I’ve been trying a new lucid dreaming method. It is… nothing. Instead of autosuggestion at night, reality checks to keep yourself awake, or any type of dream control at all, you do… nothing.
Simply go with the flow of your dreams, and if you do find yourself lucid, don’t do anything with it. Still just go with the flow of your dreams. Don’t force anything to happen in your dreams by exerting control. Don’t ‘want’ lucid dreams, rather want to remember dreams in general and to just enjoy them.
I’ve tried this for several months. The results? First, I have full consciousness in nearly all my dreams now. I’m able to easily make logical decisions in dreams, and enjoy them a lot more because of that. Second, I get a different kind of control that’s just as good as ‘forceful’ control. My dreams have slowly shifted to become more enjoyable, and they become such that I don’t really WANT to exert any control. I’ve in a sense already controlled it enough. Also, you might start getting abilities in dreams exactly like that of forceful control. Like being able to fly with a thought. Third, it’s about the only techinque I have used, or heard reports of, that will eventually get you the fabled 100% lucid dream rate. As you go with the flow of the dream more, your subconscious starts to open up the higher brain functions it seems, and thus, you get lucid more often. Eventually I’m sure, this will get to the point where you can think as clearly in dreams as you can in real life.
What do you think? This technique takes a while to get up to speed, but for me at least it’s had a MUCH greater success rate when it really gets going, and this even seems to work in LD deserts. The downsides is that it takes a long time, it doesn’t have instant results, and you generally cannot lucid dream whenever you feel like it. But slowly increasing chances that you’ll have a lucid dream in the night is pretty nice.
Wow, this is a completely new approach to the matter. I’m very interested if it works this great for other people as well.
Some random thoughts to the matter, maybe your SC doesn’t like it when the conscious mind meddles with the dream, and stops you from becoming conscious too often… then with your method, your conscious mind enters the dream (the SC’s realm) and just passively watches. The SC gets used to this and lets you become conscious more often.
I know I’m treating the SC and the conscious mind like people here, and I also know it’s probably a bad metaphor. But maybe there’s still some truth in it?
I find this, to say the least, curious. If we take your “technique” point by point, there is nothing, as you said BTW, but remembering dreams.
Now there are plenty of people who are just writing down or remembering their dreams, and who never had the faintest LD. For instance, all the psychoanalyzed people have remembered dreams for years and they didn’t have LD’s - or else it would be written in the psychoanalytic litterature.
Hence I think there is something important you haven’t paid attention to.
From what you explain, does it give you controlled/conscious dreams, or LD’s?
Wow. I know I’ll try it. I think this could be part of the reason why just taking a break from it all can end dryspells. Maybe MedO is right, our SC just wants our conciousness to back off for awhile. Maybe that’s what dryspells really are… I know it doesn’t sound very logical, but it sounds right to me. But at any rate, this technique sounds great. I have all the time in the world, so that won’t be a problem. And also, I’m sorta lazy when it comes to RC, and autosuggestion isn’t working very well right now, so maybe this is just what I need.
Edit: One nagging question, do I still write in my DJ?
It gives you LDs, in a sense. The point mainly is to go with the flow of the dream, the dream eventually becoming such so that going with the flow is exactly identical to a regular LD.
The point of this is that even when you do realize it’s a dream, you don’t choose to change anything based on that knowledge. Like when roleplaying, for example.
To use this method, you do nothing, but you do it with a purpose
Another idea, maybe going with the flow and “observing” means you keep an “outside view” that doesn’t get so involved with the dream, so you don’t forget that you’re dreaming so easily.
This sounds as if you just call your NDs now LDs and let your SC (dream paradigm) fool you into thinking, you are in control, as it does in every ND. Are you sure you really KNOW that you are dreaming in such a dream? If you know, that you are “dreaming”, do you really know, what that means, or is it just a word that means nothing or that means something else?
This method is very efficient. The only other LD’er I know used this technique. She says being aware is easy for her but control is very hard. Seems to be the opposite when you use other short term induction methods.
I think the brain does get more used to dreaming and opens higher functions. Maybe the only reason we aren’t more conscious in dreams is because the neural connections are weak as compared to a daily consciousness.
Maybe this method should be looked at more. I think it has very good possibilities.
No, to use this, you just have to tell yourself that you will use no control when lucid, and will simply go with whereever the dream leads you. As I’ve said, like roleplaying. Just don’t push your consciousness into the dream, don’t force something to happen or go somewhere where the dream isn’t leading you. You really know that it’s a dream, but that knowledge is kept up and away from your dream actions. It’s not really an outside view, when using this method you don’t forget that you’re dreaming.
from what i understand, the idea is that when you do get an LD, from whatever reason, you dont do anything other than what the dream wants you to do already, and by doing that your SC eventually, with enough LDs, gets so used to the idea of you being lucid in the dreams, that your SC makes you lucid by default, like that was the normal thing for your mind to do from the beginning. then, by building on that, you go from being lucid in dreams by default, to getting a gradual increase in the amount of control you can exert on the dreams, without your SC resisting it, like it normally would. eventually, after a truckload of LDs, your SC makes you lucid by itself, and gives you practically complete control over your dreams, just because its used to it.
was that a correct assumption, or did i miss the point entirely?
alright, I understand the non-active initiation of the LDs, but the non-control seems kind of odd. What’s the point exactly? A brilliant dream recall will make LDs much easier to have without even thinking about having LDs, this is true, but once in the dream, controlling it is half the fun. I like to go where I wish in LDs, and not simply get swept around. The brilliance of LDs is the conscious control of your own world, is it not? To simply be aware of the dream, and not interact seems like a bit of a waste.
I may be way off in my understanding of this, so please tell me if I am, and I’ll do my best to try and grasp it.
Because once you start trying control dreams, your subconscious will start producing dreams that make up for the fun of control. Your subconscious starts controlling dreams in the same way you want to, or something.
I believe I have had LD’s like this (if I understand everything right). Although I am not as lucid as when I take full control of my dreams, the dreams are almost always more fun, because everything is less predictable. When I take full control, I have to think about my next step, what do I do now?
When having a LD like described in this topic, I can still determine (just by thinking about it) in which way I want the dream to develop (kissing with a girl, street racing), but the actual development of the ‘story’ is less predictable (more realistic), because I don’t stop the flow of the dream by taking control of everything. I have less chance of waking up (from excitement) as well. Only minus is that you miss the ‘kick’ of full control of your dream, because I am actually ‘low lucid’.
I’m startign to use the technique. In the past days I had a lucid dream (rare enough ) and decided to go with the flow. However, very shortly afterwards I lost my lucidity and also my dream recall. I never had any long LDs yet anyway (in fact, my first was one of my longest mid-level LDs so far). If you find yourself lucid, should you use dream stabilisation / prolonging techniques like rubbing hands while using this method?
Also, I am not sure this tech requires you to stop using RCs or other induction methods, as long as you don’t exercise too much control while actually lucid.
i am wondering (and i think basilus west and MedO may b on similar topics) whether this is an advanced technique or a beginner technique. it seems in order to do this u must have LD’s in the first place, and be fairly experienced at getting them. i am a newb to the whole subject, and have only had “.5” LD’s so far. so should i try other techniques so that i can get LD’s in the first place? and do u think, like MedO said, that doing induction techniques while doing this will work? or do u think they will interfere somehow?
) and decided to go with the flow. However, very shortly afterwards I lost my lucidity and also my dream recall. I never had any long LDs yet anyway (in fact, my first was one of my longest mid-level LDs so far). If you find yourself lucid, should you use dream stabilisation / prolonging techniques like rubbing hands while using this method?