Interesting method that may lead to lucidity. Does this already have a name?

Hi, forgive my ignorance if I'm missing something obvious here. I don't believe I've heard this mentioned on here before, but do understand it's been a good year and a half since I've regularly studied/participated in lucid dreaming.

Last night, I went about a very odd way of using the MILD method to try to trigger a lucid dream. I have all of this documented in the last 2 paragraphs of my most recent dream journal, located here which I'll quote for ease of reading:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by celestialelixir

I had trouble falling asleep that night before dreaming. I'm sick right now, which has a lot to do with it, but I used the mantra: "I will have lucid dreams tonight" repeated about 150 times before I quit counting, just trying to keep dreaming in my mind before falling asleep. I remember trying to picture something specific as well, which was originally a giant horse*** (big enough to step on buildings), which eventually morphed into a giant cat. This may have some relation to my first dream involving cats, but I can't be sure.

***I figured trying to picture something completely unrealistic and keeping it in my mind before going to sleep might trigger that thought manifesting itself in my dreams. I figured a horse the size of king-kong is something you don't see everyday, and should immediately tell me that I'm dreaming if I were to see one. The horse ended up becoming a cat as I lost focus while succumbing to sleep, and it's possible that it did have wings; like the cat that triggered my lucid. I can't recall at this point. I'm not sure if this is a common method for triggering a lucid dream, but it's something that seems to give me results and will continue to keep trying as I document my results in my DJ

---

What I wanted to ask is if anyone else has tried this, if this is an already tried-and-true method, or if there is even any correlation between the LD I had last night and what I pictured in my head before falling asleep. All comments are appreciated, but again, please don't blow me up if I'm pointing out something seemingly obvious here. Thanks for your replies.

Yes, I've tried it. My experience: I could see the most ridiculous and unrealistic thing imaginable in a dream and not realise it's a dream.

I've tried something similar to this, but as the guy above me said, pretty much everything (In my dreams at least), is unrealistic, but my mind thinks of way to accept it as normal. Maybe in your dream, you see a giant horse, but instead of realizing you are lucid, you think, "Oh yeah, that must be what everyone's talk about, the science experiment gone wrong", or something similar. So this would generally not work too well. The only way it may help, is if you already have extremely good awareness, all the time. If you become an expert at spotting what's wrong in a dream, then this idea may work. However, I'm sure the experts would already have their own best ways of doing things. Plus there's the fact that it could not even appear, so it's quite unreliable.

I figure focusing on the object or thing before you fall asleep (just as you would a mantra) would help you to realize it as an abnormality in the dream, if it were to appear. That would be the difference between having great dream awareness, and recognizing the object as your mantra in order to trigger the LD. I guess with practice it would be best described as forcing a dream sign.

It feels similar to the reason that reality checks work, though. If seeing a 200 ft horse is normal, and wouldn't trigger lucidity in a dream (after focusing on it before you fall asleep in the real world), why then would putting your finger through your hand or breathing through a closed nose be any different? Reality checks are used to trigger lds when you have a false awakening, so I feel by the same logic it would be possible to use a visual mantra as a sort of "before-bed" reality check to trigger specific dream signs that could trigger an LD with practice. It may be coincidence, but I think there may be some substance to this :x

Did you guys both try it as a visual MILD?

That's just MILD and incubation, nothing really new. MILD is not about visual or mantra or anything like that, it's just about the creation of an association between the cue and your intention. Some people opt to visualize, some people focus on mantras, some people pratice intention, and seems you pratice into a specific cue (the horse). If it works for you, then keep trying, but don't trick yourself into thinking it's the content that turns you lucid, it's merely the connection. That way you'll know that the stronger that connection is, the more chances of getting lucid you will have.

The thing about reality checks is that they are more reliable than dream incubations. A 200ft horse may not appear in many of your dreams, but pre-existing dream signs do. Reality checks don't trigger lucidity by their own: they are responses to cues.

When saying a mantra do you say it out loud or just inside your head?

Celestialelixir, you are on the right path. The secondary visual cortices in our big brain's occipital lobe is engaged when we imagine and when we dream. This is not hocus-pocus (like binaural beats) but a scientific fact. Simply by imagining you are priming the pump for deep sleep and possibly lucid dreaming. You have successfully connected the dots, grasshopper! :shadewink:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CloudlessSky

When saying a mantra do you say it out loud or just inside your head?

---

It doesn't matter. As long as you mean it, don't just say the words.