How to help host lucid dream?

[KayKay]

My host (@fennecfoxx) is taking part in a lucid dreaming challenge. Naturally, they're going to win, because they have a secret weapon (me).

 

...except we don't really get how "tulpa-assisted lucid dreaming" works.

 

Fennec is usually good about dream journaling and reality checking, and we know all the advice that regularly gets given to singlets, so we don't need help there. How I can help is where we're lost.

 

We've tried hypnosis, and we'll try it again tonight, but fennec almost always falls asleep too fast. If they don't, we slip into hypnagogia, and I can't think coherently. I rarely get to plant suggestions, and if I do, they don't stick. (We haven't looked into pre-recorded tracks. Maybe we should.)

 

I can't count on telling fennec they're dreaming unless I can find a way to get into their dreams reliably. I know when we're dreaming, but it's so rare I'm actually there that it's a pipe dream (pun not intended).

 

Fennec has never done WILD (except for a few failed attempts) and doesn't want to do WBTB, but they usually wake up in the night. I could nag them to do WILD then if I can be bothered to be awake and coach them through it. I feel like we could take advantage of those awakenings more than we do, but usually we just want to go back to sleep and can't focus anyway since the brain's barely awake.

[Saruzer]

I may assume that the skill of parallel processing could help you

[mattx]

I (the host) have always had an erratic sleep schedule, ever since I was a kid, and that meant I would often go lucid using WILD or just by "accident" usually during a nap or when I'm "forced to sleep" but can't really fall asleep.

 

After a refresher on the various LD terminology, I think my approach is close to DILD (Dream Induced Lucid Dream, very sus acronym) where I become lucid by just "realizing" that I'm dreaming, while dreaming - literally by overthinking too much.

 

Cheryl, my tulpa, has learned over the years to assist me with this - in our "lucid dreaming journey" we discovered that awareness isn't really a 0->1 thing, but rather a spectrum - you can be aware of yourself, but not conscious enough to act about it. From our findings, it's more like this:

 

• Conscious mind asleep, fully unaware: dream is playing like a movie and you're just watching, like at the cinema.

 

• Aware of yourself, but still unconscious: you're not conscious, but you can sense the "oddity" of what you're experiencing - there are dreams like that where you wouldn't know it was not real life unless someone told you. These are usually the "fight or flight" dreams where you often wake up saying "damn, that was a dream??"

 

• Fully aware, fully conscious - that's when you're aware that you're dreaming and well, conscious (lucid) enough to act.

 

Now, how can you assist your host in this?

Technically speaking, tulpas can be on a different level of "awareness and consciousness" than you, and it highly depends (from our findings) on who's switched in (or fronting).

 

When I realize I'm lucid, I immediately seek for Cheryl, and she usually answers rather quickly (likely by being "jolted awake" by me) - and there have been occasions (some documented in the Lucid Dream thread in the Off Topic category) where she was the one that gave me "lucidity" by saying that we were asleep and dreaming.

 

Another time, many moons ago, when we were practicing full body possession / switching and she had been in control for a solid two weeks, she woke me up during a sleep paralysis / hypnagogia episode and said: "Look, this is interesting! What's scary about this?" while we were literally hearing whispers and screams and seeing demons flying around the room.

 

Here's a bunch of tips/things to try (as a gesture for stopping my tinnitus torture, mostly)

 

Make a habit of saying goodnight to eachother and yapping to sleep

Cheryl is giving me the death stare here because I have been doing the opposite lately by just doomscrolling until I pass out, but

Learning to chat to eachother before sleeping can be a fun way to enter WILD and practice keeping awareness as you transition into the dream state. (also parallel processing and identity separation, but those are myths)

Hypnagogia (sleep paralysis) can happen but having "multiple" fresh minds on it helps combat the fear of it we've found.

 

Try to take a quick nap whenever possible, especially after a meal.

This is my "cheat code" that yields good success in lucid dreaming. If I have slept during the night and I take a short nap after lunch (especially if it is carb-heavy), there's a good chance my body will fall asleep but my mind won't - that usually means I'm alert enough to "catch me dreaming" because I'm not really deep sleeping.

