I found on Reddit this brilliant 3-part article by johnnyhavoc2, an expert dreamer that using this method alone - without knowing about other techniques - managed to achive an incredible level of control, recall and LD-induction frequency.
If you haven't read it yet, I'm sure you'll love to read it. I intend to apply this method on top of my hands-anchor practice.
Let me know what you think.
Here it is:
PART 1 - Visualization Practices: The Cup
Preface
Before we get started I want to explain a little bit of my thought process to help explain where I get this from.
I'm a lucid dreamer of ~15 years (Currently 26), and I've made it a daily/nightly habit to develop my skills in the dream world. As it stands now I can achieve lucidity pretty much any time I dream and can recall nearly every dream I've ever had with great detail. The amount of control I have in the dream world is vast at this point--and I completely credit both my practical way of viewing dreams and the subconscious, as well as the daily practice I put my imagination through.
This post will be explaining my perspectives on the imagination and how it effects the dream state, as well as how I go about improving it.
Introduction and Goals
Through my experience with LD I've been persistent in my attempt to understand how. It has been years of effort, but I've come across a fairly simple method of improving the vividness and recall of my own dreams. (Note, this practice should also help with control, but I find the degree to which you can control your dreams is based on other things.) Essentially, I'm not going to say these will make you better, but I can honestly say that it worked for me, and makes a lot of sense!
In my experience the mind can be developed just like an athlete develops his muscle, with equal effort and diligence! Visualization techniques are everywhere, and from what I've seen they should all mostly work because the foundation is all about increasing your mind's capacity for holding relevant information.
The core of my practice involved holding an image in my mind, mentally projecting it into the real world, and interacting with that image in some way while holding as many details together as I can.
Step One - Log the Details: The Cup
Choose an image, preferably something you are very well acquainted with. There's a cup sitting next to my laptop right now, so I'll use that.
Bear with me, this is incredibly long winded, but it is this process really makes you look at the world differently. Details that you'd normally miss are laid bare, and the more you can log to memory the better you'll be able to recall it in your dreams.
Look at the cup. Soak in all the details you can. Styrofoam, white, little bubbly divots, the rim has 3 rings around it, the cylinder starts about 3.5'' in diameter reducing to about 2'', the rim is slightly stained tan with coffee, the tiny divots protrude more around the rim making it look like tiny scales, the inner band has more coffee stuck on it, inside the shadows get slightly darker, at the bottom there is a thin layer of liquid coffee that is light tan from the creamer that creates two distinct circles--an outer band where the coffee sticks to the side, and an inner pool separated by a thinner layer, there are a couple coffee grounds in the bottom and only 3 stuck on the inside walls of the cup, the straw is thin and slightly longer than the cup is tall, the straw has two thin white bands that are opposite one another and two red bands opposite one another, the red bands are much thinner, the shadow at the top of the straw is concave and stops about two mm from the lip, the coffee at the bottom of the cup where the straw touches is deeper and forms another small circle, the underside of the cup has two thin bands along the outside and several elevated parts, one of these, I'll call the north cardinal direction, is a company symbol that looks like a "w" made of three tapered rectangles, two leaning to the left and a third to the right, with a small triangle with the sides pinched in together resting between the last two rectangles slightly higher, the numbers "905" are elevated on the east cardinal direction sitting directly above a "2", at the south direction is the string "12C18" in a larger font that is also more rounded off, at the west direction is a triangle made of three arrows moving in a circular fashion around a "6" with a "PS" directly below it, in the center there is an elevated bump surrounded by a thin circle, with a pointy dot right in the center of the bump.
Step Two - Visualize: The Cup
Now close your eyes and throw the cup somewhere behind you. (Warning: this kills the cup) Take as much of the information you can remember and create the cup in your mind. Add in as many details as you can remember until the image you create begins to lose older details. When that begins to happen, STOP adding.
Next, hold that image in your head. Make it easy on yourself and try to imagine it from one perspective. Keep as many details as you can present in your mind and make sure they don't fade from the image. Try to hold this as long as you can, use your discipline to overcome the issue of getting off subject and constantly try to snap back to the image you want.
Once you get the image in your mind, and have held it for a solid 30 seconds without losing details--begin spinning the cup (Or change your perspective on it, whichever works easiest for you at first.) While moving it about always keep in mind the details you have, and for advanced imagineers (I know, I feel dirty saying it) try to utilize a stable light source and calculate the change in the shadows as it moves!
Again, always keep in mind to slow down, or stop the moment you realize that you are losing details. If this happens, make effort to put them all back in place or reduce the number of details to a manageable amount. You will be able to hold vastly more information than you think, and the more you practice the more details you'll be able to maintain.
Step Three - Interaction: The Cup
Once you get to a point where you are comfortable with moving the object around and keeping a good number of details, begin interacting with the object in your mind. Pick it up. Manipulate it, poke a hole in it then fix it, pour some liquid in it and take a sip then pour it all out or throw the contents at a wall. Try this in first person, and in third person--heck, even imagine from the perspective of the cup itself.
This stage is all about trying to hold those details in mind while exploring the possibilities of the object. As always if you begin to lose details, take a step back and slow down a bit.
Conclusion
Training in the ability to visualize and improve your imagination forms the foundation of the other steps to the methods I use. I highly suggest starting here if you have been having issues with the vividness or recall of your dreams, it can also help control but I find there are other factors involved in that.
Practice daily! Take every free moment you have and pull an image to toy around with. The more you make it habit, the more you'll realize you can hold images for much longer, with incredible clarity, and can even learn to manipulate them with great precision.
If the limitations of dreams come from our own imagination, then we should all strive daily to hone our imaginations to a razor's edge--and this is how I've done it.
