Willing yourself to do it

Quest for Lucidity
101

Personally I equate the world “belief” with “faith” exclusively and leave knowledge to its own domain, even though both lead to feelings of certainty about something. Belief/faith is when you have no body of evidence to support what you want to hold a conviction in, and is something I can’t stomache even though I hemmed and hawed and vaccilated back and forth between all sorts of quasi-faith-based practices in my early teens. If I want to have conviction in something, I have to know I can do it.

But just because I have that conviction doesn’t mean I can suddenly empower myself to do whatever the hell I want. I’ve been meditating before going to bed for about a week now, quieting all my senses and brain before telling myself several time that I will have a lucid dream and explaining to myself in detail what I’ll do to get there: recognize dream signs, do an RC, realize I’m dreaming, etc… When I do this I know that what I’m explaining to myself is completely doable, there’s no faith involved because everything I’m telling myself to do has been replicated with great success and with great scientific verifiability among a wide swath of different people and I know that there’s nothing psychologically or physiologically anomolous with me that would prevent me from acheiving the same results. When I do this autosuggestion before bed, there is no doubt in my mind.

But just willing myself to do it does not work! I have never had an inducted lucid dream, and the last spontaneous lucid dream I had was 7-8 years ago. This is the same as someone who’s been bedridden for 8 years signing up to climb Mount St. Helens and and expecting to succeed because he knows or believes he can do it. You need to have developed essential skills to use in conjuction with your indomitable willpower or else it doesn’t matter how psyched you are about getting lucid.

Sorry for maybe being a little bitter, but it hasn’t just been this last week where I’ve been trying to LD. On and off for the last 5 years I’ve been trying, when I try I try knowing that with enough hard work and effort I will achieve my goal - but that hasn’t helped me in actually achieving one because my induction skills have remained crappy and underdeveloped on the side.

Believing you’ll make it from New York to a place whose location is a mystery to you is fine, but if you don’t have a map to use to find your way, you’re pretty well buggered. Ultimately, if you’re forced to begin without the enlightening advantage of being experienced with spontaneous lucid dreams and understanding what they feel like and how to incubate them, then all the enthusiasm and belief in the world won’t be able to replace those skills.

I don’t think I’m voicing my opinion eloquently enough - maybe I’ll try again alter. Suffice it to say that I do get a little uppity around people who tell me that all my honest failures were just a result of my not “believing” in myself enough even when I know better than anyone the amount of belief I have in myself every night when I go bed telling myself without a doubt in my mind that I will have a lucid dream tonight. That’s not enough. It takes experience and knowledge of the mechanics of lucid dreams, things I have not garnered any meaningful amount of yet.

102

Spamtek, I think you’re trying to hard. Sure meditation is good for the mind and body, but it’s not necessary to will yourself into having a lucid dream. Balancing effort with ease is key to willing the induction of a lucid dream.

To be honest, all I do is just get in a comfortable position and suggest to myself once that at such and such time, I will spontaneously become aware that I am dreaming. I stop there. I don’t think about how, why or where. Just when. Then I completely change the topic of my mind and think about work, girls or games and let myself fall asleep.

I think it’s a lot more simple than you’ve anticipated.

103

Recently…my “belief” or “will” or whatever you want to call it, has really dropped. I no longer can induce a LD when I really want to, which sucks. All I can do now really with sleep, is to wake up after each dream (which I ‘programmed’ into my mind a long time ago).

So, as time went by, I became more unsatisfied with a lack of LDs…until last night.

I was working on one of the exercises in the ‘Strengthening your will’ topic. I was to stand on a chair for 5 minutes. So, I got a stop watch, stood on a chair, and pressed the button. I just tried to keep a blank mind while I stared off into nothingness. I look down at the watch, and it says 1:20 (watch is counting from 0:00 to 5:00). I wait more, then check it again, and it’s 2:20. I thought it was coincedence, but wanted to see if I could do it again. I waited, looked, and it was 3:20. I then heard a voice (subconcious??) type thing saying “isn’t it weird that you know exactly when to look at the watch?”. I looked at it again, it’s 4:20. The voice then says “Isn’t it weird you know when to stop it?”. Immediatly I stopped the watch. I look at it, and it is at exactly 5:00. :eek:

Now…that may sound like I’m crazy, lol…but I’m not! (and I don’t do drugs) The voice was more like me thinking about it, but I wasn’t the one thinking about it. Something in my mind thought about it for me, and said it out loud or something…I dunno.

Anyways…after that, I thought I had telepathic abilities or something…so I tried doing it again. This time I only went to 1 minute. I pressed the button, and I waited to hear a new thought from my mind. I hear the words “30 seconds”. I wait more, and was about to hit the stop button because I thought it was a minute, but then I hear “don’t go too soon”. So I hold off. I then hear “now!”, so I press the button. 1:00.