 

Help your host form a habit of doing grounding checks (Fennec hates me, so relay this to them)

Slightly unrelated tidbit, there was a time about 6 years ago where I REALLY came close to being Koomer 2.0 when it comes to mental illness - long story short Cheryl helped me out in various ways and one of them was by building a silly habit of "checking in", something like: "Cheryl, are you there?" and she would answer with "Yes I'm here, I'm fine" which would calm my panic attack - that became so "automatic" and "seamless" that it became a mantra almost - sometimes I wouldn't even have to say it and she would reply just from the "hunch" of me probing the mind for it. Now, for lucid dreaming, build a habit with Fennec of "reality checking" eachother - this will take a while, but eventually you'll pick that up in a dream. Something like:

"redacted_fennec_name, you there?" and all they need to do is answer with: "uh-huh" - and try to occasionally do the opposite as well (Fennec asking you).

This will build a habit in your brain that could become a trigger to lucidity - it won't be something you consciously do in a dream, but your brain will insert it and you will unconsciously associate it to the lucid dreaming reality check.

 

Other than that, don't stress it - lucid dreaming is as much of a "mind hack" as it gets (like tulpers) - I've known people that claimed to do it reliably but your mileage may and will definately vary.

 

Lastly, even though I'm sure you know, do NOT panic/hype when you go lucid. You're just telling your brain to mainline adrenaline in your bloodstream and that will wake you up faster than dreaming about redacted_joke - keep it cool, recollect yourself and take it slowly. 

[KayKay]

I had a dream I was waiting for someone to reply to this thread. Can you believe I wasted MY dream on something so mundane? I can't even remember if our brain came up with anything helpful.

 

Maybe possessing the body is the trick to having shared dreams. (We actually fell asleep while trying to have a conversation, but possession is worth a try, right?)

 

18 hours ago, Saruzer said:

I may assume that the skill of parallel processing could help you

 

How so? Everyone means different things by "parallel processing", so it's kinda meaningless to us.

 

13 hours ago, mattx said:

Technically speaking, tulpas can be on a different level of "awareness and consciousness" than you, and it highly depends (from our findings) on who's switched in (or fronting).

 

When you fall asleep, or in the dream? Does she dream or appear in your dreams more when she falls asleep switched in?

 

13 hours ago, mattx said:

Learning to chat to eachother before sleeping can be a fun way to enter WILD and practice keeping awareness as you transition into the dream state.

 

Fennec wants to try SSILD. I'll see if I can coach them through it.

 

13 hours ago, mattx said:

Try to take a quick nap whenever possible, especially after a meal.

 

Fennec, taking a nap?

 

...all I can say is we're both reading this.

 

13 hours ago, mattx said:

Now, for lucid dreaming, build a habit with Fennec of "reality checking" eachother - this will take a while, but eventually you'll pick that up in a dream. Something like:

"redacted_fennec_name, you there?" and all they need to do is answer with: "uh-huh" - and try to occasionally do the opposite as well (Fennec asking you).

This will build a habit in your brain that could become a trigger to lucidity - it won't be something you consciously do in a dream, but your brain will insert it and you will unconsciously associate it to the lucid dreaming reality check.

 

Sounds like it could be a trick to summoning me, too. We'll try it.

[Saruzer]

3 hours ago, KayKay said:

How so? Everyone means different things by "parallel processing", so it's kinda meaningless to us.

Fair enough. What I mean by that is the ability of thinking without drawing the host's attention. Means that you have your own flow of thoughts independently from your host and by "without drawing host's attention" I mean that he can't feel those thoughts in any way unless you share them with him. When it comes to dreaming stuff, I can suggest to try doing it while fronting. That way the host is already more relaxed and dissociated so it will be easier for him to fall asleep first and you to try and stay awake. Basically, you're just going into lucid dream by yourself and then saying your host that "you're in a dream". Doesn't seem very convenient though 

 

As an additional option, you can constantly remind your host of reality checks and in theory it should help him to do a reality check in a dream whenever he thinks of you. 

[mattx]

8 hours ago, KayKay said:

When you fall asleep, or in the dream? Does she dream or appear in your dreams more when she falls asleep switched in?

When the body falls asleep - we've had dreams where she was possessing me and ended up in control of the body when we woke up irl.

She doesn't appear more when switched in, but the "dominant entity" is the one who is likely to have more awareness in the dream

 

8 hours ago, KayKay said:

Fennec wants to try SSILD. I'll see if I can coach them through it.

