[THEORY] What triggers lucidity?

Quest for Lucidity General Lucidness
1

I’ve been reading around here and dreamviews for a while now, and I am noticing more and more of people not understanding what being lucid actually is. Before I go into that, think about what your definition of lucidity is, and be very specific. Also think about what constitutes higher or lower levels of lucidity.

Ready? The answer is simple but often misinterpreted:

SPOILER - Click to view

Lucidity = awareness X logic

Before you slap me with a wet fish and leave this page, let me go over the definitions of awareness and logic as they apply to lucid dreaming.

Awareness:
Awareness is the amount of detail/vividity/realisticness you perceive in your dream. The more aware you are in your dream, the more vivid it is.

Logic:
Logic is how efficient your brain is at finding illogical things in your dream. Signs of low logic would be seeing a pink elephant and thinking nothing of it, or not realizing that what you are doing in the dream is dangerous/not normal for your typical behavior/generally Ill thought out or a bad idea. Signs of high logic are remembering specific details of your waking life (phone #, what you ate for lunch, what you did that day), being able to preform higher math (ranging from multiplication to factoring to calculus), noticing incongruities with the dream and real life (I don’t know where you come from, but trees are generally not blue), and being able to overall think logically.

In order to be lucid, you need to have both awareness/vividity of the dream as well as thinking logically. You can have a very vivid dream and not be lucid, and you can be thinking logically in the dream but not be lucid. To better explain why this is, let me use an analogy of a computer as your brain.

Lets say that I am in a very vivid but low logic dream. The actuall dream acts as data that is fed into the computer, and the output is what you decide to do as a result of that. Lets say that in this vivid dream, I have a discussion about philosophy with a talking pink elephant. The data that is being fed into our dream computer is very detailed and precise, and describes this scene in perfect detail. Our computer than analyzes this data with it’s low logic capacities, and concluded that this is normal (obviously completely incorrect).

Let’s go through the same scenario again, but with high logic and super low vividity. Our poor computer recieves the vague and non descriptive data “I am talking with someone.” Our computer analyzes this data with it’s high logical capacity and decides that there is absolutely nothing illogical about talking with someone. This happens every day, and this is a perfectly valid conclusion based on the data supplied.

Now what happens when the dreamer has high vividity/awareness of the dream as well as a high level of logic? This time, our computer receives a detailed description of conversing with the pink elephant about philosophy. Using it’s high logic capacity it analyzes the data and immediately points out the illogical impossibilities 1. Elephants aren’t pink, 2. Elephants can’t talk, and 3. Generally I do not encounter elephants often except at a circus. Therefore, the computer comes to a conclusion and outputs: You Are Dreaming!

Does the formula Lucidity = awareness X logic make sense now? Good. Hopefully this article will clear up a few accidental misunderstandings you may have. How you increase you logic and awareness in your dreams is up to you now.

Cheers,
Ninja :content:

–EDIT–
After reading some comments, I feel that I may need to expand upon this and add a few exceptions to this rule.

I know I’m going to sound like I’m contradicting myself here, but my original idea is incorrect in saying that the only way to get lucid is to have awareness and logic. Manytimes people get lucid from simply a feeling. As Yisim points out below, people can get lucid with faulty logic that in retrospect isn’t logical at all. I think that a better way to describe what I had ranted about above is to say that Level of Lucidity = awareness X logic. When you find yourself lucid, If you increase your logical level as well as your awareness of the dream, they will last longer and you will be in a higher state of lucidity.

I would say that a good idea is to boost your level of awareness in everyday life. Try to practice Lucid Living. Look at your surroundings and try to stay aware of them throughout the day. Think logically about seemingly normal aspects of your life. It might actually surprise you that when you look at a seemingly logical idea and analyze it deep enough, It turns out not to be logical at all. Treat it as a game to constantly stay logically aware of your surroundings. You win when you find yourself in a dream, due to the fact that your awareness and logic level in everyday life will have (hopefully) increased enough that you will do this in a dream. Try doing logical puzzles before bed or during WBTB.

2

I almost don’t want to post this since you sound so confident, but I have to disagree. Well at least partially.

