How to Effectively Control Your Dreams

This is a long thread that doesn't really get to it's point until the end, but I promise if you read all the way through, you will not be disappointed!

I was thinking about teleporting the other day (as I often do) when I was walking through the mall. I was thinking about how I chopped it up and put it into different sections in the past and then I had an epiphany! There are only 2 ways to teleport! I started thinking about this and how fascinating it is to me and I remembered something that I used to say “Teleporting is the foundation to accomplishing every goal.”

Need a persistent realm? Teleport!
Need to meet Einstein? Teleport!
Need to bake with Snoop Dog? Teleport!

So then while I was getting ready to make this very okay thread that would probably be passed by the wayside, I realized that the 2 types of teleporting are actually just the two types of dream control!

Ok, so if you look at my thread:
http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-cont...-teleport.html

You will see that there really is no rhythm or rhyme or reason to the teleporting, grab item, use item, just do it, close your eyes, etc. I was taught by a DC a while ago that “If you feel yourself teleporting, you can direct where you are going to go.” and while this may not be true for everyone and everything, it made me realize that sometimes I leave where I am at when I am teleporting, and sometimes I don’t. To put it more simply:
Sometimes I move
Sometimes the world changes

Take, for instance, the “closed eye teleport”. Close your eyes, open them again, and BAM! You are somewhere else, if you were holding something or in a room or something, some things may be the same and you are in the same position. You didn’t move, the world around you changed.

Now, lets use something extremely similar, the “lay down and go to sleep teleport.” Usually, when I do this, I am not just closing my eyes and opening them again, in fact, I lay down, close my eyes and keep them closed. I then either let it take me to a random dream scene or imagine one around me, but 99% of the time, it takes me to a place where I am standing up. I moved.

This may not seem like a big deal to you, but let me explain how this changes my idea on dream control. There are some things that are you, and there are some things that are not you.

I can get bigger, smaller, change shapes, create fire (from my hand or from my body), and I can change the ages of DC by touching them (getting closer to them). These all fall under the category of my body and things that I can extend my energy onto. ME.

I can make things appear, I can set an entire field on fire or an entire horizon by just looking at it. I can TK, I can create barriers, I can make DCs do what I want. These fall under the categories of changing things that my body doesn’t need to touch, I can just change things that aren’t me.

You may be thinking something along the lines of “But what about blah blah blah” right now, and I beg you to just follow me on this trek and we will get to something that makes solid sense. :P

You might have seen a different link by just reading this. Like my overwhelming ability to control fire. :P But seriously, this is a big point, don’t miss it. When I first started LDing, I had power over fire because I had done it through incubating dreams in the past, so fire moving of any kind made perfect sense because I had done it. I realized instantly that making something from afar light on fire was a lot different than lighting something close. I was confused that it was hard for me since “I am good with fire” so I tried it a couple times and found quick solutions.

So, I used the idea that I had done it in the past (with just creating fire from my hands) mean that I should be amazing at this. So I changed my perspective, instead of just shooting fire out or expecting fire, I put my hand in front of my eyes and put what I wanted on fire right where my hand usually would catch on fire. I then set the fire, and instead of setting my hand on fire, I set something really far off on fire. I then used this past idea that “I have done this before” make it easier the second time, by putting my hand out and whooshing it across an entire field. I then took the hand away a different time and just remembered the feeling when something far away set on fire and I set everything that I could see 180 degrees on fire, pretty sure I was eating Taco Bell too.

So this disproved my theory of things connected to me and things not connected to me, right? Wrong, why aren’t you paying attention? This isn’t really about things connected to me, teleporting, or fire. It is about perspective.

Perspective
1) the art of representing three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other.
"the theory and practice of perspective"

2) A particular attitude towards or way of regarding something; a point of view.

So, first thing you can see here is that I changed my perspective and instead of giving the right impressions of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other, I gave them whatever relation I wanted to fulfil my purpose, and thus created a relationship between two things that didn’t actually connect anywhere except in my mind. OF COURSE THIS WORKED! LDing is in your mind. I talked recently about perspective with someone else, about how it can be bent and changed to your will in dreaming. I can look up at the ceiling and set my foot down. Perspective changed. I didn’t need to change gravity or anything, I just changed the way I viewed up and down.

Now, I also had the perspective that I was good at moving fire because I had been in the past and that all fire based attacks should be linked. This isn’t necessarily true, but my mind had connected things. If two things are connected in the mind, it doesn’t matter if they are connected anywhere else while LDing. It usually has to make some “logical sense” but we are talking about pyrokinesis here, so not a whole lot of sense.

