The people you see with 100s or even 1000s of lucid dreams...

[FuzzyPotatoes]

So I see members on here with their LD count in the hundreds or some massive number and I wonder, how do they do it? A skill which has taken me a long time just to have a couple of lucid dreams, and then you see people who have lucid experiences every night with ease. I've only have 2, not very vivid lucid experiences. So my question to all you pros out there, just how? Is it a case of "practice makes perfect?" Or is there more to that? Are those people in the hundreds, people who are natural lucid dreamers, who had lucid's as a kid and grew up with it? How will a person like me who try so hard for lucid dreams, be like one of those people you see do it with no difficulty?

[Tygar]

I have speculated on this myself. In a way it could be repetition. If you have enough LDs often enough you begin "feel" when you are in a dream. You just know the difference between reality and a dream. So when you dream you just become lucid immediately. This is just a theory, as you can tell by my LD count and my signature.

[cvdmehden]

This thread echoes the basis of the start of my book. Here's from one of the early chapters... In our current view of reality, lucid dreaming is a difficult task. Except for a lucky few, it is a skill that requires extraordinary amounts of practice and dedication in order to begin to reap its rewards. And so this worthy task, this impossible trick of realizing that one is dreaming, becomes a giant mountain for which we must prepare and train before beginning the long slog of a journey that may or may not someday result in our ascending the heights and enjoying the view. Yet any lucid dreamer worth her salt will know that things are not always what they seem in the dream. And while we weren’t looking, a curious thing happened in that last paragraph. Even writing it, I almost missed it. There was an innocent sentence fragment. Undoubtedly, some of the more observant will have tripped over those few words and paused. The more cunning will have even posed the question that now gives us a foothold, a place to stand as we survey our current predicament. Proficient lucid dreaming is an arduous task… except for a lucky few.

[Sensei]

Hmmm... I think that having someone help me one on one and trying every night. And paying attention to what is working and getting my dreams more aware. Look at the people that have thousands and pay attention to them, not the people with 2 or 3 that have posted on here 5 times. How am I supposed to trust that? Don't be afraid to try new things, but keep the things that are already working. Don't take long breaks. Don't wear yourself out by going 100% all the time. And again I say, pay attention to who you follow, you will end up where they are. This thread echoes the basis of the start of my book. Here's from one of the early chapters... You intrigue me...

[AnotherDreamer]

I was a natural lucid dreamer and I'm also one of those people that have multiple lucid dreams a night. But that's not to say that there wasn't a lot of effort required when I first started trying to have them. I've put a lot of effort over the years into training my brain to remember dreams, to become lucid more often, and to have great control when I do become lucid. At this point it is almost an automatic system for me, I focus on remembering what dreams I had every morning and I think about what I want to do in my dreams and work on every night. It no longer feels like work or effort to me though, just another part of living like eating meals or going to the bathroom. How can you get to such a level? No idea, it just happened slowly over time for me. I did notice one thing that made me take a huge jump in the # of LD's a night. The last couple weeks I have been seeing my daily life as being a dream. This has happened before but I usually repress the sensation because it can make me feel a little crazy. But I embraced it this time and I've been having 6-10 LD's every night this past week. Something about constantly feeling as though I am in a dream makes me have many more lucid dreams. Just a change in perspective can really affect how often you become lucid I guess.

[tofur]

I was a natural lucid dreamer and I'm also one of those people that have multiple lucid dreams a night. But that's not to say that there wasn't a lot of effort required when I first started trying to have them. I've put a lot of effort over the years into training my brain to remember dreams, to become lucid more often, and to have great control when I do become lucid. At this point it is almost an automatic system for me, I focus on remembering what dreams I had every morning and I think about what I want to do in my dreams and work on every night. It no longer feels like work or effort to me though, just another part of living like eating meals or going to the bathroom. How can you get to such a level? No idea, it just happened slowly over time for me. I did notice one thing that made me take a huge jump in the # of LD's a night. The last couple weeks I have been seeing my daily life as being a dream. This has happened before but I usually repress the sensation because it can make me feel a little crazy. But I embraced it this time and I've been having 6-10 LD's every night this past week. Something about constantly feeling as though I am in a dream makes me have many more lucid dreams. Just a change in perspective can really affect how often you become lucid I guess. That "waking dream" practice is one of the buddhists main daytime practices for dream yoga. Your the first real life example I've come across of someone really embracing it and seeing a big positive difference as a result.

