The incredible helpfulness of auto-suggestion

**Swank** · 03-23-2009 02:34 PM

Note: This is mainly aimed at beginners and those still not able to get regular LDs – although anyone feel free to add any thoughts or feedback. It’s all been said before but it still seems to be fairly underrated.

Anyway, throughout my lucid dreaming career, from first learning about the art (as I would call it) right through the incredibly difficult 'newbie' stages and on to the intermediate-advanced level that I would consider myself to be at now, I have tried all of the techniques and little tricks that I could find on dreamviews to discover which one would work for me most frequently, or pose as the easiest, or which would get me out of a dry patch. I can see with much certainty that this seems to be a case of trial and error, as due to the neurotic nature of dreaming everyone will find that their experiences and triggers will be infinitely different to the next person. I have, however, always used a trick that is just as uncommonly known as lucid dreaming itself, but probably used if not consciously then unconsciously by most people here to increase their chances of inducing a lucid dream or astral projection. For those that don’t know what I’m talking about, it is autosuggestion.

Autosuggestion basically means repeating a message to yourself, talking to yourself or seeing an image or some words in your head when you visualize to convince your mind of it’s truthiness. Because we are a product of the society and culture that we grew up in, our mind will either accept a notion or reject it based on our previous experiences. This might be that you have already had a bad experience related to what you are thinking about, you have heard about a bad experience, or it just sounds too hard based on the information you know to be true at the time. A common example: When you first heard about lucid dreaming, you probably though it was a fantasy and could not be done. Then you joined this forum and learnt that it could be done. When you first tried it, however, 9/10 of you would have failed to have a lucid dream. Why? Because your mind is not convinced that it is possible!

The most valuable tool you can have in your lucid dreaming toolkit is telling yourself that you can do it, and visualizing yourself already doing it. Dreaming is essentially all in your head, therefore it controls how often you enter into a lucid dream. To convince it that you can do this is a huge step forward, especially for those new to dreaming.

Listed below are a few auto-suggestion related things to try that are guaranteed to increase both the regularity of LDs as well as the length and clarity.

• Try to isolate the feeling of being in a lucid dream, of for those who haven’t yet had one, use that feeling that you get when writing in your dream journal. For me it’s kind of like being in a fantasy world, and the same as the feeling I get when something really cool happens to me, so basically that feeling of pure joy. It’s an eerie background feeling for others. Whatever it is, find it and think about it often. This has the same purpose as keeping a dream journal – to get your mind used to the feeling of dreaming.

• Before bed, tell yourself over and over positive phrases like ‘I will have a lucid dream tonight’ or ‘I will do a reality check in my dreams tonight’. If it works for you, pretend that you are already having plenty of LDs. ‘I am a lucid dreaming master’, or ‘I have three lucid dreams every night’ are my favourites.

• Visualise yourself in a room sitting at a table writing on a piece of paper a phrase like the ones described above. Try as hard as you can to keep yourself in the environment. If you are having trouble, de-focus on everything except for the paper and the pen. Feel the words as you write them.

• During the day initiate the feeling of knowing that some event is taking place later in the day. For example when you think about the rest of your day and you have a class on in a few hours, that class will pop into your head as a small dot point in your mind. This is hard to describe. The idea is to convince yourself that your timetable will include a lucid dream during the night, every night, and when you think about what you have on for the day that will have the same effect as things that are really happening, like a class or meeting someone for coffee.

• Lastly, reality checks are VERY USEFUL. To increase their usefulness, use the dream feeling as described earlier when doing these to simulate the possible feeling of being in a dream.

As a reminder, keep trying new techniques, either if you still haven’t found one that works well or even if you already have. I am a huge advocate of keeping an open mind. It is similar to travelling to a foreign country – you will have much more fun if you keep a variety, try new things and push the boundaries.

So that’s it for now, this is already a very long post. Feedback and opinions welcome. Like I said I know all of this has been described before but here is my take on it!

Goodnight all

**hellopotato** · 03-23-2009 11:26 PM

i love you.

no seriously, this is JUST what i have been looking for. i'm going to try the autosuggestion and get back to you! thanks

**qurut** · 03-23-2009 11:46 PM

Very well said, I'll try to follow what you just wrote. Many people underestimate power of their conscious, I was one of them but it's time to change that.

**Robot_Butler** · 03-24-2009 12:36 AM

Great advice

I agree with you, that too many people underestimate autosuggestion. Remember, Stephen Laberge's favorite technique, MILD, is based on prospective memory and autosuggestion. Picture yourself having a lucid dream, and convince yourself it will happen.

**paragon** · 03-24-2009 12:56 AM

Whether this works or not is really a matter of whether your subconscious and conscious minds are working in harmony or not. If they are, you will be able to lucid dream easily without bothering with this technique. If they’re not, this technique will not help you. Trying to work with an uncooperative subconscious is a vicious circle because anything you try to do to remedy the situation gets sabotaged by the subconscious or does not work due to a lack of belief in it.

