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For those interested in the scientific research side of dreaming, and a fairly technical one, I ran across this very interesting study that you might like:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2814941/    It goes into great detail about our brain's response during sleep, and it covers dreaming both in REM and NREM phases, contradicting some earlier studies that push heavily on REM dreaming only.

Proprioception and stillness. 

Stillness of body is a presumed concept in many descriptions of OBE/Phasing/Meditation techniques, but it almost always comes across as an afterthought.  But I believe it should take a position of high priority for anyone looking to Phase or simply meditate. 

The body never truly relaxes entirely until we achieve dissociation from it.  We can not achieve full dissociation until our proprioception is lost.  The only way to disconnect from our proprioception is through absolute stillness.  When we are absolutely still, proprioceptors stop firing, and we lose connection to our body.  We can no longer place the location of our arms or legs, etc., because their is no feedback.  Only absolute stillness allows this.  Once we achieve absolute stillness, only then can we truly dissociate from our physicality and enter the NP.

This happens over time automatically, if we allow ourselves to relax enough and in the right way.  However, through focused attention on our stillness, we can greatly speed up our decent into the NP.  As part of any exercise you use for OBE/Phasing/Meditation, cultivate absolute stillness from the very beginning, and you will achieve the necessary dissociation far more quickly, which means you will achieve entry to NP far more readily.

As stated, most people know this idea indirectly, but almost no one emphasizes its necessity.  Thought I'd share my observation.

I wanted to share a thought that bubbled to the surface, after the last two threads, about how 'feeling' the dream rather than waiting for waking logic to kick in was what we should really be focused on.

How Theta 'feels' could be the key for triggering lucidity rather than the 'logic-based' identification of dream signs, et al.  I believe that deep meditation is especially helpful here (meditation in the Theta state), because it gives us conscious practice in dream awareness.  This would also explain why Mindfulness helps LDing, because it emphasizes how living in the waking world 'feels', so the contrast between it and dream awareness begins to stand out, even to the NP persona, which triggers the 'Oh, shite, this is a dream' response.

We still have the hurdle that we have been discussing in the nearby threads regarding the NP persona, but I think the more conscious recognition of what the Theta state 'feels' like, the better our chances of nighttime lucidity.  

We have to remember that for a dream sign to trigger lucidity we must already be conscious enough for our logical, waking mind to come to that recognition.  Feelings, on the contrary, are emotional responses, responses that the NP persona is quite well equipped to handle without our conscious mind's input.  Allow the 'feeling' of the dream to trigger a logical response.  In other words, we are playing to our strengths while dreaming if we approach it with a feeling-based modality (emotional) rather than expecting our NP persona to suddenly gain logical insight.

How many times have you read about a 'Natural' lucid dreamer who says, "I don't know how I get lucid.  I can just 'feel' that I'm dreaming."

Work your meditation.  Work with your Mindfulness.  'Feel' what it's like to dream and to be awake.

Thanks for reading.

This thread was spurred by the conversation in my adjacent dream memory thread.  The scientific perspective for dreaming that I most often run into is that dreaming is about memory consolidation, a way for our mind to properly order our experiences in long-term memory from our daily experiences. 

I've also read on numerous occasions of people who awaken from coma speaking fluently in other languages.  No one has given much of an explanation for this.  What if the scientists are right in one respect?  What if we do indeed use dreams as a consolidation method, only the memories we are accessing to consolidate are not 'all' from our current time line (dimension)?  This would also explain why we have so many dreams that are snippets of what seem to be past events, only the events are tweaked in ways that are not correct from your memories.  But what if they are correct from another time line?

This would explain quite easily the coma patient with a new language.  During the coma, or from whatever trauma put him/her into the coma, something shifted in their mind that allowed a memory from another time line to infiltrate the current time line.  The patient taps into one of the alternate realities that their other 'Self' exists in and wholly downloads the knowledge of the other language.  Call it a cross-wired event.

The patient doesn't pull the entire personality of the other 'Self'; they just download a section.  Why language rather than something else, who knows.  (ooh, schizophrenics with multiple personalities?)