[cvdmehden]

One of the long-lost secrets of lucid dreaming... Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream. There's a secret in each line.

[Omarsito]

I'm definitely not a pro but honestly it's chipping in effort and consistency, while not putting pressure on you're to lucid dream every single night. Let everything flow, and don't force things. This is when you'll start finding more and more lucid dreams coming your way. All of my lucid dreams have come when I've least expected them, and most of them have come after I've taken a two-three day break from practicing. I'm not saying not trying will get you results, but sometimes you have to let go of your efforts for a little bit if you see you're getting frustrated. Rethink your approach and then start back up again. You'll feel refreshed and maybe even have a lucid dream that night. Hope I helped

[Nailler]

Hi Fuzz, I would observe that when it comes to lucid dreaming skills, you get as much out of it as you put into it. I guess that's true of most things in life. I've also noticed that there's an ongoing search for some kind of magic that gets around that fact. I make the most progress when I step back from all the confusion and go back to Stephen LaBerge's works. For WILD and DEILD, Sageous, right here on Dream Views, is a heck of a resource. Every time I revisit his WILD class I learn something. As for "practice makes perfect" I'm sure it's no coincidence that when I get cocky and stop doing the LaBerge exercises, reality checks, and dream journaling, my success rate goes to hell. In short, work at it and follow the advice of those who are where you want to be. Have fun! Niall

[Bobblehat]

I've also noticed that there's an ongoing search for some kind of magic that gets around that fact. I've never had a problem with that. I enjoy seeing people innovate. I make the most progress when I step back from all the confusion and go back to Stephen LaBerge's works. Yes. It works. But there's also a case for challenging the idea that ETWOLD is some kind of "unchallengeable bible of LDing".

[Nailler]

Yes. It works. But there's also a case for challenging the idea that ETWOLD is some kind of "unchallengeable bible of LDing". More power to you if you can add to and improve upon what the LD pioneers brought to the table, Bobble hat. My point is that when and if we do get lost, we can always go back to what we know works... or am I the only one that sometimes backslides and needs a reset?

[dolphin]

I just practice my technique each night. My technique right now is just falling asleep thinking about as little as possible. Practice makes permanent, not perfect. If you practice the wrong way, you're not going to be perfect! As for how you'll become a consistent lucid dreamer, you have to find what technique works consistently for you. To do this, you try out different techniques through trial and error, while learning what does and doesn't improve your lucid dreaming. You improve each time you discover something that consistently works or doesn't. Once you find your technique then you can do the same technique each night without worrying whether you'll have a lucid dream or not because you know it works. This results in consistency because you're doing the same thing every night.

[Sensei]

I just practice my technique each night. My technique right now is just falling asleep thinking about as little as possible. Practice makes permanent, not perfect. If you practice the wrong way, you're not going to be perfect! As for how you'll become a consistent lucid dreamer, you have to find what technique works consistently for you. To do this, you try out different techniques through trial and error, while learning what does and doesn't improve your lucid dreaming. You improve each time you discover something that consistently works or doesn't. Once you find your technique then you can do the same technique each night without worrying whether you'll have a lucid dream or not because you know it works. This results in consistency because you're doing the same thing every night. and the more you do the same technique, the better you get, and the more consistent.

[Zoth]

- Why do good lucid dreamers can make practically all techniques work? - Why do good lucid dreamers become lucid in so many different ways? - How do good lucid dreamers achieve so many lucid dreams? All leads to the same answer: stimulus generalization (which by the way, is why I think cvdmehden is biasing his results by allowing expert lucid dreamers into his trial, but that's off topic xD) Anyway, a super-short explanation of this: - Lucidity is not a fixed product, and it's not a result of a linear process - the adjectives you use to characterize lucidity are not characterizing lucidity, they are characterizing different mental processes/functions that relate to cognition, but essentially get bundled up to lucidity, because of such obvious reasons as the understatement of the experience, it's recall, the actions derived from the event itself (the reward of the reward). That means that what you call lucidity 1, lucidity 2, lucidity 3, or for more understandable terms types like "high lucidity" and "low lucidity" (etc) are in fact the same lucidity which simply present other capabilities in terms of executive functions (for example) which in themselves, are not lucidity...but they might as well be, because we rely so much on them to re-create the following experience, which is ultimately far more important than the event itself. *zoth hopes he's making sense* - Recognition memory over time...or even priming, which has an ever more powerful effect on cues for lucidity. The longer you lucid dream, the more sensitized you become to an array of cues that are primed/associated into a specific concept that you learn to identify as lucid dream. In a curious way, you actually (I believe) have a beginner equivalent of this phenomenon: it's something like over-hyped expectations (that then reflect emotional content, which increases the chances of turning into residual memory, which increases the chances that will show up in a dream in the nearby future...oh look, self-fulfilling prophecies giving you lucid dreams!). More to be said, but you get the basic idea. (PS: the more possibly being a parallel observation related to self-awareness as studies keep finding about regular/expert meditators.)

