Lucid Dreams

(I am only giving out personal information because I believe it to be relevant) I am 22 and have been having lucid dreams since I was a kid, though I did not really understand what they were, how to control them, how to induce them, or the kind of effects they would have on my life. I admit to having read VERY little on the subject, and even then the little that I've read resulted in very negative results. Lucid dreaming is a very personal, subjective experience and I don't want tell people what does or does not work, what methods are better or worse, or how it can be properly applied. I am only stating

what I believe has worked for me personally. This is not to be taken as a guide for how you can become a lucid dreamer, but to start a dialouge with other people for me to gain more insight on other peoples methods and ideas that I can at least argue against, if not adapt for my own use.

(Hopefully those two paragraphs scare away most people...) Early on I thought of lucid dreams as nothing more than pure escapism, and tried many methods for the inducing of lucid dreams, some with much more success than others. I am not trying

to deride people for whom this works, but in my experience the "reality check" method, while very successful, is very much a double edged sword. Through this method I ultimately lost the ability to control lucidity, and almost every dream I would have would become lucid, even if I woke myself up and tried to fall asleep again. For me personally, a lucid dream is very mentally draining, like a part of my brain that is suppose to shut down and rest at night doesn't, and led to constant lethargy and even insomnia. For some people this method works very well, for me it lead to a strong degradation of my physical and mental health, and it took a very long time to untrain my subconscious mind enough to allow me to sleep normally.

The best results I have gained from lucid dreaming was from the process of implanting an idea into my subconscious. For me this was Star Wars (pic related), and while being a Jedi is my favorite form of escapism, I believe it to be simply a vehicle for further subconscious belief. I implant symbols and ideas into Star Wars, and symbols into those symbols, at such a level that I no longer consciously understand their meaning. I know this is Occultism 101, but I want to somewhat explain this to people who may not be familiar with that idea.

The most successful methodology of doing this, for me personally, is of course the idea of thinking about the concept of Star Wars, then the process of thinking about so many things that the idea of Star Wars is driven to my subconscious (Occultism 101, I'll stop mentioning that now), then the overflow of ideas causes a shutdown of rational thought, and if I am sufficiently tired, can close my eyes and be taken to the Star Wars universe, and Star Wars itself carries many symbols within symbols to the point that I really don't know what they mean. It effectively serves as both a form of escapism and for (hopefully) positive ideas being deeply subconsciously implanted. The advantages of this method to me are both a better way of establishing the architecture of the dream, and being able to induce a lucid dream when, and only when, I desire.

I will cut this off now, though I have written entire books dealing with many of these ideas I have no intention of ever sharing or publishing them. I do apologize that this is simply too much content for a thread, but I really don't know where else to share my ideas. If this thread survives I promise I will do my best to respond to anyone with a somewhat rational idea. If it does not, then I simply wasted my time on doing something I would have done anyways. If you even bothered to
read all of this, I love you. Even though I don't frequent this place like I use to, I love all you weirdos, schizos, & freaks (though I do have a disdain for people who use magic philosophy and practices for purely vengeful and petty purposes.)