What method do you prefer, or find to be the most effective for stabilizing your lucid dreams?
Spinning
Rubbing
Focus Awareness
Other (Explain)
0voters
Inspired by a recent thread offering praise to the popular spinning technique, I think it’s about time we saw some numbers from the members of this site. Without further delay, let’s get on with the poll.
Currently, there are three ascribed methods for prolonging lucid dreams: spinning, rubbing, and focus awareness. Spinning, as the name describes, is a technique in which the lucid dreamer, when he realizes that the dream is beginning to fade, spins like a top in his dream. The key to this is to actually feel the motion of the spinning and repeating to himself “the next scene will be a dream” (Thurman, “Lucid Dreaming”, 1997). Rubbing is a similar technique, but instead of spinning, the dreamer vigorously rubs his hands together, feeling the friction and heat produced. Repeating the aforementioned mantra is also advised. The third method is focus awareness. This is a technique that the lucid dreamer attempts to do as the dream fades by focusing on a fixed object in the dream and retaining that image. While the exact understanding as to the mechanism for these prolonging techniques is not well understood, they allow the dreamer to prolong the lucid dream without awakening. (http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro98/202s98-paper1/Holt.html)
Ohh,my mistake…i chose “other” thinking about paying attention to dream details,examining objects close range etc…then i noticed that "focus awareness"means just that.
im sorry.
Anyways,yes i find it as a most effective method but very close to rubbing my hands togheter.
Rubbing my hands together has proved the most successful for me so far, but I haven’t tried the “focus awareness” yet. I think I will in my next LD… Seems to work well for some people
In the few LD’s I had, spinning was the only technique I knew of. I hadn’t rea d of any new techniques, so I tried spinning which never worked, obviously,and I would wake up each time.
I voted for focus awareness, cause I could only vote for one. By focusing awareness I ment trying to focus while looking at my hands. That normally helps, if I do it as soon as the picture is getting a bit vague. But when I’m really that far from the dream already, that I almost can’t see anything anymore, then I have to start spinning. And then I’m lucid again. So I use both, spinning and looking at hands. First looking at my hands and if that’s not enough then spinning.
Spinning doesn’t work for me, so I mainly use the rubbing-your-hands technique. The first thing I do when I become lucid, is focus awareness to get a feeling of the dream and its environment. This generally stabilizes the dream immediately.
i hold onto something like a branch or somthin works woders and movemt. bar spinng that = wake up 4 me
but there is one thing that i did once. i forced stabilty heaps and made my self deeper and deeper into the dream it was cool. but now i am just normal i dont do any techs now. strange
When I first started using Spinning, it worked well for me and would make the dream much more vivid. Then I noticed that it started making the dream fade out, so I stopped using it.
Now I usually use hand rubbing (better if it’s on a substance in the dream) while using some kind of focusing. But I noticed you can also retain stability of the dream if your focusing is not specific. I know that sounds like a contradiction in terms, but you can sort of focus on everything at once if you clear your mind of thoughts and just act. I think my mind wanders a lot, especially in dreams, and it takes my focus away from the dream and makes it fade out. But if I just concentrate on what I’m doing in the dream it helps.
I focus my awareness, but not an a specific object. I simply open myself to all the physical sensations of the dream world, I pet things, sniff things, and all sorts of other silly things. It really helps though.
I usually use spinning, or just “will” my dream to return. The latter method takes practice though and it doesn’t involve changing the dream scene and such
Spinning actually confuses me a lot in LDs. When I spin I always end up at a new location. I’ve had the most success with staring at a stable point, mainly, my hands. I get all focused on my hands and see every detail and keep repeating to myself, ‘I am dreaming now’. Rubbing my hands also works to some extent. I tried yelling ‘Stay lucid!’ or ‘Increase lucidity now!’ but those didn’t have a very big effect.
I tend to be far too active in lucid dreams and get carried away quickly; I’m a deep sleeper and an intense dreamer, and find it very difficult to stay lucid. I usually slip into a normal dream with the illusion of being lucid. I’m still looking for a powerful technique that’ll really stabilize my dream and me in it. :\ Unfortunately my mind is just as flighty and unfocused during the day… so I hope it’s not a bad character trait.
Self hypnosis, using that to slow my brainwaves down to alpha and theta brain waves and block beta waves as much as i can while i have a ld.
Also can do it by letting my dream body fall a sleep in my ld.
i said focus awareness because ive only had 2 LD’s in my life(both in the last 4 days) and the first time i woke up right away but the second time i had to focus on not waking up, and it took quite a bit of effort,
so i dunno if thats what u mean by focus awareness, but what i ment was i would focus on not waking up
ive never herd of any of these teqniques, im gonna try spinning around next time, it seems interesting
When I’ve felt lucidity fading, I like to use telekinetics to maintain focus in my dream. Sometimes, the DC’s get a big kick out of it - others, they don’t even notice. But it definetly reinforces the fact that I am actually dreaming; I can’t do this IRL (yet! )
But it definetly reinforces the fact that I am actually dreaming; I can’t do this IRL (yet! 
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