Thread: Memory: the Forgotten Fundamental

After reading it carefully, this is an amazing thread, full of great experience and honesty! I was actually wondering before reading Verre's post if anyone would bring up that issue of waking up when thinking about the body.
But thinking about the place where you are sleeping, as Sivason said, may be enough to create that dissonance of sleeping vs not sleeping.

Also, stunned about Nfri's post and Thomas Yuschak suggestion. Really recommended!

Sageous, if you have more secrets please share
Can we now say proudfully that nonlucidity means inacessible past memory?

I wish everyone and myself the next level of lucid dreaming in our hands !

Originally Posted by VagalTone

After reading it carefully, this is an amazing thread, full of great experience and honesty! I was actually wondering before reading Verre's post if anyone would bring up that issue of waking up when thinking about the body. But thinking about the place where you are sleeping, as Sivason said, may be enough to create that dissonance of sleeping vs not sleeping.

Sageous, if you have more secrets please share

The scary thing is that stuff this fundamental isn't common knowledge...

Can we now say proudfully that nonlucidity means inacessible past memory?

Well, as long as you include that non-lucidity also must include the absence of self-awareness, you could say that. Keep in mind that weak lucidity can exist without access to memory; self-awareness alone is enough to at least open to door to knowing you are dreaming.

Since we're on the topic of memory I thought I would share my morning experience, maybe it will help someone.

I woke up during the night after a lengthy dream with a really good memory of it and wrote it down in great detail, then went back to bed.

After that I woke up ~5 hours later and could not remember a single thing, literally just drew a complete blank as if the last few hours never happened. But I refused to believe I spent an entire 5 hours with zero dreams, it just clearly wasn't possible. So I laid in bed, cleared my head of all thought and went through everything that I could remember around the "void", I picked up on the details of me writing down my dream after I woke up in the middle of the night and then what I did when I went to bed after that, then "void" and then how I woke up etc...

Still blank.

So I just waited in that "thoughtless" state just concentrating on my intent to remember, sometimes I'd get a thought like "there must be something!" but I pushed it away because thoughts like that aren't helpful, I was like that for perhaps 10-15 minutes when I suddenly had a flash of the very last fragment of a dream. Have to say it's quite incredible to go from a complete void to actually suddenly remembering something, like finding water in a desert. From that little fragment I continued to "rewind" as far back as I could until I had half the dream recalled and then even a little tiny part of the previous dream before that one.

Moral of the story is just because you think you don't remember anything, doesn't mean you don't remember anything, sometimes you just have to believe.

Yay discussion ^^
I should probably go over all the replies before posting, but I must say I disagree to a very large extent with you Sageous: hopefully we can get something positive from this clash of perspectives

I’ll start by assuming something so I don’t keep mistaking it in future replies: when you say self-awareness is just one of the factors, being memory another, you’re assuming the lucid dreaming experience as a whole, and not just induction right? I assumed so, but let me know if I’m wrong.

The main point to be made regarding your perspective is you don’t exactly define the relevance of memory: in the context of being “the storehouse of a lifetime of information, sensations, experiences, relationships, emotions, images, and everything else that combines to form, ultimately, an individual.” I’d say that seems a bit umbrella at best: it’s not that things like MILD (which stems from prospective memory) present themselves as functions, but as types. And this make all the difference: episodic memory is by no means relevant to lucidity in the sense that you don’t need the background of your personal life to act lucidly: if I erased 10 years of your life you would still be able to act accordingly with the realization that you were asleep, could not be harmed, were not bound to laws of physics, etc etc. Even assuming you would therefore loose the memory of going to bed, that still wouldn’t deterred you from employing other processes that would allow you to rationalize that harm and impossibilities would nothing but a step you could climb above in your current (dream scenario). In fact, given the distinction I made in the first paragraph (about your post being about lucid dreaming experience and not just induction), even prospective memory is largely useless (or more correctly, way less relevant) after lucidity is reacher, due the fact that retrospective memory alone allows you to recall plans, as opposed to recall intentions under a set of conditions/time (typical of prospective memory).

