The memory theory

[kiwibonga]

I posted it on Jonas Ridgeway's forum and I thought it would be a good idea to post it here too.

Here's the theory:

Every night, you leave the body.

Every night since you were born, you have had awesome adventures every night.

The problem is... You didn't know it but there is something you need to do before you re-enter the body, or before you get "called back" that will allow you to "download your astral memories for the night into your brain." (As Robert Bruce says)

Having never realized this, you have never, ever been able to "evolve" because every time you left the body, it felt like it was the first time. And every time you came back to your body, you didn't even know something happened in your sleep.

Sometimes you have dreams, sometimes you don't, right?

Actually you do dream every night. Same thing applies, you just don't remember it.

Dreams are subconscious-polluted OBEs. Sometimes your subconscious is so strong, you don't appear to control them, you are watching everything passively.


So take action.

Tonight, and every other night, you will remember this:

1. I will not passively watch my dreams unfold. Heck, I will not even have a passive dream. My dream will be lucid.

2. Before I come back, I will do everything in my power to upload my memory to my brain before entering the body again.


Remember that you only get one try each night. You will not know if it worked until it actually does.

Good luck, Jim!

From now until next week, I will create a little box in the astral before being called back. This little box will be similar to the thought balls Monroe described in his books. In it, I will put, in "universal telepathic format," everything that happened during the OBE, as it unfolds (not at the end before going back).

This "Spirit recorder" will be attached to me at all times. I will not forget its presence and it will contain all of my perceptions.

Once I go back to my body, I will put the spirit recorder box under my pillow. If I do not remember what happened during the night, at least my spirit recorder will still be intact in the astral.

Every time I go back and don't remember last night's OBE, I will pick up my spirit recorder and play everything back, so I can pick up where I left off the night before.

-------------------------

Sounds simple, doesn't it?

Anyway, I feel perhaps I should clarify on my theory:

On one side, you have awareness. With low awareness (i.e. being unconscious), your subconscious is in control. With higher awareness, you have "lucid dreams." With even higher awareness and control over your focus, you have "RTZ projections."

On the other side, you have memory. Everything that happens to you while aware gets copied to your memory. Where this memory is located is probably your current "consciousness vehicle" ; meaning one of your non-physical doubles.

The theory is basically that having control over awareness does not necessarily mean you will have any memory of your "adventures."

The "big secret" would be that your memory usually gets erased every night. People who have spontaneous OBEs are gifted with high awareness. Those who remember it and share their experiences with us are gifted with good memory.

I know many people who do not ever remember their dreams, and many people who remember all their dreams but never have control over them.

Nobody, obviously, would be able to tell of their experiences if they do not have memory of them.

There is =nothing= in all the things I've read so far that would be able to disprove the theory that memory is the single most important component... Everything else is there clear as day, and the most successful "technique" is critically acclaimed as being a transfer from a lucid dream to the RTZ.

So... Basically... Someone disprove it before I go crazy and start preaching the memory theory to everyone  

The idea here is basically built on the "fact" that we project every night when we go to sleep. Supposedly we dream every night, and dreams are nothing but unconscious events.

Autosuggestion works very well to have lucid dreams. Is it because it allows you to become aware while asleep, or is it simply because it makes you focus on remembering your dreams?

Perhaps every night we AP for hours and come back to our bodies, only to never remember it afterwards!

Is there a technique we can do before going back to ensure we'll remember?

Is it really all that useful to "torture ourselves" with all these conscious techniques, which in the end seem just like very elaborate ways to fall asleep?

Your input is greatly appreciated

[jalef]

i dont really understand how you conclude from this that memory is the only and most important component. you said that memory comes automatically if you have moe awareness and more control. wouldnt this mean that obtaining more awareness is the most important point?
maybe i didnt understand correctly. could you please explain then?

[kiwibonga]

The two components are memory and awareness.... But if you do not automatically bring your memory along with you when you re-enter the body, awareness is useless, since it is as if it never happened!

Anyway, I experienced something interesting this morning. I had a long dream, but when I woke up from it, I did not have a single memory of it. I kept telling myself "Damn, why don't I dream anymore?"

And all of a sudden, it "hit me..." I instantly remembered my dream. I had woken up right at the end of it too! This sounds a lot like the mind split effect Robert Bruce mentions, as if my "dream self" was still out there having that embarrassing wet dream I won't describe, and only came back when I wished for it to come back.

Anyway, "normal people" never have lucid dreams or conscious OBEs because they let the subconscious take over entirely and will just dream.

When people do auto-suggestion in the form of "I will remember my dreams," however, somehow, they do remember them. I for one had a dream a month at best, until I started doing OBE practice again, and told myself to remember my experiences. From there on I was able to remember 3 or 4 dreams a week!


I think the problem is not that people did not understand the memory phenomenon, because all lucid dream and OBE experts do mention at some point self-affirmations to remember your dreams. It just seems that if you train your awareness on one side (with Monroe's "arm trick" for instance) and you train your memory on the other (through repeated self-affirmations) -- you can potentially lucid dream every night.

