*~* V-WILD : The foundations *~*

V-WILD : The foundations

Intro:

The V-WILD (Visual WILD) is a classification of techniques that use some sort of visualization in order to induce a lucid dream from the waking state. This is attainable by everyone, even those who think they don't have good visualization ability.

To provide a brief overview, the V-WILD usually consists of 3 main stages.

1. The Spark
The spark is what you use to begin the induction. You visualize yourself inside a dreamscape of some sort. To do so, you often use visualization aids and innate visualization ability as discussed below.

2. The stabilization
In the stabilization stage, you explore and interact with your visualized dream world letting it become concrete around you.

3. Transition to lucidity
The final stage consists of you recognizing that the dream world has stabilized (you no longer have to assist in it's continued existence). This is often signified by the existence of things in the dream world that you did not anticipate (ie. like a normal dream, they did not pass through your consciousness on their way to existence as opposed to in the visualization where most things do *but not all*)

I will not be concentrating on the progression of these stages or a rigorous step-by-step technique for V-WILD in this thread. Instead, I will be describing the necessary things to complete the stages as a whole. If you want a more rigorous, sequential model, there are many V-WILD and VILD techs in the forum. You will be able to apply the concepts discussed in this thread to any of those techniques to obtain good results.

Let us begin then...

Teaching someone (namely, at the moment, you) how to V-WILD is akin to teaching them how to wiggle their ears. Everyone has the muscles to wiggle them, the only roadblock is figuring out how. This can be harder then (at first) expected.... How do you explain to somebody how to move the muscles in their ears? Hell, how do you explain to yourself how you move the muscles in your ears (or move any other muscle, for that matter)? The best you can do is wiggle your ears and say “Well, I sorta just do it like this”.

To be fair, it's not a perfect metaphor. To be a good metaphor, you would have to say that you are wiggling ears that you cannot touch, see or feel and that you have no other real connection to apart from the fact that you know the muscles exist. Everything having to do with a lucid dream is, by definition, intangible.

Learning visualization:

Now that I've totally freaked you out with a pretty bleak picture it's time for the good news. There is hope. The rest of this thread is dedicated to talking about how this roadblock can be overcome. And if you succeed, visualization and the associated lucid inducing properties of it can become almost as innate as wiggling your ears. The risk? A bit of wasted time and experience gained is the worst case scenario. I'd really recommend you give this at least a thought and consideration.

Let me start with a definition so that I don't have to refer to wiggling ears every time I talk about it.

Conceptual: I use the term conceptual to describe anything to which we have a solid connection (“understanding”, even) but we cannot describe it in any of the classic ways (visually, orally ... etc). In other words, it is almost as if it is intangible to our mind. To help you understand, here are some examples: Moving your muscles is conceptual. You can use it and you have the mental connection to it, but it escapes analysis or description. Another good example is when you are trying to think of a word you want but it escapes you. You know what you mean even though you cannot describe it fully.

Visualization is conceptual. We cannot describe how we do it to others, or even to ourselves but it is still a strong part of us and we have a strong mental connection to it. It happens every time we sleep, every time we dream. Should conscious awareness cause part of our skill set to suddenly not exist? NO! We only don't quite know how to use it while awake. Returning to the previous metaphor, we could wiggle our ears in our sleep, but still never be able to wiggle them while awake. We can all visualize very well, the only question is how to invoke is consciously.

So, where does one start to try and get visualization ability? Well, thankfully we all have ways to get some sort of image in your head. This includes (but is not limited to) day dreaming, recalling visual memories, imagining a scene in your head, etc... Take a second and do one of these methods now. Not to a hardcore degree, just try and see something in your head, even if it is just a visual memory.

Done? Good. By doing the above, you have just wiggled your metaphorical ears. It's not quite in the way that you wanted, and doesn't quite mean you can do it the way you want on command, but it should show you how very possible conscious control over visualization is for you.

The "gut":

One thing is still unanswered; How does one complete the gap to control? What mechanism inside your head could you possibly use to issue conceptual commands to something you can't (currently) issue commands to? It turns out that there is something that fits the bill almost perfectly! You, if asked to describe it, would probably call it your gut or your whim. Think about the insanity of the gut under normal circumstances. It is that little itching in the back of your head that often tells you to do something you can't quite exactly describe for reasons you can't quite describe. These both fit the bill of being conceptual constructs. The only problem being, the gut sometimes seems to be an entity unto itself. We don't really control the gut, it often seems to just want to do it's own thing. The result of this? Any visualizations springing from it will have a tendency to be be unpredictable, weird, and not really controlled. A small price to pay, however. And perhaps even a blessing. New and unique ideas always seem to be more limited then you would like them to be when you are trying to think of a dream scene.

Has anyone ever told you to just “Go with the flow of the WILD”? It is a very prominent and common piece of advice, especially in relation to visualization. They are essentially imploring you to use your gut to help generate your visualizations. Of course, this is often mis-interpreted and therefore not used to it's full potential. Therefore, I say this to you now; Go with your gut and let it lead you through the hoops of visualization. It will do essentially all the work for you.

