Changing what defines you??

Hello all!!! I am new to this website, but not to LD’ing. This will be a long post so I apologize in advance. Please keep an open mind when reading this and give me some honest feedback!!

About 3 years ago I was introduced to lucid dreaming by a coworker. At this time I was also going to college for psychology. I became very good at LD’ing several times a week. I started thinking about LD from a scientific standpoint, like, what can I get out of doing this? Can I make myself a better person? Smarter, more motivated, rid myself of bad habits? I decided to find what defines me, in my dream. I am going to try and make a long story short.
I see my “brain” as a school campus. I walked into an auditorium and found a huge black board with everything that defines me as a person written on the board. I started to wonder if I could change these things. I found some chalk but could not find an eraser. I decided to draw a line through what I wanted to change and I would write something new in free space on the board. As I started to draw a line through the words, the chalk began to crumble. Before long it was all gone and I woke up.

The next time I was lucid I went to a store and got a new box of chalk and an eraser. When I walked into the auditorium again, I found that the board was covered by glass doors with a lock on them. I looked down and saw a key. When I picked up the key and walked to the lock I saw a note with very small writing on it. I had to get very close to read it, and when I did, it was my handwriting and it said, “you know better.” It literally scared me awake. On a side note, being able to read that note “from myself” and even what was written on the board seems somewhat impossible right? I have never been able to make sense of anything written down in a dream before. I think that is part of what scarred me, I remember looking away, and looking back, it was unchanged.

Since then I have not LD’d again. I have recently discovered a new interest in LD’ing. I have decided to try this again. Anyone have any experience with this. Do you think it is possible to actually change what defines you as a person in RL through your LD? Anyone willing to try this, I have been trying to have an LD for the past two weeks, with one partially successfull one last night. I did not get anything accomplished however, I decided to have a little fun and visit some old DC’s. :smile: Let me know what you think!!! Thanks

First of all… Welcome!

Second of all… This is possibly the most appealing post that i have ever read on this website. The fact that your SC could give you insight about not changing yourself completely fascinates me. However, the other idea that fascinates me is that you came up with the idea to change things about you. I would absolutely love to try this and see what happens. thank you for the great idea! Ill keep you posted on what happens. :content:

and just so you know… next time you need an eraser, just pull it out of your pocket! :cool:

:welcome:

first of all, yes it is definitely possible. Actually, it is impossible not to…

What do you think dreams are ? :lol:

We are updating our brain, creating a merge or a communication between the conscious and the subconscious, whether you like it or not.

Now, to consciously control the dream towards specific manifestations is possible.

I would have to say that writing on a black board is probably not the best way to do it…

First of all, you should take use of an affirmation such as :

" My SC is always quickly responding to my conscious commands on the best way possible "

Say it whenever you think about the subject or whenever you get the chance to.
Put emotions and feelings behind it. Visualizing something as well might be helpful.
If any thought that is contrary to this one enters your mind, quickly replace it with this one.
Especially say it as soon as you wake up and just before going to sleep.
Inside a dream is also a very good time ^^

What you want to do in the dream is pick up something specific that you want to change.

Let’s say you want to quit smoking. Im just taking this as it was the first thing to cross my mind when you mentioned breaking habits.

Concentrate on the joy and fulfillment you gain from not smoking.
Go to a place with lots of people smoking, and feel how good it is to breath fresh air and to not be subjected to such a useless addiction. See and feel how you don’t feel tempted by the cigarettes all around you and you simply enjoying having a clean set of lungs.

This isn’t the best example but it can go that way for anything you want to manifest in your life.

