This is a lucid dream induction technique that is working for me and some other people who are using it. The more diligently you do the preparation the better it works. I describe the background behind it below and a step-by-step description is at the bottom. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.
Automatized behavior is something that you do automatically without thinking. It becomes natural to do it when a cue occurs. This technique involves learning to do reality checks whenever a cue that you choose occurs. That doesn’t mean that you mindlessly go through the reality check–it means that you don’t have to consciously remind yourself to do the reality check and no longer have to set an intention to do it.
Automatized behavior remains automatized in dreams, so this approach can create more consistent results than setting prospective memory intentions.
To understand automatization, its helpful to understand prospective memory tasks which are used in the MILD technique to help induce lucid dreams. A prospective memory task is simply making a note to yourself to do something in the future. Prospective memory tasks are used generally for activities that are not done so regularly that the task and the environment or conditions in which they are performed are automatically associated together. For example, you drive by lots of convenience stores, but only occasionally want to stop in for milk. You set a prospective memory task when you want to stop in for milk.
A behavior is automatized when it becomes so associated with some condition that it becomes second nature. If stopping at the convenience store for milk were automatized, you’d have to continually stop yourself from pulling into the convenience store whenever you passed. This is the degree of conditioning that you’ll want to achieve for this technique.
The Automatization Technique
[b]1. Pick a recurring activity or theme in your dreams that also consistently occurs in your daily life. This will be your cue to do a reality check. For me, the number-one theme of this type is driving. Another person does reality checks whenever he looks at his shoes. You’ll want it to be something that you do or see several times a day.
Whenever this theme occurs throughout the day, do a reality check. Continue doing this until you do a reality check EVERY TIME the theme occurs. It took me about a week to automatize reality checks without fail whenever I am driving. The important point is to do the reality check until it is an automatic reaction to the cue.
Once you’ve automatized one item, you can continue to add more to your list of automatized reality checks, being sure to work on them until you do reality checks every single time each theme occurs. Don’t add more cues unless the previous ones are 100% automatized.
Then just wait until your theme occurs in the dream and you will do your reality check. Also doing the MILD technique will probably increase your success. The reality checks I do are exactly as Stephen Laberge and Paul Tholey describe. [/b]
Mm, yes, I know of many people who use this. In fact, a lot of people who use RCs to help them induce lucid dreams use this technique regularly. It’s also just a convenient way to remember to perform reality checks during the day When I used RCs a lot, I would always forget to do them during the day and so I’d do them every time I switched classes in school, or saw my hands, etc etc. It worked pretty well!
I guess in my description I didn’t stress the difference between simply doing reality checks and automatizing them.
Automatization is a technical term that means you no longer have to consciously try to do something, because your brain has made a connection that creates an automatic reaction. This sounds very similar to almost automatizing a behavior, but there is a huge difference.
When you finally move beyond just remembering to do lots of reality checks and the behavior becomes automatized, you will have better results in remembering to do the reality checks in your dreams.
OsakaWilson, I guess you mean conditioning ourselves to react to something as opposed to training the memory to be watchful for certain events/dreamsigns.
Driving my car to school I became accustomed to a certain part of the road which I usually remembered to RC. After a while I realized without having the slightest interest to RC that spot was still recognized as ‘must do a RC’. Never did I dream of that spot unfortunately.
Yes, it is conditioning yourself to react. I think you got the idea. You seem to have automatized that spot in the road. Unfortunately, the chances were small that you’d dream about that spot. If you did the same thing with an activity or environment that commonly shows up in your dreams, then you will increase your chances of doing the reality check and becoming lucid a great deal. If you keep a dream journal and pick out something that has been proven to show up, you’ll probably have a lucid dream shortly after you have automatized that thing.
The cool thing about automatization is that once you have automatized something, it no longer takes any effort and you can begin automatizing more things.
The one of the first people I shared this with began having lucid dreams every other night a week after he started automatizing reality checks whenever he looked at his feet.
Thanks for you reply, I was beginning to think what I wrote wasn’t making sense to people. : )
The difficult thing to me is to find proper dreamsigns.
Now, one good would be my old house. I moved out, but I am still visiting my mother like once a week (edit: accidently wrote month here). I dream about it a lot, though.
But I can´t automize myself to make a RC everytime I am at my old home, can I?
I suppouse it only works with occurences that don´t last very long, like I could say “I do a RC whenever I enter the house”. But when I sit in the livingroom for hours I can´t constantly do RCs…
Yeah. Things that don’t last too long seem to be best. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use things that last a long time. I RC whenever I drive, whether its 5 minutes or an hour.