I looked through all of my control threads and ideas. Holy Crap, I saw it through all of them. Different ideas linked that made things easier or harder in the past because of the connection. I shall post some of them here.

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Universe Control
Going to a certain universe (or person, place, or thing) in order to accomplish a task. In order to use fire, I am going to say I want to go to Aang (from Avatar the Last Airbender). The reason that he is a good one is that he has 5 different powers (fire, air, water, earth, and spirit), so it would be a good idea to continue visiting him for different elements or a good meditation session.

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The idea for this is just to remember a time that you used fire. It is one of the most common uses of control, though few realize that they are doing it. They do it the same way that they did last time. If they did it with a flame thrower, they go for flame thrower, if they did walk control, they do walk control. If they learned it from Aang, then they remember his teachings and continue. It is usually quite easy to do things that you have done in the past since you remember doing it!

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So you discovered a new type of power. Maybe you learned to throw fireballs. Maybe you got this awesome killer gaze. (I'm just saying.)

You wouldn't want to start at level 1 again, now would you? So when you acquire a new ability, you have to make it permanent. It's sort of like a scar, once you get it, you learn to live with it. When you learn a new ability, you have to consider it as 'permanent', like something likely to stay on you forever. Get used to having it all the time, and you will have it in each of the following dreams. Max シ

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If you are in a place that you find control hard to do, pick something, anything, and say “This stupid lamp is stopping me from controlling my dreams!” and break that lamp, now tada! You can use your control again!

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Do you see the connection here? Connections!!! A connection to a universe, a connection to a memory, a connection to a thing, a connection to the dream, a connection to a certain type of dream.

This is extremely important, so I hope you get this point. This is schema.
In psychology and cognitive science, a schema (plural schemata or schemas) describes a pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them.

Many have, in the past, said to focus on the core of a schema to get it working. However, I think that if you are not able to do something, focusing on it can make the matter even worse. Fire is an easy example of this, but let’s go to teleporting again.

So I originally did anything that I could to teleport. All the time teleporting, I learned countless ways to do it too, but because they were all under the schema “teleport” I just kept getting better and better. So instead of connecting it with me moving or me not moving, it was connected to the thing that was easiest for me to do it under. So instead of just pulling out random schema, pick a schema that you are good at and connect the new ability to that. Let’s say that you can use fire, but water has always been difficult. If you are just moving fire willy nilly, then connect fire and water under the idea “element” and think that they are the same. If you are moving fire like a firebender would, then maybe it would be best for you to control water like a water bender. These connections can be made and severed instantly! After this, you can just “remember that one time that I moved water” and do it that way. This is also a huge schema for me! The “memory of dream control schema” Even if it is a dream control that I have never done before I can create a fake memory of it happening and now I have a “fake” connection to connect them to!

There are a million aspects to this, but let me know what you think. It is basically keeping an ever fluid idea of how dream control works and just switching over and over to different things depending on the situation.

I also still highly believe in active or passive as big schema to connect to and fun ways for dream control. Let me know what you think!

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...8c5a5c7ed6.jpg
https://singularityhub.com/wp-conten...-network-3.jpg


Name
I recently had a DC tell me that I needed to name my abilities, because this will make them easier and more powerful. I immediately thought “Okay DC version of my wife that was raised by Japanese people” and then I thought “This might be a really good way to ‘save’ a dream control.” I also realized that Zödra is all really connected to that one schema “Zödra” and since every time I go to sleep I go to Zödra, it was actually becoming closer and closer to synonymous with “dream” and it has seemed to help immensely with becoming lucid. I had created a schema and switched it over. Because of things like this “fire, elements, tk, teleport” and many other words that we use to describe dream aspects are things that can help you to utilize dream control. There is a lot of power in a name! Find out your dream name and use this as a catalyst for LDing and control!

The way you described is very similar to the one I used to bend the elements. The first element was a bit harder than the other ones as there was no scheme yet. So I had to convince myself very strongly that I am in control already as everything that is going on around me is in effect something that I controled, just subconciously. When fire worked, the rest was a lot easier thanks to the technique you described. I knew that I could bend one element, so everything that was belonging to this category should be possible was well if you follow this train of thought.