See lucidity is not made up of logic and awareness, logic does not necessarily impart memory, and awareness does not necessarily impart vividness.
In my opinion, lucidity is just the awareness of your actual surroundings. (That is to say knowing you are in a forest while in a dream is not REALLY lucidity. Technically, on a low level, but for our intents and purposes, we’ll say it is not.) One can be completely lucid and know exactly where they are size=84[/size] while having absolutely NO recollection of their “real life”, or anything even outside the dream.

Now logic DOES play in in the fact that lucidity (usually) gets it up and running more like your waking mind than the “accept anything” dream mind. But you can have lucidity without logic. I have had dreams in which I became lucid by realizing that I was taking a shower in the morning, before school. Obviously, because I took a shower nearly every morning before school, I was dreaming. (HORRIBLE LOGIC!) After realizing it was a dream and having a fairly high level of lucidity, I still had to keep stopping to rethink things because my logic was simply lacking. I would look at the clock twice, seconds apart, but think nothing of the fact that it went back 2+ hours.

Vividness is another normal, but not necessary byproduct of lucidity. You can be perfectly aware of the dream state while it is dark, blurry, and/or even surreal. Vividness is actually even less linked to lucidity than logic.

Now all that said, the more aware you are of the dream, the more likely it is you are to be logical and see/remember vivid details. The keyword, however, is likely.
One of the other things to keep in mind when talking about lucidity is that it is not tied only to dreaming. We just assume everyone is fairly fully lucid in waking life.

3

actually, both of you are right. the awareness + logic idea is good in the sense of what people lack and therefore don’t get a LD. but yes, Ysim is also right because last time i had a LD, it was not because of logic - i just ‘felt’ weird. the realization was more emotional. it felt scary, and i somehow knew it was a dream. it had no weird details pretty much. things in my room were different, but i didn’t pick up on that. something else made me lucid.

however, your post is very beneficial to me, Ninja! because now i know what i need to fix. yes, logic does play very deeply into lucid dreaming, and i definitely have a problem with it, now i see :lol: for example, i had a dream today… me and my friend were picking berries. as always, i had a large level of awareness (how you call it), because my dreams are always vivid and detailed. but… those berries looked like apples! :colgate: so in the dream i though, wow, they look a lot like apples… and just shrugged and kept picking them xD damn it! and before i read your post, i thought “there was nothing weird in that dream… there were no dreamsigns i missed… how could i have told it’s a dream…?”, but now it’s so obvious :rofl: so now what i feel like i need to do, is just question everything around me, but i mean REALLY question things… even the things that look normal. now that i think of it, this is how i had my first LD ever! thanks Ninja. i hope this will really help me out :smile:

4

well, this seems like an interesting coincidence; exactly two weeks ago, I had five dreams, the fifth of which was lucid (first one since i started my dream journal actually).

the contents of the dreams made me think about this very question;

first off, i don’t think your question is properly defined, simply because an answer to “what is lucidity?” would be: “lucidity is a state of mind that can exist in a dream”.
the question that should be asked is “what is the difference between a lucid dream and a normal one?”.

your answer of awareness X logic isn’t actually an answer at all, it’s more of “what has to rise, so that you’ll be more likely to achieve lucidity”.
but it’s far from a proper answer since i can easily think of dreams with both low logic and low “brightness/vividness” that are nonetheless lucid, or highly realistic dreams in which you are in complete autopilot.

still, i’m not all that into bashing, so I’ll admit that this is not a simple question to answer.
i’ve been thinking about it for some time now, and all i got is a “sufficient but not necessary” condition for lucid dreams, which i’m currently using as a definition. (at least until i find a better one)

the condition is as follows: “during the course of the dream, there is a distinct shift of perspective, a ‘realization’ of sorts that the reality you’re in is not what you thought it was”.

or in more simple terms: “you don’t know that you’re dreaming, and something causes you to realize that you do”.

you may notice two things regarding my definition:
it’s quite unrestricted, and (at least if i built it correctly) it applies to almost all lucid dreams, and doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) apply to any normal dreams.
the second thing you may notice is that it doesn’t cover WILD’s and probably a lot of other special cases, so it’s doesn’t have a one-one correspondence with lucidity.

still, this is the best definition i could find with my limited experience.