This leads me to my second and most crucial point on the disagreement with your perspective, or more specifically, with this paragraph:

“ It is not that your mind is addled or your so-called “dream logic” is flawed, as it is popular to believe; no, your cognition is working fine in dreams. What is missing, or rather what is inaccessible during NLD's, is your storehouse of experience and knowledge from which you could gather that there really are, say, no swimming pools on the moon. “

Cognition encompasses memory by definition, but let’s ignore that for the sake of practicality. Once again, right away, we’d need to trim that definition of memory given in the start of the post: episodic memory is useless (and it fits the best with your description of memory) and maybe it’s actually harmful: what would elicit a more neutral and critical response to a stimulus? A stimulus that evokes a more visceral/emotional response by the individual (provoked due episodic memory) or a stimulus that has no “strings attached” and can be perceived in an almost “scientifical” perspective (by this I mean: as a simple observer without connection to the object of study)?
After that, we’d need to actually pick on the definition of self-awareness: cognition processes that escape to some degree memory (emphasis on “some degree”) but still build on aspects that go beyond the definition of memory you gave: I do need working memory to be self-aware, but I probably need working memory to practically all cognition processes, so saying it’s important is not very necessary in my opinion, as it’s already implied. But I certainly do not need to tap into certain content to be able to employ mechanics of self-monitoring, self-perception, and to reason regarding the situation I’m being presented with in my dreams.
A practical way to verify this perspective would be stating that people with retrograde amnesia would be capable of dreaming. According to your perspective (that we have to tap into our memory) this would be impossible, or am I mistaking some point? Because it assumes that a person with no memory would not be able to reach self-awareness into a dream (just for the case, I’d even wager they’d have a small advantage over normal people). And in case you agree, this leads me again to the need to divert from umbrella terms, because the definition of memory you gave, even if only for the purposes of the talk, misses on a lot of technicalities that we could discuss.

“Remembering those things I said above, like that your sleeping body is right where you left it, should help re-attach your consciousness to your core memory and allow your self-awareness to assert itself with proper waking-life awareness. This action will redefine the “reality” of the dream, the rules of the dream, and perhaps even the dream itself. So, you cannot have true -- and certainly not strong -- waking-life self-awareness in your dream if you do not remember that the dream-character body you are currently occupying is not your physical body. “

Why not? Let’s assume that the typical short-term memory duration would be enough to allow you to WILD and still be able to recall the experience in the last 12-20 seconds (just a wild guess…oh hey I made a pun xD). Without the memory that you were asleep but with other cognitive processes possible wouldn’t you be able to have a fulfilling experience? In other words, do you really need that specific memory in order to grasp the characteristics of a dream world? I’d agree that to some point a person that isn’t aware that she is actually in her bed safe and sound might have some initial issues with dream control, but you certainly don’t need any kind of episodic memory….at some point, the realization that you are dreaming would naturally escape the need for the recall.
Unless you’re referring to this “body in bed” as “information”? That would make me agree a lot more, but there would still present the same issue: what would make you jump from a building faster? Knowing that you can presently pass your hand through your body like it was made of smoke, or having a memory of being asleep just moments ago? My point: we do know that self-awareness can initiate/trigger/represent lucidity without memory, why would such a large extent of memory be crucial to the consequential experience?

“Second, once you’ve passed this initial hurdle, you likely will have switched your brain’s memory-access circuits back to the “on” position, from the “off” position to which they are naturally set during sleep. This will allow you to remember your current dream goals, prolonging techniques, the waking-world histories of the dream-characters populating your dream (giving you opportunity to wonder/explain what they’re doing there), and a host of other things. Basically, you will be truly awake in the dream when memory is accessed, and waking-life self-awareness (aka: lucidity) will have opportunity to prosper.”

A danger paragraph to me: I know you’re just using lay-terms for the sake of simplicity, but memory is never turned off: did you ever try remembering where you were in the middle of a dream? You’d become lucid: not because of memory, but because of the realization that derived from it, which derived from the other processes that surpass memory (especially using the definition of reposition of information/experience). But imagine that you could not remember where you were 15 minutes ago, but you saw Obama with a 10-feet bears using shorts and a katana? If these specific cognition processes (like logic) weren’t turned off, or more correctly, performing at a lowered degree (because they are still there!), you’d be lucid without the need of many types of memory. I’m not putting memory out of the equation, because your first thought might be “zoth, you’d still need to know who Obama is”, but I’m currently limited by your definition ^^
Also about this, the only type of memory that you didn’t include in your definition, prospective memory, is exactly the one that is working both when you mention goals (recall the mantra “I will do X when I become lucid) and maybe even when you employ the mantra “I will remember”: memory that doesn’t require previous information or events, but refers only to future events.

A last thought, that might also act as a TLDR:
If I forget to take my shoes when I arrive home, is it because I can’t access the memory that my parents told me to do so, or might it be because….my attention was diverted to other things?