I never used the technique in depth though to master things that are a lot more unrelated on first sight like some things that you described. Definitely giving it a try!:D

My biggest advance in dream control came when I finally stopped think about it as doing these things. For instance I do not cause a tree to burst in to flames. I change the visual field to show a tree bursting into flames. I may add in the tactile sensation of pressure waves and heat. I do not teleport going from one location to another. I blur the visual field and create a new visual field depicting a new location. I do not think this equals practical advice for the beginner. I hope it is a useful observation to solid lucid dreamers. I still enjoy the dreams and experience an exciting virtual reality, but I no longer perceive the things in the sense of doing anything. Instead it is fine manipulation of sensation. I am not even sure that relates to your post; sorry if it is totally off base. I guess what I am getting at is related to the schema part at the end. You point out that by grouping your fire skill in the brackets of elements, that you do not start over when moving to water. In my case I now relate all dream control to the same process. It is no longer one skill at a time. It is no longer broad groupings like teleport or elements. It is one process of altering the visual field of a computer (my brain) generated virtual reality, and also adding in any other needed sensations. Flying is no longer pushing my body through the air. It is now changing the visuals so that the visuals support what flying should be like. I add in a sensation of air moving over my body in a certain direction. I add in the feeling of g-forces. The resulting experience is very life like flying. If I pick another task like summoning. I do not imagine an object appearing due to a summons. I change the visual field to now include the object. So the idea is the same. I no longer have to learn a new dream control for each task. I know I have the ability to create each component of the virtual reality program I want. There fore in my dreams all dream control comes down to one process, more or less. I am sorry that this is of such little value to beginners. Note: I do not have flawless control. My brain can still add uncontrolled elements in. This actually adds to the adventure. Perfect control 100% of the time would take away from the hobby, IMO.

@exo
I hope this helps! Thanks for reading and commenting. :)

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Originally Posted by sivason

My biggest advance in dream control came when I finally stopped think about it as doing these things. For instance I do not cause a tree to burst in to flames. I change the visual field to show a tree bursting into flames. I may add in the tactile sensation of pressure waves and heat. I do not teleport going from one location to another. I blur the visual field and create a new visual field depicting a new location. I do not think this equals practical advice for the beginner. I hope it is a useful observation to solid lucid dreamers. I still enjoy the dreams and experience an exciting virtual reality, but I no longer perceive the things in the sense of doing anything. Instead it is fine manipulation of sensation. I am not even sure that relates to your post; sorry if it is totally off base. I guess what I am getting at is related to the schema part at the end. You point out that by grouping your fire skill in the brackets of elements, that you do not start over when moving to water. In my case I now relate all dream control to the same process. It is no longer one skill at a time. It is no longer broad groupings like teleport or elements. It is one process of altering the visual field of a computer (my brain) generated virtual reality, and also adding in any other needed sensations. Flying is no longer pushing my body through the air. It is now changing the visuals so that the visuals support what flying should be like. I add in a sensation of air moving over my body in a certain direction. I add in the feeling of g-forces. The resulting experience is very life like flying. If I pick another task like summoning. I do not imagine an object appearing due to a summons. I change the visual field to now include the object. So the idea is the same. I no longer have to learn a new dream control for each task. I know I have the ability to create each component of the virtual reality program I want. There fore in my dreams all dream control comes down to one process, more or less. I am sorry that this is of such little value to beginners. Note: I do not have flawless control. My brain can still add uncontrolled elements in. This actually adds to the adventure. Perfect control 100% of the time would take away from the hobby, IMO.

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I definitely see where you are coming from. I recently was thinking about how hard it must be for a dream to "render" all of the physical spaces, like one would render the space in a video game, and then I realized. It doesn't! It just makes you see things and feel things, it isn't like a video game, but more of tv screen on your eyes. This wasn't a new idea, but one that I hadn't really pondered as much as I should have. Like in my last LD in the comp, you aren't changing an actual tree, but the image of a tree, and even the "taste, smell, feel, and sound of a tree" but there isn't actually a tree there. This idea that it is less dimensional than we think really changed the way I felt about what I could do with dream control. This may be something that as you said isn't related, but I think that it is, I think of it as a "schema", but this schema is more powerful, because it is all encompassing of the dream and is true. I don't think that it can completely control every dream though, since it will fall to the same problems as normal schema in the way that doubt or something seemingly disconnected slips in. You may be thinking "this is just my mind simulating an experience, I will just put a fire in my hand." and your mind is like... "Fire... hot" and now you are feeling immense pain before you can stop the fire or the pain. I guess for me, while it is a powerful and often omnipotent type of schema, it isn't always the most helpful. It may be better for someone to experience element bending in the same way as anime and try to connect the schema there instead of connecting it just to a dream. The pleasure of doing it will often be greater. The randomness in a dream is often its greatest draw. I have been working on something to bring that randomness to visualization, and it is semi working, if I can get it to work fully, I will officially have no line with witch to draw a distinction from when I am WILDing or visualizing, so it will be interesting.