It is said that if we are not allowed to dream that over time we go insane.  Perhaps what is happening is that we are not being allowed to properly consolidate our various 'selves' by incorporating the events, the learning events, that are being stored during our dreams.  We essentially fragment, and without the defragmenting protocalls of dreaming, we can no longer properly access our memory functions, just as a computer will slow down over time if the hard drive is not defragged to properly order its memories.  Our brain is just a bio-computer, after all, that is accessed by our consciousness.

I'm just thinking out loud here.  As stated, these thoughts ran through my head after getting interesting input from Szaxx, Lumasa, and EV on the last thread.

The dream scenario that set off this train of thought is the dream of having my car stolen.  I've had this dream a number of times.  Different car.  Different scenario.  Or sometimes i just forget where i parked it in the dream, and i chase around trying to find it.

The gist here is that in each of these dreams, I remember that I have had my car stolen numerous times, and it pisses me off that it keeps happening.  The issue is, I've only had them stolen in my dreams, never in waking life.  I don't relate to the fact that each memory of a stolen car is a dream memory.

This is not an isolated idea.  I've come to realize that i have a distinct set of memories that are solely, it seems, connected to my dream Self and independent of the waking.  It's as if there is a separate mind, or at least a partitioned off portion of the memory, that is only active while dreaming.

It has occurred to me that the path toward a greater number of lucid dreams is learning to consolidate dream memory with waking memory more directly, so we don't have to use logic skills to recognize the dream but rather simple memory to realize that we are dreaming.

The only path that I have come to is meditation and/or trance states as a means to access the subconscious directly and influence the deeper memories (dream memories) by inputting a rational aspect that says if 'X' happens, know that it is a dream.  I'm still playing with this idea.

Has anyone else run into this same truth about a separate set of dream memories from waking?  Have you done any work with them?

Wasn't sure where to post this, so here goes.

I wanted to put out a quick post on my view of visualization, because I keep seeing so many articles that make visualization into something hard or promoting a way to develop it that is either outright wrong or is far harder than it should be.

Up front, if you can see an image in your mind when you close your eyes and think about the room you are sitting in, then you can visualize.  If you couldn't visualize, you'd be forever getting lost because you wouldn't remember what your house looked like, and you'd spend your afternoons after work wandering aimlessly through the city.  And very importantly, visualization doesn't mean that you stare at the blackness behind your eyes and draw silver triangles and squares or whatever.  If you are using your eyes, you are not visualizing.  You are staring.

The simplest way that I have found to start a visualization session is one of two ways: visualize, see in your memory, the room you are sitting in, or pull any other memory from you mind.  This automatically puts your 'sight' into your mind instead of into your eyes.  You stop looking physically and start looking through your mind's eye.  Once you have the scene pulled up as it actually is, add an ingredient to it.  If you are looking at your bed, put a basketball on top of it, or whatever you choose.  You are already in the right mental space, so adding items becomes easy.  This is simply a way to jump start your focus.  Once you start adding visual elements, you can do whatever you want.  Add, subtract objects at will. 

Initially, you are probably not going to see everything precisely.  Not a big deal.  Everything takes time to develop, but by pulling up a memory to jump start your session, your stress level diminishes and your efforts are rewarded right away.  The easiest way to improve clarity is to focus your attention on a specific point rather than taking in the whole scene.  Zoom in.  Look at the lines on the basket ball, look at the little nubs.  This, with practice, will give you clarity.

A final point on clarity.  Most people believe that they see quite clearly, assuming you don't have a visual deficit.  But if you look carefully, you will find that the only clarity in your vision is directly in line with your focus.  The rest of the room is actually blurred and out of focus at all times.  You can test this easily enough by looking with your peripheral vision while maintaining your forward focus.  Your eyes are just so well adapted to their job that they refocus with such speed that you don't notice any blurriness as you look around the room, so you falsely assume that everything is coming in with clarity.  So, when you close your eyes and visualize what you remember about the room, your mind doesn't play favorites and gives you the entire room, out of focus.  Because, in reality, that is how your mind gathered most of the data: out of focus through your peripheral vision.  That is why it is necessary to focus on a specific spot if you want to gain greater clarity; you are looking at a memory as a whole and are not focusing on a specific target as you would be if you were using your eyes with your eyes open.