PS: I left out any reference to several studies and other threads, but that neuroimaging study and several others would also help cast a light on this topic. Time to go over all the replies now ^^

Zoth:

Though I am happy you joined the conversation, I'm afraid that I must respectfully say that you seem to be having a bit of trouble seeing the forest for the trees here. The whole point of this thread and my so-called perspective is to discuss memory in its role as the big-picture, umbrella-termed component of your mind that basically carries the definition of who you are -- and when you cannot connect with memory in a LD, you are missing a major portion of your self, and of lucidity. That connection is with memory in general, and not any particular episodic memory.

That is really all I need to say because, honestly, your scientific knowledge in these arenas far outranks mine, and I'm sure that everything you said in your posts was spot-on accurate -- for the bit of memory or its uses that you were discussing at any one point, of course (you've accurately identified every "memory tree" there is, but overlooked the memory forest). Also, I do not want to argue with you about this, because, again, your facts are generally correct and all I can do is repeatedly ask you to step out of the forest for a second and consider memory as a whole -- umbrella terms and all. But, since you put so much into this, here are a few specific responses that I hope will make sense, or at least encourage you to read the thread again, only without the microscope:

Originally Posted by Zoth

I’ll start by assuming something so I don’t keep mistaking it in future replies: when you say self-awareness is just one of the factors, being memory another, you’re assuming the lucid dreaming experience as a whole, and not just induction right? I assumed so, but let me know if I’m wrong.

That was indeed the correct assumption; induction doesn't matter on this thread.

The main point to be made regarding your perspective is you don’t exactly define the relevance of memory: in the context of being “the storehouse of a lifetime of information, sensations, experiences, relationships, emotions, images, and everything else that combines to form, ultimately, an individual.” I’d say that seems a bit umbrella at best

As it was meant to be; I am not looking to scientifically describe each facet of memory here, but discuss the importance of the cumulative result of all those facets.

...episodic memory is by no means relevant to lucidity in the sense that you don’t need the background of your personal life to act lucidly: if I erased 10 years of your life you would still be able to act accordingly with the realization that you were asleep, could not be harmed, were not bound to laws of physics, etc etc.

But what if you erased all the years of my life, which is essentially what happens in a NLD? Would I be able to act accordingly then? I'm not sure. Lack of access to memory in dreams, mixed with the fictitious memories created by your unconscious, effectively replaces your entire life with a world that started just five minutes earlier. Accessing memory negates the perceived reality of that world; and that access is of memory in general, and no specific episode -- so you can erase as many years as you want to, as long as there is some part of waking-life "you" available to confirm that the place you are in during a dream is not real.

Even assuming you would therefore lose the memory of going to bed, that still wouldn’t deterred you from employing other processes that would allow you to rationalize that harm and impossibilities would nothing but a step you could climb above in your current (dream scenario).

What processes, exactly, would allow you to be fully yourself in a dream without remembering who you actually are? Processes and techniques to manipulate those processes mostly tend to be tools for accessing memory, if you look closely enough at them.

Cognition encompasses memory by definition, but let’s ignore that for the sake of practicality. Once again, right away, we’d need to trim that definition of memory given in the start of the post: episodic memory is useless (and it fits the best with your description of memory)

Here I think is the core of our disagreement: I was not talking specifically about episodic memory. It isn't the individual events and remembered moments that matter, it is the accumulation of all of those moments (and their accompanying emotions, knowledge, and experience), the greater whole "You" that they define simply by existing. Indeed, I wasn't talking about the various functions of memory at all, but simply memory... if you can understand that perspective, you will understand what I'm talking about here, and maybe why I think it matters in terms of lucidity.

I do need working memory to be self-aware, but I probably need working memory to practically all cognition processes, so saying it’s important is not very necessary in my opinion, as it’s already implied.

This is true. Unfortunately, because it has been so consistently ignored, the importance of memory as a whole to cognition and self-awareness has been set aside in favor of specific techniques that that might trigger bits of it here and there, or use some of its processes (like prospective memory with MILD), but never serve to remind a dreamer that there is a whole chunk of his mind that is mostly out of the picture, even in LD's.

But I certainly do not need to tap into certain content to be able to employ mechanics of self-monitoring, self-perception, and to reason regarding the situation I’m being presented with in my dreams.

Nobody said you did. In fact, I even think I said the remembering your sleeping body exercise was not about tapping certain content at all.