Thank you for the input, I probably should have mentioned this specific thing in the OP really, but I did not. I might type something up and ask you to put it in when I have thought on how it would work in the thread more. :)

I think you've hit on, and explained better than I ever did, the concept of archetype control, i.e. using established or specifically curated archetypes, which at their core are nothing more than collections of connected schema, to produce an effect.

What I find really neat about this is that you can build, modify, and play with schematic connections in your waking life to produce a desired effect in dreams. One cool example that I played with a bit years ago was associating any goals I had at the time with the schema of "becoming lucid". This ensured I remembered my goals immediately upon gaining lucidity. Lots of other applications of this stuff too. =)

Edit: Agree with sivason regarding 100% control. Once I hit that and a constant base-level of awareness in every dream, I sorta just lost motivation to push things farther. =/

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Originally Posted by Mzzkc

I think you've hit on, and explained better than I ever did, the concept of archetype control, i.e. using established or specifically curated archetypes, which at their core are nothing more than collections of connected schema, to produce an effect.

What I find really neat about this is that you can build, modify, and play with schematic connections in your waking life to produce a desired effect in dreams. One cool example that I played with a bit years ago was associating any goals I had at the time with the schema of "becoming lucid". This ensured I remembered my goals immediately upon gaining lucidity. Lots of other applications of this stuff too. =)

Edit: Agree with sivason regarding 100% control. Once I hit that and a constant base-level of awareness in every dream, I sorta just lost motivation to push things farther. =/

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Thanks. :) It took me a while to see everything connected like that, but you saw my reasoning above. :P I am also always worried that I ramble like crazy and in an attempt to make people understand I make it confusing, but I am glad you find that it makes sense. :D

Regarding the day work, I have been thinking about making a secondary message about the day things that you can do with this of presetting ideas and forcing them together through basically just sitting and thinking for a while, I would be afraid of making it more confusing though. I used the day work on this to believe that Zödra wasn't just a world that I randomly went to, but a world that I went to in every dream every time I fall asleep. This created a "persistent dream realm", a realm that acts like a dream, with few rules, like anyone there that knows that it isn't a dream can use dream powers. Dream Characters that know it is a dream often have powers that can rival mine. Here is a thread about it.
http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...lorations.html
Lately I have been changing things there and fixing things while waking, things that would be boring or wasteful when in a dream. I also don't like having 100% control. I am working on dream control that is more... permanent or weird. I really want to dilate time in a dream and go into a separate persistent realm (probably a realm inside of Zödra) and have control that needs even more rules. I also am trying to get my dreams to always be lucid (from dream control), and I want my dreams to start where the previous dream ended (I can already do this in one night, just not from night to night). I have tried a couple things like the silver key (from H.P. Lovecraft) and making all my DCs lucid all the time (this is what I am in the middle of right now actually and it causes some weirder dreams, this was an idea from my DG of course)

So while I can control anything in a single dream, I am working to use that control on things that will be genuinely be fun or helpful. I have a lot of weird goals that simply cannot be done in one dream through dream control, but I am hoping to fix that.

In order to combat the "ever in control boredom" I like the idea of creating schema that have similar controls that I cannot (or will not) override with DCs or machines. I am also working on getting this... thing I cannot (or will not) control in my visualizations. For instance, in dreams I can pick up a book and it will have a well crafted story, but transferring that to waking is hard. I am close and have had small successes with visualizing a book and reading it while awake. If done correctly I can hopefully close my eyes and visualize a library, find a book, and type. Hoping to also do this with drawing, but being able to open my eyes from moment to moment to draw. :D

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Originally Posted by Sensei

I guess for me, while it is a powerful and often omnipotent type of schema, it isn't always the most helpful. It may be better for someone to experience element bending in the same way as anime and try to connect the schema there instead of connecting it just to a dream. The pleasure of doing it will often be greater. The randomness in a dream is often its greatest draw.

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I couldn't agree more. I like to pretend the effects come from magic or super hero abilities. I know what is really going on, but clinically altering a V.R. program is not near as fun as feeling like a Jedi as I shoot lightning from my fingers.