One of the best practices to improve visualization and visualization's clarity is to practice looking at items around your room very specifically, drawing the lines of the object with your mind, looking at the particulars, mentally feeling the patina.  Learn to be more precise with your normal viewing of your world, and your inner world will become clearer and more defined as well.

thanks for the read

Everyone loves to talk about how mindfulness and meditation and ADA increases our ability to become lucid in our dreams, in our lives.  But the impression that I get from most posts and articles and books is that through some magical process of being more aware during the day we will manifest more awareness during dreams.  Few if any that I have read are specific about why it happens.  Because I don't think it is a matter of habit being transferred to the subconscious.  Not entirely.  Though that was my initial belief as well.  And I'm sure it still has a degree of truth.

What I want you to think about are the fMRI studies done on meditators using various forms of meditation and how it impacted the brain.  I don't believe that simply by having more focused attention during the day that the sleeping mind becomes more capable of instigating rational thought.  Not on its own.

There are numerous studies delineated on-line that show an increase in neuronal activity (new neuronal pathways) and a measurable increase in grey matter both in the prefrontal cortex and elsewhere.  I believe that it is actually this increase in physical brain mass and neuronal development that brings about an increase in awareness, both during sleep and while awake.  Through our persistent and increased observation and intake of stimuli from our environment, we are exercising our physical brain as well as our minds.  And like any muscle, the brain responds by growing denser through use.  More brain mass, more neuronal connections, more capability. 

So, if you want to become lucid in dreams, start pounding out some time with ADA, meditation, mindfulness practices.  Most people's brains are barely useful enough to get them from point A to point B at work, and then home to stare hypnotized at the television or their computers.  If you don't expand your physical brain through mental exercise, don't whine about not being capable of doing cool stuff like lucid dream and OBE.

Exercise the brain.  Grow the brain.  Become lucid.  Remember, no matter what you think the mind is, it must function through the intermediary of the brain to accomplish tasks in the physical world, and mental techniques are only useful if you have a brain wired properly to use them. 

I've been doing a lot of reading lately about brain states, etc.  Anyone else spend time on this and have the same or different opinion?  Thanks

Earlier this year, a user called 'WW' posted and talked, in part, about a long series of random images he could watch but not necessarily step into.  He referred to this as a form of Phasing, or at least asked questions along these lines, not to put words in his mouth.

I get these random HD/3D images often either when meditating or trying to Phase/OBE, either faces or scenes, usually outdoor related.  But I never looked at them as Phasing.  I always viewed them as hypnogogia or hypnopompia.  I've never considered any event Phasing if I didn't actually step into the scene fully and become part of the event.  I've always looked at the flashing scenery as a preliminary bout, something to get you ready for the main event.  Not a very scientific perspective.  Just convenient.

Anyone else look at this as hypnogogia/pompia?

I haven't seen this discussed specifically, so I thought I'd bring it up here. 

One of the reasons that meditation is an effective enhancer of dreams in general, and lucid dreaming/OBE in particular, is because meditation is deep state practice, particularly Theta states for deeper meditation.  For deeper meditation, you should at least hit Theta as a primary state.  And the more time you spend in Theta consciously, the more conscious control you acquire.

People like to claim that OBEs and high-end lucid dreams are just as clear as the waking state.  But clarity doesn't equal control.  Clarity just tells you how pretty it was or how realistic it seemed.  It's your perception of the experience, your feel of it, not your control while there.  They are only similar to the waking state because in a waking state Beta waves are the predominate brain frequency, not Theta.  In OBEs and Lucid Dreams, Beta waves are still present, but they are not the predominate frequency.  This lack of Beta function reduces our ability to have purely rational, logical thought and decision making, whether we realize it or not.  In other words, in a dream/OBE our decisions are based more intuitively than logically.