How do you go with your gut? This is the part where I stop holding your hand and essentially implore you to do some exploring on your own. The gut is, by nature, a conceptual construct in our mind. Therefore, it escapes description and definite analysis. The best I can do is help you recognize when to “use the gut”. (I use that wording sparingly, you don't really “use” it in the normal sense of the word). You have an innate relation to your gut, however, so it should not give you too much grief as long as you use a healthy dose of introspection.

So, what are the situations that the gut comes into play? Let me illustrate some examples. Imagine you are visualizing yourself standing outside your house on the road. Suddenly you wonder “Wait, I'm on the road... there might be a car coming!” If you turn around anticipating a car, it will be there. It will even be the exact make, model and color of car that you were afraid of and it will be one of the most vivid cars you ever saw. Let me decompose the situation. At the moment that you thought/worried you might get hit, your visualization center was primed with the concept of a car (it's look, shape and associated features). By allowing that thought into the dream and shifting your consciousness to it, you fed off the vivid image that was provided by what we can best describe as “the gut”. The worst thing that you could do in that situation is think “This is my dream, I don't care about cars coming to hit me...” then discard the thought.

Continuing that example, your next thoughts will probably be along the lines of “Holy shit, there's a car coming towards me, what do I do?”. Your gut will probably have answers for that too. Just do what comes to mind first. Some example actions would be diving out of the way, pounding down on the hood of the car and stopping it in a superhero-esqe fashion or even just standing there like a deer in the headlights and getting hit. Whatever comes to your head from your “gut” is what you will be primed to do and primed to see. This is what you should attempt to go with, even if it is the third option. Often your options will be sub-optimal (an under exaggeration, I know. Getting hit is less then sub-optimal). You should go along with what you are primed to do anyway.

After time, you should learn to prime yourself to do the actions that you want to do and thus be able to control the visualization in the way that you want it to go. Note that you shouldn't sit around *trying* to do so. It should come instinctively when it does. The above example takes place in the order of split seconds, not seconds.

Putting it all together:

So, how does it all wrap together then? First you should imagine yourself in some sort of scene. You have a few options with this one. You can imagine yourself in a familiar location or you can call your gut to duty straight from the start and simply go with what jumps to mind when I say the word “scene”. Then, you should look around and explore. Take your instincts when you get them. If you wonder what is over in the distance, go and try to find out! Avoid taking the “I have no direction/need for direction” stance (but don't by hyperactive, either). If you see people, say hi. Figure out what oddities are happening in this dream world. Let it take shape and construct itself as you learn more about it. If taken straight from your mental schema through your gut, it will be a strong world indeed. After a while you will have a choice. Stick straight to the dream and the plot that is inevitably forming and probably fall down to a semi-lucid or even non-lucid state or break free from the dream plot and do the lucid hijinks you had in mind. Note that if you never make the choice to stop exploring, learning and absorbing the dream world, you are almost guaranteed to lose at least a little lucidity. (Although, these dreams can be VERY enjoyable and VERY vivid all the same)

Final notes:

Please note that this thread does not really hope to boast a true, full technique for V-WILD. It is more of a complement to all the existing techs and your tech. Yes, that is right.... YOUR technique for V-WILD. Almost everyone who I have met has had a different method of V-WILD. Some find it is best to keep moving and never stop, others find that they should find a beautiful place then take their time and explore it, others say that they visualize best in familiar places such as their home. Once you start to try and V-WILD you will learn what is best for you. Trust your own intuition above what anyone else says, even what I say because it's more likely that you interpreted me wrong or even that I wasn't quite correct then what your experience is telling you and what seems to work for you is wrong.

Pull from other resources! I cannot stress this enough! WILDing is fully modular. This means you can mix and match strong points from most existing techs into something that works great. For example, DEILD time dream induction and dream re-entry work amazingly well with the V-WILD. This site has techs for relaxation, dream supplements, when to attempt induction, how to enter favorable body states, ways to distract your awareness, ways to concentrate your awareness... and the list goes on. As flattered as I would be if you used this as the end-all know all guide, please don't. It's silly to get all your info from one source. Learn, find out all the info you can get then experiment and find what works for you. Very VERY few people who LD on a normal basis do so by following another person's tech (or even their own) word for word.

If you fail at first, don't look at it as a sign that you can't do it. Think of it as a stepping stone to success. When you get it wrong, learn from it and then don't get it wrong the same way next time around. Eventually, you will get it right, even if by accident. If you feel like you aren't making any progress, just go to bed (or wake up, depending on when you are trying it)

Comments and criticisms always welcome.

Ah, so, I read through the whole thing. This seems to be less of a step-by-step technique, and more of a base for a technique, and how to find one's own way to do it. Pretty good description. However, someone who hasn't read through a VILD/V-WILD thread might have some trouble getting the point of this. Either way, it's good advice for when I actually start practicing V-WILD.

Very nice piece of writing (don't see enough of that on Dreamviews nowadays, good use of robust metaphors, easy-to-follow orginization of thought in sentences and tutorial as a whole), and a great tutorial, to boot! I do have one question, however...

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The worst thing that you could do in that situation is think “This is my dream, I don't care about cars coming to hit me...” then discard the thought.