A practical way to verify this perspective would be stating that people with retrograde amnesia would be capable of dreaming. According to your perspective (that we have to tap into our memory) this would be impossible, or am I mistaking some point? Because it assumes that a person with no memory would not be able to reach self-awareness into a dream (just for the case, I’d even wager they’d have a small advantage over normal people).

I would imagine a person with retrograde amnesia might be able to know they are dreaming, sure, and they might even be able to do some limited advanced LD'ing. This is because, again, it is not about accessing specific episodic memories but accessing memory, period, so that you can know that the dreaming body you occupy is not your real body, and that there is still a physical world behind the curtain of your dreams and sleep... you do not need to remember anything specific to be able to do this.

And in case you agree, this leads me again to the need to divert from umbrella terms, because the definition of memory you gave, even if only for the purposes of the talk, misses on a lot of technicalities that we could discuss.

Missing out on a lot of technicalities was my direct intention. Those technicalities are good to know in their own right, but really are not helpful when considering memory in its entirely... I do not need to understand the role of every bolt and wire used in its construction to appreciate the fact that a suspension bridge will help me cross a river. I also don't need to understand the myriad bits of physics involved in engineering a suspension bridge in order to admire its beauty. This is all about the umbrella, Zoth!

Let’s assume that the typical short-term memory duration would be enough to allow you to WILD and still be able to recall the experience in the last 12-20 seconds (just a wild guess…oh hey I made a pun xD). Without the memory that you were asleep but with other cognitive processes possible wouldn’t you be able to have a fulfilling experience? In other words, do you really need that specific memory in order to grasp the characteristics of a dream world?

No, you don't; but grasping the characteristics of the dream world is not what we're discussing here. This thread is not a technique tutorial. I almost immediately regretted, BTW, including the "remember your sleeping body" part as soon as I wrote it, because it loosely implied that I am presenting a technique.

I’d agree that to some point a person that isn’t aware that she is actually in her bed safe and sound might have some initial issues with dream control, but you certainly don’t need any kind of episodic memory….at some point, the realization that you are dreaming would naturally escape the need for the recall.

I never, even once, said that you need any kind of episodic memory, and yes, you can certainly enjoy your LD without recalling anything specific. Okay, I think I've said that bit enough times, now, I'm sure you get it.

Unless you’re referring to this “body in bed” as “information”? That would make me agree a lot more, but there would still present the same issue: what would make you jump from a building faster? Knowing that you can presently pass your hand through your body like it was made of smoke, or having a memory of being asleep just moments ago? My point: we do know that self-awareness can initiate/trigger/represent lucidity without memory, why would such a large extent of memory be crucial to the consequential experience?

Once again, this has nothing to do with what I was saying, Zoth, but I will say that if you have accessed memory it is a lot easier to pass your hand through your body because you now know, with the assertion of your own memory, that what you are passing your hand through (and your hand, for that matter) is not real. And, with that knowledge, your actions and capabilities truly become unlimited.... all without accessing one single episodic memory!

I know you’re just using lay-terms for the sake of simplicity, but memory is never turned off

I never sad it was turned off; not even once. In fact, I believe I specifically said memory is always active, and it is access that is turned off (even in that paragraph of mine that you noted).

Originally Posted by Zoth

Like I said, saying memory is important for everything makes it irrelevant to mention. It's like saying oxygen is important to play the flute.

Try playing that flute in a vacuum, and you will understand what I'm discussing here. Thanks for that excellent analogy, BTW.

I hope some of this made sense, Zoth, and sorry about all the parsing (I tried not to take anything out of context). I also hope that you try to look at this subject in "umbrella" terms for at least a moment. Sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and the whole should never be defined or constrained by the behavior of one or two of those parts.

I will let Sageous respond to the above, as I am not sure I gleaned everything in a quick read, but there were a few points that bothered me:

I’d agree that to some point a person that isn’t aware that she is actually in her bed safe and sound might have some initial issues with dream control, but you certainly don’t need any kind of episodic memory….at some point, the realization that you are dreaming would naturally escape the need for the recall.

I think memory in general is necessary for lucidity. One would need to be able to remember what a dream is in order for one to realize they were in a dream, so erasing memories, as you mention, could quite literally destroy one's ability to lucid dream. Furthermore, you mention that once lucidity is "reached," memory is far less relevant. I think the concept of lucidity being "reached," as though once you know it is a dream, your lucidity can no longer be refined and improved by waking life memory, is wrong. I only speak from experience.