The lack of high-levels of Beta waves is why we tend to lose focus more readily, and either revert to a normal dream state or transition out of the OBE/LD more quickly than we prefer.  In other words, we are far more easily distracted while in a predominately Theta environment.  The smallest distraction can trigger a random thought, which can trigger a random visualization, which can trigger a dream-world version of a daydream.  And off we go into unawareness or full wakefulness.

Meditation, not the trivial oh I'm going to relax for 10 minutes meditation, but truly deep meditation that carries us down into the deep Alpha and Theta states is a training ground for our mind.  It trains us to consciously know what it feel like to be in the Theta state, which is what happens in a lucid dream or OBE.  The more time we spend consciously in Theta, the less distracted we become when we are there in the dream.  The more practice we get at controlling our thoughts (meditation) while in Theta, the more readily we will enter lucid dreams and the more readily we will stay in them after we manage to arrive. 

Just another reason to meditate daily.

[without any training, without any effort]

I'm throwing something out that may help those having problems with visualization and full immersion as a focal method for projection/phasing, or simply meditation.  If you have your visualization skills down pat, this may or may not be as helpful.

What I'm sharing is all based on daydreams.  You'll notice that you have no problem becoming fully immersed in the daydream scenario.  And you become immersed very quickly, almost instantly.  If you are having pain, the pain evades notice while you are in the daydream.  In other words, you become fully engrossed in the 'other' environment to the point of losing recognition of your physical sensory input.  And you do it without any training, without any effort, without any techniques.

What helped my visualization skill set, regarding projecting/phasing in particular, was when I looked at daydreams to figure out why I could so easily, and so quickly, become immersed.  I realized that what was present in the daydream, that was not usually present early on in a visualization exercise, was my becoming involved fully in whatever daydream scene I had chosen.  But why was that so?  Why was a daydream so easy to get involved in and a regular visualization exercise a bigger chore? 

What I realized specifically was that I was caught up in the movement and in the emotion associated with the daydream.   It wasn't a bland environment as still as a tomb.

I also found that rapid, almost jerky movement was initially best.  The quick, spontaneous movements kept my mind focused on my actions, kept me in the moment far better than, say, sitting down on a dream cushion and trying to meditate from within the visualization.  In other words, the more daydream stimulation (including my emotional reaction to the situation) I encountered early in the daydream, the more fully I was engaged with that reality.  Simple tactile input alone usually wasn't enough.  It's generally not strong enough emotionally, sensorily. 

Exp.:  Feel the difference between 1) visualizing a slow walk down a lonely beach and 2) crouching on that same beach with your feet digging into the wet sand fighting with every once of strength you have to land the shark you inadvertently hooked while surf fishing.  In the second, emotional impact is high and movement is high as you fight with your rod against the pull of the shark.  You are fully engaged with the scene.

Engage with movement.  Engage with emotions.  You don't have to be bawling.  Just get into the excitement, mild or extreme, associated with you scenario.  If you are on a roller coaster, get caught up in how it feels to have the wind blow through your hair as you race around the track, getting jerked from side to side on every turn.  Be there.

With this simple skill, you'll open an easy-access pass to visualization-based projection/phasing.

A lot of you may already do this.  But for those who haven't stumbled onto this visualization key, I hope it helps.  It takes minimal time to develop, because everyone is already great at part of it.   

Once you have this skill down, once you've trained yourself to quickly enter the appropriate mental space for phasing, then look at the actual projection/phasing techniques, if you still need them.

Dr. Tom Campbell says that phasing is just a matter of refocusing your mind to the proper focus point.   This is an easy way to get focused.

Natural lucid dreaming is the goal we each snuggle up to each night.  It is almost every LD'rs ultimate, not-at-all-hidden desire.  But how do we get from here to there? 

There is a frequent comment on forums that goes something like 'we naturally lucid dream as children, but it's much harder as adults.'  I've been running this through my head for a while now.  I've come to my own personal belief as to why this is a truism and how we may be able to reacquire the sought-after Child Mind.  This mindset is what I believe naturals have, well, naturally, or have developed inadvertently.

The Child Mind really consists of two elements necessary for lucidity. 