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Are you warning against the thought, or against the discard of the thought or the car? Because, I really do like this thought. It can be used to face nightmares, and it is a sign of higher lucidity. Discarding the thought of the car completely is probably a worse idea--it might not work in a dream to rid yourself of the car, and it hurts your visualization techniques.

I just want some clarification~

This helped me. Thanks

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Originally Posted by pojmaster17q

Ah, so, I read through the whole thing. This seems to be less of a step-by-step technique, and more of a base for a technique, and how to find one's own way to do it. Pretty good description. However, someone who hasn't read through a VILD/V-WILD thread might have some trouble getting the point of this. Either way, it's good advice for when I actually start practicing V-WILD.

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Hmm, I see your point. I may have to provide more of a basis for newbies especially. I was never really good at the "Hey you guest lurker! Here's an easy step by step tutorial that won't actually get you anywhere guarentees you an LD!" =P One thing I REALLY hope above all from the thread is, however, that people will use this info to create those sorts of techs (citing this thread, of course ;P) (and one of the few techs that actually work well).

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Originally Posted by Abra

Very nice piece of writing (don't see enough of that on Dreamviews nowadays, good use of robust metaphors, easy-to-follow orginization of thought in sentences and tutorial as a whole), and a great tutorial, to boot! I do have one question, however...

Are you warning against the thought, or against the discard of the thought or the car? Because, I really do like this thought. It can be used to face nightmares, and it is a sign of higher lucidity. Discarding the thought of the car completely is probably a worse idea--it might not work in a dream to rid yourself of the car, and it hurts your visualization techniques.

I just want some clarification~

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You want to avoid discarding the thought of the car. An impartial stance can work wonders in nightmares and once you are in a lucid dream but it usually puts the shit to the fan blade when you are inducing one (especially early on). Embrace and encourage the spontaneity of your mind =D.

EDIT: beefed up the intro a little for the less experienced crowd, probably gonna do a re-write later but it suffices for now

I do have a question though. Every time I am about to transition the dream fades and I fail.... Do you know anything that would help me?

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Originally Posted by hellohihello

I do have a question though. Every time I am about to transition the dream fades and I fail.... Do you know anything that would help me?

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That would mean it didn't get stabilized.

I can't give you a definitive road marker for when you can transition (the above is just approximations/generalizations), you'll know once you've done it once when you can go to full lucid. Now, though.... you know when it is too early ;P

Thanks :)

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Originally Posted by hellohihello

Thanks :)

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have you had any luck? =D

Yup been trying this out though
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...40#post1044640

It makes me wake up so it's perfect to start visualizing. I only succeeded one time though, my rem is to late in the morning so I have a bunch of distractions. When I stop trying that technique, I'll try this from the start.

Troubleshooting needed! My "gut" always generates scary visions when I let it go crazy. Stupid stuff, but it is sort to go into a trance when there is a vivid picture of a rotting skull in your mind's eye.

hello! beautiful post, I will try tonight...
I have a doubt! I don't understand this

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Note that if you never make the choice to stop exploring, learning and absorbing the dream world, you are almost guaranteed to lose at least a little lucidity.

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Originally Posted by Ryuinfinity

Troubleshooting needed! My "gut" always generates scary visions when I let it go crazy. Stupid stuff, but it is sort to go into a trance when there is a vivid picture of a rotting skull in your mind's eye.

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Anything you don't like, you can actively work to destroy. First, let it into existence then think "Now, how am I going to go about getting rid of this?" First thing that pops into my head is just to fire a rocket at it and that'll do the trick. (don't worry about materializing the rocket launcher.. If you are primed with the action of firing a rocket, it'll take care of itself).

Otherwise, you don't need to let it get away with absolutely anything. If you deem it necessary, exercise restraint on scary things. But still remember, you are invulnerable, omnipotent, all powerful and have no consequence in the dream world. Facing off with constructs of your gut can do you no harm and is GREAT training for visualization control. If you can, at a whim, invent a way to get rid of/vanquish something scary then you can also, at a whim... well... do essentially anything as far as visualization is concerned.

But, you don't need that power to fight your gut's constructs. Your gut knows how to fight your gut. As soon as you are primed with the adverse concept, you are also primed with it's weaknesses. It's part of your mental schemata of it. You should have no problem vanquishing the skull or anything similar.

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Originally Posted by Mariano

hello! beautiful post, I will try tonight...
I have a doubt! I don't understand this

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Usually, when you are V-WILDing you fall into and take interest in the dreamscape around you. Otherwise, it might never stabilize. There must be a conscious thought, decision, or reminder about lucidity or you will just stay in this mind state. In this mind state, you will eventually forget entirely about lucidity and become wrapped up in the dream. Of course, you will probably never abandon the stance that you can solve any problem just by visualizing a solution and thus this will often just go to a semi-lucid instead of a non-lucid (see the levels of lucidity tutorial in my sig if you want more info). I reccommend, when you feel ready, just stating "this is a dream".

ooh, I see, that's perfect...
in fact, when I visualize for fun, before bed, in my visualizations I say " this is a dream!!"

something like that.
anyways...great great thread , it's a push up for me....!

