Thread: Believing you will not have a lucid dream, results in one? Possibly new technique?

Pretty much text, yeah, I know. Tried to shorten it, but I kind of need to explain the whole story to make it understandable, even though I hate long texts myself. Please do not be afraid of questioning anything I've written, as some of it might not make sense considering my English sentence structures aren't the best.

Back one year ago, I had around 8 lucid dreams or so. The reason why half of them became lucid, were to the fact I was aware enough to understand that the environment was not real.

The other half, is a way more strange way of accomplishing lucid dreams. By believing I was not gonna get one.

As I searched for how to achieve lucid dreams. I understood that motivation and the thought "I will have a lucid dream tonight" was supposedly going to help me achieve one, but it never happened.

As I would try this several times, without any lucid dreams, I started to doubt the technique. One night I tried to convince myself to think positive thoughts about achieving one, but I kind of understood that I was lying to myself, so I understood I wouldn't get one. That's when the weird thing happened. I achieved one!

At first I thought this was more just the result of several days of mantras, so I didn't really think much of it. I kept doing the next days, having more inspiration to use the mantras, and the cycle kept on going, not getting a single lucid dream, until I came back to that stage, the "not-believing" stage.

I would then regain my inspiration and keep doing the mantras as the other times, till it happened again. Now I was convinced that this was the result of believing not to achieve a lucid dream.

As I understood how I would achieve lucid dreams, I came to the conclusion that it would be impossible for me to achieve a lucid dream considering I would have to fail several days to be able to reach it, so I went dreaming with that mind in thought, and guess what.. Another lucid dream! Right after I had one!

So here's the theory:

The mantra I was using, "I will have a lucid dream tonight", tries to convince me that I will have a lucid dream. It's supposed tell the brain to have one, but I honestly do not believe that this will be the case, so I think to myself that the lucid dream will fail. For some reason, this will affect my mind by simply thinking more strongly about lucid dreaming in generally, without the outcome to the belief to have any meaning.

The first time achieving a lucid dream by failing with the mantras, could be just a random lucid dream. It could somehow planted the seed of idea that I will not succeed when telling me the mantras, only when I truly believe it's gonna fail. The progress would end up in me being completely honestly convinced that believing that not achieving a lucid dream will result in one.

Even though this probably sounds like the best technique possible, considering I would just have to convince myself that I will not have a lucid dream, as it's most likely to happen anyways, here's the catch. Trying to believe I won't have a lucid dream so I can achieve one by simply trying to trick my mind into believing I won't have one won't work. I will then believe I will actually achieve one, which was the case with the mantras in the beginning, and therefor the result will be no lucid dreams.

Considering I've started with lucid dreaming again, I'd like to try out this more, as if I could even call it a technique. It seems to be something effective for me, if I could somehow make it more reliable.

I want your thoughts on this matter, and please ask if there's anything you did not quite get.

-Thanks for reading!

here's the catch. Trying to believe I won't have a lucid dream so I can achieve one by simply trying to trick my mind into believing I won't have one won't work. I will then believe I will actually achieve one, which was the case with the mantras in the beginning, and therefor the result will be no lucid dreams.

Massive mind twister
Yeah get the idea, something you believe will stick alot more, keep it up!

Crazy! But im still a little confused on why you are able to achieve lucidity saying negative mantras?

Originally Posted by HigherDream

Crazy! But im still a little confused on why you are able to achieve lucidity saying negative mantras?

I'm confused as well, but I believe that since the first time using the mantra failed, it started building up the belief that the mantras didn't work no matter how often I used them, and so now it will have no effect for me to try using them. On the other hand, the belief I would not achieve a lucid dream, is something that I've experienced more frequent, which makes it easier for me to believe. I think that just having a strong thought about lucid dreaming is the way to go. Doesn't really matter if I say I will have one or not have one, but truly believe the words of what I'm saying, then I will somehow be more aware of the meaning of the word, making me remember about lucid dreaming.

Something that could of happened, is that the thought of not having a lucid dream, was so strong, I would be reminded in the dream, that I would not achieve a lucid dream, thus triggering my mind to start thinking about lucid dreaming.

Whenever I've had a lucid dream, it's because I randomly start thinking about lucid dreaming, and then I'm automatically more aware of my surroundings, making it easy for me to determine if it's real or not.

Originally Posted by siuol

I once wrote a thread about how I would trick myself into a mindset of 100% confidence for something that had an almost 100% chance of happening, and then kept that mindset when I told myself I would have a lucid dream, and it worked. A way to get lucid dreams is to believe with 100% confidence what you say. In this case you probably were confident you wouldn't get lucid, since in all probability you wouldn't. But with mantras and such your mind ignores negation, so that things like "I will not have a normal dream" translates into "I will have a normal dream." Maybe thinking that you wouldn't dream put confidence into what you were thinking and your mind changed the message around?