In practice, it is often the waking life memory of being asleep (as I think sivason pointed in another reply) that allows the mind to actually understand (not know) that one is experiencing a construct. It is one thing to know you are asleep, and quite another to feel and fully understand that you are asleep. The lucidity brought on in a flash of awareness is usually not enough to break the many layers of waking-life logic and rationalizations we've attached to the dream state. So I would actually say that remembering I was in bed would improve my control a lot more than simply seeing my hand pass through my body like smoke. The latter tells me I have a body that can be passed through like smoke. The former tells me that right now, I'm everything, and that my conceptions of body and mind are illusory. I think it's different.

I also wanted to add (on a general note, to everyone) that I have been experimenting with mindfulness in dreams, and have been surprised by the strong connection that exists between mindfulness and memory. In Buddhism, as someone else mentioned, we would just talk about this as sati, whether it be sati of the present moment (what most people think of when they think of mindfulness) or of the past (memory). In general, it has been my experience that in order for memories to even arise, mindfulness must make some space. When I become lucid, I try to observe my surroundings. During this time, numerous waking life memories simply return to me--goals, plans, etc. I then have a choice whether or not I want to actually pursue those, or continue to observe the dream.

Thank you for this interesting post, Sageous. Next up--mindfulness!

Zoth, perhaps reading all the posts first may have been helpful this time.

This is a mildly advanced improvement on the lucid dreaming thing, not a requirement for general lucidity.

Think about the Matrix movie. You had all the humans inserted into the matrix able to use some powers (general lucidity, as many know it), and at some point Neo "understood" the nature of the matrix, and everything changed. That is why this is important.

Originally Posted by ThreeCat

. So I would actually say that remembering I was in bed would improve my control a lot more than simply seeing my hand pass through my body like smoke. The latter tells me I have a body that can be passed through like smoke. The former tells me that right now, I'm everything, and that my conceptions of body and mind are illusory. I think it's different.

Wonderfully stated, that is the core of the issue.

I think memory in general is necessary for lucidity. One would need to be able to remember what a dream is in order for one to realize they were in a dream, so erasing memories, as you mention, could quite literally destroy one's ability to lucid dream.

Like I said, saying memory is important for everything makes it irrelevant to mention. It's like saying oxygen is important to play the flute.

Furthermore, you mention that once lucidity is "reached," memory is far less relevant. I think the concept of lucidity being "reached," as though once you know it is a dream, your lucidity can no longer be refined and improved by waking life memory, is wrong. I only speak from experience.

For sure lucidity being static and 100% quantifiable is wrong: lucidity varies throughout the dream, just like self-awareness varies, and they are both affected by both your neurochemistry and your own reaction to the experience. My bad if I sounded like that, but my point is the experience after lucidity is initiated, not so much the culmination of lucidity.

So I would actually say that remembering I was in bed would improve my control a lot more than simply seeing my hand pass through my body like smoke.

What if another person posted and disagreed with that ? My point isn't that memory is not relevant, but it's important to go beyond umbrella definitions because you can't pinpoint exactly what you mean with certain perspectives: it's not about being right or wrong, but specific. Having the memory of your body in bed is useless by itself: what is helping you (even if you don't realize because the process is not conscious) is the realization DERIVED from that memory. And that realization is not entirely dependent on the memory retrieval. If you think about it, you can just as easily rationalize you're in a dream with or without certain episodic memories. But even if it wasn't about the memory, it's not like the memory isn't there, as there can be literally dozens of reasons why I'm not recalling my body in bed and still experience a high degree of lucidity.

I'm a huge fan of mindfulness as well, and can't wait for that discussion to pop up ^^

Originally Posted by Zoth

Having the memory of your body in bed is useless by itself: what is helping you (even if you don't realize because the process is not conscious) is the realization DERIVED from that memory. And that realization is not entirely dependent on the memory retrieval. If you think about it, you can just as easily rationalize you're in a dream with or without certain episodic memories. But even if it wasn't about the memory, it's not like the memory isn't there, as there can be literally dozens of reasons why I'm not recalling my body in bed and still experience a high degree of lucidity.

I'm a huge fan of mindfulness as well, and can't wait for that discussion to pop up ^^

Yep, you would do well to read the whole thread, here is a quote,

Originally Posted by sivason

It is worth noting that in the example I gave of coming to a false conclusion (that I was asleep in my college apartment in the winter of 2003) STILL served the function of pulling true waking awareness into the dream.