Very well written, and provides some very good tips.

I liked the way you put it about visualization being hard to explain. It's true that overall the very base ideas about visualization are abstract and best left to the person who is attempting, not to say that guidelines cannot be given.

I sometimes use words like feeling and concept to explain how I visualize best, but they can mean diffrent things to diffrent people because these terms are reference to personal things we cannot share.


Also good point about that if we visualize so vividly well asleep there is no reason we shouldn't beable to start it from the waking state. I tell myself this all the time.

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Originally Posted by LucidDreamGod

I liked the way you put it about visualization being hard to explain. It's true that overall the very base ideas about visualization are abstract and best left to the person who is attempting, not to say that guidelines cannot be given.

I sometimes use words like feeling and concept to explain how I visualize best, but they can mean diffrent things to diffrent people because these terms are reference to personal things we cannot share.


Also good point about that if we visualize so vividly well asleep there is no reason we shouldn't beable to start it from the waking state. I tell myself this all the time.

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Thanks =)

Hope you have luck with this =D. I know you, of all people, have already figured out alot of your personnel V-WILD strong points.

Please. Let me join this discussion with few questions:

OK. We have a term called gut {I really dont know what the translation into my language is, but as i understood from your post, it seems to be the "force" which automatically constructs sensoric experience for me}. According to what i know about my attempts at visualisation, it really seem, that the one wanting to learn how to visualise must really understand, what are the rules under which visualisation works. As you brilliantly described, we should learn how to use our gut for our needs.

Please. Let me play with this word a little. For sake of making matters more concrete. Lets just imagine this gut as a person who provides me with images and sounds. Lets name him G. If we want to collaborate with G for our own purposes, we have to build some kind of communication interface. In real life, that would mean, that if I want to use services of G, i have to first understand him, give him some time so he opens and finding a way, how to tell him, what I want from him, without distracting him or being rude to him.

Lets say {hypotetically}, G was a person. My questions would be:
1. What should I avoid, when communicating with G?
2. How would G inform me, he is not satisfied with our collaboration?
3. What would G like as a present? What would make him happy?
4. Assuming, G is a very simple person and I really dont understand the language he speaks. What should be the words we should agree upon first?
5. Assuming, G loves freedom and doesnt want to be forced into collaboration, how would you persuate him?

I know, it might sound silly at first, but really if we make this abstraction, it really shifts the problem of visualisation into plane we are more accustomed to, the plane of human relations. I cannot really measure how much details i lost while performing this shift, yet. For me it is really important to find communication interface with my visualization faculty represented this or that way.

What if inputs into visualization faculty in time t would be one of this messages?

OUT(x) = Output from Visualisation faculty in time x
INP(x) = Input into Visualisation faculty in time x

//simple messages
INP(t) = ACCEPT(OUT(t-1))
INP(t) = REJECT(OUT(t-1))
INP(t) = ALTER(OUT(t-1))

where ACCEPT, ALTER, REJECT are basic messages sent to visualization faculty from consciousness
ACCEPT - Consciousness accepts output from visualisation faculty
REJECT - Consciousness rejects output from visualisation faculty
ALTER - Consciousnes requests change in output


//complex messages
FOCUS(OUT(t-1)) = ACCEPT(OUT(t-1)) AND ALTER(OUT(t-1))
SWAP(OUT(t-1)) = REJECT(OUT(t-1)) AND ALTER(OUT(t-1))
LEAVE(OUT(t-1)) = ACCEPT(OUT(t-1)) AND NOT(ALTER(OUT(t-1)))
LEAVE(OUT(t-1)) = REJECT(OUT(t-1)) AND NOT(ALTER(OUT(t-1)))

complex messages would be:
FOCUS - Consciousness accepts previous output as reference and requests alteration of next output, yet still remaining in context of previous output. This simply means, if you take a look at something withing generated scena. If you touch something what is in the scena generated in previous step. (Equivalent to observing)
SWAP - Consciousness does not accept previous output as reference, trying to force changes into next output which are not compliant with generated state, forcing Visualisation faculty to restart generating scene. This simply means, that you simply eighter dont agree with what you see or you would like to see something else and you try to force yourself to see what you expect. (Equivalent to direct control above visualisation)
LEAVE - Consciousness has two ways how not to alter next output:
1. accepting the input as reality and letting it be (Equivalent to accepting the generated reality as your current reference reality)
2. not accepting the input as reality and letting it be (Equivalent to knowing, that generated output is not real, yet letting continue, go with the flow)

This complex messages if sent to the visualisation faculty cause change stability of input in next steps:

INP(t) = FOCUS(OUT(t-1)) => STABILITY(OUT(t+1)) > STABILITY(OUT(t-1))
INP(t) = SWAP(OUT(t-1)) => STABILITY(OUT(t+1)) < STABILITY(OUT(t-1))
INP(t) = LEAVE(OUT(t-1)) => STABILITY(OUT(t+1)) >= STABILITY(OUT(t-1))

It simply show, how visualisation faculty responds to some messages sent from consciousness. This helps to describe the stability of next output according to reaction to previous output. Generally speaking, if consciousness communicates in a way, which does not radically change context currently being generated in visualisation faculty, visualisation faculty tends to provide more solid and stable imagery. And vice versa, if the consciousness requires constant swapping of context, changing the topic of visualisation or negating facts previously generated, stability shrinks, and the process must start anew.