Ill take another very common example, let’s say to create wealth in your life.
Go to a party and have all the people there offer you things.
One of them will offer you a job you never dreamed of having.
The other will buy you a drink because you are so lovely
and the multimillionare sitting across the room will walk up to you saying you are so charming he made up his mind to give you a million dollars… :smile:
I don’t know, be creative, whatever it is.
Anything is possible.
Whatever you choose to do, you should also have an affirmation for so if you choose to be a money magnet, have one like:
“Money is always available to me when I need it "
Have it in a positive way in the present tense.
Dont say something like (for smoking)
" I dont have the need to smoke”
as that feeds those thoughts with energy causing them to manifest.
As a psychologist (or student of psychology), you should know that the SC does not think and therefore does not judge.
That affirmation implies you have a need to smoke.
you should have something like
" I am completely free of addictions and I always do the best for my physical and mental health "

You can use the blackboard thing, but it’s just as saying an affirmation, only you are very much in touch with your SC. You can reach those states via relaxation.
A dream environment makes it a whole lot easier to visualize and put thoughts, emotions and feelings behind the words which makes them a lot more effective.

Hope this helps,
feel free to ask any questions you may have

:welcome:!!!

That is one freaky deaky dream! I’ve tried this before. I went on my SC’s computer and programmed it to make my memory better. It worked! :cool: I’m sure you can figure out a way around it, but I’d be wary with that “you know better” business. :confused:

Writing in my LDs is usually my subconscious speaking directly to me as well. However, like you I can only read in LDs, everything is way too hazy to make out in anything except the clearest of my dreams. Messages in my dreams are usually my opinion on an issue that I can’t decide on. Whenever I have an issue I simply can’t make up my mind on, I argue out the issue with myself so I can objectively look at the pros and cons of both sides. Well sometimes this makes it very hard to make up my mind. Messages in my dreams are usually my actual opinion on something, what I really truly believe about the issue, all facts and common sense aside.

Perhaps this is what that writing was, a little glimpse of what your subconscious thinks about an issue you have been reading into in daily life lately. Maybe your subconscious is trying to tell you nothing as simple as 5 minutes in a dream scenario can tell you what truly defines you as a person. But then again, it’s possible you don’t think anything like I do, and I’m way off as well. :tongue:

On a side note, from what I’ve noticed, writing that strikes you as particularly odd, interesting, happy, or eerie never changes. Anything that invokes a great amount of emotion is something you are garunteed to remember, and it will remain a concrete detail in your memory. Kind of like how when dreaming about your own house, the basic structure is the same, but all of the details and placement of things can be radically different from reality.

On to the question, is it possible to redefine yourself through a LD? Absolutely. Even the most narrow-minded people quickly find that in dreams you can be faced with scenarios you can never face in the daily world, and discover ways you would act in many situations you could never hope to see any other way. If seeing yourself in the middle of an apocalypse, or navigating through an uncharted jungle, or on another planet, and living through that situation doesn’t make you realize anything new about yourself, you’re simply not paying attention. :wink:

Good luck to you, I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for. And have some fun while you’re at it. :content:

How do you define youself? Isn’t that those things about you that never change? Isn’t that what defines you? How could you change that? Or is it something else?

I’d use a dream to try to figure it out first of all. You mentioned improvements. “smarter” “quitting bad habits” and “more motivated”.
Can you become smarter by writing it on a blackboard in a lucid dream? I haven’t tried it, but I have my doubts. There is a limit to what your brain can do. If you’re at the limit, I don’t think a dream is going to upgrade your brain. But if you are not using your full potential, a dream can be a way of convincing yourself to try harder. A psychological effect, that is.
Now that is motivation. I doubt a little fantasy about writing on a black board or a computer, or anything is going to make you more generally motivated. I don’t buy into that notion that we have any more power over our subconscious while dreaming. The conscious mind is just the tip of the subconscious iceberg. But I do believe that a ritual, with symbolc acts performed in a dream or in waking life, can have a psychological effect, and if you have a final showdown with your lethargy in some way, you can trick yourself that you won, and gain confience and resolve to apply yourself more in the future.
That goes for bad habits as well. You can though a ritual strengthen your resolve to quit your bad habits.
Lucid Dreams are very good for doing rituals that are not possible in real life. So that way you can better yourself.