**panta-rei** · 03-24-2009 01:09 AM

:bravo:

Well done. This is great.

**Swank** · 03-24-2009 02:29 AM

Originally Posted by paragon

Whether this works or not is really a matter of whether your subconscious and conscious minds are working in harmony or not. If they are, you will be able to lucid dream easily without bothering with this technique. If they’re not, this technique will not help you. Trying to work with an uncooperative subconscious is a vicious circle because anything you try to do to remedy the situation gets sabotaged by the subconscious or does not work due to a lack of belief in it.

A fair enough opinion, one I would be happy to contest though. I'm not sure I understand -

Whether this works or not is really a matter of whether your subconscious and conscious minds are working in harmony or not. If they are, you will be able to lucid dream easily without bothering with this technique

- This statement is a paradox. If this statement is true, it means it isn't a matter of whether they are or not.

Trying to work with an uncooperative subconscious is a vicious circle because anything you try to do to remedy the situation gets sabotaged by the subconscious or does not work due to a lack of belief in it.

- I haven't read or heard of something to do with an 'uncooperative subconscious' not relating to the treatment of mental health.

My question for you is: if I told you I was holding a piece of fruit in my hand behind me back, and you had seen me earlier rumaging through a box of fruit, would you believe me? now, imagine you hadn't seen me near a box of fruit. Obviously your expectations would change. What I am saying is it is possible to change in your head that chain of expectation, purely by pretending to yourself that I WAS near a box of fruit earlier, and convincing yourself of the case.

And if you're just trying to say that the whole thing doesn't work, I contest that you're not trying hard enough. I used to have trouble with this technique when I first employed it with university work but the more I tried the more my mind allowed me to mould it's expectations.

**paragon** · 03-24-2009 03:28 AM

I’m sorry, I didn’t understand any of your reply.

**rahim9876** · 03-24-2009 04:14 AM

absolutely right.
some people who are new to LDing dont even believe its possible and thats why they never get one. If i told most of the people i know about this, only 2 or 3 of them would believe that its even possible.

also when you tell yourself that you will have a LD tonight, believe it. dont just say it for the hell of it.

i believed that it would be very easy for me to have a LD and i had one in my first week i heard of it.

Basically its all up to you and then it comes to techniques you try.

**inyourdreams** · 03-24-2009 05:55 AM

"convince your mind of it’s truthiness." Quote

Uhh, it's truthfulness.
...
lmao

Actually, I did have something to add. You must not make an effort to say the words. Let it become easy and automatic, hence the name "Auto"suggestion. Just a tip.

**Swank** · 03-24-2009 07:19 AM

Originally Posted by inyourdreams

"convince your mind of it’s truthiness." Quote

Uhh, it's truthfulness.
...
lmao

Actually, I did have something to add. You must not make an effort to say the words. Let it become easy and automatic, hence the name "Auto"suggestion. Just a tip.

Haha sorry, I am aware of that, ever since the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert presidential campaign I started saying truthiness as a joke and completely forgot!

**horsebucket** · 03-24-2009 04:28 PM

I don't remember having a lucid dream in about a year in fact I've hardly even been remembering normal dreams but last night before I went to bed I thought about this so I said to myself "IM GOING TO HAVE LUCID DREAMS TONIGHT" and guess what I remembered when I woke up this morning. A flurry of lucid dreams. Real vivid ones too. Once again made me realize that ANYTHING you can do in this world you can do in the dreamworld and it seems just as real there. I was flying around my city and it looked nearly identical to how it is in real life. I mixed up a few details here and there but it was pretty close. I was flying around the place and it ended by me getting stuck in a tree then I woke up and it was nearly time to get up thats probably why I remember the dream.

It'd be a mad coincidence if it wasn't my intention that made me start having lucid dreams again. I also got lots of experimentation done last night and once again observed the principle of how the mind does not act on your immediate thoughts theres a bit of a delay. For example I started trying to manifest a spoon but it wouldn't work. I got frustrated and stopped trying then I started doing something else but then I looked down and there was a spoon in my hand. Maybe it was my anticipation that stopped it from appearing and it only appeared when I took my attention off it.

**Robot_Butler** · 03-24-2009 05:14 PM

I had a great lucid from this last night, too. I use this all the time when I am too lazy to WILD, and consistently get great lucids.

As I'm falling asleep I tell myself I will wake and remember each dream. Then, when I do wake and record the dream, I return to sleep telling myself I will be lucid. Two different autosuggestions, each at the appropriate time so I don't confuse myself.

**inyourdreams** · 03-26-2009 06:03 AM

That is really cool. I wish that worked for me.

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