now, i do think that this is an important question to answer, and i should probably start a proper topic for it.

for one, a sufficiently good answer for this will effectively eliminate any confusion regarding what constitutes a lucid dream, which would be immensely helpful to beginners and people who have never had lucid dreams, and generally make lucidity more accessible to them, which will benefit everyone in the long term. (since more new people->more unexplored topics noticed->faster progress).

phew, this sort of thing is why i rarely visit the forum…
still, a note; i will rise this topic (and my thoughts on some other matters like how to actually achieve lucidity) once i think i’m ready to answer properly and once i have some seriously free time.

and if anyone notices a flaw in my definition, or even better, a suggestion on how to improve it, please tell me, this is basically the sort of thing that motivates me; finding clear answers to obscure questions.

5

two things : 1. that is why I edited my post to change the formula thingy to LEVEL of Lucidity = awareness x logic. Note that I changed it to Level of Lucidity, and not just lucidity. This is because at the moment, it is very difficult to apply a rule to how we get lucid in the first place, as there are so many exceptions, and exceptions of exceptions, that by the time were done, its not a rule anymore.

  1. I look at the definition of lucidity as “knowing that you are in a dream while dreaming”. I consider the level of lucidity to have 2 parts: awareness and logic. awareness makes for better vividity of the dream, and logic influences how good your dream control is, although both awareness and logic influence each other. therefore, i am not saying that to become lucid you need to have awareness and logic, but instead I am saying that to achieve a higher lucid mindset and all around realisticness of the dream, you need to increase your logic and awareness. Again, you can have a highly lucid mindset with just one or the other, but to get to an even higher level of lucidity, these are the two things you should try to boost.

The reason I made this thread in the first place was because I saw people saying, “Oh, I was so lucid, everything was just like real life, it was so cool!” and then the next minute they do something that obviously meant they had a low level of logic, like trying to convince their friend that they were in a dream, and not fully getting the fact that they are only an aspect of your SC (unless youre into that shared dreaming stuff :razz: ). I had hoped my post would shed some light on what these dreamers were missing. I understand that my theory has flaws, and that is to be expected, especially scince we are dealing with the subconcious mind and the dream realm, but as a general rule, it holds true.

Ninja

6

interesting.
I see your point, although at this time i simply lack the experience to verify your theory.

one thing i would like to point out is that your definition of lucidity as

doesn’t always hold; specifically, the condition can apply and you can still be ‘not lucid’. (or in logic terms, it’s a necessary but insufficient condition)

heck, the reason i even raised the question was because i used to think the same way (definition wise), until a series of dreams proved me wrong.
i won’t go into details, but the point is that it’s possible to know that you are “in a dream”, and for it to make perfect sense to you ‘in dream’.

(as for how i know in hindsight that it wasn’t a lucid dream… this is something i can answer properly, but i don’t feel like writing another wall of text right now, so I’ll just leave it as “I’ve had lucid dreams before, and that wasn’t it”)

as for

this is exactly what I’m trying to find, thanks for the formulation by the way.

and unless there are specific questions, i’m putting ‘on hold’ any further thinking of this topic until i have better overview of lucidity. (at least proactive thinking, if anyone thinks they’ve got an answer I’d be very interested in hearing it)

7

I know exactly what you are talking about. I’ve recently been having those types of dreams. Looking back at your definition of lucidity, I think it’s quite accurate.

8

I’d like to agree that lucidity is not only awareness x logic. This is dependent on how your brain works. For some people it may be feeling ^ awareness or awareness + control power. There are multiple ways people think.

From my experience, it seems that lucidity is a feeling/state of mind that is recognized. I’m are either lucid or not. If there’s any doubt, I’m are at most semi-lucid.

Logic may be very useful in distinguishing dreams from reality while being awake, yet I found that logic is the bane of majority of mystical experience, dream-like states, hypnogogic imagery and spontaneous recall.

These states are fluid, fast. Logic is slow(not a bad thing), it requires a set of logical steps in order. Using your computer analogy, it requires caching data and frequenty accessing that data to verify current step and see if it is correct. If you can do logic really really fast, lets say your brain has a good LPU - logic processing unit, you may be able to recognize the pink elephant through logic. Otherwise, you are more likely to wake up than to become lucid.

