I’ve weighted the categories as follows:

1 = rounded down and divided in half
1a = divided in half
2 = multiplied by 2
3 = the sum of 1 thru 2

The chart is fictional but it will be interesting to see how the values relate graphically to the level of consciousness in actual dreams.

Here’s the chart:

stratego.sphosting.com/Lucidity_Lair/graph.html

The goal is to work through the night at recalling dreams, doing sleep transfers, acheiving lucidity consciousness (semi, pre, and actual) and thereby obtaining the highest score possible.

I’ll post any conclusions that I am able to arrive at.

Reyth

5

Ok I just thought of a neat update to make the sleep transfer category more dynamic.

I am going to add (or subtract as the case may be) the difference in the consciousness rating of the dream BEFORE the sleep transfer and AFTER the sleep transfer. That way there is a built in reward for increasing consciousness from transfer to transfer until lucidity is acheived.

Reyth