Just wrote a big wall of text in response to someone, but noticed now that you responded to the question with a really good and logical answer.

I will experience more with this matter, trying to figure out if there's a way I could turn this belief of not achieving lucid dream, into something that would constantly give me lucid dreams, somehow.

Ironically, this very ideal has helped me break a month-long dry spell about six months ago.

Perhaps I should actively use this more often and see if it produces results.

I once wrote a thread about how I would trick myself into a mindset of 100% confidence for something that had an almost 100% chance of happening, and then kept that mindset when I told myself I would have a lucid dream, and it worked. A way to get lucid dreams is to believe with 100% confidence what you say. In this case you probably were confident you wouldn't get lucid, since in all probability you wouldn't. But with mantras and such your mind ignores negation, so that things like "I will not have a normal dream" translates into "I will have a normal dream." Maybe thinking that you wouldn't dream put confidence into what you were thinking and your mind changed the message around?

^^ This makes sense to me. Good point about the mind removing the negatives - I had forgotten about that.

Seems like the most-logical explanation of the doubt-mantras.

Interesting, I read the same thing not too long ago but never tried it, the theory sounds good though:-

A non-regular lucid dreamer isn't going to 100% believe "I will have a lucid dream"
But a non regular dreamer can 100% believe "I will not have a lucid dream"
And as the theory goes, negations don't work with mantras, so the 'not' doesnt get picked up by the subconscious.

So.. the 100% believed to work mantra-"I will not have a lucid dream" becomes the 100% believed mantra-"I will not have a lucid dream"

I will try this out also and post my findings.

Originally Posted by ShadowOfSelf

Interesting, I read the same thing not too long ago but never tried it, the theory sounds good though:-

A non-regular lucid dreamer isn't going to 100% believe "I will have a lucid dream"
But a non regular dreamer can 100% believe "I will not have a lucid dream"
And as the theory goes, negations don't work with mantras, so the 'not' doesnt get picked up by the subconscious.

So.. the 100% believed to work mantra-"I will not have a lucid dream" becomes the 100% believed mantra-"I will not have a lucid dream"

I will try this out also and post my findings.

Great that you are interested in trying out this method and sharing them. I'd really like to see others trying out this technique and see how they experience it. Right now I need to focus mostly on improving my recall considering it's very unstable, but I will eventually try out this technique and share my results as well. Glad to hear that others find this way of achieving lucid dreams something interesting.

Anyone are welcome to share their experiences using this method. I'd really like to see more people trying this out.

I know with a lot of things in life if you think too hard or "want" them too badly sometimes the added pressure and stress of that desire can cause you to fail. For example, when I go to the gun range for fun I end up shooting bullseyes like no tomorrow. But when I'm trying to show or impress somebody and really stress the fact that I need to hit the centre of the target, I often miss.

I think a similar logic applies here. If you stress yourself too much by wanting an LD too much, that stress could cause you to fail at having one. But, if you don't worry about it (or in your case, say you don't want one at all), that pressure should be removed. Deep down you still want to have one, and your mind knows this, but it's not relaxed enough to achieve it. When you remove that pressure, you are able to LD. That's just my idea anyways, just based on personal experience not science or anything like that.

Originally Posted by Legion117

I know with a lot of things in life if you think too hard or "want" them too badly sometimes the added pressure and stress of that desire can cause you to fail. For example, when I go to the gun range for fun I end up shooting bullseyes like no tomorrow. But when I'm trying to show or impress somebody and really stress the fact that I need to hit the centre of the target, I often miss.

I think a similar logic applies here. If you stress yourself too much by wanting an LD too much, that stress could cause you to fail at having one. But, if you don't worry about it (or in your case, say you don't want one at all), that pressure should be removed. Deep down you still want to have one, and your mind knows this, but it's not relaxed enough to achieve it. When you remove that pressure, you are able to LD. That's just my idea anyways, just based on personal experience not science or anything like that.

This makes sense. I think that a combination of this theory, and the other reason, about my mind removing the "not" in my mantra, is something that caused me to have those lucid dreams.

Yeah I think its down to the theory more than the technique.