To have a child's mind is to have a questioning mind, an actively inquisitive approach to your environment.  It is an instrument of exploration, always in the present tense, in the moment.  As we grow older, we join the local school and fall into the regimented training and mind numbing propaganda that disguises itself as education.  We are told that it is inappropriate to ask 'why'.  If it were not true on its face, why would it be in the book?  We are told to shut up and just rote memorize the material and we'll pass the test.  Move along.  Move along.

Now, having replaced the inquisitive mind with the rote-memorization mind, our brain habituates a response to stimuli in the rather dull, lifeless, utilitarian manner of an accountant.  It either records the data under one heading or another or dismisses it entirely as being non-consequential for not falling within parameters set into the subconscious through rote memorization and categorization.  We lose, to one degree or another, the ability to discern for discernment's sake.  We stopped asking 'why' the sky is blue, 'why' the ocean is wet, 'why' the leaf is green? 

We must reacquire both the child mind of meditative quietness and the discerning mind to foster a natural lucid dreamer's mind.  Habit forming activities are used to acquire both modalities.  Also, as a side note, techniques are most often futile without the proper mindset to start with.

Like anything new to learn, you must start from a position of stability if you want to get the most out of the training.  That stability is acquired through single-point meditation.  This type of meditation teaches you to control the onrushing thoughts and to bring about a quiet, controlled surface against which you can evaluate your surroundings.  This is a critical step to achieving the child mind.  The child's mind is an active arena, but it persists within a naturally occurring meditative state, as is witnessed by the high prevalence of Theta waves when tested. 

Let me give you a metaphor that pretty well shows what I mean:  I give you a well-organized front room and a disorganized one.  In the disorganized room, you have magazines thrown about, books lying around, cushions in disarray, left-over food on the coffee table.  If someone were to burglarize this house, you would be hard pressed to know if anyone had been there because everything was already in disarray.  In the well-organized room, on the other had, should a single magazine be out of place you could tell something was wrong.  For the majority of people, our minds more resemble the disorganized clutter than the ordered environment.

What does this mean for lucid dreaming?  When you go to sleep at night and the standard disorganized dream arrives along with aliens and one-legged donkeys, your mind doesn't consider it any more surreal than the Kung Pao chicken dinner left sitting next to the two-day-old pizza and the first edition War of the Worlds DVD.  They are just other pieces of clutter only occasionally considered out of place, and then with difficulty.  And your disorder doesn't have to be as extreme as illustrated above.  Most dreams are rather mundane.  But so is life, and that is where you are doing your discernment practice.  You are questioning your jacket on the back of a chair much more often than the appearance of a three-legged dog.

This strong base achieved through meditation is the first half of the Lucidity equation.  The second and equally important part is discernment.  Once you have an uncluttered field of operations, you next must reinvigorate the 'WHY' mind of the child.  The standard advice given in the many forums that I've perused is "Look for weird excrement and tell yourself you're in a dream."  But I have a simple question for you.  How many three-legged dogs do you think you're going to have a shot at noting each day or each week or even each month? 

You don't need those extremes.  Not in the least.  If anything, it is counter productive to look at them as necessary in any way.   You have everything you need around you every day of the week, every hour of the day.  What you should be looking for is not the extraordinarily out-of-place object but the familiar items that are out of place all around you all the time.  Ask yourself, "Why is my jacket hanging from the kitchen chair instead of hanging in the closet?"  "Why is there an empty can of cat food sitting on my kitchen counter?"   "Why did the dog eat your homework, John?"  You can do this dozens of times a day with little if any disruption of your normal activities.  Of course, do ask the questions in your head, if you don't want to be considered a loon.

Why, why, why, why?  Child's mind.  Discerning mind.  Orderly mind.  Lucid mind.

In overview, you can not discern the odd events in a dream if your mind is filled with disorder during the day.  It has no position from which to evaluate the disorder of the dream.  The dream, essentially, is business as usual.  You have not habituated the concept of order into your subconscious through daily repetition and practice.  Build the habit of a clear, ordered mind through proper meditation.  Build the habit of discernment through questioning of your environment.