Your old house wouldn’t work unless you visited it several times a day.
I don’t think daysong was doing that. The point of reality checks is to automaticly do an RC when you are promted. However, doing RC properly as much as you can will leed to more places and envioroments being set in this “autopromt stage” or automization, or whatever!
If you don’t link the RC to something in the first place, then your not doing it properly. I will try to automize something, as I never really used RCs much.
Automatization is not simply linking the RC to something and it is clear from what she said that she didn’t get it. If you think what I described is what everyone has been doing, then you don’t understand what I wrote. Read it carefully and I think you’ll see the difference.
I’m not just inexperienced on the subject and repeating something that everyone already knows. Maybe I didn’t explain it clearly enough.
When something is automatized, the brain processes it differently. Prospective memory tasks that our brains are carrying out when we do MILD and unautomatized reality checks are not carried out well in dreams, however when a response becomes so conditioned that it is automatized, it is consistently carried out in dreams.
To be sure that you understand what I’m saying, can you answer this question? At what point can you consider a link to a reality check automatized?
I think it is a very good way of getting lucid in dreams, because since you chose the automated thing to be something you occasionally do, then you will do it in your dream frequently, and therefore always remind yourself of it.
I believe that it works, although it may take some time to become accustomed to it.
Really good idea though I must say,
definitely worth thinking about.
I think it’s a gret idea, I just cant think of what to use, it has to be something that I do each day awake and dreaming but only a couple of times? Any suggestions…
You’ll want it to be something that occurs regularly in both your dreams and waking life, so other people can give you ideas, but you are probably the one to answer that quesiton best.
You keep a dream journal, right? If you don’t, you should be. Read over your dreams and look for things things that happen regularly, like driving, taking the bus, greeting someone, giving something to someone, buying something. It can also be mental states. Being surprised, angry, scared. There are probably things that you didn’t write down in your journal that you do regularly, like looking at your hands, feet or whenever your hands touch each other or you sit down, etc. It can be words that are sure to occur, like your name or whenever someone says ‘you’ to refer to you. Pick something that you like, because you’re going to get quite intimate with it. How about picking a time when it is probably good to be a bit more self-aware, like when you are meeting someone for the first time, crossing the street, or talking to someone with authority.
I did quite understand (or “get”) it. There is nothing particularly complicated or confusing about this concept. I was simply comparing it to linking RCs to certain things, which seems to be the first step in the method you explained. I’m not sure exactly what I apparently didn’t “get”
I’m sorry if I offended you with my post, but from what I’ve read on this forum, doing RCs automatically when seeing a cue or doing something is often the goal of those who use RCs.
Technodreamer actually described what I meant very well
Again, OsakaWilson, I’m sorry if somehow my post offended you in any way. I didn’t mean to insult your technique by comparing it to something else. My intention was only to show my experience with this, which after all is one of the purposes of the ld4all forum
A guy in another LD forum that I participate in, The lucidity Institute, has automatized realty checks every time he is shocked or frightened. He did this to overcome nightmares and since automatizing it in December, 2003, he becomes lucid 95% of the time anything shocking happens in his dreams.
I wasn’t offended at all, it just sounded to me like you didn’t see the importance of making the RC second nature and the change that occurs when that happens. I was worried that people would read what you wrote and think I was talking about reality checks that were only performed as prospective memory tasks (a conscious intention to carry something out in the future) instead of automatized tasks (something that is done automatically), so I wanted to make it clear.
I should have done that without pointing out that I thought you misunderstood. Sorry about that. : )
I actually appreciate your comments, because it brought out the weakness in my original description.
I’m going to try automaticaly doing RCs when I enter a building, look at my watch or see someone I know. These are all things that come up regularly in my dreams. Or at least in the 3 I had last night since I started my dream journal.
OsakaWilson: I take RC’s everytime I feel any extreme emotion (not just fear/shock), whenever I wake up, whenever I notice anything even slightly out of line, whenever I’m talking/thinking about dreaming and whenever I remember too.
im not sure what to use because i’ve been a naughty girl and did not write in my new dream journal for 5 days but i still remember my dreams though.
last year there was one week where all my dreams involved something with pirates (too much POTC:P) and another week where i dreamed of shopping
When I used RCs a lot, I would always forget to do them during the day and so I’d do them every time I switched classes in school, or saw my hands, etc etc. It worked pretty well! 
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