Then all you have to do is make sure you stay in the RTZ, and everything will be a-okay!

[jalef]

now i understand. this sounds logical. i also experienced what you told many times and i find it interesting every time. the mind split could be an explenation, i agree with your theory.

[Stevo]

To best question your theory you must ask yourself: What is memory?

To the brain, memory is (inconclusively) when certain nerves of the brain are stimulated and in turn stimulate other nerves which sets off a chain reaction of forming and connecting different nerve pathways.

In other words, when you see a dog your brain will percieve 'dog', then that sets off a reaction of recollecting many different dogs you had seen recently, any interactions you may have had with them, any strong long-term memories, certain emotions will be triggered, and finally a new memory of the encounter with that dog will be logged.

Forgetting something is when the nerves and pathways connecting them are so unused they deteriorate and are re-assembled elsewhere for different memories.

Now how can we apply this knowledge to your theory?
Unfortunately I cannot fathom any possibilities, so I suggest a different idea.

Let's say every night while falling asleep, you actually forget reality. Being that much of the brain goes in to a relaxed state, the ability to strongly recollect memories from the brain is inhibited to whatever random sparks happen between nerve endings. In a sense, your 'astral' self has little ability to recall what physical is.

So while you're off and about dreaming, the real world is limited to whatever the brain can spark up in its condition. Creating strong nerve pathways isn't exactly an ability while you are sleeping. By the time you wake up, all that remains for your physical self is what has connected or reinforced the already stronger nerves in your brain.

To actually remember the psychadelic no time/no space/no limit experiences the brain must be alert and ready to observe. This does not happen while you are asleep.

So in short, when you sleep you are not inhibited by reality because you cannot remember it. When you awake you cannot remember very well because it was beyond the realms of physical comprehension and therefore while sleeping your brain was not able to rely on already strong nural links to remember it by.

Any questions?

[RooJ]

Creating strong nerve pathways isn't exactly an ability while you are sleeping. By the time you wake up, all that remains for your physical self is what has connected or reinforced the already stronger nerves in your brain.

Im not sure i agree with this, on many occasions ive had dreams, lucid and normal, where ive remembered what seemed like an entire hour of adventures. Many of the dreams are as much bizarre and extraordinary as they are everyday scenarios so i cant see how a pathway could already exist for that.

Apart from that Id agree there's definitely something inhibiting the creation of memory when dreaming. Id imagine the reason we dont usually remember dreams very well is an evolutionary thing. Its so easy for memories to become "corrupt" or confused, if we remembered dreams perfectly everynight theres a good chance we may mistake them for real happenings... or it may effect previous memories. I for one have woke up thinking i had to do something only to realise an hour later that it was a dream. In the human races distant past it may have been more of a burden having the ability to clearly recall dreams.

Talking of memory i recently learned a new technique of remembering lists. I can remember the exact order of an entire deck of 54 shuffled playing cards in about 10 - 15 minutes only looking at each card once and recalling them back in any order . Its not very suitable but I may look into using this technique to remember key points in a dream and hopefully that will help me to recall the dream in its entirety.

>RooJ

[Stevo]

Im not sure i agree with this, on many occasions ive had dreams, lucid and normal, where ive remembered what seemed like an entire hour of adventures. Many of the dreams are as much bizarre and extraordinary as they are everyday scenarios so i cant see how a pathway could already exist for that.

Ok, so I'm no scientist. Specifically what I ment was not exactly crazy weird things equivilant to a bad trip. I mean beyond the concepts that a room has depth width and height. When we experience things that neither exist with substance or dimension. Where there's no colour, no sound, no events. In other words, the 'astral'. Sure, you can remember a freakin' weird dream, but when we travel in to thought beyond what we as humans understand, then you probably won't fully remember it.

[CFTraveler]

RooJ wrote:

Talking of memory i recently learned a new technique of remembering lists. I can remember the exact order of an entire deck of 54 shuffled playing cards in about 10 - 15 minutes only looking at each card once and recalling them back in any order . Its not very suitable but I may look into using this technique to remember key points in a dream and hopefully that will help me to recall the dream in its entirety.

Any chance you can share this technique?

[kiwibonga]

I posted about this on another thread, but since it's directly related to this memory theory, I'll post it here too:

I wrote something the other day to help people achieve greater awareness.

The document is (optimistically named) OBE14 - Inducing an OBE in (less than) 2 weeks

http://www.kiwibonga.com/OBE14.pdf

The exercises I propose are things I think have worked for myself and others, and could possibly work for you. The approach is different from other things you've read because it focuses on helping you induce OBEs naturally when you fall asleep, and basically prepares you to try all the wake-induced OBE techniques.

I'm also looking for advice to improve it, so feel free to provide feedback.

Not many people have given feedback besides "Wow! This makes sense and looks like it'll probably work!" ; but I'm really looking for criticism and suggestions to improve it rather than words of praise :S

[The Present Moment]

I think recall follows awareness. Can we remember that which we were unaware of?

