Hopefully, this is a new method of incorporating things into your dreams.
When I go to bed, I listen for 1/2 hr to binaural beats sliding from 12 Hz down to 3 Hz (I use SBaGen). During this time, I normally feel “switches”. I think those who practise b-beats know this feeling when you suddenly sink somewhere. I suppose at this moment the brain switches from one threshold frequency to another.
Last night I realised that the shift usually matches number 5 when I count from 10 to 1; I do that every time I go to bed. I do visualisations for each number; an owl is for 5 (huh, this is from mnemonic techniques).
This night I saw a flock of owls. I was even flying after one of them trying to catch it and put out the fire from its legs.
So, the idea is to anchor any simbol to the ‘switch’ by imagining it every time you feel the shift.
Yet another observation. I admit another explanation; I remember hearing a kind of a howl before I saw that owl with burning legs. Using the same SBaGen, I play three bell rings every 10 min during 2 hrs immediately before I wake up. It is possible that while I was dreaming I recognised one of them as being a howl. The subconscious mind then associated it with the image of a suffering owl. Poor bird. I might now consider visualising a bell instead of or together with an owl
Cheers.
It may well be that the owl is my spirit guide. I remember seeing myself dead through the eyes of a wolf cub in one of my dreams; who guide the wolves then?
Yes and no. You are right that this looks like a variation of an induction technique; yet this does not explain why I saw only owls and none of other nine objects. This is the third month I do this counting together with binaural beats after I go to bed. Can’t remember a single time any of these ten things entering my dreams.
I find one big problem with visualisation techniques. They all require an emotional response. The more you repeat visualisation of a certain object, the more common it becomes to you subconscious mind (SM), the less it feels necessary to spend its valuable dream-time on this object. SM is very wary of this time as it needs it to process the information it received during the day by comparing it to its database. Essentially, it creates new links between different mental objects. Our memory is based on this associative process.
For example, my last ‘discovery’ of that day was that that ‘shift’ happens when I come to 5 (owl). (Shift happens, huh-huh). SM was glad to make its own discovery that the sounds of the bell resemble howling. However, to filter this connection from others that are less important (why not associate the rings with cows (7) - I can easily picture cows with bells on their necks!!), SM used the emotional response, however slight, that I got when I realised that 5 corresponds to the shift.
If this is how it works, then I was wrong to suppose that because similar shifts occur when you move from one type of sleep to another, they might trigger an associated image of owl.
I now feel like a dog catching its own tail. (Besides, ‘dog’ is for 17. You are in the Matrix, you know). No matter how hard and systematically you think about something particular, SM won’t bother about it as it focuses just on subtle links that escape your attention when you are awake and measuring them against the emotions they evoke in you. Once it brings such a link to the surface, the job is done, the file is closed and it will not come back to the same issue again.
However, this gives hope for a workable technique that would combine all these factors:
every time you exercise it, you must include new objects;
these objects must be emotionally important for you;
they must be linked to some other familiar objects (intermediaries);
each intermediary must be connected to the question ‘Am I dreaming?’.
I’ll try to do this:
I’ll use the same numbers from 10 to 1 as the intermediaries;
I’ll be thinking of 10 new things or events that happened to me during the day and that I feel most strongly about;
then I’ll associate each of the intermediaries with each of the new events and one common object that would symbolise the dream question. I think it should be something like a large pillow; if you have any other ideas, let me know.
In the future, I’ll try to add one more factor. I am thinking of making a collection of sounds that correspond to the intermediaries and playing them randomly before I wake up. If you know where to find such a database of mp3s online and a software that can play them randomly, I’d really appreciate it if you post a link.
I finally managed to get something into my dreams!!! Unfortunately, it did not work with owls.
Thunders work! I made a track where thunders crack every now and then for about 6 min. I play it at night together with some quiet tracks (put them all together on a playlist in Realplayer).
I tried it over two last nights. I recall three dreams about rain; in the last one, I just tossed away my brolly once I realised that it was a dream!
Now during the day I play a looped track with the sounds of a summer meadow and a single bolt of thunder to do RC’s.
Yes, as a matter of fact, he does. Every second of every day.
This does seem somewhat like a variation on the usual Visualization Induction technique; it’s as if you’re placing emphasis on the thing you want to induct by visualizing it right as the “shift” occurs. I’m interested to see how this works out; I’ve already got a small collection of binaural beats, so if it works well, I’ll give it a try.