Oh, yes.  The answer to the above questions, for Lucid Dreaming specifically, is always the same.  "The jacket is not in its proper place because this is a dream."  Say it with conviction.  Say it with meaning and intent.  You must create a habit of true discernment, not the habit of blase observation and cataloging.   

Lastly, is answering your questions in the above manner absolutely necessary.  Possibly not.  The mere fact that you question your environment should be enough over the long run, I would think.  Your call.

I hope I was clear enough in what I was trying to share.  Hope it helps as well.  I'm still in the throes of taking my own advice.  Hopefully in a month or two I'll have something definitive to say beyond my simple belief that it is true.  Interested in others' take on this.

[will yourself]

If this topic has been covered already, I apologize.  It was sticking in my craw this evening, and I had to spit it out.

There seems to be a great confusion regarding the Rope Tech, at least from all the posts and books that I've read and interviews that I've listened to.  The same misconception can be applied to many techs., but I'll stick to the Rope Tech for this discussion.  You can apply the info elsewhere on your own.

Too many 'Teachers' try to tell you that the Rope Tech will allow you to project out of body.  This simply is not correct in the truest sense of the word.  This misconception is what causes a huge amount of aggravation, especially as people new to OBE try to apply the Rope Tech at the wrong time.  They think that it is a method to shift consciousness from the physical to the non-physical, that it takes you from waking reality into the Astral or where ever you think you go.

But, the dark secret behind the Rope Tech (which I never use, by the way) is that you already have to be OBE before it has any possibility of being effective.  You are not in waking consciousness, or a physically oriented state, when the Rope pulls you out into the RTZ.  It can't. 

All the Rope Tech does is use your mind's inability to recognize the non-physical state that you are in and apply a physical-type action to put your OBE consciousness into motion; so you finally realize where you already are.

All you actually have to do if you are in a condition where the Rope Tech works is will yourself to rise into the air.  That's it.  That's all you have to do because you are already in NPR, and you and your surroundings are thought responsive....not physically responsive. 

So the next time you think it appropriate to throw that rope into the air above you, just will yourself to rise.  If you don't rise, the bloody rope won't do you any good either.  Dive deeper into the experience.  Shift further into phase.  Keep willing yourself cross the Veil.  When you have fully engaged the NPR, then toss up the rope if you really feel that you have to.

Good luck with it

From personal experience, and from what I've read of other's experience, we find it easier to interact with our a.m. waking consciousness more so than our dreaming mind.  Specifically, if you tell yourself to remember your dreams so you can write them down, you begin to remember more of them.  If you tell yourself to wake up slowly and not to move when you first notice that you are doing so, you quite readily get the hang of it.

I've had the thought that if you tell yourself to catch hold of your awareness just as you are coming out of a dream and to jump right back in, that your waking mind could very well respond, and perhaps quickly, to that suggestion as well.  More often than not, I catch myself becoming lucid just as the dream shifts into hypnopompia, but I don't simply jump back into the dream.  Could we, through auto-suggestion alone, start reentering dreams automatically, lucidly, every time we woke in that state?

Anyone with such an experience here?  I've been considering giving MILD (or my personal version, Crazy MILD) a new look, which is where auto-suggestion came into my head.

Thanks for any thoughts

Everything in our daily existence is perceived through the interpretation of vibrations gathered with our physical apparatus: eyes, ears, etc..  They receive information within a certain constrained frequency band.  Our brains process the data.  Our minds come to conclusions based on that processed data.  In the non-physical reality, our sense of place is defined by how our minds interpret the incoming data as well.  We could very easily be experiencing the RTZ directly/accurately, but the interpretation while in the NPR gives a slightly different output.  So we see things a smidgen out of place, or sometimes more so.  It's all information processing when it comes down to it.  Who says NPR processing has to spit out the exact same result if processed with non-physical senses (whatever they actually are).  In NPR, we could be processing more/less data and coming to conclusions slightly out of sync with RTZ conclusions.  Only trial-and-error testing, RTZ vs. NPR, will give more insight.  As stated in many places, few people have a complete duplication of RTZ data in NPR space.   Maybe practice will make perfect.  Ciao.