According to my observations: How LEAVE message affects affects stability of visualisation construct depends directly on current awareness level and time of the day. In REM, visualisation faculty has pretty significant inertia leading to self stabilisation of the scene.

more on this here >> http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=61525

I hope, this does not lead to misunderstanding. This should be some kind of state machine view on visualisation, which can easily be extended to other aspects of visualisation, not only stability of result.

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Originally Posted by adraw

Please. Let me join this discussion with few questions:

OK. We have a term called gut {I really dont know what the translation into my language is, but as i understood from your post, it seems to be the "force" which automatically constructs sensoric experience for me}. According to what i know about my attempts at visualisation, it really seem, that the one wanting to learn how to visualise must really understand, what are the rules under which visualisation works. As you brilliantly described, we should learn how to use our gut for our needs.

Please. Let me play with this word a little. For sake of making matters more concrete. Lets just imagine this gut as a person who provides me with images and sounds. Lets name him G. If we want to collaborate with G for our own purposes, we have to build some kind of communication interface. In real life, that would mean, that if I want to use services of G, i have to first understand him, give him some time so he opens and finding a way, how to tell him, what I want from him, without distracting him or being rude to him.

Lets say {hypotetically}, G was a person. My questions would be:
1. What should I avoid, when communicating with G?
2. How would G inform me, he is not satisfied with our collaboration?
3. What would G like as a present? What would make him happy?
4. Assuming, G is a very simple person and I really dont understand the language he speaks. What should be the words we should agree upon first?
5. Assuming, G loves freedom and doesnt want to be forced into collaboration, how would you persuate him?

I know, it might sound silly at first, but really if we make this abstraction, it really shifts the problem of visualisation into plane we are more accustomed to, the plane of human relations. I cannot really measure how much details i lost while performing this shift, yet. For me it is really important to find communication interface with my visualization faculty represented this or that way.

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The problem here is, you can't look at the gut as a single entity. This is probably mainly due to your lack of understanding of the term. I popped over to an online dictionary for a definition of "gut feeling"

gut feeling and gut reaction; gut response
a personal, intuitive feeling or response. "I have a gut feeling that something bad is going to happen. My gut reaction is that we should hire Susan for the job."

Now, I don't know how much you know about how the brain works, but I'm going to be using a bunch of biology/psychology terms to describe the gut and it's link with visualization (kept out of initial post for obvious clarity reasons)

If you wanted to define a place for your gut to physically reside in, it would be the same place that your memories and mental schemata reside in, the cortex of your brain. If you wanted to specify it even further, I would say that it would most align with the areas of the cortex that you would define to contain your current preconscious. I would like to remind you too that your conscious doesn't have a defined location either. It is defined as what you are aware of. This, of course, also resides in part in the cortex of your brain.

Now, for the thing that will answer most of your confusions... how, physiologically speaking, does our gut communicate with our consciousness and then visualization core? Well, first I'd like to reword that question to: how does a thought go first from the gut to consciousness to visualization. Using "communicate" is a bit of a mis-representation.

By definition, something that is figured out by your gut is figured out by the parts of your brain that aren't currently under your consciousness. To become consciousness, it must collide with your consciousness (I'm really hating the over-simplification of this, but it works still >.<) This collision represents the becoming aware of a thought. At this moment, you have two choices, shift your awareness towards the thought (it comes into your consciousness) or shift your awareness away from it and let it slip back into your preconscious completely.

Now that you have absorbed this thought into your conscious, you are primed to see it. Essentially, you now have the visual representation (as stored in your cortex/mental schema) in your conscious. If you think you should be seeing that, you are 80&#37; (made up number, an approximation) likely to use the visual representation as defined by the thought you are primed to see. It is, of course, well defined and will make very good visualization.

So now that i've got that explanation out of the way.... lets talk about your questions

Lets say {hypotetically}, G was a person. My questions would be:
1. What should I avoid, when communicating with G?

Nothing really comes to mind other then "don't ignore". You aren't going to hurt your cortex's feelings or anything. Well, also "don't try to self-analyze too much" and "don't over-question" spring to mind too.

2. How would G inform me, he is not satisfied with our collaboration?

Probably throw into your awareness stuff like "death by fire" and "death by very long fall" and try to make you trip up and have that happen XD...

Being serious, I'll answer it as "how do I know something's going wrong". I would say probably if your mind is still blank as a bone after a while. (this is one point at which I would recommend just going to sleep for the night, for whatever reason you're probably just not in the right state of mind at the moment)

3. What would G like as a present? What would make him happy?

More stimuli. He loves to work with those. New things beget new things and as long as you keep exploring and don't stagnate, he can work wonders with new thoughts and ideas. A blank mind will beget a blank mind. After your spark, work with G to keep the creative juices flowing.

He also likes chocolate (assuming you like chocolate too, his likes are identical to yours)

4. Assuming, G is a very simple person and I really dont understand the
language he speaks. What should be the words we should agree upon first?

