CanisLucidus

Ah dude you gotta leave those DCs behind lol. Maybe I'm just a bastard but I'm usually like whatever you're not real see ya. Of course that last time I did feel pretty bad for spooking my son. Or was it that I was just afraid that somehow I would wake him in RL. Probably both. I understand though. I think maybe your awareness level went down a bit at the end.

I love how your getting the hang of phasing. That glass thing was weird though. Oh well. My phases aren't very pretty either.

I'm also excited how you changed scenes. It was sort of a small flying jump thing I guess. That's what I really need to focus on weather or not I get to were intend. I guess I did alright with that last Colosseum attempt though. Just the dream ended too soon.

Ha ha, no kidding! You're right about those DCs. Man, they really get me though... when they look and act exactly like their real-life counterparts, it is hard not to buy into the illusion. You know it's not them, but it is that image or model of them that you carry around with you when you're away from them. It is so close to the real deal it's scary. Gah!

And you're right, awareness was plummeting at the end. I still knew that I was dreaming but I had absolutely no emotional detachment from what was happening. Felt super guilty and worried, the whole bit. LOL. This is why I need to just run away next time! I'm sentimental, though, because I took E up to the Aurora with me and it was awesome.

I love how your getting the hang of phasing. That glass thing was weird though. Oh well. My phases aren't very pretty either.

Yeah, I'm afraid that it was quite ugly. I think that I effectively erased the wall but still believed in the window. Then when I ran full speed, there was still this sensation of clipping a pane of glass without charging right through the whole thing. Very weird.

I'm also excited how you changed scenes. It was sort of a small flying jump thing I guess.

Yeah, this was really old school. It's how I first "flew", just jumping really high around the map. I am not sure why I did it apart from the fact that I knew it would work and wanted to get away from my house. It didn't take me where I wanted to go but I'll definitely keep it in mind for the future, especially for those times where I'm down in the dumps and nothing else is working!

Your advice about DCs reminded me of this line from Rudyard Kipling:

"He travels the fastest who travels alone."

I've gotta keep this in mind for tasks, especially the ones that already have a high degree of difficulty.

Your advice about DCs reminded me of this line from Rudyard Kipling:

"He travels the fastest who travels alone."

I've gotta keep this in mind for tasks, especially the ones that already have a high degree of difficulty.

I like it!

Alright, that's a step forward! I do have a question, though.

I walk up to a wall that leads outside, imagining that it's not really there. But when I try to walk through it, it stops me. This time I imagine the house having that entire section of wall missing, but my phase attempt is still a failure.

I take a few steps back and make one final run-up, focusing my mind on the fact that none of this exists... and pop right through the wall to the outside!

When you use words like this, it makes me think that you're actively trying to make this happen. Are you? Because if so, you're already setting yourself up for problems! Don't forget that it's not just that anything you think of can exist, but that anything you think of does exist. Going back to the 3D modeler analogy, think of it like objects an elements. That wall is an object, and the second you think about that wall, in any context, your mind will be rendering it. That means that when you focus on the wall not being there, you're making it be there! Now, beyond that, you've got the element "not really there" set on this object. This is just going to confuse your mind, and leave you in this kind of strange state where it may or may not work, or may just kind of work like what happened with the glass. But can you really blame your mind for not knowing how to realistically simulate the experience of walking through a wall that's not really there?

The key to it is passivity. You shouldn't be trying to overcome an obstacle that doesn't exist, you should just do what you want to do. Again, just treat it like it's not there at all to begin with, because it's not. You wouldn't be worried about making sure you can walk through an imaginary wall in waking life!

Great dream though, I love the progress! And the Hulk-jumping, those are so fun.

And if you can drop caring about a DC of your son, I'll be impressed. I'm a tyrant to my DCs and I still feel bad when I realize I've hurt someone who I care about. It's tough to detach completely!

Would it help to think of it as something that like a hologram? Because really it sort of is... Simulated at least.

Think about it like that while you're awake, yes. When you're in the dream, just don't think of it at all, especially as you're walking through it. I understand that this is hard to do without practice, but just take it at a nice pace and don't rush yourself, just know that the more you get to try it the easier it'll get. Even if you fail, you'll get more perspective on how to do it right the next time. It took me several lucids to figure this stuff out on my own, and I didn't even think about it that much when I was awake, I just kept trying something new and expanding on old attempts whenever I became lucid.

You know how when you first start becoming lucid you get really excited and often wake yourself up? It's an important lucid dreaming skill to be able to drop this sudden burst of awareness and become lucid passively, as everyone knows. Think of it exactly the same way with this. You've taken that step already, but now you need to learn to drop your awareness of walls in the same way. When you become lucid, don't think about the fact that you're going to pass through the walls. There are no walls, just go wherever you want to without hesitation because you already can.

And I feel I should note that when you get this down well you can easily make those walls solid again and drop that perception whenever you want, you don't have to stick with one or the other. You just have to make sure you're good enough at not perceiving them first, because obviously you can perceive them AS being there just fine. You've been trained for that your whole life, but now you have to forget everything that the real world has taught you to survive, because this isn't the real world.

Heavy duty, Aly. Thanks so much. That's great stuff.