I can’t tell you how many times I did this last night…lol. I really really think I’m on to something. It was almost as if I was communicating with my subconcious or something…which in that case, I could probably evolve this communication and have my subconcious give me lucid dreams at will!

I’ve also been thinking about whether or not I could predict what the next card is in a deck of cards… Cus if that works out… :content:

Anyways…that’s my story. Am I looking at all of this the wrong way? Or, am I becoming a master of the mind?

104

Ok, you said that the spinning sensation leads to a LD, yet whenever I have the spinning sensation (I used to be able to get it at will, but stopped doing it and and am regaining that ability ATM but still get it pretty easily) and Ive NEVER been able to WILD successfully. I try to keep spinning, but my body feels like IT should be spinning to, so I restrain my body and the spinning stops, if I don’t, my head turns to the side (by itself) and eventually the spinning stops…

This autosuggestion seems fake… You’d have to be a robot to “program” yourself, and people who tell themselves not to forget, seem to forget most of the time. I can’t tell myself to wake up at a certain time, I have NEVER been able to wake up on time, sometimes early, mostly late. I never shoot something comepletely down without trying it first, and WILL get to trying this, but ATM it seems to be wishfull thinking and I HIGHLY doubt you.

Of course, I’ll eat my words if im wrong, but my suspicions are often right about at the very least PART of what I find fraudulent.

105

You’re right. You can’t do it, because you have doubt.

106

Ledgem, to be successful, you musn’t say that you can’t WILD or get a lucid dream. Try to believe that you can. You might think you can’t; this is what’s keeping you back. Just believe in yourself, and you will succeed, just don’t give up. When I started trying for lucid dreams, I thought I couldn’t do it. But after I learned that being optimistic and making yourself believe that you can get a lucid dream, I’m starting to get them, more and more commonly as well.

What you think and believe greatly affects your chances of becoming lucid. If you don’t believe in yourself and you don’t think you can do it, you won’t.

107

That that attitude is exactly what is keeping you from an LD. Good job man.

108

Hey Ben, that’s really strange that you happened to experience this, as my experience is very much similar!

I also am able to program myself, quite easily, to wake up at a certain time of the night. This is the skill I was referring to that may be able to help with inducing lucid dreams. For people like you and I, why not try programing our subconscious to realise that we are dreaming at a particular time, as opposed to recognising dreamsigns etc? Or perhaps even combining this approach with the regular induction techniques.

I tried this last night, giving myself the autosuggestion “At 5:30 I will perform an RC, and will realise that I am dreaming - and have a lucid dream”.
It didn’t work. :eh:
But I haven’t given up hope, and fullly believe that given enough time this technique can be perfected for those of us with the ability to program ourselves in this particular way.

Needless to say, if I have any reasonable success in this regard you can expect to hear about it. :content:

109

Snape, I’ve thought about the same thing! I just haven’t tried it yet. I’m still trying to figure out a more stable way (because what if at a set time you aren’t in REM sleep) of achieving LDing at will.

But if you get some success…I just may shoot for it :smile:

110

It is one of the small hitches with this approach - which is why I’m going through an ‘adjustment’ phase. I’m firstly autosuggesting to awaken after each REM period for one week (only just began) to get a feel for my body’s unique circadian rhythm (see my dj for the success I had last night!).
After a week of this, assuming a consistent sleep time - say of around 10:30 - and a consistent wakeup time, of around 7:30, I should have a good idea at what part of the night I am in REM sleep. Obviously between 5 and 7 is the longest REM anyway.
It’s a little hit and miss, but it with a little tweaking I do believe this could work well for those of us susceptible to autosuggestion. :content:

I really do understand how frustrated you feel Ledgem, after a year and a half of persistent attempts with various techniques, induction methods, WILD, DILD, VILD, BILD, SHMILDY KILDY you-name-it, I have had very little success with self induced lucidity.
All of mine appear to be spontaneous.
But I keep at it, and try to focus on my strengths in order to achieve my goal. It will take a lot of introspection, and possibly research into my previous hits and misses with lucidity, but I believe it’s worth it.

I will point out, however, that autosuggestion is a successful and scientifically used technique. There’s really no question as to it’s authenticity as a useful and effective method, just pick up any psycholgical text book and look up ‘autosuggestion’.
There’s just no guarentee that it works well for you, which is (i think) what you’re really frustrated about.

Just know that we’re here to support you through your frustrations, and that we really DO understand how you feel! :content:

Also, something minor - if you tell yourself “I will not forget my dreams”, you will more likely forget them than remember them. It’s quite important with autosuggestion that you use the correct words, instead you should say “I will remember my dreams”.
I have found that simply mentioning the word “forget” to my subconscious has an undesirably strong effect.

111

I HATE when people say the obvious when they don’t know, but then again I never stated this so I can’t complain about it, yet.

I have and always will, believe I can acomplish things, but when you keep trying with failure, you WILL get annoyed at some point. You can’t simply say doubt stops everything, because no matter how confident you are, there will ALWAYS be doubt, no matter what.