I hope this helps someone!
If you haven't read it yet, I'm sure you'll love to read it. I intend to apply this method on top of my hands-anchor practice.
Let me know what you think.
Here it is:
PART 1 - Visualization Practices: The Cup
Preface
Before we get started I want to explain a little bit of my thought process to help explain where I get this from.
I'm a lucid dreamer of ~15 years (Currently 26), and I've made it a daily/nightly habit to develop my skills in the dream world. As it stands now I can achieve lucidity pretty much any time I dream and can recall nearly every dream I've ever had with great detail. The amount of control I have in the dream world is vast at this point--and I completely credit both my practical way of viewing dreams and the subconscious, as well as the daily practice I put my imagination through.
This post will be explaining my perspectives on the imagination and how it effects the dream state, as well as how I go about improving it.
Introduction and Goals
Through my experience with LD I've been persistent in my attempt to understand how. It has been years of effort, but I've come across a fairly simple method of improving the vividness and recall of my own dreams. (Note, this practice should also help with control, but I find the degree to which you can control your dreams is based on other things.) Essentially, I'm not going to say these will make you better, but I can honestly say that it worked for me, and makes a lot of sense!
In my experience the mind can be developed just like an athlete develops his muscle, with equal effort and diligence! Visualization techniques are everywhere, and from what I've seen they should all mostly work because the foundation is all about increasing your mind's capacity for holding relevant information.
The core of my practice involved holding an image in my mind, mentally projecting it into the real world, and interacting with that image in some way while holding as many details together as I can.
Step One - Log the Details: The Cup
Choose an image, preferably something you are very well acquainted with. There's a cup sitting next to my laptop right now, so I'll use that.
Bear with me, this is incredibly long winded, but it is this process really makes you look at the world differently. Details that you'd normally miss are laid bare, and the more you can log to memory the better you'll be able to recall it in your dreams.
Look at the cup. Soak in all the details you can. Styrofoam, white, little bubbly divots, the rim has 3 rings around it, the cylinder starts about 3.5'' in diameter reducing to about 2'', the rim is slightly stained tan with coffee, the tiny divots protrude more around the rim making it look like tiny scales, the inner band has more coffee stuck on it, inside the shadows get slightly darker, at the bottom there is a thin layer of liquid coffee that is light tan from the creamer that creates two distinct circles--an outer band where the coffee sticks to the side, and an inner pool separated by a thinner layer, there are a couple coffee grounds in the bottom and only 3 stuck on the inside walls of the cup, the straw is thin and slightly longer than the cup is tall, the straw has two thin white bands that are opposite one another and two red bands opposite one another, the red bands are much thinner, the shadow at the top of the straw is concave and stops about two mm from the lip, the coffee at the bottom of the cup where the straw touches is deeper and forms another small circle, the underside of the cup has two thin bands along the outside and several elevated parts, one of these, I'll call the north cardinal direction, is a company symbol that looks like a "w" made of three tapered rectangles, two leaning to the left and a third to the right, with a small triangle with the sides pinched in together resting between the last two rectangles slightly higher, the numbers "905" are elevated on the east cardinal direction sitting directly above a "2", at the south direction is the string "12C18" in a larger font that is also more rounded off, at the west direction is a triangle made of three arrows moving in a circular fashion around a "6" with a "PS" directly below it, in the center there is an elevated bump surrounded by a thin circle, with a pointy dot right in the center of the bump.
Step Two - Visualize: The Cup
Now close your eyes and throw the cup somewhere behind you. (Warning: this kills the cup) Take as much of the information you can remember and create the cup in your mind. Add in as many details as you can remember until the image you create begins to lose older details. When that begins to happen, STOP adding.
Next, hold that image in your head. Make it easy on yourself and try to imagine it from one perspective. Keep as many details as you can present in your mind and make sure they don't fade from the image. Try to hold this as long as you can, use your discipline to overcome the issue of getting off subject and constantly try to snap back to the image you want.
Once you get the image in your mind, and have held it for a solid 30 seconds without losing details--begin spinning the cup (Or change your perspective on it, whichever works easiest for you at first.) While moving it about always keep in mind the details you have, and for advanced imagineers (I know, I feel dirty saying it) try to utilize a stable light source and calculate the change in the shadows as it moves!
Again, always keep in mind to slow down, or stop the moment you realize that you are losing details. If this happens, make effort to put them all back in place or reduce the number of details to a manageable amount. You will be able to hold vastly more information than you think, and the more you practice the more details you'll be able to maintain.
Step Three - Interaction: The Cup
Once you get to a point where you are comfortable with moving the object around and keeping a good number of details, begin interacting with the object in your mind. Pick it up. Manipulate it, poke a hole in it then fix it, pour some liquid in it and take a sip then pour it all out or throw the contents at a wall. Try this in first person, and in third person--heck, even imagine from the perspective of the cup itself.
This stage is all about trying to hold those details in mind while exploring the possibilities of the object. As always if you begin to lose details, take a step back and slow down a bit.
Conclusion
Training in the ability to visualize and improve your imagination forms the foundation of the other steps to the methods I use. I highly suggest starting here if you have been having issues with the vividness or recall of your dreams, it can also help control but I find there are other factors involved in that.
Practice daily! Take every free moment you have and pull an image to toy around with. The more you make it habit, the more you'll realize you can hold images for much longer, with incredible clarity, and can even learn to manipulate them with great precision.
If the limitations of dreams come from our own imagination, then we should all strive daily to hone our imaginations to a razor's edge--and this is how I've done it.
I hope this helps someone!
via Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views - Attaining Lucidity https://ift.tt/2Ufo4TF
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