[kiwibonga]

Both are pretty much intertwined, but in the end I think perhaps we should make the distinction between lucidity and awareness...

In dreams, you are a little lucid (you can see and hear) but not aware at all (you do not know you are in a dream until you wake up).

I guess that's why training memory alone or awareness alone wouldn't work at all!

[The Present Moment]

Both are pretty much intertwined, but in the end I think perhaps we should make the distinction between lucidity and awareness...

In dreams, you are a little lucid (you can see and hear) but not aware at all (you do not know you are in a dream until you wake up).

I guess that's why training memory alone or awareness alone wouldn't work at all!

Yeah, lucidity is a better predictor of recall, and what I should have said instead of awareness. In a few instances I've had great recall of dreams in which I was completely unaware.

[RooJ]

kiwibonga,
First time ive read your OBE14 article, it looks very interesting. I know your after critisism and i may be able to supply some but only after ive tried your methods. Before i start i was wondering how successful it was for you? did the armtrick drive you to sleep paralysis at any point?

CFTraveler,
When i said 'new' technique, i meant new for me. I use the journey method (method of the current world memory champion). I found the method very easy and quick to pick up.
To learn it i suggest this page:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/getsmarter/brainsmartstore.shtml
Just scroll down to journey method. Ill also add that i use the same journey (mine and a few friends houses) each time and i have yet to confuse lists with previous ones.
Where the normal journey method is easy to pickup and use (and everyone should learn it), playing cards are slightly harder to remember due to them being composed of the same repeating numbers and suits in different order.
The way i got around this was to remember objects instead of cards, objects that represented individual cards and where easy to translate. The objects i chose had to begin with the first letter of the suit and had to look like the number (in nearly all cases). e.g. 8 of spades = snowman, 6 of clubs = club (golf), 9 of diamonds = dandilion.

Once i had my objects i then stored 3 at each location in the journey as a small event style thing :\... e.g. ace (1) of clubs = carrot, 9 of spades = sunflower, 5 of hearts = hook... So imagine at location 1 a carrot falling from a sunflower and getting caught on a hook. Then you can just translate each object back later.

I realise the above is probably confusing and seems like alot of work but trust me its not. I only learnt the method a few weeks ago and have used it about 5 times, the 5th allowing me to remember the order of 54 shuffled cards.

>RooJ

[kiwibonga]

kiwibonga,
First time ive read your OBE14 article, it looks very interesting. I know your after critisism and i may be able to supply some but only after ive tried your methods. Before i start i was wondering how successful it was for you? did the armtrick drive you to sleep paralysis at any point?

If you look at the last chapter before the conclusion, I've listed the effects I got from it. The arm trick is not really an exit technique, it's meant to help you become conscious after you've fallen asleep.

I noticed a lot of spontaneous projectors have achieved greater awareness during dreams or had lucid dreams after being repeatedly reminded to pay attention while sleeping.

Monroe, for example, was experimenting with sleep-learning ; he would play educational tapes while he was asleep and would see if he could remember the tape in the morning. One day, he woke up with a big knot in his stomach (probably an energy blockage of some kind) and later on, he became a systematic spontaneous projector. He did think there was some kind of relationship to the tapes, and I am pretty sure he was right in that regard.

I know a good share of my false awakenings were due to falling asleep while doing something that required my attention. Sometimes it would happen in class, it would happen while watching TV, it even happened on a bus one time when I was very tired -- I dreamt that I got off at my stop... When I realized I still felt the vibrations of the seat, I realized I was actually dreaming.

The idea here is that if you are able to force yourself to become conscious repeatedly, you will be able to strengthen your ability to become aware while asleep.

So far, I've realized that no amount of visualization would help me out of my body -- I don't know if I'm a special case, but by the time I am body asleep/mind awake, I am already in control of my astral body, and all I need to do is float up or get up, and I'll be out... Achieving this state is in the end the hardest thing to do...

With the arm trick, you can give yourself as many chances to experience the asleep/awake border as you like every night, while attempting conscious exit projections every night will only give you one try a night -- if you fall asleep, you'll have to do it all over again the next day. I think it's no wonder the "noobies" have such a high rate of failure and need months or years to get their first experience -- the books do not underline how important "hypnogogic play" is... The authors only mention it a little, and leave the rest pretty much to luck!

I personally think it's a mandatory step for anyone -- if you have absolutely no control over the subconscious mind, the best you'll ever get is passive dreams...

[ubiquitous]

When we get old and lose our memory.. i bet we still dream!

imagineAnation

[dRealM]

Sweet dude.. i've never heard of the arm trick.. i've been trying to consiously project for some time now.  In my opinion i have great dream memory but i just can't say that i've had a OBE/AP.. or maybe i'm just looking/wanting too much out of it.. the meaning of life lol.  i'll give it a this a shot and see what comes of it

thanks