[opalwolf]

i just put "a lot" in for my lucid count, because i am one of those people that "it came naturally to". I have definitely had hundreds and possibly thousands of lucid dreams. I don't consider myself a "pro" and i do not think there is a "pro" status really. I used to have repeating nightmares as a child and taught myself to recognize when i was sleeping in order to escape the demons i was encountering. This led to me being able to recognize when i am sleeping / dreaming. it wasn't until later that i even learned what a lucid dream was and then got into the "practice" of it. I must admit my prior experience gave me an edge in learning techniques. The BEST advice I can give a beginner is: 1. keep a dream journal 2. improve dream recall 3. NEVER GIVE UP / REMAIN FOCUSED (you can do it!!) i think a large part in achieving lucidity in a dream is the belief that you can

[Nailler]

i think a large part in achieving lucidity in a dream is the belief that you can Maybe Expectations-Memory-Technique in that order?

[AnotherDreamer]

I used to have repeating nightmares as a child and taught myself to recognize when i was sleeping in order to escape the demons i was encountering. This led to me being able to recognize when i am sleeping / dreaming. it wasn't until later that i even learned what a lucid dream was and then got into the "practice" of it. I must admit my prior experience gave me an edge in learning techniques. The That happened to me too! I used to hate those nightmares but they really introduced me to something fantastic as well.

[AstroFlyer]

i just put "a lot" in for my lucid count, because i am one of those people that "it came naturally to". I have definitely had hundreds and possibly thousands of lucid dreams. I don't consider myself a "pro" and i do not think there is a "pro" status really. I used to have repeating nightmares as a child and taught myself to recognize when i was sleeping in order to escape the demons i was encountering. This led to me being able to recognize when i am sleeping / dreaming. it wasn't until later that i even learned what a lucid dream was and then got into the "practice" of it. I must admit my prior experience gave me an edge in learning techniques. The BEST advice I can give a beginner is: 1. keep a dream journal 2. improve dream recall 3. NEVER GIVE UP / REMAIN FOCUSED (you can do it!!) i think a large part in achieving lucidity in a dream is the belief that you can This is pretty much my storyline, i have always had some level of awareness in my dreams but didnt know what it ment. Here is a copy/paste from another post; When i was younger, I had bad dreams about being chased and unable to get away. I dealt with it by waking myself up, but I never realized that most people couldn’t do this. As time went on, I had actually developed a power of some sorts over the situation. For example say someone is about to harm me in some way. I would say to the person or monster " you cant not hurt me because i can just wake up". Most of the time the situation would dissolve in some sort of wierd way or if need be, i would force myself to wake up. Having said that, this was before i knew anything about lucid dreaming. Also growing up, in my dreams I would aquire things of value and hide them somewhere like upder my pillow. The thinking was that when I woke up, the things would be there. So there had to be a level of awareness, but I just accepted it as normal. I didnt know what lucid dreaming was until a little over a year ago I started having LDs about once every few weeks to now having them 2-3 nights a week with a majority of them multiple LDs and FAs. I have recently learned to reconize the FAs which as increased my frequency. Now, i in noway where i want to be. Im actually on a 5 day dry spell and it seems like the harder i try to LD, the less it happens. I would have these dry spells and get frustrated. Then i would decrease my efforts, and then would have several nights in a row with quality LDs. What adds to the frustration is that i have very good dream recall, and have tons of non LDs in which i miss so may dream signs.

[Sensei]

Opal. I don't DJ... And I don't think that it is necessary, though recall is very important, there are more ways to increase recall. Belief definitely plays a big part, like it does in anything. However, experience like with everything, will give you the best results. It doesn't matter if I believe I can beat my friend at ping pong if he has way more experience than me. Especially if it is "good experience" doing "good practice".

[Nailler]

It doesn't matter if I believe I can beat my friend at ping pong if he has way more experience than me. On the other hand, even if you're more experienced, but you don't believe you can beat him, chances are you won't.

