Thread: Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals -- With Q & A

Ok, no more ADASA.
Just let me get everything straight:

RC: to see a dreamlike thing in waking life and RCing isn't effective, since in a dream, you would notice a dreamlike thing, but lack memory to remember that it is unnatural.

ADA: Again, seeing a dreamlike thing doesn't mean lucidity. We all have ADA in our instinct, and the problem is memory, so practesing ADA won't be so effective, because it is not the issue.

Self-awareness: We practice RRC to increase our self-awareness, but in time, will it become second nature, that we will have a sense of self-awareness most of the time without performing RRC at the moment?

When we become skilled at self-awareness, we will know that the dream is from our creation, and we will become lucid. Why? Is it because a biological factor? Does self-awareness stimulate the part of the brain that is responsible for lucidity?

I really hope I am not bothering you with my over-numbered questions.

Originally Posted by LouaiB

RC: to see a dreamlike thing in waking life and RCing isn't effective, since in a dream, you would notice a dreamlike thing, but lack memory to remember that it is unnatural.

Though tend to agree with this, let me clarify quickly what LaBerge originally intended a RC to be:

A reality check is a physical means for determining that the state you are currently is not a dream. In the simplest of terms, all you do is find an action that you can use to do this test (i.e., like looking at a clock, looking away, and then looking back, to see if the time has changed, or if the clock is even still there). While you're doing this test, you ask yourself -- sincerely -- "Is this a dream?."

Now, though it is good to practice RC's during the day at any time, it is also good to do an RC during the day whenever you see something very odd, under the assumption that you'll carry that habit into your dreams where everything is odd. Funny thing: though I practice RC's regularly to this day, I have never, ever, induced a LD by doing a RC during a dream... as you said, if we lack the memory to recognize something as odd, then the odd really doesn't happen in a dream until after you're lucid and remembering, and then you don't need to do the RC anymore.

ADA: Again, seeing a dreamlike thing doesn't mean lucidity. We all have ADA in our instinct, and the problem is memory, so practesing ADA won't be so effective, because it is not the issue.

Yes, and well said.

Self-awareness: We practice RRC to increase our self-awareness, but in time, will it become second nature, that we will have a sense of self-awareness most of the time without performing RRC at the moment?

Pretty much. I doubt RRC's are the only tool to achieve optimum self-awareness, but they will certainly help keep you on the path, And, when self-awareness becomes second-nature (because, believe it or not, it is not second nature, um, naturally), there will be no need for RRC's.

When we become skilled at self-awareness, we will know that the dream is from our creation, and we will become lucid.

Yes. Except you have the order slightly wrong. Thanks to our enhanced self-awareness skills, we will become lucid, and then we will know that the dream is from our creation, making lucidity all the more powerful and our dreamscape all the more malleable. Not much of a difference, I know, but I figured it was worth mentioning.

Why? Is it because a biological factor? Does self-awareness stimulate the part of the brain that is responsible for lucidity?

Honestly? I haven't a clue. It probably is that self-awareness gets just the right neurons to fire in a "custom" hard-wiring sort of way, as you say, or that self-awareness "tricks" your unconscious into thinking that waking-life activity is going on, thus freeing up access to your memory without accidentally triggering your reticular system (the bit of your brain that wakes you up). Or, self-awareness is a condition unto itself, existing outside the confines of normal brain activity, and, if you bring it into a dream with you, you can witness what's going on with the rest of you without it ever finding out... I've always been a fan of that last one, BTW! (I could go on for quite a time with theories about this, but in a sense they're all meaningless and little more than a self-serving distraction, so I won't).

I really hope I am not bothering you with my over-numbered questions.

Not at all! It's why I started this thread!