Two nights ago I had the intention in my head "I will not have a lucid dream, tonight I will just have good dreams, that I will remember in the morning" I felt good about this, my focus was only to remember my dreams, sure enough I remembered like 3 dreams when I woke up.
Next night - (well, I tried some supplements, which led to some interesting dreams) but never the less, I wasn't trying to 'force' lucidity, at one point in the dream DC's were coming out of nowhere and attacking me, then I thought "but this is only a dream I can just attack them back" (pulled out a gun and went on a rampage)
So my results are a bit inconclusive due to supplements, but taking my focus of lucidity did take some pressure off, my feelings when I woke up werent " OH FFS, no lucid AGAIN" they were "Yes, remembered my dreams just like I wanted to"

I'm going to play around with this way of thinking a bit more, at the moment my idea is to switch it everyday - i will be lucid tonight - i will not be lucid tonight etc. and see what results I get.

Originally Posted by shadowofself

i'm going to play around with this way of thinking a bit more, at the moment my idea is to switch it everyday - i will be lucid tonight - i will not be lucid tonight etc. And see what results i get.

I will try this out as well. Instead of trying to focus not on getting lucid dreams, yet believing doing so will cause me to lucid, I will simply not get lucid dreams. This seems like a very good variation that will handle that problem. I have one week free from school so this is the perfect timing for me to recall some dreams. When I get enough sleep without having to be woken up by the alarm clock, I have much better chances of recalling longer dreams.

Hopefully I can achieve a lucid dream by the end of next week.

You know this can also work within a lucid dream... Actually It can become quite powerful in keeping you there. Take the lucid dream I had on day 57 of my practice. The lucid dream faded away and I found myself back in the dreamworld since I had a false awakening. After continued false awakenings my lucid kick out timer got reset and extended the length of the lucid dream each time. I was terrified that I was in a coma and that I couldn't wake up. By believing this I made it reality which made me become trapped in a series of false awakenings.

That was my longest lucid dream ever and it's all thanks to believing that I couldn't awaken and that attempted to would result in a false awakening. If you wanna read the stuck in a lucid dream experience I had then check it out here:
(please note I refer to the lucid dreaming state as the "phase state")
trapped in a lucid dream and unable to escape for an hour

Originally Posted by 12padams

You know this can also work within a lucid dream... Actually It can become quite powerful in keeping you there. Take the lucid dream I had on day 57 of my practice. The lucid dream faded away and I found myself back in the dreamworld since I had a false awakening. After continued false awakenings my lucid kick out timer got reset and extended the length of the lucid dream each time. I was terrified that I was in a coma and that I couldn't wake up. By believing this I made it reality which made me become trapped in a series of false awakenings.

That was my longest lucid dream ever and it's all thanks to believing that I couldn't awaken and that attempted to would result in a false awakening. If you wanna read the stuck in a lucid dream experience I had then check it out here:
(please note I refer to the lucid dreaming state as the "phase state")
trapped in a lucid dream and unable to escape for an hour

I just read your story and I must say I am amazed and fascinated by your story, as it seems you were stuck in the dream for ages. I've barely had lucid dreams longer than 15 seconds, so coming across something like this would be like a dream come true! (See what I did there? )

If I understand you right, the way to keep your lucid dream alive longer, would be by believing that you will not wake up? If so, I will make sure that I will remember this when I have my next lucid dream.

If I understand you right, the way to keep your lucid dream alive longer, would be by believing that you will not wake up? If so, I will make sure that I will remember this when I have my next lucid dream.

This was a one off for me and I have never actually tried doing this again but maybe I should in future. If you go around thinking that you can't have a lucid dream for long and that you need to stabilize every 20 seconds then you will realize that the lucid dream will always be unstable. If you actually don't believe you can awaken however and actually want to wake up this seemed to induce false awakenings. The good thing about a false awakening is that it's like you have reset your exit timer and get to stay in the lucid dream longer since the beginning of a false awakening is always stable.

I can't actually say this works 100% but it's certainly a possibility. Think of it like reverse physiology for your brain. In a lucid dream you wanna stay but your brain forces you out of the state. In my lucid dream I was scared that I was dieing and wanted to wake so my brain locked me into the lucid dream. If it wasn't for that bird that woke up I probably would have been stuck for a much longer period of time. Hopefully more research can be done on this theory in the future.

Had a lucid dream today, was a short one, lasting about 15 seconds. I barely remember a stabilization technique before it faded away. I will at least try to remember this thinking next time I'm lucid, cause it's certainly an interesting theory. I think if this will be successful, it would be revolutionary for lucid dreaming, if only it was that simple to trick the brain though, as mine seems not be easily tricked.

This happened to me last night. When I went to bed I was too tired to feel like repeating mantras; I just wanted to sleep. As I was lying in bed I thought to myself "I haven't put any effort in becoming lucid during this day, and I am just too tired to do so now. There's no way I will have a lucid dream tonight.".

Next thing I know, I find myself inside a dream, fully aware that I am dreaming.

However, as you mentioned when you started this thread, convincing yourself that you will not become lucid with the intention of becoming lucid is what makes this technique difficult to use.