I've done research on LD's and dreams in general before, but have never put much effort into actually trying to induce a LD. I'm quite proud of myself though, because I seemed to have done something right. I've only been attempting to LD for about 2 weeks, with no results to brag about, so I guess that whatever I did this night worked. I have had many LD's in the past, just out of chance. I usually have 1-2 a month, which I believe to be pretty remarkable for someone that doesn't even try to LD at all. Usually, however, I just realize that I'm dreaming, then just let the dream happen and run it's course. That or I just wake up after a few seconds. Rarely do I try to alter my surroundings.
The other night, I had my first induced LD. It wasn't very long, and nothing really special happened in it.
To induce my dream, I tried a combination of 2 techniques, and one that I kind of made up myself. The LD didn't come until I did that one.
First, I visualized in detail the area that I wanted to have my dream and I kept telling myself to stay conscious while asleep. I believe the first technique is referred to as a "rundown".
I would also tell myself throughout the day "Nothing can break the laws of physics unless I will it to happen" and "Nothing out of the ordinary can happen unless I want it to". I say that so that of something in my dream is out of place, I realize that I did not will it to happen, and I will know that I am dreaming. For example, if the sky turns purple, and stuff starts floating around, I will recognize this as impossible because I told myself that physics cannot be broken, and that I did not will this to happen. It gives me a bit more power over my sense of reality than by just not doing this. It pretty much makes me a god in my dream, because I am the only one that can do anything supernatural or impossible.
Anyways, I got into the dream, and was lucid almost from the very start. I pretty much got put into the dream, realized that this was the room that I visualized, and immediately smiled to try to stay into the dream. I thought in the dream "Why would I ever be in a room like this?" so I realized that I was dreaming.
The room that I visualized was simple. I was a room that I had created, using real world feelings/objects (feelings = how something feels when you touch it). It was a fairly large empty square room with white walls, and a wooden door painted red. The floor was visualized as a white rubber tile, like the ones of my old high school. I also visualized a person, in hopes that my subconscious would be placed into it to guide me through my LD experience. I don't visualize anyone specific, usually just the back of someone. I find that visualizing faces leads to visualizing emotions and personalities, which stops my subconscious from entering the body. I may add a mirror to my visualization, just to see what the effect is. I've heard that mirrors are powerful tools in dreams. Also, I don't know if it's important, but I visualize in first person. It sorta helps me jump into the dream easier.
Basically, I use familiar feeling textures and objects from my home, and any part of the room that is stationary, I visualize as white, and anything that moves or can be moved, I visualize as red. I'm guessing that the same can be done with anyone else.
The reasoning of using a rundown on this room was to keep a simple visualization, while also using specific objects and feelings/sensations that are very vivid. I visualized a door so that if I opened it in my dream, that whatever I wanted to be on the other side would be there. This way, I can very easily slip into a very simple dream scene, then open a door to a more complex area. This works MUCH better than doing a rundown of an area, no matter how simple it is.
What I do is stand in front of the door, think about what I want, then open the door. If what I want is there, great. If not, then I either go talk to my subconscious for help, or try to open it again. At least that's my plan... I haven't actually tried to open the door yet. I'm mainly concerned right now with just entering the dream, then doing simple tricks.
I've induced 2 LD's within the first couple of weeks that I've started trying to LD with these techniques. Granted, I had already known all of the dream signs, and researched LD's before. Then it was just for knowledge, because I was interested in the topic. I just hadn't seriously tried to induce LD until now.
But what I can't seem to do is "fly". I can usually jump a little higher than I usually do in real life, then just fall slowly back to the ground. It's more of a long jump than actual flying. Imagine a reindeer trying to fly, and after a few seconds of flight, falling back to the ground.
Why can't I actually stay in the air? I don't want to fly around like Superman, I just want to be able to levitate, or something similar. Any tips?
Remember how I visualized my embodied subconscious? I haven't engaged in conversation with it yet, it only speaks when I ask a question in my mind, or when it feels that it could be of use. I can hear it say things such as "Why don't you try --" and "The reason that you cant (_____) is because you --". It gets to the point where it is about to tell me what's wrong, but then the sound goes out. It still talks and moves it's mouth, but no sound comes out. It doesn't seem to realize that this happens. I wonder if the reason that I can't levitate is because I don't know how to do it, so my subconscious doesn't know how to do it either.
The last time I induced a LD this way, my subconscious was embodied by a "clone" of me, but a perfect, flawless version of myself. I had no part in visualizing myself. I don't know what that was about.
So, any tips on anything? Any questions about my techniques or methods? All help is appreciated.
Try not to place limitations on your dream state. You programmed yourself to prevent anything "out of the ordinary" happening "unless you wanted it" but that in itself is a paradox. I think you may have inadvertantly forced a confinement of "ordinariness" on yourself and then, even though you "wanted" to, nothing that broke those enforced rules would work. Reason being that your subconscious is stronger than your conscious, so you would have had to "dominate" your subconscious to override those rules you had put in place, and while it is certainly possible to do that, I think this may have insome way attributed to you having difficulty. You also confined yourself to "the laws of physics" when the type of awareness you wanted was "non-physical", so of course your dreamstate was set within an awareness/world of the "physical".
Why don't you want to fly around like superman? :) Think of it more as a child.. have fun with it like you would if you were a child.. fly like superman! Why not?! :) Then after you get comfortable with the feeling, then try to control it a little more.. fly a little slower, try going up and down, try landing.. get a feeling of how it's really your will that is causing these changes rather than conscious thought which is more the trigger than the cause.
Anyway.. I think you're on the right track but are just imposing too many limitations as well as trying to later contradict those limitations, causing a "battle" of wills between your conscious awareness and your deeper subconscious awareness that you've programmed with the rules. A paradox, if you think about it. Remember that you are non-physical and that anything IS possible including the fact that there aren't any "laws of physics" in that state. By now, you should be able to know the different between a dream state and the lucid state (or astral state) by asking questions.. there's no reason why the sky can't be purple AND you are not dreaming. :)
QuoteI just realize that I'm dreaming, then just let the dream happen and run it's course. That or I just wake up after a few seconds. Rarely do I try to alter my surroundings.
Don't just wait for things to happen or you can quickly return to wakefulness or lose your lucidity. Take control. Explore! Make changes if you wish to do so. You are missing out on golden opportunities to fulfil your wishes, live out fantasies, access info from a resourceful subconscious mind, improve upon your weaknesses and many other benefits that such state of consciousness might bring. There are techniques you can use to anchor yourself to that reality too. You have the power to prolong the experience. You can only do this by sensory amplification (rubbing your dream hands is a popular method), keeping active, having a plan of action, exploring and not worrying about regaining physical awareness.
On flying... you are basically manifesting what you expect. If you believe that you can't fly then you won't. Next time you have a lucid dream, jump out of a window. That way you might be forced to do what you think is impossible for you there.
I have a proposal for you which will motivate you to enter the phase and will also help me and my team. If you are interested, speak to me in private and ask me about this. If you take the blue pill, you will never know what the proposal is and will continue to go about your business here. If you take the red pill, I will show you how deep the rabbit hole goes...
(http://www.contrarianism.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/red-pill-or-blue-pill.jpg)
What's it going to be, Lucid Pirate?