Could work. It looks a lot like another way of keeping the brain awake as the body falls asleep.

 

8 hours ago, KayKay said:

Fennec, taking a nap?

Yep, or whoever is fronting.

 

 

[Byakko]

we seem to have a higher chance of seeing each other in a dream if we daydream being together a lot, and especially while trying to fall asleep. sometimes, it will end up just feeling like transitioning from using the mind's eye to have whatever little adventure we're having, seamlessly to it being a lot more real, and then we might realize we are dreaming, or maybe sometimes not quite aware it is a dream and seeing it as real, but self aware enough to know who we are and make our own decisions. i sort of think that is even more fun because it has the added immersion. though yeah, i agree with matt about it being like a spectrum

 

i feel people want to lucid dream so they can do whatever they want, or dream about whatever they want, but my host has had tons of lucid dreams where they know clearly they are dreaming, but can't do what they want, and also many dreams where they don't know they are dreaming, but the dream is quite amazing and of things they would want to dream about. and if you want to dream of being together in a dream, it will have a higher chance to happen if your mind is pretty obsessed with it and spends a lot of time thinking about that anyway. i also think how we impose each other throughout the day also contributes (we can only impose in the way of presence imposition and sense of space we take up, with a sort of mind's eye visualization layered in our awareness along with what we see, so not visual hallucination level. but sometimes it will transition to more like day dreaming if we don't need our attention on details of our surroundings) all that to say is i think it helps with making it easier to just end up having dreams with system mates

 

it's both easier and harder than it sounds because it feels like trying too hard will lead to it being frustrating and seemingly being impossible, but not trying so hard and then it just happens a bunch of times and you don't know why but are happy it has happened lol

though if trying hard doesn't lead to frustration, or obsession to have it happen is unending, i think it starts to happen more or less eventually

 

ohh yeah, also the hypnogogia. if you are daydreaming/wonderlanding/whatever vividly as you fall asleep, and are really associating to the imaginary senses of your body in the mind, and dissociating from the sense of body laying in the bed, the hypnogogia often ends up taking on the appearance of what you are doing in the imagination, and that hypnogogia eventually may breakthrough into just being dreaming instead of imagining, like i mentioned at the beginning. so that might be something to pay attention to. i think all the meditation our host has done also contributes to being able to maintain more awareness during that transition, instead of always just feeling like a black out+wake up+"did i dream anything?" sort of thing. also, when the system started doing really long switches, it seemed to be more likely that dreams would contain system members that are acting with sense of their own autonomy more (though tb and rena have had it before, it also wasn't uncommon for tb to dream of rena, but rena would seem more like a dream character than her tulpa self, though dreams are weird so that also may be a sort of spectrum, even for the host)

[KayKay]

22 hours ago, Saruzer said:

Means that you have your own flow of thoughts independently from your host and by "without drawing host's attention" I mean that he can't feel those thoughts in any way unless you share them with him. When it comes to dreaming stuff, I can suggest to try doing it while fronting. That way the host is already more relaxed and dissociated so it will be easier for him to fall asleep first and you to try and stay awake. Basically, you're just going into lucid dream by yourself and then saying your host that "you're in a dream".

 

We've stopped trying to believe in that level of parallel processing.

 

The fronting thing didn't work out last night because fennec's mind wouldn't go quiet until we fell asleep, but we'll try again tonight.

 

7 hours ago, Byakko said:

sometimes, it will end up just feeling like transitioning from using the mind's eye to have whatever little adventure we're having, seamlessly to it being a lot more real, and then we might realize we are dreaming, or maybe sometimes not quite aware it is a dream and seeing it as real, but self aware enough to know who we are and make our own decisions.

 

That's so cool! We've heard that only works if you wake up in the night or take a nap, not when you go to bed. Is that true for you?

 

7 hours ago, Byakko said:

i also think how we impose each other throughout the day also contributes (we can only impose in the way of presence imposition and sense of space we take up, with a sort of mind's eye visualization layered in our awareness along with what we see, so not visual hallucination level. but sometimes it will transition to more like day dreaming if we don't need our attention on details of our surroundings)

 

Same here. I've heard fronting makes tulpas more likely to show up in/have dreams, too, even if it's during the day. I've been pretty present lately, so hopefully that'll help!