It's a neural network and you understand each other/overlap as being each other. Not a good question. =O

5. Assuming, G loves freedom and doesnt want to be forced into collaboration, how would you persuate him?

Essentially, you can prime your pre-conscious to give you the type of answer you want. I can't explain this non-conceptually though. G is in no way free, though. There are many theories about what G is doing when you are asleap and why he does it (two leading ones are the activation-synthesis model and the information processing model, both of which make sense with everything I am describing) but the truth is we simply don't know for sure.

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Originally Posted by adraw

What if inputs into visualization faculty in time t would be one of this messages?

OUT(x) = Output from Visualisation faculty in time x
INP(x) = Input into Visualisation faculty in time x

//simple messages
INP(t) = ACCEPT(OUT(t-1))
INP(t) = REJECT(OUT(t-1))
INP(t) = ALTER(OUT(t-1))

where ACCEPT, ALTER, REJECT are basic messages sent to visualization faculty from consciousness
ACCEPT - Consciousness accepts output from visualisation faculty
REJECT - Consciousness rejects output from visualisation faculty
ALTER - Consciousnes requests change in output


//complex messages
FOCUS(OUT(t-1)) = ACCEPT(OUT(t-1)) AND ALTER(OUT(t-1))
SWAP(OUT(t-1)) = REJECT(OUT(t-1)) AND ALTER(OUT(t-1))
LEAVE(OUT(t-1)) = ACCEPT(OUT(t-1)) AND NOT(ALTER(OUT(t-1)))
LEAVE(OUT(t-1)) = REJECT(OUT(t-1)) AND NOT(ALTER(OUT(t-1)))

complex messages would be:
FOCUS - Consciousness accepts previous output as reference and requests alteration of next output, yet still remaining in context of previous output. This simply means, if you take a look at something withing generated scena. If you touch something what is in the scena generated in previous step. (Equivalent to observing)
SWAP - Consciousness does not accept previous output as reference, trying to force changes into next output which are not compliant with generated state, forcing Visualisation faculty to restart generating scene. This simply means, that you simply eighter dont agree with what you see or you would like to see something else and you try to force yourself to see what you expect. (Equivalent to direct control above visualisation)
LEAVE - Consciousness has two ways how not to alter next output:
1. accepting the input as reality and letting it be (Equivalent to accepting the generated reality as your current reference reality)
2. not accepting the input as reality and letting it be (Equivalent to knowing, that generated output is not real, yet letting continue, go with the flow)

This complex messages if sent to the visualisation faculty cause change stability of input in next steps:

INP(t) = FOCUS(OUT(t-1)) => STABILITY(OUT(t+1)) > STABILITY(OUT(t-1))
INP(t) = SWAP(OUT(t-1)) => STABILITY(OUT(t+1)) < STABILITY(OUT(t-1))
INP(t) = LEAVE(OUT(t-1)) => STABILITY(OUT(t+1)) >= STABILITY(OUT(t-1))

It simply show, how visualisation faculty responds to some messages sent from consciousness. This helps to describe the stability of next output according to reaction to previous output. Generally speaking, if consciousness communicates in a way, which does not radically change context currently being generated in visualisation faculty, visualisation faculty tends to provide more solid and stable imagery. And vice versa, if the consciousness requires constant swapping of context, changing the topic of visualisation or negating facts previously generated, stability shrinks, and the process must start anew.

According to my observations: How LEAVE message affects affects stability of visualisation construct depends directly on current awareness level and time of the day. In REM, visualisation faculty has pretty significant inertia leading to self stabilisation of the scene.

more on this here >> http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=61525

I hope, this does not lead to misunderstanding. This should be some kind of state machine view on visualisation, which can easily be extended to other aspects of visualisation, not only stability of result.

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This is hard for my to understand completely and alot of this seems to contradict what I was talking about above. It seems to be a weak analogy, to me, to think of things such as input and output streams and structured, conscious communication between two separate, distinct, well defined parties (who in reality are not so)

I've written alot above, are there corrections that you want to make to this in order to make sense? If you still want me to talk about this as is i'll try to make sense of it again and see how much I can talk about. Later, though. I've spent enough time on this post already ;P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by arby

Thanks =)

Hope you have luck with this =D. I know you, of all people, have already figured out alot of your personnel V-WILD strong points.

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Thank you, I'm just a guy who sees a lot of potential in all this visualization stuff. I mean when I see it I can only wonder if it's somehow possible to improve my visualizations then why can't they be used to master lucid dreaming.

Last night in a lucid dream I did a little experiment, I wondered if I could visually effect my dream world by the way I feel about it. I remember focusing on certain parts and when I tried feeling (inventing them from past memories I guess) the concepts of them they appeared more stable to me. I noticed it was night and I tried to feel my concept of the same scene at day and spots of light began to poor over everything. When I looked up part of my brain still expected to see the moon though, so the sky remained dark.

