Auto-Suggestion Backfire?

[cerebusdreamer]

As we are in the end of march, yesterday I tried to do a intense lucid dream auto-suggestion trying to improve my LD numbers of march. Right after I left the work I started to talk to myself in the car: "Tonight I'm going to be lucid" over and over again. When I was arriving home, around 30 minutes after, I was talking out very loud the mantra above and even singing it to a simple tune. Well, today I woke up at 7:00am and did not recall any dream (my average is 2-3 dreams/night). :-( I was saved because I slept again and dreamed, recalling that only dream for the night. The auto-suggestion was so strong that I went to bed really knowing that I would have a LD... Did my auto-suggestion backfired? What have I done wrong?

[Clairity]

Hey, been there and done that! I too have done autosuggestions so deeply that I just KNEW there was no way I could not have a LD and still didn't have one. Why didn't it work.. I couldn't tell you (maybe overload). Why does a method work one night and not the next? Try not to get discouraged.. just try again.. then if it fails..

[s0berbob]

I have yet to do a succesful WILD. I am having alot of trouble with those, mostly staying focused.

[Syntex]

What really frustrates me is like you said, you go and do all this stuff, try hard, and even have the absolute confidence in a lucid dream, yet you get nothing, not even a vivid dream sometimes. However randomly, when your not really trying and just trying some stupid new technique it works... and whola you try to do it again but it doesn't really work again... It's lame... There must be a technique that puts this into account and just works, not because your commanding the subconscious mind, but just because it gets you conscoius some how... Oh but one thing you did wrong is: You should have the intentions of "I'm going to have a lucid dream" but you should say something different. First you should say it in 2nd person if your talking to yourself, and secondly, don't say I'll have a lucid dream... say.. something like I'll see a pink bunny and realize I'm dreaming tonight... Because making a pink bunny appear in your dream is alot easier than telling your subconscious mind to make you lucid. ie, give it a way to make you lucid. Today instead of chanting "I'll be lucid tonight" say, "You will dream of a ___*Dream Sign*____ and you will realize you are dreaming." That way its just saying hey, "i want to dream of this" and then that will automatically get you to be lucid by seeing it. Secondly before you go to bed or throughout the day visualize yourself becoming lucid because of a __*Dream Sign*___ and then your actually rehearsing it, making it more likely to happen. Good-Luck, If it doesn't work, then apparently your subconscious mind, simply isn't listening or is blocking you from doing it for whatever reason. -Daniel P.S. you can also use your name instead of "you". I think that works better, but whatever you think will work, do that.

[Clairity]

[quote]Oh but one thing you did wrong is: You should have the intentions of "I'm going to have a lucid dream" but you should say something different. First you should say it in 2nd person if your talking to yourself, and secondly, don't say I'll have a lucid dream... say.. something like I'll see a pink bunny and realize I'm dreaming tonight... Because making a pink bunny appear in your dream is alot easier than telling your subconscious mind to make you lucid. ie, give it a way to make you lucid. Today instead of chanting "I'll be lucid tonight" say, "You will dream of a ___*Dream Sign*____ and you will realize you are dreaming." That way its just saying hey, "i want to dream of this" and then that will automatically get you to be lucid by seeing it. Secondly before you go to bed or throughout the day visualize yourself becoming lucid because of a __*Dream Sign*___ and then your actually rehearsing it, making it more likely to happen. -Daniel P.S. you can also use your name instead of "you". I think that works better, but whatever you think will work, do that. This is a good idea.. giving your subconscious something to work with! I'll give it a try. Thanks!

[GestaltAlteration]

Somthing I've been trying to spread to quite a few people, if you try to hard then your mind will not have a lucid dream, its strange, like those who study about lucid dreaming expecting their first one and it never comes, then they give up and have one. Its all about the fluint mind and going with the flow. You need to be on top of things a little bit, but not let it be all you think about, you may just find yourself in a lucid.