The kind of logic that I use is fast, RIS (reduced instruction set logic), there’s only true or false. For example looking at a digital clock and looking back, does it make sense? No = try again, become lucid.

Another interesting thing is that the brain may have limited bandwidth available while lucid. This may mean control OR logic, Awareness OR logic, Feeling OR Control. This may explain why I may be doing such a dumb thing as explaining to my friend that I’m are dreaming. Yet at the end of the dream, it is possible to bring the awareness back and reenter it. This may also explain “high lucidity”, when both Awareness And [auxilary function] are available at once!

9

Ah, but here’s a question: when looking at the clock, what does your brain consider “making sense?” For the computer analogy, it would be like referring to a constant that defines making sense. The problem is, in dreams the algorithm used for dream logic is sometimes corrupted (faulty logic), so sometimes even if the clock wouldn’t make sense in RL, it does seem to in the dream.

10

Here’s an example of a clock from a dream:

03:47
05:13
127:32
blank blurry cloud

As I see this, I do not think “does this make sense”, it’s not even verbalized. It doesn’t matter what makes sense. it just triggers lucidity. There’s no logical effort from me whatsoever, the brain does this by itself.

The clock could be digital (easier) or analog (harder), it’s irregular behavior is recognized intuitively.

From my experience, if I’m aware enough to even think “is this a dream?” I usually know the answer or find out pretty quickly. It could be due to those awareness excercises and self hypnosis sessions I did over the years.

Could it be that the answer is not logic itself, but rather activation of a certain area of the brain which might also be involved in logic? There’s some research into the Pre Frontal Cortex having influence on lucid dreaming.

11

Thinking of what I just posted, it appears to me that your original question can be re-phrased to “what is a reality check” or “what actually triggers lucidity”. This is where logic + awareness may be the correct answer.

Thinking of what a RC is - it is a focus of awareness on an object and rationally evaluating the output of the test against a known result!
Step1: attention
Step2: logic or comparison
Step3: lucidity in a dream, awareness in real life.

12

I’m going to have to agree with ninja, my friend says he has LD’s all the time and he finally told me why,“It’s not the RC’s that make me lucid, it’s my awareness, i am so aware of my surroundings and i am having LD’s every night”

So i basically need to become more aware,

can someone give me a really good example of being aware of our surroundings

13

Well, instead of doing a RC, stop for a moment and think about what you just did. Were your actions logical? Now take a look at your surroundings. Say I am in my school at passing period. I ask, “what am I doing right now?” then I’ll answer and try to think if my answer is logical (e.g. I am going to my next class. Why? The bell just rang. Does the bell signify going to my next class? Yes. How many classes? 8. Why 8? I have 7 different subjects and one SET period. What is SET? It’s like study hall. Why do you need set? So I can finish my homework in school. Why do I get homework? … And so on).

Probably a better way to answer your question Is for you to look up the Lucid Living topic (LL). It has some great info in it.

14

Thanks, but the awareness part you posted is 100% true, and is key to having LD’s. Cause my friend has a lot more not because of his RC’s, but he is aware

15

Very interesting theory. I can’t comment much as I’ve never had an LD, I’m quite new, but this definitely sounds like a valid explanation. Thanks. :smile:

16

First off, let me say I’m not trying to put you down, but what exactly does this do for anything? :neutral: Dreams have absolutely no correlation to logic from personal experiences, and while they can have logic, dreams are in no way intertwined with logic. Seeing as pink elephant may or may not trigger lucidity or any form of awareness within the dream due to the fact of many studies indicate that our logic part of our brain is practically turned off during sleep. Although we may think we are/n’t doing something logical in a dream, it may very well be completely illogical, but we just think it is logical.
For those who saw a lot of text and are skipping to the end, my main point is, dreaming really has nothing to do with logic in my opinon.

17

I do think logic is quite important in the context of having good lucidity.
For example, I’ve had a dream where I became lucid, but I then irrationally started to get one of my friends who was also a lucid dreamer to do a RC. I’ve also had a dream where I reality tested by waking myself up. It was only until I woke up and I realised the stupidity of my logic.
I believe that logic as experience goes on gets better, but it definitely can be of importance.