Hi, I am getting fed up with semi-lucidity. As I said before, I get a lot of semi-lucid dreams and I would love some advice (I would love to hear from Sivason or Sageous but every opinion is very welcome). This is going to be long, I’ll add a tldr.
As a sort of definition, semi-lucidity is some level of awareness (that I am dreaming). True lucidity is awareness of this awareness. I know and I know that I know.
To give some examples (almost all of them are very recent):
Implicit
- Lack of fear
- Lack of consequences
- Knowing this isn’t real
- Considering the dream something else - a story, daydream, game, VR
- Reflection: “I would be scared in a location like this IRL.”
- Reflection: “Really?” (towards the dreaming mind/subconscious)
- Reflection: “I like this setting.”
- Reflection: “This looks almost like exploring in my lucid dreams.”
- Indirect dream control: (in a tram) “I don’t have a ticket… Nah, it will be fine, just don’t think about a ticket inspector.”
- Direct dream control (setting-dependant)
Explicit
- Reflection: “Cool, I’ve always wanted a dream like this.”
- Reflection: “These things happen in dreams.”
- Reflection: “That’s interesting that I can feel so sad in a dream.”
- “Of course this is a dream. But how do you know that?” (to a DC)
- Storyline setting - Inception plot, machine taking me to a dream (can be false lucid)
I am ok with implicit semi-lucidity. A large percentage of my dreams is like that and I think it is just how I dream. But the explicit semi-lucidity (or almost explicit) semi-lucidity bothers me.
Usually, these dreams are seen as fitting into one of these groups: 1) Newbies who are getting closer to a real lucid, 2) Very experienced life-long lucid dreamers who get LDs often and the rest of their dreams is like this, as a side effect.
The problem is, I am neither. I have experience with dreaming but as a kid, I was perfectly happy with these semis (I actually considered them lucid before knowing better and I hadn’t realized how much more real lucids can offer, even though I’d had real lucids too). So basically, I am worried that by loving and encouraging these dreams as a kid, I created a habit for myself or a way how I dream. And that they actually prevent me from going fully lucid.
I tried to focus more on dreamsigns recently and that made it apparent - encounters with dreamsigns lead to explicit semis for me. I think “this is weird, why is this happening” and I find the answer “because it is a dream” and then I continue non-lucidly. The fact that I am dreaming is so obvious to my brain that there is no need to wake up the relevant parts of the brain. No aha moment, no need to do anything.
Imagine the strongest possible dream sign - a DC saying “this is a dream”. Out of 100 times this happens, I just can’t imagine myself saying “nah, this has to be real”, not even once. 100 times out of 100 it would be something like “of course it is”. But how many times would I be able to detach myself from the dream and go fully lucid? I don’t know but last time it happened, I went explicitly semi-lucid. I can imagine answering “yeah, so what?”.
Don’t get me wrong, I love these dreams. They have one of the best storylines and they are usually vivid and remembered well. But I have some goals and to work on these goals, I need to be lucid more often than I am. If I could turn a large portion of the explicitly semi-lucid dreams into real lucids, my frequency of LDs would increase significantly.
So, how to do that? I’ve been thinking that there has to be some MILD-ish way (intention setting, auto-suggestion and similar) how to work with it. Setting an intention to do a specific task in my dreams (RC, looking at my hands or some personal ritual like clapping my hands?) rather than just recognizing that I am dreaming?
Or am I looking at it in a completely wrong way and I am missing something fundamental? Maybe more memory - I need to remember the significance of figuring out that I am dreaming? Or simply more awareness, to think more clearly when it happens? All of the above? How would you design a daytime practice to achieve this?
As a step aside, maybe I should simply focus on DEILD? If I could have one DEILD per week and one WILD per week, I can imagine living without DILDs. But I still like something about them and would love to have some.
Tl;dr: I am getting a lot of semi-lucid dreams and want to turn at least some of them into fully lucid. What type of practice should I use?
As a sort of definition, semi-lucidity is some level of awareness (that I am dreaming). True lucidity is awareness of this awareness. I know and I know that I know.
To give some examples (almost all of them are very recent):
Implicit
- Lack of fear
- Lack of consequences
- Knowing this isn’t real
- Considering the dream something else - a story, daydream, game, VR
- Reflection: “I would be scared in a location like this IRL.”
- Reflection: “Really?” (towards the dreaming mind/subconscious)
- Reflection: “I like this setting.”
- Reflection: “This looks almost like exploring in my lucid dreams.”
- Indirect dream control: (in a tram) “I don’t have a ticket… Nah, it will be fine, just don’t think about a ticket inspector.”
- Direct dream control (setting-dependant)
Explicit
- Reflection: “Cool, I’ve always wanted a dream like this.”
- Reflection: “These things happen in dreams.”
- Reflection: “That’s interesting that I can feel so sad in a dream.”
- “Of course this is a dream. But how do you know that?” (to a DC)
- Storyline setting - Inception plot, machine taking me to a dream (can be false lucid)
I am ok with implicit semi-lucidity. A large percentage of my dreams is like that and I think it is just how I dream. But the explicit semi-lucidity (or almost explicit) semi-lucidity bothers me.
Usually, these dreams are seen as fitting into one of these groups: 1) Newbies who are getting closer to a real lucid, 2) Very experienced life-long lucid dreamers who get LDs often and the rest of their dreams is like this, as a side effect.
The problem is, I am neither. I have experience with dreaming but as a kid, I was perfectly happy with these semis (I actually considered them lucid before knowing better and I hadn’t realized how much more real lucids can offer, even though I’d had real lucids too). So basically, I am worried that by loving and encouraging these dreams as a kid, I created a habit for myself or a way how I dream. And that they actually prevent me from going fully lucid.
I tried to focus more on dreamsigns recently and that made it apparent - encounters with dreamsigns lead to explicit semis for me. I think “this is weird, why is this happening” and I find the answer “because it is a dream” and then I continue non-lucidly. The fact that I am dreaming is so obvious to my brain that there is no need to wake up the relevant parts of the brain. No aha moment, no need to do anything.
Imagine the strongest possible dream sign - a DC saying “this is a dream”. Out of 100 times this happens, I just can’t imagine myself saying “nah, this has to be real”, not even once. 100 times out of 100 it would be something like “of course it is”. But how many times would I be able to detach myself from the dream and go fully lucid? I don’t know but last time it happened, I went explicitly semi-lucid. I can imagine answering “yeah, so what?”.
Don’t get me wrong, I love these dreams. They have one of the best storylines and they are usually vivid and remembered well. But I have some goals and to work on these goals, I need to be lucid more often than I am. If I could turn a large portion of the explicitly semi-lucid dreams into real lucids, my frequency of LDs would increase significantly.
So, how to do that? I’ve been thinking that there has to be some MILD-ish way (intention setting, auto-suggestion and similar) how to work with it. Setting an intention to do a specific task in my dreams (RC, looking at my hands or some personal ritual like clapping my hands?) rather than just recognizing that I am dreaming?
Or am I looking at it in a completely wrong way and I am missing something fundamental? Maybe more memory - I need to remember the significance of figuring out that I am dreaming? Or simply more awareness, to think more clearly when it happens? All of the above? How would you design a daytime practice to achieve this?
As a step aside, maybe I should simply focus on DEILD? If I could have one DEILD per week and one WILD per week, I can imagine living without DILDs. But I still like something about them and would love to have some.
Tl;dr: I am getting a lot of semi-lucid dreams and want to turn at least some of them into fully lucid. What type of practice should I use?
via Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views - Attaining Lucidity https://ift.tt/3rjmWMS
No comments:
Post a Comment