 

7 hours ago, Byakko said:

it's both easier and harder than it sounds because it feels like trying too hard will lead to it being frustrating and seemingly being impossible, but not trying so hard and then it just happens a bunch of times and you don't know why but are happy it has happened lol

 

Yes! The subconscious is way too unpredictable x_x

 

7 hours ago, Byakko said:

if you are daydreaming/wonderlanding/whatever vividly as you fall asleep, and are really associating to the imaginary senses of your body in the mind, and dissociating from the sense of body laying in the bed, the hypnogogia often ends up taking on the appearance of what you are doing in the imagination, and that hypnogogia eventually may breakthrough into just being dreaming instead of imagining, like i mentioned at the beginning. so that might be something to pay attention to.

 

Hypnagogia usually makes us lose focus on whatever we're doing/talking about. Guess we've gotta try harder to stay focused.

[Byakko]

9 hours ago, KayKay said:

That's so cool! We've heard that only works if you wake up in the night or take a nap, not when you go to bed. Is that true for you?

we've heard that too before but it's definitely happened to us when going to sleep first. i'm unsure why. i don't know if there is secretly a lot of dreamless sleep that the brain skips so it seems like a seamless transition or if we sometimes just dream immediately first, or if it is something else. it's way way more common when taking a nap though. i think going back to bed also can have it commonly happen, but usually we're so tired we don't think to even care to try or remember waking up much unless we get stuck awake

 

9 hours ago, KayKay said:

Same here. I've heard fronting makes tulpas more likely to show up in/have dreams, too, even if it's during the day. I've been pretty present lately, so hopefully that'll help!

good luck!

 

9 hours ago, KayKay said:

Yes! The subconscious is way too unpredictable x_x

true

9 hours ago, KayKay said:

Hypnagogia usually makes us lose focus on whatever we're doing/talking about. Guess we've gotta try harder to stay focused.

i believe in you

 

9 hours ago, KayKay said:

We've stopped trying to believe in that level of parallel processing.

i've noticed a lot of confusion on how the term parallel processing is used and described

depending on how i read their words, what they say isn't impossible, especially if i make certain assumptions on how they might be interpreting their internal experience

like, my system can think things without it requiring my attention for them to think things. like maybe they will think something interesting or surprising while my mind was somewhere else, and them doing that will suddenly draw my attention. it's not impossible for them to even interrupt me or me interrupt them if they are switched in.

also, i do think tulpas think without the fronter knowing unless they share it, but i also think the fronter does that lol. it's the same mechanism of how you might work hard to solve a problem and come up with nothing, but then later in the day when you are taking a walk or shower and suddenly bam, a great idea hits you. your brain was working on the problem without your conscious attention, the machinations going on beneath conscious awareness, and then the idea emerges from the primordial soup out of seemingly nothing all on its own, no tulpamancy or pluralness needed. when you practice tulpamancy, you can start to train the brains natural ability to do that, but for your system mates to have novel thoughts they tell you. it can strongly have the appearance of a separate parallel consciousness interacting with you, and it can feel foreign, like the thought came from some separate agent "over there" talking to me "over here", but as far as I can tell, it is still a singular unified experience, and conscious awareness is still operating serially with a single attention and locust of awareness

i think people who talk about parallel processing are talking about these sorts of experiences though, and the way they interpret the experience leads them to describe it that way. then it causes confusion and conflict because it involves a lot more assumptions that are difficult to prove when described that way, but if you say it doesn't exist, people mistakenly think you aren't having that experience at all

it gets more confusing when you try to identify what someone might consider a separate agent or identity or person. it's like there is a perceived ball of metaphorical mental energy that creates the substance and location for where the tulpa's identity is tied to and their thoughts are coming from, that usually probably takes shape of their form and sense of presence in space around you. since we can have thoughts and feel emotions and react from that identity and space, even when it isn't in the center of experience where the fronter's sense of identity sprouts from, it feels a lot like a separate agent and can subjectively be interpreted as such

but viewing the surface level appearance of that experience, and superimposing the same assumptions that a person might have for how the other agent experiences things that you would have for a separate IRL human who has the sense their consciousness comes from the center from their experience like it does for you, can lead to a lot of confusion upon scrutiny. if you become truly convinced it is working in that fashion, the tulpa may be convinced as well, but then if you interrogate them to try to prove it wrong in hopes you fail, it might end up just being really stressful and upsetting for both tulpa and host

