Thread: Does effort is necessary to have LD or does it depends on LUCK???

Lucid dreaming IS a matter of probability.

Don't fool yourself, we haven't found any switch in the brain that activates lucidity (some articles do talk like that, right StephL xD?). I'll give you a good analogy suggested by one of our most experience dreamers:

Lucid dreaming is like playing the roulette: every night, regardless of method (DILD or WILD), you spin it. Now, each section of the "pie" can refer to a complete unique way of realization that you are dreaming. Some famous examples:

- Recalling that you are asleep in your bed/have gone to sleep a few hours ago;
- Recalling that you were supposed to do a reality check after find a red car;
- Becoming aware of an inconsistency within the dream;
- Becoming aware of a logical impossibility in the dream;
- Retaining self-awareness while entering the dream (WILD, still a chance!);
- etc, including reminding yourself that you're not a drug addict that works for Dr.House and that you're not bald!

Now, as you may have guessed, many of these are actually present in famous techniques we use for lucid dreaming: sometimes, a complete unknown or random reason might make you reality check, which will make you realize you are dreaming. Sometimes, you can actually recall your purpose. But while we may practice these exercises a lot during the day, we are still ultimately bound to the neurochemistry of dreaming, that impairs of cognition. So you can never be 100% sure you'll remember to reality check when you see the red car, or that you'll retain consciousness while falling asleep, or that the visualization before bed is any good...you're clueless, even more due the fact that it's actually very hard to pinpoint the cause of lucidity (yes, I can practice MILD for 5 months and become lucid for a completely different reason....maybe I saw an object that actually unconsciously primed me to think about dreams, which led me to think about my dreams, which reminded me that I might have been dreaming).

But let us stop right here: if you think about probabilities, then not only you should stop trying to lucid dream, you should stop trying to be happy, considering the amount of ways you can fail. Because the scenario becomes much better once you actually start being more realistic with numbers: if your chance of lucidity was 1 in 5 dreams (or 20%) then you'd have at least one lucid per night. If it was 5%, you'd experience a lucid every 4 days. Now look around Dreamviews: we got people around here that had 1 lucid per month....and now they have several lucid dreams per week. We have people becoming lucid just after a few days, and we have people with a few lucids per month. But that's not the best part! Keep up with me:

When you go to the gym, the hardest part is actually starting: your muscles will become sore, you have to push yourself to get used to the routine, and you have to make sure you remind yourself that you have to work hard every time you go there. But after 3-4 months? You don't even notice that the first half hour has gone by, because the exercise becomes so automatic that your mind is free to wander about other things. It's exactly like this for lucid dreaming: you're spinning the roulette in the first months, but after some time, the roulette is going at such high speed that you no longer need to push it so hard and frequently, and can just enjoy the ride while making sure the wheel never stops (read, the habit never dies). I won't lie: the first weeks are the hardest ones, especially because you're not used to dwell that at any point of your life (yes including right now), you might be dreaming. But after some time? You have a much better knowledge of your dream world (as lazy as I am, I still get lucids simply because of my dream signs), you no longer need to remind yourself that something odd might mean that you're in a dream, and reality checks (aka, questioning yourself) become second nature. What are the odds? Great ones

I've been wanting to introduce lucid dreaming to a famous writer of articles of productivity: just like he mentions, you shouldn't create goals, but a system. A goal will can be achieved or failed, but a system can be improved and perfect, and is a non-stop journey that doesn't finish or depends on the finish line. If you see lucid dreaming in the same way, you'll reduce the stress of the the odds, and think about all the lucid dreams waiting for you, for the rest of your life ^^