Now you might be thinking, well what do you mean your concept of day, and your concept of night. Well lets look at it through something everybody is familiar with, people. Try and think of some person you know very well, like a sibling maybe. You will notice as soon as you do you that you have this kind of abstract feeling about them, now it will usually be based on the way they look, since that's the most focuses on sense, thus the strongest concept. Rather you like it or not we all feel a very distinct concept for each person based on their looks, sometimes it does contain other information though, sometimes when we get to know someone better, or they change, so does are concept of them.

Now you might say well that concept isn't a concept its just the way they look, well you point out to me what one feature about them you base your concept of them on. You'll probably realize that this concept of them encompasses all these details. When you see someone new who has a feature that reminds you of someone you know well, you will begin identifying this person partly with them. We each perceive people differently based on looks, people can think someone is attractive well someone else entirely disagrees. Clearly we respond in a unique way to what we see else this wouldn't be the case. Why do some people like certain colors, same deal. Well the same scene during the day and at night may have very different concepts.

You might wonder what does it all mean, well my belief is that the brain doesn't recognize one small detail as being any more complex as a whole scene of details, its just got a better understanding of the concept of grey, then the concept of a huge city scene. But thats not to say their isn't a single concept of a huge city scene in your brain right now that you can see very accuritly if you just work that concept to the surface and try to feel it as best as you can.

Basically your brain works like a computer, when you save a 1000 x 1000 image filled with white pixels, it takes up the same space as a 1000 x 1000 image of your face on your hard drive. (at least I think so lol)


I hope that wasn't too confusing :P .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LucidDreamGod

Thank you, I'm just a guy who sees a lot of potential in all this visualization stuff. I mean when I see it I can only wonder if it's somehow possible to improve my visualizations then why can't they be used to master lucid dreaming.

Last night in a lucid dream I did a little experiment, I wondered if I could visually effect my dream world by the way I feel about it. I remember focusing on certain parts and when I tried feeling (inventing them from past memories I guess) the concepts of them they appeared more stable to me. I noticed it was night and I tried to feel my concept of the same scene at day and spots of light began to poor over everything. When I looked up part of my brain still expected to see the moon though, so the sky remained dark.

Now you might be thinking, well what do you mean your concept of day, and your concept of night. Well lets look at it through something everybody is familiar with, people. Try and think of some person you know very well, like a sibling maybe. You will notice as soon as you do you that you have this kind of abstract feeling about them, now it will usually be based on the way they look, since that's the most focuses on sense, thus the strongest concept. Rather you like it or not we all feel a very distinct concept for each person based on their looks, sometimes it does contain other information though, sometimes when we get to know someone better, or they change, so does are concept of them.

Now you might say well that concept isn't a concept its just the way they look, well you point out to me what one feature about them you base your concept of them on. You'll probably realize that this concept of them encompasses all these details. When you see someone new who has a feature that reminds you of someone you know well, you will begin identifying this person partly with them. We each perceive people differently based on looks, people can think someone is attractive well someone else entirely disagrees. Clearly we respond in a unique way to what we see else this wouldn't be the case. Why do some people like certain colors, same deal. Well the same scene during the day and at night may have very different concepts.

You might wonder what does it all mean, well my belief is that the brain doesn't recognize one small detail as being any more complex as a whole scene of details, its just got a better understanding of the concept of grey, then the concept of a huge city scene. But thats not to say their isn't a single concept of a huge city scene in your brain right now that you can see very accuritly if you just work that concept to the surface and try to feel it as best as you can.

Basically your brain works like a computer, when you save a 1000 x 1000 image filled with white pixels, it takes up the same space as a 1000 x 1000 image of your face on your hard drive. (at least I think so lol)


I hope that wasn't too confusing :P .

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Did I introduce you to concepts? =D I totally forgot if you were already familiar with them when we talked about them. You certainly treat them in the same manner I do.

Anyways, great way to describe them. There's also something related that you might be interested in which I don't think I've shown you before. It's chunking. Basically, the theory of concept-categorized thought is valid even to the lab-tested degree.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by arby

Did I introduce you to concepts? =D I totally forgot if you were already familiar with them when we talked about them. You certainly treat them in the same manner I do.

Anyways, great way to describe them. There's also something related that you might be interested in which I don't think I've shown you before. It's chunking. Basically, the theory of concept-categorized thought is valid even to the lab-tested degree.

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I personally don't know if you introduced me to it or not, I've talked to a lot of people about these types of things. I don't remember understanding it to well though. I've been told to see everything as one picture and not several objects.

I do find chunking interesting, and I believe it is the same thing essentially as concepts. I was going to give the word example to explain that the brain can learn to group sounds/letters and such. I'm often not aware of psychology terms usually, I understand these things, but through observations that I make myself.

I find it interesting that sometimes I can see the concept of a picture that I never previously saw. I mean not everything I see in my head is exactly spot on even if I recall from memory. I believe some of the details are randomly generated (well their based on what concept I have, so not so random). But sometimes I can bring two things, like a specific person and a specific location together and create a new concept. See thats what I try to do when I visualize. If I notice their are two different concepts, like an object and its background, the image is more unstable. But I can group the two into a combined concept, and solidify it.