Yes, it's just like you say. I think that in the first two attempts I was definitely doing it like, "Okay! You... disappear!! You are not there! Please!" That really doesn't work. What was different in the final attempt is that I focused my mind solely on the fact that everything was a dream, not the wall specifically. Everything.

I think that in an indirect way, this allowed me to do it right. By focusing on everything being a dream, that allowed me to not focus on the wall. Thoughts of "whoa... this is all one big dream scene" crowded out the idea that this was a chunk of sheet rock, okay, here are some studs, some brick behind that, etc.

It sort of reminds me of meditation. The goal of meditation is to clear your mind of all thought and simply be. But focusing on something like breathing gives my mind a ball of yarn to play with so that I can successfully meditate. You know what I mean? The act of not thinking of a particular thing is very hard for me without the selection of a good substitute.

I think that focusing only on the goal and the act of walking is the way to crowd out the other, limiting nonsense like dream walls. It's not even walking through something. It's just walking -- point A to point B!

Thanks again for this great material. This'll be perfect to revisit during a WBTB!

You're very welcome. It's interesting that you compare it to meditation, because I was actually just having this discussion with my dad yesterday. I was talking to him about letting go of perception in dreams and how paying too close attention to your visuals can become a crutch, and he compared it to using a mantra while trying to enter a meditative state. I had been discussing the whole hippocampus-visual cortex thing with him and he thought it was pretty interesting because of this, since it's really just becoming aware of your inner workings without having to use the senses you're limited to while awake, which of course is really the whole point of meditation (if sometimes used for a different goal). But even that just goes back to the whole thing about meditating beyond the dream world and moving into the white light experience. It's all just nonsense that tries to conceal what's really going, you know?

But just like mantras, any crutch that you can use to make progress is just fine as long as you don't become dependent on it. The way you focused on the dream as a whole is a pretty nice step, and you could definitely use that to move forward. If you're able to use that to phase through walls more then by all means, do it - the more you experience success the more your mind will realize that there's nothing to worry about. And then you'll be pretty much good to go!

Great thoughts. And your dad sounds really on the ball if you can discuss the hippocampus-visual cortex relationship with him! My folks are still pretty stunned by the concept of a "reality check".

The fact that he made the connection between meditation and lucid dreaming is impressive. That's insightful stuff, and I only picked up the close link between them after really thinking about LD for several months.

Oh yeah, my dad's pretty smart. It's his fault I research things so much lol. But he's had lucid dreams every now and then just throughout his life and he once managed to float out of his body while sober, but snapped back and just didn't really continue with it. But he's had all kinds of mind-blowing experiences on psychedelics and such, he was getting LSD in bulk amounts from chemists back when it was legal and first becoming popular. The kind of stuff he talks about... it makes me really jealous. >w<

He doesn't do much of that stuff anymore though, he just likes hearing what I have to say about it. But he is still interested in learning more about the brain, so we have these kind of conversations fairly commonly. And he's got a philosophy degree, so he's made me kind of expand my horizons and think about stuff in new ways, plus he's got a mini library in his room that has books about religions, languages, history, science, math, etc... so I had that at my disposal whenever I needed it while growing up. So we have a lot of the same interests in these subjects now.

That is awesome. Your dad sounds like quite the character! It's great that you had access to all of that information growing up, and I think it takes a certain natural intellectual curiosity to actually pick up a book on a particular subject that happens to be lying around. Kids don't necessarily pick up and start reading a book just because it's there. Think how much knowledge lies out there free for the taking on the net that so many people virtually ignore! The Library of Alexandria's got nothing on the modern internet.

Before I float away on a cloud of unicorn farts going on about how great the net is, I have to admit that I've run into a few limitations that have brought me back down to earth a bit. It seems like once you get far enough into a subject where you're interested in particular journal articles, you quickly reach the point where it's either "check your local library" or "pay $30 for the PDF" for some of this stuff. Do you ever run into this when you're on the hunt for info? How do you deal with it?

Well, I know this isn't exactly the answer you're looking for, but... you pay the $30 for the PDF lol. Or you go to a school with an account for students to use articles from a particular resource, or talk to someone who does. Believe me, I wish it was easier than that, but you can't really get around those databases most of the time unless you run into someone else who's uploaded the article on a more specific site (e.g., an article about psychedelics uploaded on a drug forum). Those are kept up professionally, there's not just an easy workaround. I think that's just the price worth paying, though. Sometimes if you want to know something badly enough, it's nice to support the people who actually did the work to find that information!

And of course, you could always go check your local library, too. But I've never taken that route.

EDIT: My post and yours are exactly 24 hours apart. o.o

Well, I know this isn't exactly the answer you're looking for, but... you pay the $30 for the PDF lol.

No, on the contrary that's very helpful! Thanks... it's good to simply get assurance that I'm not making some n00b mistake by going that route. I think that I saw a 24-hour access option for $4-$5, which might be a reasonable approach too.

I just don't want to shell out $30 and then find out that this approach is just for the tourists and everybody who really knows what they're doing does this some easier, cheaper way. You've cast your net wider than I have and you've been doing so for longer, so your perspective really helps.

EDIT: My post and yours are exactly 24 hours apart. o.o

Dude.