The conclusion of "where" my body was located was not accurate, but the act of establishing that the dream body was distinct and seperate from my physical body, served the same function as if I had realized it was 2013 and I was in a hotel room..

I do think trying to remember what you were doing right before bed and what phase of your life (generally) you are in is a good exercise, but the truth of your conclusion is not so important.

Not trying to sound argumentative, but that quote by itself contradicts the emphasis on memory: if the memory is not retrieved, then we're still pulling awareness into the dream. But for that specific purpose, we're then talking essentially about reality checks. The question is then the habit of performing an action: in this case, recalling a memory. But memory in itself (apart from the obvious need for retrospective memory) has no relevance in the exercise, aka, it's not necessary for the purpose in mind which is awareness. Replace that by other reality check and one can reach the same result (of lucidity).

I guess what I'm trying to find out is exactly what Sageous means with memory, as the term is so general that we can literally say it's present and relevant but not because of lucidity itself, but because we need memory for everything in our lives. Hopefully he'll clarify this and meanwhile I'll finish reading the post.

I think you're analogy was great, hopefully, you can see why it is important to talk about memory (even if it is always important) in situations where it is highly impaired

Seeing as certain types of memory are largerly useless to induction of a lucid dream, saying "memory" is not just enough. Would you say that you can't discard any type of memory in this activity? Because we'd automatically be excluding many people with certain memory disorders from achieving lucidity. That's the case for the relevance of being specific.

Guess it's my fault again, that analogy wasn't giving away what I was trying to say: I mentioned oxygen when playing the flute as in: it's not the oxygen which is relevant, it's the breathing. In that context, mentioning oxygen does not capture the key lesson you mentioned in your post.

Originally Posted by Zoth

It's like saying oxygen is important to play the flute.

Oh, it is. I am sure there's a point where the flute teacher will teach the student about how it is important to still be getting oxygen while you are blowing most of it and how to do it in a way that doesn't disturb performance.

I am a swimming instructor (or was) and breathing is an important part when teaching a swimming stroke.

I think you're analogy was great, hopefully, you can see why it is important to talk about memory (even if it is always important) in situations where it is highly impaired.

This thread really gets to the core of how we conceptualise lucidity at all. For the majority lucidity is seen as labeling your immediate experience as a dream. However, this is only one of four "corollaries" of lucidity that have been identified by Deirdre Barrett as constituting lucidity. The others are:

• Knowledge that dream objects will disappear after waking
• Knowing that physical laws need not apply in the dream
• Clear memory of the waking world

Self-awareness may be adequate for the first corollary, but the other three need memory. Possessing only the first corollary leads to semi-lucid dreams in which one believes that the DCs of your family or friends are lucid dreaming with you, or in which you react to obstacles in a physical way, or do not recall goals and only fly/fight/fuck your way through the dream. All four need to be present for full lucidity.

After reading Sivason's post recommending a session of waking life recall at the beginning of each lucid I had an LD that night and decided to try and recall where my sleeping body was, and what was happening in my life. My recall was spot on, but it drew so much attention away from the dream scene at hand that I woke! Still it was remarkable to have such clear recall, and I'm considering making this practice a prerequisite for me to consider an LD truly lucid - remembering to at least try and recall.

This month I started recalling my day in vivid detail, which has greatly increased both my dream and life recall. I intend to have a list of things from my day to recall while in the dream, through the use of mnemonics, in the mode of the "breaking down the wall" practice which Nfri posted (I was going to post it if you hadn't ) a really great method for the kind of memory we're talking about here, I feel.

In my opinion, memory and lucidity are definitely tied together in some way, but they don't seem to be mutually inclusive. I wasn't able to put my finger on why I felt this way until reading this:

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

This thread really gets to the core of how we conceptualise lucidity at all. For the majority lucidity is seen as labeling your immediate experience as a dream. However, this is only one of four "corollaries" of lucidity that have been identified by Deirdre Barrett as constituting lucidity. The others are:

• Knowledge that dream objects will disappear after waking
• Knowing that physical laws need not apply in the dream
• Clear memory of the waking world

I'm no Sageous or sivason, but I have had a few hundred WILDs over the past 15 years. One thing I've learned is that witnessing a dream materialize from a void gives you 100% certainty of the fact that you're dreaming. I would call that lucidity, and yet, you can achieve this type of awareness without calling upon waking memories of self. In other words, I don't have to recall something that contradicts the dream for me to realize I am dreaming; I know I'm dreaming because I watched it happen.