By doing this all I hope to create more connections in the brain, so that I can see clearer concepts of what I want to see faster.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LucidDreamGod

I find it interesting that sometimes I can see the concept of a picture that I never previously saw. I mean not everything I see in my head is exactly spot on even if I recall from memory. I believe some of the details are randomly generated (well their based on what concept I have, so not so random). But sometimes I can bring two things, like a specific person and a specific location together and create a new concept. See thats what I try to do when I visualize. If I notice their are two different concepts, like an object and its background, the image is more unstable. But I can group the two into a combined concept, and solidify it.

By doing this all I hope to create more connections in the brain, so that I can see clearer concepts of what I want to see faster.

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Seeing everything as one concept is definitely the way to go. Of course, it's not one concept as in it is all one thing, rather it is one concept in the exact same way as what we see in real life is a single concept (but also multiple concepts at the same time). It's probably best not to think about it because it probably only really makes real functional sense in the occipital lobe (where sight is processed) where it is processed.

I think that's an important thing to point out though =D It's not random stuff you're pulling together and trying to hold together... It's stuff that mix and about which you can say "it is". (That phrase seems to hold more power when I say it in my head and think of the implications ;P)

Anyhow, I think you should look into psychology stuff. You'd probably find it fascinating. I have something about the true nature of how you process sight lying around somewhere... I'll post it and what it means later on... fascinating and relevant stuff, that.

Nice thread, I'm a big fan of visualization and personally feel, after playing with this in the past, that it has much more potential than people give it credit for.

I don't have time to add much now but I just wanted to add my appreciation for the post, ill likely come back and share some of my findings in the near future.

I promised an overview of visual processing, so I'll throw a few things down here and my experiments with them, just for kicks.

Visual perception is not one unified perception. It is divided into 4 separate categories. Form, color, depth and motion.

Form: Essentially the shape of the object. Responsible for your ability to tell where one thing ends and another begins. At it's base, it differentiates a circle from a square.

Color: The color that you perceive object as. Pretty simple.

Depth: The distance away that you see the object as.

Motion: Your ability to tell if an object is moving or is stationary. This one is probably the most fascinating of all. Applying motion to a visualization without changing how you see it will still result in you thinking it is moving even though it doesn't move. Head hurting ensues. See below for more about this.

Now, your first instinct is probably to try and think about these in terms of what you can see. Lets say you want to think about shape so you compare a red circle to a red square in your mind's eye. But wait, WHOOPS. You have just invoked depth and color as well in order to see those shapes. You might try and say "well I'll just think of it as colorless and hanging in space at an indeterminate depth" The problem is, as soon as you see it, you DO use those attributes. You'll probably see it as white and you will see it at a particular depth away.

Each of these 4 attributes on it's own can only be conceptually described. It took me the better part of a few hours to try and be able to "feel" (theres no better word to describe it) form without seeing it. I was never able to get color by itself. Depth was fairly easy and motion was almost intuitive. By the end of all this, my head seriously hurt and I was completely out of it/I felt fairly disoriented XD.

If you want to try and pick out a single visual property yourself, try motion. You can apply it to an otherwise properly visualized object. Lets say you visualize a rectangular prism in your head. Set it rotating for a second just to get a feel for it. Now, try to rotate it again without letting the color, form or depth change. You will know when you've succeeded. You may have to go for a little walk afterward.

I did a whole lot of experiments with just combining 2 of the elements, altering 1, creating visual paradoxes (not allowing one property to change with the other) and overall just trying to define my visual space in terms of these 4 things. It doesn't seem to have helped in creating environments, though leading me to concretely believe that it is in fact a different process to create an environment then think about a single object consciously. I'm leaning towards the environment's creation is more in part due to processing and assimilation outside our direct consciousness (but probably right on the boundaries) and thus related to our thoughts about the "gut".

It also might be an explanation for why dreams are so weird. If the main contributor to dream imagery and dream logic is the space right outside our consciousness, it would make sense that it doesn't follow any determinable pattern. At any one time, the region that would be classified as right outside conscious awareness would be pretty random (but related in slight, yet abstract ways to the current awareness which is a PERFECT description of dream progression).

Thoughts?

I have a little mind trick for you guys who want to feel what the conceptual side of visualization is like.

Imagine an object (Say, a big red rectangular prism or something) spinning in your mind's eye. Look at it from a couple angles, get a good feel for what it's like. Now, either turn your viewpoint away from the object or move the object around and behind you so that you cannot see it. BUT KEEP IT SPINNING.

So, now you should have a spinning object in your conscious awareness but not be able to see it. You have the conceptual representation only. This method is actually pretty stable and doesn't hurt your head so it's great if you want to try and understand the fundamentals of visualization.

If you can't get the object to exist even when it goes out of your vision, it means the object did not ever exist conceptually (or you aren't allowing object permanence, you should be able to tell if you are). If it does not exist conceptually, you are essentially just "painting pretty colors on your mind's eye like a canvas" and not really making things in your mind. Try and follow the logic "it is" therefore I see it instead of I see it therefore "it is". This is a fundamental of visualization and you will get DRAMATICALLY better results (ie. results, period. you have to have the conceptual knowledge of your surroundings to be in a dream. The only way you can get that by "painting stuff on your mind's eye" is if it primes you to get the proper, conceptually driven, visualization of it)