Spontaneous Lucidity—What I Love & Hate About It

Quest for Lucidity General Lucidness
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A majority of my LDs are the result of spontaneous lucidity. That is, in most of my LDs I don’t become lucid by recognizing a dreamsign or by randomly performing a reality check.

I become lucid by spontaneously, and seemingly randomly, realizing that I’m dreaming because something feels strange. And, half the time, it isn’t even because of dream bizarreness—I just…become lucid.

For a while this has bothered me. I’d like it if more of my dreams clearly came from some technique, because then I would feel like…what? Well, like I made the LD happen, as opposed to it just happening.

Lately, though, I’ve begun re-thinking my assumption that lucidity is happening randomly. Superficially, it seems as if I (1) fall asleep, (2) have a normal dream, and (3) spontaneously become lucid.

But when I think through my pre-sleep ritual, and my mental state as I fall asleep, I see that there’s a high correlation between what I do pre-sleep and whether or not I have a lucid dream, even in the cases in which lucidity is seemingly spontaneous.

Much of the time, too, my waking-induced LDs are not straightforward; they’re not (1) do a technique and (2) enter a WILD. It’s usually (1) do a technique, (2) enter trance, (3) drift off, (4) re-awaken in a few minutes in the midst of a WILD.

This has frustrated me because, even when I have WILDs, I feel like I didn’t really induce them because of the drifting off first.

But I’m re-thinking this too.

For me, I’ve found that the chance of lucidity (whether it comes as a DILD, WILD or a traditional OOB experience) is at least 90% about whether I’ve entered trance before sleep. Or, to be more specific, whether I’ve entered a high-quality trance for several minutes before sleep (five to ten minutes), and whether I can transition from that trance to unconsciousness quickly.

Sometimes, of course, I’ve gone directly from waking to trance to the WILD experience. But I don’t do that a majority of the time. This is what everyone wants, because this seems the most controlled, the most indicative of mastery, the most cool.

But it’s foolish, I’m seeing now, to think of lucidity as being either spontaneous or not based on whether you performed some task ITD. What you do before sleep greatly influences whether you will enter an altered state of consciousness, and ought to be considered a factor in whatever lucidity comes.

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There is no such thing as a random LD. RCs aren’t to get you lucid, they are to increase your awareness or to incubate the idea into your head. RCs and dream signs are there to increased the schema of a dream in your head so that you will recognize it better.

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Well, I’ve certainly become lucid by performing reality checks, and by recognizing dreamsigns. Early on in my LDing career, I frequently went lucid by “looking for my hands” (a la Castaneda).

Over the years, though, I’ve found habitual RCing to be no more reliable than simply setting an intention to become lucid.

Like anyone, of course, what I’m after is greater reliability. It’s been a while since I’ve really tracked my progress, and tried to quantify it, but I’d say that my intention technique is about 50% reliable. With concentration and dedication, I can have an LD every other day. But it’s been tough to keep that up, because it depends (for me) on sleep interruption—which, inevitably, with my work schedule, means less sleep.

My bigger point, though, is that: psychologically, inducing LDs “directly,” from the waking state, to trance, to the LD experience, makes me feel more in control. I think that the feeling of control is illusory, because—as you said—“There is no such thing as a random LD.” Even my intention-induced LDs, when lucidity comes (seemingly) apropos of nothing particularly, my intention and pre-sleep activity must be taken into account.

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Food for thought:

dreamstudies.org/2013/04/27/tact … -dreaming/

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reply #1
You mean to say that you are going about your regular dream business and you do a RC out of habit and it works? or you are going about your regular dream business and start to think that it might be a dream and do a RC and it works? because the later is just a raise in awareness confirmed by an RC. I am not saying that it is not possible, but I haven’t seen it before. Please tell me more :grin: I am here to learn mostly, not instruct.

I have no answer now for the second part of “what you are really after” I am tired and don’t feel like typing too much. :razz: I also need to DJ about a sweet space adventure.

Reply #2
That seems very interesting. I have always had a plan on dealing with LDing like I have plans with everything in my life. When learning something I always am practicing. I practiced recall, got really good at that (declined recently), incubation, intent, imagination. I always practice one mainly in the context of the others. That one gets better and better and then I work it into my routine to keep it sharp and each of them is something that helps me get lucid. I don’t leave behind something useful, but I don’t keep something useless, write everything down, learn as much as you can. Also, do they mind you posting links to sites that want money? I am not sure if they would be cool with that, but I definitely would say that I learned something from that even if I am not buying it, so I thank you (even if you get in trouble).

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I have, in fact, performed RCs out of habit in a lucid dream and have had them work. Or, to be exact, I’ve had some special habitual behavior show up in a dream and make me realize that I’m dreaming. For instance, I’ve had success with the “Hands” technique.

The technique is to look at your hands throughout the day and tell yourself that you will later look at your hands in a dream. If you do this enough, it becomes habit, and lo and behold, you look at your hands in a dream.

Once or twice, though, when I was doing this, I had to perform a RC to know if I was really dreaming. I had dreams in which I would look at my hands and then wonder if I was dreaming—and would think, “No, I can’t be dreaming.” (Sometimes, I wouldn’t perform the RC because I was so convinced.)

Mostly, though, I would look at my hands and simultaneously realize, yes, this is a dream. I wouldn’t have to RC because it would be obvious as soon as I looked at my hands.

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Regarding the link…Sorry for posting a link that’s advertising a book. The website itself has lots of free articles and ebooks, which I recommend.