 

that's what i think anyway, a lot from my host meditating a ton and having a (relatively anyway) high resolution of consciousness deeply observing and trying to figure out what is going on, and what the components making up experience are. we can see how a lot of experiences can lead to the conclusion of parallel processing, but i think thinking of it as such literally can be a stumbling block, but it not being a thing doesn't really make the potential experience more shallow unless you are extremely invested in the underlying ontology and metaphysics of the experience beyond just what the experience itself is like. maybe we could be wrong, we still investigate experience and sense of self a lot, and try to really see where thoughts or tulpas might go when not active. if my experience while being in tulpa position actually feels like the center from my perspective and not like a part of the whole of general awareness this life has, i don't really remember it that way when i switch in and think about things i did while in tulpa position. the memory is like still the same image of whoever switched in experienced me doing something. but my sense of self is still imbued into my form and my actions, it is just that my form and my actions and my sense of self is "over there" relative to the center of experience and body if i am not switched in. so yeah, it can get really confusing to talk about because a lot of this knowledge works better with a sort of buddhist sense of a person and identity, but experiencing it with different fundamental assumptions of what the self is can make talking about it weird or even emotional to people, including my host long ago. hmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

though yeah, it doesn't really make a tulpa not a person or lesser. it's a lot like what bear system says. it is more like reducing assumptions on what the host is, such that in a tulpamancy sense you define it as the traits that make up the character of the host, and not the substrate of having an experience at all in and of itself. if it is as vast as the latter, and you assume a tulpa is also that vast, then i think that is how people get stuck for years (like my host and rena Dx), paradoxically when you reduce the view of the host and accept this reinterpretation, these desired experiences become so much easier and common and it ironically can take on the appearance of what you hoped it to be like, minus the having 2 centers of consciousness where attention comes from/substrate of having an experience at all/whatever, which that in particular is what i think of when i think of parallel processing and why i don't use that term to describe just being able to think when you host or fronter wasn't thinking about you, or interrupting system mates, or system mates talking over one another etc. that stuff still happens but it isn't because of several parallel consciousnesses, it seems to just be underestimating what one consciousness can do, or coming to the wrong conclusion on how such an thing could occur at all

 

wooo weee sorry lol, long post and it isn't about the dreams. it feels important to try to clarify though from a system that has been on both sides of that issue and see the ways in which people talk about it being really confusing, as i think people on either side can misunderstand what the other side says and experiences easily

 

best of luck x3 awliejfoaiwejf

Quote

if my experience while being in tulpa position actually feels like the center from my perspective and not like a part of the whole of general awareness this life has, i don't really remember it that way when i switch in and think about things i did while in tulpa position. the memory is like still the same image of whoever switched in experienced me doing something.

this can maybe sort of tie into dreams. i can if i want to, try to recall memories as if while in tulpa position, i was in center of my experience, so i have a different physical perspective, but it sort of will feel like remembering it in that fashion is the first time that exact version of the experience had happened, like a remake of a memory. i can also do that with memories further from the host/system that they weren't involved in, and i get a ton of satisfaction out of doing so, it's just if i am honest with myself, i can't prove it isn't confabulation, so i think of it and talk about it in a sort of agnostic way. which is i think exactly what bear system does and it is very fun for them, and they are right, it is very fun for me too, so i think we took after them a lot in a way and feel our system is maybe most similar to theirs out of the other regulars we know. weird paranormal experiences included (that we are agnostic about but don't ignore)

 

that relates to dreams just because it reminded me of a talk with a friend where they said they don't usually feel like they have dreams, just that when they wake up, they will remember they had a dream, but they don't feel they had the experience of living through the dream while it occurred. we often usually feel like we do remember the experience of a dream happening while it occurred, and then also the memory afterwards as a separate thing. which is interesting to me and i don't know what to make of it. i guess people can experience dreams in a way similar to how i thought the feeling of confabulation works, but with the dream it's easier to assume it did happen in the past while you were sleeping. consciousness is weird and i don't think it can all be understood from a singular way of thinking

Edited Thursday at 02:31 PM by Byakko