Btw, I HAVE had a LD, but only once, and it was spontanious. (tweak, its A lucid dream, not AN lucid dream, just a small mistake many people seem to do…).

Also, Nobody answered my question, and the one who started this thing and is all mighty and capable of “programing himself” to have LD at will whenever the hell he wants did nothing but assume I was a fool who thinks negatively, in a very broad sense.

112

There was no question put forward Ledgem. I reread your post, and am still uncertain exactly what it was that you were asking. I believe it’s healthy to be critical of techniques that you are uncertain about, there’s nothing wrong with that - but you certainly are coming across as negative, whether you mean to or not.
Maybe somebody here will be able to provide you with the assistance you are looking for if you clearly and unambiguously state your question.

113

I’m mean sometimes, but not THAT mean. After insulting somebody like that, you expect them to help you out? A lot of your posts here HAVE been negative, like Snape said. Calm down a bit buddy… the world isn’t ending tomorrow, you have more time to learn lucid dreaming.

114

You don’t have to be a robot to program yourself, and you should’t make insults to people especially in this forum. People here are only trying to help, we all desire the same goal and try to give you information which has helped them.

You need to learn to program yourself, and the best way is to practice. If you say wake up at 5am, you have to set it as an intent. You have to actually believe it, expect it, and want it. For example, if you know you had a HUGE exam tommorow morning and fell asleep, theres a good chance youd wake up before the exam begun so you wouldn’t be late. What this situation has is priority. You have to make it really important to you and your mind should obey you, at least with practice it should improve.

115

I understand where your frustration is coming from, but do know that everyone at this forum is only trying to help eachother and insults like that aren’t welcome.

It seems that your doubt, which is mostly at a subconscious level, has been accumulated over the series of failed attempts you have made in order to will yourself to have a lucid dream. In your case, I can tell that you for the most part consciously believe that you can will yourself to have a lucid dream. Well, at least you used to. Most of the self doubt and psychological toxins, that are holding you back from achieving this goal, have embedded themselves at a subconscious level. With a few particular personalities, typically the more negative and less optimistic ones, this tends to become a problem.

As far as clearing this condition up, I would recommend using subliminal sound files or CDs. They deal directly with the problem by communicating to your subconscious to override past messages or beliefs. You can find some by typing in ‘Lucid Dream Subliminals’ on google.

Sure you don’t have to use subliminals, but they will help and I can tell you that from personal experience. Other than that, good luck and keep trying!

116

Ben and Snape, what you’re describing is probably communicating with your sub-c. I’ve read about it and I do it occasionally, so I’m fairly sure thats waht is going on. One of the small things about it though, is that your Sub-c doesn’t always use words, at least in my case and many others. If you want to read more about it, this is a good source: https://www.robertpeterson.org/chap10.html

That book is also good for things related to OBEs. Its kind of a “second generation” of those books, as the Author mentions Robert Monroe many times.
https://www.robertpeterson.org/obebook.html
The main page for the free online book, if anybody is interested.

As far as programming yourself, as people have said before, it is scientifically tried and tested. It is also used in hypnosis (Post-Hypnotic suggestion) I think the reason this works is in the way that the sub-conscious works. I think it operates like a computer, doing what it is told aka programmed to do. Thus when you try and get it to do something, it is all in how you tell it. The sub-c is also very sensitive to beleif, as it won’t try and do something you have “told” it through belief is impossible.

Most of this information comes from PsiPog.net:
https://www.psipog.net/show.php?id=36
Its a site about the paranormal. They actually have a fair amount of things about OBEs, although they don’t have nearly as much as LD4all. However, they do have a bunch of stuff on telekinesis, among other things, although that seems to be the main draw. Anyways, thats just how I think the subconscious works and why you need to beleive you can do something to be able to do it.

Heres the main page:
https://www.psipog.net/
Heres the Telekinesis Vids:(Yes they could be faked, but take what stance you will)
https://www.psipog.net/media.php

117

I was tired when I made that rant, I apologise for it being insulting, had I been thinking better I would not have been so rude about it.

Im going to try that thing tonite, since I want to be up earlyer then normal, get a succesful WBTB for the first time, Have a LD then be up again before noon.

Ive been going through a rant lately, and it’s finaly over, and my confidence boomed up quite a bit. I WILL be successful!

118

Good stuff :content:
The LD4all verbal punching bags prevail, always!! Muahahahaha! :devil:

That was good reading Mad Hatter, I found it inspiring - and might try some exercises to get in touch with that ‘inner voice’. Who knows, there could be some interesting avenues of research or alternative induction techniques we could use for inducing lucidity.

119

That’s the spirit! :smile:

120

very very interesting stuff The Mad Hatter! I have already known about PsiPog.net because I used to try and do things like telekenesis… but some of this is brand new. it’s time to start researching on what I really am capable of, so that I myself can will myself to lucid dream. :smile:

thanks for all the informative links!