That being said, there was a sense of having a "new" level of awareness when I was able to affirm the true day/time/state of physical body whilst in the dream. The only thing I can compare it to is the sort of hyper self-awareness you can get from meditating. The thing is, I don't need that level of awareness to know I am wake when I am indeed awake, and similarly, I don't need that type of awareness to know I'm dreaming when I am indeed in a dream. Having it will surely bring the lucidity to a new level, but I wouldn't necessarily say it's a requisite.

This is probably an oversimplification, but I think lucidity has two basic tiers:

• Tier 1: Being aware that the environment is an illusion.
• Tier 2: Being aware of the real environment beyond the illusion.

^^ Again, accessing your memory is not about achieving lucidity; you can certainly know you are dreaming without remembering a thing. Accessing memory is also not a tool or technique for transitioning from NLD to LD. It is simply the completion of bringing your entire self into the dream, and lucidly benefitting from that completion.

That said, I think you cannot be aware that there is a real environment beyond the dream without accessing your memory.

Originally Posted by Sageous

That said, I think you cannot be aware that there is a real environment beyond the dream without accessing your memory.

I agree, memory is definitely needed.

Originally Posted by Zoth

Seeing as certain types of memory are largely useless to induction of a lucid dream, saying "memory" is not just enough. Would you say that you can't discard any type of memory in this activity? Because we'd automatically be excluding many people with certain memory disorders from achieving lucidity. That's the case for the relevance of being specific.

Hmm... That's reasonable, Zoth.

But, for lucid dream induction and stabilization, (unless your definition includes dreams about lucid dreaming), the goal is to have waking awareness during a dream experience, so in other words, the goal is to turn on the cognition abilities that are normally turned on in waking life but are turned off in dreams. (and again, it's not all or nothing but mostly a spectrum).

We never can become "aware-of-all, with memory-of-all, and be all-knowing, etc...". Not all the switches will be "turned on" all at once, and like you said, some things will be ignored because we choose to put our attention somewhere else. But in the end, every time we turn a switch on, or move up the spectrum of awareness, we gain a valuable experience, an intense experience of lucidity.

And for people with cognition disabilities... If the goal of "lucid dreaming" (in this thread) is to turn on waking life cognitive abilities, then, the cognitively disabled individuals need only turn on the "cognitive switches" that are accessible to them, and sadly, they will be disabled as in real life, for example, they won't have access to "retrograde memory" but they will still be able to enjoy an interesting experience, much more than dark oblivion.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Memory defines who we are; without it and its context we cease to exist. Our physical forms might still be here, but without memory we are little more than waking-life dream characters. And of course, without access to memory in dreams we are no more than dream characters, period.

This was one of my favorite points from the OP, because I experience a lot of false memories in dreams, to the point where sometimes "I" am a different person altogether, with a completely different self-identity from waking life. (I have to confess that I really enjoy this!) I've often wondered about the extent to which a similar kind of immersive roleplaying might be possible while actually lucid. To the extent that we define the quality of lucidity as measurable by the access to WL memory and identity, it would seem a logical impossibility.

However, even in waking life it is possible to partly experience an alternate identity and perspective, for instance through the techniques of method acting or a really long-term and immersive RPG. The characters we play are of course not truly "other," instead being subsets or reconstructions of elements that are already within us, but over time they can accumulate enough of their own memories and experiences to achieve an apparent solidity and independence... an identity. Perhaps that's what authors mean when they talk about how their characters start to "write themselves."

I'm also interested in the transitions, the process by which our memories shift from our ordinary sense of self in waking life, to the incomplete memory and awareness of the dream state, and back again when we wake up. I have the impression that this process doesn't always occur in the same way: sometimes the transition is sudden, and we are disoriented after waking up from a vivid dream and trying to remember our WL circumstances. Sometimes it occurs more gradually, with the WL identity reasserting itself gradually even within the dream state.

I recorded a distinct case of the latter process in my DJ this morning: Eating Earthworms (NLD). The dream began with a self-awareness that was completely dislocated in time, place, priorities, and might not even have been human. Over the course of just a few minutes, the waking-life model of my thoughts and memories reasserted itself in progressive stages just before I woke up. However, the whole dream was completely non-lucid from start to finish. It's intriguing that dreams where our sense of self is clearly modeled on our WL identity can be every bit as non-lucid as dreams where we believe are someone else entirely.

