One technique I learned a long time ago to make yourself conscious/lucid within your dreams is to train yourself to always look at your hands during the day. If you do this enough you tend to do it in your dreams as well, but in your dreams many times you don’t have the right number of fingers. This becomes a triggering moment which can either wake you up, or with enough practice, make you lucid dream. If you get good at this you can spend your nights exploring what is effectively an interactive “AI art” generation program in your brain. This was a really cool way to explore how the brain generates consciousness, because the experience of consciousness in your dreams is so different. In many cases the things in my dream felt “more real”, as it felt like the imagery was being generated from the raw trained model instead of trying to render variants of this model from the results of photons entering the brain. its hard for me to describe, but its the best way I can think of in terms of what we know about ai. Anyways, I always found it funny that the finger issue became a real thing in AI image generation models, as it was something I relied on for detecting consciousness rendering bugs in my dreams.

Replies (38)

Never made that correlation to the AI model thing but have heard about this lucid dreaming strategy for years… even bought an iBand+ on Kickstarter I’ve been waiting a decade for lol. Interesting connection. 🤖
Phil's avatar
Phil 1 year ago
I think enough during the day. I really don’t want to think during my dreams.
Nice technique Will! Big lucid dream fan here. Funny how the Nostriches have so many shared interests. Psychonauts at heart. Did you ever check out Dr Monroe’s sleep studies?
AI art generation lol. According to Carlos Castenada this technique has been taught for centuries by the Yaqui Indian Naguals (sorcerers) to enable their lucid dreaming and cross into parallel universes.
I downloaded their audiobooks in university and used it to help embark on my lucid dream journey. Definitely cool, dreams are very interesting! Now my toddler dreams about airplanes and flying cars every night (allegedly, it’s what he tells me, every night 😂😂) so I’m excited to teach him about it so he can take control and do the flying!
It’s more like a trippy video game if infinite creativity, and it doesn’t negatively effect your rest which is pretty amazing
Thanks for the technique tip. Gonna give this a try. I have occasions of lucid dreams but haven’t proactively tried to make it happen. It’s an amazing feeling when I do.
I think that there is a lot of truth and power in that stuff - there’s a reason it was a part of CIA programs. It’s just so “out of this world” that I don’t have the capacity to make sense of it all. Reality is insane.
Nemo's avatar
Nemo 1 year ago
Once was lucid dreaming and remembered that hands usually don’t render properly in dreams. Decided to take a look at my hands slowly since it can also shock your brain awake. As a gradually brought my hands up to my face I could see in the peripherals of my dream vision that my hands were actually tabby cat heads. Damn near laughed myself awake.
My recurring dream is the moment i take off flying higher and higher above the house I grew up in. At some point I start to fall and wake up. Overseeing the lot is always beautiful, even after I woke up. Because I always see something new that can be built… Love how our brains are capable of imagining things whereafter we physically make it happen… My fathers dream was to build a self sufficient homestead in the Netherlands. This is an almost impossible challenge here. But I believe we might succeed through bitcoin before his last day on this planet.
zoé's avatar
zoé 1 year ago
another trick to lucid dream is to tap your fingers or toes lightly as you’re falling asleep, imagining yourself playing the piano or being on your phone (or whatever it is that you do often), so your mind stays awake. i’ve tried it a couple of times, and it works!
How old were you when you did this regularly, or do you still do it? I've heard it gets more difficult as you get older I've never gotten deep into it myself. I'd really like to.
For myself; I dream in black and white, so I’m constantly looking for color in my dreams so that I can snap to and attempt a lucid experience. Quite fun to learn about your mental flexibility 💪
Reading is what always lets me know I’m in the dream state. The text appears all squiggly and incomprehensible. It’s like my brain can think of all sorts of unresolved fears, or new and interesting situations for me to make sense of, like all of the sudden I’m building a go-kart with my ex-landlord (for Mitch Hedberg fans 😉). But my brain cannot, CANNOT, give me something to read…and then have me read it. #LucidDream
someone's avatar
someone 1 year ago
Yes, lucid dreams are like video game rendering. Happened to me a few times. I realize I am in a dream when I see repetitive dreams or dead relatives. Then trying to take advantage of this, I attempt to fly, sometimes I achieve sometimes I can't go up that much. Last time I could flew really fast while I was also afraid of electric transmission wires in the air 😃 Very profound connection with fingers of AI!! But I think in AI it is pattern recognition screwing up. I sometimes think meat space is just an anchoring for our crazy minds. If mind couldn't find an anchor it would go mad really fast like constantly generating new data could eventually hurt it! What do you think?
I had at least one lucid dream a long time ago and the trigger for me was logic. What happened in the dream was not plausible and I became aware that it was a dream because of that and as a result I could control the dream until I woke up. Dreams for me are not as vivid as life, there is no direct rendering but rather I see an imperfect visual. I favor using my imagination when I am awake and let my brain take a rest from consciousness while I sleep and dream, allowing it to do its thing without my conscious interference.
Not sure if it’s gotten more difficult, but I’ve stopped trying.
interesting! I usually do the finger thing + repeating “you are dreaming” in my head while falling asleep. Haven’t tried this one.
Have you tried WILD technique? I've practiced it a bit, now I can go to sleep paralysis at any night if I wish without even doing anything special - it happens automatically if I want to lucid dream. It is hard to get to the lucid dream through sleep paralysis though (intense auditory, visual and tactile hallucinations during sleep paralysis are scary, also you can't move).
I listened few HemiSync tapes from YouTube, until they were pulled off as property of Monroe Institute. Darn, should have downloaded them all. Main idea is to send one frequency to left ear and bit different to right ear, brain will combine them to the final frequency which will trigger the brains. It reminds closely this technique, which works longer distances. https://rumble.com/v4829bf-voice-to-skull-technology.html
I consider the brains just an antenna to your consciousness, which resides in Cosmos and you connect to it through the "thread of life" (if that is cut off, then your physical body is dead or at least not attached to your consciousness anymore and another consciousness may take over if physical body was able to revive). When you sleep you are tripping in Cosmos through your consciousness. You have nice technique to identify your Cosmos tripping, I nowadays just know that I am in a dream state and do not need to verify it, also able to be director and "cut" the dream if it progress into the wrong direction.
zoé's avatar
zoé 1 year ago
oo maybe i’ll try your method too 😮