[Sensei]

On the other hand, even if you're more experienced, but you don't believe you can beat him, chances are you won't. It really depends on this. Have you ever seen someone with no experience with basketball? It really isnt something that most people can just pick up. No matter how bad I am feeling at basketball, I could kick a noobs face in, because I simply have cultivated that talent. Experience still overcomes. Expectation however, is guided by experience. The muscle memory being there or not being there will change the outcome. My body has been shaped for basketball, fast twitch muscles, ups like crazy, comfort with a basketball, being able to see where the ball is going to go when it leaves someones hand. This simply cannot be altered by expectation. Like zoth was talking about. Recognition memory over time.

[opalwolf]

@brandonboss my advice is geared towards beginners with little or no experience. it is meant to give them hope that they can achieve lucidity in dreams as easily as some of us that it comes to more naturally. unlike basketball (which is bound by the laws of physics), lucid dreaming is not an exact science - a technique that works tonight may not work tomorrow - therefore previous experiences may help, but not 100% of the time. same goes for keeping a dream journal, more experienced lucid dreamers may not need to keep a dream journal, but it is a good tool for beginners to keep track of progress. i hope this clears things up. i am aiming to help beginners get started - not tell already experienced people how or why.

[Sensei]

Gotcha. My most helpful tip for beginners: Look at hukif, oreo, naiya, or any others that were taught to LD. There is no difference between you and them. They don't have something special that you don't have. Now look at the many that join this site and try for "years". There is no difference between you an them either. Unless there is something actually wrong with your mind, you have in you the ability to be the best or the worst lucid dreamer. It all depends on what you do with it. People have asked me if I am a natural because of my high LD count. When I joined, I was accompanied by tons of people that started with what seemed to be a better knack for LDing than I did. They got to 25 LDs and some dropped out. I made it to 25 past them. Then they hit 50 and there was only one or two left that had started the same time as me. I got to 50 after all them. By the time I got to a hundred, everyone else had quit (Iknow tthat dolphin started the same time as me, but I didn't see him till later on because of his low post count) some like this before me and after me stayed, but the ones that I originally was beaten by all left. :/ now at almost 2 years and almost 500 LDs, people think that it is dependant on natural talent, I don't have any natural talent, but I do use the talents that I have, and don't worry about the ones that I don't.

[Screen]

I can't speak for those who've had many lucid dreams, but I can speak for those who struggle to have them. The answer to why some people can't have lucid dreams after many attempts is we simply don't know. Just as we don't know why others can have them easier. I had a few lucid dreams in the past without even trying, yet many times when I did try, I was empty-handed. What are the factors that seem to separate the desperate from the proficient? It's a study in progress. So, no one can tell you why you haven't had lucid dreams in the past. They can only give recommendations. I wouldn't stress out about it, as hard as that might sound. Part of the battle is mental. Either you'll have a lucid dream, or you won't, but at least you can try every time you go to sleep. For people in your case, I advise to use whatever aids you can find. Supplements, audio inductions, hypnosis, the works. My guess to how you'll get hundreds of lucid dreams is through experience. And the challenge lies in how you'll get your foot in the door, and the rest will be easy.

[Nfri]

Success is the matter of effective habits I'm no natural lder. I just work every day on improving my ''ld skills'' by all kinds of experimentation. This is what I found to be essetial yet: 1. Knowing your dreams (dream recall - dream journal, dream sign analysis) 2. Motivation (what you really desire to do), Willpower (need in wbtbs and dream journaling), Discipline (follow your schedule even in the dark days) 3. Imagination (mild or vild) 4. Effective wbtb (1 hour+) 5. Not to be depressed 6. Daypractice (dream sign awareness during the day) 7. Brain chemistry (acetylcholine up up up... I'm experimenting with galantamine and few other substances which work incredibly well and I think that I'm just on the begining of my lucid dreaming progress!) The last couple weeks I have been seeing my daily life as being a dream. This has happened before but I usually repress the sensation because it can make me feel a little crazy. But I embraced it this time and I've been having 6-10 LD's every night this past week. Something about constantly feeling as though I am in a dream makes me have many more lucid dreams. Just a change in perspective can really affect how often you become lucid I guess. I tried this also, but as you say, I began to feel crazy so I stopped. But now when I see that it's worth to endure, I'm including this to my ''daypractice'' now! It's not hard to preserve this lucid feeling during the waking state since I now have lucids every other day.