I still wouldn’t define myself by intelligence, habits or level of motivation. That a bit too superficial. The closest I can get to defining myself is my consciousness. Because If you take away everything else, I’d still exist if I have consciousness. but if my consciousness is gone, the rest is just a heap of flesh.

I think that note was probably your brain telling you it’s not as easy as drawing a line through the word. You may have to work a little harder to change those things you don’t like about yourself, but I think LDing can only help!

For one having a list means you know what to work on next…

I for one believe that this is possible, but there are some limitations. First, of course we have more power over our subconscious while asleep. It’s just like being hypnotized, and hypnotism has been scientifically verified more times than I can count - but there’s a catch. No one has ever been hypnotized unless they were willing, so once again there are limits.

When we are asleep it is much like a hypnotic trance. If we are lucid, we have the particular joy of witnessing the manifestation of our SC as it happens, and we can guide and direct it. It OBVIOUSLY can be conditiond through lucid dreams - how many people have DCs that are constantly afraid of them because they have a history of blowing up everything in sight while lucid? Your SC remembers more than you do - in fact, it remembers everything. They could hypnotize you (if you were willing!) and ask you to recite, word for word, a page out of a textbook you read ten years ago and you would be able to do so. It’s all permamently stored, unless you suffer drain damage.

That said, I believe we can reinforce good things about ourselves, but I’m not sure if we could ‘erase’ bad impressions on our SC. I think instead of scratching out ‘i’m addicted to cigarettes’ you could write several times ‘I hate the taste of cigarettes’ all around it. In other words, you can add things but you can’t take things away. Your brain never erases any impression or memory it has, even though you may not be able to directly access all of it.

Anyway, that’s my two cents.

imagine perhaps

to summon a character, who is what you wish to become

to study with, befriend, and merge with that character, and enter his reality.

That would probably not be a bad idea. As I understand, building recurring DCs (which I haven’t really done, but I want to) requires you to think about them alot so that they are imbedded in your SC and appear in your dreams. If you were to create a ‘future you’ and always associate it with yourself, your SC may begin to act that way . . . or maybe this is how split personalities start! We tread on dangerous ground . . .

you are not thinking / speaking properly ?

the ground is very stable and wonderful

dreaming is like getting to see what your thoughts look like, that you think everyday

simply pretend to be who you truly are and then you will be that purpose, couple with very firm statements of intent, to manifest and create your life as you see fit.

truthfully the personality is a collage of possibilities, what we get to do is use infinite knowledge (esp thru internet) to fine tune exactly what we want to be, who we want to be, what we want to achieve, and as we learn about what inspires us, we can use these tools to become exactly that, through persistent focus

its not very useful to use dreams for this because you need to be a master of lucidity for it to work right, when you can do it RIGHT NOW ,
what are your thoughts every day ? pretend to be who you are on the inside with authoritah! as Cartman would command respect for.

*[actually we pick ourselves up not from society but that is an advanced lecture, rather, the internet is a reflection of all possible ideas and experiences]

Welcome o/ Out of curiosity, how do you LD? WILD?

And about that… Hm… I DO believe we can make changes on ourselves somehow, but it really makes me wonder why you (or your subconscious, for that matter) would want to prevent you from doing it. Maybe it’s a deep, hidden fear of change?

when iwas reading about the part where the note said you know better that freaked me out. i cant imagine me having to pick that up and reading it. i would definatly scare myself awake. cool thought tho… i want to try it in my next LD.

That’s a really interesting topic. I would have to think it’s impossible to redefine yourself in a dream. You define who you are through your thoughts and experiences, so I’m doubting you can just enter a dream and cross out the parts of you that you don’t like, and add new parts.

It actually amazes me that you were able to visualize your brain in that way. I know if I was having a dream like that, the things that defined me would be fuzzy or illegible.

I do think your dream was trying to tell you something. Occasionally I get dreams that seem to have a “moral to the story” if you will. I wouldn’t think trying again to change yourself in a dream would be productive, but if I were you I would try to remember everything on that blackboard so that in your waking life you could work towards making changes if necessary.