I think these describtions actually use images, and those can be confusing if you only read the describtions and never experienced the thing itself consciously.
Willing oneself sounds like effort, with the possible negative assosciation of a scrunched up face, stress, whatever.
Programming oneself can sound kind of… well, mechanical and inhuman.
AFAIK the process of autosuggestion is one pretty much everybody uses, only without being aware of it.
Ever lerned for a test situation, or a representation you had to do, or planned ahead for a date or important meeting? And then your mind just played out how the whole situation would go wrong? You think “gods, what if I have a black out during that math exam” and you can just feel it - the sinking feeling in your stomach und the goose bumps and the slight nausea, as if you were right in the situation of blackening out.
And there you pretty much have your autosuggestion: you’re training the situation of having a black out. Which of course means that the chances to “successfully” achieve a black-out rise.
Similar for day dreams: a situation is enacted in the mind, again and again, and gets more detailed and vivid every time round. (Means that if after day-dreaming about it for years, you’ll react perfectly cool and self-confident when Shakira finally walks up to you and tells you how hot you are. )
So autosuggesting one-self to have a LD would mean imagine that it is happening, how one stays calm and slips into a Dream, becomes lucid and then starts doing… whatever. It’ll be pake and difficult to imagine at first, but it should grow more vivid with practise.
You can word it whichever way you want, it’s all the same thing. However, I like how you described it, because some may have been misled by the word choice I used. The post was definately helpful. Thank you!
Worked again! Always does. I had 2 awesome lucid dreams last night, spread about 2 or 3 hours apart from eachother. I would have had 3, but I was too engaged in what I was doing in the third one (getting ready to hang a guilty criminal) to care. I DID say, “just so you know, this is just a dream”, however, so I would remember that I had a spark of lucidity I chose to ignore.
It was cool though. In the first LD I was speeding in my Sunfire and in the 2nd one I was flying around town.
"Spare preceeded all of his Sentences with the prefix “THIS MY WISH…” followed by the description of what was desired. I’ve always felt this was a bit soft, so I tend to use “IT IS MY WILL…”*
It worked again! I’m telling you people. It never fails so long as you do it right.
I know a lot of you were misled by my choice of words when I said “will yourself to do it”. What I really meant was “let it happen”. You must suggest to yourself that it will happen at a certain time and then just relax and stop caring about it. From that moment on, gain the attitude that you don’t care if it happens or not. Let your subconscious do it’s own thing and it will work.
I use it to DILD now. It’s a lot easier. I just calculate a rough estimation of a time I will be in REM and then use it to formulate my self-suggestion such as, “During my first REM cycle, after 4:00 AM, I will spontaneously become aware that I am dreaming”.
Heheh, last night when I became lucid I was at work, a grocery store, and so I went around eating TONS of icecream. It actually tasted good too.
I am here to testify to the integrity of auto-suggestion.
(I have not read anything in this thread [ever], before today. This is just something I told myself to do.)
My 2nd LD ever, (last night), happened because before I went to sleep, I basicly told myself “Tonight. It’s just going to happen.” Then I stopped thinking about it. Then, in my dream, for no reason whatsoever (I didn’t even do a RC), I said “I’m dreaming.” What happened after that is a different story…(kaput)
I seem to be a natural with auto-suggestion, and I think I know why this is. I don’t mean to brag, but I am an extremely good liar/actor. Ever since I can remember, whenever I was lying, I truely believed in what I was fibbing about. That was the truth. So, I guess I’ve sort of already trained myself.
But, if it can work for me, it can work for anybody. Just give it a shot. Take it easy. Relax, shrug, tell yourself you’re going to LD, and just go to sleep without thinking about it. You can’t stress yourself over it too much.
You put it perfectly, Rattler. I’d also like to add that I’m a good liar too, but only when I really need to be. If I’m trying to lie to trick somebody for just a joke than I absolutley suck at it. If it’s to get me out of a lot of trouble, than I can come up with something that actually makes sense.
That’s a great idea. If I still had BWGen functioning on my computer, I would see if it made it easier or changed my results in any way. Anybody up for testing?
about this spinning business…
I’ve gotten that sensation quite a few times, but i never knew it could work to induce LD or that it was a part of WILD… Usually I have the sensation for a while but if I concentrate on it, it will fade, or often times it fades on its own, so how do I get it to be a LD?
I noticed that the BWGen usually dosent work, the one i used on my computer was pretty obvious about flashing messages and it didn’t work very well at all…so you might just want to stick to auto sugesstion.
Sometimes the spinning sensation will fade if you get too excited. Practice makes perfect. Just remember to relax and let the spinning sensation get stronger and stronger till you find a dreamscape has faded in around you.
Darxide I’m glad you switched from WILD to DILD… WILD is too difficult for some to add into a “will yourself to do it” technique.
In fact…this is exactly what I’ve done. As mentioned by TweaK (which I actually personally gave this info to), you should all try using the self hypnosis preset on the BWGEN (https://www.bwgen.com).
This is what I do (which is a compilation from all my observations and feedback about this topic…which also implements a lot from what Snape had to suggest). Right before I go to bed, I stick my headphones on and I listen to the relaxation preset on bwgen. After a few minutes, I am fully convinced my mind is open and relaxed. I then start up the complex version of the hypnosis preset (the one with multiple sounds). I wait until I feel like I’m in a trance like state, then I repeat the following: “In 5 hours, I will realize I’m dreaming.” I say this over and over again until I am fully confident that my subconcious understands. After that, I turn off bwgen, and I completely forget about the topic. I usually listen to music or something. When I’m “refreshed”…I crawl in bed and go to sleep, and that’s all!
The reason why I use the phrase where I say I will become lucid in 5 hours, is because in my study of my own subconcious, I see that the mind needs specific instructions in order for it to do what you want it to do. For instance…if you say “I want to become lucid at 4:00 am”…your subconcious MIGHT do what you want it to do, but still has a strong chance of not doing it…why? Because you didn’t specify which 4:00 am. Was it the one tomorrow? Was it the one 3 months and 2 days from now? Your mind doesn’t know! Also…if you were to say “I will become lucid tonight”…that is another problem. Most of the time, you don’t dream at night (especially if you go to bed past 12:00 am); instead, you dream in the morning (the AMs). So your mind could TRY and make you lucid when you first go to bed (if it’s still night), but it would fail because you are most likely not in a REM cycle. If you were to go to bed at 2:00 am with that same phrase, then your mind would try to get you lucid the actual night of that new day, but would still fail because of the above explanation.
So many things have to be considered before doing an autosuggestion (especially if you are one to have trouble with expecations). You have to specifically state the exact time you want it to happen, AND exactly what you want to happen. Anything less than that will only give you a worse chance.
But yeah… That’s just the way I do it. Hopefully it helps a lot of you who are still confused by this topic.
)
I’d also like to add that I’m a good liar too, but only when I really need to be. If I’m trying to lie to trick somebody for just a joke than I absolutley suck at it. If it’s to get me out of a lot of trouble, than I can come up with something that actually makes sense.