Oh...memory as in "who you are" not memory as in "encoding, storage and retrieval". I confess I went right away to the second (shame on me!), so the thread made no sense because you seemed to be using one term to explain a lot of different things. When sivason showed me that quote, I got even more confused, but now I see that you were focusing on how cogwheel fits into the system.

I'm still not 100% clear I admit, mostly because the part of "accessing memory" still confuses me a bit: I do see the point of "tapping" into the "well of memory", especially in the sense that if you don't stop the spinning characteristic by the NLD, you'll have a hard time situation yourself in the face of the ongoing experience...but isn't the tap a very specific action? Or, better said, what is the "body-in-bed" a literal concept, or ohhhh: is this your way of saying "if you can't perceive yourself outside of your bed body, you can never act beyond it?" Did I get it ? Because that would mean that memory would be necessary, because how can you navigate a new construct if you don't know the outlines of the previous one? If it's not this I'm still stuck outside the forest sorry xD

^^ Sounds like you got it, Zoth; I knew you would. Thanks for taking a second look, and I hope you'll hang around to add your knowledge to our conversation!

Zoth, thanks for all the effort you put into your posts. I think you have got it, but am not sure.

Here it is boiled way down:

To reach a higher level of control and cognitive function in a dream, it helps if you clearly can witness (through memory of waking life) that nothing in this dream is real, at all. Just saying "this is a dream," may not be enough, so scanning for an accessable memory that shows you are sleeping and not at all physically here helps.



P.S. sorry if my quote did not seem to help.

Just a quick idea: If you wake up often from remembering ur real body maybe devise a way to quickly alternate the dream completely so that you do not get pulled out of it. I have some idea how this might work. You can think of the non-dream world as a focus or anchor that you get pulled into. Being able to stay in the Lucid dream means being to able to detach yourself from both senses of both the dream and the world might help stabilizing a lucid dream. So that you do not rationalize urself one way or the other too much but stay still and interact as if nothing happened. And make slight changes so as not to destabilize.

I also thought that the dream itself might have it's requirements of memory/thought that must be met. i.e. Verre's perception of being a Foxx.

Having the rational intrude on this might destabilize the dream rapidly. In this case. An alternative I offer is to leave the old dream schemas entirely and start with a new one from scratch. How? I leave that up to you ( I woulden't know how I am not experience enough ) One could try a forced False Awakening or Zooming in on an object/ dream schema.

Oddly enough, with practice you develop a duel mode of experiencing your dream body/enviroment AND an awareness of your waking memory.

It is odd in that while waking this is something natural but in lucid dreaming it may take a few tries. In waking life we can daydream about the past while driving with little fear of not seeing the next cars break lights. It is a similar process in the dream and just requires experimentation. You divide your attention in the same way, keeping a portion of your awareness on the dream itself.

the first thread of master Sageous was very clear and informative. but the other conversations have just made it over complicated and hard to understand.

if i want to summarize the two important point of his thread, they are:

1- after LD, try to know you are already not your physical body, so have fun and don't worry if you hurt yourself as you are not a real body but an illusion. your real body is like a car, parked inside the parking (bed) so don't worry.

2- induce your memory to know who you are and what you wanted to do in your LD.

if i am missing something, please tell me. maybe i am totally wrong

I just had another thought: Since you remain in connection with your memory throughout a WILD, you stand a better chance of hanging onto that access after the transition to the dream (only a better chance, though, because your sleep systems are still set to switch off that access). Perhaps this better chance of retaining memory -- and the acompanying higher-quality LD -- in a WILD is the real reason people think WILD is "better" than DILD? So the special thing about a WILD might not be that you never fall asleep, but that you never lose memory. Hmm.

Probably not, but just a thought.

Originally Posted by Sageous

I just had another thought: Since you remain in connection with your memory throughout a WILD, you stand a better chance of hanging onto that access after the transition to the dream (only a better chance, though, because your sleep systems are still set to switch off that access). Perhaps this better chance of retaining memory -- and the acompanying higher-quality LD -- in a WILD is the real reason people think WILD is "better" than DILD? So the special thing about a WILD might not be that you never fall asleep, but that you never lose memory. Hmm.

Probably not, but just a thought.

No, I think you've struck on the true reason for the "WILD bias". You don't often read semilucid WILD accounts (unless the dreamer lost consciousness during their dive and then dreamt of wilding), I think maintenance of memory is what distinguishes it from the apparently inferior dild (though this kind of memory is accessible in more DILDs than many realise, or try to reach).