[Pandragon]

I haven't even tried to incubate dreams yet, I've been focused just on getting lucid so far. But I'm definitely gonna try Syntex's idea. I just thought I'd mention that, usually when it comes to self-hypnosis, suggestions that start with "I will" should have a specific time attached to them, like: "I will dream of a pink bunny tonight." or "I will lose 3 pounds by April 25th." etc... Theoretically, your subconscious may agree that "you will" do this or that, but not understand you wanted that to happen now rather than next month or next year. So it usually helps to phrase suggestions in the present like: "I am" "I do" "I feel" etc. So I would do something like : "I will dream about a pink bunny tonight. When I dream of a pink bunny, I will become lucid." Or... "I see a pink bunny when I dream. Whenever I see a pink bunny in my dreams, I become lucid." And like Syntex said, it helps to add second person and even third person to suggestions. Like: "I, Pandragon, see a pink bunny... "You, Pandragon, see a pink bunny... "Pandragon sees a pink bunny... A good trick is to record your suggestions this way onto a tape or CD and listen to it once a day and then just play it on repeat at a very low level while you do other things (watch TV, read a book, listen to music, etc). If you play it so low that you can only hear a faint mumbling or whispering, but not make out the words, it's like a home-made subliminal program. And actually studies have shown that this kind of audio subliminal program works much better than the ones with suggestions you can't hear at all. Hope that helps.

[cerebusdreamer]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I just recorded my voice in my mp3player saying something like: "Tonight you'll dream with some-dream-sign and it will remember you that you're dreaming". I recorded it in the bathroom and get a very cool "echo" sound because of the ambient. It's a 10, 15 seconds record. As I'm listening to it for about 2 hours I already got 700 times the auto-suggestion! Let's see if it works or I get mad :-)

[singedredrose]

hey trust the man i tried the whole pink bunny thing... and it worked kinda.... only the bunny was like a gazillion times bigger than me and ate me in like on gulp and i realized i was dreaming while i was eating my lunch on its pancreas it kinda scared me.......... but hey, at least it worked 8)

[Syntex]

Awesome, Sounds like we all need a pink bunny or two to get us Lucid. I guess I should try my own advice, I never consider that. I make things too complicated. The repeation throughout the day on an MP3 players sounds awesome, I'll do that. Another thing to add to this would be taking random moments throughout the day to simply view the details of things. Ex. Your at work, looking at the same old mundane things, but you just take a moment to look at the details of that computer monitor, construction shovel, car, person, merchanidise, phone, or whatever. Noticing details during the day can do wonders for your dreams, beause this usually catches on and you start noticing details in your dreams! Then suddenly your like, wowe, this is a dream. By simply noticing things around you, people become aware that they are dreaming. Its a conscious trigger. Well good-luck everyone, hope that helps as a tool during the day to enhance Lucid possibilities. -The big fluffy pink bunny

[cerebusdreamer]

Just for the record... As I said above I listen to my voice in the mp3 player. I've heard it probably 1,200 times throught the day. By 5:00PM I could not listen anymore; I started to get a headache :-) The results? No LD but I still recalled 2 dreams for the night. Better then the other day that I did not recalled anything. Next technique? I think I should try the pink bunny thing :-)

[Pandragon]

That might be a bit of overkill cerebus. Instead of actively listening to your recording all day, I recommend just listening to it loud enough to hear once a day. Then just play it at such a low volume that you don't really notice it. You should be able to "tune it out" easily while doing other things. If you're noticing it the whole time it's playing, it's probably too loud. The other thing I should mention is, although it might work the first day, subliminal programming/affirmations usually take weeks (maybe a month or two) to really make a lasting change in peoples' behavior. So, don't bother trying to make it happen all at once, just make it a habit to let it play about an hour a day while you watch TV or something. Just make sure it's low enough volume that you can easily ignore it, or it's liable to drive ya nuts after awhile.