Thread: The naturality of lucid dreaming...?

Hi there!

I've talked about this to several people before, so why not bring this up over to DV.

One of the least used "habits" when trying to LD, is how natural it is for our own body to dream I believe.
What exactly does that mean? Well, we have forgotten that as humans we have a natural ability to dream.

Truly, I don't remember many people journaling anymore in order to search for the "natural" part of their dreams, but rather it is more of a hunt to find a dreamsign or whatever may be useful to create a RC. And while a dream sign seems to be the most natural thing in the world, it is not for each dreamer.

Imagine that you discover that during dreams, your thought process is always linked to doors, but instead of using it in the normal sense, such as making doors your dream sign, you try to discover the schema of your mind behind that, in this case imagine that the link is actually a "next action" thing? And as such, next thing we know the person is trying no longer to RC when they see a door, instead they try to increase their general awareness over the actions they take during the day, thus making that appear in dreams as the "next action" dream sign and makes them become lucid much more often?

What I'm trying to convey is, we as dreamers are supposed to follow the natural lead of our own dream system, rather than try to force and change it onto something new, which generally causes stress and makes it harder to get lucid, creating problems of consistency for example.

One good example I can think of right now.
Both me and Azul use the gravity RC, both me and Azul got good results with it resulting in nightly lucidity.
Why did it work for both of use?

No matter how much the technique was developed by me, always will insist that anyone trying it must modify it in order to suit their needs!
Why? Simple. Because we are both different people, different dreamers; why would the same technique have to be followed on the same manner, if it is not the same person trying it? Focusing on my whole body all day long with gravity is just the "natural" way for me to work with it, while for Azul it was to focus on his hands.

It is only natural that different people will need a different technique and must use all of the same ones in different manners, after all it is not like they are all equal. And what IMO is lost, is the ability to read through dreams in order to find that natural part of oneself, lying in wait to make that path towards lucity all the easier, because rather than building a new bridge one is just learning how to cross the one that already exists. But we don't search for the bridge, rather we just try to make a new one if possible.

What do others think about it? How many people have tried to find this natural bridge and tried to cross it? If so, how did it go?
Opinions? Anyone who would be willing to try and use this as their "method" to become lucid?
All I am trying to say is, why not let the natural schema of both your waking life and dreaming life take the lead through the life adventure that is lucid dreaming and see how it goes, maybe it isn't such a bad idea?

I naturally have false awakenings so I sometimes put some attention into catching them to turn them in to LDs. So, I suppose I've found a natural bridge and have tried to catch it. Interestingly, I think almost half of my LDs are caught false awakenings but I only catch about half of the false awakenings I have. I don't have false awakenings every day though, and sometimes I go through false awakening dry spells which force me to become lucid in other ways. Focusing on this natural bridge to lucid dreams works great when that natural bridge is there, but I hate to be dependent on that bridge to LDs when it's not.

During dreams, people generally need proof that they're dreaming in order to become lucid. That's what dream signs and RCs are for. I wonder if, while DJing, writing down and emphasizing the proof of dreaming that was focused on during the dream but not identified as such would help people find their natural bridge to lucid dreams.

Originally Posted by dolphin

I naturally have false awakenings so I sometimes put some attention into catching them to turn them in to LDs. So, I suppose I've found a natural bridge and have tried to catch it. Interestingly, I think almost half of my LDs are caught false awakenings but I only catch about half of the false awakenings I have. I don't have false awakenings every day though, and sometimes I go through false awakening dry spells which force me to become lucid in other ways. Focusing on this natural bridge to lucid dreams works great when that natural bridge is there, but I hate to be dependent on that bridge to LDs when it's not.

During dreams, people generally need proof that they're dreaming in order to become lucid. That's what dream signs and RCs are for. I wonder if, while DJing, writing down and emphasizing the proof of dreaming that was focused on during the dream but not identified as such would help people find their natural bridge to lucid dreams.

Seriously <.<...

Oh well whatever.

This is a complex question. I've spent some time with AD/RC (all day RC) based on my own dreaming tendencies (location and object awareness), but these are a bit problematic in that they require high level thinking and reflection in order to operate, and while I had some success with them after a few months, I never felt like I had the ramp-up of building success that I should have. Perhaps I should have given them more time. One reason to try something like gravity which may not be an existing dream feature in one's dreams is that is has the advantage that it is a "feeling" that does not involve any sort of complex reflection and can work under all dreaming circumstances (in the dark, etc.).

I'm not sure anybody really knows exactly how LDing works. It is a complex interplay of many factors. I've thought for some while that successful AD/RC approaches like what you, Hukif, do actually may be in large part dream incubation: by thinking about gravity all the time, and associating this thought with lucid dreaming, you actually make the gravity feeling appear in dreams. That would fit the delay of weeks/months that it takes to get started. But that's just a theory.

I know that when I tried breathing awareness for a while, I started having breathing-focused events in dreams.

For me, it's pretty tricky, because I don't seem to have any sort of high frequency reoccurring patterns in dreams that don't require evaluating complex thoughts like evaluating social interactions or location. Almost all my main dreams are now very mundane with only highly subtle dream-like qualities. Finding a reliable, reoccurring, simple/straightforward notion to make into a dream recognition event simply from reviewing dreams doesn't seem to lead to any results. That's why I instead try making some that seem plausible, with the hope that by thinking about them for long enough, this will incubate their occurrence in dreams.

I think this is great, and something every lucid dreamer should realize. I've noticed in almost all of my dreams I get really deep emotions, often being more negative such as worry or sadness. If I'm aware of my emotions durring the day, and think about them, then in dreams, I'll have awarness of my emotions, and realize that it doesn't make sense that I'm having them. I'm definitely going to change my awarness practice now. Thanks.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!